Tag: WotY

Word of the Year: 2024

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Apparently my most consistent use of this blog is to post my annual thoughts for the (Gregorian calendar) New Year. I’m okay with that. First, a look back on 2023.

I’m fortunate that I still have the option to work at home most of the time. I’m still at the company that I’ve been at through the entire pandemic (originally since May 2019), while under the second contracting company for placement (since June 2022). Our big water-damage adventure in our home happened in summer 2022, with everything returning to our home in mid/late September 2022. So by the time January 2023 hit, post Santa season, it was really time to get organized as we unpacked and set up the house again. We took advantage of this chore to change up the furniture, which means I’ve spent most of 2023 in my little “work and crafty cubicle” where the “dining room” used to be.

Highlights from Q1 in 2023

This gave me a big opportunity to buy some full-wall-length bookcases and organize all my crafty supplies. Each month there were new little milestones like “the boxes are no longer blocking the bookcase!” or “I’ve built two more small bookcases!” all interspaced with artistic pursuits or events. I’ve also started photographing every box as I put things away on shelves, so I don’t have to exactly remember “where did I put that thing?” instead I can check my Google Photos and either scan the pictures or search for a keyword. And to wrap up the quarter, my sister’s birthday falls in March and my nieces organized a big “all gals weekend” to celebrate, which was marvelous fun.

Highlights from Q2 in 2023

By April, you can see my “wall of textiles” on display and by May, you can see my work corner is just packed with screens and electronics, my “actual home” most days. We had the great fortune to be there for some friends’ wedding, and our annual camping trip over Memorial Day weekend. By June, the living room was clear of boxes enough to finally see out the patio windows, cause for HUGE celebration. Throughout the year, Sweetie continued to travel the country teaching. And I had several opportunities to help run some events and/or textiles demos.

Highlights from Q3 in 2023

Two of those demos were at the Getty Museum (in June and July), several events were part of the SCA, and one textiles day-event in September with Griffin Dyeworks. July was also Sweetie’s birthday celebration, and we were able to surprise him with a gathering of friends for dinner and then axe throwing. More organizing tasks done when I was able to finally move my storage unit from 30-minutes-drive-away (since 2014) to just 2 miles away (it only took 9 years). And after one summer Santa appearance, we started the Fall with the first of two Santa commercials.

Highlights from Q4 in 2023

The BIG accomplishment for the end of the year was completing The Illuminated Santa, affectionately known as the “Lumi Suit.” Definitely read the story about the team who built the suit, Team Shiny. Predictably a few people asked us, “WOW, where can I buy one of those?” to which I laugh maniacally, since I spent weeks hand-sewing every single point of light you see in the fur on this project. My sister even joined the ranks to help perform with the suit at a casting agents party. But besides a full Santa season, in Q4 I still got more spinning done and a chance to teach Andean Backstrap Weaving in-person at the annual Fiber Retreat with Griffin Dyeworks.

About that Word of the Year

Looking at the history of my Word Themes

One thing that happened since lockdown, I haven’t been dancing at all (with just a few exceptions in 2020). This is the first year I really started to miss it. And while I started swimming often before the big water-leak-house-interruption in 2022, I only managed a few swim sessions in 2023, back in April and May and then again in October. When projects keep me up late on weekdays, it’s nearly impossible to get up for swimming at 5 am before my work day. I definitely might need to rethink how to get out there in the pool again.

Did we manage to approach 2023 knowing “there is no off-season?” More than usual, yes. We were better at getting into the swing of things in October/November, but we were also finishing the Lumi Suit in those Fall wee hours. We also have a few major publishing efforts to wrap up and complete, which will take center stage for 2024. Sweetie’s teaching schedule has the possibility of up to nine travel weekends this year, a really heavy schedule.

At home in my crafty world, I’m thinking about those tools I own but rarely use, or the large costuming stash I have from a decade of dancing and teaching dance. It’s probably time to either “use it or rehome it or repurpose it” for those tools and costumes. Paired with our joint projects and my long-range desire to have more mobility again (recovering from knee issues), maybe that’s really my posture for 2024.

2024: Repurposing

Word of the Year: 2023

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large collage of images from 2022: Lots of my face, some spinning yarn, some weaving, and a few with friends
Photo collage of 2022 highlights

2022 in Retrospective: I often take the time at the end of the year to look at my crafty accomplishments or maybe my experiences from the year. It often is a time to see if my “word of the year” fit my pursuits or my actions. In 2022, I selected CONNECTIONS with the hope that I would be in the moment and be part of people’s lives.

