Getting Back At It!

I've been thinking about my blog recently, or rather my lack of blogging. It's not for lack of things to say, but rather for saying so much all the time in the shop that I tend to forget that you all are not really able to hear me. I really need to work on this.

I've had an interesting past few months. Over the new year, John and I took a bit of time off and reassessed. Every year, we list our goals for the year... all kinds of things, but I especially list out our shop and my fiber goals. Usually, it's fun and inspiring, and we end up patting ourselves on the back, if only for a few moments.

This year was different. We had things like, "make shop repairs, set up online store, finalize and print shop brochure, weave using handspun stash...." the list was long and specific. When we went through it, we found that we had not achieved one, not one, of our goals for this past year! WOW, that was pretty shocking. And then it became somewhat humorous. We know we are busy like crazy people and accomplish a great deal with our time, but what had we done??

Well, for me, I had gotten distracted by each new shiny object, each new pattern, yarn, fiber that came into my vision, and gave up my mind to it. All was not lost... I made some lovely yarns, woven pieces, knitted/crocheted items. I'm pleased that I worked on all of them!

But in view of all this, we decided to reassess. Did the goals make sense? What should we be working on to grow the shop, grow our skills, enrich our lives? And to that end, I made a journal. We listed all those things that we absolutely HAD to work on this year, needed to get done and those things we wanted to learn. It was liberating, in that we were without distractions. The items we listed we wanted to do were specific, fun, meaningful to us!

Now, every day, I write in the journal what we did to advance towards completing our goals (you've read before that I am organized?? lol). funny thing, though, about all this... we have gotten more done towards the things we consider 'important' than in the whole year before. I've gotten weaving done that I've wanted to do 'forever', This will become a summer top out of handspun cotton/silk warp and handspun hemp weft. The yarns have been sitting in a tub for over 12 years.

I've spun nearly every day, gotten a couple of knitted items completed, but mostly just find that the overall 'zen' of lives is where we need it to be because we're not chasing every new shiny object that comes into our pervue. Focus is awesome and I highly recommend it, whether you focus your year on fair isle, lace knitting, weaving with perfect selvedges, spinning a big fluffy yarn. Whatever...

Set your goals, track them, and you will be amazed at what you achieve!