(pre-warning: the below post is a bit of a mind dump, so i am sorry its a long one, but i needed to get it off my chest). Thanks.
I have a few regular crafty podcasts that i listen to, particularly Paperclipping Roundtable and The Digi Show. From time to time the subject of guilt crops up. Scrappers guilt. That feeling of not being “caught up” with your scrapbooking, the feeling of “being behind“. I have never approached my crafting in this way. Ever. In fact, it was something that I always secretly felt (dare i say it) proud about. That i didn’t fall into that dreaded trap!
My role at work changed a month ago, and I have been feeling more exhausted in the evenings. With the onset of dark evenings, my motivation at night have considerably reduced. Hubby has been away a lot with work, and we bought a new sofa that is distractingly cosy. All these things combined have meant reduced scrapping time. Even with all of this, I don’t think i ever felt guilty, or behind when it comes to craftiness. However, today, when listening to Steph & Co talk about ‘failures’ in The Digi Show, I had a sudden realisation. No, i don’t get scrappers guilt, but I do in fact get bloggers guilt!
Woah! How come i had never realised this before?
Over the last few weeks, I have still been crafting, but just not blogging. I started to ask myself why. Of course there were a million excuses, and to a degree I think a lot of these “reasons” all together kinda bummed me out, and stole my mojo. My daylight bulb light thingy broke which meant that i would have to take photos during the day. Working full time meant that this would need to happen at the weekend. The weekend meant I had to work around a toddler and any other family activities planned. When these brief moments did arise, of course I would find that the camera was never charged. I would grab my iPhone and then shake it angrily when the ‘not enough storage to take photos’ message would appear.
And so my blog would remain dormant.
Yesterday and today I took two days off work and finally had the time to sit and relax. I took time to browse through my google reader, tidy my craft room, play with my sewing machine and make a scrapbook page. OH MY WORD! I feel sooo much better. Talk about craft therapy!
Feeling revived and rejuvenated…look who is back on the blogosphere! Yeaaay! Im excited again. woohoo.
But heres the thing. Crafting is my hobby. My passion. My therapy. And it really does makes me happy when I get to share my projects and ideas with other. But I don’t want to feel GUILTY when I don’t. So i guess what I’m saying is I have made the decision not to feel guilty when I don’t get a chance to update my blog. I’m stepping away from putting pressure on myself to update regularly, or stick to deadlines and schedules which are unreasonable given that i am a full time working mom. My family comes first, not blogging. And I won’t apologise for that. In fact, that puts a big smile on my face. Thats the way it should be.
And Im sure you don’t really even care. That this guilt is a demon of my own creation. In fact I kinda hope it is that way, because it makes it so much easier.
I know I have some regular viewers (a BLaudience if you will) and I know that for some people, I may be weeded out of a blog reader if there is no regular content, but i am going to make peace with that. And hope that maybe some of you will still pop by to see what i have to say and what i have to share from time to time.
Thank you my friends. for listening.
