deadlines
When the wonderfully long and lazy days of summer draw to a close and it's time to climb back on the proverbial treadmill, I'm ready. I'm sick to death of the heat and humidity. I have almost run out of the baby powder that I've been hopelessly dusting myself with every morning for a month - so that my hair doesn't stick to my neck and my legs don't stick to each other when I cross them. I'm sad looking out at my parched garden, because no matter how much I seem to water, everything is so desperately dry and droopy. I'm mad and itchy because I have poison ivy - again. My summer wardrobe has become a total bore - I've repeated the same 3 sleeveless blouses so many times I never want to see them again. But mostly, I'm ready to be productive and for everyone to get back on a schedule.
The reality of the treadmill hits pretty quickly - the kids have homework from the first day of school, work projects always seem to come with unreasonable schedules, and deadlines always come too soon. But let's be real people, there is nothing like a big, hot cup of coffee and a deadline to snap you into creative overdrive. As stressful as they are - I've come to love them.
This year, my summer ended early. I received a submission call for a toddler knits book the day before I left for vacation. Since there is really nothing I would rather do than come up with little knits for little people, I made a beeline to Knitty City in search of yarn to swatch and then spent 2 glorious weeks at the beach racing toward a delightfully unexpected deadline.
Once I got to the house, I unpacked up all of my stitchionaries and decided I would come up with one swatch/design per day (because what's better than setting unreasonable goals when you're on vacation?). I poured through them over and over and over every morning, and often again in the middle of the night. I did manage to stick to my schedule for the first week. If I wasn't knitting by noon, I would force myself to make a decision and get going. By the end of the week, I had a nice little pile of swatches - some of which had possibilities, others which had to be scrapped - because they were either too tortuous to knit or ridiculously complex for baby knits. On the first day of Week 2, I came up with an elaborate cable idea which was a real stumper - and the goal fell completely apart. I worked on that little swatch every $&!#ing day for hours, ignoring my family, ripping and swatching, and ripping and swatching. Agony. I should have let it go long before I did.
Lessons learned (and notes to self):
Possibilities are endless. Go with your gut. Make a decision. Just do it.
Push yourself. Get the obvious out of the way and you'll find something interesting.
Sleep on it. Possibilities miraculously multiply in the night and everything looks different in the morning.
A simple answer can be the best answer.
There is never enough time.
I really don't deserve my family.