Good Enough (rainbow edition)

When I was a first year teacher, one of my many mentors that year kept my spirits up by saying to me, "Aim for mediocrity!" every time he saw me in the halls.  What he meant was not truly to set my standards lower, but to accept "good enough" as a strategy that would allow me to stick around in the teaching profession, rather than burn out quickly by continually looking to perfect things.

Perfection is impossible.  Good enough has saved my butt, time and time again.

I wore this shirt today, as part of team "Rainbow Connection" for a 4th of July 10K run/walk.  The shirt embodies the idea of Good Enough.  It was handmade by me over the past two days, out of a rainbow of t-shirts.  It is far from finished--in the sense that I think it should be.

But it was Good Enough for today.




Changes I'd like to make to this shirt: the neckline is completely unfinished.  It also rides a little high on my neck, so I'll be cutting a deeper V before I finish it somehow.  The sleeves fit a little funny, so I'd like to adjust them in the front (although I was very happy with the amount of puffy gathers at the sleeve cap).  The bottom hem, which I left staggered on purpose, just annoys me; so I'll be finishing it all one length.  It needs a little elastic under the bust for some shaping near the white ruffle.  And, if I get in a bedazzling mood, I'd like to add some colored beads or buttons to the ruffle.

I had some other ideas of things to do to the shirt, involving taking the whole bottom apart and redoing it, but I'm not going there.  The shirt has a purpose: give me team cohesiveness when I do fun runs.  It is a fun shirt.  Just needs to fit a bit better so that I enjoy the run/walk experience more and don't tug at my clothes.  It was Good Enough to actually wear today, so that makes it a success.