New Year, same resolutions

Hello faithful readers,

I haven’t been posting much recently. This is primarily because I have nothing at all to say. Holidays are crazy for me as much as for anyone else, and I have made very little progress on my book. In the month of December, I participated in Advent of Code, a daily code puzzle for programmers of all levels. I got considerably better at Java, doing these puzzles. So, that made me happy. But I did use it as an excuse to not write.

There’s always one of those, isn’t there?

To be fair, I have also been exhausted nearly all the time. Right now, the screen is swimming in front of my eyes. I have to trust that I’m not typing gobbledygook because I tend to be a fairly good typist.

My idea for Cassidy keeps evolving, in good ways. I’m excited because it seems like it’s not evolving its main construction anymore, just minor details. It’s all good stuff.

Last week I had a dream I was writing. I was super proud of myself for writing, for once. I was very close to the surface, coming up, and I remember thinking, “oh, I’m not actually writing. I’m dreaming about writing. But at least I’m thinking about writing.” Then I actually woke up and realized the thing I was dreaming about writing… wasn’t my story. It was something about a cat. I was very disappointed. But it all evened out because I ended up forgetting everything that I’d been trying to retain, anyway.

So, that’s pretty much what I have to show for the last month: a dream about writing about a cat.

No, no, hold your applause.

I’m not optimistic about finishing Cassidy this month. But I’m going try, regardless. No more excuses! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try. (Timely Star Wars Quote™.)

I will report back at regular intervals. Stay tuned.

Finding my voice!

I return to the world of blogging full of motivation and enthusiasm. Sadly, I’m a tad light on content right at the moment. However, I will find some, and all my readers will be full of milk and honey and other forms of happiness!

On this, the last day of 2014, I’m thinking about Christmas with my family over the years and how our traditions have grown and changed, as our family has grown and changed.

For as long as I can remember—possibly for as long as I’ve been alive—my whole family has had Christmas stockings that were hand-knitted by my dad’s mom. (I suspect my dad and his brother had theirs before they can remember.) They were decorated with reindeer, Santas, trees, snowflakes—many Christmas/winter images. They also had each of our names knitted along the top rim of the stocking. Allow me to emphasize that: every bit of the ornamentation was knitted. Nothing was glued, nothing was stitched, nothing was painted. It must have been an incredible amount of work.

They were such an institution in our household that I remember being baffled at other kids not having elaborate, handmade, personalized stockings.

Christmas in my house has always been so full of love and acceptance and warmth. My older brother could rarely visit home (starving college student followed by starving actor), but he would always make it home for Christmas. And yes, we gave presents and we’d usually all “get a haul,” but especially once we became adults, that wasn’t the point. We loved being together.

Sitcoms and movies make family holidays look like a chore full of drama and no small amount of racism. That humor has always been lost on me. There may be stress related to Christmas shopping or Christmas travel, but come Christmas day, no one ever got out of their pajamas, metaphorically speaking. And usually, we never got out of our physical pajamas, either.

Our family has grown in the intervening years: All three of us kids are married and my younger brother now has a son of his own. Our Christmases include spouses and, very occasionally, in-laws. And the spouses and grub, who are just as much family as the native Lymans (obviously), are nonetheless lacking in handmade personalized Santa/tree/reindeer/snowflake stockings. My grandma just turned 90 this last Christmas, and her days of knitting have passed, unfortunately.

This is a true sadness.

So, one of my goals for 2015 is to start (and hopefully complete?) knitting stockings for the three spouses plus baby.

Our mantel is getting crowded.

The more, the merrier.

Do any of you have Christmas traditions you want to share? Comment below!