I have a confession to make: I haven't made a scrapbook layout since October. I know. Fall came and I was overwhelmed with the desire to sew. So, I sewed instead of scrapbooking. Or let's blame it on It, which I decided to re-read in October and holy cow it's a huge novel. I finished It (and still haven't written about it, but I must!) and then I planned our trip to New York, and then we went to New York, and then we came home for Nathan's birthday, and then Thanksgiving, and then I was sick, and then I sewed an insane amount of Christmas Things, and then my mom got sick and had to go to the hospital, and then I finally got around to decorating my house for Christmas, and then my scrapbook room was full of Christmas wrapping and yeah:

I haven't scrapbooked for awhile.

But I still want to put together my annual list of my 10 favorite scrapbook layouts. Because it's almost January, and while I have ideas for three new quilting projects, and my mom is still in the hospital, my scrapbook room is finally clean and has been de-Christmased and I'll have some time to myself here in a few days, and then I'll start making layouts again. Until then, I need to put 2017 to bed! (I actually am planning one more blog post about my 2017 scrapbooking year, but it's not really a list. Try to curb your anticipation.)

1. The Frolic Architecture of the Snow 

Why it's a fave: The colors, that title (a bit of Emerson's poem "The Snow-Storm"), those photos! They are some of my favorite pics I've ever taken of Haley. 

2.  Nathan's Skiing Adventure

Why it's a fave: I like the color combo on this one...the minty aqua hues are unexpected. Plus I love that our friend who took my sons skiing (I am a fan of snowshoes not skis, even though I live in Utah!) got them to pose for a pic under the "Amy's Ridge" sign. And I used a bunch of snowflakes that were just sitting around on the bottom of my "winter and snow" drawer.

3. The Present Cracks Open the Aftermath of Itself

Why it's a fave: I like it when one photograph inspires another. I was looking for some different 2012 pics, and I found this one of me that Haley had taken after I'd had a fresh haircut. It really made me stop and gasp, as I feel like I have changed so much in five years. The photo from 2012 prompted this whole layout; I asked Kaleb to take the pic of me one morning before school and then I wrote about some of the experiences and emotions I'm trying to process. I've made a layout about myself on my birthday every year since I turned 40, and this ended up being my 45th-birthday layout.

4. Share your Light

Why it's a fave: we are not big partiers on New Year's Eve. By the time December 31st rolls around I'm feeling partied out, and somehow we've just never really established any NYE traditions. So this is actually the first layout about New Year's Eve I've ever made. (I have, however, spent not a few New Year's Eves making other scrapbook layouts, while everyone else slept.) Mostly, though, I love this because I love the big photo of Jake, even if it is a little bit soft. I'm also fairly proud of myself that I managed to take these pictures with my DSLR; I think it's so much easier to take low-light photos with my cell phone.

5. Cola Wars: A History of our Beverage Affections

Why it's a fave: because this is one of my very favorite pics of Kaleb and me. Especially now, when he's entered his very young adolescent years and thinks getting his photo taken is quite possibly the worst thing ever. Because the journaling went in a totally different direction than I thought it would when I printed the photo and I like that I wrote a little bit of both our histories. And because I wasn't sure how the color combo would actually work, but I like it. And because of puffy stickers!

6. Still My Baby

Why it's a fave: I scrapbooked quite a few pics from 2002 in 2017. I can't believe I never made a layout with this sweet one! I dug through my journaling files and found an entry that I could modify for the journaling, and then I just had fun with some scraps that I scrunched up and then flattened out, to make them feel softer. Actually, I'm really glad I didn't scrap this photo until this year, because it meant I got to scrap a baby photo of Nathan. There's not a lot of those left to scrap! (And yes...at age 2 he's hardly a baby, but when you consider he's now 6'5" he still seems pretty little here.)

7. The Beach Day is the Best Day

Why it's a fave: This is one of my all-time favorite pictures...but I've never made a layout with it. Sometimes you have to wait until just the right supply comes along, and this sheet of patterned paper (it was one sheet that I cut apart) was it. I love how it turned out! My only objection: The cardstock I printed the journaling on is not really that strange mauvey-pink color it seems to be. It's actually grey but I can't seem to correct that color without making all the other ones look weird. Shrug.

