Hemming and Happiness

For my birthday this year Larisa sent me this perfect little piece of art for my sewing space. I love it and it makes me happy each time I see it sitting there by my machine. But it also makes me a little sad as well because I haven't actually sewn anything in months. Since the beginning of this year my work schedule has been slowly taking more and more time away from, well, everything else in my life and I'm now working twice as much as I was before.  Since I have less time now for things at home I had to be willing to do less in some areas. It wasn't going to be Jared, the kids, cooking, cleaning, or seminary preparation so all that was left was sewing. When I realized that a couple of months ago I feel as if I actually mourned the loss of my hobby and spent a little while feeling sorry for myself. I had projects lined up in my head and fabric sitting on the table waiting to be cut out. Instead of ever finishing those projects I took some of my precious time and cleared off the sewing table, putting everything away and resigned myself to the fact that sewing wasn't something that fit in my life anymore. 


But tonight I looked around a realized that I had nothing to do! Jared and the older girls were at church, the dinner mess was cleaned up, laundry was done, I was ready for seminary tomorrow, and there was nothing that needed to be done. Now, I'm sure I could have washed a window or scrubbed a tub (and I did give our front loading washer a good cleaning) but I decided to dust off my old friend the sewing machine and spend an hour sewing. In the end I didn't really sew anything beautiful, I just worked through that pile of mending you can just see on the left of the picture. I hemmed a skirt for Abigail, fixed a pair of shorts of Samantha, and sewed a little tree skirt for our small Christmas tree (wow, it's really been a LONG time since I sewed anything).  Plus I finally got some darts sewn in a skirt of mine that fits in the hips but was huge in the waist - the story of my large hipped life - so that I can wear it without it looking funky.

William Osler said, "No man is really happy or safe without a hobby."  I didn't realize how true that was until recently. Spending some time sewing tonight gave me back something that I'd really been missing. It was only an hour and I don't have anything amazing to show for my efforts, those fun projects I put away and cried over months ago are still waiting for me, but it brought me so much joy to do what I love to do. What a great reminder that I need to make time for the things that bring me happiness, even in the midst of a busy life.

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