This post is the first in a series.
I am almost always in a rush and I'm pretty sure I always have been. My third grade teacher, Ms. Tishler, wrote on my report card in 1983 that I needed to slow down and stop handing in such sloppy work. If I recall, at that time I was in too much of a hurry to actually locate and sharpen a pencil to do my schoolwork so instead I was writing with bits of pencil lead I found on the classroom carpet.
Rushing is part my inner workings. I am always ready to start the next thing, right now! Why wait? Let's go!
Besides sloppy grade school worksheets, I actually think being in a rush has served me pretty well. I'm super efficient and I feel good when I get a tremendous amount done in a short period of time. I never needed to pull an all-nighter in college because I got all my work done during the daytime. When I was a teacher I never brought home work to grade because I used my planning hour effieciently. And now I'm a super effiecient mom. In the hour between 5 and 6 pm everyday, I make a full dinner for five while entertaining three kids, setting the table, emptying the school bags, and packing lunches and snacks for the next day. And I bathe the baby somewhere in there, too.
Mostly this works and at 6:15 pm we are seated around the table, eating something tasty and chatting about our days. But sometimes the veggies are a bit burnt, and the baby has emptied the contents of three different board games into a jumble on the floor while I was marinating the chicken, and the middle child is frustrated because she needs someone to help her tape her cardboard box rocketship together RIGHT NOW. And I feel so rushed!
Life can go by this way with me hurrying around getting everything done, meeting everyone's needs.
Once the kids are down for the night, though, I go upstairs and sit at my desk and sew. And when you sew you have to slow down. You simply cannot sew things fast. If you do, you'll make mistakes that you'll have to unpick, slowing you down even more. Sewing is methodical. Step by step, seam by seam, it all comes together and it cannot be rushed.
And that is something I love about sewing.