“It does not do to dwell on dreams…”

“…and forget to live.”

I am a very lucky woman. I love going on long, interesting holidays, starting in one city and travelling across the country to others, really getting a taste of wherever it is that I am. On the other hand, however, I hate researching, organising and booking such holidays.

So why am I lucky? Because I have an amazing husband who does it for me!

This weekend, after a few hypothetical conversations, CB bought a couple of guidebooks and started researching a holiday in California/Southwest America for us. Very exciting.

It did mean, however, that he was busy reading and researching all weekend instead of paying attention to me. Having just finished an unsatisfactory sock, I’m in no hurry to start another, but I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I’ve also done far too much reading recently so didn’t want to lose my weekend to yet another book-eating marathon.

So instead of going stir crazy and distracting him, I took myself off and was productive. I cleaned the house, I baked a carrot cake, I changed the bedsheets, I put the laundry on. After exhausting the normal weekend tasks, I was still at a bit of a loose end.

Now I do have a bit of leave coming up. I’m not doing anything, I just had leave I had to take before I lost it, but I have been writing myself a To Do list for it. I have already dipped into this list, darning my socks before schedule (such an exciting life I lead) so I thought I would dip in again and get a longstanding project ticked off.

So I made this little beauty of a cushion:

It’s an old t-shirt of CB’s which we liked too much to throw away, but was worn through in a couple of places so really had to be retired from his wardrobe. I’ve been planning to make a cushion with it for absolute yonks, maybe a year or more? But I thought as I was ankle-deep in free time I might as well get a wriggle on with it.

It was trickier than I was anticipating, trying to line up the design on both sides (though I probably made things more difficult than they needed to be), and it turned out slightly bigger than I was planning (though CB fixed that by just stuffing in a second cushion insert – hence the bulbous look!), but I’m really pleased with it. And really pleased to finally be able to tick it off my to do list. And really pleased with the productive use of my free time. And really pleased that CB could focus on planning us a fantastic holiday.

And really pleased I actually have something to write about this week.


*Quote from J. K. Rowling