And so my New Year's resolution is resolved. I took one new class a month - cooking, yoga, tea class, lino cutting, rock climbing, dark room lessons, glass fusing, wines of New Zealand, Buddhist teaching, paragliding, book binding, and pottery.

But sometimes the things you already know do just fine.

Cat & a scrap quilt: A fitting end to the best year of my life.

Doesn't the past tense delight the crafting soul? I knit a blanket. Not will knit, to be knit, knitting.

Fifty two thousand four hundred and sixty knits and purls are in the past.

Craft with yarn that I didn't have to make: $2.99 at Goodwill

My parents live this life the way it must be lived. Fearlessly and counterculturally, with edges and humour, tenacity and the right doses of cynicism. Thus, aphorisms abound:

"My greatest goal in life is to be a bum, but I could never afford it." - Dad

Plastic gold frame: $0, roadside find

Paper and lettering: $0, scraps and destash

Snapshot mantra: $.29 developing fee

Being born to my momma and dad: $0, gift from God

I live the uncluttered life. I don't keep a single e-mail, hardly a scrap of sentimental paper, never a stored phone message, course readers and old assignments have long been reincarnated as toilet paper, and lord knows there's hardly anything other than the bare minimum kicking around between my ears.

Yet, the treasures accumulate. I can't help it. My little garbages are my joy. I cannot be so ruthless with them. At all.

35mm slide case: $2.99 at Goodwill