Re-using time?

The concept of recycling is concerving by using something over again and saving resources.


The one thing I can't recycle is wasted time.


Of course only I can personally decide if the time I have used was wasted. I think my time is only wasted when I spend it doing something that is not a priority. Don't get me wrong, even rest and thought and time to contemplate are a priority to me. It's only wasted time if I didn't use it the way I wanted to use it. Oh you know, that "I am the master..." thing. Well, I am the master of my time and no one else.


I choose how I am going to spend my time even when there are things happening all around me, people and projects calling to me. When I feel like I am running around keeping plates spinning on sticks and they are all about to fall if I don't run and keep up. Sometimes the best thing is to let a plate fall - sometimes that is the best use of my time.


I know that I had better be the one to choose because I can't get these moments back and re-use them differently. They don't belong to anyone else, they belong to me. I can however use those "wasted" moments to learn for the next time, how better to use them. So, maybe they aren't wasted at all. They can become learning moments...if I choose. I'll know next time if that was productive huh?

Well, as I can see from that pesky date recorded on my last blog - that which I had hoped to do weekly, became monthly. Ugh!! But, I like the "get up and dust yourself off" idea and so once again, I am going to attempt to do these blocks weekly. Time sure gets away from me....but that's for another blog!!


I finished up the block for Women of the Bible Quilt called Potipher's Wife. It is a Joseph's Coat design modification. As the story goes, Potipher's wife wanted Joseph to sleep with her and he refused to dishonor her husband (his boss) and his God and ran out of the room. She grabbed his coat off him as he left and she used it as evidence that he tried to rape her. But, as always - God is in control.


I machine pieced this one and it was some tiny pieces as it is a 6" block. It is not perfect but I'll see how much time I want to spend later, if I am going to rip it out and re-do some of it. Ah...there is that time choice again and I can't re-cycle that time I spent doing it the first time. We'll see.

Time Capsule

Wow, now if you were considering what you would put into a time capsule for someone to find many years from now...what would it be? I think you might find that those things you would include also might be the areas of your life you value most. With that in mind, that might also be the areas you would want to invest the most time in now. Just a thought...

After 8 weeks I am still struggling with the pain from the Shingles, so I don't get as much done as I usually do. I move slower and get tired easier. I have a lot of things going on right now - an on line quilt class at Quilt University, reading for my book club, finishing up a 12 wk Bible Study of the book of Daniel with my husband and about 15 other couples and working at this Women of the Bible Quilt. I just finished up Deborah and that makes 17 done of 52. I will include in this post all the completed 4 1/2" blocks - most, but not all done by hand and are not trimmed to preserve the edges until I get them all sewn to the sashing. Some of the colors relate to the story and the blocks names in many cases depict her circumstances as well. I really can't wait to get the quilt finished.

And as always...making every moment count

Wendy

time to look ahead...

Happy New Year to everyone! It's still January and we are still at the beginning...of the year. So, I am going to take some time now to make better use of my time all through the coming months..."planning makes possible". Surely we can get discouraged if we set some goals and don't make them, but if we don't make them, we most surely won't reach them. I tend to bite off more than I can chew and that usually results in choking. So, my first goal this year will be to keep my goals reasonable and attainable.

I have been suffering from Shingles since the week before Christmas and was told that it would be 5 weeks before I started feeling better and 6 wks was the normal duration if I did not end up with lasting nerve damage. So, blogging, or quilting for that matter, has not been on my list, managing my pain has been my focus for this whole illness. This is week 5 and I am finally beginning to feel less pain and able to put some attention to things I love.

My first goal for the year 2010 is to finish my Women of the Bible Quilt. I started it 2 yrs ago and the instructor/designer told me it took her 2 yrs to finish it, so I am not too terribly far behind. I will be showing you one finished block each week. There are 52 blocks - one for each week of the year and one woman's story. The colors could be anything we wanted or we could try to use colors that pertained to the story in some way. I have finished 17 blocks so that leaves me 35 to go. I have some 44 weeks left of the year so that leaves a few weeks for the border which has a vine and grape cluster applicque and at least get it ready to quilt. Most of my blocks have been hand pieced while we were traveling and I love that I will be able to continue to do that if we are away.

In this post I will again give you the web site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WomenoftheBibleQuilt/ for the quilt. It looks like they started in April or 2009 and will be done around that time this year - so if you are so inclined you can join in now near the end of last year's study and then just continue until you get to where you started this year. You can do the Bible Study right along with the other women from around the world that are involved. You can ask the question if you are interested, but I believe that each week is independent and doesn't build a whole lot on previous weeks. There were always people starting mid-year the other 2 yrs I did it. You can do only the quilt, only the study or both.

