Long time no post…shocker. Thankfully winter is officially over and there are leaves on the trees and I’ve uncurled from the fetal position and am slowly venturing out into the world again. And by “world” I mainly mean the grocery store, Dunkin’ drive-thru and occasionally Target and Barnes and Noble. Living the dream over here for sure.
I’ve been self-employed for the past five years and decided a while ago that working in my house, for myself and by myself is maybe not the best scenario for me if I want to feel like part of the world again. Not to mention that the whole “feast or famine” thing with freelance work is totally true and I’m so ready to go back to just working Monday-Friday and getting a paycheck every two weeks. Plus having coworkers and a boss to keep me accountable. The only wrench in the attractiveness of this plan is the process of applying for jobs, which is what I’ve been doing for the past month. What with patience not being one of my strongest virtues, I’m NOT enjoying the process, especially the apply, wait, wait, wait, maybe get an interview, wait some more, get rejected, wait some more, then repeat cycle. I’m about to the point where suddenly feast or famine is starting to seem more appealing than the total waste of time/slow torture of applying for jobs–at least I get paid some of the time working for myself, vs. none of the time while going through the totally inefficient process of trying to get hired.
The good news is that I have a new hobby to distract myself–sewing/monogramming. Patrick (my husband) got me a sewing/embroidery machine for Christmas, but it took a few months for me to work up the courage to face the prospect of learning how to do all the things in order to get to the sewing or embroidering part. Stuff like winding a bobbin, threading the machine, switching out the presser feet, etc. There’s nothing fun about learning a complicated new thing that you know will take a good long while for you to master, especially when you’re an impatient perfectionist. I finally gritted my teeth and decided to dedicate a Sunday to learning how to use the machine, if only to sew some pillow covers–how hard could that be? Well, it turns out–HARD. It took me about three hours of swearing and having every muscle in my body be rigid with stress, but I finally had two pillow covers, a throw and a monogrammed washcloth to show for my efforts. I managed to break the needle in the process, so that was a learning experience, but I got it sorted and at the end of the day I felt like I’d, if not mastered, at least gotten to the point where maybe the next time I wouldn’t need wine to get me through the experience.
Since then, I’ve tried a few different times and it’s gotten easier and I have gotten to the part I wanted the machine for to begin with: monogramming! It’s still frustrating as hell because I have no real idea how to center a monogram or get it straight or in the right position on a t-shirt or something, but I guess practice will eventually make perfect. Or at least good enough so that the results don’t all get filed under “nailed it.”
How can you not get obsessed when you end up being able to create a valance with matching towel, monogrammed glasses cases and other cute stuff when you got a D in Home Ec in high school and have never been crafty or known how to sew up until now?
Gotta love that nailed it M shirt!
Shop the Post
Some things I’m loving or coveting.
No Comments