Still behind schedule!

Sigh… another day almost over, and I still feel behind on everything!

Woke up this morning and realized I needed to wash a heap of dishes before I could make breakfast. While doing the dishes, an old memory came to mind and I ended up leaving the dishes to write this entry in my Livejournal. After I got through the rest of the dishes, breakfast, and morning pages, Erik and I took Tisha to the vet to have all his sutures out. Then I did an hourlong home yoga practice, then lunch.

In the afternoon, rain returned and everything became dark and grey once again. I like rain, but two weeks of it does become a bit oppressive. I turned on the lights inside the house and sat by the window. I realized I had some newly cleaned vintage buttons to put away, so I took the opportunity to reorganize all my buttons. I noticed yesterday that Jinny had hers in Frappuccino bottles, which I loved because it was cute and because she could easily pour the buttons out into work dishes when she needed to look through them. I had all my buttons in the compartmented plastic box at left, but the box quickly became so full that digging through the compartments always sent buttons spilling over into the neighboring cubbies. Also, I set up the cubbies before I really started using the buttons; as I became more familiar with them, I noticed I tended to gravitate more toward certain designs and to regularly pass over the less distinctive, more modern-looking plastic buttons. So the box was just irksome to use. I re-sorted the buttons and put the biggest piles into old canning jars, which I covered with unbleached muslin to keep out dust. Now the box is only about half full, it’s been redivided into categories that make more sense for me, and I’ve put the less-loved plastic buttons into the jars so they don’t get in the way of my digging through the compartments. I’m happy about this!

After the button reorganization, I still had some big canning jars left over, so I pawed through my trims box (also really disorganized!) and pulled out some of the trims. I put lace in one jar (with my beautiful Lacis finds at the top), ribbons in another, and little short pieces of random trims in the last jar. I still don’t use trims all that often, so it remains to be seen whether this method is a good way of organizing them — but there is just something very appealing about pretty things kept in clear glass jars. Maybe now I’ll use them more!

After the buttons and trims, I spent some time processing and putting away notes, receipts, business cards, mail, and other paraphernalia I’ve gathered in the past couple of days. I hate how much time this kind of thing takes, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid it.

Erik made dinner tonight (potato-leek soup from Mastering the Art of French Cooking), which gave me some much-needed time to get caught up on some crafting. I tried to fill the eye pillows I’m making for the Art of Yoga Project, but was frustrated to find I had very little flaxseed left, so I’m going to have to get some more tomorrow. I don’t know why I didn’t check that before I got started! At least I got four of them filled and sewn up tonight. I also made drawstring pouches for my three recently listed brooches, so those are now ready to ship, and I listed the last brooch on Etsy.

Now I plan to keep working until bedtime — I hope to make lots of progress either on the Art of Yoga eye pillow covers, or on the mat tote I’m making for Tierra Yoga.

I’ve said it before but it still perplexes me: how does anyone get anything done? I work from home, able to devote myself full-time to all my projects, and yet I’m still constantly behind schedule and I end many workdays wishing I’d been able to get more done. How do you crafters with day jobs manage to make anything? How do parents find time for themselves when they’re trying to raise kids? I just don’t know… I don’t think I work slowly, and I don’t waste time on TV or games. I’ve been limiting my internet time. Whenever I make time logs, all I’m ever able to conclude is that stuff just takes a long time to do. But lately it feels like everything is taking even more time than usual, and I’m always running to catch up. Should I stop doing errands during the day? But the roads and stores are less crowded when everyone else is at work… Am I so troubled because of all the time I spend going to and from my parents’ house in San Jose? They’d hate to hear that, for sure. I just really don’t know what I should be doing differently so I can get more done. It’s a constant challenge.