A Breath of Fresh Sanity

Sanity finally prevailed around 1:30 this morning, about 15 minutes after I made myself go to bed so I'd actually get a little sleep before my 6am meeting.

You see, my Good Intentions get away from me and take on a life of their own, on occasion. (Just ask my husband about the knitted gifts for Christmas this past year.) I try to set reasonable goals, and to adjust them as need be without too much fuss and bother, but sometimes...sometimes...my ambition is bigger than my capability to complete.

As the dress form last week took longer and longer to complete, then turned out to be Just Plain Wrong (I still plan on taking a picture of it before we toss it today), I started preparing myself for the likelihood that I would run out of time on this dress project. I told Rick a few days ago that I would set it aside and focus on other trip prep if I had anything more than the zipper and the hem left to do when I set it down last night (or earlier if he was too overwhelmed by our to-do list and needed me to stop). It was looking pretty dire when I hadn't cut out anything but the lining pieces before I started working on it yesterday, and I was ok with that. I have other clothes I can wear in Hawaii, and I'll still have a lovely dress to wear this summer even if I don't finish it until after I get back. But then...I started getting hopeful. I was making good progress last night, and I started thinking there was a chance, and those Good Intentions came flooding back. I could do this! I would have my dress after all! I just needed to push a little harder.

Then I glanced over and noticed the big bold 12:43 staring at me from the clock, and the Good Intentions stumbled, just for a moment. When I gasped in shock at the time, Rick (who is a prince among men!) asked if there was any way he could help me get it done. I shoved some bodice pieces at him and said, "Yes! Iron these seams open, please?" He was more than happy to help, and did a great job ("Does it matter that I don't have any idea why these need to be ironed?"), but at 1:00 I realized sleep needed to happen so I could be coherent today for work, and started putting things away for the night.

The Good Intentions followed me to bed, though; the new plan was that I was going to do everything on my to-do list (aside from the dress) as early as possible, and then if I had any time left I would finish the dress. I could pull out the clothes I want to take, while listening on conference calls. I could sort my toiletries and refill what I needed to while I was waiting on processes to run. And really, since we're going to have to leave the house at 3am tomorrow anyway, if I need to I can just skip going to bed, and get some sleep on the plane. Who needs sleep before vacation, right? I can still do this!

And finally, FINALLY, I remembered that the purpose of this trip is to relax and enjoy a beautiful location with my husband to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Everything else -- EVERYTHING, including a new dress -- is just a bonus. The only reason I was so focused on finishing is because that was my goal; that was driving my crazy plans even more than the idea of wearing the dress on the trip. So there really is no need to make the last day of trip prep even crazier than it's already going to be, just because I want to meet a goal I set for myself. So I'm very deliberately setting aside the dress with absolutely no intentions of picking it up until I get back. After all, we want to try to stay more or less on West Coast time, since Rick will be working for three days of the trip and I'm hoping to catch a sunrise or two for pictures, and skipping a night of sleep will not help that. We're even hoping to get to bed as early as 8pm tonight to try to give ourselves the best chance at a full night's sleep as possible (where 'full night' in this case is only '6 hrs' but hush).

I'm really ok with not meeting this goal. I will enjoy this trip, relaxing with my beloved. While he's working I'll knit the shrug I want to make for the dress, and take my time instead of frantically diving into it on the plane and trying to get it done so I can wear it on the trip. While we're sitting on the beach listening to audiobooks and watching the waves, I'll leisurely finish the first of two sweaters for the June babies I'm knitting for. Hmm, maybe I should pack the other one, too. I'll finish up the mitts that have been sitting there waiting for me all month. And I can work on my huge backlog of photo processing. And order some enlargements. And maybe start looking for places to talk to about doing a gallery show. And start working on a website... and...

*deeeeep breath*
Relaxing with my beloved in a beautiful location. Everything else is, as they say, gravy.