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Posts Tagged ‘stress’

Work Days…..

10 Aug

 

Well. Yesterday was an interesting day. It was kind of a surreal day. “There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man it is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity it is the middle ground between light and shadow between science and superstition and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge….. it is an area which we call- the Twilight Zone.”
Let me ‘splain….

In the morning, I usually fix coffee and we catch up on stuff, and see what we each have going on customer wise. Try to lay out a little plan for the day, which doesn’t always work out because we never know what is gonna walk in our door, but we will still make the effort. Yesterday around 10:30 or so several police cars zoom past our office. Now this in itself is not that unusual, we regularly have police and emergency vehicles go past headed to the latest accident or occasional robbery. What was unusual was the speed they were traveling. We knew something was up when the police cars went by our office so fast we couldn’t see them, we only heard them. As it turned out, there was a drive by shooting a couple of blocks from where I work. A drive by. Shooting. Wow. Later that evening the local news did a story and pretty much laid it out there that there is gang related violence in the neighborhood that I work in. I’ve worked in this area 3 years. We have never seen this before. I go to the gas station right below where this happened to get gas sometimes. The gentleman that was shot is recovering and doing fine, but no other details have been given. I am still having a hard time wrapping my mind around this. Really.

Then, in the afternoon we hear more sirens. Lots of different looking vehicles go by our office in the other direction, sirens blaring. As it turned out, there was a bridge that was shut down for a while about a mile from where I work because there was a suspicious package hanging on a road sign. Hmmmmm….. Totally unrelated to the morning incident. My daughters both work about 2 blocks from where this was going on. After about an hour the news reported that the bomb squad had detonated the suspicious device. Detonated. Suspicious. Device. Now, they are trying to cover the incident up and say there was never any real threat, it was just an empty backpack. Again, hmmmmmm….. I personally have problems with understanding how an empty backpack could be detonated. But then, that could just be me. Usually my empty backpacks don’t detonate, but maybe they have come up with some new material that detonates on contact with the bomb squad. I dunno. My daughters are fine. They were calling me as I was calling them, all of us just trying to be sure the others were ok. :) I love my girls……

So, an interesting day. Not at all what we are use to happening in our neck of the woods either. Hopefully we won’t be revisiting any of these issues later. I really don’t won’t to be a new episode of the Twilight Zone, maybe a new episode of Star Trek! Yeah! That would work! Either way, I’m glad Friday is only a couple of days away. Hope you are having a much quieter week then we’ve had. Talk to you soon! Angela

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2 Comments

Posted in Adventures, OMG! Really?, venting

 

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

07 Jun

I have a problem. My problem is: I don’t like to unfriend people on Facebook. Normally.

I have a lot of friends on Facebook right now, currently I have about 700 friends total on Facebook. Around 600 of these are people I play games with and friends I have made internationally through the games. The other 100 or so are people who are everyday friends and family, some pretty close to me, others just from my ancient history.

Recently a friend that I have always enjoyed talking to but don’t talk to that often put an abrupt and lightly rude comment on one of my status updates. I occasionally use my status to ask my game friends for help. I also am kind of anal about cleaning up my wall with old requests from the game because I don’t like my own wall to be full of the requests all the time. The friend said my status updates were filling up her newsfeed, and we would no longer be friends because of that. However, she didn’t unfriend me. I replied and told her she could hide game requests in her feed from me and other people by right clicking on the remove X and choosing to block all of the posts from certain games if that would help. I didn’t understand how one status update was blocking her newsfeed.  She didn’t respond to my comment, so I just dropped it.

I have other friends that don’t play the games tell me that they don’t have any problems in their newfeeds with the stuff I post. It just was an out of the blue comment from someone I have always enjoyed talking with. The lack of response to me seemed odd too given that they seemed upset.

