Happy *cough* New Year! (Achooo!)

Happy New Year friends! 
At the risk of sounding ancient, the more years I see, the faster they seem to roll by me. It seems impossible that it is 2017. Anyone else? 

Of course, I started the new year with a bang: sinus cold! I've been fighting something ugly for the past two weeks now and I have to say, I'm ready for it all to be over. I'm finally on the uptick I think. I hope. My house is a sea of tissues and half empty water glasses. My almost two weeks of vacation was spent putting a Laura-sized divot in the couch and finishing a few TV shows. Not all bad, but now that I'm finally starting to feel better, it is time to join the land of the living...and get to cleaning up the house. (And eventually back to running? I mean UGH but also, do I miss it? Mostly no. But a little yes, too.)

Christmas holidays weren't all bad of course, just intensely busy. Little and Big Sister (husbands and kids) were all able to come home for Christmas. It was loud, it was crazy, it was hilarious and I wish we could have had more time together. 

Guys. I finished that sweater that I've been working on for almost two years! I've already gifted it but I'll see if I can snag some pictures of it and share them with you. Without a big project like that in the background, I'm feeling a little ... sad? But it won't last for long because I'm working with a friend to make a blanket for her living room sofa. It involves a lot of math (that she does mostly. Thankfully.) and counting rows and such (that's mine). The exciting thing about it, though, is that it is something she and I designed together. The first time I'm truly working a large project with a self-designed pattern. I'm nervous but excited to see how it will turn out. I finished a bunch of other projects for Christmas presents and such, so I'm a little in-between knitting adventures. With the freezing weather we've been having lately, I have been in the mood to knit a warm hat for myself. I'm also halfway through a fingerless glove pattern, which besides the blanket, is my only current work in progress. It is a challenge with cables, so I'm in love. The biggest challenge is going to be adding thumbs to it. And well, I've never done that before and it is incredibly daunting. 

I keep track of my reading over at Scattered Wits, but if you were following, I didn't meet my reading goal last year. And I'm honestly doing okay with that. Yes, I was bummed. (Maybe more like a lot.) But one of the reasons I didn't finish was because the larger reading project I had going was reading through the New Testament in a year. That one? Yeah, that one I finished. It has taught me so much about Jesus and the way he asks his followers to live that it felt like I was learning about him for the first time. And Paul's letters have to be some of my favorite books in the New Testament. So this year, I reduced my reading challenge by half and will try to make it through the Old Testament. So that's my biggest challenge this year. I mean, besides the thumbs. 

We've had two snows so far this year. If I hadn't been sick and partially unable to breathe, I was seriously considering a snow walk. I've always wanted to do one of those. We had a light dusting today and there is a call for freezing rain tonight. The weather continues to be frightful, but it is off to work for me. (In the whole "being sick for two weeks," I haven't been cooking too much. Dinner tonight will be very interesting...)

A brand new year with so many new things to come. Some of them are planned. Most of them? Probably not. This year feels like a good year to be extra hopeful, to keep my eyes open and heart ready for whatever happens. New adventures. New friends. More old friends. More life. More joy. 

Once more onto the breach, dear friends, once more. 

Starting to look like Fall...

Last week, we had a cold snap that I thought would surely put us into fall a few weeks early. For good or for ill, that was just not the case. The sun is still hot for my mid-morning jogs. We did get cooler evenings out of the deal, though. I am loving sleeping with my hand-knit jumbo blanket I made last year. Almost so much that I'm considering another blanket...clearly, I've forgotten the headache that was knitting with size 50 needles and three balls of yarn at a time. And even though the mornings would be enhanced by a hot cup of coffee...'tis the season for allergy issues. I have been coffee free for about two weeks, minus two days. It is the strangest feeling to go about my day without coffee but also a little refreshing.

Speaking of knitting (even though I don't think I've mentioned this on my blog), I've started knitting hats this year! I guess it was about two years ago that I got back into knitting. It required an online refresher course and a lot of patience with myself. I did mostly simple scarves the first year, then graduated to cable knits and complicated stitches. I did a few mug cozies last year too. I'm not a huge fan of using them but they are super cute and super easy to knit up. 
I've just finished my second hat this morning. I'm still kind of in awe that it "worked" meaning I took a ball of yarn and made A THING that is wearable. I love the excitement I get from a finished project. It's so much better than the thing I feel after my run...which is usually just pain.
My next project is a simple scarf pattern (a huge relief after the lace patterned hat) that I'm knitting as a gift. I'm hoping to be able to focus on it a bit more now that I've finished my hat.

Classes are back in session and we are almost done with week four. The students are in a bit of a fog as colds make the rounds and assignments start coming due. Our slightly archaic printers still make my life interesting. It's anyone's guess if they will all be working at any given time and if simply clearing the jam will work or if it will require a full on exorcism to get things back up and running.

I know you noticed it and no, I'm not gonna talk about it. What I DO want to talk about is that my niece (who is now THREE whole years old! Where did the time go?) ran half a mile with me last week. It was the highlight of my week (and still would have been even if I didn't get sick for three days). She was cranky, the way almost-three-year-olds get, and so I decided it was time for a run. I changed and when she saw me putting on my sneakers, she also wanted to put sneakers on. 

"Okay," I said, "Let's go get the jogging stroller." 
"Nooooo! I munna do running feet!" 

Um...okay. We hit the sidewalk and she didn't stop running. Even after we did the loop around the development. 
"Hey, we are back at the house! Are you ready to be done running?" 

She didn't answer me so much as she just kept running. Before the end of the second lap though, she was ready to be done. We took breaks and jumped some hopscotch. We raced each other to stop signs. Then she was done with everything and she became Sonora Webster and I was Redlips, her amazing diving horse. We galloped into the front yard a sweaty laughing mess. 
At dinner later that night, I thanked her for doing running feet with me and told her that I had fun being with her. She looked at me seriously and said, "Thanks, Aunt Lawa, for doing running feet and meeting our goals."

For all the cranky, she really is the most precious girl I've ever met.Every time I talk with her I can hardly believe that she was once a tiny helpless baby who loved to snuggle. Getting her to sit still eating dinner is a chore; good luck getting her to hold still long enough for a good bye hug. Even so, if you don't get a hug or a kiss, you can usually get a dragon roar from her. I'll take one of those any day.