30 Days of Hustle – Report

A little more than 30 days ago, I posted that I was embarking on a program called the 30 Days of Hustle.

This is a motivational challenge to boost productivity (learn more at 30daysofhustle.com). I decided to focus my hustle on picking up the quilting hobby I dropped cold about 8 years ago and completing as many quilt tops as I could.

I finished THREE and made progress on a fourth.

I was impressed by the 30 Days of Hustle process – the videos, exercises and the camaraderie of the private Facebook group. It turned out that doing it was so much easier than thinking about doing it. After all, one of the quilt tops was only about 4 hours from completion, the other two about 6 hours each.

It certainly helped that I spent those hours in very good company with the wonderful staff at The Lunenburg Makery. (Big shout out to Rita, Kat and Jo)

Things are getting busier with my day job now, but I feel like I still have some hustle in me. In the course of doing this project, I found still MORE unfinished quilt projects, including 2 more sets of inherited quilt blocks, so I'm going to keep hustling on them at the Makery, as my schedule permits.

I also learned that there is woman nearby who runs a quilt shop and does long-arm quilting for a reasonable price, so as soon as I can afford her services (and batting and backing), I will skip my least favourite part of the quilting process and have these tops quilted for me.

Happily, I also learned that I still enjoy the process of piecing a quilt top – or two – or more.

Here are some photos!

Quilt top #1: Colour Wheel baby quilt

Quilt top #2 – double bed-sized log cabin
from inherited quilt blocks

Quilt top #3: single bed-sized quilt with
stereotyped (yuck), appliquéd Dutch children,
made from inherited, hand-worked blocks

Quilt top #4 (in progress): paper-pieced
New York Beauty

30 Days of Hustle

A family member invited me to do the 30 Days of Hustle with her (and a few thousand other people) this January.

The 30 Days of Hustle is a motivational challenge in which each participant sets a goal and takes steps (hustles) towards its completion for 30 days.

Along the way, the program teaches productivity and motivation skills that can be used to accomplish other goals.

I have a pretty quiet month ahead in terms of work. And I know the temptation might be to slip into a Netflix coma. Which would be fine if I needed to rest. But truthfully, I just spent the past six weeks chilled out on Netflix. It was great, but here, in the new year, I feel like getting some stuff DONE.

Tying up a big loose end

Although I'm planning to focus on more than one thing in this month's hustle, the structure of the hustle encourages selecting one main goal, so, my Official Hustle is going to be finishing off a number of my UFOs – which is quilting slang for UnFinished Objects.

You see, for about ten years, I was an avid quilter. I made quilts for people I loved, quilts for friends' babies, quilts for myself, art quilts, etc. I took classes, belonged to a quilt guild and gleefully fed my fabric addiction. I started countless projects — and to give myself credit, finished many of them.

But then, about eight years ago, I lost my quilting mojo. I moved from a 3-bedroom home to a 500-square-foot apartment, so I didn't have much space to work in. I became a performing musician and I became much busier in my life. Instead of just going to work and coming home to my quilting studio, suddenly I was leaving work to run around to gigs and voice lessons. My former "hobby" time was re-allocated to recording and producing three independent CDs.

The past 8 years have been an exciting time, but it's a time that feels like it is winding down for the present. I don't feel like performing shows very often these days. I certainly can't afford to create another independent record and can't even foresee a time when I will next be able to do so!

Right now, my focus is on getting settled on the piece of land that I bought last spring and creating a permanent home for myself. My current home is a tiny house on wheels. I'm thinking about building a permanent home – which will also be tiny, or perhaps micro. And that means that the six or seven boxes of fabric from my quilting "hangover" pose a problem. I can't bring myself to throw them out, but I also don't want to keep them in my space.

A small portion of my fabric "stash",
this is probably about one-eighth of it.

Worse still, there are a number of half-complete projects in those boxes, some of which are unfulfilled presents/commitments from 10 or 11 years ago.

The thought of those unfinished quilts has been weighing me down.

When I moved into my winter accommodation in Lunenburg, I got a membership at The Lunenburg Makery, thinking I would take the opportunity to work on some quilts this winter. I've been over a few times and have probably made three or four quilt blocks of my barely-started New York Beauty quilt. 

It's not that I didn't have plenty of spare time in the fall. What I lacked was motivation.

And so, this project seems perfect for the 30 days of Hustle. I have set my goal: complete four quilt tops in the next 30 days – two singles, one double and one baby quilt.

Here's the "baby" quilt to be –
a partly-finished colourwheel quilt.

I'm getting my hustle on!

Winter Accomodation: Resolutions and Perspective (and Sondheim?)

I'm just about to move into my winter accommodations. Salinger and I should be relocated by Sunday.