So, here I am. A few days later, wondering if I should unfriend them myself or not. Should I broach the subject with them or not? I really don’t talk to them more than 5 or 6 times a year. To be honest I am surprised it bothers me as much as it does. I guess I feel like I go to a lot of trouble for myself to clean up my own wall. I do like this person. It does seem rude to just jump on anyone’s wall and tell them you aren’t friends anymore because you are irritated about one of their posts, with no prior conversation about it or anything. In the long run I would like to just forget about it and get over it, but so far that hasn’t happened either. :) I guess I need to let it rest until I figure out why it is bothering me so much.

There are others I have unfriended simply because they asked to be my friend and never interacted with me at all for 2 or 3 years, even when I would contact them, and/or post a greeting on their wall. I finally came to the conclusion that they just wanted to see ‘how I turned out’ after a mean divorce I went through. So, click, click, click. Unfriended! And I didn’t feel bad about it at all. I have realized a couple of people from school have unfriended me too, but they never communicated with me so I didn’t feel any loss there either.

For now, I will just hide this friend from my feed until I figure out whether to try to talk to them again or just let it go. C’est la vi! Do you struggle with the unfriend thing too? How do you figure out what you want to do if a situation arises?

In the meantime, real life goes on doesn’t it? :) If this is the worst thing I deal with this week, it will be a good week! Hope your week is going well for you. Let me know, ok? Angela

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6 Comments

Posted in Ponderings

 

Soul Changes, part 2

21 Apr

A Transformed Creature

My last few posts have been more on the light and fun side. Today is a more serious topic. In an earlier post, Don’t Let it Change You in Your Soul, I wrote about feeling broken, fragmented. Trying to hold myself together and helping myself heal and recover. To think on better things than the things that have hurt me. Think instead on these things: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8) I do try to do that. I succeed most of the time. I am also coming to an understanding and a realization about myself too. I think it’s a good thing.

The divorce and the ensuing life changes it forced on me broke me for a little while. I guess it took a while for me to figure it out too. I would not have admitted this a couple of years ago, but for some reason now I know that it’s ok to do it. I am human, just like you….and whether you realize it or not that means we are fragile. We are breakable. We are fallible, and don’t want to admit it. In the earlier post I spoke of having a hard time recovering from some things. Part of it being hard I think was my inability to recognize that something in me had broken and my personality, or my soul, had changed from that break. I am recovering. And that is ok. One alternative would have been to go into a severe depression and be committed. Another alternative would have been to end my life. That is not an acceptable alternative. Both were things at different times during the early part of my separation and divorce that I thought about. I am grateful I never had to be committed. I am even more grateful I did not commit suicide. God sent people to me that helped me get through given moments that I could not get through myself, another thing I am grateful for.

Now I am recognizing I am different. I am changed. When I first noticed it I didn’t really feel like it was a good thing, hence some of the discussion I was having in the first post. I didn’t feel like the change was for the better. I apparently have a fear of change, so it has taken me a few weeks to realize the change isn’t bad. It’s just different. I am being more responsible with my own emotional care. I am different, but I like myself today. I am a kind person, I like to help others. I am not as naive as I used to be. I am also realizing I don’t always have to give all of me away to someone to help them. It isn’t necessary. I have always tended to be an all or nothing kinda girl. Now I am understanding that was not a very wise way for me to handle myself emotionally…. and I see that I can still help others without doing damage to myself.

I think I feel like this is selfish on some plane, so that is one reason I feel so weird about it. I do have compulsion issues. I am not an alcoholic, but definitely have the personality traits for that kind of behavior. The compulsive side of helping would have me so throw myself into helping someone else that I would get lost, not be able to say no. Boundaries help in these areas a lot. So I have learned to say no. Again. I learned this lesson many years ago, but because of the changes I am discussing I have had to relearn an old lesson.

So, what’s new with you? Has life forced any changes on you that you would probably not have chosen yourself? I say in my facebook profile: “I’m glad to be where I am now. If I had been asked, I probably wouldn’t have chosen the paths that led me here, but now that I am arriving, I know there was value in traveling down each one.” This is a very true statement for me. Hope you are seeing the value in your own journey as well. Til we meet again :) , Angela

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2 Comments

Posted in gratitude, Ponderings

 

Migraines & Taxes

12 Apr

Started out stormy....

