Friday, March 2, 2018

February Goals Into March Goals and Then Some

Okay, I know February only has 28 days (unless it's a leap year, of course), but this year February felt like it blew by.  I guess being away for 8 days made it feel even shorter. The nice thing is that the dates fall on the same day of the week (when February is 28 days long) so March feels like an extended dance-remix version, and I'm using it as such because I didn't quite manage to get everything I'd wanted to accomplished in February.

I did make kombucha and kimchi, but I didn't have the time to make beer.

I didn't finish my Kate Davies cardigan, but I did "bang out a Carbeth."

I did not deal with the dress shirt.

So March's 3 goals will look a little familiar:

1. Project to Finish (WIP): Yep, still Kate Davies's Bláithín cardigan. I may have to lower my grosgrain tape desires; I've found it hard to find some cute tape to back the button bands.

2. Fix/Remake/or Let Go: I'm going to deal with that dress shirt.
 
3. Get Started On:  I'm going to make some beer. Yes, I will. I'm also going to start sewing the Schoolhouse Tunic, a pattern I've long coveted but could never quite pull the trigger on until yesterday.
Photo from Sew Liberated
I have no issue acknowledging that the combination of a discount and a sew-along over the month of March encouraged me.

It's been a good year so far. I've had one story accepted for publication (although I have no idea when that publication will come out), and another story was a finalist for a fiction prize. I'll post links when they're published.

So, last night, as I gleefully joined yet another KAL (this time for the Brae Cove tunic, for which I plan to dye some yarn from my stash), I suddenly wondered if I were getting ahead of myself. Was I taking on too much? I'm leading another KAL (for Squam), for which I also have the yarn but have a generous deadline of June, and I have some writing and other creative projects simmering.

Then I realized what was going on. I'm in the second half of the term, which is generally less work for me as they're working on larger projects, and I'd just finished grading a major mid-term project for one class. So there's a sense of having some time. But what's really at play here is that I don't have any overwhelming art deadlines right now, and that's of our own making. 2018 was dubbed Project: Life, where we weren't going to try to make new art (working on showing what we've made) and instead would focus on taking care of the other projects in our lives. Holy cow! It was a revelation!

It's not as though my life was always like 2017, but last year really took us to the mat and kind of made us forget how we lived before. In the future, I'm striving for a more sane balance among the many projects I undertake. Right now, however, I feel like I'm on fire, and I'm going with it! Why not?

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