Whenever I think “happy new year” (or say it) I always think of that Seinfeld where Elaine is aghast at somebody wishing her a happy new year in February. Even if it’s still January I think about that. Nevermind the fact that my Seinfeld knowledge could probably put Larry David to shame (okay, probably not), but the thing I love best about that show is that no matter how many years ago it ended, it’s still funny and there’s frequently points in my life where I think “just like that Seinfeld episode!”
That’s really neither here nor there, except for the title of this post. But since it’s still January I’ll say it:
Happy New Year!
I don’t do resolutions. I think they’re self defeating. You look back on the year you had, see all the things you did wrong, then make up some arbitrary rules for yourself going forward. The crux is though, if you wanted to do those things you’d be doing them already. So, instead you make grand plans of all these things you don’t actually want to do, then after the first few weeks you stop doing them (because you don’t want to do them!), then you feel bad about yourself. Then at the end of the year you look back again and think, “gee, I really suck, I didn’t do any of those things.”
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
While the passage of a year (or occasionally a decade) can give us humans a nice yardstick to measure against, it is just that. A yardstick. Besides the fact that yes, our planet has successfully completed yet another orbit of our own favourite G-type main sequence star, the passage of the past year doesn’t actually mean anything. The past year didn’t make you good or bad or right or wrong in any respect, because all of those things exist independently of whether or not a single Earth-year has passed.
If we were on Mars, a year would be approximately double the amount of time we think of as a year. On Neptune it’d be roughly 165 of our years. On Mercury a year is about 88 Earth days.
When you think about it like that, it all starts to look a little silly – holding ourselves to some crazy ideal of what we’re supposed to do in a year.
My mantra has been: if I want to do it, start now. No use waiting for an arbitrary date to begin something I think will improve my life.
What I do like using our arbitrary yardstick for is looking back at what I learned. And maybe, if I’m feeling crazy, I pick a few things I want to learn in our next orbit around the sun. To me that’s an inherently positive way to examine what I did in the past year, and what I want to learn/do going forward.
I got off on a bit of a tangent there, didn’t I?
To completely turn the record around, this blog post is also to announce a new pattern release! Whee!
I made this pattern because I wanted to use up two partial, mostly-full skeins I had laying around. If you’re like me, and a ravenous sock knitter, you find those skeins very difficult to get rid of, because look at all that useful yarn right there!
The Opposocks feature a simple, easy to remember stitch repeat, flanked on both sides by ribbing. The result is a comfy fit that will work for a wide range of foot/leg sizes, but still stay secure. And the best part is, you can finally use up all those one-offs and partial skeins you have laying around.
I wanted to offer this as a free pattern – so I did! No sign ups or special deals required, just head on over to Ravelry right here and download the pattern. You can also check out the pattern page right here for all the details on sizing, yardage, and notions.