Well, the bird-bags are done. All 16 of them. Took me pretty much the whole evening last night. The sewing part isn't so bad* but the pinning-on-the-casing part (I used bias tape to make casings) is kind of a pain. And when you have 16 of anything to do...
I used to feel sad that I never had time to participate in any of those swaps but one of them is called "20 things" or something like that, and the idea is you get a list of 20 names and addresses (and your name is also on 20 other people's lists) and you have to make 20 of something and mail it out to them...and well, I just couldn't do that. I'm too much of a one-off person.

(*I had the "pedal to the metal" and was running the machine as fast as it would go towards the end. I think I'm going to need to take it in for a tuneup, it was behaving kind of weird and I probably didn't do it any favors with my need for speed.)

And: I saw this poster the other day on "Squid" and I'm still laughing over it. I HATE HATE HATE those "motivational" posters that some Corporate Offices put up in the thought that "hey, even though we don't have windows and everyone's confined to a cubicle so small it would violate federal law were it a jail cell, we can have a nice picture of a hot-air balloon and the word "Achieve" or something and it'll all be good" (I've told my colleagues that as soon as the motivational posters show up here, that's going to be the message to me that it's time to get out of academia and...I don't know, be a starving artisan or something. I haven't thought that far in advance.)

I am trying to decide if I'm daring enough to order a copy of the poster and put it up on my office door...probably not.