Some

Several years ago, while chilling in a hotel room on a teaching trip, I tried to find something worth watching on tv. Hotel cable has lots to offer as long as it's sports. Unless it's the Detroit Tigers, I'm totally not interested.

I finally settled on the Food Network,with Emeril Lagasse in all his glory. I don't remember what he was making, something on his stove top. He was emphasizing that this dish should be cooked on medium low. In his silly way, he pulled the knob off the stove and pointed out all the settings between off and scorch. Bam! It nearly knocked me out of my chair.

All of my life I have struggled with a black/white, on/off, right/wrong  kind of thinking. I'm sure that it goes hand in hand with my perfectionistic tendencies.These things do not make for happy camping. I've come pretty far on my journey to recover from perfectionism. At least I can catch myself in the act and give myself a stern talking to. The yes/no, not so much.

I've been in kind of a bad place for the last couple of years. Raising my rambunctious boys had been my sole purpose in life for decades, and now they are well and truly launched. I know that my empty nest is weighing on me. Don't get me wrong, Kent and I are thrilled to have our honeymoon suite back, but some days I kept those boys alive by shear force of will, despite their best efforts to thwart me. That they are thriving, responsible adults, taking the world by storm gives me more joy than any deal ever sealed. And yet...

Travel has also been getting me down. Oh, how I love to teach. I really do believe that it is my strongest skill. But I can only think of bad words when I consider the travel experience. It's never the people on the other end, it's the travel itself. In a word, it hurts.

I've pretty much emptied my bucket list in the quilting universe. I've done almost all of the things that I thought would be pie-in-the-sky achievements: being on Simply Quilts, and other tv shows; designed fabric; designed for magazines; project on cover of magazine; name on covers; teaching at big shows; teaching all over the country (and beyond). What more is there to do but more of the same?

So, I've been thinking about quitting. Everything.Seriously. No more travel, no more teaching, no more designing, no more sewing. Nada. Applewood Farm has served its purpose (to put the boys through college), so what's the point, right? In or out.

This morning, as I was weeding my herb garden it occurred to me that I could weed for just as long as I wanted to. Every gardener knows that, unless you have a one planter on a sea of concrete, a garden is never completely weeded. Sometimes all it takes is to turn your back, and there will be new weeds. And yet, here I was thinking that if only I worked harder, the garden could be somehow done. Duh.

Some. What a concept. If I weed some every now and then, the garden will be better for it. If I clean some, the house will stop looking like a war zone. If I teach some, the travel can be fun instead of arduous. If I quilt some, I can make what I like and work at a pace that comes closer to play.

I know, too soon old, too late smart, but I'm not quite done yet. I'm still a work in progress, as we all are. I'm going to try out this some for a while and see if I like it. I'm off to make some stems for my applique, and maybe cut some flowers for the dining room table, and perhaps bake some cookies. (Some spinning could happen too.)