Goodbye Lemon Tree Creations

Lemon Tree Creations has been on hiatus for about a month now, so I imagine it's time I write a little bit about it. I can't seem to organize my thoughts on this one, despite a few attempts, so instead I'll turn to my favorite way to document the randoms, a numbered list.

1.) The decision to stop LTC was a mutual one between Tiffany, Patrice and I. We were all sad about it, but it mostly had to do with the changing circumstances in all of our lives, namely our growing families and shrinking time.

I said in my goodbye post that I know that some people can manage their blogs (and lives) seamlessly despite changes in their families and circumstances, but unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I thought that I would be able to manage after a 3 month "maternity leave" with guest posters filling in for me. But this was just one of many ways that Hannah has been different than I had anticipated. Her unpredictability has kept me guessing for months now, including guessing about the amount of sleep that I'll receive on any given night, and how much energy I'll have for anything above the normal the next day. I thought I'd be able to keep it up, but it turns out that, at least for the moment, I can't.

2.) When we started LTC in March of 2010, I was so excited about all of the different projects that I could tackle. Jayce was almost 2, still taking 2 naps a day, and I had enough time to start, complete, photograph and write about new projects each week in addition to anything else we had going on. A month or so later Jayce dropped to 1 nap, which still left me with enough time, and I opened my Etsy shop as well.

After Hannah was born, I shut down my shop for a few months. I thought at first that Etsy was the thing that I was going to stop, but I decided to keep it open. It takes far less time than LTC and I'm glad to (possibly) be able to give it a bit more attention.

3.) Often when people mentioned the blog to me they would make comments along the lines of, "How do you have time to do these things every week?" And I would respond with something like, "Well, I really enjoy it, so I just make time for it."

I think that participating in a creative blog is just like any other Thing You Don't Have Time For, much like exercising regularly, cooking from scratch, reading, volunteering, etc, where you make time for the things that are important to you. It was a good hobby that I really enjoyed. But maybe now I can start exercising again, because we all know that I'm not about to start cooking from scratch.

4.) It's funny to see, when I look back on my old projects, where my head was then. At first all of my posts were about thrifting, refinishing and painting, as I slowly decorated our new home.

But for the past year my projects have (understandably) been about sewing, nurseries and babies. Part of that has to do with the fact that I was pregnant for most of that year, which hindered my ability to paint, saw, and hammer. Sewing and preparing for baby was an obvious and enjoyable transition.

4.) A part of me is really bummed to stop LTC, because I feel like we stopped before we saw where we could go with it and push it to it's full potential. My decision to quit was not because I was feeling burnt out, with no ideas, or that I was juggling my time poorly. The ideas are still there, but the time just is not.

I never stopped to add up the amount of time that I spent on LTC-related blogging activities per week, because I knew it was a lot and kind of didn't want to know. :) And aside from the project itself, the writing, photographing, editing, the extra administrative work took LOTS of that tiny little bit of free time. I decided that, when we stopped LTC, I would be purposeful about using that extra time wisely, and not allow those minutes to be taken up by facebook or some other random thing. So far I've had some success.

5.) The first week that we stopped LTC I cut out and sewed 4 bibs. Then I opened the manual for my sewing machine, learned how to sew on a button with the machine, and put buttons on those bibs. I made these boots, which I've been trying to find the time to make since October.

I also read an entire magazine. I had and went to a play date. I took a nap. I wrote an entire post for this blog in one sitting since I didn't have to divide my time and effort between two. I listed a new item on Etsy and then had a sale. I read a parenting book. On Sunday night, instead of writing my post like I had been these last few months, I called a friend and caught up.

For the past month I have been on a sewing frenzy. The extra time that I'm not spending photographing each step and writing about it later has led to more time for the projects themselves. I've sewed 4 bibs, 3 appliques, 2 Valentine banners, 2 sets of leggies, and a pair of boots. I made Valentines Day outfits and then I made more.

6.) I'm still figuring out how I want to spend this "extra" time when I have it, because I know that the minutes could easily be wasted online. I just made one of these, which I pinned months ago, to help me keep my thoughts in order, and motivate me to still try to accomplish (at least) one thing each week in addition to the daily grind. I just love those bright post-its!

7.) The absence of LTC is fresh enough that I still think, "Now what do I need to be doing this week/today?" all the time. But the very best part about stopping LTC came this week, when my whole house fell sick as they/we tend to do at this time each year. I was stressed, exhausted, and certainly running on empty by Friday. But knowing that the only thing that I needed to do each day, was take care of these two and try to get them healthy, made me feel as light as air. And the only thing that I needed to do when they napped was try to catch a nap myself. And for now, I like that.

Linking to Miscellaneous Mondays.