A week ago today, it was newly 2016 and I could barely walk up the stairs in my house without getting winded.  I’d come down with a viral infection the day after Christmas, and there was pretty much nothing for me to do except rest and wait it out.  I had hoped to finish the Coastal Ripples afghan by New Year’s Day, but the virus had me so tired that I only managed to crochet a few rows in the last two weeks of 2015.

I went back to work on Wednesday the 6th.  It poured rain for most of the day, so there weren’t that many inmates out on the yard and my first day back at the prison turned out to be relatively uneventful.  The rest of the week was just as rainy and unremarkable (which is the way you want your work day at a prison to be, anyway).  The low amount of stress was exactly what I needed to start getting back on track for 2016.

I decided I won’t be posting an entry a day this time around.  I challenged myself to do that last year and it was certainly an exercise in creativity, but there were days when I was really stretched thin and posting a blog entry was just one more thing to check off the list.  I don’t want to feel like keeping this blog is a chore that I have to do.  So this year I’m focusing more on quality rather than quantity– fewer posts, but with no bullshit phoning-it-in filler content.

Back in December of 2014, when I started seriously thinking about creating a new blog and was trying to come up with a name for it, I kept getting stuck on “365 Days Handmade…”  Handmade what?  Socks?  Sweaters?  Afghans?  Napkins?  Quilts?  Table runners?  I knew I wanted to emphasize the idea of making things by hand, of being creative and doing something creative every day.  The problem was that I didn’t want to narrow it down to just one thing.

I asked Sean what he thought, and he said, “Why don’t you just call it 365 Days Handmade?  Because every day is what you make of it.  Three hundred sixty-five days, handmade.”

So there you have it, the philosophy behind my blog.  I kept meaning to explain how 365 Days Handmade came to be, and it only took me 374 days to get around to it.

Happy 2016!