Well, the "Use what you Have" month is officially over for me. (I didn't *quite* make it; I bought a small amount of fabric and a couple of spools of thread, and a quilt book - the justification being, I had already spent the gas to be down in the area, and it was fabric I planned to use).

I didn't use so much stuff out of stash. I think the only thing I began and finished in the month was Ginger, and also the pink and green Amy B*tler quilt (which is off being quilted). I also began a new pink and green quilt, again using a pile of fabrics I had acquired (pretty much all at the same time) with a quilt in mind.

I'm guessing, compared to normal, I didn't spend perhaps $100. I'm contemplating my options on this - whether to go local or to go global with it. My original thought was Mercy Corps, but there are also a couple of local things that I think merit my attention. I'll have to consider.

I'm not going to rush out and spend, either. I think a lot of my buying was out of boredom (sitting in interminable office hours with all my classwork done, and T1 line access...) or frustration with other things going on in my life (ironically, mainly at not having enough time to make all the projects I want to make). I still have an awful lot of stuff in-stash to use up. And my current "big" projects seem to be overwhelming to me - I'm on repeat 6 (of 9) on the Samus Aran band, and I'm just slowing down on it. And Hiawatha - I have to be in a very particular mood to want to work on that.

That said, I am reserving the opportunity to take a day on Saturday and go to McKinney. It's been numerous months since I was there (since January I think) and with my new drive-less-to-save-gas regime, I find I do get a little sad and at-loose-ends and cabin feverish staying at home (or at work) every single weekend.

I don't particularly like this time of year, I have to admit. My allergies are bad. I'm always sort of depressed the end of April and the start of May - I don't know if it's allergies, or the end-of-semester stress, or a combination of both. Or if it's nostalgia for the summers of my youth - I don't really get much of a summer break, and even if I didn't teach, I'd feel guilty taking the whole summer off. But today - I had to walk over to print shop to get something copied - and it was that perfect kind of early summer day. Oh, I know it's going to be hot later on - it's got that kind of vibe - and it's going to be sticky nasty the rest of the week. But walking out in this morning made me think of so many good things from summers of my past:

the summer library "book club" (which I participated in long after I was past the age where it ceased to be "cool" - not for the McDonald's coupons, either. I just liked the feeling of being recognized for reading books).

Cascade Park, which was a little city park in the town where I grew up. There were swings and slides and a little waterfall (hence the name). It's probably gotten really nasty now; even when I was a teenager there were rumors that drug deals went down there after dark. But when I was young and innocent of such things, my brother and I used to beg our mother to take us there.

Going out picking strawberries at a U-Pick farm with my mom's friend Mrs. D. She was always a lot of fun - we'd talk and joke and tell stories and pick berries, and on the way back home, she'd stop at the Dairy Queen and buy me a cone or a soft drink, which was a big deal, because my parents NEVER took my brother and me to Dairy Queen. She also took my brother and me fishing, or my mom would take us over to her house when she went for a visit and she'd let us hunt for turtles and frogs in her pond.

Saving up my meager allowance and then (with my brother) petitioning our mother to take us downtown to a store called "The Attic" (I wonder if it still exists?) where they sold penny candy and small toys and those "Peaceable Kingdom" magnet animals (they were made out of small pompoms; I had quite a few of them - it was an animal with a magnet on its backside. I'm sure someone other than I remembers them?). Sometimes I had enough money to buy some of those or a small stuffed animal; other times, just penny candy.

Climbing trees. Just the feeling of freedom - we grew up next to a vacant lot, my brother and I, and we spent a lot of time there, hanging out and catching bugs and looking at plants and stuff. There were a lot of wild strawberries and I used to pick them every year; sometimes there were enough for us all to have a small serving. I remember one year being very scared by a snake (thinking back, it was probably a king snake or some darn thing like that; but it was all brown and it moved fast and I thought it was a rattlesnake) and dropping my basket and running home.

I actually saw my main climbing tree cut down - someone bought some of the land when I was in high school and moved a small house there. It was a sad day watching the tree come down and the low hill it was on be bulldozed. I remember that as a child, I wondered if the hill was maybe an Indian burial mound (we grew up in Ohio, and always learned about the Moundbuilders in history class). I was never quite brave enough to really dig into it; I was afraid of finding bones. After it was bulldozed I saw it was just fill.

I remember making stuff, too, but not to the extent I make stuff now. I didn't always have a project going. I wonder if it was because I played as a child - I had my toys: my stuffed animals and my little plastic farm animals and my dollhouse, and they got my free-time attention. I wonder if making quilts and knitting things fills the role that play once filled for me. (I miss playing. I miss being able to just plop down on the floor with a pile of blocks and a bunch of plastic zoo animals and create houses for them and make them all have little lives with backstories and relationships. I miss the kind-of-sort-of-almost-can-believe-my-stuffed-animals-are-alive-if-I-really-really-try feeling of being a kid. I miss being able to turn a bookshelf into a doll's house, and to use kitchen sponges for beds and wooden spools for chairs, and being able to see past the sponge-ness and spool-ness and see the furniture they actually represented. If that makes sense.)