When I assembled this photo collage, these are the highlight photos that jumped out at me.

  • January: Crafty pursuits included preparing for February online teaching.
  • February: Teaching more Andean Weaving as part of Franquemont University.
  • March: I actually did the homework as we studied “Spinning with Color” and had lots of fun.
  • April: Shenanigans! More crazy push-the-limits weaving with my weaving-bestie.
  • May: Some connections at Potrero (SCA camping) and more weaving.
  • June: Scan Fest textiles demo and Lyondemere Baronial Anniversary
  • June, July, August, September: Lots of swimming!
  • July, August, September: The great house interruption with the water leak and then asbestos abatement and 23-days kicked out. But bonus: Connection with my sister.
  • October: Demo in Irvine, some good things at Great Western War (more SCA), but BOO we ended up with Covid post-GWW. I lost pretty much the rest of the month.
  • November: Big Santa ramp up, Family gratefulness dinner with Boyo, and some string!
  • December: Yule with Lyondemere & Gyldenholt, then ALL SANTA ALL THE TIME.

I can barely believe that’s what happened this year, and “Connections” also was followed up by a surprise companion word this year: INTERRUPTIONS.

I know this: I’m so thankful that I have the partner and family and friends in my closest support groups that helped me get through this year.

Santa and me, in a car on the CA freeways
How I spent my New Year’s Eve: In seven-plus hours of torrential rain

So what did I select as my “Word of the Year” over the past decade?

Looks like I’m consistent–always working on something, always pursuing something, trying to be both in the moment and finding those incremental improvements. I often joke that my super power is “Incremental Improvement Girl.” What does that make me reflect on then? And what’s different now compared to previous years?

For one, we still have a Covid-world. I still work from home most days, I still take my mask out with me most places. It’s “not over” yet and will never be if most of the world just ignores it. If I just do a google news search for “covid” and my county, the top news all feature warnings for surges from Holidays and New Years. They might even reimpose an indoor mask mandate in my local county, again.

Cases of Covid in Los Angeles County, CA - from March 17 2020 through Dec 21 2022. Spike in Dec/Jan of 2021 into the 15k cases range and spike just after New Years 2022 into the 40k range
Cases in LA County from Mar 17, 2020 to Dec 31, 2021. Huge spikes occur at New Years for both 2021 and 2022.
Deaths from Covid in Los Angeles County, CA - from March 17 2020 through Dec 21 2022. Spike in Jan/Feb of 2021 into 200+ deaths per day range and spike in Jan/Feb 2022 into the 50+ deaths per day range
Deaths in LA County from Mar 17, 2020 to Dec 31, 2021. The biggest spikes are again in January/February each year.

I can only describe October 2022 as, “and then I lost a month from Covid.” Sweetie was infected, and it was impossible to isolate effectively in our small home. So I was sick on a two-day delay from him.

Every year, there is a risk that Santa “catches the crud” from the number of children he sees. We know it’s part of the job. But after we both were sick with and then recovered from Covid in October, the year-end crud has hit him so much harder than ever before.

What does all this have to do with my Word of the Year?

I no longer really know how to set plans the way I used to. On one hand, life is still life. I still want to do crafty things, I want to teach, I want to influence people for the better, and I want to be there for my partner, my family, and my friends.

But is there a “THEME” for me nowadays? I’m not sure.

Sweetie and I just spent the evening looking over the Santa season, making note of what went well, what could be improved, our plans and goals for the next year, and getting fully caught up with each other. One thing I noticed about the scramble we had to jump into the season in November, it was easiest if I just took charge of all the paperwork and records, and we communicated constantly about everything. And we have plans for his workshops, his mentorships, his own storytelling, his Santa season–which means technically, “There is no off-season.”

I’m not sure how we’re going to accomplish the things we are interested in doing together. But we’re committed to communicating, setting priorities, and pursuing our dreams together. Still, after all these years, he’s the most fun to be around.

Beyond our joint ventures, I’m still interested in spinning, weaving, and studying textiles (and textiles history). I am still pursuing language lessons (mostly Spanish daily, but also Mandarin Chinese about weekly, and learning to read Korean Hangul on occasion). I still have lots of house organization to do, boxes to unpack, and de-cluttering to do. I’m still on a variety of social media sites and we have some goals for increased video content.

I’m not sure if there’s a theme word for me yet. Maybe I’ll have something eventually.

But right now, “There is no off-season.”

