"What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?" -- Erin Hanson
December and the very beginning of January has been packed here. Piri's Place was all booked for the holidays and we constantly had dogs stay with us and keep us company. The last of our guests, Murray {who was still terribly camera shy but showed some patience listening to me sing} left yesterday, and while I already miss having our furry vacationers scurry and nap around the house, I look forward to spending some alone time with Piri and Yangkyu.
And I am also looking forward to tidying up and decluttering the house.
And getting to know my new sewing machine.
And figuring out embroidery for beginners.
And finding solutions to maximize space in our small kitchen.
I have books I want to read, podcasts I want to listen to {speaking of, I finally listened to Serial that everyone was talking about and I was so hooked I finished Season 1 in two days}, cowls and hats I want to knit and recipes I want to try.
I'm so excited for all of these things that I wish there was more hours in the day so I can tackle them all at once. That would be crazy and amazing at the same time.
I'm so excited for all of these things that I wish there was more hours in the day so I can tackle them all at once. That would be crazy and amazing at the same time.
What are you doing, making or learning in the new year? I hope it's something that keeps you occupied for hours on end.
Some happy December moments around here {lots of doggy pictures ahead}..
During the last weeks of December I received my Cascade Magnum yarns that I ordered {on impulse} and among them was this gold color that I had big fancy dreams for -- cable knits.
I used a pattern I found on Ravelry and I began to knit 2 and purl 2 and knit 2 and purl 2. It created a beautiful, chunky ribbing. I love chunky ribbings. And I felt that this was a beginning of something wonderful.
Then came the cables. They were easy enough to create and they came in amazing swirls that I felt with my fingertips after finishing every few rows.
I thought, "Wow. I'm really knitting up these cables."
It wasn't even a year ago when I couldn't even finish a simple scarf because I didn't know how to cast off let alone do proper knit and purl stitches. But here I was creating these delicious cables. It's an amazing feeling when you find out you can actually accomplish something you thought you couldn't.
The decrease rounds were a bit tricky as I ended up not having the same amount of stitches to work with as listed in the pattern {probably because I cast on 56 stitches and not 58} but I loved how it turned out anyway. And I love wearing it in two ways - with the ribbing folded and not.
The pattern I found is here. I followed along to create the large size hat but the correct pattern is updated in the comments section. It says to cast on 58 stitches but I ended up casting 56. I used US Size 13, 9MM knitting needles and Cascade Magnum Yarn in Gold.
For a while I had been thinking about giving the blog a little face lift. I hadn't acted on it because I didn't know what I wanted. I kept going back and forth and ultimately all the ideas and wants in my head never really got organized.
A couple of months ago though I started to browse through some pre-made templates on Etsy and came across Lorelai Sebastian's shop and gravitated toward her Pretty Little Designs Blogger Theme. I purchased it and the file just sort of sat there in my Etsy account. And on my daily tasks list I made a note to myself to really sit down and think about how I want to re-categorize my blog and also plan on how I would like to improve it. And for days and weeks the task of doing this went unchecked. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.
You know, on the one hand, I'm a big planner, but sometimes I just act on impulse. And yesterday that's exactly what I did - one minute I was playing Dr. Mario and the next minute I found myself downloading the purchased blog template and changing the blog around. No planning, visioning or anything like that, just doing on pure impulse and feeling.
I'm updating, tweaking and fixing as I go along. I still have a lot of dead links to fix, I don't like our profile picture much and I'm waiting word from the good folks over at Bloglovin on how to update my profile so that I don't have to create an entirely new one. I do worry about how people will find me in the meantime, but I am hopeful that many will via announcements through Instagram and Twitter.
And our name. Oh, our name.
What is the story behind your blog name? I'm seriously super curious.
Our previous name, Always With Yoo, was just a spin off of another blog I once maintained, which was called With Yoo {and long long ago I had another blog called Our Life on the Big Computer Screen. So cheesy. That one went dead in less than a year.}. With Yoo was fancy - I had my own domain name (www.withyoo.com which is long gone now), hosted it on Bluehost and purchased an expensive template through Prophoto. This was all when I wanted to pursue professional photography. I had it for about two years and I was just tired of paying for a site that was only read by my best friend and my husband. Literally.
Anyway, I never really liked the name Always With Yoo but when I first started the blog I never knew I would connect with so many people. And I didn't know I would love blogging so much. So before it got too late, I wanted to change the name. And a new name came to me immediately like it was supposed to our blog's name all along -- Winding Ridge Lane. It's the street of our first home.
So here we are. Me, Yangkyu and Piri, embarking on a new journey in this space. I'm looking forward to what kind of stories unfolds here.
PS -- Thanks for your encouraging words on Instagram when I made an announcement. It means a lot!
Last night, Yangkyu and I had it all planned out. We would play Dr. Mario, Mario Galaxy, Little Big Planet and Kingdom Hearts until the stroke of midnight. We would join the massive crowd at Times Square via TV 5 minutes before midnight, and I would, like I do every year, comment on how I could never stand to be in the cold like those brave people on 42nd Street. Then we would join loudly in the countdown and kiss and hug at the stroke of midnight. And while the partying continued for everyone else, we would call it a night and go to sleep and dream of all these expectations and hopes for the new year.
And so after dinner we put our plan into motion. But after probably about 20 rounds of Dr. Mario Yangkyu started to get sleepy. It was 10 pm and way to early to call it a night on a night like New Years Eve. But I felt pretty beat, too. And so we, with the two dogs in tow, turned off all the lights, went upstairs and said good night early.
We woke up at 7 am today and said Happy New Year to each other and to Piri and Murray with a little huddle time on the bed. We have a full size bed and with me and Yangkyu and the two dogs there wasn't a lot of wiggle room. But it felt good. It felt full of love and fur.
It's 2015. We missed all the glitz and confetti and songs and hugs and cheers and woke up to a calm, quiet and peaceful morning. It was a refreshing feeling to wake up to; hopefully what I hope is a prelude to this year. Calm, quiet and peaceful.
Yangkyu made ddukguk, or rice cake soup, this morning. We have it every New Year. A bowl symbolizes 1 year of getting older. And hopefully wiser, too.
Hope 2015 will be wonderful, adventurous, thrilling, peaceful, tasty and happy for you and your loved ones. Happy New Year.
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