Can I share your next 5 minutes? It's important or I wouldn't ask...
You have been so patient, waiting for the release of the next issue of 6 Bits Storybooks, and I am so, so thankful.
When I planned the release of this issue I knew I wanted to bring in new designers to work alongside. You, Dear Reader, would meet 2 additional knitters and hear their stories. I was very excited about this!
On a personal level, I knew I would be moving mid- to late- Autumn this year, so I laid careful plans and timed things out with that in mind.
Life decided it might be more fun to see how far I could be stretched...
In April my husband left for our new home, several months earlier than planned, and without me and the kids--- which was not the plan. Or at least it wasn't my plan anyway...
Suddenly I became a pseudo-single mom, running the home, homeschool, preparations for an out of U.S. move and managing the creation of Reflect. I kept telling myself "It'll be fine, no big deal! You have lived through hard times before."
These have been the hardest 9 weeks of my life.
I have cried in the shower like a baby (on rare days when I have managed a shower).
I have had to apologize more times than I can count and ask for forgiveness, it seems, on an hourly basis.
I have messed up more things than I have executed well and learned how deeply I can be humbled each day.
I have not taken any of the advice and encouragement I give so often to others, instead opting for a stiff neck and tight lips that refuse to ask for help.
A grown woman should be able to do all things perfectly and beautifully and on her own without a handout...
NOT IN REAL LIFE
Help is so hard to ask for, and I thought it meant I was a better person if I didn't ask. After all, if I am in this situation I must have some lesson to learn from it, right?
It took me until the end of the 7th week to realize perhaps the lesson I need to learn is to stop trying to have it together when I really do not have it together.
I really have not had it together.
And I was afraid to show you.
I have been on empty.
No cute tweets. No pretty Instagram pictures. No uplifting blog posts. No showers for a couple days in a row is nothing to share with online pals---can I get an Amen on that?
Now, I am not having a nervous breakdown---yet. But I do have a stomach of knots similar to the worst yarn barf you've ever had to deal with. And largely in part because of my own doing.
I should have shared this a while ago, but I thought in between wrapping up school on a happy note and trying to find a house overseas for our family with running water* and end of year things for the kids and helping my husband who was far away and not doing well and organizing a household of five for moving day which was several months earlier than planned and driving the dog to Atlanta and back in one day because it had to be done to get her where we were moving and I needed to be back for an appointment that could not be changed on the next day and the library books that needed to go back because they were renewed past their limit... ARRRG!
I thought I could make time for putting all the pieces together.
I was wrong.
Bottom line:
I want Reflect to be something I am proud to share with You.
And to do that I need a few things:
First, I need to apologize to You for not keeping You more in the loop. I ask for your forgiveness please.
Second, I need time. I am writing this on the floor amongst boxes as we just landed Saturday night to our new home. My life is in disarray, but we are all together now and that gives me a little more breathing space each day. So I can work to finalize things. Sarah, the managing editor, and I will be meeting to talk over the final pieces that need to be ordered and what timeline that looks to be. I would love to tell you Reflect will be in your inbox on 6.16.16 because that is catchy and looks good and seems do-able.
I will give you a date after we talk and plan.
The little pieces need to go together just as nicely as the beautiful big pieces!
Articles have been done and are great! Patterns are photographed and written in a layout I think you will love. Now I need to work on setting them all out as I imagined, as a beautiful treat.
With love and aloha from a humbled heart,
Melissa
*We found a house with water, but from a cistern, or rain catch. We are embarking on a new journey where we will learn quickly how to live with a conservationists heart.