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August 21, 2013 By Mandy Leave a Comment

Winding Down

I’ve been hard at work this summer, but it has not been so much sewing-wise as it has been family-wise and me-wise. If you just want to read about the sewing and stuff, skip to the end 🙂

Family-wise, we’ve been filling out our summer passport.  And more importantly, we spent a month on swim lessons, 5 days a week!  The Elder Child has been very resistant to swimming and so this was an intensive month of training and helping him overcome his fears.  Part of this is due to his sensory processing issues, and part of it is he doesn’t process other types of information the same way most people do, so it was a real work in progress (but aren’t we all?).  I’d spend 45 minutes working with him while he took his bath, getting his ears used to being in the water, allowing his lips to get close enough to blow bubbles, things like that.  For a month.  I won’t lie, it was exhausting, but at the end, when he swam to the deep end with his noodle and jumped in twice on his own, I couldn’t help but be so proud of him I wanted to cry (and almost did, but it would have freaked him out.)  Thinking about it now makes me want to cry, from pride and something else, since I see how he’s got a long road ahead of him, learning how to learn with a brain that works outside of the typical, which we just found out two weeks ago.

This is where my sewing-life and my personal life intersect.  I recently started taking a creativity course with Nichole Webb Rivera working through the Artist’s Way, which has been really great; having a dedicated group to talk to (all privately, no public exposure) and reading the book with guidance has been tremendously interesting and provided me with some insights that have been truly helpful.  I’m only 3 weeks in, but I can tell this will be a big deal for me, professionally and artistically.  What I found to be really amazing was how much it has helped with dealing with the hard family things lately, and learning how to be a better parent.  It all comes together–who can keep their life compartmentalized with all the scraps sorted out into discrete colors, shapes, or sizes all the time?  Sometimes life is a glorious (or not so glorious) pile.  If you’re feeling blocked, maybe think about this course.  It sure has been a positive thing for me, so far, and keeps me honest (otherwise I’d probably not do everything in the book without some accountability).

And here are some of my favorite pictures from the last week:

IMG_20130816_191713 IMG_20130818_121457 IMG_20130819_084432 IMG_20130819_100721 IMG_20130821_100027

That last picture?  never would have happened without swim lessons.  We’ve spent years playing on the fringes, and now we are ready to dive right in.

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This blog is my own, and I write all its content. Links to Amazon and Craftsy may contain an affiliate code, since I am part of their affiliate programs. While I am a Bernina Ambassador, the machine I use is one that I have purchased prior to becoming an ambassador and is my property, not Bernina's; I am an ambassador because I love my machine. I do have free things that are sent to me from time to time, and if I use them I will always fully disclose that. All opinions are mine, and I will give them honestly. I am not paid by the people who send me things to write reviews.