Week two has come and gone (well, as good as gone) and I'm still not making my physical health a priority. I'm just NOT. I eat when I'm hungry (and not always the best choices), and I sleep when I want to (and not for enough hours each night), and I do not exercise. I do not. I have actively chosen NOT to exercise when I claim I want to "get healthy" and what I really mean is take up less space. You know, wear smaller pants. To be honest, I don't even have a plan. Actually, I do have a plan. My plan is to fill my day with so many things to do that I don't "have time" to exercise. UGH.
What about faith? Well, again, I'm so glad I don't earn salvation, because I'd be doomed. Ha! I'm really looking forward to getting in the routine of Community Bible Study, but no matter how uplifting some of the fiction is that I read (Brothers Karamazov is a doozy, y'all), I'm just not spending enough of my long summer days in the Word. I am grateful that I have always used my quilting time as prayer time, but I'm going to have to stop sewing for a little while and start reading and feeding my soul.
Family...Friends...Finished Project--these are my areas of success. We had a marvelous time at our "Christmas in July" sewing day on Saturday. I hung out with a different bunch of friends than my typical Monday night crowd. We ate too much, laughed a lot, and heard each other's woes and wisdom.
We had a surprise visit Saturday evening from Dennis's sister who is working in DC so she was able to catch the train down for a quick visit to see Gumdrop for a first visit. We had a Christmas dinner on Saturday night with all the children, and laughed at baby antics. Family time continued on to Sunday morning. We went to 8:30 worship, then ducked out to Cracker Barrel for brunch and back to Mallory's house for more time to visit. After we took Claudette back to Wilson to catch the afternoon train, we managed to get the requisite Sunday afternoon nap, and I even got some work done.
This week, I had three client projects. I quilted two in the frame on Monday, and got their bindings attached by Thursday. Monday night I had a smaller crowd than typical, but it meant that Paula, April and I could try to outtalk each other. (I'm sure I won.) It was a red-letter night, because April arrived early and actually sewed! She's got a fun new project planned, so it's just a matter of practice and choosing fabrics for her, and she'll be off. Paula was working on the new project from Christmas in July, and I had a leftovers quilt to piece from scraps from Gumdrop's baby quilt. I guess my project was "new" but it also falls under scrap management. Either way, it was a stress buster!
My third client quilt for the week was a vintage top. I had a friend come over on Wednesday and bring me a large quilt her mom had pieced (probably in 1980 or late 1970s), so we loaded it and talked through the quilting process, then went out for a lovely lunch. That's two weeks in a row of successfully having lunch with a friend at least one day. It would be cool to do that 50 times in a row this year. Who's up for next week?
We had a spontaneous dinner invitation on Wednesday night at the Gwennaps, and it was so much fun to just sit and visit with Todd and Jenn and their lively bunch of children, who taught us that 'sert is the best part of the meal. It's so fun to know people who are just your kind of people...the same kind of weird as us. Even a generation apart. Oh, and Jenn is a great cook. Yum.
I started a new project for "Christmas in July" and got it pieced on Sunday evening. I had to order border fabric and flannel for the back, but both arrived on Wednesday, so it's ready to finish! Believe it or not, I'm running out of batting (at this rate!), so I've got to make a trip to town to buy two more 30 yard bundles of 80/20 and bamboo, my favorites. I think I counted five quilts for me that are ready to be quilted, and about that many client quilts in the queue. My sweet little machine is busy!
I still have a mountainous pile of projects waiting to be pieced and completed. My next two UFQs are a Civil War reproduction/traditional quilt, and my Celtic Solstice that has many parts to go. Stacked up and waiting for me are several bundles of fabric...a Christmas applique quilt, a red and beige quilt, a blue and tan quilt, some great Daysail fabric by Bonnie & Camille, a whole Halloween fat quarter bundle, and then lots more Scrumptious scraps. Speaking of scraps, I have an entire upstairs (two rooms full!) of stash fabric waiting for me to SLOW DOWN enough to fold and organize it. Scrap management is a bane of my existence, but I just have yardage that is in piles and I don't even remember why I bought it. That's the challenge of a 25 year old stash.
Okay, so what's up for week 3? Well, my dear brother John and his two beautiful daughters are arriving on Sunday. Mira is running in the NATIONALS in Virginia Beach. That child can RUN. So, he's going to be in and out all week long, plus we may spend two days up there so we can actually attend a race or two. I'll have quilters over as usual on Monday, and for a few of them, it'll be 3+ weeks of "catching up" because July was crazy-busy for all of us.
Saturday is August 1. I don't know if that's the magic number I was waiting for to get my act in gear with exercise and diet and quiet times...but we'll see if my priorities begin to shift. Obviously I can't get any busier...but I can definitely find some balance. Stay tuned for the report from week three.
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