Life Getting in the Way

 So this past two weeks was crazy at work.  First there was the lighting strike that hit the plant.  At first we thought it only took down the servers.  We were wrong. As we tried to bring different lines back up over the next week, we found more and more problems.  Then there was the commissioning of the new roaster.  That involved running quality tests. then bringing in an outside lab to get it validated for at least a 5 log kill. Which basically means the roasting step kills off salmonella so our peanuts are safe. That took a whole weekend plus.  To top it all off, the window for our unannounced audit is swiftly closing.  So there has been all sorts of stress and finger pointing at work.  There is also a lot of extra hours that need to be worked.

I am exhausted.  I have been putting 10-12 hour days. When I get home all I want to do is just go to my room to chill and then sleep.  I don't know what I would do without the support of the Kids.  They have been waiting on me hand and foot.  

Add to all of that, we are spending our weekends canning.  We have put up so much produce and I really don't know where I am going to put it.  The thing is I am feeling compelled to do this canning.  It is almost as if I am being driven to build a year supply.  So I am.  We may have to stack the boxes of jars in the closets like we did when we lived in married student housing.

But I have at least been working on getting my scraps cut up.  I've tried to spend 15-30 minutes just cutting up scraps.  I now have way more 3-1/4 inch blocks cut for the double wedding ring pattern than I need.  I am thinking it was a throw size so I can just make it larger. Or I can just sew the extras into a simple patch work.  

I really don't know why cutting fabric is so cathartic for me but it is.  Hopefully this weekend I will get around to figuring out how to better use my journal.  That is after I go get peaches and can them.

Do you ever wish you could just stay home and quilt all day?  My sister once commented that I need to quilt my job so I can do all the quilts I want to do.  She's probably right. 

Is life getting in your way? How do you fit in your quilting? Do you have more quilts planned than you can do?

Quilting Journal Regroup

I have been rather depressed. It's been a rather difficult month. I am finding excuses for not doing things I need to do. Part of this, I am sure, is do to the fact that Kim is gone so much.  I find I tend to work longer hours when Kim is out of town.  Kim is struggling with work and has been rather depressed as well. Which since we tend to be very emotionally connected, that tends to bring me down even further.  As a result, I have been very lax in meeting my creative needs. I tend to come home and bury myself in my room.

This month I have tried to break that cycle.  As a family, we have put up green beans, pickles, and apples.  We certainly have built up our larder for the winter. Our fruit trees are producing and we are enjoying the literal fruits of our labors. Plus we have taken to going to Long Farms and picking produce to put up. So while I am tired, I am also fairly content with some progress.

I also decided to do something about my lack of creative progress.  So I grabbed the scrap bin and started cutting it into 5 inch squares and 2-1/2 inch squares.  While doing this I got to thinking about how many 5 inch squares I have.  I really don't need more 5 inch squares.  I have cut enough print fabrics for the lattice quilt. So I decided to find another scrap quilt pattern to do.  I remembered a quilt pattern I have called Twizzle that I wanted to make. When I looked up the pattern, I realized that it was made from Jolly Bars. Jolly Bars are 5 inch by 10 inch rectangles. Not really scrap size. I flipped to the next pattern and that was a paper pieced double wedding ring.  It's definitely a quilt I want to do. So I started cutting my print scraps into the size needed for it.

After cutting scraps for a bit, I decided it was time to pull out the quilt journal.  I hadn't made an entry since the end of March. Obviously, I haven't made any entries since I haven't accomplished anything.  I had kept writing the same thing down every week.  So I just stopped. Today, I decided to regroup.  In fact, today's entry is titled Regrouping. I expect it will be the entries for a few days. I focused on some realities that I have to face today.  I think I may start making daily plans and stop trying to plan out the week.  I am toying with the idea of taking the journal with me to work. If I make my daily plan at work I might work harder at coming home.

Tomorrow, I think I may have to set some priorities.  It is easy to just distract myself with cutting up scraps but I can't just keep making flimsies and letting them pile up.

What do you get back on track?