Word of the Year: 2022

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I never was much for Resolutions. Didn’t like the nature of them, or the tendency for them to push the social agenda on us to continue having unrealistic goals to pursue someone else’s “ideal” for our bodies, our lives, our energy, our pursuits. Nope. Not a “resolution” kind of gal.

However, there was a time when having a “Word of the Year” or a “theme” made a LOT OF SENSE in my life. I’d stumbled into a passionate, heart-consuming pursuit of dancing and made DANCE the word of 2012. The third time I picked a word, 2014, I selected CREATE which also really resonated all the time, and one might say has become a permanent part of my life’s posture.

The rest of the words selected along the way? Maybe they made sense, maybe they were already part of my make-up, maybe they’ve just been superficial sign posts in life that didn’t always work the way I’d hoped they would. The other theme words along the way included Focus (2013), Mastery / Color (2015), Habits (2016), Goals (2017), Practice (2018), Strengths (2019), Intentional (2020), and Present (2021). I look at those words and none of them really made a huge impact the way DANCE or CREATE did in all those years.

But then again, the world around me has intruded in ways I never could have seen coming.

Today marks 661 days since I was sent home from work at the first start of the quarantine, March 11, 2020. There was a brief stint in July 2021 when we were mandated back into the office, but then Delta surged and we were sent home again by the end of the month. I’d already gone home after only two weeks and told my boss I wasn’t returning yet.

And in these past 661 days, my world has almost exclusively consisted of “one bedroom, one studio, one dining room, one living room, one kitchen, two bathrooms, and two adults.” My Sweetie has been the primary leave-the-house human: Getting groceries, running errands, exercising by taking walks in the evening. I spent the first 17 of 21 months doing almost no movement at all: Sleep, sit at the computer, sit on the couch, sit at my crafts, rinse, repeat.

After 17 months, I finally noticed the not-so-healthy trend (can you blame me? survival in quarantine also meant zero understanding of time!) and so I got a fitness tracker and started “taking walks” in the house, working towards improved health at a nice, incremental pace.

Then Santa season came upon us and my walk-through-the-house routine was paused as I did administrative support for our home-business. I can proudly tell you that I’m pleased with how “the Santa months” went. The paperwork was all caught up on 31-Dec, the candy canes are sorted and put away, the dry cleaning has been sent out, and the house is not a disaster. In fact, we managed to keep up with the house demands regularly. It was never a complete disaster.

But overall, what’s been going on in the decade since my first theme word? While Dance was a huge part of 2010-2020, when I went on hiatus it seems that I set down dance for longer than I meant to. I’m still not sure if/when I might bring it back. But that was a great decade, so I have no regrets. I came away from it with an amazing set of experiences, memories, and some stellar close friends. It might not be part of my current life, but it fed me well for a full decade.

I went from 42-years-old when I found that dance passion to facing 2022 New Year’s at age 53. Coming into my 50s has been a time to clarify what matters to me. Less expanding to add things to my world, more contracting and concentrating and focusing on the pursuits that matter most.

It also meant shaking up my understanding of the world. I cannot just ignore the injustices in the world. I cannot “just leave politics out of things,” because honestly how we treat other humans is embedded in all of our history and all of our present (and by extension, all of our future). There’s a lot I still need to learn about what’s embedded in the assumptions in society and how I can push back against injustice, how to advocate for the under-served around me.

I’m not sure if that helps me find my “word of the year” or my “theme” but I know that I’m looking at the connections I make with individuals. So I suppose I’m looking at how I interact, what assumptions I can dismantle and fix in my own world views, how I can actively try to improve the world.

And as I do so, I’ll be spinning yarn, weaving, memorizing weaving knowledge that’s been entrusted to me from my indigenous friends in Peru, and trying my best to make human connections that improve the world.

Last year I stared down the barrel of 2021 and thought all I could do is be PRESENT.

I suppose this year I know what I want to do is make CONNECTIONS with people, to let them know that they matter to me.

You matter. My life is better because you are in it. 💖

You. Yes you. You matter to me. Thank you.

Word of the Year: 2021

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It’s funny how many different posts on social media I am tagged in nowadays when it comes to the last week of December and the first week of January. In 2012, I decided that I had a “theme word” for the year rather than a New Year’s Resolution. I’d found a community of dancers and a dance style that truly resonated with me, in June 2010, and I dove in head-first, specifically with the intention to learn and then teach this style. 2012 was deep in the full pursuit of this challenge, and so the theme word DANCE made tons of sense. I was still doing other pursuits, spinning and weaving, volunteering and organizing, traveling even! but as a theme word, that’s where it all started.

