The past week has turned out a little different than I expected. The little man came down with a mild stomach bug on the 23rd which took a few days to clear. (He was mostly unaffected, but we did need to rush to the washroom a couple of times a day.) Also, on Christmas Day my mom ended up in the hospital with a huge kidney stone. It was removed on Saturday morning, but she ended up in emergency again last night with severe pain while she passed a smaller stone. Christmas dinner happened on Boxing Day, minus my mom, and everyone is sleeping at odd hours. So, as you can see, things have been topsy-turvy and a bit off kilter. Mostly we are all ready for life to get back to normal.

Normally, I like to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve making plans for the next year. I’m not really big on resolutions, per say, but I do like to make plans. I had hoped to drag out some cross stitch kits, play in my yarn, and make some notes. But, as they say, life is what happens while you are making other plans.

I learned something recently that really helped me cope: The good life isn’t what we think it is. In my case, the good life isn’t a perfect Christmas where I have gotten around to cross stitching everyone’s stockings, where dinner is perfect, and the gifts look fabulous. This year, the good life was being able to make my parents comfortable while they spent several extra days at my home; providing them with a quiet room, good food, and love.

Taking this lesson, and others I have learned from Living Well, Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life by Ruth Soukup, I’m reevaluating my plans for 2015. I intend to keep up with the Smalls SAL and Stitch from Stash, because both of those mesh with my (simplified) idea of the good life, which include (among other things) stitching, sharing with friends, and reducing my spending on unnecessary items. I also want to knit projects that I love because they bring me pleasure, not because I feel like I should take part in a KAL. Ditto for cross stitch; I want to stitch those stockings I’ve had in my stash for years because I love them, instead of signing up for another mystery SAL because it is what everyone else is doing.

Living Well, Spending Less: 12 Secrets of the Good Life from Living Well Spending Less on Vimeo.

If you’d like to learn some secrets of a good life, check out Ruth’s book. You can find a sample of it here. She is also currently offering a great free goal setting workbook and 12 secrets challenge for free. Both are really great.

So, how did your Christmas go? Like you were planning, or did a monkey wrench get thrown in the works? Have you started planning for 2015? Will you be making any big changes?

Smalls SAL: Don’t forget, the final check-in takes place tomorrow. Amazingly, I actually managed to find time to finish this month’s piece. I can’t wait to share it tomorrow.