Catch Up

Dearest Blog,

Please accept my apologies.  I forget about you.  I only use you when I need you.  I feel no loyalty.  This is a one way relationship.  You'd totally break it off if you could and go hook up with some hipster sewing mommy blogger who keeps her weekly blog dates and appreciates you for taking it all and never asking for anything in return.   You are like my high school journal.  I only come to you when I'm sad.  I'll try to be more giving in the future.  I will do what I can to try to stop double spacing between sentences, but that's a hard, hard habit to break.  I hope you sang that last line to yourself. 

Just to make myself feel good, I will now list some accomplishments that I mentioned starting earlier.  I finished the vest, but it needs some tweaking which requires ripping out hand stitching, trimming seam allowances and possibly fiddling with the darts.  But I have worn it twice.  It just isn't perfect enough.  I finished the stripey skirt and the hideous muppet coat.  I even have pictures of Rose wearing it at Burning Man, which is honestly, pretty amazeballz.  I may never get there, but my work has been liberally covered with playa dust and fire singed.  Also lost and returned and wept over.  Ahhhhh.  I hemmed Jen's bridesmaid dress.  Not very satisfying other than the fact that I think the finished product looked pretty darn professional, I was glad to save my lovely friend some dough, and she repaid the favor by taking my children to the park so I could sleep off my hideous flu.  So good!  Silver lining #2 in that situation was that I actually accepted help.  It is so hard for me to say, "Oh yeah sure, come save my ass.  I feel like I was hit by a truck."  Usually I hear, "Oh no, I'm fine" coming outta my mouth before I even know what happened. 

Now I'm working on a jacket for myself.  I think it's going to be pretty cool.  Still need to make a top to go with the skirt.  I mended a bra strap yesterday. 

I've made some decent strides on the violin.  My old practice videos are painful to watch.  More painful than the current ones, which are still painful.  Better though.  I think I need to cut back to every two weeks.  It has been working out that way anyhow for whatever reason.  Illness, teacher playing with the opera, whatever.  It is nice that it's flexible.  Every two weeks gives me enough time to take a couple sewing days a week and not feel guilty.  Not guilty, per se, but like I need more practice time.  Although it also gives me that much more time to practice something wrong and then it's permanently ingrained into my muscle memory.  I haven't had the heart to tell Luke though.  Every time I think I'm going to tell him, he puts lots of thought and effort into something or tries to teach me how to breakdance, or gives me one of his long drawn out monologues about the history of music theory and what it all means mathematically and I just can't do it.  We've talked about how I wish this was part of something more meaningful though and how it feels kind of silly and frivolous.  If I was playing with other people, in a band or an orchestra, I think it would be more satisfying and I would learn more.  He thinks I should pursue that, but I just don't have time in my life.  And I'm a full grown adult beginner.  Nobody knows what to do with that. 

Lately I've been playing the violin parts in recorded songs so I can play along with music instead of just playing alone with nothing to go off of.  Sometimes when I play a solo violin piece, I don't like the song very much, so I memorize the notes and start playing it faster just to get through it.  I'm missing the musicality of it.  I am fully aware that I'm doing that.  It's just hard not to.  And there is so much nuance to master.  The bow can do so much, and I don't have that down yet.  I do love working on it though.  Sometimes it feels extremely selfish though, and I don't even have time to practice with a band or an orchestra, so I'm a little bit afraid to get better.  I feel like I'll get better and then get bitter.  My fear of success, it is such a beast.

I have a full page-long list of creative projects that I've started or want to start.  It is really bad.  I am committing to finishing what I start, and realizing I need to get more organized.  I'm never going to be the kind of person that does one thing at a time, but I have to make some of my big ideas actually materialize.  Adult ADD or just scatterbrained, disorganized, creative weirdo?  Who knows.  I'm off to organize my page of projects into categories and then prioritize them.