sewing

last night i decided to bust out my sewing machine.  we bought a new car the other day, it has a built-in entertainment system.  the 2 headphones that came with it were loose in the back seat and bugging me.  how am i going to keep these things clean, off the floor and safe?  i decided to make a bag for them so they were together and out of the way.  i found a easy pattern here and went to town.  after making that, i decided to start cutting into the halloween fabric that i had been collecting and hoarding for the last year. what the heck right?  get that halloween quilt going!  what am i waiting for?  i love fabric.  i just love it.  sewing is such a good hobby.  anybody can do it.  try it, you'll like it.

reframe your troubles.


cultivate the art of reframing or redefining troubles so they are no longer problematic.  simply call your troubles "experiences" and remember that every experience helps you grow.  life's lessons are abundant, just waiting to happen, and experience is that wonderful vehicle that provides them.  experience is a handy thing, helping you learn how to predict your next mistake.  from experience, you can also recognize a mistake every time you repeat it and know when to cringe. and one thing about experience:  if you don't have any, you're likely to get a lot.  even in the midst of frustrations and disappointments, if you think about experiences and troubles as being really, really, good for you, you can sustain a sense of contentment.  life is hard, and you do have to work at it.  but if you can face difficulties or trying tasks with peace in your hearts, you can know something of happiness.  in this respect, author william lyon phelps taught:  "if happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would be neither a man nor a woman; it would be, i think, an american cow."