It's one month since I returned from overseas. Its two months since I last posted on my blog.
Funnily, just like that, I stopped. To start with I didn't have much to talk about from abroad, and then I didn't have time or inclination, and lately I don't really know why or if I should continue.
Our trip was hard work, very hard work. This was my fourth time travelling long haul with children, but the first time with two. Irritatingly hot weather and hot, sleepless nights, a "wake several times a night and up at the crack of dawn baby", a sick baby, a teething baby, family events and related organisations and generally a lack of downtime pretty much crushed the spirit out of me. Along with that all my creativeness ran dry and the small packet of embroidery items that I took with me sat unopened the whole duration of our five week trip. Telling, huh?
At home again I have a nearly walking one year old who pretty much ensures that my bottom does not hit a chair for longer than a few minutes at a time during the day (if you've had a toddler in your house I'm sure you can relate). Time for sewing or blog posting? Not really. Time for reading blogs? A tiny bit. Time for commenting on blogs? Not at all.
Instead I've turned my attention to a touch of spring cleaning around our house that has hardly called for the use of the sewing machine. I've had holes in the living room wall patched and painted, a bunch of pictures framed, new pictures hung in the hallway, sold a bunch of baby gear on Ebay, donated baby toys to the school fete, donated the bunting from my shop to the school fete, mended the straps on the high chair, celebrated a first birthday, made preparations to celebrate a sixth birthday, got into the groove of school readers and sight word learning, re-arranged and tidied the bookshelves, re-framed photographs, bought some new knives for the kitchen, won a set of saucepans, won a new necklace, shopped at the farmers markets, eaten lots of strawberries, had a guest to stay for a weekend, visited doctors and dentists and the like, had one late night out with friends, stopped night time breastfeeding, got the baby to finally sleep all night long, cleaned vomit out of the family car and put the goose down doona away now the winter chill has lifted. And that's of course aside from the usual everyday cooking, cleaning and care of small humans.
Where to next with me? I'm not really sure actually. I've re-opened my online shop and I have a few vague plans to sew items for it. I'm thinking a lot about blogging and the general online presence, about the feeling of "talking to a virtual brick wall", about the over-share and over-promotion on all the possible online forums available to use these days, about bloggers I've loved but have become infrequent posters or have even stopped, bloggers that used to talk craft but have expanded into a whole lot of topics besides and even about a blogger I loved to read and she died, and that suddenly was the end of her blog. I think about that often actually, all this stuff you put out there and how to reel it back in again if you need to. And why, I'm really trying to answer the why right now.
Why do you do it? Can you help me?
