In recent days, I have begun to notice something about my actions that I'm not sure is a good thing. Procrastination. I seem to be adept at delaying action on tasks that I don't want to do/am bored with. It's a long-standing ability that I have. I first noticed it when I was in college 30+ years ago. I would find anything that I could think of to do to avoid studying or writing papers. Well, apparently not much has changed in the last 30 years!
As I mentioned in my last post, I am making a quilt for my niece. I enjoy the quilt and I enjoy the quilting process. However, as I near the end of projects, I sometimes get a little tired of working on it. Such is the case with my niece's quilt. I have just a few blocks to quilt and then stitch the blocks together. You would think I would be doubly excited to work on the quilt. Well, you would be wrong. This week, I decided that I need to transfer some of my favorite recipes that I have stored on my computer onto recipe cards. Keep in mind that I have printed them out on regular paper so I can follow them as I prepare the recipe. And I have backed up all my documents onto a thumb drive. Nope. Not good enough. I need to have them on recipe cards. While that is probably a good idea, I really need to focus on the quilt.
Yesterday, I decided to amp up my efforts on the quilt and got a lot done. Then I realized why it was so easy to refocus. I'm delaying doing my taxes! Yes, procrastination has reared its ugly head again! My plan for today is to do my taxes before I start anything else. And my taxes are really easy since I don't have enough deductions to require the long form. But it is an unpleasant task that I put off for some unknown reason. So, what did I do? Decide to write a blog post about procrastination. Makes sense, doesn't it?
So, that's it for today's post. I'm going to discipline myself and work on my taxes...as soon a I finish this post and check email and get something out of the freezer for dinner and.... Well, you get the point. I WILL finish my taxes today, but I may not have time to do any quilting. C'est la vie!
Yours in putting off until tomorrow what you should do today.
Amy
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
How will I ever find time???
I think I may have written about this before, but it seems as if every time I am nearing the end of one project, my mind is already jumping ahead to the next one. In my last post, I mentioned the quilt throw that I am making for my niece. I have about half of the blocks finished. As always, I am doing everything by hand in the pot-holder quilt method. Here is a photo of one of the completed blocks:
I'm using the Attic Windows setting. This photo doesn't really do justice to the block, but I think the finished product will be really nice. Sure hope she likes it!
Now that I'm getting close to the finish line on this quilt, I'm jumping forward to the next quilt -- the one for the new baby coming in July. I really enjoy doing English Paper Piecing so I am going to make the baby quilt using EPP hexagons and diamonds. I'm still working on the layout, but I have all of the paper pieces cut (using freezer paper) and adhered to the fabric and about half of them have been basted. I hope to finish the attic windows quilt within the next month so I will be able to focus my full attention on the baby quilt.
Annnndd, I'm even thinking ahead to the next quilt after the baby quilt! A great nephew is in the Air Force and I think it's time I make a quilt for him and his wife. I'm tossing around patterns -- flying geese (to honor his service)? Homeward Bound (because he hopes to be stationed back in the states soon)? I just don't know. Fortunately, I'll have a while before I have to make a decision on that one.
I'm doing pretty well at keeping up with the positive thoughts jar. There have been a couple of days when I forgot to add to the jar, but that's been balanced out by the days when I put two or more thoughts in the jar.
Apparently I don't have enough to occupy my hands or my mind because I keep finding new things that I want to try. The most recent thing I ran across is on a blog called Thread Head and the craft is Romanian Point Lace and can be found at http://joanne-threadhead.blogspot.ca/2010/08/romanian-point-lace-tutorial.html. I'm going to give this a try when I have a chance. Maybe this will be my ornament for the 2014 SWAN exchange.
Yesterday was another followup visit with the medical oncologist. I am now about a year and a half out of treatment so I'm hoping that all tests for the next six months are negative so I can move to seeing the doctors every six months. And get this port taken out! While it doesn't hurt, it's a pain in the behind to have it flushed every six weeks. Not having it flushed could mean a blood clot and that wouldn't be a good thing, especially since the port catheter is in a vein near the heart. So for the next few months, I'll continue with the flushing and hope that all of the tests continue to come back negative.
Enough chatter for now. It's time for me to get back to the quilt...so I can get this one finished and start on the next one! Or work on the shawl that I started knitting back in the fall... Or try out the Romanian Point Lace. So many things I want to do; so little time!
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Amy
Now that I'm getting close to the finish line on this quilt, I'm jumping forward to the next quilt -- the one for the new baby coming in July. I really enjoy doing English Paper Piecing so I am going to make the baby quilt using EPP hexagons and diamonds. I'm still working on the layout, but I have all of the paper pieces cut (using freezer paper) and adhered to the fabric and about half of them have been basted. I hope to finish the attic windows quilt within the next month so I will be able to focus my full attention on the baby quilt.
Annnndd, I'm even thinking ahead to the next quilt after the baby quilt! A great nephew is in the Air Force and I think it's time I make a quilt for him and his wife. I'm tossing around patterns -- flying geese (to honor his service)? Homeward Bound (because he hopes to be stationed back in the states soon)? I just don't know. Fortunately, I'll have a while before I have to make a decision on that one.
