Is it too late to be a New Year?

Is it too late to be a New Year? I feel like I'm still trying to figure out what my goals for this year should be and here I am on the last day of February! My new job has certainly taken some getting used to (part of why I've been MIA from the blog and the shop!). I haven't quite gotten everything sorted yet.

But I have so many ideas of fun stuff to do in the house and in the shop! Once again over Christmas I over committed to making more of gifts we were giving than sanity really requires. But some of of our Christmas presents this year got the juices flowing on some new things I could add to the shop.

But before I do that its time to address the functionality of my work space. Because no matter how excited I am for new projects the truth is that I am having a hard time getting started. I was trying to analyze why. Its partly because household tasks pile up during the week and I'm also going to blame it on winter. I never feel totally my best self this time of year. The joy of the holidays is past, the days are short, dark and cold. And all I want to do is curl up on the couch. But a big thing I realized is that I don't want to hang out in the shop. I'm just not that drawn to that space. And since I seem to adhere strongly to Newton's 1st Law (an object at rest stays at rest) it is really important to get me into the space where I work. Once I'm there I'm happy for hours but I've got to get there.

The realization that I didn't want to be in the shop brought up a more important question. Why? I have a really nice work space. A desk that faces out to our yard, lots of shelving, lovely pegboard my husband made me, and the fold down work table that he also made me. What was going on? During times I might go into the shop but didn't want to I tried to stop and really analyze why.

1. The first thing that came up: its cold. As you all know if you've been reading the blog, I hate winter. Sorry to those of you who think this time of year is magical but frankly after Christmas (which is really only a few days after the official start of winter) I'm done with this season. That's right; less than a week in and I'm out! I hate being cold and this room has a sliding glass door that leads to outside, that we more often than not leave open to let the doggo in and out.

2. Its cluttered. I have a lot of craft supplies and every time I do a project a little more gets added to the pile. Its a daunting task but its time to thin the herd.

3. Its not super organized. I get really distracted by spaces that aren't tidy. And since I have the afore mentioned clutter I have struggled to get the room truly organized. Even the stuff that does have a home isn't always stored in the most logical way. Currently my fabric stash consists of boxes with folded fabric stacked inside, making it difficult to get to the fabric on the bottom. I like my storage solutions to look nice since everything is on display but there needs to be a balance between appearances and function and I haven't gotten it yet.

4. My chair isn't super comfy. I've had it for years and as I said in my last post lo these many months ago, its a shitty little Ikea chair. I love it because its the first thing I re-upholstered as well as the first fabric I used on it was also the first fabric I printed myself. But its not intended for long periods of sitting and it certainly can't compete with the couch in the living room. I had a big 'comfy' chair in here but it mostly just took up space and when I ended up in it I was rarely being productive. It also turned out to be less comfortable than it appeared. I still have it but now its under the fold down table and doggo has made it his own. Which I think was the best solution for it. But that still leaves me without a great chair.

This is part of my goals for this year. I've already started tackling the room re-vamp and hopefully next month can show you some positive progress. I think every start of a year is a reminder to myself to never stop improving.

At any rate, Happy New Year!