 

Migraines or taxes, which one do you think are worse? Neither one are fun to deal with, and I unfortunately have had to deal with both this last week.  I am behind on everything I planned to do by now. Oh well.

I had a bad experience with my taxes last year, and it has caused me to delay my completion of them this year. Mostly I spent this past weekend putting the rest of everything together, then onto a website to complete the forms. I was a tax preparer for a few years, then moved on to other occupations. :) So I feel a little rusty working on them. I am also partly self employed, so I have a decent chunk of income I have to show expenses against. I do have a good bit of expenses to use, it just takes time to add everything up and find the right hole to plug the number in. I had worked on my ‘stuff’ gathering and had most of it done, but it still took 4 hours to finish and add everything up, with Boyfriend helping too I might add. I have a very nice and very patient Boyfriend, in case I haven’t mentioned that lately. I was a grumpy gus working on everything. He let me grumble and gus and kept right on helping me. That was Saturday.

Sunday was spent finding the website and plugging in the numbers we found on Saturday. Another 4 hours later adding numbers and checking and rechecking entries and according to the website I finally had no mistakes and I am ready to file. By this time my head was beginning to seriously hurt. I told Boyfriend I would send them off the next day, and closed the books for the evening. I have had some headaches off and on since last Tuesday.

Monday came and headache was still there. It was a long day. I had a couple of elderly customers come in for me to explain their insurance to them. I usually really enjoy this part of my job. They were a very nice elderly couple, only problem is the husband has dementia. He knows he does, and he knows he will probably forget everything I have told him by the time they get back out to their car. His wife and I had already spoken and gone over everything before they came in, she just needed my help for him too. I took my time and spent close to 2 hours going over their questions, several times. :) I was pretty worn out by the time they thought they had everything they needed. By then my head was seriously aching. When I have to talk a lot it makes the headaches worse. Le sigh. It was going to be a long day.

...but nice results in the end.

I also had an interesting event I was going to that night. A friend of mine started selling a product that helps you lose a few inches off of your waist overnight. It’s kind of a natural detox, she went through the whole explanation and procedure with several of us that had gathered for her product test run. I really did loose 3 inches in the middle of my waist, and 1 1/2 inches each off of my lower and upper belly too. You can contact her through her new website, heckyeahitworks if you are curious. If the site isn’t completely working yet, try back in a few days. It was interesting to see the results. I will let you know how long they last for me.

Anyway, after the ‘wrap party,’ as it was called :) , my head was SCREAMING at me….even thought about going to the hospital on my way home. But when I got in I drank a protein shake and took a quick bath and went to bed. The headache finally disappeared somewhere between 10 PM and 12:30 AM when I had to get up to go to the bathroom. Today has been better, but I am very sore from the headache, and a little scattered, which is a normal response to the headaches for me. I went almost 2 years with no migraines, and I was thrilled with that. Unfortunately I am having them a lot the last few months. My stress management has not been working I guess. February/March I had a 3 week migraine, and headaches off and on for most of the last week ending with this doozy of one last night. I am looking forward to my vacation in May. I really think I need it.

Hope you are doing better than this. :) I am doing better now thankfully. I do have a wonderful story about a lady named Shirley and that birthday party we went that I will share with you soon. April Fool’s weekend was a great weekend! Will catch you up next time, talk to you then, Angela

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Posted in Ponderings

 

Don’t Let it Change You in Your Soul…

22 Mar

Don’t let it turn you, the thing that changed your soul. It has the capacity to render you incapacitated. Heard this in a TV show.  That sentence seems funny to me… capacity… incapacitated…. both in the same sentence meaning something totally different. Words that are similar but different.  Don’t know why I laughed, but I did. My grandmother’s last name was laughter, but someone changed the way it was pronounced so it became Law-ter. Seems strange to me, but that’s what happened. I wonder if when whomever decided to change it had suffered a changing of their soul.

