Silent Sunday mornings delight me. Waking before the morning and setting a pot of coffee to brew, I ponder on the day ahead. I started a load of laundry and have my other piles awaiting their turn. We put up out outside Christmas decorations, meager but festive. I found a sewing quilting blog last night as I surfed around looking at Flickr photos of other quilters’ projects and have joined Lily’s Quilt’s Small Blog Meet. I qualify. I have fewer than 50 followers. On most days I have fewer than 50 visits, especially if I eliminate the random visits from Russia, Albania, Chile and Indonesia. I also have a few mystery readers, people who never comment but who read every day (or at least check-in everyday).
Sunday is my inventory day and December is my year end close. This is the month I take stock of the last 11 months and plan for the year ahead. I set goals. I review the goals I made for myself last year and adjust my expectations. Was a goal left unattained out of a lack of effort or from external obstruction? Is it a goal I still desire and if so…how do I readjust my efforts, energy, talents and treasure to get there in 2012?
One goal I made for myself was to sew a quilt for each month. I did well in this area.Nine out of twelve isn’t a poor outcome. The ninth quilt is finished and at the long arm quilter’s…just not photographed.
I also sewed six sets of pillow cases, two sets of matching shams for the tumbler and the wonky star quilts and canned and preserved about half of summer. The goal to which I have not attended is properly and diligently editing my novel. I am plainly and obviously avoiding it. And in that avoidance, I am stilted from the creative flow I need to write new material. I had hoped all the creative efforts in other realms (like sewing and cooking) would spark the creativity I need to get back on the writing bike. I now see and understand the impediment is not a lack of creativity; it is something else entirely. And the only way to scale this impediment is to walk right up to it and CLIMB over. Gladly, it is not a world of “either this or that”. If it were, then I’d be stuck back at the “You are a doctor, you can’t ALSO be a writer.” Or…maybe it is just my world where I say and believe that I can be all these things. I am a mother and have two kick ass sons. I am a doctor and this is my 15th year in practice. I am a business owner and have an independent medical practice. I am a quilter, a baker, a cook, a gardener, a photographer and a writer. I write this blog and I wrote a novel. I have more stories in my head and more stories to discover. Like a quilt, I just need to sit down with all my scraps and piece it together. It never makes sense at the beginning. Only after all the piecing is complete. My novel is a finished quilt top. Now I have to make the sandwich and do the quilting and binding. THEN….and only then….will it be ready to give it away.
