Goals

I work full-time, forty hours a week plus five hours of driving to and from. I have a time-intensive church calling. I am the designated errand-runner and grocery-shopper. I am the designated house-cleaner and laundry-starter and folder. Due to our opposite schedules, I am the weekend-cooker. (I could say "weekend chef" but that would be giving myself way too much credit.) I have a husband who needs a certain amount of attention. (And, granted, probably doesn't get enough.)

The point is, I have a lot of stuff I have to do and not a lot of time left over for big (cleaning, organizing, fun, scrapbooking, sewing) projects. I do not, as a rule, have large chunks of time for, well, anything.

(I should post this disclaimer on the front door!)

Wait, where was I going with this? I got distracted!

Oh, yeah! My point is, while I would rather have long stretches of time for projects, the fact of the matter is that I have to break things down, sometimes into teeny tiny chunks.

Take the t-shirt quilt as an example. I was getting really frustrated that I was not busting through that pile of t-shirts fast enough. I had done one small session, then worked on them some more while waiting for the cable guy (don't get me started on that subject!) and later, cut a few more. Then I looked at the pile every time I walked by it on the way to do something else (something less fun, I might add!)

At that point I decided that I needed to break things down into really small (doable) steps. I set a goal to cut two t-shirts per day for the next week. That would leave seven to cut on Saturday. Just setting that little goal energized the whole process. I knew that no matter how busy my day was, that I could spare enough time to cut just two shirts. It worked like a charm! One day I even had time to cut four shirts, which worked out well because the next day I didn't have time to do any, but at that point, I was still on track. When I got to the weekend, the pile was really small, and I knew I could finish it off, and I did.

In the midst of being frustrated by my lack of project time, I read a blogger that said she only has 45 minutes a week to sew so she has to make the most of her time. I found that comforting. And inspiring. Then I read another blogger who said that she allows herself to sew for 30 minutes a day, guilt free. Also inspiring.

So that is my aim. To carve out those short spans of time and make them count for something.