My second goal was to begin a quilting bee in my home for just an informal gathering of quilters looking for a place to work on their projects, chat and maybe even take field trips together, all the while learning from each other. We had our first gathering this month and will continue the second Tues. of each month this year. There were 4 of us and we had a great time of show & tell and getting to know each other. We bring our own sack lunch so we can work and eat and chat all at the same time.

My third goal is to continually find more ways for me and you to save time in our daily lives. Time to do what we need to do, what we love to do and maybe even time to help others. I have a passion for organization and time management and I want to develope that efficiency for the improvement of our lives. I'll be working on that and sharing as we go thru the year.

As always....make every moment count!
Wendy

Time...to celebrate

Celebrations...an oppotunity to give honor to someone or to commemorate an event. Christmas is by it's very name, commemorates Christ's birthday - Christ and a mass to celebrate His birthday. Many celebrations have been "tagged" to this time of the year and been grouped into the season. You can talk about Santa, winter wonderlands, gatherings of family and friends, snow and dreaming by the fire. Whatever you choose to do this season to celebrate whatever you want to commemorate - the fact still remains that the real reason for this party is for Jesus.

Personally I would suggest to all those that do not believe in Jesus and have chosen this time of year for all kinds of other warm and fuzzy celebrations, to just find other names for their way to party. That is not Christmas...Christ Mass (celebration). Why would one even say "lets get together for Christmas - if you don't believe in Christ in the first place? Would they also invite us to "Bob's Birthday Celebration" and then do nothing to commemorate Bob's birthday? I do not think so.

So, I am going to wish you a Merry Christmas - meaning a merry celebration of Christ's birthday. I am going to wish that something or someone brings you closer to the Christ of Christmas - to a saving knowledge of His love!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

...making every moment count ~ Wendy

no time like the present

How do I start back at my new blog after being gone for two months? I feel very removed from it and without words. Me? I am never without words...so my friends and husband would say.

I consider myself a "recovering perfectionist" and I can analyze something till the cows come home. I can fall into a procrastinating trap of more thinking and planning than doing. Apparently that is because we (RP's as I call them) expect the end result to be perfect and if we allow ourselves one minute to consider that it might not be, we will use that thinking and planning to keep us from finishing and never having to face that we did not do it perfect. Oh, the web we weave in our own minds.

It is tough to get back to something when I have been away from it for a long time. It seems like the more I think about how that could happen and what I can do to prevent it the next time or the logistic's of how I will pick it back up again and keep it going, are all my own brain's stall tactics. There are things like a book that I started, got distracted and never finished, a project I had started like my old quilt tops from a year ago that have never been quilted, or most recent picking up my blog. They all hang around to remind me that at times, I do not finish things.

When I started quilting with an old friend, her mother, who was a master quilter, told me "Wendy, if you are going to be a perfectionist about quilting, don't start or you will drive yourself crazy". I told myself that I wouldn't do that but looking back on all my work that is not completed I can see that at times it is exactly what I have done. I think that when I begin a project, I have already given myself permission to not finish it. Somehow that seems like a healthy way to look at things. However, I might abuse that good mental health at times. This thinking then allows me to procrastinate just enough to not get it done. All so I can avoid my ultimate disappointment... it isn't perfect.

All those started and not completed projects can create a lot of guilt & disappointment. It seems like many people I know (except my DH - dear husband) have some project they started and never finished. Yes, there are some things that were a bad idea in the first place or as we get into it further, we find that out. Then a choice needs to be made to let go of them. Completing them might be a further waste of precious time. If that is true the guilt has to go with it. There is always the option to give it away or tear it apart. Either way stop it and go on. However, if it is a good project and should be finished, well....no time like the present.

This happened to me during this last two months. I had two season specific projects. One was a Halloween wall hanging and the other a fall table runner for Thanksgiving. Because of being down with a bad cold and then the flu, the Pumpkins in the Yard wasn't going to be completed until after Halloween. I liked the project and decided that it would be finished this year, not next. That might put off the Thanksgiving Pheasants which in turn might not be on the table for Thanksgiving dinner. But I had made a resolution to get them done before going on to quilt my Christmas quilt that has been pinned together and ready for machine quilting...since last year.

I am a work in progress in my quilting and every quilt is a learning opportunity. I am not perfect...only God is. There is real value in completing a good project and there is no time like the present to just get it done. So I did. Here is the "Pumpkins in the Yard" wall hanging.

...make every moment count ~ Wendy

time moves....

"Time is too slow for those who wait, swift for those who fear, long for those who grieve,short for those who rejoice but for those who love, time is an eternity" from Henry VanDyke a short story writer and poet.

We've all waited for something spectacular and time moved like a turtle, spent moments that seemed like hours in fear, thought that our time grieving would never end and our time for celebrating ended way too soon. Hopefully we all know the eternity of love - loving someone and being loved. If not from the human kind, at least from the God of the Universe - the example of love.

