Just Plain Tired…

I’m taking a break from ironing, mostly because I’m tired of standing. I’m actually just plain tired. Today was a harder day for me. I had to go to the doctor for a followup and that meant driving and walking and stairs and waiting and standing and then more of all those things when they decided I needed to give blood and try to make another followup. I even took a nap after dinner (which both boy- and girlchild made, although their dad had to berate gently for that to happen). I set the alarm and made sure I didn’t nap more than I’m supposed to. But I’m still physically exhausted right now. It’s OK to sit down for a while, and maybe I shouldn’t try to iron any more tonight. Maybe I should just go settle down on the couch and rest.

But I feel like I lost yesterday somehow. I made no art. I did a million other things, but art was not apparently on the table. So I lost a day. No time for that. Not with all the days I’ve lost so far.

So I managed to iron today. This was a snake I had seen online…I liked the coloring, so it became the snake around her legs. Bright!

All those little pieces to the right were the ones that weren’t so easy to locate, the shadows or the pointy shapes. It’s a complicated snake.

Then I ironed a lioness and a cat and a small landscape. That might have been it. It doesn’t sound like much, but the snake alone was about 150 pieces. I have 10 hours into the fabric part, still probably less than half, and the large figure still isn’t nearly complete. There’s a spider and a bee and some plants, and then the huge bird and all the seawater and sealife that makes up her hair. Probably there’s about 800 pieces ironed, maybe a little less. Like I said, less than half.

Those are all the things in or on the body that still need doing, plus the bird is in its own bin…

And I still have 5 lost raindrops. I have faith, though, because I found the lost bird in its nest. Those raindrops are hiding somewhere.

It’s almost like I’m running on a treadmill though…like I’m not getting anywhere. It’s just endless work on this one figure. I know it’s not, but the pile doesn’t look much different. What did I actually DO for three hours today? The logical part of my brain will start to argue about how the entire snake was in another bin, not on the table, so it does look like I did almost nothing. But I look at the calendar and hear the countdowns and planning beginning with my fellow teachers, and it’s my late July, early August panic. The knowledge that I never ever get enough done during the summer and I’m running out of time and school is going to kick my ass and I’m not going to get done in time.

Seriously. I hear this in my head every summer. It’s a drumbeat. I go into hermit mode. You can’t barely get me out of the house, out of my office even. I don’t want to talk…it distracts me from the (insert appropriate word here…ironing? sewing? quilting?). And I look at what I haven’t even come close to finishing, and I know that I need to get up tomorrow morning, while I’m fresh, and NOT listen to the siren call of fabric pieces, but quilt that commission piece NOW. Get it done. Seriously. Out of here.

Aargh. I’m so tired. And yet, when I lie down, I can’t sleep.

Here’s all the crazy piles of fabric I’ve used so far. Totally disorganized.

Much like my brain. Usually I have them in neat piles by color.

Here’s the pile of stuff to be cut out. As soon as I finish here, I’m picking it up and heading to the couch.

I will still be working on the quilt. I just won’t be in here. This part is addictive, I must admit. It’s so purely creative and enjoyable. Hard work, but enjoyable.

Tomorrow I can pick out the spider and its web, the bee, the plants. I can even start on the giant bird. Maybe. I’ve got a lot going on tomorrow too.

I am glad I get to be an artist though. I think I’d be really bored if I weren’t.