FINALLY! A RULE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!

I've developed a very bad habit lately, which I'm chalking up to the fact that I am standing in the vestibule to Menopausal Hell. I'll get hungry for something and then sit in the chair saying to myself "Naaaah, that doesn't sound good" or "No, that's not what I'm hungry for". And on an on it goes until it's either too late to eat something (I mean, come on, who here has the ability to eat anything past 8pm anymore?), or I've waited too long and am now in a full-on blood sugar crash that results in me falling face first into the refrigerator.

The worst part of this new habit is that it has wormed its way into my stitching. So every afternoon/evening becomes a mental game of "I'm in the mood to stitch something......(sounds of crickets chirping) until it's too bloody late to make any meaningful progress on anything and I go to bed defeated.

If you've been here for any length of time with me, then you already know my propensity for concocting routines or tricks or bribes to get myself more productive with my stitching, so it should come as no surprise that I spent the better part of yesterday doing just that.

Finally, at around four o'clock it hit me square between the eyes.

FIFTEEN MINUTES!

(You'll note that when I shouted this out loud, I startled Little Lord Fauntleroy right out of his late afternoon reverie and right into a hissy fit that resulted in me having to wash the drapes again.)

(Damn dog.)

The thought came to me yesterday that I used to be one of those people who lived by the credo of "I can do anything for fifteen minutes". This, of course, can be put into the same philosophical category as "Just one bite of peas and then you can go back out to play", or "Start with ten minutes of light walking and before you know it you'll be running the Boston Marathon".

So that's what I decided to do vis a vis my stitching.

Whenever I am undecided as to what the heck I want to play with on a given day, I'm going to pick up a project (any project, mind you), and work on it for fifteen minutes. That's all. Just a lousy fifteen minutes to see if I can get the stitchy juices flowing. If, after fifteen minutes, I'm still bored and want to throw myself into a Violet Beuregard tantrum, then and only then will I do so with impunity -- knowing all the while that I at least gave it a shot.

So here's what yesterday's fifteen minutes turned into....about five hours of pretty good stitching on a canvas that had been languishing in the WIP basket:You know me...I loathe the idea of giving anybody advice (you can stop that snickering in the back now, please), but if you're starting to feel a little slumpy in your stitchy area, try the fifteen minute thing and see what happens. You might be amazed at what appears. (*)

(*) The fifteen minutes starts AFTER you've gathered your project, adjusted it on the stretcher bars or q-snaps, fished out all of the threads, etc., poured yourself a vat of dietCoke, and then nestled into your Happy Chair.

Baby steps, people. Baby steps.