During the past two years, my crafting has gotten leaner. I haven't done a class project in quite a while. My daughter's class is made up of two 20 children classes and my son just started kindergarten so instead of just making 20- 24 items, it's now 60-64 items. So it's quite a bit more daunting. After burning out on lots of Christmas projects and burning the midnight oil from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I decided to dial back the craft ideas. Trying to keep them simple and easy so I can enjoy that special time of year and not be a scrooge.
But I have been crafting. Lot's of knitting, which I like because I can do it while watching TV or while on long car rides. The last couple of years I've taken Ikea Lack-type tables and done beautiful photo collages and sealed them with epoxy. This past Christmas I took plane white dollar store mugs and used oil based markers and dishwasher safe Modpodge to write a saying on them and included packets of hot cocoa. So still crafting, still being creative, just more judicious in the time spent and the projects chosen.
I've been focusing more on career development. I have found a great space working in palliative care and truly believe in what we do. It's what all of medicine should be - listening to not only patients' hearts beat, but also what makes them beat. What part of a patient's life gives them joy, gives them the will to live? What do they need to feel productive, needed, to feel alive? And how can we help them attain those goals. Healthcare, before and after Affordable Care Act, is driven by insurance reimbursement, which pushes medical providers to provide care in less time, or worse things, in order to make ends meet. We take the focus off of the disease and refocus on what it will take for our patients to have the best quality of life possible, with whatever time they have left.
Currently, I'm part secretary, part program coordinator, part program development. And I'm the only one really, other than my boss, to do administrative work for the practice. I like having a pulse on our patients. Being the one to triage their calls and e-mails, but we are growing so much that I can't focus on the other part I like - the creating, the developing, the innovating. Not to mention I also feel like I don't have all the skills to fully participate. So I am looking into graduate programs and other ways to grow professionally and hopefully, grow here in this current location.
This focus on career, though,has been a large part of the decline in my blogging. I want to continue writing, but I want to expand my focus to beyond crafting and life at home. I want to engage in writing about palliative care and healthcare issue as well as my latest craft project and parenting trials and tribulations. I'm not a particularly articulate or eloquent writer but I hope to improve with experience.
2015 - with only 9 days to your name, there is so much potential! Insanity by Crafting no longer serves that potential. This blog needs a new name to go with the new, broader focus. When we meet again, it will be under a new name.
Happy New Year!!
