Epact

The period between Christmas and New Year's, (sort of...it's really about eleven days) is what my mother always said was the epact. This period is the excess of days between the solar and the lunar year.
It always feels like filling time at work. You don't really feel like starting a new project. I clean out my desk, my email, start new files and delete old ones. It's an epact at work too. The New Year starts next week and mentally we all go back to work then. But in the mean time, we're all in the epact.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

p.s. the hot pad pictured is adapted from the pattern in Quilting Arts Gifts 2009.
Of course I used their idea, but did my own thing. I like to think is because I am so creative, but in fact I just may be incapable of following other people's directions. The nice thing about sewing/cooking/all creative endeavors is that there are hundreds of ways to do stuff and all of them are right.