8. This Sweet Moment

Why it's a fave: Another confession: I haven't made very many layouts about Kaleb's baby year. This is, ironically, because I love making layouts with baby photos. But if I work on his baby photos, I will have no more baby layouts to make. So I keep not making them because the thought of not having any more baby layouts to make makes me sad. (Perhaps once I have a grandchild I'll be able to get over this!) Somehow, though, it feels ok to make layouts for the other kids with Kaleb's baby photos and I have, in fact, made more of those than I have for his books. This one was fun to make because the line of embellishments I used (Home Made by Jen Hadfield) was one of my favorites this year. 

9. In the Picture I Didn't Take of You This December

Why it's a fave: sometimes you don't have a picture but you still want to tell a story. One of my favorite ways to do this is to describe a picture I wish I had taken but didn't (for whatever reason). I don't do this very often—maybe twice in any given year. But I'm always happy with how it turns out.

10. Thoughts on Daughterhood, Sisterhood, and Time

Why it's a fave: I love this photo of me, my mom, and my sister Becky, from Easter. I love the floral patterned paper I used and the foam "love" accent. Mostly, though, this is a favorite because writing the journaling was therapeutic for me. It helped me figure out some things I had been feeling but hadn't been able to put into words yet. Sometimes (quite often, actually), scrapbooking isn't really about the final product but the process of making something. 

Did you put together a top-ten list of scrapbook layouts this year? I'd love to see it if you did! Here's to another year of storytelling, pretty paper, and scripty fonts!

Last winter was one of my life’s hardest seasons. One of my kids was struggling with some big issues, and the fact that he was hurting so much and yet wouldn’t let me help him was the straw that crumpled this camel’s back. There has been a lot of drama and difficulty over the past two years or so, and it finally all caught up with me. I slid right into a fairly deep stretch of depression.

I think of it now as my Narnia Winter: always cold, dark, and colorless winter without Christmas.

I mean, we celebrated Christmas last year. But my heart was not in it. I didn’t light candles and I didn’t listen to a single Christmas song. I just went through the motions and put together a Christmas because I knew how to do it, but the joy was gone. I’m not sure my kids noticed or knew any of this—I actually really hope they didn’t—but for me it was a Christmas without light.

So when December started approaching again (even though I really, really didn’t want it to) I knew I would have to work on my mood so that didn’t happen again. I needed to light candles and listen to Christmas music, to sit in front of the tree and just look at it, to thumb through memories of past Christmases. To seek out the spirit of Christmas.

Two things happened that helped me do this. The first was my epiphany at the mall, which I wrote about yesterday. The second was finding, one day at my mom’s house, the Christmas stocking I used when I was a kid. When Kendell and I got married, his mom gave us his childhood stocking, and I’ve always hung it up somewhere as a decoration. But I thought mine was long gone. So when I found it in my mom’s basement, it felt like a gift from Father Christmas himself. A little piece from my past, a little bit of the child I used to be to tie to the person I am now.

My attempts at fashioning a new kind of Christmas weren’t perfect. But I think it was a good start. Whenever someone asked me what I wanted for Christmas, my response was this: to not have a BUA (big ugly argument) with anyone and for no one to need stitches, catch the stomach flu, or have a fever. I wanted there to be no floods and no incidents of me almost setting my house on fire. I wanted it to snow. And I wanted no one to be in the hospital or recuperating from a major surgery.

I got most of those things. December was BUA free, there were no fevers and none of us threw up once, and while Nathan did sprain his ankle at the beginning of the month, he was off of his crutches before Christmas. We preemptively avoided a kitchen flood by replacing our ailing dishwasher (although: who wants to pay for a new dishwasher in the middle of paying for all the Christmas gifts?) and I might’ve grown just a little bit obsessive about checking that the stove really is turned off.

On Christmas Eve, it snowed. This felt like a Christmas miracle, as it has been so dry here in Utah. I literally laughed out loud when I walked out in the evening and saw it was snowing.