Some years, when I chose a theme word, I really pursued it most of the year. Some years, I barely even remembered the theme word as the year got under way. But the process of stopping to think about things has been a process I’ve enjoyed now each year.

Last year, none of us had any idea what was in store for us. I selected the theme word INTENTIONAL as a means to say what I would pursue would be what I *intended* to pursue, not just based out of habit or declining obligations. Of course, as of today, I’m still under work-from-home pandemic quarantine. Today is day number 296 for me, since I was sent home from work. This week, our CEO announced that the two US offices (in CA and in NY) are back under mandatory work-from-home through the end of February (all previous optional come-in-to-the-office has been rescinded). I don’t miss the commute, but it wasn’t originally my intention to remain mostly locked indoors.

Which brings me all to this year. What theme word resonates with me today?

PRESENT

I feel a little bit like a Dickens ghost, the Ghost of Being Present. In the Muppet version of the story, the Ghost of Christmas Present cannot even remember having introduced himself to Michael Caine’s Scrooge, he’s so embedded in the present. There are days when I *only* know what day it is because I keep a large calendar widget on display in my laptop desktop. I have to look up what day it is, what hour it is, heck what month it is, sometimes.

But also, thinking about going forward, I refuse to make long-term plans right now. Until there is mass vaccination throughout our town, county, state, country — there’s no point in making plans to travel and gather. I cannot risk getting infected and being either asymptomatic and spreading the disease or being symptomatic and risking hospitalization or death. Our hospitals are nearly out of oxygen. There’s 8-18 hour waits, outdoors or in your car, until you can be seen (that, or drive two hours to a different hospital two counties away). So I can only live in the present when making plans for “what do I want to do next?”

But living in the Present is also just a healthy approach, too. I want to be present and in the moment with my Sweetie, the only other human I see every day. I want to be thoughtful about my interactions online, over text, or over video. I want to be aware of my surroundings, right now, and be involved in what can be done here, now, in this moment.

Because that’s all I have.

I live right here in this moment, in the PRESENT, and why not take advantage of this opportunity?

Here’s to living in the PRESENT and making the most of it

The Words-of-the-Years List

Word of the Year: 2020

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Right before New Year’s, I was pondering words and phrases like “TAKE RISKS” or “STUDY” or even “DECLUTTER,” but these weren’t quite right for my own theme for 2020. As my friends do, several jumped into the discussion to make suggestions or share their word of the year. A few observed that my thoughts sounded like “simplify” or “align” or “nourish,” all of which are very worthy themes indeed.

But since Wednesday, I just keep coming back around to the same word:

INTENTIONAL

The more I settle into the new normal for my age and interests and abilities right now, I am being more carefully INTENTIONAL about how I spend my time and energy. For example, sometimes habit kept me teaching. And while I adore my students and I really loved sharing dance knowledge, it was getting obvious I needed a new training and treatment regimen. I’ve had knee troubles and lately low back pain, and it just didn’t get any better by ignoring it. (Duh.) So I’ve put my dance teaching on hold, a very intentional hiatus, for the express purpose of training my body back into a more healthy state.

My time spent in particular hobbies has changed drastically. Some of my choices have been intentional changes to remove myself from environments that have some problematic community trends. There are times when it’s no longer my calling to fix everything that’s broken in some spaces. And that’s okay. I have no regrets for the years I spent in some activities, and I have grand friendships from the experience. But I don’t have to attend every event to still show love and affection for friends I value. Instead, I can choose intentional interactions with these friends.

My own artistic pursuits are somewhat broader and somewhat more narrow than ever before. And that’s okay. I’m perfectly happy being very intentional about what arts I spend time on now. And this also means that I’m looking for ways to gift some supplies to others who will be more likely to use them in the pursuits I’m no longer chasing. It’s a time to send the treasures to other homes, where they’ll be used immediately.

The past several years, my immediate family at home and I have been watching specific TV shows together in order to grapple with the state of the world and our nation. As we dig into these discussions, I’ve found there are some topics around which I want to intentionally engage with the world. Likewise, I have to choose the audiences with whom I will engage. I’ve intentionally walked away from some interactions because I’ve lost hope that some minds will change. And that’s okay. Not every fight is my fight. But the fights that I want to be intentional about? Those I refuse to be silent out of laziness or silenced out of fear or other pressures.

And there’s just the time spent with family. Rather than allow time to just disappear, I want to embrace intentional time with those I love and that I am closest to.

Intentional. These are the things I *mean* to do. Yes.

The Words-of-the-Years List

Fire Hair: Intentional Use of Color