I feel fragmented. I feel like I’m in pieces instead of whole. I am drowning in my life and I’m not sure I can keep kicking to swim. Do I want to keep kicking? I think so. I don’t want to not be here. I just feel so very very tired a lot of the time. It’s not a fun feeling.  Have you ever had a thing happen to you that broke part of you? Something that hurt you so bad you couldn’t really recover from it? I have recovered from several soul wrenching things. But this time I feel weird, like it’s broke and I can’t fix it. I am disillusioned by church, by some friends, by ex husbands, by former bosses. But I don’t have to focus on these things, right? I can focus on better things if I will just remember to. Like the customer yesterday whom I’ve been working with for almost 2 years. He started out a belligerent man, a belligerent customer, upset with the changes in business that brought me to his office to be his agent. I worked on his policies to help if I could. I found things we could change that did help him, and I was able to help him again this year. His wife called me. She wanted to thank me for working so hard to help them. She really wanted me to know how much she appreciated me working to help them. It was a great call. Mostly I get the “why do I have to pay for insurance” kinda calls. So this one was really nice. I need to think on these things to encourage myself.

I read something earlier that I really, really liked:

Fly with those who see the power of your wings…..
4th January 2011 by melody under Everyday Brave

Fly with those who see the best in you.

Fly with those who inspire you to be better.

Fly with those who are going the direction that you want to go.

Fly with those who believe in riding the wind.

Fly with those who see the power of your wings………

It’s from brave girls club on line. Fly with those who see the power of your wings……Do I need to see it too to fly, or can I fly even in doubt? I’m not sure but I don’t think so. It sounds or reads so sappy or sad now that I am writing all this out….but that’s the way it is. My cheerleader capacity seems to be eluding me at the moment. I will ponder those things that are good in my life right now, including the good customers, instead of being stuck in a playback loop of all the junk I deal with. I can do this. And I want to.

I also want to sew my daughter’s apron this weekend, or at least get started on it. I have cut it all out, and even have the bias tape made. My next post will be all about that:). So I should be able to start sewing. We’ll see. It will be great. She is a ’50′s kinda gal and the apron is modeled after a vintage style with black and white fabrics she picked out, and  they look great together. I would have gone for way more color, but the patterns are nice and it really looks fantastic all laid out. I will also be blogging about the process of sewing the apron together. :) At least that is my intention.

Valentine Cookie

I also want to write and share my favorite cookie recipes from Christmas. I made a kick ass giant heart cookie for Boyfriend for Valentine’s day too. He ate every bit of it. It was over half a batch of dough. I’m glad he liked it.

I hope I stop being so easily discouraged. I struggle occasionally with depression, and the situations in my workplace are feeding the discouraged side more than the encouraged part gets fed. I am there 8 hours and 45 minutes five days a week. How do people keep going to a job they despise? How do we keep working in situations we hate? I’m not really sure at this point. I am not happy in my present situation. I keep hoping I will have the next great idea that will make me wealthy enough to not need to work there. Until then, I need to be able to pay my bills. So there I am. Another day, another dollar as my grandfather use to say. Le sigh.

I feel like I’ve changed, but not for the better. At least not yet. I want to have my hope renewed, my faith strengthened, my joy increased. I will keep working towards these ends. If you have any encouraging words for me, please feel free to share them. I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, g’nite all. Pleasant dreams……. Angela

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Acknowledgements: http://bravegirlsclub.com/
 
10 Comments

Posted in Ponderings, sewing

 

Almost Spring….

18 Mar

Flowers from a friend

Spring is officially a few days away.Today is a beautiful spring like day. The trees have all started budding leaves and flowers. The flowers themselves are starting to bloom. Nice weather. Had a lot of rain, but that will help things grow. Maybe I will take a walk around the neighborhood later.

