a little of this, a little of that

Where does the time go? I woke up filled with all this energy as to what I was going to accomplish yesterday. That’s how most of my days typically start, with a bunch of motivation to tackle all these creative pursuits and unfinished projects. But then real life takes over and the day-to-day things – the chores, the homeschooling, the calls and the errands, the unexpected visitors who drop by, the extra freelance work that I picked up – they all take up bits of time here and there, until I realize that more crafty things that I wanted to accomplish still lay untouched. By the time the day was almost over, I sat down to look over my “to-do” list and was shocked (for some reason) to see how little had been done! Of course, I’m sure the same thing could be said for any busy mother with young children. When people ask what I wish my superpower could be, I always tell them I wish I could stop time for everyone else but me for about 2 weeks. In that time, I would catch up on all the stacks of paper, emails, crafts, cleaning, errands, reading, and everything else that ends up getting put aside for yet another day.

I probably should have made the rest of the day productive, but instead I decided to let everything slide, if just for one day. I sat down with my kids and joined them in their game of Minecraft for a little while, something that I usually never do. My eldest son was so happy – he started chatting with me through the chat box, and I found that he was so much more expressive through writing than with talking. Go figure that I’d learn something new about my son from a game of Minecraft! It reminded me that there are opportunities all over to connect with my children. When I finally had to disconnect, he was so disappointed that I promised I’d join in again after I had gotten some work done, and he gave me a hug and agreed that he would love that. So I have a date later that evening with my little one, and we have another time scheduled for later today!

We had a water pipe break that had to be dug up in my yard this weekend. Through the four or five feet of snow, a bulldozer plowed right through and dug a good eight feet or so in the back of the yard. Part of me was aghast that the grass was ripped right off and tossed on top of the snow piles, but the other part of me was secretly thrilled that the bulldozer was turning over all the soil that would have needed to be dug come spring. It feels like we’re miles away from spring right now. It’s even been too cold to snow! But we had a couple of sunny days over the weekend, and with the sun streaming in through the windows and the heat blasting, I did my best to pretend that it was a warm summer day spent indoors. It worked for a little while!

With all these distractions, I’ve fallen behind on all my crochet things. I joined another swap on Ravelry, and have a couple of projects in the works for upcoming birthdays. There was (another) request from my youngest to crochet him up his newest imaginary creature. And with the Grateful Dead 50th Anniversary shows up ahead, I thought I would stitch up a few bags to celebrate. Making them has taken me back to 20 years ago, when I sat in my old room in the attic at my mom’s house. I didn’t crochet much back then but I used to macramé hemp necklaces and make woven bracelets and love beads to sell at the shows. A lot has changed since then, but not my love of crafty things.

As for the bags, I have a couple waiting to be lined, and am writing up a pattern for anyone who might want to make their own. My hope is to have a few in my very much neglected etsy store in the next week or so. They’re so much fun to make, and so cute when they’re finished. I’m going to have a hard time deciding which ones to sell – I want to keep them all!

~Mellie ★