Happy Wednesday! I’m early you say? I usually post on Friday? Yes, I usually post on Friday, but I knew when I started working on blogging once a week that I would need to be flexible. Now I could write this blog and then set a timer to publish it on Friday, and no one would be the wiser…except me, but I think building flexibility into a practice is very important. So I am blogging today, and I am blogging about being flexible!
I am a practical doer kind of person, and I have lived a lot of my life with a tight, set schedule. I taught for nigh on 15 years, and as you know, school is definitely a schedule, and in the schedule department it does not lend itself to flexibility…inside the classroom flexibility is key, though. These days, I am queen of my own schedule, but I have to remind myself that I can move things around and be free to do things how I see fit…there aren’t bells to send me to the next period of my day. However, I am a pretty regulated person, but I am learning to be less rigid in my thinking.
My daily walks are a great example, and they are one of my favorite practices in my life. I walk five times a week, usually Monday-Friday, and I didn’t commit to walking everyday on purpose, even though I think I would enjoy that! (Yes, I do walk extra if I like!). By making five times a week my standard, I can move days around if I need to do so. If I cannot walk on Tuesday for some reason, then I can walk on Saturday or Sunday. I have flexibility when I need it. Plus, limiting exercise to five times a week offers my body a respite or time to relax and recover, which we all need.
I try to practice the same flexibility everywhere in my life. I wanted to blog once a week, and Friday seemed like a good day to post…I could work on the blog all week, but I also knew I might be busy on a Friday or have a shortened work week or something would come up, as it inevitably does. I wanted to know I could be flexible…even if it meant missing a blog…as long as I returned to the practice. And I should not feel bad about needing to make changes to an otherwise consistent practice.
This week I am helping my boys for a few days, which is a lovely reason to shift my schedule! I’m excited…the studio is a creative, working mess that will be here ready to start again when I step back into it. Plus the change will give my brain time to work through a few things I am pondering for projects in the studio! A change in schedule can be a great way jump start creative thought and renew creative energy…my regimented mind just needs a reminder once in a while!
I hope you find the time and will to offer yourself more flexibility, too.
Sending Quilty Love,
Ginger
Reading Now: I’m further along in Middlemarch…Dorothea has married Casaubon, and she is feeling the weight of her decision and the juxtaposition of her dreams and the reality. Lucy is frustrating me in Lockwood & Co., but she is frustrating herself, too! I have not settled on a nonfiction book yet, but I think I am getting closer…By the way, I am quite flexible when it comes to reading…I really don’t set parameters for myself in my reading…I don’t worry about the time it takes to read a book and any time is fair game for reading!
Read well, wide, and deeply and be kind. NPR is a great source for unbiased news.
