The year of the SAL

As all of us have figured out over the last several months – we are not going anywhere for a significant amount of time.  This leaves me, like many of you who are no longer employed full time with the dilemma of what to spend all those waking hours on.

I could clean and organize. – Right.

Next idea.

That leaves me with free time in which I can read, listen to audiobooks, write things, sew, knit, cross-stitch, spin, or more than one of the above.

Oh yes, then there are several other things on my plate (why do all of these ideas come to me after I have gotten part-way down my list?). Including guest lecturing in a couple of UCBerkeley’s courses, continuing education on line, performing research (volunteer status) for a couple of organizations…

Which takes me right back to the idea of hobbies & crafts. Last year I started a reasonable size full-coverage cross-stitch as a project for the new year. Only 76K+ stitches, I finished it in June along with working on the occasional other random project.

This year, I want a bit more variety so I decided to sign up for a few mystery SALs.

SAL stands for Stitch-a-long. The idea is that the pattern is released in sections (rather than all at once) over the course of time which can vary from weekly to monthly. The shortest SALsThen  have 4-6 segments, the longest is 25 (on a q2 week basis).

Since I am not going anywhere in the near future, I don’t have travel to write about. I don’t play on Facebook or Instagram so I am not posting pictures of anything in those social media locations ether. I originally started this blog in 2007 and mostly posted about knitting and a bit of our life in Heidelberg. After retiring from the military, my posts became more about traveling and knitting. Since moving to California, my interesting in knitting has fallen by the wayside. After all, there is a real limit to my need for woolen knitted garments. I have a world supply of scarves and shawls if anyone would need one.

And now I am back around to cross stitch. Over the next several weeks, I will introduce projects, give you more opinions that you care to read and perhaps summarize what I finished last year.

About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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