("Love to quilt them mousies, mousies what I love to quilt"? Not so much; they're a little bit of a pain to do because you cannot just keep going in the same direction like a cabled border would have you do - you have to reverse and go back and then there are the little eyes to get in. But I like the effect so I can put up with the effort it involves).
(That's probably the best known Kliban-cat gag out there. I had a tote bag with the cat and those lyrics on it when I was a teenager.)
Some of my craft-mojo - which I lost for a while, especially this past fall (I don't know what was up with fall 2013 - actually, I do, at least for part of it: the whole diagnosis of and concern over my friend. Who is still hanging in there but is now in a care facility because she can't stay alone). But now I feel more like knitting and quilting than I did for a while.
I do find my desire to do stuff like that ebbs and flows. (Well, my enthusiasm for my paid work also ebbs and flows, but I can't take days off from teaching just because I'm "not feeling it.")
I've been digging around in my sockyarn stash and thinking about future lace socks (Well, the Rarity's Diamonds socks will be next, but then I have a cool leaf-lace pattern I want to use one of my variegated greens on, and I've been looking at stitch dictionaries again).
And I've been working on quilts. I have another top about half pieced (this is the one I've been working on), and I have fabric set aside for a kind-of-frightening number of other tops. (I think at last count I came up with 8).
However, I find I kind of have to NOT think about that, and just focus on "this is the current quilt I am doing." Having too many projects lined up kind of overwhelms me and shuts me down, because I think, "How can I possibly use up all I've bought? This is ridiculous and I can never buy any more fabric even if I see something I really like, because I have too much already. And anyway, what am I going to do with all of these quilts? " But if I just don't think about that and focus on the quilt I am making NOW, focus on my enjoyment of the work and of what I'm working with, I can keep working happily.
(It's the same way with socks. Sometimes I think about starting a pair and I go "You have a hundred pairs of socks already and eight months out of the year it's really too warm to wear them" but I find that focusing more on the "art" aspect - doing fancy lace patterns or twisted stitches - kind of gets me out of that. Partly because they take longer to do, so it takes longer to make the socks, but also because somehow it's different.)
I wonder, did painters go, "I have so many canvases around here, it's too many, I really need to spend my time doing something more practical"? Or did sculptors feel dismay if they wound up with a lot of sculptures?
I suppose that's because I don't see what I do as "art;" for me I have the feeling that what I make has to exist for some practical purpose. (I suppose I could go back to making quilt tops for Project Linus. I need to find out if they'll take unfinished tops; it gets a little expensive to have them quilted and then donate them....)
What I really need to do is get my head out of the "you should" space, and into a space where I'm just seeing the possibilities, and not things like the ridiculousness of having 20 quilts in a climate where it's almost too hot to sleep under a sheet half the year.
***
Wow. "100% chance" of Wintry Mix for tomorrow. I don't think I've EVER seen the NWS predict a 100% chance of anything that wasn't already happening. And they've upped the chances for Monday. And Tuesday.
I did get my "big grocery shopping" done - I went to Target (I know, I know: but I figure their security is probably better now than it ever was. And anyway, I've kind of come to view credit cards as disposable: if you have one, the number's probably going to get stolen sometime. And I have an identity-theft protection plan, so while it would be a pain - it's less of a pain than having to make sure I don't buy more than the cash I happen to have in my wallet at the moment). And the natural-foods store. And the Kroger.
Target was the worst; there were people there who obviously had not forgotten to take their stupid pills that day. Kroger's wasn't even that bad.
And now I have enough food ahead for whatever it does. And a fresh supply of ground bison; I've been getting this fairly regularly because I like it, and it's probably better for you than beef (it's grass-fed, and it's also leaner). I usually make something between taco meat and chili out of it - add chili powder and cumin and garlic, and then add pinto beans and a small amount of tomato sauce (I know, most "real Texans" think beans and tomato in chili is an abomination, but I'm a Northerner and that's how we did it up there. [however, I do not add macaroni, which is something a lot of Michiganders do with chili - or at least, my mom's family; they'd make something they called "chili soup" which was actually kind of like beef-a-roni])
The bison meat is about $10 a pound, but I can get five or six meals out of a pound with my additions to it, so I figure I'm probably paying about $2.50 or so per meal of it - which is cheaper (and better for me, especially in terms of salt) than pretty much any restaurant.
(I either make my own flour tortillas, or I use commercial corn taco shells - two of them are still low enough in sodium to be okay for me, and two tacos is about what I want for a meal)
***
The only comment on today's Pony episode is a non-spoilerish one: One of the themes I took out of it was "Don't compare yourself to other people and find yourself wanting." Because I do that all the time.
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