I'm doing pretty well at keeping up with the positive thoughts jar. There have been a couple of days when I forgot to add to the jar, but that's been balanced out by the days when I put two or more thoughts in the jar.
Apparently I don't have enough to occupy my hands or my mind because I keep finding new things that I want to try. The most recent thing I ran across is on a blog called Thread Head and the craft is Romanian Point Lace and can be found at http://joanne-threadhead.blogspot.ca/2010/08/romanian-point-lace-tutorial.html. I'm going to give this a try when I have a chance. Maybe this will be my ornament for the 2014 SWAN exchange.
Yesterday was another followup visit with the medical oncologist. I am now about a year and a half out of treatment so I'm hoping that all tests for the next six months are negative so I can move to seeing the doctors every six months. And get this port taken out! While it doesn't hurt, it's a pain in the behind to have it flushed every six weeks. Not having it flushed could mean a blood clot and that wouldn't be a good thing, especially since the port catheter is in a vein near the heart. So for the next few months, I'll continue with the flushing and hope that all of the tests continue to come back negative.
Enough chatter for now. It's time for me to get back to the quilt...so I can get this one finished and start on the next one! Or work on the shawl that I started knitting back in the fall... Or try out the Romanian Point Lace. So many things I want to do; so little time!
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Amy
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Welcome 2011
Yes, I know I haven't posted anything in a long time. I'm sorry about that, but the end of 2010 was not a very good time for me. Things are looking better now and it's time that I update my blog.
When I look back at 2010, one of my major accomplishments was finishing my whirligig quilt. I have more quilts than I'll ever need so I gave whirligig to my good friend, Pat. Here's a photo of it. Frankly, I'm glad it's over. Working with all that black got tiresome. But it's finished and Pat seems to really like it.
Our family had a nice Christmas gathering at my brother's house on Dec. 18. We always gather on some day other than Christmas. It was great, as usual. Lots of good food and even more conversation. I took along a bag full of things I had knitted so everyone could take their choice. The best part is I came home empty-handed! :-)
So far, 2011 has been good to me. I have tried off and on for several years t
o learn how to knit socks. Up to this point, my efforts were not successful. However, after Christmas, I pulled out some sock yarn I had on hand and my needles to see what I could accomplish. I found a sock pattern on the Internet that made more sense than the patterns I had tried before. And now I have completed two pair of socks. The first pair was definitely a first effort! One sock is a bit bigger than the other so I've been using them for my bed socks and they work great. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of cold weather so having warm socks to keep my tooties warm has been wonderful.
After my first so-so
result, I tried again to make socks and came up with a better result. At least these two are both the same size. That's progress, I think. :-) They're still not quite what I'm looking for, but they definitely are wearable and will be used -- either by me or someone. I'm now working on another pair of sock. I made a few alterations to the pattern and I think these will fit better. We'll see....
I haven't been to stitch group for a while. We met only once in November because the second meeting would have been Thanksgiving. The group had a Christmas party in early December, but I wasn't feeling up to par so I didn't go. Then last week, the weather was too cold for me to get out. I'm holding out hope for next week's meeting. The forecast...at least at this point...says we'll be in the 30's so there's hope that I'll be able to make it. I sure miss those evenings of stitching and talking.
Well, this is pretty much my life in a nutshell. I'll try to be more diligent about posting this year. I'm pretty sure it won't be on a regular basis, but I think I can do better than once every 3-4 months!
Until we meet again, stay warm and stay safe.
Amy
When I look back at 2010, one of my major accomplishments was finishing my whirligig quilt. I have more quilts than I'll ever need so I gave whirligig to my good friend, Pat. Here's a photo of it. Frankly, I'm glad it's over. Working with all that black got tiresome. But it's finished and Pat seems to really like it. Our family had a nice Christmas gathering at my brother's house on Dec. 18. We always gather on some day other than Christmas. It was great, as usual. Lots of good food and even more conversation. I took along a bag full of things I had knitted so everyone could take their choice. The best part is I came home empty-handed! :-)
So far, 2011 has been good to me. I have tried off and on for several years t
o learn how to knit socks. Up to this point, my efforts were not successful. However, after Christmas, I pulled out some sock yarn I had on hand and my needles to see what I could accomplish. I found a sock pattern on the Internet that made more sense than the patterns I had tried before. And now I have completed two pair of socks. The first pair was definitely a first effort! One sock is a bit bigger than the other so I've been using them for my bed socks and they work great. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of cold weather so having warm socks to keep my tooties warm has been wonderful.
After my first so-so
result, I tried again to make socks and came up with a better result. At least these two are both the same size. That's progress, I think. :-) They're still not quite what I'm looking for, but they definitely are wearable and will be used -- either by me or someone. I'm now working on another pair of sock. I made a few alterations to the pattern and I think these will fit better. We'll see....
