Like a Bad Penny

And I'm back.

I know, it's been a long time. We hardly got a chance to get acquainted and I up and left without a word. Shame on me! No, really, shame on me! Abandoning my blog isn't the worst of it, I abandoned my craft as well!

Forever ago, my father in law (career postman, among other things) told me that the USPS was hiring clerks and not only was the starting pay good, the benefits were amazing and let's be honest, who doesn't love amazing? So, more to humor him (and my husband) than anything else, I applied. When I didn't hear anything back after many weeks of waiting, I stopped waiting. I was more than content with my day to day as it were and a job would probably get in the way of my EVERYTHING, so no real sweat off my brow.

I went on with my attempts to build my crafting empire from my dining room table while keeping one good eye on my kids as they played (and tormented each other) as usual. Things were truly going well, my shop was getting a considerable amount of traffic with multiple orders to be filled, and I had just begun to fulfill a longtime desire to create and batch my own soap recipes. I was very hopeful for the future of The Two Two One!

And then the damn phone rang.

I was in the basement sorting laundry. Why I had my phone on me or why I answered a call from a number I did not recognize, I have no idea. How I even had a good enough signal to make out what the lady on the other end was saying, I will never know. In retrospect, it's always the little things that stick out in my mind - how maybe they shouldn't have been little things but perhaps a big flashing neon sign that said WARNING! SOMETHING IS WONKY HERE! Alas, there was no flashy sign, no siren, no smoke signal. I answered the phone, I listened to all the things the lady had to say, and for some Godforsaken reason, 6 months after I had applied for the job, I accepted the invitation to test and interview for a PSE position with the United States Postal Service.

Long story shorter than I would usually tell it, I got the job. I was placed at a small station not so far from home that I absolutely loved! It's located in a part of my hometown that I have always had an affinity for that after a long downward spiral is in the process of being revitalized in the best ways possible. In all fairness, I loved my job. The work was hard, the hours were crazy, and I was basically the red-headed step-child of the whole deal, but I liked it. Or rather, I liked the people I worked with, for the most part, and for me, that makes a world of difference. The money was good when I could get the hours but I never knew week to week what I would be working, where I would be working, or if there would be work for me at all. I was sent all over the city to nearly every postal station, at all hours of the day or night, always subject to call-in, no real scheduled day off, and on and on and on my list of complaints goes. It's a really long list, believe me. In the end, I quit that job, and I don't feel badly for it at all.

Truthfully, things got complicated when I found out I was pregnant in November. As my pregnancy progressed, it was clear to me that the well-being of myself and my unborn were not of any real concern to those who make the rules and it was time for me to go. After 5 months of not being able to keep a scheduled appointment with a doctor because of call-ins and schedule changes I decided that I'd rather be broke than broken.

I sold 8 long months to the USPS. 

In that time, I somehow managed to create 4 Halloween costumes and a few crocheted this and thats, to my surprise. 

My sewing machine went untouched, my neatly organized supplies were rummaged through by tiny hands that should have known better and scattered from one end of the house to the other. My workspace disappeared under a stack of unopened mail (hey, after touching that crap all day long I know you didn't think I was going to go through it when I got home!). I know that I could have found the time to work my day job (even tho my days started at 2:30 in the morning more days than not) and still continued crafting, but truth is, I was so worn down by the BS at work, I just didn't have the energy! It took weeks for me to decompress enough that I was even able to begin putting things back together. It took even longer for me to rebuild my confidence to a level that allowed me to piece together a quilt top. I was positive that I had forgotten all the little bit that I had learned and I was truly terrified of cutting fabric seriously convinced that I would ruin it.

I didn't ruin it.

My first quilting project after almost a year off was a quilt for my husband, finally. I starched, I pressed, I cut and I sewed, and it looks awesome! One of these days I will pin, quilt and bind it, but in my excitement I am still bouncing from one project to another in a hurry to do all the things that I had been missing out on. For every project I finish, I start 2, and for every project I start I plan 3 more. It's a vicious cycle, but I love it!