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Normally in the mornings, I try to do a little cleaning, any one of the hundred little things that always seem to need doing. Since I am only working part-time, taking care of the house and baby are my other “job,” and I feel like I need to put in some good hours doing that before I take care of myself or do fun things. Peter works REALLY hard at his job, so it’s only fair that I work hard at mine. Taking care of one’s mental health is important especially when one is suffering from ailments like liver cancer.

But Monday and Tuesday, I decided to cut myself a little slack. Instead of constantly putting off the fun things I want to to for the less-fun things I SHOULD do, I decided I would allow myself a little time to do the things I WANT to do (a mini-vacation, if you will). This was my self-preservation/coping technique for the times when I start to feel myself spiraling off into Dangerous Thoughts, since I didn’t have any appointments with people who can ACTUALLY help until Thursday.

So Monday night and Tuesday morning, I finished a cloth diaper I had started, hmm… a month ago? At least? I don’t really know, but I did know Emmie was going to be in danger of outgrowing it before I ever finished it! I’m so happy I did it, and this is the first (functional) diaper I’ve done completely by myself, as Peter usually does the snaps.

Fitted diaper outside

Inside with doubled snap-in soaker

Soaker opened

It was also SO fun because I got to use the serger that Peter got me for my birthday. I’m still be no means a pro (don’t look too closely at any part of the diaper, really!), but it is 8000x easier than I thought it would be and makes certain things WAY faster. I serged the soaker, which probably saved me at least an hour (I’m not a very fast sewer under the best of circumstances!).

I also used the serger to finish the edges of some new fabric I had purchased that was waiting to be washed. Normally, when you wash fabric before you use it, threads from the cut edges fray, get tangled, make a mess and can distort the fabric. It’s very annoying. But I saw a great tip online to serge the edges before washing to prevent that. It was amazing! My fabric came out looking better than ever and I didn’t have to iron it before folding it! (I’ll iron it before using it, but it used to get so crumpled I couldn’t even fold it nicely without ironing).

Plus, the very easy serging was quite relaxing. I pulled out another pile of fabric I’ve had languishing for months, just because it hadn’t been washed yet, but I have a feeling that won’t last for long! Anything that gets me sewing is a Very Good Thing.