Someting's Gotta Give-Internal Musings

Earlier this week I received an invitation to submit some more projects for next year's issue of "Creative Jewelry" magazine. I was so excited and mentally began to plan my projects with the idea of spending some time this weekend putting together an order for whatever materials I would need.

Along with the project planning I also spent a few days thinking about when I could start working on these projects, which led me the realization that I need to seriously scale back on the amount of things that I have going on in my life.

My 17 month old daughter is obviously my A1 priority. And after that I have:

-writing & journaling
-3 unfinished cross-stitch projects
-2 unfinished afghans
-an embarrassing number of unfinished bead projects, including the '08 Bead Journal Project
-my color journey with Margie
-Abby Cadabby decorations for my daughters room
-flash cards for my daughter
-at least 3 belly dance costumes that need to be finished or tailored to fit
-massive closet cleaning & re-organizing
-Halloween is just around the corner & I need to get ready for that
-added rehearsals, etc. that go along with being in a dance troupe
-weekly duties as personal assistant to Margie
-the day to day running of a household that includes an energetic and curious toddler
-Sparkly Wheels for Nikias book

All of these things are staring me in the face and they are not happy about being ignored. I feel so overwhelmed that I don't know what to do first so I'm doing nothing but doing a lot of thinking.

I stayed awake most of the night mulling over how much time is need on a daily or weekly basis for the ongoing things like writing or rehearsals, how close is each project to being finished, and how much time do I think I may need for each one. And, of course, the big question; is it really feasible for me to be starting anything new right now? Obvious answer: No. Why?

"Jack of all trades, master of none." I've always thought of this saying as a warning against mediocrity. That's what I'm afraid of; that as I'm dashing about frantically trying to complete each project the quality of what I'm working on will be severely diminished.

So in looking at my list I see that there are a few things that I need to let go of, as in, not all of those beading UFO's really need to finished, and then I'm going to give myself one full year to complete the rest of the listed projects before starting anything new.

Then I'll be back to submitting beadwork for publication with a bang!