Sunday, April 19, 2009

A Couple Weeks to Heal & Refresh

I'm on the road to recovery and ready to take on more activities. In fact I got the go-ahead from my doctor the other day to do so. I've been given the nod to be able to go up and down stairs again. That means I have no excuse not to get back into the sewing studio downstairs. I'm looking forward to it.

The past two weeks of recovery I've spent a lot of time sleeping and resting while reading or watching television. In the meantime I've been noticing all kinds of things around the house that need to be taken care of. Things like spring cleaning, sorting and purging stuff (lots of clutter) as well as revamping my sewing and studio areas. I've been catching up with various sewing room blogs with ideas to get more organized and get rid of stuff that hasn't been used for a long time.

Currently there's piles of fabric I started to sort and pre-cut into usable strips and squares. I have a good size stack of 5" squares to make charm quilts. My supply of 2 1/2" strips has dwindled down to nothing thanks to the near completion of my Strippy Squares Quilt. I plan on cutting more strips to have on had for these quick and easy strip quilts. One of my goals is to cut more of both the strips and charms from lots more of my fabrics.

I also have lots of old magazines that I have already started going through -- tearing out articles and recipes I want to keep for future use. That is something not too taxing to do while recuperating from my recent surgery. There are still plenty of magazines to go through. I need to get a handle on all those past issues I've files away. They've grown beyond my storage capacity. Right now it's all about simplifying and reducing clutter for me.

This new blog is being adorned with some background embellishments I've recently discovered through a couple websites that have come to my attention. I had been noticing more and more blogs showing up with fancier, more decorative appearance to them. There are a few quick blog designer tools at Delightful Dots and also The Cutest Blog on the Block. I'm sure there are probably other websites that offer this kind of easy access blog template service. These are two that I've run across recently.

Playing with these new templates has increased my desire to get back into my web designing and web programming studies. I've been away from the books for about a year. I haven't lost it all, but I know some of the details have become fuzzy over that time. Getting back to my HTML and CSS books is another thing I want to invest some time into. There is a lot to learn, and to remember. Looking at some of the coding from these sites has helped inspire me to want to develop more of my own personalized pages for my website. I spent some time this past week getting back into some coding for my soon-to-be future website. It still needs lots of work.

So the pull right now is to spend time cleaning up, organizing, getting back into the sewing studio with some new work, and also hitting the books and revamping my website with some web programming. That covers multiple directions to direct my attention. I need a plan -- a schedule -- and some lists.