So I almost got everything I wanted for Christmas. Except for that last bit. My mom went in to the hospital on December 9 with pain from diverticulitis, and she is still there. I’m lucky in that she’s at a hospital that is less than a mile from my house, so I’ve been able to spend time with her there. But her illness did make it harder for me to achieve the goals I set for myself that afternoon at the mall (but…only in ways that likely don’t matter much).

But I am also happy that I can say this wasn’t a Narnian Winter. Here is what I did to find the joy and magic this December:

• Made things. I actually started this project during the week after Thanksgiving, thinking it would only take me a few days to finish. And maybe it would have, but as many of my sewing adventures do, the project spun out of control. More details later, because it deserves its own post. But I will say that my ten days (or so) of working with Christmas fabrics, hearing the thrum of my machine, watching my overly-ambitious imagined projects turn into a reality…it really was a lifesaver. The sewing gave me a sense of peace that I carried with me during the scary days of my mom’s hospitalization.
• Watched for the good moments. Like the night Nathan got home from work late and he stayed up even later, helping me frost sugar cookies and talking to me. The morning I had a very grown up discussion with Kaleb and he responded better than I could imagine. An afternoon spent wrapping gifts in my bedroom while I watched five episodes of Call the Midwife and Kendell worked on his laptop and we were able to be together in a peaceful space. Even in the hospital: laughing with one of Mom’s surgeons, talking with one of the ER nurses late into the night (one of the nurses who helped when Kendell was also in the ICU), holding my mother’s hand. Actually, the fact that I could help her felt like goodness, even though of course I wish she wasn’t there.
• Spent time with old friends. In fact, I had a lunch wherein one old friend was reunited with another old friend and it was magical and sweet and full of laughter and does, in fact, also demand its own blog post.
• Changed some traditions. Specifically: I only bought new Christmas books for myself and Haley, as I’m tired of hoping that a book at Christmas will turn Jake, Nathan, and Kaleb into readers again. Maybe one day my boys will remember that they used to love reading, maybe they won’t, but buying them books they only shake their heads at is pointless. I usually put underwear in the stockings but this year I just never got around to buying any, and, when I realized I hadn’t, I decided that rather than stressing about it I just wouldn’t buy underwear. Lastly, I ended the tradition of Christmas-eve PJs. I know: that’s almost sacrilegious! But no one was very excited about them last year, and sometimes the buying of pajamas has actually sparked a BUA with Kendell (who doesn’t really believe in pajamas). So, instead, I had my friend Chris’s husband, who owns a printing shop, print us some Christmas t-shirts. All six of us! I loved this new take on an old tradition and am already planning how next year’s t-shirt will look. And, I confess: imagining 20 years into the future, when we have two decades’ worth of Christmas t-shirts and I can make a Christmas-t-shirt quilt!
• Made all the kids and Kendell a new calendar. I did this one year for Kendell, and Haley loved it so much that the next year I made one for her too. Then last year the place where I have them printed made a mistake and printed two extra, so I gave one to Nathan and Jake. And then Kaleb was sad he didn’t get one! So this year, calendars for everyone. I was able to find twelve awesome pics for the kids’ calendars—I just try to have a variety of different family members and have them sort-of relate to each month if they can, my only self-imposed rule being that the pics have to come from the previous year. For Kendell’s calendar, I used photos from the three vacations we took together this year (Hawaii, our little get-away in southern California this summer, and our autumn trip to New York City). The opening of the calendars was my favorite moment on Christmas morning, as everyone looked through the photos and laughed, commented, pointed out something they’d forgotten, or noted how much they’d changed.
• Pulled off some surprises. The things I was most excited for my family to open: Kendell’s new pillows, Haley’s Dr. Martens, Jake’s beard trimmer thing, Nathan’s jacket (the one from the Gap!), and almost all of Kaleb’s gifts (but specifically, the white Hydroflask water bottle, “just like Aunt Cindy’s,” which he’s been wanting since the fall, and the spike ball set, and his own grown-up knife…he might not believe in Santa anymore, but he still is easy to surprise). After we’d opened all of the gifts on Christmas morning, Jake said “Mom, now that everyone knows about Santa, you probably feel happier on Christmas because you get the credit for getting the awesome gifts, instead of Santa Claus” and while I’m really not in it for the credit, there really is something so good about seeing them be surprised.

