Let me tell you about a bad habit I have been known to practice and I recommend NOT doing: Get behind on something you’ve said you’ll do… then not speaking to the relevant people about the delay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I do this sometimes. I have phases where I do it very little and that’s great and I think “thank god, by this age, I’ve outgrown it!”.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And then comes along a difficult bit of life \u2014usually on more than one dimension all at once\u2014 and I do it again and again, in several realms, over and over in various ways. Sometimes I’m delayed\/not communicating for just a few days\u2014but sometimes for some things much longer. Ugh. \u00a0It’s not <\/em>helpful and it tends to reinforce itself horribly.<\/p>\n So far, I’ve been able to break out of these phases, bit by bit, one self-sabotaging-silence-repair at a time. I’m pushing up and out of one of them now, in April. Sometimes I think I started sliding down last summer, sometimes I think I can trace this one’s uneven depths further back. Whatever. That’s not the important bit. This is:\u00a0<\/p>\n If you also do this delay\/silence thing, even rarely, and you also feel really ashamed and shitty when and after, <\/strong>I understand<\/strong><\/em>. You are not alone. You are still wonderful and you make wonderful things. I support you and praise you for even the smallest steps you take to make it better. I forgive you even if you aren’t ready to forgive yourself.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m working on that last bit too.\u00a0<\/p>\n Love to all.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let me tell you about a bad habit I have been known to practice and I recommend NOT doing: Get behind on something you’ve said you’ll do… then not speaking to the relevant people about the delay.\u00a0 I do this sometimes. I have phases where I do it very little… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phmexg-f5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1530,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/sketchbook-yup-sometimes-i-mess-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":0},"title":"Sketchbook \/\/ yup sometimes I mess up","author":"Kir","date":"8 September 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"In which I post a mistake","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/1c854d90e8eba4e129b70011aead8ff4.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/1c854d90e8eba4e129b70011aead8ff4.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/1c854d90e8eba4e129b70011aead8ff4.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/1c854d90e8eba4e129b70011aead8ff4.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/1c854d90e8eba4e129b70011aead8ff4.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1505,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/sketchbook-smoky-star\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":1},"title":"Sketchbook \/\/ smoky star","author":"Kir","date":"11 August 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Is a crystal ball floating in the air? Or something else? I think I\u2019m going to enjoy putting black lines on this. \u2026If I can find the sketchbook where I drew it! See, sometimes I do a lot of sketches, and photograph them, and use my phone to pre-post them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_8892.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_8892.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_8892.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/img_8892.jpg?fit=900%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":972,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/rose-breasted-grosbeak-stamp-wip\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":2},"title":"Rose-breasted Grosbeak stamp WIP","author":"Kir","date":"26 July 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Hooray! Moving on some projects here. Needs work on its bib, I think. Do you agree?I've been exploring how to lay out space in these tiny things. They are about 1\" by 1.5\" --whatever those tiny Post-its are. I like how my skill constrains me to these rough lines and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":961,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wip-bird-stamps\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":3},"title":"WIP Bird stamps","author":"Kir","date":"3 June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Making more!\u00a0Memorial Day weekend here in Vermont is also Spring Open Studio Weekend. Since part of my work is at a museum of wood-carved birds, carving a bird in rubber stamp material was my not-quite-a-demo activity for an hour at the front desk. \u00a0Sometimes we do soap carving activities (fun!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/dea3fc65758431752993388e50cf1acb.jpg?fit=820%2C820&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/dea3fc65758431752993388e50cf1acb.jpg?fit=820%2C820&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/dea3fc65758431752993388e50cf1acb.jpg?fit=820%2C820&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.metasilk.com\/wpages\/wp-content\/uploads\/dea3fc65758431752993388e50cf1acb.jpg?fit=820%2C820&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1995,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/sketchbook-cats-and-windows\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":4},"title":"Sketchbook \/\/ cats and windows","author":"Kir","date":"26 September 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Life drawing when the life keeps moving!We have two gray tabby cats. Sometimes it's easy to tell them apart, sometimes not so much. Trying to draw their stripes certainly offers practice!Charm is bigger and darker than Zelda, but you can't tell from these sketches. This is Zelda looking at us.","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1006,"url":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/coloring-goodness-for-december-2019-butterfly-sax\/","url_meta":{"origin":935,"position":5},"title":"Coloring Goodness for December 2019 \/\/ Butterfly Sax","author":"Kir","date":"17 April 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"[** Update: downloads are archived after two months\u2014or more\u2014so patrons have plenty of time to access them. Sometimes it's much longer! I removed these over a year after posting... \u00a0I'm make the post public when I archive the downloads, so more of you can see the idea and the process.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metasilk.com\/wd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}