I haven't been to stitch group for a while. We met only once in November because the second meeting would have been Thanksgiving. The group had a Christmas party in early December, but I wasn't feeling up to par so I didn't go. Then last week, the weather was too cold for me to get out. I'm holding out hope for next week's meeting. The forecast...at least at this point...says we'll be in the 30's so there's hope that I'll be able to make it. I sure miss those evenings of stitching and talking.
Well, this is pretty much my life in a nutshell. I'll try to be more diligent about posting this year. I'm pretty sure it won't be on a regular basis, but I think I can do better than once every 3-4 months!
Until we meet again, stay warm and stay safe.
Amy
Monday, March 8, 2010
How do you stop it?
Creativity is a wonderful trait. Well, mostly wonderful until the ideas start tumbling around. When that happens, I feel like I've developed ADD. I always have two or three projects that I'm working on at one time. That helps alleviate boredom from working on only one project. But I find that while I'm working on one thing, my brain is thinking up more projects. It's hard to not drop what I'm working on and start a new project. How do you stop the ideas from coming? Should we even want to stop the ideas? I don't know the answer to those questions and my guess is no one else does either.
I have found that the closer I get to finishing a project, especially a large one, it gets harder to focus on finishing this one before starting something new. Case in point: My brother and sister-in-law celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a couple of years ago. I thought I was planning ahead and started a quilt for them about a year before the actual anniversary. I didn't get the quilt finished by the anniversary because my hands started acting up with arthritis symptoms. I did keep plugging away on the quilt and finally finished by their 51st anniversary, but toward the end I really had to force myself to finish it up. It wasn't because I was tired of working on it because each time I set a block together I was awed all over again. The problem was that I would work on blocks or rows or whatever and let my mind run free. Usually my thoughts were of things we did together over their 50+ years together. Once in a while, though, my thoughts would veer off into....Hmmm. Wonder what it would look like if I....(fill in the blank - could be use different color combinations or make this part larger, whatever). Then I'd put down what I was working on -- and needed to be working on -- and start sketching out what might be the next project.
It's fun to be creative and come up with new ideas, but it sure does interfere with completing what is at hand. :-)
Now back to working on those appliqued whirligig squares....
P.S. My brother and sis-in-law liked their quilt, but they can't use it because my brother says it's too warm. You just can't please some people! :-) They do have it on the guest room bed, I think.
I have found that the closer I get to finishing a project, especially a large one, it gets harder to focus on finishing this one before starting something new. Case in point: My brother and sister-in-law celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a couple of years ago. I thought I was planning ahead and started a quilt for them about a year before the actual anniversary. I didn't get the quilt finished by the anniversary because my hands started acting up with arthritis symptoms. I did keep plugging away on the quilt and finally finished by their 51st anniversary, but toward the end I really had to force myself to finish it up. It wasn't because I was tired of working on it because each time I set a block together I was awed all over again. The problem was that I would work on blocks or rows or whatever and let my mind run free. Usually my thoughts were of things we did together over their 50+ years together. Once in a while, though, my thoughts would veer off into....Hmmm. Wonder what it would look like if I....(fill in the blank - could be use different color combinations or make this part larger, whatever). Then I'd put down what I was working on -- and needed to be working on -- and start sketching out what might be the next project.
It's fun to be creative and come up with new ideas, but it sure does interfere with completing what is at hand. :-)
Now back to working on those appliqued whirligig squares....
P.S. My brother and sis-in-law liked their quilt, but they can't use it because my brother says it's too warm. You just can't please some people! :-) They do have it on the guest room bed, I think.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Welcome
After retiring in the spring of 2009, I find I am searching for who I am. In other words, I guess I need to redefine myself. For 40+ years, I was somebody's employee. They were good years. Crafting has always been part of my life. Now in my retirement years, it has taken center stage in my life, but I still have time on my hands. Friends have asked me for a long time if I have a blog. I never felt I had anything important to say so I never attacked blogging. I'm still not sure if I have anything of import to say, but I've decided to join the blogging world. I hope you will bear with me through my ramblings. Please feel free to add your comments thoughts, ideas, suggestions, brickbats or whatever as we journey down the blog road.
My blogging will most likely focus on crafting, family, friends or getting things off my chest. My favorite crafts are knitting and quilting and I almost always have at least one project of each kind going at any given time. To be honest, I have a host of UFOs (unfinished objects) that I hope this blog will help me get motivated to finish. From time to time, I will post photos of in-progress or finished projects to give you an idea of how I fill my time.
Don't expect posts from me every day. I'll be lucky if I can come up with something to say once a week. I do hope you will check back from time to time to see how my world is going.
Until the next time,
Amy
My blogging will most likely focus on crafting, family, friends or getting things off my chest. My favorite crafts are knitting and quilting and I almost always have at least one project of each kind going at any given time. To be honest, I have a host of UFOs (unfinished objects) that I hope this blog will help me get motivated to finish. From time to time, I will post photos of in-progress or finished projects to give you an idea of how I fill my time.
Don't expect posts from me every day. I'll be lucky if I can come up with something to say once a week. I do hope you will check back from time to time to see how my world is going.
Until the next time,
Amy
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