Hello! and goodbye...

I looked at my blog the other day and realized that I haven't posted anything since December.

"Oh, oops." Maybe I should fix that.

First let me fill you in on all the happenings around here...

First of all, we moved. From northern Idaho to North Dakota. We found out right around Christmas time, started packing the first of January, and left Idaho on the 14th. We arrived in North Dakota and stayed in a hotel for a week and then moved in to our new place.

We absolutely LOVE it here! We missed the really cold weather, and by now it's actually starting to warm up, so weather wise, it's been great! And definitely not as bad as we had thought it would be. Though I'm going to wait until next winter before I make any set-in-stone judgements about the weather. ;)

The Mr loves his job! Like sersiously, it's a really really great job! I feel too lucky for him to be so blessed, I'm afraid I'm going to jinx it if I start telling everyone we're staying for ever! Though I really hope we do. At least for now. ;)

The kids LOVE school! I LOVE their school! When I first got them registered they had me meet with the principle which I thought was strange. But as I sat with her and she told me all about the school and their programs and schedules and well, everything, I literally started crying. "How in the world did we ever get so lucky to get in a school this amazing?!! I didn't even know this existed!" Those were my exact thoughts. What a blessing! Over the last few months, they still love it and we love it, and it's a great experience! Yay! Tommy even started speech therapy there and he LOVES it! And his teacher loves him! It seriously couldn't get any better than this.

I am really loving it here too... though with everything so good, I'm feeling rather out of place.

We have moved a LOT since we've been married. This is our 8th move in the 10 years we've been married. So we've got the moving thing down. And this isn't just like around the corner moves. I think only one move was in the same town, and one other move was still at the same job but different city. We've been all over Utah, Iowa, Florida, Northern Idaho, and now North Dakota. But with all those moves, while they've all been an adjustment, this one has thrown me off my rocker.

All the other moves were a change in location and in our place of residence, but my role was the same, my stress and pressures were fairly the same, the needs of me were the same. I knew who I was, and what I did, and what I needed to do to contribute. But this place is different. Suddenly my stress is gone, my burdens and baggage are gone, I've gone through a lot of healing of my past over the last year or so, and I feel like I'm in a really really good place emotionally and mentally and spiritually. I'm getting back into eating better and exercising, so physically I'm doing better as well. I've even started taking anxiety medicine, which has taken the edge off and it feels awesome! I really don't know what could be better....

Except despite all of this I feel completely lost. I don't have the pressure and stress that I had before to work and run my business. For the first time since I started my business, I don't have to. We aren't in a crunch or a need for that extra income - which really was my driving factor behind running it. And now that that's gone, I'm not sure what to think. about my business. about me. about anything.

About a month after we got settled in I went through this period where I absolutely hated my job and I hated quilting. I hated it. I resented it. and I was just so mad. While I've enjoyed the journey, I've also gone through a lot of trials and struggles, dealing with issues from my past, dealing with current issues at the time, dealing with my fabric addiction, stress, being a tired mom, life in general, and lots of health problems. It's been a really hard and exhausting 6 years.

But then I realized that it's not the quilting that I hate. But rather that quilting really was my therapy, my relief, my escape, my distraction, my solution. It was woven into everything I did and everything I dealt with so tightly, that I feel like I am now having a hard time separating those experiences from the activity of quilting and designing.

It also makes me sad, because while it's helped me, I also feel like because of it (but really because of everything else that happened in life) I missed out on a lot of life. I feel like I missed out on my kids being little. I feel like I missed out on friendships and relationships. I definitely missed out on sleep and being healthy and taking care of myself.

But now, for the first time, I feel free from this. I feel free from everything. It's a miracle and a blessing, and I find that I am really really tired. and as much as I want to enjoy it, and where I'm going and all the opportunities that are presenting themselves to me since we've moved here, which really are so awesome. I'm not excited about them. It's cool, and I'm grateful. But I don't have the passion that I once did.

I've wrestled a lot with what I should do and where I should go next. I definitely want to focus more on my family and taking care of myself. I want to take time to do the things in life that I've always wanted to do. I don't want to over commit myself and be run by deadlines and work - controlling my life and limiting the things I can do and enjoy. Over the past however many years, I've been tied to my work. A prisioner in my home because I had too much work to do that I couldn't go have fun, or even just relax (which I really didn't want to do at the time anyway, and with my little kids, I couldn't really go anywhere anyway - a huge part of the reason why I started quilting in the first place. Because I was stuck at home with my kids and quilting gave me something to do.)

Anyway... as much as I've thought about it, I can't figure out what to do. I could keep designing patterns, but I'm really struggling to find the purpose in that. How would that better the world? How am I bettering people's lives by designing patterns? What difference does that make? I want to do something meaningful, and I can't see how what I do as a pattern designer and running my business matters to anyone else.

So then what???

I'm writing this post for a few reasons. One, because maybe if I put this out there and share my struggle with the world, then just maybe I'll find my purpose or an answer, or at least a point in the right direction.

Two, because I want to test the waters and see what it would be like to quit my job and just walk away. So, with this post, that's what I'm going to do. I am going to say goodbye to my job and to quilting. I'm not sure for how long. It might only be a month, or a week, but maybe it'll be a few months, a few years or forever. I don't know! I do have some things I'll be sticking around for, but I want to cut the ropes 100% at least for a bit to see what it feels like. I've tried to continue to write and design patterns, and now I need to try quitting, so I can compare the two and know which is the right answer for me at this point in my life.

So that's it! I'm done! I know that I have a few things that I said I'd be doing, like the extra sashing patterns for the Zodiac BOM, but I'm not going to be doing them. I apologize for setting up that expectation, but that really was over my head to begin with. I bit off more than I could chew with that. I did finish the Simple Sashing pattern, and that was really all I was going to provide anyway when I initially said I'd do the sashing pattern. If you're mad at me, I'm sorry. But I need to walk away from this right now.

Otherwise, I don't think there is anything else out there that I still have left hanging commitment wise (unless I've chatted with you today, Marian if you happen to read this. I'm still on for that.)

But otherwise I'm checking out! I'm not even going to say I'm on vacation, because a vacation for me is more work than not being on vacation, so I'm not even going to try to complicate it.

And now I don't even know how to end this... I don't know how to walk away from something. especially this. lol. This has been my life, constantly in the back of my head every day. But I'm kind of excited! Maybe I'll start posting on Instagram again. And maybe I'll start being more social again. Maybe I'll come up with some really cool thing to start doing... or maybe I'll just sleep a lot and go to bed early, and spend a lot of time cooking really healthy meals, and working out, and next time you see me I'll be all muscly and fit. haha!

I don't know. But I'm sure whatever it is, will be awesome!

Thanks for hanging out with me! I obviously still love ya! and hope to see all the cool things you'll be doing and making. (and I guess I should say, that I'm keeping my shop open. And I'll still have my patterns for sale... and you can still tag me and such. But I'm going to stop playing the role of this business woman, and just be me again. No more marketing, no more selling, no more newsletters for now. And like I said, maybe I'll be back sooner than later. I don't know.)

Ok, enough rambling.

Have a good night! and I'll see you around!