I went to see Allison Lively this week. She does Iridology & Nutritional Counseling at Creative Health. I have been seeing her for a few years. Her advice always helps me stay on track. She wants me to keep drinking green drinks and change my diet so I stop stressing my liver and kidneys. I really went cra-a-a-zy with food after my gall bladder surgery last year and I have gained over 40 extra pounds to prove it. I have noticed new problems with fatigue and the migraines are back, so I knew it was time to talk to her again. As we were talking, I had a realization.

I grew up in a poor family. Lots of people did. I have never really had to work on portion control because I only had so much food I could eat. The reason being we didn’t have enough money to buy much food.  I ate what I could when I could.  My realization was that I have always felt deprived of food, and never trusted it to be around for long. Money is kind of the same way. This continued into my marriage, we always struggled with money. I was truly a coupon queen for years. It really helped me feed my family, and I still like using them. However, I still have the belief that food is not going to be around long, so I must eat, eat, eat while I can. Now, with Boyfriend in my life, eating is as simple as saying, “I’m hungry! Let’s go eat!” Out the door we go and food is soon in front of me (us). Easy peasy. :) I will never starve dating him. He’s great like that. So, my food situation has changed, it is very available to me now. However, my attitude with it has not, so I am still eating what I can when I can, I just have so many ‘can’ opportunities now there really isn’t a deprivation problem.

I  need to stop feeling this way about food. I need to stop shoving big piles of food down my throat like I’m not going to have anything to eat tomorrow. I have to stop feeding the part of me that thinks I will starve and start feeding the part of me that feels secure and happy. I don’t know why this is such a hard thing for me to do sometimes. Hmmmmmm…. I spoke about changes a few posts back, guess this is another I need to add to my to do list.

I want to do more with my life than just feed myself. But I haven’t done much else with it lately either. I am becoming a selfish person because I have felt deprived. I keep pushing myself into little tight spaces to feel like I’m in control but I’m not. The spaces I keep shoving myself into cannot contain me either. My desires and hopes and dreams are bigger than the space I am giving myself to live and work in. Other people sometimes put me in boxes for themselves and I was letting them. I thought it was just them doing this to me, but now I realize I have been letting them do this to me all this time, and now I have started doing it to myself. Lots of my job situations are like this, my marriage was like this as well. Wonder what I can do with this revelation? Looks like another hmmmmmmmm………, at least for now.

Well, more changes I need to make. Things to ponder and figure out. Spring seems to be a pretty good time for change….Will let you know if I have any further revelations. :) Thanks! Angela

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Posted in Food!, overcoming, Ponderings

 

I’m Not a Bartender….

02 Feb

007

I am an insurance agent. Yes, an insurance agent. Not a really cool bond type agent, you know, like: “Bond, James Bond…” No, I’m just a plain jane good ole insurance agent. As said agent I get to work with the public on a daily basis. They call in, they need a quote for a car. Would you believe we get calls for quotes for insurance for my blue car. Blue. Car. No make, model or year. Just blue. Really, I have had that call. I don’t insure the paint per-say, so no, I can’t tell you how much it would cost to insure the blue on your car. :)

Yesterday was a particularly weird and strange day. We have those on occasion. Everyone that came in had to talk to us, me and the nice lady I work with. Now, we are both agents, so that means either one of us can help you with whatever you got going on insurance wise. So, I work in an insurance office, and I’m an agent. Still following me right? Ok, I’m. An. Agent. So tell me. Why did everyone, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e … come in yesterday and immediately start telling us, both of us, their deepest, darkest problems and secrets? Not only did the ones coming in do this, even the ones calling in did this. We know all about their wife’s bladder problems, their dad’s flatulence issues. One has had a hip replacement, another replaced a knee. Two have congestive heart failure and don’t know what they are going to do about it. One has had several deaths in the family, one may have lupus, another even started talking to me about something so serious it scared me: she was molested as a child and is going through counseling for it.  Ok…… At no time did I or the other agent ask them any kind of question related to any of these things. They just start talking like we’ve had a conversation going on about all this stuff. In. One. Day!  OMG!!!!!!!!!

