Welcome Challenges!

It's been over a month since my last post. In that time I did finish my book manuscript (BIG WHOO-HOOO!) and managed to do a birthday party for my now five year old son as well as submit some mini quilts for the next Sew Somerset publication. It's been all about getting it done this month. Here are some of the other new challenges for this coming year.

New Challenge #1-Remodel our Basement! My husband and I ripped out the carpet in our lower level and had hardwood floors installed. This was a project that we hadn't planned, it came as the result of some pretty nasty allergy problems we were all experiencing, but I'm still excited by it. We took the opportunity to cull our book collection, the piles at right are what's left (I took them out of the bookcases to vacuum the dust off them). We are also going to get rid of the nasty old hand me down furniture we had down there. I think that some of it was my husband's parents first furniture. When we were doing the newly married- don't have anything- thing it was great to have any furniture at all but now we'd like to update. So a basement redo is in the works. I'll keep you posted!

New Challenge #2- Back to LIFE! I had a bit of a crisis when I realized that I didn't need to spend every waking moment on the book any longer. It was the set task every day and at the end everything else in life was put on hold. So the moment I emerged from that task I was faced with a large array of others that needed my attention- NOW! I've been trying to find a balance again but it's been difficult. When I was in kindergarten I had major surgery that kept me in a hospital bed for several weeks. I actually forgot how to move my muscles to walk during that time and to learn again I tried hard to focus on the action of one foot in front of another. Learning how to do something again that was first learned naturally and taken for granted is hard. We want to think it all out but that's not how we learned in the first place.

Emerging from this book project has been somewhat similar. I know I used to know how to plan all the meals, balance play dates, shopping, exercise, time with the family, cleaning and laundry during my day but for the life of me I can't remember how now. It seems daunting. So finding balance again is going to be another challenge to meet. If I figure out any tricks I'll let you know- we could all use the help right? If you have any advice on this I'd love to hear from you too!

New Challenge #3- Getting Crafty! Before the book releases I want to have a website up and running and a kick-ass blog. I'm envisioning lots and lots of tutorials as well as some of the personal writing like I love to read in others blogs. I've also just signed on to teach a class locally at The Studio at Rush Creek. I'll post more about that soon. They'll also be carrying some of my work on consignment. The thing I'm most excited about however, is getting back to work! Spending time in the studio and getting to follow a few of the mad thoughts that plague me (like what if I tried combining a wire bird cage, a vinyl decal of a bird, and an old metal tray). I developed some projects for the book that I've just been dying to play with and take a little further as well. PLUS I'll be adding a lot of new products to my etsy site in the next month or so and I can't wait to see what you all think!

Life is grand- don't you think?