Want vs. need…

I needed to recover.  No one would argue that.  I spent the last few days, since my frenetic return from the midwest, trying to recover, to be kind to myself, to find quiet moments, and to just be.  I took it easy, only doing what needed to be done.  Except there were so many things I wanted to do…

See here’s the problem.  Life is full of things that need to be done.  And life is full of things I want to do, but that are purely for my entertainment and not critical for daily existence, or critical for running a household, or critical for running a business.  I needed to pay all the bills, organize all the paperwork, balance all the checkbooks, prepare the bookkeeping for the business to pay quarterly sales tax.  I needed to ship out a dozen orders, and I needed to unpack and take care of the laundry.  I needed to prod my son into mowing the lawn and checking the pool levels and vacuuming the pool and taking care of his truck with the missing muffler held up by some army issue rope.  (That didn’t work…)

It was hard to explain to my 21 year old son why things that needed to be done come first, if there is any time left, then things he wanted to do would fall into place.  Except it never works that way.  The things that need to be done always suck up all of the time and the things I want to do I never get to.  I run out of time…

One of Eric’s friends drew this illustration for my son on the refrigerator white board…

It is all about balance.  And that is probably my biggest character defect, I don’t know what that is.  I constantly attend to the stuff I need to attend to (which is why I’m really good at what I do, I follow through on the small stuff, I’m known for my organization and details) but it makes for a very one sided resentful person (who me?) when I watch the 20’somethings hang out every night under the stars drinking and partying and having a general good time.  That’s not my complete idea of a good time, though I enjoy a good gathering occasionally, as a matter of fact I attended two yesterday, just party hopped my way across the county.  My idea of a really good time, is sitting in a pile of fiber making stuff.  (Of course this is assuming my husband is out of the country and unavailable to play, as he has been for the better part of the last 14 months.)

So I paid the bills.  Because I am responsible.  They needed to be paid.  I organized the bank books and bookkeeping.  Because I am responsible.  It needed to be done.  I vacuumed, did laundry, cleaned the kitchen and the toilets.  They needed to be cleaned and I am responsible.  I reworked my inkle loom presentation for the online class I’m teaching tomorrow through Weavolution and got that information out to the students and did a dry run this morning to make sure I understood the conferencing software.  It needed to be done and I am responsible…

But what I really wanted to be doing, was playing with my new/used Pat Green drum carder with power pack (it goes by itself), which I bought from Ginnie while I was visiting her on the Upper Peninnsula.  It arrived in four boxes.  🙂

And I wanted to start a new sewing project, a couple of them actually.  I wanted some new summer tops.  I rooted through my fabrics and came up with a couple of contenders and found a pattern I liked, but alas, it was sized for knits.  These were woven.  So I needed to re-engineer the pattern to fit with wovens, three muslins later and a lot of redesign, in the sleeve and the overall shaping, I got what I wanted.  🙂  The fabrics are a bold printed rayon and a gorgeous subtle lavender and black woven Jacquard feather pattern in silk from Carolina Herrera.  I think I bought both of them from Waechter’s Silk Shop last year during my trip to Asheville where I bought a boat load of remnants I wanted, but certainly didn’t need.

So I carry on, always seeking that illusive balance, I will keep Alli’s drawing on the refrigerator as a reminder that there has to be a balance between the wants and the needs.  And both my son and I sit at opposite ends of the see saw trying to make it balance and not having much luck.  The lawn still isn’t mowed, and pool levels are unchecked, the muffler is off but still hasn’t been replaced.  The neighborhood knows this when he comes in at 2am…  But my bills are paid, orders shipped, prep work done for the online class, house reasonably clean, and I’m going to attempt to cut out one of the summer tops tonight.  It is only 9am.  If I were 21, the night would definitely still be young…