You know when you’re stressed out and there are things you know will help with like the grinding of the teeth and the flopping around in bed? Obviously exercise is the most healthy of those, but it takes time and often daylight or driving somewhere that you might have a membership for sweating in public. Then there’s the less healthy comfort-food eating (I’ve avoided that so far), the donuts or the cookies or whatever floats your boat. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll follow closely after (well, music anyways, since who knows which will make you happier, and for teachers, alcohol is probably the drug of choice). For me there’s art as well…drawing or sewing or cutting or whatever. Embroidery also…the meditative motion of needle in and out and thread pulling through just as you had planned it. I manage a little bit of that almost every night. Art has been harder for the last two weeks…just too much work and art management (ugh, that horrible thing) going on. It’s getting in the way of my destressing dammit.
I’m getting there though. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, even if the tunnel is days away. Meanwhile, in the middle of all that, I’m bidding on copyediting jobs for the summer, trying to make sure the paycheck continues. That’s a whole ‘nother stressball.
Here’s an anti-stressball.
Of course, she’s lying on the gradebook. Not helpful. It’s OK…I did about 3 hours of grading last night and managed to get a chunk done. Not enough, but some.
I did two spiderwebs in a blue/brown that I swear looks like another thread I already used…on the right side in the middle sort of.
Then I numbered…I told myself I would do the piece that had the lowest number of pieces…this is the climate one and she’s only got 398 pieces, compared to the 700+ piece drawing of a few nights ago.
And that’s including this crazy mess. I thought about trying to find the overlaps and continue the pieces, but realized the headache and the problems with stitching through all those layers…so they’re all numbered.
The next one, Desert Daughter, came in at 542 pieces…which surprised me.
It seemed simpler than the other two…but apparently 25 pieces just for a scorpion adds up.
That’s not a flower…it’s a succulent. Lots of green stuff in this one.
So I guess the climate one wins. Of course, when I look at my schedule for the next…well…week? I don’t know when I’ll have time to work on it. But at least I know it’s ready for me.
Kathy Nida 