Is it just me, or is this month lasting forever? Fall always just flies by and then January hits and time seems to stand still. This has felt like such a long week! I’m feeling pretty frazzled and bleary eyed tonight, so this post might be a little rambly! Actually, every time the temperatures start rising this winter I feel like I’m getting an allergy attack. Can you get outdoor allergy attacks in the middle of winter? It coincides with the warmer weather every single time, so it can’t just be in my head, right?? At any rate, my eyes are very itchy at the moment.
Anyway, it was just a pretty normal week of me giving myself way too much to do and constantly wondering what I need to do differently to stop feeling so much dang struggle and strife every single day. I’m so tired of analyzing and judging myself, but I can’t seem to figure out how to stop. There’s just always SO MUCH TO DO. I’m trying to remember to take breaks and take care of myself and be okay with not getting it all done. But I have some serious workaholic and perfectionism genes that I just can’t seem to shake.
It was a good week for work, though I was making so many dolls at once that my hours and hours of sewing seemed to result in so little progress every day. That’s why I don’t like doing big batches. But I had so many prepaid custom orders and I wanted to knock them all out in one big shot.
It took me all week, but I managed to do it. I wish I could figure out how some of my dollmaker friends can produce so quickly. They must have superhuman sewing speed. I’m starting to think I should unfollow them on instagram, though. When I see them finishing tons of new dolls every single day it makes me feel like such a slacker! My best work is never going to be done fast, unfortunately.
I realized that on Friday when I spent 11 hours doing all the final touches is when I was genuinely having the most fun. Maybe because I finally saw the progress? They did turn out pretty cute!
I even made two to keep!
On Thursday I realized that I needed an actual break and decided to take Annie on an adventure. Earlier in the week a guy at the dog park was telling me about how amazing this Token Creek Dog Park in Deforest was. The Columbus dog park is pretty great, so it never even occurred to me to bring Annie other places. But I wanted to do something different, so we went to check it out.
I couldn’t believe how big it was!
Annie practically had the best day of her life running full speed through the park. There weren’t many dogs to play with, which was fine. I enjoyed hiking through it all and getting some fresh air and actual exercise. I decided to make it my mission to hit up all 22 Madison area dog parks over the next year. I even bought an annual permit to make sure it happens. Many more dog park adventures await!
On Friday Greg was able to go on a field trip with Shepard. It was the longest field trip either of my kids have ever gone on, almost the whole school day. They went to UW Space Place, ate lunch in the Capital, and finished at a Planetarium. Shepard was SO excited to have Daddy come with him. It took me half an hour to pack their lunches that morning because he had to analyze every single item we put in and if it could all fit in the same lunch box. It was pretty sweet, though. 🙂
Friday pizza night, of course.
This morning I decided we needed another adventure. Caden has screens taken away for the weekend which puts him in a pretty terrible mood. The only way to change his attitude is to distract him out of the house. So we went back to the Token Creek dog park! It’s about a 30 minute drive so we won’t really be going multiple times a week in the future. But I wanted them to see it and thought they’d enjoy stomping through all the half melted ice (their favorite winter activity). It was fun! We should have more Saturday adventures.
The rest of the day has been pretty laid back and then my sister-in-law and her boyfriend made a surprise visit for the evening. It was nice to catch up with them!
Anyway, it was a pretty good week overall. I’m just tired now. And itchy. And ready to go finish the 600 page book I’ve been working on. More tomorrow!