Tomorrow I return to northern Michigan from our retirement home in North Carolina. I will spend a few days celebrating with my friend of 40 years and give her the "Still Waters" quilt I made for her. I named it for the water colors and batiks with sailboats and flowing streams of colors and for the Bible verse, Psalm 23:2-3 "and He leads my beside the still waters and restores my soul"

We met 40 years ago the first of this month and since I think maintaining a friendship for that long is rare, I suggested that we try to commemorate that in some way. So, I will fly into Traverse City and then we will drive up to Lake Superior and spend a quiet 3 days in the most northern tip of Michigan...talking. Coffee and conversation is the order of the day.

Relationships do take time, especially long distance ones. I believe with all the important use of our time, the planning, organizing and executing - people are more important than things. The time we spend in our relationships will indeed last forever. We are forever touched by our relationships and they live on thru people to other people and generations. Even my quilts will someday wear out but love and touching other people will not.

I did not get a quilt piece done before leaving for this trip, that I very much wanted to complete. I am going to try to sell this piece and it's for Halloween. I will return around the 5th and will take it to my friend that has a shop and hopefully there will still be enough days left that someone will stop in and it will catch their eye for their home. I know that these fall weekends will fly by and the customers are out and about checking out the fall color and cooler weather. Hopefully I won't be too late. But, sometimes we have to make choices with our precious time moments and relaxing and refreshing the mind and spirit are the most precious gems of all. For what are we worth if we are carved out of haste and fret and worry and regret.

I believe in using time wisely and efficiently and being organized and completing things - but I refuse to feel guilty about slowing down at times too. That makes me so much more worthwhile to accomplish the other things.

So if you didn't get something done today, or this week and you are "beating yourself up" about it. Take a good hard look at why - if it meant you needed some refresh time or time to invest in a relationship, I hope you will consider that use of your time worth more than gold. Remember that He leads us beside the still waters to calm us and give us a sense of peace. Take time to enjoy the "still waters".

I also wanted to begin sharing with you some blocks from Women of The Bible Quilt project - some 400 women around the country work on this every year by internet. Carolyn in Goshen, Indiana wrote the Bible Study and each week we get a new lady's story from the Bible along with a study relating to that story. Also, we do a new block each week for each lady's story to have 52 in the completed quilt. I am on my second year in trying to complete the quilt for my kitchen. I have included a couple blocks and the web site for the whole study.

http://www.patternsoffaith.com/QuiltGallery.php

I'll share about my "time" with my friend Kathy when I return next week. Have a good one and relax!

...making every moment count - maybe for eternity by restoring my soul ~ Wendy

"always the right time to do the right thing"

That quote is by Dr Martin Luther King - and he was so right. We get so busy and we have our agenda's all in line and then something comes along - an opportunity - to make a difference in someone's life. We went to Erie for 2 wks - just got back, and my dh (dear husband) and his 2 brother in law's (I helped a little) build an attached garage, laundry and 2nd bath, onto his mother's house. His father passed away in Feb and he left there saying, my mom cannot go another winter parking her car in the barn that is acrosso the drive and yard. She is 86. He wanted to build an attached garage to her 150 + yr old house.

I did not plan to go but she emailed and was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of construction and the cooking for everyone, etc. and asked me to come. I had my plans of being alone for 2 weeks and quilting my brains out. But, that was not the plan for me and I decided to go to Erie and try to do some quilting while I was there. I had to plan for small snippets of time that I could "inch" my way along, but I was able to complete my quilt for my friend I am celebrating 40 yrs of good friendship with next wk in Traverse City, MI and Houghton/Hancock, MI. I also completed a fall table runner I had started last yr and mostly completed a Halloween wall hanging - "Pumpkins in the Yard".

Sometimes we have our time planned out and it can be unsettling to let them go and "do the right thing" but I believe that going to Erie for 2 wks rather than 2 wks alone quilting while my husband went....well, it was the right thing - and it was the perfect time to do the right thing. I shopped, cooked, did some construction, took pics all thru each day and then had to go to a cafe' to send the pics to awaiting family as she only has "dial-up" service for her computer. Oh yes, that's another thing to do without while there - high speed internet. It takes longer to download the blog than to write it. And I have a Facebook page and that had to go unused for 2 wks too.

Someday she will be gone and I can never again get the time back that we had helping the guys out and keeping them fed. It was a great time with my mother in law too - afternoons talking and planning. My agenda seemed important and well deserved, but someone else needed me more.

I believe in good planning and keeping to the plan - but this time, it was right to let my plan go and take on a new plan - to be flexible and still try to get a bit of what I wanted to do, done. And that I did. So, you can see in the pics, the large lap quilt in my friend's requested "sea" colors and the fall tablerunner. I am still working on the pumpkins for the wall hanging - next time.

Keep to the plan when you can but sometimes, people are more important than things.