I’m an incredibly nostalgic person. I look at the past with such rose colored glasses, something that’s probably not SUPER healthy, but oh well. I think it leads to a positive, optimistic view that even things that feel bad at the time will end up being just fine.

This is great, in some ways. I refused to let go of my British study abroad friends, and years later they’re still there, and one is now mi novio. But also bad in others, like I am terrible at living in the moment and also at letter go of tiny, worthless things that are from past phases in my life. I don’t care at all about clothes or makeup or STUFF really. But that note my friend wrote me four years ago about grabbing lunch? INVALUABLE.

Because of this, I love to document things. But I also cannot keep up a journal because handwriting anything sucks and my brain thinks a million times faster than my wrist can move. Also who remembers to write often enough for it to be worth it? I have so many journals that I only write in when I’m on planes, because journaling during a plane ride makes sense. Otherwise? Not so much. (That said I LOVE notebooks and journals and have a collection of GORGEOUS ones from around the world. And will continue to collect them forever, probably.)

HOWEVER, I recently bought a 5-year Journal. Have you heard of them? They are SUCH a good idea, and I waited to post until some time had passed and I could track if I’d actually keep up with it or not. The verdict? Yes… when it’s convenient. When it’s on my bedside table with a pen resting on top, I’ll write every night for months straight. I put it in my work bag two weeks ago so I could take a picture of it to blog about… and didn’t write anything for those two weeks. Oops.

That said, it’s one of my favorite things. There’s only a little space for each day, so you pick the highlights and know you don’t have to dedicate much time to an entry. And it’s like a handwritten, more personal time-hop. I can look back and see where I was and what I was doing the year before, or eventually five years before.

I love the idea of the journeys this journal and I will go on together. In five years I hope to have traveled loads, maybe learned a language, HOPEFULLY (dear god), be living with Gareth. And who knows what else. When I write in the last row, I’ll be 30. I expect life will be pretty different then, and what a cool way to track all the little things that result in a drastically different life, all the little steps I’ll take to get from October 15, 2015, when I started, to October 14, 2020, where I’ll end. And an account of all the days in between.

Mine is also stuffed full of mementos from the days, like ticket stubs or hotel stationery. I never got into scrapbooking, but this feels like a great (and much less time consuming) alternative.

My yarn finally arrived and I’ve started the first pattern for the Martin Storey Knit-along I’m doing! Every two weeks a new pattern is released, and you make six squares of each pattern. I’m behind because my yarn took so long to come–the second pattern was released almost a week ago and I’m still on the third square of the first pattern. Better knit fast!

But! I’m having so much fun with it. And I’ve only done two and a half squares and you can see real progress from the first square to the third. It’s neater, and it FEELS so much more natural. Once I finish these six, I start the second pattern which has two colors. I’m nervous but excited–I watched a few youtube videos and think I understand how to weave the colors in, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

And just so you don’t think I’ve abandoned cross stitching for knitting, here’s an update on the elephants I’m doing for my mom.

I’ve recently gotten into cross stitching. I realize this makes me about the equivalent of a 90 year old woman. My friend Maggie came over to watch football in November and brought the project she was working on and I watched her do it and realized 1. it looked super cool and 2. it looked super easy. And I was bored and unemployed and so I taught myself to cross stitch!

I made my sister a tiny elephant first, for practice, and then took on a massive project (one I was way too new to understand just how massive it was until it was over). December is my boyfriend’s birthday, our anniversary, and Christmas, and I was unemployed and thread costs 49 cents a spool, so I decided it was obviously in my best interest to cross stitch him something. But I wanted it to be cool and unique and feel like a big present, even if it was home made. So I thought forever about what he liked enough for me to make, and decided to do a map of Cornwall, where he claims to be from (he was actually born in Devon, but let’s not get into it). So I emailed a bunch of old women in Cornwall who were selling patterns, and they all insisted on snail mail instead of emailing a pdf, and that was going to take too long! I was worried I wouldn’t finish on time! (This is a joke because no matter what there was zero chance I’d ever finish on time, but like I said, I was young and naive). So I made my own design. This was insane and involved quite a bit of stopping and correcting things as I perfected the design and how I wanted it to look. Cut to TWO MONTHS later and 25 days past Christmas, I finished! And I think it came out beautifully, if I do say so myself. You can barely see the mistakes I made–I even swapped the East and West back to their rightful places! ?

Now I’m working on an elephant design for my mom (can you tell elephants are a theme in my family?) and I’m LOVING it. It’s coming together quite quickly–it’s been a week and I’d say I’m 40% done, which is insane considering I work 60 hours a week and am only working on it about an hour a day (I was putting in a solid 10 hour day for weeks at a time on that map!).

I have a bunch of other stuff I want to do as well, and I’m slowly finding the patterns for everything. It’s just so fun, and makes me feel creative in a way I never have before. Also it does WONDERS for my anxiety. I think it’s my version of meditation and those anxiety-reducing coloring books rolled into one.