I don't do New Year's but I do Lent with a vengeance. This is the time of year when I try to institute new habits that will be good for me. I figure my chances of success are much greater with Jesus' help. Two years ago, in addition to giving up chocolate, I said a rosary every day for Lent. By the time Easter arrived, it was a firmly entrenched habit and I never stopped. It's a habit I'm glad to have cultivated, as now it serves as my daily conversation with my (much wiser, kinder, better) best friend and helps me to turn from the distractions of this world and concentrate on what's real and what matters.
Early in 2020, I promised myself that I'd write more. Then Wuhan Flu stopped the world and while everyone else had time on their hands, I was suddenly swamped with more work than I'd ever had and parents who needed us almost as much as the spring and summer of '18, when Dad broke his neck.
Instead of writing more, I barely wrote a word through all of 2020. If I wasn't working, I was with my Dad and if I was at home, I didn't have the energy to form a thought much less type it.
I'm very grateful that work is booming. With so many people all over the world suddenly deprived of their livelihoods I'm not going to complain that my industry is booming. I'm just going to try and supply everyone who needs it with all the stitching they can handle. We've always joked that needlepoint is as much therapy as art but the global shut down proved the real truth of that perspective. For the last 12 months, stitching has been the line between sanity and despair for people all over the world.
But it's wrecking me.
One of my favorite stories is the one about the two lumberjacks; Two lumberjacks were splitting logs, side by side. One worked all day without letting up and the other took a ten minute break every hour. As the hours went by, it was the second lumberjack whose pile of cut logs grew much higher than the first. At the end of the day, the first looked at his buddy and said "I don't get it; I worked all day without a break and you put your feet up for ten minutes every hour. How come your pile of cut wood is twice as big as mine?"
And the second lumberjack said "While I had my feet up is when I sharpened my axe."
I used to keep my axe very sharp.
This last year has ground my blade to pulp.
So, a few weeks ago, I decided to make a change. First, I'd take the time to finish off our bathroom. Once the linen closet finally went in, I got to work. I painted all the trim and the cupboard Ice Mist, a very cool white by Benjamin Moore.. Then I bought a sample can of Gossamer Blue, the darkest color on the same color chip. With what was left over from the gallon of Ice Mist, I mixed Sea Foam for the walls and Ocean Air for the ceiling. It's really easy to mix your own colors and way cheaper than buying a quart of all three. Sample pints are my favorite things; I have an entire book case in my studio holding about three dozen samples of BM paint. Since I paint a lot of small things, a pint is usually enough for my projects. I wanted the bath to be kind of cool and sophisticated and reminiscent of Key West. Jay likes bright, funky colors ( not on the walls, though; just in the details) so I went looking for some fun knobs for the closet. I started at World Market, which used to carry a lot of really fun painted porcelain knobs. They don't any more. I ended up at Hobby Lobby, which has an entire aisle for knobs of every description. It took me a half an hour to make up my mind. What I bought wasn't even close to what I originally wanted but they were so gorgeous I couldn't resist. They're clear acrylic with crushed mirror inside them with a hint of a very Key Westie blue. They're much fancier looking than I thought I'd want but they were 50% off so not all that expensive. It helps that I only needed 4.
We replaced the old yellow tile in the bathroom with some very pretty and very functional stuff in shades of gray marble. The walls of the shower and behind the other fixtures is glossy and the floor is matte and non-slip. No falling down allowed.
My daughter Katie gave me the idea to make the inside of the closet a fun surprise.
Jay wanted me to leave the walls of the room white but it just looked to clinical for me. The blue on the walls (Sea Foam) is so pale that it looks white until you see it up against the trim. Jay did say he thought it would be really fun if we painted the two doors (its a jack and jill bath between two bedrooms) bright tropical colors pulled from the shower curtain we both love. I haven't done that yet because we're thinking about getting new doors instead of painted over the existing ones. If we do keep the doors, I think I'll have to sand them down before I put more paint on them. They're covered in a glossy enamel that will take some doing to cover. But I have picked out a very gorgeous lemony green and citrus orange to put on them once we've made up our minds.
Taking on non- needlepoint projects is a fabulous way to sharpen my axe but it's not the only change I've made.
I've decided that I simply must take Sunday's off. I never have. Because I'm my own boss and my studio is at home, I pretty much work every day, including Christmas and the 4th of July. It's not like I do much on those holidays, maybe just write up a list of orders but I've gotten to the point where if I don't sit at my drawing board for at least a few minutes every day, I feel off and ungrounded. That's bad.
It's nice making money and paying off credit cards and being able to afford your favorite knobs in your new bathroom and it's really easy to tell yourself that you owe it to your customers not to let their orders pile up for weeks but there has to be more to life than working, especially if you're trying to be creative. I was in real danger of becoming the first lumberjack.
It hasn't been easy. For three weeks now, I have not allowed myself to sit at my drawing board on Sunday. The upshot? I've gotten little projects done around the house that I haven't 'found time' for in years. I've taken the time to visit and play with my grandkids. I've been able to sit and read, uninterrupted for hours.
And I'm getting just as much work done as I was before, working seven days a week.
It's like I'm getting 8 days a week!
And I just took an hour off to write this and didn't feel like I should be upstairs, grinding out another order!
I should have thought of this years ago.