When life throws a curve ball at you, a person can get kind of philosophical.

I’ve spent the past two weeks battling West Nile Virus. While I was in the throes of this sickness, I started looking over my life and asking myself, am I really living my life like I want to live it?

Sometimes I feel like the butterfly in the glass jar. She can see all of the other butterflies going about their business, flapping from flower to flower, drinking nectar and floating in the wind, but she has trapped herself behind the glass.

The glass jar has an opening, but she’s not venturing out of it. She’s anchoring herself behind the glass.

While I was sick with West Nile, I had to lay in a recliner, day and night, with my spine at a 30 degree angle. I set a few light goals for myself, which I easily accomplished:

But I also had a lot of time to think.

I asked myself, “Where do I need to create more balance in my life?”

Those of us who collect and sew for dolls probably have one thing in common: we’re not done being a kid. I often feel that I need to fulfill something inside me that longs for a safe, healthy, happy youth, the childhood I DID NOT have.

Although my ugly childhood will always be a part of who I am, I don’t want to dwell on the past. Instead, I want to find balance in the life I’m living now. You may have seen the YouTube music video that I made recently, and it hints at this fact (look at timestamp 16:55):

 

So I’ve decided to cut a section of my life that isn’t bringing me as much joy as it used to. I’m going to cut Facebook (AKA Meta) from my life, as much as I can, without alienating my family members.

Over the weekend, I made the announcement on Facebook, that I would no longer maintain my Facebook business page. I let people know that if they wanted to ask me questions or request patterns, I would be happy to answer them via this website or my YouTube channel.

Here’s my Facebook account’s new header:

While I was sick in bed, I also created a new “to-do” list, which I’ve already begun using, as you can see in the image below.

It’s designed to help me focus on all aspects of my life: myself, my family, my community, money-making goals, spirituality (combined with mental and physical health), and long-term goals.

Because I’ve been so sick, I’ve literally been working on this list since the end of May, one step at a time:

Of course, if you’re interested, this “Life-Balance To-Do List” is available in my Etsy store, for a small fee.

And while I was sick, I have thought about these things too… What do I want to charge money for? And what do I want to keep available for free on this website?

In my list above, you’ll see in the Long-Term Goals quadrant, I’ve written in the second column (item #10), “Create a WooCommerce “Shop” page.

Over the summer, I’d like to switch my current “shop” page to one in which I have images to click on and purchase goods through my affiliate marketing program.

Will this give me more freedom? Maybe.

It will at least help me cover the costs of running this website, which has so many patterns stored on it, that I have to pay $20 per month or $480 bi-annually, to maintain the 200 GB of storage required to keep all of my PDF patterns available to the public for free.

But is this how I really want to spend my life? Do I want to continue spending all of my weekends making new patterns and updating blog posts?

Maybe not. I’m still in limbo.

I mean, I’ve already created a phenomenal library of free patterns! I’m really proud of that! Maybe I should move away from that for a while…

I think what I really want to do now is write books and get them published.

Remember, before I got sick, I had aspirations to re-start my Tape Measure Tuesday blog posts? Here’s an example:

That’s a beautiful infographic, isn’t it? But it took me about two hours, maybe three, to make that.

I could build some of these and upload them to my Etsy store for sale, but I don’t know that people would actually buy them. And again… is that what would make me happiest? Is that freedom? To create a bunch of infographics for dolls I’m not even currently sewing things for?

Maybe not.

I really, really want to write books and get a few books published. That has been a life-long goal of mine, literally since my childhood.

So I’m just not sure what the future of ChellyWood.com really is. Will I stop doing daily blog posts, and just do one a week? Will I do one blog post a month? Will I hand the blog over to my niece, Mel, who is young and passionate about dolls?

I just don’t know.

But I know this…

How I spend what’s left of my time here on earth DOES matter to me, and creating daily blog posts for ChellyWood.com has become more challenging for me.

But God gives us challenges to teach us lessons, and my battle with West Nile virus has given me a time-out to help me re-focus my attention on what really matters to me.

Am I really allowing myself the freedom to create what I want to create? Or am I like the butterfly who thinks she’s trapped in an open Mason jar? Somewhere inside me, I know I’m really, truly free to create what I want to create… and that’s what I’m going to do.

With that said, there may be days when I don’t post anything on this blog.

And there may be days when I just do blog posts on random sewing topics.

And there may be re-blogged posts from long ago.

Before I end today’s post, I want to say thank you SO MUCH for all of your kind prayers. They helped me with not just my physical health, but my mental health and life balance as well.

I wish all of you every happiness, and I thank you from the bottom of my pincushion-y heart!