Painting, Writing, Baking & Trying to Focus

After all of the sewing that I did last week, this week I am writing patterns- sooooo, there's not much exciting going on here!

I did find some time to do some quick illustrations for the February Newsletter (sign up for your free subscription here)....

And I finished up 2 quilts for my next pattern so I could get them off to the quilter.....

Today, I am planning on working on some recipes for the newsletter, too. I tried one out over the weekend, and it was kind of a fail. So back to the kitchen. Good thing my family and friends don't mind eating the "mistakes."

How is everyone's 2013 going so far? So far, mine has been..... pretty much like 2012! Meaning, no huge changes. I don't make resolutions anymore- I resolved to give them up a long time ago, ha ha! I never kept them for more than 3 days anyway :). I do have some new things planned for this year, though. I mentioned in my last post that I am going to do my patterns differently, so that will be a little bit of a challenge but I am pretty excited about it- I hope you will find them to be beautiful and an excellent value for your money.

I am also looking to re-do my blog and website this year- which let me tell you is really overwhelming! Like..... I lay awake at night bed wondering how I am going to do it, in the midst of getting everything else done. You know how that is- that you feel that you really need to move on, but you can't seem to find the time for the new stuff because there's still so much stuff in your day-to-day life that you have to handle? And that is when you start to feel like you are just running on a treadmill- working and working and working but not getting anywhere. That is how I have been feeling.... so I have to figure out a way to find make time for the new stuff I want to explore.... Of course that means that some old stuff is going to have to go- and that is scary. I have ideas that I have been turning over in my head over the last several months. Oh there just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do! Maybe that is the hardest part- deciding which things to focus on, and letting the other things go.

Of course there are some things that are just a "no-brainer"- like I could watch a little less TV. Or get up a bit earlier. Or spend less time on Facebook.

(Brings to mind a saying I heard the other day:
Don't give up what you really want for what you want right now.
Yes!)

How do you get past the "planning" stage into the "doing" stage? When you have lots of ideas, how do you decide which is the best to focus on? And what have you given up in order to make more time and energy for those things?