Vino

Seriously, this all happened yesterday….. Again, I will state: I am an insurance agent. Period. I am not a counselor, nor am I your neighborhood bartender. I’m very sorry you have problems, however I do not want to hear about them. I cannot help you with them. I have my own problems to deal with, and usually family and friends in crisis. So, really? You have to walk in and just start word vomiting all over me? Bleeeccchhhhh……

I do feel bad for people, but come on. And why did everyone come in or call in on one day acting like this? I don’t know which star is misaligned with which planet, but LAWD! I will be glad when it fixes itself….and for my sanity it better be soon!

So, here’s to hoping the rest of this week goes better, much better, than yesterday. Man….I need some wine. Wanna join me? Later! Angela

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Posted in humor, OMG! Really?, venting

 

The Anxiety of Creation

07 Jan

What have you been put on this earth to do? What creative thing do you yearn to put out there but fear pulls you back from that creation, time and time again? Do creativity and artistry always lead to anguish? What can we do to keep ourselves from leeching down a dark path of destruction of doubt and fear? How can I create a safe distance from my anxiety to keep it at a bay, to keep it from choking the life out of my creation?

We can create a psychological distance to protect us from the anxiety associated with our work. Anxiety that asks: will it be good enough? Will anyone like it? Will anyone comment? So, how can we protect ourselves? First, take the pressure off and realize that whoever you are, whatever you do, you are here for a reason. You are here on purpose. What you have to say and what you think matters. You have been put here to express yourself in a loving way to the world, and to share those things that interest you as you feel led to share them.  The fear that tells you that you can’t do it, you don’t matter, nobody cares what you think….who do you think you are! These are False Evidence Appearing Real, F-E-A-R. They are all lies, they are not real. You can talk to your fears and doubts and to your emotions and tell them to all shut up and stop lying to you. Why should you do this?

Because…….. you are a beautiful creation made with love and created with a purpose to shine love and light and fun and laughter in this world. Don’t follow the path to the dark alleys of fear and doubt. Just do what you were created to do: SHINE! And share you words when they come, even if you are just using the computer you probably have in your hand (your new cell phone maybe?). Write something when the fire strikes and use it for your next post, or email, or Facebook status. Then again, what about the times when inspiration comes and you don’t have the time to stop, drop and write? Then speak to the inspiration the way I told you to speak to the emotions. Remind it that it needs to show up at appropriate moments if it wants to be shared. If it wants to live, then it will begin to show up when you can craft it and work with it. Don’t sit there and tell me that will never work, at least try it a few times first to see if I wrong. Don’t be afraid to try.

Ruth Stone

I heard a lovely story about a modern American poet, Ruth Stone, who is over 90 now. She believes her poetry has a life of it’s own, and this is how she says her poems came to be. When she was working in the fields, she would feel and hear a poem coming at her, like a thunderous train of air over the land she was working on. She would feel the ground tremble and shake beneath her feet as this thing was barreling down on her! She knew she had only one thing to do: run like hell for the house! She had to find a paper and pencil fast enough to write down this thunderous thing headed her way. She had to be fast enough to capture it when it barreled through her. Sometimes, she said, she wouldn’t be fast enough and the poem would barrel on through and past her continuing across the land looking for another poet. She caught many of these thundering words and crafted them into wonderful poems. Maybe now she could talk to the thundering air and tell it to give her time to write it down. :) That’s what I’m gonna try.

