pattern: Wooly Owl Hat (free Ravelry download)
yarn: I Love This Yarn! in grape and greybeard
hook: size I / 5.5mm


pattern: Smock it to Me Head Wrap by Elisa McLaughlin
yarn: I Love This Yarn! in ivory
needles: size US 9 / 5.5mm 16" circular


pattern: Crochet Flapper Hat by Sweet Kiwi Crochet
yarn: I Love This Yarn! in cranberry
hook: size I / 5.5 mm

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Yesterday I realized with a start that I have grown accustomed to the walking. To and from the bus stops, to and from campus and classes, bundled against the cold with scarves and hats and mittens, this has become my new normal.

I enjoy it really, which feels like the biggest shock of all. I’m not known for loving the cold – I complain about cold weather beginning in late September actually, so enjoying the walks in the freezing cold weather has been quite a turn.

It’s peaceful. I started out plugging headphones into my phone, listening to Pandora as I walked around. Lately though, I’ve been leaving all that in my overstuffed backpack and just walking. Letting my thoughts carry me, the traffic whizzing by while the occasional dog escaped from its home scampers over to say hello.

I think about classes, about the papers I have to write and the looming tests that must be taken. I think about our amazing growing boy, and how fast it all seems to be going. I think about having more babies – the financial cost behind that (fertility treatments) and whether I’d want to adopt.

Mostly though, I just think about the trees and the snow. How beautiful it all is, and how I’ve spent most of my life just driving by it, not paying attention.

I find myself wanting to slow down, wanting less and less to occupy myself. I want to read, and to do well in school and to knit hat after hat after hat, but more than that I want to be a good wife and mama. I want to soak in the time I have with my family without letting my grumpy nature take hold of me, without reaching for the remote and all three of us zoning out to television most of the evening.

I want to spend less time online, on the computer, and checked out of this gorgeous world I walk through every day. I want to show up online less, and be more intentional when I do show up here.

I’m not sure what this all means, other than what I’m saying. And I know I’m not the only one – so many of the blogs I’m reading are saying the same thing in their own way. While we may not have witnessed the end of the world in 2012, we are definitely in the throes of something new, collectively. All of us yearning for less, so that we can have more. Stretching ourselves as big as we can so that we can do as little as we need.

It’s an interesting winter to be alive. I’m loving every minute of it!

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I'm making 300 hats in 2013. These are hats 14-16 / 300.

I'm making 10,000 hats for 10,000 people. These are hats 299-301.

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