Firstly, thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I was wary of posting the story, thinking it was perhaps a bit sentimental, or, truth be told, unbelievable. If I hadn’t written it down to share I think I might have persuaded myself I’d made it up. The experience has left me bouyant, I’m glad to say, and even though I’m not at all religious (though I admire people who are able to have faith) it does feel as if that man was delivered to me personally.

But anyway, here we are at Sunday evening, a time my mother abhored. She still does, and truthfully, makes no distinction for the time of day. She hates Sundays. I have never really understood why, since she’s never explained, but her loathing for Sunday is quite ingrained and vicious, so much so that she can spend a whole Sunday wandering around saying “I hate Sundays” through gritted teeth.

Personally, I love a Sunday.

(This may explain a few things. We have been at odds on several things, me and my mother.)

Sundays are for any number of things, and today we have managed: lolling, planning a new utility room, baking ginger biscuits, making a macaroni cheese the longwinded way, reading stories, eating soup, cuddling cats, having a think. What a luxury it is to have a jolly old think.

Things that have been thought about today: paint colours, making continuous bias strips, zip placement in cushions, washing machines, leaving the house, life being too short not to eat a ginger biscuit baked by your husband, what to do with the week, shiny sinks.

If I think back a week, I was most certainly Glum of Glumland. What’s changed has been the principle of the shiny sink: I’ve made plans to see people and do things, and made preparations the day before so I can’t talk myself out of it. If I make a plan then I can bound straight into something without wallowing in the mire of indecision. Clearly I need more direction, not less, since I seem to be feeling more cheery this week than I have in a while. If it works for the mothering part of my life, why not apply the same thing to the selfish part of my life?

The things that make me happy are writing and sewing. Writing makes me feel more alive than most things, but I shy away from it. I don’t try nearly as hard as I could to make room for writing, because … well, because I may fail, and I desperately want not to. Sewing was what I turned to when I was doing my writing MA, a rest from being trapped inside my own mind fighting with words, but a little act of creation nonetheless. At some point the two were turned around, and sewing was all I was doing: the writing fell away, and I have become less happy.

So I do need both, which is the butter, but I don’t have time for everything I might want to do with either, which is the diet part. With sewing I think I need to get back to basics, and so for the time being I’m not going to attempt any more dressmaking. I’m not particularly happy with my shape anyway, and I need less complicated, more fun. With writing, I need to schedule in some proper practice time, and somehow get my ability to concentrate up from 1 minute 40 seconds (this being constantly interuptable for a toddler plays havoc with your abilities, doesn’t it?). But you know what – I’m also scheduling in some TV and kindle time. There must be time for mindless pursuits, mustn’t there?

That was the upshot of my big old think today. I’ll iron out the details tomorrow, and yes, properly make a plan if that’s what it takes to get going again. Once things are habitual, they are easy to maintain – it’s just getting back to that that will take some effort.