I hope this encourages you to keep on trying. I am trying to encourage myself as well. Don’t give up because you don’t think you have anything worth creating. You have great value, and what you have to share does too. Have a great day! Angela

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Posted in overcoming, Ponderings

 

December…

06 Jan

Apparently, December was not the month for me to blog.  :(   My daughter’s recovery from surgery lasted 6 weeks instead of the 7-10 days the doctor told her to prepare for. We got through it, and she was finally released from the doctor’s care on December 30. It was an interesting month, plus as you are all familiar with we had the usual holiday preparations and activities. Whew! I am really glad it’s over! I do have a few favorite cookie recipes I will be sharing soon, and as in November we had another successful Turkey roast for Christmas day as well. :)

December Sunset

December was actually a lot of fun. My friend had a wonderful open house early on for the holidays, and it was absolutely fabulous! She and her husband have had this event for several years, and we ended the night by playing games for hours. Had a beautiful snow on Christmas day, which was a real surprise. We haven’t had a white Christmas in these parts since 1963. Got to spend lots of time with my family. One daughter and family live close enough to be with us on Christmas Day. Grandkids and presents and food, what a great combination!  My son and my dad were snowed in, but I go to see them on New Year’s day. Another day of Grands and food and fun, oh my!  New Year’s eve is also my birthday, and we had a blast with some close friends for that too. So there was a lot going on and we did get to enjoy a lot of December.

I also spent a good deal of time contemplating some things. I lost a friend last year right before the holidays, and since she had been in my life for more than 20 years I was thinking about her some this year. I have a wonderful friend that is in France for 1 or 2 years with her husband’s job. We use to talk every day or two, but now I leave her a message or she leaves me one, and we’ve only been able to talk twice in about 3 months. She and I touch base on Facebook and it’s nice to share their adventures that way, but I do miss talking with her. I am very happy and blessed with my friends here too, but seems we are all going through ‘stuff!’ right now. Sometimes it’s just hard to talk. I guess that’s why I didn’t blog more. It’s written talk, and I just didn’t have it in me to talk much lately.

I still have a quilt to finish, and will post pictures when I have that done too. It’s a brand new year and I’ve got lots of great plans for it! Hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season with your friends and loved ones. I also hope and pray for you to have the best year of your life in 2011! Talk to you soon, Angela

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Posted in Family, Friendship, Ponderings

 

Getting My Crafty Back

25 Oct
My log cabin block for sampler quilt

Log Cabin Block

I have decided it is time to overcome my apparent new fear of sewing. I tried to start my own alterations business a couple of years ago, and realized pretty soon into it that the stress was making it impossible for me to sew. Now, understand here, I am no newbie to sewing.  I have been machine sewing for 30 years. I was a hand sewer as a child for about 10 years. I made Barbie doll clothes and sold them for $1.00 each and a SASE, which is a self addressed stamped envelope, thank you. That was from about 8-13 I think. Then I started sewing dolls and animals at about 11 or 12. I kept some, and sold a couple and gave a few away. No big bucks here, but I knew how to sew and enjoyed making things. I grew up and continued my sewing career, making clothes for my children and myself as well as regularly making gifts for family and friends at Christmas or birthdays too.

Additional blocks for sampler quilt

More blocks for sampler quilt

Fast forward to the last few of years where any kind of sewing beyond replacing buttons would practically give me a panic attack! I missed the feeling of accomplishment that I would get with a finished project, feeling good about my ability to create. I seriously wanted to get my crafty back! So, after several conversations with family and friends and Boyfriend, I decided to take a sewing class. A sampler quilting class to be exact. Here are a couple of photos of completed blocks…log cabin, nine patch and rail fence are the 3 blocks shown. I will have 9 different blocks done for this sampler when the class is finished. I will share more pictures as I complete the new blocks. The only thing is it’s still kinda scary to me to be sewing again. I feel more like it’s an “Angela get your crafty back” recovery class instead of a quilting class. I dunno. Maybe it can be both.

I am still not sure what caused my problems. Have you ever had ‘sewing block’ or ‘writer’s block’ yourself? How did you overcome it? I would love to hear your stories too, leave a comment and tell me all about it! I know when I went through my divorce it definitely made me feel insecure in lots of ways, so that may have been part of my problem. I’m not sure. But even though I’m still feeling nervous about this some of the time I am really sure I enjoy sewing again, and hope to continue past this project. Again, let me know how you deal with your insecurities too. I would love to chew the fat with you about it! Thanks! See you soon, Angela

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