I like to make blankets, crocheted afghans really. My sister had a baby girl this past summer, so I wanted to make something cute and girly for her. I went straight to Pinterest and found this blanket with pattern:

According to the instructions, this is a preemie size. I knew by the time I would see my new niece, she would be 6 months old and I wanted the blanket I made for her to last a lot longer than the year she would be a baby. (I also didn't want red, white, and blue; although it is very patriotic-looking, it doesn't really scream "girl".) So I followed the directions listed, then I just kept going. By the time I got to the end of the directions, I had figured out how many extra crochets to make/skip to make the star shape. I used the inspiration of the different colors and used up five balls I had.

I was so excited to finish my last blanket, I searched through my stash and came across this variegated yarn. I got one skein of it with a Michael's gift card I got for my birthday last year, and I've been saving it for something special. Who said I couldn't make more than one blanket a month?

I agree; it's a little bright, but what baby doesn't like bright colors? I did a boring V stitch for the blanket, so to spice it up, I made up a cool border. Here's what it looks like from the front:

I said, "Don't smile!" and this is what I got:

I got this yarn (along with 19 other skeins) at Michael's during their black Friday sale--and the reason I got 20 skeins of yarn all at once was because they were only 83 or 76 or 86 or something cents each. Oh yeah! Go me! (and when I finished the blanket, this is all the yarn I had left of the one skein I used!)

Per my New Year's "resolutions", I fashioned this one skein of pretty girly yarn into a blanket to give to Her Choice, our local pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood.

My short answer is yes and no. I guess that doesn't really seem like an answer, more of a cop-out. But I've seen more people change--and not in a good way--than I care to admit. I've also seen a few surprise me.

After talking about it with my husband, I developed a long answer to this question. Yes, people change. Whether they mean to or not, nothing and no one can remain static. Change for the good takes work, hard work. It takes admitting you did something wrong and fixing it, and remembering to do it differently the next hundred times. Change for the bad is so easy, though. I don't mean bad like, a sweet girl like me does nothing and in a week I wake up a horrible monster of a person, although my husband has probably thought that's happened several times. :-) I mean letting little things slip, like not saying I love you every day, or blaming the rest of the family for the dishes piled in the sink (even if they did put them there!).

Either way, we don't see it coming. The only people I can tell if they've changed or not (for the better, I think people who used to be horrible and still are after so many years have actually stayed the same, but don't tell my husband!) are the people I haven't seen in a while. So, if I see you every day, you can change your entire life and I probably wouldn't notice. That's just the way it is.

I see someone I haven't hung out with in a while, and I take two seconds to assess if they have changed or not, and based on the vibes I feel, I act accordingly. You know what I always forget? In the meantime, and at that meeting? They're probably just like me, trying to notice if I've changed in their perception, trying to put their finger on what's different about me that wasn't there last time. I wish I could remember that in the meantime. All that hard work of changing for the better would be a little easier. But then would I really have changed, if I'm trying to change for other people, isn't that pride? So then I've just exchanged one bad trait for another. It's hard for me to remember to change just for God, though, because I can't see Him. Maybe I should make a wall hanging that says something like, "Work on change, you will see God tomorrow" or something. Hm, that's actually a good idea. Now where are those paints...

2013. A new day, a new month, a new year. Last year was full. Full of sadness, for sure. I think I cried more just in the last six months of 2012 than in the previous six years combined. Not to say it didn't have it's happy moments. I went to Panama. My niece was born. As far as a scale goes, though, I am SO glad 2012 is finished. I know I couldn't control any one of the sad things that happened last year, but I don't think I did a lot to on purpose make it a good year. I floated through the days, letting them blur into weeks and months, and before I knew it, bad things happened, good things happened, and the year was over.

This year, I am going to do things to make it a good year. I am going to make six baby blankets for my local pregnancy centers. I am going to write letters to missionaries once a month. I am going to write a children's fiction book. I am going to write twelve devotional books for early elementary ages. I am going to do a science project with my son every month (because you know, he's a "nature kid"). And the only people I will name here, directly or otherwise, will be my husband and son. I have discovered enough happens to me that doesn't involve other people; no use in writing about the stuff that does.

That is a lot of "resolutions". I hesitate to call them that, because I agree with a cartoon I saw recently: