The End of the Year is Coming. So. Fast!

I can't believe it's already December, and I don't think I've posted here even once this year!  Wow!  It's been a busy year, and the beginning of the school year has been crazy!

We started using a new student information system in DPSCD, and none of us feel quite comfortable with it yet, so it's taking about twice as long to do anything as it should.  My kids are still pretty much the same - some are a lot of fun, and some are a challenge, but I enjoy them all.

And, of course, since I seem to have difficulty saying no to friends, I am now co-teaching 6th grade in Family Ed at our synagogue as well as assisting with the 7th grade on Sunday mornings.   And I'm helping with the materials library for the Speech Department at work.  As if I don't have enough to do.

So about the only thing keeping me sane right now is knitting, even though I fall asleep with my needles in my hand just about every night, so I'm not making a lot of progress on any given project!  But I continue to try, because of the Yarnathon!

I know I've mentioned the annual Yarnathon from Eat.Sleep.Knit before - I have been participating for a few years now, and it never fails to give me so much joy.  I love finding projects that I can work into the Knit-alongs and to make for badges, and I often find patterns I love that I might never otherwise have found just because I went looking for something to fit into particular parameters.

Take this sweater, for example:

This is an example of a project I would never have considered if not for the Yarnathon - I needed a project that qualified as a "fade" and this fit the parameters.  And I'm thrilled with the finished project!  I also made these socks for the "fade" Knit-along:

I guess, if I only finish a few projects this year (and it has been far less than I've finished in previous years - see above about falling asleep every time I sit down to knit!), at least I am finishing projects that I can use and enjoy.  And I feel like in part of have ESK to thank for that.

I do like to support my local yarn shop as well, but I don't usually have the time or energy to attend local knit nights (again, falling asleep is not how I like to be social), but I feel like I have an ongoing knit "night" in the ESK Ravelry group, and I can drop in any time.  And ESK is a local yarn shop - it just isn't local to me. 

I don't know how many projects I'll finish before the end of the year - certainly fewer than I had planned.  But I guess that just means I won't have a dearth of things to knit in 2020!