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Sunday, April 13, 2008
Oh...and...
We had a very pretty morning a few days ago and as I was cleaning photos off my camera in preparation for my trip I forgot I'd taken some of a young Japanese maple in our backyard in the morning sun...
On the road again...
I'm writing this just a few hours before our family is boarding a plane to London for spring break. My husband and I had always planned that we'd go to Europe for our 20th anniversary. Said 20th anniversary was this past fall--and when time came to actually plan our trip we realized that we really only probably have a couple of years left of the proverbial "family vacation"--kids n' all, as our son is a junior in high school and our daughter is a freshman. So we shifted our plans a little bit, adjusted our savings plan, and the kids are coming with us on the trip. It may not be the traditional romantic anniversary get-away but it has its own romance--after all, our kids are the product of our 20-year-long odyssey together so it only seems appropriate they be part of our anniversary celebration. Besides, we'll have plenty of time for romantic get-aways once the kids don't want to be tagging along with Mom and Dad on vacations anymore.
What does all this have to do with quilting? Admittedly, not a lot. In fact, my life has had little to do with quilting lately. I finally recovered from my illness, had a couple of productive weeks of good health and dabbling my toes in sewing here and there, and then Mom ended up in ER and having emergency surgery...and everything else fell by the wayside again.
However, I did have the foresight to use my upcoming week-long absence as an opportunity to have my machine serviced so I dropped it off for a cleaning and general tune-up a couple of days ago--first time I've had anything done to it since I bought it a few years ago so it's about time. But other than that, I've had to be OK with the fact that I wasn't getting any quilting done. It wasn't so much not having the time as it was not having the energy and, therefore, no real desire. And I'm OK with that. All things need a rest on occasion. Even things we normally see as fun. All I felt like doing after leaving work to see Mom and meet with doctors and all, was sitting on the couch with my laptop either playing mindless computer games or messing around with digital scrapbooking--my other creative hobby.
With the emergency of Mom's surgery past (she's in a rehab unit now and we have every reason to believe she'll be home again within a week), I'm now regrouping. My usual fear of flying has taken a backseat to my great anticipation of being forced to sit still for several hours and sleep! I've loaded up my iPod with all sorts of really interesting podcasts (not a few of which are quilt-related) and am planning on a nice period of limbo between the here and the there, the home and the vacation, the bustle of getting out of the house and the bustle of trying to see as much as possible in the few days available to us.
But there is a quilt connection to being in London--since the exchange rate is such that we won't be buying souvenirs I plan on taking a ton of photos as my souvenirs. I plan especially on looking for architectural details that may inform my quilting at a later date. I've seen many demonstrations of creating quilt blocks around tile patterns or using mosaics as a quilting design. I doubt my skills are up to that yet but I can always stock up on photos for the day that my skills catch up to my imagination! I'll probably end up with a wad of vacation photos that are mind-numbingly boring for anyone else to look at but I'll think they're pretty darn cool.
So I guess the "life lesson from quilting" in this blog is two-fold: 1) Sometimes we need a rest even from the fun things--a chance to regroup, to do something different, so we can return to it fresh; and 2) inspiration from quilting--or any creative expression--can come from anywhere, even the grout between tiles or the edge of a cornice on a building.
I'm off to finish packing, making sure my camera and iPod are completely charged and ready to go. Oh, yeah, and some clothes. But those are only the after-thought. My electronics always go in first!
What does all this have to do with quilting? Admittedly, not a lot. In fact, my life has had little to do with quilting lately. I finally recovered from my illness, had a couple of productive weeks of good health and dabbling my toes in sewing here and there, and then Mom ended up in ER and having emergency surgery...and everything else fell by the wayside again.
However, I did have the foresight to use my upcoming week-long absence as an opportunity to have my machine serviced so I dropped it off for a cleaning and general tune-up a couple of days ago--first time I've had anything done to it since I bought it a few years ago so it's about time. But other than that, I've had to be OK with the fact that I wasn't getting any quilting done. It wasn't so much not having the time as it was not having the energy and, therefore, no real desire. And I'm OK with that. All things need a rest on occasion. Even things we normally see as fun. All I felt like doing after leaving work to see Mom and meet with doctors and all, was sitting on the couch with my laptop either playing mindless computer games or messing around with digital scrapbooking--my other creative hobby.
With the emergency of Mom's surgery past (she's in a rehab unit now and we have every reason to believe she'll be home again within a week), I'm now regrouping. My usual fear of flying has taken a backseat to my great anticipation of being forced to sit still for several hours and sleep! I've loaded up my iPod with all sorts of really interesting podcasts (not a few of which are quilt-related) and am planning on a nice period of limbo between the here and the there, the home and the vacation, the bustle of getting out of the house and the bustle of trying to see as much as possible in the few days available to us.
But there is a quilt connection to being in London--since the exchange rate is such that we won't be buying souvenirs I plan on taking a ton of photos as my souvenirs. I plan especially on looking for architectural details that may inform my quilting at a later date. I've seen many demonstrations of creating quilt blocks around tile patterns or using mosaics as a quilting design. I doubt my skills are up to that yet but I can always stock up on photos for the day that my skills catch up to my imagination! I'll probably end up with a wad of vacation photos that are mind-numbingly boring for anyone else to look at but I'll think they're pretty darn cool.
So I guess the "life lesson from quilting" in this blog is two-fold: 1) Sometimes we need a rest even from the fun things--a chance to regroup, to do something different, so we can return to it fresh; and 2) inspiration from quilting--or any creative expression--can come from anywhere, even the grout between tiles or the edge of a cornice on a building.
I'm off to finish packing, making sure my camera and iPod are completely charged and ready to go. Oh, yeah, and some clothes. But those are only the after-thought. My electronics always go in first!
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