Finally Finishing Things

Lately, life has felt very unbalanced.

Not always in an obvious way. Not necessarily chaos or crisis every single day, though there has certainly been some of that too. But unbalanced in the way the world feels lately. Prices rising. Constant notifications. Constant opinions. Constant urgency. The pressure to consume more, do more, and keep up more.

I loved doing the stash down series, but it was also a lot. It kept me busy preparing videos, editing, planning, filming, and constantly thinking about the next thing. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I found myself pulling away from the noise even more than I already was.

The whole series taught me a lot about myself and about the digital world we live in.

I still love technology in many ways. I love the communities it has helped build. I love that I can sit in Alabama and share knitting and crochet with people all over the world. That is a gift I do not take lightly.

But I think somewhere along the way, I stopped hearing myself think.

Over the last few weeks, between sickness in the house, losing years of footage on a hard drive, cleaning out my in-laws’ home, and just carrying the weight of normal life, I’ve found myself craving slower things again. Real things. Tangible things.

A pull back to my paper journals.

Fountain pens scratching across pages.

Gardening and digging in the dirt with hopes that it will flourish

Listening instead of scrolling.

Sitting outside with yarn in my hands as the gentle breeze hits my face and the birds sing in the trees

Having a cup of coffee with a blanket wrapped around me while the rain washes away the dirt and pollen from everything green around me.

Working on projects that take months, sometimes years, to finish, and the joy of grabbing the next one.

There is something deeply grounding about making something slowly in a world that wants everything instantly.

In my newest video, I talked about finally finishing a knitting project that has been on my needles since 2020. Six years of picking it up and putting it down. Six years of life happening around it. And when I finally bound it off, I realized it wasn’t really about the shawl anymore.

It was about staying.

Staying through changing seasons.
Through grief.
Through stress.
Through shifting priorities.
Through becoming a different version of yourself than the one who first cast those stitches on.

I think that’s part of why buying yarn recently affected me the way it did. That probably sounds dramatic to anyone outside the yarn world, but I know many of you will understand exactly what I mean.

I broke my “no yarn buy” to make donation hats, and even though the purchase had a purpose behind it, I still felt this strange heaviness afterward. A little bit of guilt, but mostly awareness, more than anything else. An awareness of how much my relationship with “stuff” has changed.

A few years ago, I would have bought the yarn without a second thought. Maybe even bought extra just in case. But lately I find myself wanting less. Less clutter. Less noise. Less attachment to things I don’t truly need.

Maybe part of that comes from cleaning out my in-laws’ home. The thrift store trips. The endless boxes. The trips to the dump with things that were once carefully held onto but had simply broken down over time.

There’s something sobering about touching decades of someone else’s life, piece by piece.

I think cleaning out their home has changed me in ways I’m still trying to process. They lived there for over forty years. There are so many beautiful things, meaningful things, useful things… and yet there is also the reality that eventually someone has to sort through all of it. I don’t say that harshly. There’s actually something very tender about it.

It has made me look differently at my own life and ask myself what I really want to hold onto, and lately, the answer has not been more things.

It has been moments.

I am not chasing an aesthetic or a trend, although I am seeing more and more posts about it. Maybe the algorithm is catching onto what I am longing. Looking back, this has always been me.  

I think I’m just tired. Tired in the way many people are tired right now.

Maybe this shift toward slower living, analog hobbies, and intentional time is my way of trying to protect something soft inside myself before the world hardens it... before YouTube hardens it. 

And maybe that’s part of this shift too.

Learning that not everything meaningful has to happen quickly.

The truth is, YouTube has become an extension of my personal business in many ways. It does help support what I do, and I am grateful for every single person who watches my videos, leaves comments, shares projects with me, or simply spends part of their day here.

And yes, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want my channel to grow.

I do.

I want to reach people. I want this space to continue growing into something meaningful and sustainable.

But it also feels like every time I reach a place where I think I can finally settle into consistency and really push forward, life shifts again.

Someone gets sick.

Responsibilities change.

A hard drive dies.

Real life asks for my attention in a different way.

And I think for a long time I struggled against that. I viewed those interruptions as failures or setbacks instead of simply part of being human.

But maybe my journey is just meant to look different.

Slower.

Less optimized.

More lived-in.

That’s hard for me to admit sometimes because the internet rewards speed and consistency in ways real life often cannot sustain. And I’m still trying to find balance in that. I think I probably always will be.

But I also know I don’t want to sacrifice my peace, my family, my creativity, or my health trying to keep pace with a world that is constantly demanding more.

So lately, I’ve been trying to accept the shifting seasons of life with a little more grace.

To create when I can.

To rest when I need to.

To allow things to come and go without gripping them so tightly.

I want room to notice things again.

To let seasons come and go without fighting them.

To accept change with grace instead of panic.

To understand that some things are meant to be finished, and some things are meant to be let go.

And maybe that’s what this season has really been teaching me.

Not how to hold onto everything.

But how to loosen my grip gently and still find peace in what remains.

And somehow, in the middle of all of that, I think I’m finally learning what enough feels like.

If you’d like to watch the full cozy knitting and crochet chat where I talk more about all of this, you can find it here: