Balancing Act

There are times when balance is easy to achieve, and times when it isn’t. Right now, I’m not doing a very good job of balancing work and personal life. But I wonder if I ever have. When you’re young, you can work all the time and still manage to squeeze in personal time. When you get “older”, your personal life starts to make demands on you and you’re more inclined to agree that you should have some time that isn’t work related.

That is the message that I take from today’s Full Moon. In the wee hours of this morning, Pacific Daylight Time, the Sun and Moon had a faceoff across the heavens: the Moon at 6 Libra and the Sun at 6 Aries. The Sun was backed up by a stellium of other transiting planets, including Venus, Uranus and Mars in Aries. Venus and the Sun in Aries make beautiful noisy music together. Uranus adds an element of uncertainty and excitement, and sometimes genius. Add Mars and you’ve brought some volatility to the situation – any situation. Especially with transiting Pluto making an uncomfortable square to Mars. Pluto can indicate anger at a very deep level, but it can also signify business (money) or a great deal of willpower. Transiting Jupiter is also aspecting Mars in a positive way and may put a more idealistic spin on Pluto and Mars. Generally speaking, Pluto and Jupiter are “money” planets. Teamed up with Mars and Venus, they quite often bring finances to the forefront. In this case, it looks like a positive combination, a good time for getting some old debts cleaned up and wiped off the books.

I’ve been quilting my coffee cups during my “personal” time. I’m not going to show you another picture until they’re finished. I was hoping to have some Easter projects done by now – because now it’s too late to do what I intended to do with them… But, if I get them finished this weekend, I’m sure they will still be happily received.

When I quilt, I use these “cheater” needles to bury my threads. They are open at the top so instead of threading the needle, you line the threads up and pull them down into the eye. I’ve have these for a year or two. When they work, they’re great, but as often as they work, they don’t – the thread breaks as I’m pulling it into the eye. This week it dawned on me that if I “waxed” the thread before I tried to pull it into the eye, I might have better luck. So I needed some cream with a beeswax base. This one from Burts Bees was in the medicine cabinet and although it has a strong vanilla scent, I gave it a try. Makes your fingers a little more slippery when trying to hold the needle, but it prevents a lot of thread breakage, so I’d call it a success. And I don’t really smell the vanilla on the runner. Even if it’s there, there are worse things it could smell like!

Spring is definitely here. The snowdrops have been up for a month. The crocuses are showing as of today. The tulips will be here soon. The temperatures are still a bit cool to be spending time out doing yardwork (besides, I’d rather be quilting), but the snow has been gone for some time. There wasn’t much snow to begin with, and everything has already dried out. I think this is going to be another bad year for wildfires, but no sense worrying about it until it happens. Right now, I’m just thrilled that things are beginning to turn green and the air has that sweet smell of Spring.

Until next time,