Thursday, May 19, 2011

Help, I'm a project Junkie!

Hello, my name is Lani and I'm a project junkie.  I'm beginning to think I need someone to save me from myself.  Seriously!  We are thrifty people, DIY-ers mostly because we've had to be.  We're pretty handy and mostly we've been able to accomplish our projects with satisfaction.  We've done renno's, upholstered, changed things, planned, dreamed and made it happen.  Unfortunately there's this little thing called life that keeps getting in the way of the fun projects that we want to do and makes us do boring projects that we HAVE to do, like bookkeeping and taxes.

I absolutely love a good project, give me a great topic to speak on and I will do hours of research to get it done.  Give me beautiful fabrics and I'll whip up something amazing and useful.  Give me a can of paint and I'll brighten up a room.  Yup, I love, love, love bringing out the beauty in things and putting it all around me, but right now I'm a little overwhelmed with all our dreams and plans.  They're good and we'll get there eventually, I'm just afraid I might be too tired or old to enjoy it!

Because of the lifestyle we want for ourselves and our kids (living off our land)we are preparing for livestock.  We were given an old chicken barn that we moved to our yard and are slowly but surely getting it ready to bring in our livestock - goats, cows, pigs and chickens.  This also involves fencing, trenching, rock-picking, etc.

Our house is in need of some tender loving care so I'm in the process of painting our basement and eventually the kitchen, hallways, doors and trim.  While doing the basement we decided it would be much less expensive to re-upholster the couches we have downstairs than to buy new ones (which we don't have the money for anyway).  I've got the fabric (at an excellent bargain I might add) and now it sits there staring at me, begging me to make my sad old couches look beautiful again (again - cause we've done this before).

Also on my sewing table is a quilt that was supposed to be done for my son's 12th birthday that still needs binding, he just asked me if it would ever get finished (his 13th birthday is in 3 months).  His little sister's quilt is still on the quilt rack waiting for me to finish tying and hand-quilting - it's been on there for almost a year, too!  I probably shouldn't mention that I have another 12th birthday quilt that needs to be done for next April that I haven't started yet.

Then I have this boy that's really hard to fit.  He needs PJ pants, so I picked up inexpensive fabric to make him some - way cheaper and better quality than store bought.  But I still have to actually do it.   Sitting next to that is a beautiful old doll that someone asked me to make clothes for, she still needs three more outfits.

MEANWHILE - the whole out of door business awaits - huge, gigantor gardens to be planted and tended, flower beds to fight with and we're not quite done seeding yet so my dear husband is mostly unavailable.

AND THEN - all the regular stuff has to keep happening.  You know, little things like laundry, cooking, baking, cleaning, ball practices and games, Sunday school, youth group and did I mention I have 6 kids?  We've got homeschool reports to finish up, piano recital and worship team practice to fit in.  Counselling trips to the city and helping out my parents as much as we can.

I absolutely will not mention that the kitchen, hallways, doors and trim on the main floor are quite in need of paint as is the bathroom - which I have the paint for...it just needs to be done.  And I won't tell you that when I cleaned my sewing area the other day I put together 4 beautiful little piles of fabric that are just begging to be made into quilts, or my 'new-to-me' serger that isn't out of the box yet that needs to get used on a bunch of mending that's waiting right next to the ironing.

Too many projects and not enough of me.  All the projects I don't like (like gardening and pretty much most things outside) keep pressing in on me and I have to shove off the projects I would love to do...like making all those quilts!

How to manage it all and not go crazy or just drop over from exhaustion, I haven't quite figured out...maybe someday, in the meantime  maybe I'll work on that book I started awhile ago...

1 comment:

Marcy Payne said...

Lani!! I saw you put your blog on Moms Relate! Awesome!

I know what you mean by projects. I'm not one that LOVES projects, but as a mom and a person in general there are always way too many to do and too few hours to do them. I too need to paint my house, but Richard is taking off two weeks to get some done. I hate gardening too but would do it if I had space here. I love the food, just not the weeding. I don't sew but I have other projects that I would LOVE to get to. Not in the next decade probably. I think there comes a time where priorities kick in and we do what we HAVE to. Other times we need a break and then we can do what we WANT to. Oh it's so hard to balance it all!! I was giving myself a lecture this morning on it all. LOL! Above all, in whatever we do, we do it for Christ. The rest is just chaff.