Stuck.

You see this?

THAT, my friends, is my December Daily. The one that I was making for myself.

Yes, you would be correct if you reminded me (gently!) that it's already halfway through February. You would also be correct if you noticed that it seemed a bit... incomplete. You wouldn't be out of line if you wondered WHY it was in such a sad state, this far into the new year.

I can tell you the answer to that. It's because I suck, that's why.

This is where the "imperfect" part of Splendidly Imperfect comes in. This would be a "keeping it real" post! After all the whirlwind of Christmas and all of the December crafting frenzy, I just needed a break. I told myself that I was just going to take January off and not do ANYTHING. Obviously, if you've been with me for any length of time, you know that I don't really seem to be capable of doing that. I ended up embroidering dishtowels and knitting dishrags. I just need a creative outlet, I guess.

This book is almost done. Some pages need numbers still, some need journaling, and I need to print the photo for the 31st. Oh, and it needs a cover. So why have I not just buckled down and gotten the dang thing done?

Because I don't want to, is the easy answer. I keep thinking of all these fun projects I want to do. I want to make cloth napkins! I want to make that old dress I got at Goodwill into a skirt! I want to make a St. Patrick's Day bunting for my living room mirror! I want to get started on scrapbooking the baby's first year! I want to embroider more dishcloths! I want to make the baby an art smock so we can try fingerpainting! I want to make myself a new apron for fun!

Then there is the stuff that I NEED to do. I need to finish my sister/future brother in law's quilt. I need to make a gratitude album for my mother in law. I need to bake my neighbor the banana bread I promised her weeks ago. I need to make my sister in law's bridal bouquet. I need to get back into baking bread for us to have here in the house.

But I haven't done any of those things, because I told myself that I wouldn't start new project until I finished my old ones. Right now, that happens to be the December Daily album. There's a reason Ali Edwards tells you to premake all your pages - if you don't you end up spending way too much time thinking about them instead of just documenting your story and getting it done. I was a dope and was making them as I went along, then totally got behind as crunch time hit around Christmas.

There are only a couple hours of work left in this so it's totally stupid that it's not done and that it's keeping me from moving on to stuff I want to do. I guess I'm just uninspired and that's making me avoid it. Instead I've been reading blogs. I'll find an interesting one and read it ALL the way back to the beginning. I just keep it open in a tab and refer back to it here and there. So, if you have analytics and you're wondering who this freak is who has been camped out on your site for a week, um, Hello!

I'm starting to find that not doing the creative stuff is starting to affect me in other ways too. I've totally slowed down on my dishcloths. Where I was doing one a night now it's taking me a WEEK to finish one. I haven't been doing my chores as effectively. I'm cooking less. I'm just not motivated in general and I think this has a lot to do with it.

Therefore, I am stating here that I WILL finish that dang album by the end of the week. Then, I will make the book for my mother in law, and my sister in law's bouquet so I can get that in the mail. Hopefully those will happen next week. After that, my reward for finally getting those tasks out of the way will be that I get to make my napkins.

Hooray for that. :)