The true gift

It's been a quietly busy few days here. I finished my blue swap sewing, worked in the garden, baked bread and a cake, made a quick quiche which fed us for two days, watered the garden when I gave up all hope of rain, finally booked an appointment to have a haircut and did the hundred other unnoticed but necessary things that make up a day.

I smiled when I just read what I'd written. It seems like so little was done and yet it filled my days not only with activity but with satisfaction and contentment as well. There was a time when I would have thought I was wasting time doing what I've been doing, a time when only busyness counted. Well, I'm more enlightened now. Now I value each moment. I've stopped rushing and I'm just as committed to enjoying what I do as I am about the productivity of my hours. Life's too short for anything else.

In the old days I would have known I had a certain task to complete - let's say it was my swap sewing - and I would have planned it out, cut it out, spent time at the machine sewing, ironed what I'd made and within half a day, I would have finished the job. HA! Not now. Many of you know I now have my sewing machine set up next to my computer and so before I sat down to make the last blue item, I searched for some music to listen to and watch on You Tube. I settled on the funeral music of country  music legend George Jones, yes, the funeral music, then readied myself to listen to Alan Jackson singing He stopped loving her today. Not the most popular music but oh my, it was beautiful - I was captured by the emotion as much as the words.  As it turned out, I listened to that particular song about 10 okay, 30 times. Long term readers will know I've referred to myself before now as the ageing equivalent of a box full of monkeys being let loose in the jungle. This is another manifestation of that. We are all many people rolled into one and this is a small example of my obsessive self.  It surfaces fairly frequently. ;- )

So, I had the music ready and was just about to start sewing when my good friend Kathleen messaged me. I have phone messages set up on my computer too, so we had a long chat, in between stitches, cutting, snipping and listening to Alan singing sadly for old George and watching a bit of flat foot dancing on the porch. It took me three or four times longer than it should have to finish my project but the enjoyment factor was sky-high. I was smiling and ready for anything.

Of course I had many other things I could have been doing but I came away from that sewing machine feeling that I'd looked after myself and given myself the time to enjoy those hours. Sometimes it's not so much about what is produced but the feeling the production gives you. That is the true gift and there will be days when that gift will carry me through a bad day and help me continue this journey of simplicity. And even though some people would look at me there, madly re-listening to Alan singing for George, and taking longer, much longer, than the job needed, sometimes we all need to embrace the mad feelings we have, invest that time and craziness in ourselves and then reap the rewards.

What craziness do you get up to? :- )