July is halfway over, and circumstances are feeling messy. As many of you know, I’m taking this month to recuperate, regroup, and reset, and right now, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. While I’m writing this, my office/sewing space is kind of exploded with a project I’m working on. My intention was to have it ready to post this week, but that is not what has happened. I have rediscovered my dislike for installing invisible zippers, and I seem to be having an issue correctly installing pockets with French seams. While this could prove frustrating, it’s honestly just making me laugh. I’m certain that over the next couple of days I will have a moment where I’m uncertain how to cope the neckline facing and stare at my fabrics like they will magically behave without intervention on my part. As these observations make me smile, it is apparent that my choice to basically halt in July is proving to be the best thing I could have done for myself. Now is a good time to check-in with how things are progressing.

Recuperating

I’m getting my morning tea! This is really nice. The other nice part of it is that I get to listen to our bird babies chirping to themselves. This is helping me stay in a more mindful state, and it helps me remember to just take a pause every hour or so to stretch. I am also remembering to start winding down earlier. To be honest, I’m really, really not good at this. Some nights are still not great, but I appreciate how my days are more mindful and hopefully I will be able to continue this practise.

Regrouping

HA! I am having the worst time with this. While I have started assessing my space and getting some of my things sorted, I am actively avoiding building my task list and ignoring any task list I write. I also keep feeling like I have very little to empty of out of my brain. What I think is happening is that by giving myself permission to slow down, everything is feeling much less frantic. I’ve been spending a fair bit of time slow stitching. None of my slow stitching projects have really gotten any of my attention because they don’t make for easier content. They are much more of a “just for me” type of project. My EPP project is coming along nicely and I’ve been able to revive a needlepoint project I started years ago. These projects have helped me figure out how I want spend my project time going forward. We are going to go to a charity quilting meeting this weekend, and hopefully it will be a group I want to get involved with going forward. Stay tuned for additional updates.

Resetting

This has been a bit of a mixed bag. The thing I have done the most of is involving myself in more social situations. This is has been wonderful, but it’s also made things feel a bit messy. I’m re-learning how to balance this against my workload. The tubing and game nights probably have done more for my mental state than anything else on this list, even if they’re adding a bit to my messy feelings. I feel calmer and happier. Taking this time has been healing for me.

What I’m Noticing

Compassionate self-forgiveness is coming more naturally as I’ve given myself permission to do as much or as little as I can in a given day. Our kitchen is still in a bit of a shamble from this weekend, and we’re probably leaning on take out a bit more than we should, but for right now, I’m just rolling with it. We’ve also gotten to spend some time tubing with our friends. If we had been thinking about it, we would have taken pictures, but that was not at the forefront of our minds. This month is keeping me in the moment, and that’s keeping me sane. My brain feels less cluttered even if our living space isn’t perfectly clean or organised. I’m enjoying my time with our pets and the people in our life. It reminds me of the things that are really important to me, and I’m a more content person. It’s re-framing what accomplished means to me. It feels good.

My latest weekly spread. This has actually worked better than any of the other spreads I’ve used recently. This is from the beginning of my week, and it’s much messier now.