UFO's

This past week, I've been sick in bed with a nasty case of bronchitis.  I have spent several days fading in and out of sleep, intermittently suffering from headaches, coughing fits, fevers, sweating, and chills.  In general, I felt like I had been hit by a Mac truck.

During moments of lucidity, I worked on a UFO.  Here is what it looks like:

Gotcha!  UFO stands for UnFinished Object. 

 I started this stamped embroidery sampler about three years ago.  I bought the kit, which is copyrighted 1974, on ebay because it's design and message represent who I am.  It's pastoral, bucolic, old-fashioned, and it includes a very important law of the universe, which can be found in the Bible (Galatians 6:7).  It says, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."  As an avid gardener, I find this principle to be completely undeniable, so as a human being I take heed that it is undeniably true in all other areas of life.

My point here isn't to preach the obvious, but to explain why I would bother to pull this particular UFO out of storage and commence working on it while simultaneously hacking up a lung:  I really like it.  It speaks to me.  I want to actually finish it and to hang it on my kitchen wall.

Such has not always been the case with other UFO's in my life.  My grandma used to make an embroidered tablecloth for each of her granddaughters.  When I was a sophomore in college, she began working on mine, but then she passed away before it was finished.  I liked it, but I would have liked it better, if she had been able to complete it herself.  Naturally, it was passed along to me to finish.  I put it in a box and stored it. Along the line I lost the thread that went with it.   At some point, it got damp, so when I retrieved it years later, it was dotted with mildew stains.  For a long time I had it, all mildew-y and unfinished, displayed on a big quilting hoop in the living room.  This gave the appearance that I was working on it, and even though that wasn't true, it made a good conversation piece.   In reality, it was worthless.  I didn't want to finish a big embroidered tablecloth that I would never have chosen for myself in the first place.  I don't remember when I came to this realization, but with the courage of my convictions, I got rid of it. 

UFO's have the potential to be a blessing or a curse, and they are not all necessarily needlecraft or sewing projects.  They can be photographs, files, unresolved relationships, unread books, or incomplete academic degrees.  Anything that you have left unresolved in your life is a UFO.

Here are some questions to ask yourself in dealing with the UFO's in your own life:

1.  Why did I stop working on this in the first place?

2.  Do I even like it anymore?

3.  Am I keeping it only because someone whom I loved left it unfinished, and I feel obligated to finish it, or guilty if I don't?

4.  Would completing it add REAL benefit to my life or the lives of loved ones?

5.  Has "this ship already sailed?"  For example, if you were crocheting a baby blanket for your nephew, who is now 38 years old, how silly would it be to finish it now?

6.  Is it even relevant to present times? 

Not every project is worth the physical or mental energy required to bring it to completion.  In the case of my lovely stitchery, I'm glad to be finishing it because I plan to enjoy it while I can.  I would hate the thought that any of my daughters or granddaughters would find it to be a burden after I'm gone.