Feeling very unwell today and having to gently remind myself that this isn't a 'bad start' or an interruption or a disturbance to any other state I should be experiencing, this is simply my life, all of my aliveness in one big cloud of sensation, today, every day, and it is good. I may well feel sick every day of this year. So what? What am I going to do about it? Just be miserable and let another year pass me by, or get on with living anyway, in whatever way I can? Every year I have to make this choice and today I choose again.

Some hard truths I learned this year about getting stuff done:

1. The way to free up the time and energy I need to work on the things that matter to me is to face up to how much time I spend looking at my phone, watching TV and playing games, and to set hard limits 😬 2. There is NEVER a good enough excuse to not attempt five minutes of something, no matter how I feel or what's happening.

3. Practising starting actually develops 90% of the skill I need to succeed. Just by learning how to keep showing up, even for five mins, I achieve a LOT.

I just wanted to share something I'm finding really helpful at the moment. It's based on an idea by @michaeljamesbe and it's about reminding yourself what is in your power right now, and what isn't. You divide a page into two columns. Above the first you write 'me' and above the second you can write whatever word or phrase makes sense to you as something bigger than yourself. So maybe 'a higher power' or 'the universe', or God, or even just 'out of my hands'.

Hello! #AStillLifeWeekend starts here. The wonderful @BloomsburyBooks published A STILL LIFE back in Feb. My memoir tells two stories: "a slow life and a slow year, entwined." It walks you through my days and my heart gently, intimately, often in surprising and moving ways. As I wrote, I took photos. This weekend, I'll be sharing a behind-the-scenes look at some of the images that accompanied moments from the book. So many of you have been such generous, devoted readers and I thought you'd enjoy this different view of the story. Thank you 💙

Well here it is: 2020's weather. 3m, 732 rows (2 rows=1 day), 70,368 stitches, 1kg of wool. My small world and I have sat together every day; I witnessed its dramas and joys and it witnessed mine. Now I get to see this cycle play out all over again, all new. What a gift that is. Enormous thanks to all of you who have followed and cheered me along this year. What a ride it's been. If you've enjoyed The Scarf, I'd love if you would consider one or all of the following:

1) Buy me a coffee or two at ko-fi.com/josiegeorge

I need to get something personal off my chest. Forgive the self-indulgence. I've been feeling very angry this last couple of days and I think I've finally realised what some of that anger is about. I thought I'd share in case it resonates with anyone else. I've been chronically unwell my whole life. Because of that, I never get to do everything I want. If I want to go to, say, the cinema or out shopping, or visit somewhere, I might have to wait weeks for someone to have the capacity to take me.

I'm going to do a slow thread of self-care suggestions for Christmas that I've tried before. Not all of them will be useful/meaningful to everyone, but here are some things that have helped me to celebrate and feel happier and more peaceful. First, one of the most powerful things I've ever done is to decide to give myself a good Christmas. Not to mentally transfer that to anyone else, where they might have to guess or be responsible for my day, but to take on full responsibility for my own enjoyment, however I can.

Ok, here is a difficult truth: friendships take up a huge amount of energy and mental processing, so when you have almost no energy at all and life is very fragile, it means you can't sustain many very well. What you have of yourself, you need to hold back to sustain self-care, maybe your work, maybe to nurture a partner/children. Often you have enough for that and nothing else, and so everyone else feels let down. You have to live with that and it sucks but it's all you have.