In a Funk, a Slump or Just in a Rut?

My plan to hit the ground running in January has failed miserably. Perhaps it was the definitive arrival of winter and day after day, week after week of gray skies.

On the rare occasion that the sun comes out and the wind dies down, you can almost see everyone's spirits lift. But even on those very rare sunny days, one can go out in the morning and find a giant icicle in their parking space. The morning that Linda was taking beautiful icy winter photos, I spent more than an hour chipping the ice away from my car-cicle.

I have been making some small progress, quilting wise. I've begun a year of fiber postcard swaps on the Art Quilts forum–we'll be celebrating eight (mostly) international holidays. The first will celebrate International Women's Day on March 8. (There is still lots of time to sign up, if anyone wants to join us). I've also kicked off a new year of the block lotto on the Quilting Forum ... with huge success. I've already received more than 180 blocks this month--100 more than the high-water mark from previous years and more than seven times as many as our last month (November) last year. It feels like an avalanche of blocks and funky, slumpy, in-a-rut me is a little overwhelmed. More quilter than quilt related, I also established a web/blog ring for quilting forum members on about.com. I wasn't sure how many forum members maintained blogs or sites--the list so far is around 20.

Whether it be funk, slump, rut or the mere lack of sunshine here, I push on and know it can't last much longer.