{~*Reality Check*~}

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I'm not quite sure how to turn this into a cohesive post but just go with it ok?

I think it's important to keep my blog upbeat because that's how I am in real life, but it's also important to keep it real and sometimes real life can suck.

I got an unexpected reality check last Wednesday. Does anyone ever really expect the scary things life throws at us out of the blue? In this case it was that Chop has a lump & might be sick.

We found out that it wasn't cancer but the days leading up to that phone call have been incredibly crappy and eye opening. I knew in my gut that all would be ok regardless of what happened. I have faith in modern medicine, I have faith in my husband being a strong guy, I have faith that we'd make it through whatever cards had been dealt to us. I love that guy more than anything in the world & it's just a matter of holding on to that love with both hands. And maybe a beer at night to calm down. ;)

Since last Wednesday I've done nothing business/work related. And fallen painfully behind. I think you all understand. I can't focus knowing things are up in the air. I'm not a machine with no feelings. Some people can work through upheaval, I can't.

I spent a lot of time talking to Chop, going on adventures, being his other half, baking & teaching him how to cook. Making lists. Thinking a lot about the future. Debating which projects I genuinely loved & wanted to continue with. Which projects weren't worth it anymore. Organized my finances. I did some reading. And it was the reality check we both needed.

We want to spend more time together & stop working insane hours. Why on earth am I scheduling every.single.second.of my life? Two reasons: I genuinely love to work and I severely undercharge on projects so I'm constantly scrambling to pay my bills. I see all the flaws, rarely charge above $8-10 for custom sewing, give discounts because I feel bad asking people to pay me what I'm worth. A lot of this has been floating around in my mind after a really enlightening skype with Lizzy.

Painter's don't charge $20 for a painting. So why do people charge $100 for queen & king sized quilts? I know some people are fast, but seeing very beautiful & intricate quilts that cheap hurts my stomach. I can't change why people price their hard work cheaply, but I can change my own attitude about it. And start enforcing it more. Minimum wage isn't cutting it when I've been sewing for almost 5 years.

I also have zero patience for the online quilting drama that has been happening lately. I've received a few bitchy comments that I deleted, because my blog isn't a place for nastiness. And people can take their nasty attitudes elsewhere. I highly doubt any of these people would have the balls to come up to people in real life & say the things they do while they hide behind their computers with evil grins & steepled fingers.

We all sew. We are all on different paths with our sewing. We all have different spending budgets. We all have different definitions of what a quilt is. We have different time restraints. We all like different fabric. And at the end of the day, we all SEW. And designers aren't trying to just design for one overly critical person online. So let's stop being condescending & bitchy to each other because all it does is discourage people from posting, designing and new sew-ers from wanting to take up the craft. What if the one person who inspires you decides to stop posting because of negativity? That's a loss for them and you. And countless others who lurk on the internet & are shy. And I know that if a bunch of my online friends stopped posting the stuff they were creating I'd be totally bummed. There is too much serious blah going on in the world, quilting & sewing shouldn't be one of them.

Instead of being the internet quilt police, why don't we spend time with the people in our lives we love, dance to our favorite song (currently Country Girl) in our underwear, sew whatever we want with fabric we love because it's fun, bake because chocolate is delicious, encourage each other during rough patches, paint our nails with the most sparkly glitter we can find because who can deny the amazingness of glitter, leave comments on flickr on things we love, buy cute new shoes because shoes fit no matter what size you are and read trashy romance novels in the sun because it's a great escape?!

That sounds much better than being an evil jerk any day.