On Vacation

Life has been increasingly busy, so I am needing to take a vacation from making art.

This may sound counter-intuitive. Usually when life gets busy and stressful, I find that making art is a release and a relaxation for me. Over the past 18 months, being so fatigued with my pregnancy, and then busier and more fatigued with the new baby entering the mix--I just can't keep up with everything. My work (and income) have suffered, my kids are complaining about "Spaghetti Again?" for dinner, my house is an overrun cluttered mess, etc.

It has become frustrating and disappointing for me to look forward to some art time, only to have a cranky baby and not be able to get to my project. I am not complaining about the baby. He is a sweetie and a treasure--my little bonus baby, and the last one we will have, so I am enjoying this small window of time. But he is only 9 months old, and requires a lot of time and care, on top of my other daily duties with the other two kids, work, husband, house, etc.

So, in order to really enjoy where my life is now, and not resent the responsibility, I need to reasses my daily goals. I'd rather give up art time for a little while, and not feel like I am failing when I can't get to the projects that I want to do.

I have 1200 unread messages in my inbox--mostly from art Yahoo groups. I am going No Mail for awhile on many of them, keeping up with Art Charms and Collage UnLeashed, and a couple other small local groups, but that is about all I can handle right now. I just can't keep up with it all right now.

I am hoping to return to "normal" this summer, when Fletcher is a little bit older, the kids are out of school, and we can play outside. I might pop in here on my blog now and then, but I might not. I don't want to have the stress of wanting to post more frequently, and then not having time to. I'd love to be able to blog a couple of times a week, but that is just not in the cards right now. I hope that you all will join me again when I am back up and running!

I am also going to be concentrating some more time and energy on my neglected quilt pattern business. I began designing and publishing patterns in 1999--I can't believe I am going on 12 years! But I haven't produced much of anything new during the past few years. I am still building up my website, and I would like to continue to get my products listed on the site and develop a new pattern or two this year. I have a few things on the "drawing board". So, I guess that will be a creative outlet, but pattern design is a little different than just my art play time--it is more technical and I have to think about marketing, packaging, production, etc. Anyway, you might be interested in seeing my business website Elizabeth Anne.

I hope that the rest of you will be able to have a creative 2011, or possibly take time off to do what you need to do.

"I'll be back".