Distractions…aka Life

Summer is full of distractions. The weather alone can be an issue. Some days it’s just too hot or humid to work (yes, even here, when the thunderstorms pile in, it can be awful…for us, that is) and sometimes there are just too many little piddly things that suck up time, like today. Today I had to sign up for a class for school, write an email about a contract, and drive to the girlchild’s doctor’s office to get them to sign the one page of four that they missed the last time she was there. It didn’t take long to get there, but she was in the middle of something, so I sat there and watched 20 minutes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original), which I didn’t see until I went to college, because I wasn’t allowed up after 8 PM. Veruca…such a bitch.

Then I went on to JoAnns, which no longer has an apostrophe and may not even have two capital letters…wait. It does. And there’s a hyphen and no ‘s’. Ugh. Forget it. I usually hate that place, but it has Wonder Under and Warm and Natural batting, and I had a handful of 50%-off certificates. I was trying to manhandle the giant bolt of batting down the aisle and an older woman offered her cart, said if I’d lift it in, she’d roll it up…she wanted some too. So YEAH. Nice moment there. Hopefully some young thang will help ME roll that batting down the aisle when I’m 70.

Then picked up the boychild and the dog and headed home, ate lunch, but then fell into the rabbit hole of insurance plans when the girlchild’s university called here and gave me some information that gave me pause. Wait a minute. Maybe I can kick these sweet little monsters off my insurance next month, since they have to be covered somewhere, and then I can save myself…how much…holy crap. $410 a month. Mylanta Georgia, as the girlchild says…that might just cover the shortfall on the boychild’s college fees. Maybe.

So I’m sitting here, buzzing like a bee, hoping magic is about to happen, money to appear in the sky (on my paystub as it were…whenever I might get one of those pretty things again), but I can’t focus enough to make my way to the damn light table and trace.

Which honestly is OK, because I traced for almost 6 hours yesterday. Apparently. I watched 4 episodes of Elementary and another bunch of SHIELD and then a movie. ‘Watched’ isn’t really the word though, because I traced the whole time.

The night before, I numbered the whole damn thing, which is about 60″ square. It’ll probably be smaller than that at the end. Maybe. It took 2 1/2 hours just to NUMBER it. Huh. And you can see some of the crazy there in the spider web.

But it came out at about 1825 pieces, which is less than 2000. That’s good. It’s big, it’s meaty, but it’s not overwhelming to think about. Maybe it should be, but I’ve done bigger than that, so I’m good. Last year’s crazy big piece had 1764 pieces and took about 144 hours to make. So I’m in the same range. I have about 2 1/2 months too, so I’m good. It would be nice if it finished early so I could work on something else…plus I shouldn’t ignore the other proposal I did…although I haven’t heard anything, so maybe my proposal sucked. Or whatever.

Here’s the drawing upside down on the light table. You can see why I love my light table almost as much as my kids. Seriously. It’s lovely.

And it does not talk back or leave dishes on the counter.

Kitten was trying to lie ON the drawing, UNDER the drawing, IN the drawing, so I banished her…to the top of the piano, on all my drawings and sketchbooks…

Isn’t that where all of us keep our stuff? So I had a little left to watch of the show and didn’t want to start tracing Monday night, so I cut out two of the smaller quilts…just the Wonder Under.

Really, I should be working on those this week and getting them ironed to fabric so I can trim them on Friday, but I can’t be bothered. I’m on a tracing roll. And tomorrow is a medical clusterfuck (thank you, uterus, for demanding ALL the attention), so I probably won’t get much of anything done. Plus it’s almost three today and I have started exactly nothing. These DAMN DISTRACTIONS. And a headache. Weather headache. Arrgh. Where’s the damn Motrin. And now I hear I shouldn’t be popping those? Someone should tell my damn head that so it can stop throbbing on command.

I started tracing yesterday afternoon…

And I just kept going. I stopped for dinner. I stopped to do some writing. I stopped to pee a few times. But I’m through piece 472.

So only a quarter of the way through. If I could be as focused as I was yesterday, I’d be done by Sunday. Ha! Not happening. Oh well. Distractions. It’s good if it saves me or makes me some money. I needed the batting. I needed it to be on sale too, and the coupon expired today. All those other fussy little things, fill out this form and that form, take the car in for this and that. I hate that shit. I need to delegate more out. My post-it list from two days ago still has 4 things on it.

Anyway. I will stand. I will go get headache meds. I will take the phone with me, in case the health insurance people call me back today. I will trace the Wonder Under. I will push off the other distractions until tomorrow. Mostly.