Loss of balance

I saw it happening and did nothing to curb it. September was a great month. I was progressing so well, disciplining myself, learning so much and still getting so much done. I had a regular schedule. I was exercising everyday.

Enters October and a frantic dash to finish a Halloween costume that was started two years ago. It was more than just finishing it for Halloween this year, it was conquering the project once and for all. But I let it consume me. The house became a wreck. I stopped running everyday. I stopped reading. I stopped meditating. I went back to doing the bare minimum of what was needed to get through the day.

Now, two weeks after Halloween, I'm still having trouble rebuilding the structure I had before. I still haven't picked back up on exercising or the meditations I was doing. The house, at least, is somewhat back to normal, but I'm just feeling a bit drained. I poured myself into one project, a single facet of my life, and now I'm struggling to recover the balance I worked so hard to attain. Granted I never did really attain complete balance, but I felt closer than I ever had before. I was on the right track. The trouble now is that I know what I need to do to get back there, but it's like there's an internal wall keeping me from doing it. Something is blocking the full potential of my energy.

As I sit here looking at Jonah starting to rub his eyes and yawn, signaling it's nearly time for his first nap, I think I'm going to go change clothes real quick and stretch and take him for a jog for the first time in like 6 weeks.

ETA: Mission accomplished. Although my legs don't hurt like the first time I went in September, boy do I have a lot of crud in my lungs from nearly constant congestion since then. If I can finish the week doing the .7 miles or so I did today, maybe I can add the extra quarter mile next week to get back up to where I was when I left off.

So I did spend some on sewing this month after all

Friday, I ordered 2 yards of a lovely lace for the neckline of the Angel gown from Lace Heaven. I was afraid they might run out and I really loved the look of it, not to mention it was only like $5.50 for the two yards, so it's not at all as though it's going to break our budget. I'm hoping it'll get here in the next day or two, not that I need it, I'm just excited to see it. She's in LA (Lower Alabama as we liked to call it) and I think first class mail only took a couple of days the last time I ordered from her. Of course, there was the holiday with no post running yesterday, so it will probably take a little longer this time. I plan to get some sequins and beads (or maybe use some beads I already have) to make it sparkle. I'm not certain the original actually had much if any beading to the lace. In the costume stills from the dvd, it just looks like plain lace. But with the sparkly nature of this costume, I think it needs it.

I know I'm retarded, but the more I think about it, the more I think I want to do the beaded edges myself, rather than paying ~$10/yd for the edge trim from M&J. I just can't rationalize paying that when I've got a huge bag of the bugles already and just need the seed beads. I know that would be the most expensive part of the whole gown if I went with the pre-made trim and I'm trying to keep the cost down a little. If I bought this stuff, it could possibly even equal what I've already spent on it (which is around $100 or so). Since I don't have any immediate plans to have this costume done (just ALEP next year), I don't mind taking the extra time to do this hand work. I've thought about doing much worse things (like beading/embroidering my own fabric for the Mirror gown, yep, I'm insane and I'm sure I won't do it).

---

I took some time yesterday to play with a pattern for a wrap skirt. I've got a store bought skirt I want to use as a base for the design, but change a few things. For one, I don't think I've got enough fabric to cut it on the bias, but I'm doing it out of silk velvet so I think it'll drape beautifully regardless. I played around with miniatures of the pattern shapes and cutting layouts with some paper and muslin scraps. I couldn't seem to get motivated to do much else. It's all dreary and rainy here and turning cold again, it seems.

I still need to adjust the way the wrap shirt fits and get the trim on it. Probably just a couple of hours of work, but I'm just not feeling motivated to do anything since Saturday. Maybe I'll get up there and do that now. It's stopped raining and the sun is out and it's turned out to be quite a lovely day, so maybe I can actually get something done now. Sucks that my moods are so dependent on the weather.