A Bit Stalled

This is a “Rerun” post from the original blog – I’ll be putting these up here and there alongside the new posts but with their original date of publishing.

Hi folks. I’m dedicated to being honest with you about what I’m getting up to in the workshop and with my creative life in general, and to be entirely honest with you, that is not much to write about this weekend.

I’ve had a significant period of stress at work, coupled with some health worries (now apparently receding – touch wood) the combination of which has set off my occasional anxiety quite badly.

At the same time, I finally started on a digital project I’ve been meaning to explore for several years (a personal database and lifelogging system) which has absorbed all of my attention and a great deal of time.

As most of you will be aware, I started this whole thing with the intention of moving my leisure time away from staring at screens to making real things, but during this rather tough time I’ve allowed myself a temporary deviation, and honestly diving into the database has been a real respite when my anxiety has been spiking and I haven’t been able to keep my mind on crafting.

I still have a good number of older projects and topics to blog about, and the health issues and work stress have much improved this week, but then on top of everything I’ve found out that my landlord is putting my flat on the market, meaning that in the very near future I may be A: Dealing with the complexities and stresses of moving and B: Losing the flat and workshop I’ve kind of fallen in love with over the last year.

This has really taken a lot of the joy out of doing or writing about craft stuff, as you can imagine.

It’s not all bad; if I end up having to move out I have plans all ready for an upgrade move to Workshop 2.0 (and, in time, 3.0) which are exciting enough to allay a lot of my sadness. And look, big new cutting mat! All ready to stab and burn and drop things on!

…but right now I’m not really feeling posting about workshop antics. Hope you all understand.

Have a great week folks, and all being well I’ll be back next Sunday with, you know, a Christmas decoration I made out of parchment paper and bike lights or something.

(Actually I did try to make that and it didn’t work. But I’m saving that post for next Christmas.)

Addendum

So, I wrote most of the above yesterday, and coming to it today to finish posting and rereading it, it all seems a bit dismal. But actually I got up today after a good night’s sleep, had a damn good cup of coffee and ended up spending about four hours in the workshop working out a custom notebook with quotes and a stencilled cover for my mum for Mother’s Day. So, you know, I’m not that badly off the wagon 🙂

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