Today found me still exhausted from obligations of the past week, but I also had one project that absolutely, positively needed to be done before Christmas.

I had trouble summoning the energy, but after enough coffee had been drunk and enough time — the morning and half of the afternoon — had passed, I was able to focus some Christmas crafting energy on my crochet projects, and, after more time than I had anticipated, I finished stuffing the crochet soccer ball worked in the colors of a young girl’s favorite college team.

Before the onslaught of errands and lessons and rehearsals and performances that was Friday, I had managed to get this far with stuffing the soccer ball:

All of the hexagons and pentagons were crocheted, most of them were joined; all that remained was the stuffing. But as anyone who had ever tried to stuff a toy knows, it is a skill and it takes time.

Today, I continued to “fluff and stuff” until I thought it would burst.

Then, I attached the last pentagon:

At some point, it will sink in that this project is done, but in the meantime, I need to move forward and get to work on the next one: