The best thing my physics professor ever told me.

I remember the first day of physics class in college. I was terrified. I had absolutely no physics in my life before that day, I had a course load of pure math and science that semester, and no wiggle room in my schedule for failure, because we were in the last class that would graduate with our particular degree and the new degree had totally different prerequisites.

So I'm sitting in this auditorium and Dr. Vincent strolls up to the podium and announces to the entire class that we all just got an A. Now all we had to do is keep it.

Sure it's a mind game, but it was a damned good one, one that got me a 4.0 to show for that toughest semester, one that kept me top of the heap for the rest of school. Now, to keep the A you have to drive yourself hard, and that is impossible to keep up for too long without becoming a crispy critter, but it is still much easier than trying to get an A from nothing.

Before I go any farther, let me thank all of you who have supported me and send hugs and good vibes our way. We are going to miss China for a long time; she was with us a long time, and I'm just not counting the first couple of days of January as 2009. Nope, those still belong to 2008, because in 2009 I'm starting with an A.

I actually made goals - yeah, I know, but it's true. Every month I will have a goal in 4 areas of my life, personal/health, knitting, SCA and bellringing. I may or may not bore you with the non knitting goals on this blog, but the concept is to review my progress at months end and adjust if needed when setting next months goals. Many of you may be yawning right now, but for me this is major.

Then I went to Ravelry and hibernated everything not currently on my goal list. That way all those UFOs aren't mocking me and glaring at me resentfully every time I log on. Another mind game, but one that instantly took tons of pressure off me I didn't even realize I was putting on myself.

Here's my January progress so far on Rosarie. I had to frog it yet again before starting. Apparently, as HappyGoth said, the seventh time's the charm.
.
Furry blur courtesy of Jasmine. These days I'm knitting around the cats instead of kicking them off. Like they weren't spoiled enough...