Howdy! (That's Hillbilly talk for Hello *grin*).
I am Tonya from Hillbilly Handiworks.
When first invited by April to be a guest blogger,
I thought that I would do a post about my unconventional (but very creative) way of storing fabric.
Two pictures ought to do that for you:
To read more about it, you may visit HERE.
Since that was quick and easy,
and since this blog is for a wide variety of creative people,
I thought I would share the words of one of my most popular posts.
I hope it encourages you too!
Do you ever feel guilty for using your creative talents?
I do. This is something that I really struggle with.
I feel like if I am sewing,
then I am not giving my husband his time,
or my boys their time.
There is always cleaning that could be done instead.
EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail, I go through a battle.
I plan to head to my sewing room on certain evenings (Mon, Tue, and Thurs).
During the day I get so excited at the prospect of getting some projects worked on.
Then by evening...here comes the guilt.
I was reading a homeschool magazine a while back,
and they had great article about guilt.
I jotted a few notes that I expanded upon and want to share with you.
(Just to give credit where credit is due,
the article was written by Deborah Wuchler, The Old Schoolhouse, Spring 2010).
Basically Deborah says all of our guilty feelings stem from one thing:
EXPECTATIONS.
We expect things of ourselves.
We have a list of things that we feel others expect of us.
And all those expectations add up to guilt.
Some areas that are common for personal struggle are:
I do. This is something that I really struggle with.
I feel like if I am sewing,
then I am not giving my husband his time,
or my boys their time.
There is always cleaning that could be done instead.
EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail, I go through a battle.
I plan to head to my sewing room on certain evenings (Mon, Tue, and Thurs).
During the day I get so excited at the prospect of getting some projects worked on.
Then by evening...here comes the guilt.
I was reading a homeschool magazine a while back,
and they had great article about guilt.
I jotted a few notes that I expanded upon and want to share with you.
(Just to give credit where credit is due,
the article was written by Deborah Wuchler, The Old Schoolhouse, Spring 2010).
Basically Deborah says all of our guilty feelings stem from one thing:
EXPECTATIONS.
We expect things of ourselves.
We have a list of things that we feel others expect of us.
And all those expectations add up to guilt.
Some areas that are common for personal struggle are:
- "I am not doing it the right way". It's ok to do it YOUR way. You don't have to do what everyone else in blog land is doing. Or how the pattern says to. Try it your way. Make it work for YOU.
- "My work is not adequate enough." For who? Break away from the quilt police, or knitting police, or painting police,or jewelry police, or... Give yourself a chance to nurture your talent and to learn from it. I have really been doing that over the past year.
- "I can't do it all!". My house needs cleaned, I need to plan school, I need to sew this and that charity quilt, I need to sew things my family wants, I need to sew things to sell to relieve the stress on my husband, I need to have Husband and Me time, I need to find time alone with each child, I need to...STOP! Don't let yourself get overwhelmed by all that life has for you to do. I really badly struggle in this area. I think most of my personal guilt comes from this point alone. While each of these things are important, they can't all be done in a day.
I could go on here, but you get the idea.
Don't let your expectations take away your joy!
Does anyone else struggle with guilt?
Thank you April for having me.
Please, pop on over for a visit and say hello!
