One of the reasons I didn’t know I had ADD until my thirties is because I functioned well as a student. I could organize myself around deadlines and wanted to excel and did. Except for freshman year of college, once I left home there were always jobs, too — providing more structure.
Nineteen of the first thirty years of my life were spent attending school.
The free-for-all business of raising two “highly active” boys was another matter altogether. When the younger son was tested for ADD, we checked all the same boxes.
Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare. Ed Asner
So now I know.
Next Wednesday (five days from now) is the first of my “Last Wednesday” Etsy store updates. It’s an experiment in promotion and setting deadlines. All of a sudden, I have a half dozen quilts to finish!
I probably will, even though my brand of ADD makes finishing things waaaaaay harder than starting them. So stay tuned!
Now if only I could impose a deadline for a first draft. Or rather (since I’ve done so multiple times), if only I could impose one that worked.
“a path through the trees” in Chilmark, shot with the Sketchbook Project in mind (I missed the deadline! Wasn’t thinking about it at all! And I don’t care!!!)…
Since being back from a weekend on the Vineyard, where the senses were feted by sea and rock and trees and food and friends, where the clutching concerns of daily life had a chance to relax, I am feeling things in my gut. Tending to one’s gut can be instructive. If I feel a little sick, as I have many times the last three mornings, I adjust what is right before me until I don’t. This may be a faint bug asserting itself, but I more than half-wish it weren’t – I could use a feedback loop this insistent and obvious!
I’ve slowed a bit here. Hurried other places. Quilting a lot. Working on creating new teaching gig, selling gig, and also tending to parental responsibilities.
Today, a two-man crew fixed our picket fence, and installed a gate where there had been none – in between the house and garage. Now, the fence makes a ring around the backyard. An enclosure. Come spring, I will be able to garden out back with Jack and not worry about where he has trotted off to. The renovation/repair echoes weekend discussions about boundaries. Here is a novel way to view boundaries:
A boundary is a region, not a line. It has the effect of defining what is included, as well as what is excluded. In fact, it is a place of meeting and connection, for it’s where your edges meet mine… We don’t know much about boundaries. Most of us have been taught to withhold ourselves behind invisible barriers… what we need to do is to find our edges and expand our awareness, to go deeper into our bodies. This doesn’t mean shutting someone else out. It means letting your needs in…
From, “No Enemies Within — A Creative Process for Discovering What’s Right about What’s Wrong” by Dawna Markova.
I love the idea that tending one’s boundary is about discovering one’s needs and including them, and not necessarily about keeping others out! Going deeper into the body is a challenge, and one I feel ready to embrace. I take a quote off the wall from the chiropractor’s office visited on Tuesday as further inspiration. The article pointed out that ‘even 10 minute bursts of activity provide the benefits of exercise’.
So, 10 minute bursts, here I come! Stomach geiger-counter, I’m listening! Sketchbook Project – you will stay home this year!
What are all those things I’ve said about self-acceptance and self-forgiveness?!! Would somebody please remind me right about now?!
I am meeting with a shop owner tomorrow (TOMORROW). She is coming here (HERE!!). She says she won’t even notice any mess (oh, really?!).
I should have already sorted through my inventory with a critical eye, asking — Can I bear to make more of these? Is this completely and totally a one-of-a-kind item (most of my stuff is), and if so, can I price it ‘wholesale’ and still live with what I’d make on the piece?
I was going to make a Kitchen Angel and finish a headless doll that I’m going to be proud of.
(To be fair, I ‘drew’ many faces for the doll and embroidered two, and none are right yet).
My first and only venture with shop selling was last year in a five-week holiday shop in Brookline. It was a bust. Some selling ventures are. I accept that. But here’s the thing, I spent TWO FULL MORNINGS preparing an inventory, working with the price tags (they were taking 40%, so I had to raise most of the prices at least a little), boxing my work and driving it there or picking it up. That’s roughly 8 hours. I sold six items (one small quilt, five pillows) and my take? $126.00. That is about enough to cover the work of prepping for the event. I forget what I paid to ‘enter’ my work into their jury.
That’s obviously not sustainable. In that case, the query, “Was it worth it?” was a resounding NO, even BEFORE I took into account labor and materials, which somehow or other, I OFTEN do not take into account (and that is just wrong).
So, while I’ve been busy with other things (lots of other things), and my ambivalence about the possible venture is getting in my way, I ought to have been further along than I am in prepping for this meeting.
One of the reasons I didn’t know I had ADD until my thirties is because I functioned well as a student. I could organize myself around deadlines and wanted to excel and did. Except for freshman year of college, once I left home there were always jobs, too — providing more structure.
The free-for-all business of raising two “highly active” boys was another matter altogether. When the younger son was tested for ADD, we checked all the same boxes.
Next Wednesday (five days from now) is the first of my “Last Wednesday” Etsy store updates. It’s an experiment in promotion and setting deadlines. All of a sudden, I have a half dozen quilts to finish!
Now if only I could impose a deadline for a first draft. Or rather (since I’ve done so multiple times), if only I could impose one that worked.
