Ending Radio Silence

Whew!  It's been too long since I've been away.  Two things led me astray:  quilting overload and life commitments.  It's hard to admit but I feel like I over committed myself to too many quilting projects at once and pushed myself to the point that I then couldn't even think about sewing.  I really, really wanted to do everything and then wound up feeling like doing nothing!  Heck, I haven't even read any quilt blogs in all this time (and boy will I have a lot of catching up to do when I get back to it)!!

My youngest son graduated Middle School in June and since I volunteered there, there was a lot of graduation events to help with.  In addition, we had been on pins and needles awaiting word of his high school assignment.  Back in March we found out that his first choice was entered into the selection system wrong by someone assisting the guidance counselor which caused him to be matched with a school not on our list and as a result all his other choices were also ignored.  To correct the error, we had to go through a very lengthy appeal process to get his actual choices considered.  In the end, two weeks before graduation, we got word that he was accepted to his first choice!  A call to the school confirmed that the late acceptance meant we missed out on attending the orientation held for new freshmen but the school mailed us the information that was issued at the event.  So now we are in prep mode for the transition and next year I will be the mother of TWO high schoolers and my oldest will be graduating!!

As July has progressed, I have finally been getting the itch to get back into the swing of things.  The perspective I  gained from my time away is that I must pull back a little and re-commit to my quilt word for the year which is FOCUS.  I have done well when I am able to concentrate on or give priority to one project at a time and now I have to get back to that.  This doesn't mean I won't still have multiple projects going (it's already too late to change that!).  It just means that in the moment, I need to be better at narrowing my attention to the task at hand and getting it to an acceptable stopping point (if not completion) before moving on to the next big thing.  It would also help if I really try to limit how many irons I commit to placing in the fire at any one time.  That i must say is a very hard task to say the least with all the quilting goodness and potential out there.  But I realize now that I can only take on so much at once if I am to avoid burn out.

So stay tuned for upcoming posts on what I did get done before I went AWOL and what I will be working on over the summer. Hopefully I will also be back to visiting some of you soon too!!