We had a beautiful September – warm and sunny with very few chilly mornings. Really, it was everything I could have asked for when living in a converted trailer with the R-value of a sieve. And I've had so many good times with friends, at the West Dublin Market, at the beach.

And yet, I feel more excited than loathe to leave. I'm renting space from a friend in Lunenburg and I'm looking forward to being in town for the winter.

I'm looking forward to being able to leave my car at home when I go to the Farmer's market or – gasp – a restaurant or the pub. I'm looking forward to having real high-speed internet access again and running hot water.

Resolutions

I am starting to make winter resolutions. I have decided:

• I am going to become a member at the Lunenburg Makery and finish off as many of my half-completed quilting projects as I am able to complete over the next 6 months
• I am going to knit in the evenings, make some socks and maybe even complete an unfinished sweater or two
• I am going to get back into a regular yoga practice with YogaGlo
• I am going to read all of the books I have gathered about organic gardening and solar/sustainable housing
• I am going to practice my new DIRA habit
• Salinger and I are going to do more jigsaw puzzles (I currently have 20 puzzles that I have won and not yet assembled)
• I am going to keep up the good work budgeting with YNAB; I think I'm finally getting the hang of it!

 

Perspective

I have to say how deeply grateful I am to be feeling well this autumn. 

A year ago, when I was moving into winter accommodation, I was a mess. Heartbroken and depressed and not even sure I wanted to make it through the winter. Grim times.

I got a lot of support from my friends and family and I've had many epiphanies over the past year+. Some of them I've written about in this blog (Here's one. Here's another.)

But I haven't yet written about my most recent epiphany. It happened a couple of months ago when I read this article – that, yes, I saw on Facebook. The article has kind of a stupid title, in my opinion, but the body of the article is not stupid. It basically says that the crappy times are where the growth happens and are therefore are some the most important and most fertile times we have.

The article is focused on intimate relationships. But I think it applies equally to our relationships with ourselves. Relationships are not just about the good times. When we go through something really challenging with someone else, it either strengthens the relationship – or breaks it, depending on how much people are able to show up for one another and and how well they are able to bear the situation. The same goes for our relationships with ourselves. I can see now that I really showed up for myself this year. I didn't do it perfectly or anything. I spent a lot of time feeling mad at and disappointed by myself. But when I read that article I could see that, on the whole, I stuck by myself in The Pits. I didn't abandon myself into another harmful relationship or booze or drugs. And even my relationships with eating and work – two of my favourite, safest hiding spots – didn't take over too much.

I kept going with my goals at the pace I could manage. I kept trying to be kind to myself and others. I struggled to let other people's kindness in and accept help. I let myself cry – a lot. I figured a lot of things out. I hung out in The Pits and I feel like I gained a lot in understanding, in tolerance, in forbearing.

I grew.

And Sondheim? 

I'm reminded of some lyrics from Sondheim's Into The Woods:
And I know things now,
Many valuable things,
That I hadn't known before:
Do not put your faith
In a cape and a hood,
They will not protect you
The way that they should.
And take extra care with strangers,
Even flowers have their dangers.
And though scary is exciting,
Nice is different than good.
Now I know:
Don't be scared.
Granny is right,
Just be prepared.
Isn't it nice to know a lot!
And a little bit not...

(Read more: Into The Woods - I Know Things Now Lyrics | MetroLyrics)

Actually, Sondheim obviously knows this stuff inside out and backwards.
How about these lyrics from Merrily We Roll Along:

All right, now you know:
Life is crummy.
Well, now you know.

I mean, big surprise:
People love you and tell you lies.
Bricks can fall out of clear blue skies.
Put your dimple down,
Now you know.

Okay, there you go —
Learn to live with it,
Now you know.

It's called flowers wilt,
It's called apples rot,
It's called theives get rich and saints get shot,
It's called God don't answer prayers a lot,
Okay, now you know.

Okay, now you know,
Now forget it.
Don't fall apart at the seams.
It's called letting go your illusions,
And don't confuse them with dreams.

Yes sir, quite a blow —
Don't regret it,
And don't let's go to extremes.
It's called what's your choice?
It's called count to ten.
It's called burn your bridges, start again.
You should burn them every now and then
Or you'll never grow!

Because now you grow.
That's the killer, is
Now you grow.
 
(For all the rest of the words, go here.)

How did I end up writing about Sondheim? I don't know. It's raining. I'm procrastinating packing for my move.

I think it's time I put a little Sondheim on the speakers and started making breakfast and getting this rainy day underway.

The moral of this story: difficult things happen and they are difficult. If you can get through them with a mostly open heart, you will grow. If you get through them with a mostly open heart inside a relationship with a partner who can also keep their heart open, the relationship will grow.

Easier said than done, I know.


I wish you and me and all of us lots of luck.