I believe I am a better person when I take the time to be creative. And by better I mean kinder, happier, more patient, more thoughtful. Sewing, knitting and now playing with my journals - all of these have proven to me time and time again that I need an outlet. So I give myself permission to spend time on myself this way.
And then sometimes I really can't. And I get cranky. Maybe that's self indulgence. Maybe. Maybe not.
After years of starting new projects when I get bogged down with one - because i needed a lift of energy that starting a new project gives me - I have committed myself to completing what I started.
It has been suggested that I could just jettison some of these projects. Let them float away into hands of people who would happily take them up (or deposit them in the trash where they might belong), and I might at some time do that. But for now, I think I need to work my way through some of these tangles. I need time to sort and unfold and problem solve. I'm finding it very settling. Very centering.
So right now with the little snippets of time I have, I am working on a lace shawl (yes, I did figure out where in the lace pattern I left off -why oh why did I not take a moment to make a notation all that time ago? Probably because I laid it down thinking I was going to take it up again immediately. HA!) I'm also working on these twin pinwheel quilt tops. I finished one and then realized I'd made it for a very skinny 7 foot giant. So there was an evening of unsewing the bottom row of blocks and making another column down the side. Ah well. One step at a time.