What I didn’t manage this year: an outdoor adventure (I want to steal one of my running friends’ idea and go running in the dark next December, along a route that has a lot of houses with lights) and an experience just for me (but the Nutcracker will be there next year). And, you know. My mom’s illness might’ve made these things harder to accomplish. But I had a moment with her, a few days after Christmas, that was so powerfully spiritual and such a strong reminder to me of Christ’s love that I don’t even care. I will have plenty more Christmases to get all of the details right, and I found that with purpose and a plan, I could avoid Jadis the White Witch altogether.

Every December, on some day or another, I have a meltdown in a store somewhere. Usually this happens after Christmas, when I’m wandering around, say, the clearance aisles at Target and it really, really hits me that yet another Christmas is really, really over. Woman soundlessly weeping next to blow-out-priced bags of Ghirardelli chocolate, candy canes, and ridiculous Christmas tree ornaments?

That’d be me.

Well, most years.

This year, it happened at the end of November, when I was at the Gap during the Black Friday weekend. I went to buy my stuff at the check out counter in the kids’ area, because the line was so much shorter. The woman in front of me had her arms full of baby and toddler clothes and was talking on her cell phone to someone I assume was her husband, telling him exactly which Little People toys to buy.

Cue tears.

Because I loved those years of buying toys at Christmas. I loved buying clothes that the kids would just wear because clothes were just clothes then. Loved shopping for the sweet and simple wishes of my children.

I loved being the mom of little kids during all those Decembers when I had them. The year Haley wished so desperately for a play kitchen and the way her face lit up when she got it. The year that Santa brought Jake his toy dinosaurs, when he was almost two and would say, in his tiny little almost-two-year-old voice, that he wanted to be a paleontologist when he grew up. The year when Nathan was a baby, barely six weeks old, and how fun it was to have a tiny one on Christmas (his stocking had binkis in it!) even though all three kids had had chicken pox that month and I was exhausted. The year when Kaleb was little and there was a musical toothbrush in his stocking and he fell in love with it so much that we could finally brush his teeth without him screaming.

All of the Christmases when I had believers—I loved those years.

And they are gone now.

So I stood in line at the Gap and I cried for a few minutes, mourning the end of that joy. Wishing, I confess—wishing I could have it back. And not just the buying of toys and the way it was easy to fulfill their wishes, but also the ease of everything, when everyone was little. Yes: I was tired. It was often frustrating and lonely. But it was simpler then because our relationships hadn’t yet gotten complicated. There wasn’t any painful damage yet, no baggage; I hadn’t yet made the life-changing mistakes I’ve made now. I knew they loved me and they knew I loved them and I knew they knew I loved them.

(It wasn’t only my Santa duties I was mourning there in the Gap.)

One of my clearest Christmas memories from my childhood is the year my dad begged me to please tell my sister that Santa was really her parents, so they could be finished with staying up late to put out gifts. I think I was 15 then, and Becky 12, and surely she knew already but was still in the phase of wanting to believe so hard that she didn’t let herself not believe. I never got to the point where I was finished playing Santa, like my dad did. I loved it; it was deeply intertwined with my identity as a mother. But the first Christmas of non-believing comes to every child, to every family. Last year was Kaleb’s first year of Christmas as a non-believer and so my first as the mom of no believers. I changed some traditions: Santa only brought one gift instead of almost all of them, so there were plenty of presents under the tree during the two weeks before Christmas; we didn’t put out a plate of treats for Santa because there didn’t seem to be any point; I stopped insisting on reading the nativity story on Christmas eve because the complaints and annoyance finally got to me. I kept others: I stuffed their stockings and kept secrets and insisted on giving everyone a book. I also knew, last year, that some traditions were going to end in 2017. I learned a bit about having Christmas with non-believers last year, but I am still learning. It’s still a great change for me to make, to go from creating the magic to creating something magical despite disbelief. What makes it feel like Christmas if there isn’t any magic?

Where does the joy come from anyway?

As it does, my wait in the line at the Gap ended. I surreptitiously swiped away my tears and bought my stuff (including a jacket for Nathan that would end up being one of his only surprises), and then I went and just sat on a bench in the mall. I got out my notebook—I have a green Moleskine that I use for all of my Christmas planning; it goes everywhere with me during the holidays, starting the week of Nathan’s birthday—and I made a list.

Because I didn’t want to feel that all of the joy was behind me.

I know there is joy here, too.

In my list, I wrote the things that made me happy during the time I had my little believers. And I thought of ways I could translate those joys into my current time.  I wrote about what is great about right now. And I thought about things I could change: traditions, expectations, meals. I wrote about what is timeless about Christmas, and I thought of ways I might incorporate those into this and future Decembers. Here is a summary of my thoughts:

• I love the excitement of surprises, of figuring out the perfect gift for each of the people I love. Just because my kids know I am one of Santa’s helpers doesn’t mean I can’t surprise them. So while there will be fewer and fewer surprises (because they are at a stage in life where their wishes are also needs), I still want to find a few gifts that are unexpected but exactly what they want. I don’t have to give that up!
• Part of the joy of the holidays for me is making things: gifts, yes. But also treats. And cookies. And crafts or decorations for my house. So even without tiny hands to clumsily frost cookies with me, I’m still going to make frosted sugar cookies. And the treats that have become tradition (caramel, fudge, and chocolate caramels). And, even if I don’t need it, if I feel inspired I’m going to make making something crafty part of my future Decembers.
• Another part of the joy of Christmas is memory. This has partly been, for me, remembering my own childhood Christmases. But I realized (yes, sitting on a bench outside of Teavana at the mall in November) that remembering my kids’ childhood Christmases also brings happiness. So I decided that I am going to put together a little photo album of favorite pictures from all of our past Christmases, and keep it out all December. Maybe just 3 or 4 photos from each year, the very best and most evocative ones. This felt like a huge ah-ha moment for me: I didn’t do all of that work playing Santa just for my kids! They can also be my sweet memories.
• I need to create some of my own traditions, experiences that are only for me. Eventually all of my kids will be out of my house, and if I haven’t established some holiday experiences of my own by then, I think it will be even harder. For this year, I wanted these new traditions to be going to see the Nutcracker, having lunch with an old friend, seeing a movie that everyone was talking about, and having some sort of outdoor adventure.
• When I look back, the majority of my sweetest holiday memories are about small moments of connection. So I want to focus on noticing them, seeking them out, and truly paying attention. Connections matter and I want to make more of them, both with my small family and my extended one. So much joy lies there.
• In all my efforts of making Christmas, I have lost some of the focus on the meaning of Christmas. I want to find some ways to bring Christ back into my Decembers.

I left the mall that day with quite a bit of my Christmas shopping done. I also left with a lighter heart and a more purposeful image of what I wanted my December to look like. A few days later, I read this blog post by my friend Angie Lucas, and it clicked so strongly with my mall epiphanies that I literally started crying again. Partly because she is in that phase of joy that I miss, the one that involves magic and the wonder of small children. But partly because it helped me understand better what I have been grappling with for not just this December and last December, but five or six or seven Decembers in a row, the deep and abiding sadness that has gotten mixed in with the excitement of the preparations. I haven’t been foreboding joy, exactly. I have been neglecting the joy I have now by glancing backward over my shoulder to make sure the memory of old joy is still trailing behind me. Maybe I will always feel that sadness—will always miss my true Santa duties. But just as I worked to make magic for my kids, I am discovering that I need to create magic for myself, and therein lies the joy. Not in a mystical, jolly fat man in a red suit who brings all of the things we are hoping for. But in the experiences and the people. To feel joy, I need to continue to be a believer: in faith, in love, in what abides no matter the age of my children.

(In my next blog post, I'm going to write how this moment influenced my December; what I learned and what I will change next year.)

It was September; my niece Madi was expecting a baby and I was invited to her baby shower. I cannot turn up at a baby shower without a baby quilt of some sort. I did that once—my gift that time was a baby scrapbook, with quotes about babies, baby-themed embellishments, and spaces for baby photos—but several people told me, before the gifts were opened, that they were excited to see what kind of baby quilt I'd made, so I was embarrassed and never did that again.

Plus, nieces (or nieces-in-law, or friends, or neighbors, or co-workers, or co-workers' daughters) having babies gives me an excuse to go to the fabric store.

So, since Madi was having a baby, I went to the fabric store. Even knowing my material weakness. I tend to enter a fabric store with excitement that's slightly tempered by trepidation. Will I be able to find what I want? And (perhaps more importantly) (definitely to my husband) will I be able to restrain myself and not buy all of the fabric instead of just the fabric I went in for?  (Highly unlikely.)

I intended to buy some baby-themed flannel that fit my usual criteria: a good-quality material and a print that matches my baby-quilt aesthetic. (Which avoids the overly bright or overly commercial or overly cute.)

I came out with two perfect pieces of flannel, in earthy greens, greys, and tans, one plaid and one little forest animals, for Madi's baby's quilt.

And five pieces of pink fabric for the black-and-pink quilt I literally do not need any more pieces for.

And two pieces of black-and-white fabric that I also didn't need for said black-and-pink quilt. (But more variety! and it was irresistible, as black-and-white anything usually is to me.)

And a piece of flannel printed with teal, purple, and grey flowers that formed the color scheme for the soccer quilt I've been meaning to make. (By "soccer quilt" I don't mean a soccer-themed quilt, but a quilt with a denim back and a cozy but sturdy top that I can keep in the car during soccer season in case of cold and windy games.)

And seven companion pieces for the soccer quilt.

And some Halloween fabric that was on sale. (Halloween stuff is also fairly irresistible to me, even if I have no idea what I'll do with it.) (And plus: Becky mentioned something on Instagram about her unfinished Halloween project and I got sort of sad, thinking about a sister of mine spending all October without any Halloween textiles. That's almost unimaginable.)

I went home and started cutting, which might be my favorite part of the quilting process. (Except for buying. Buying's obviously a favorite part.) (I also love combining colors and patterns.) (And sewing it all together.) (OK: there are few parts of the quilting process I don't like. Basting and anything that involves pinning.)

I discovered I had just exactly enough to make the baby quilt I'd planned for my niece. (Who says jr. high geometry, which I failed at spectacularly and thus sent myself into the start of a deep, dark abyss, isn't helpful in adulthood?)

But I wanted more purple/grey/teal pieces.

And I definitely needed more Halloween fabric if I were going to carry out the vision in my head I'd imagined while driving home.

So I went to another fabric store, wherein I procured a few more pieces for the soccer quilt and a bunch of fat quarters for the Halloween project.

But that fabric store doesn't carry a lot of flannel. So I didn't even go home: I went to Joann, which sometimes only has flannel that is the exact opposite of my baby-quilt aesthetic but this time had some lovely aquas and purples and greys. (On sale!) And then I went to the last fabric store that's (fairly) close to me, which has a fantastic flannel selection and unusual bolts of minky. Purple fleur-de-lis minky with hints of turquoise? How perfect is that?

I might've bought a few more black/white/pink prints just in case.

And a few more Halloween prints just for fun.

As I drove home, I thought about how my shopping that day reflects my quilting style. I like scrappy, colorful quilts, and I make them scrappy by including a wide variety of prints. Like my penchant for non-cutesy baby quilts, I lean towards prints that have a certain feel, less traditional, more modern. I like florals and stripes and dots and diagonals, but with a specific design sense that I can only recognize by seeing (I can’t always describe). I like making what I think of as mixed media quilts, with cotton and lawn and flannel and minky, but my favorite fabric really is flannel and I wish they'd made every single print in it. I rarely use someone else's quilt design because I like coming up with my own (I'm also really bad at triangles so I don't do them very often.) (But I'm getting better, as I should be, because that black & pink quilt? Has 229 so far.)

I also realized—and skip this paragraph if you know me and are having a baby any time soon—that I'd procured enough fabric to make not just the quilts I wanted for myself, but five or six similar baby quilts. (Which, if you're having a girl in the next, oh, 3 years or so, will likely be either black & pink or aqua, purple, and grey.)

After my epic day at fabric stores, I spent several days in cutting, piecing, assembling, and binding bliss. I did not accomplish everything I'd set out to do, but that's OK as I finished some things.

I made five oversized Halloween-themed hot pads, two of which I kept and three I gave as gifts (one to Becky so as to assuage my worries over her Halloween-fabricless existence). These came together quickly and were so much fun to make. I made binding strips for them out of different colors of fabrics, a technique I've never tried before but really like:

 And I made 16 more half-square triangles for my black-and-pink quilt. (And also for the quilts of future babies, who aren't even conceived yet, whose parents might not even know each other yet.)

And I cut out all of the squares for the soccer quilt, but as soccer ended in the middle of October, I didn't start sewing them together yet. (And, let's be honest: If I don't actually make the quilt, that means I can perhaps find some other applicable fabrics.) (ie, have another perfectly reasonable reason for going to the fabric store again. Maybe even ranging further afield, to fabric stores I've never been to.)

I made another trip to Joann, where I found the perfect denim for the back of the soccer quilt (it reminds me of a pair of jeans I had when I was 16) as well as the spot in the back corner where the Insulbrite is kept.

And, oh yes: I made the baby quilt which started this whole wingding in the first place:

(I neglected to take a photo of it after I snipped the seams and washed it. There's a layer of white flannel in between all of the squares that made the ragged seams more contrasty and so cute!) 

I'm not sure if all other quilters sewers fabric artists work in this way, at a slightly-frantic pace that is bubbling with excitement to see the finished product. Color, pattern, the texture of cloth under my fingers; the swish of the rotary cutter, the hum and thump of my machine. There is a specific kind of happiness to be had in making things with fabric, a happiness I am grateful to have found.

I started blogging in the fall of 2005. I resisted it for a while, even though all of my online friends were starting blogs. Mostly because my online friends were starting blogs, and I tend to resist something if everyone is doing it. But eventually I couldn't resist the siren call of writing something and then putting it out into the world, so I started my blog.

Twelve years later, I’m on the other side of “everyone is doing it”: almost no one I know blogs anymore.

I’ve kept at it though, mostly because I would write about things even without blogging, but blogging helps me feel heard. It encourages me to polish what I write, instead of only scrawling it in a notebook or dashing it down in my computer journal. Blogging helps me observe the world better, as it reminds me to watch for things to write about.

But my blogging efforts have been pretty minimal this year. Partly that’s because of the silent blogging world. Part of the fun of blogging in those early years was interacting with other bloggers, and that’s mostly gone away. In January of 2017, I joined a blogging group on Facebook, hoping to revitalize my readership, but it served to point out how I am blogging in a way that’s destined to be overlooked: my blog is about random stuff. The thoughts, passions, experiences, frustrations, and joys of an ordinary life rather than a focus on a topic—that’s just setting myself up for failure.

But I don’t really want to only blog about one topic. I could have a running blog, a scrapbooking blog, a sewing blog, a book blog. But for me, blogging hasn’t ever been about my hobbies (even though I do blog quite a bit about my hobbies). It’s been about writing itself, about exploring experiences through the craft of writing.

And I’m not sure even successful, well-known authors achieve a wide readership that way.

So I’ve stepped back from blogging a little bit. Out of discouragement, maybe; definitely out of feeling the lack of how it used to be, the lack of a writing community.

It’s been 57 days since my last blog post, and that’s the longest I’ve gone without blogging since I started my blog.

I took this time as a way to process: does blogging still matter to me? If I never achieve a wide readership, is it worth it to continue? Is blogging actually detracting me from pursing other writerly goals (such as writing and then actually submitting my pieces, rather than leaving them to molder on my hard drive)? What would life feel like without blogging?

And I discovered that I would miss blogging if I stopped for good. If I am not blogging, I am writing less, but I didn’t submit more. (I didn’t, in fact, write anything at all.)

Then, this morning, I saw this quote on my Instagram feed (it was on Alice Hoffman’s page): “You only fail if you stop writing.”

I know this in my heart: I am a writer. It is as much a part of my identity as being a mother, a wife, a librarian; a runner, a scrapbooker, a hiker, a quilter. Do I only qualify as a real writer if I am being published? Perhaps. But I mean it in this sense: When I experience something, my gut response is usually “how can I write about this?” and in that sense, “writer” is part of my core identity.

So I am going to start blogging again, even as my goal continues to be “write and submit.”

Because the only failure is not trying. I trust Ray Bradbury.