so many projects

I still owe people handmade mittens for Christmas. These are the people who know they are coming late. I am working on them. I also volunteered to be a pattern tester for someone so i need to make a sweater in the pattern. I also need to make mittens for me, remake a pair of mittens for my dad, make two other sweaters for me.
Also, I have to work on Bubbo Designs and try to write up my patterns for sale. That’s the first step. Then there are all the other steps. All of those steps will require a lot of work.
Also, also, there is the “big project” with Anna. I will go into more detail when I feel we have done enough that detailing it won’t jinx it.
And i need to clean the house, deal with some financial things, get a spring installed, get chester in for his shots, try to find a cheap vacation out of town because I really need to get out of town and away if only for a couple days.
So what I’m saying is that I’ve been busy and when I am not busy I am thinking about the things I should be doing but not doing. Then I dream that no matter what I do, I am judged for not doing the things I am supposed to do, the things I forgot to do or didn’t know about. And I wake up with an untenable sense of dread and I can’t remember what I am dreading…then I do.
And maybe I shouldn’t use my website as a therapist.

spike

I have a headache in my temples. It’s killing me. It won’t go away. I imagine it’s related to the amazing amounts of snot crammed into my sinuses. I think I’ve not been clear about the amount of thick, sticky mucous that is self replicating in my head.
There is so much mucous in my head that is NOT finding any escape route that it is now popping my skull apart at the seams. I expect that within the next 18 hours every bone in my skull will detach from the others and my snot filled head will continue to expand. At some point I will be a body with a HUGE blobular expanse rolling around and draping over my shoulders.
Gangs of miscreants will graffito tag my head.
I finally got my car back (almost a week ago, but I haven’t really been able to drive it due to massive snot invasion). Sometimes you don’t realize just how many things need to be fixed on your car until you take it in and have everything fixed. Then you drive it and you’re all “MY CAR IS AWESOME!”. My car went from a worry to a pleasure boat and all it cost was a VERY LOT OF MONEY!
Here’s to snot pain and smooth cars.
David’s at the grocery store, I wonder if I can eat all his ice cream before he gets back?

HI HI HI

HI! My name is Chester
I have to poop. OH MY GOD! I have to poop! I have to poop for the third time today. I have to poop. My name is Chester
oh my god. I have to poop! What should I do?? what what what? What do i do when I have to poop??
There’s the fat lady! Jump on the fat lady! OH MY GOD!!! she wheezes when you jump on her. I have to poop and she is wheezing and I am jumping! AN EAR!!!!! tongue in the ear tongue in the ear tongue in the ear.
She screamed! Oh my god I have to poop and she is wheezing and screaming! TONGUE IN THE EAR!!
SHE SAID SOME NAUGHTIES!!!! my ears my ears I have to poop. Why doesn’t she do something??? I will jump on the hippohead. I will bite the hippohead! I have to poop and the hippohead is biting me and the fat lady is making swears and coughing! I HAVE TO POOP!!!
oh good! the fat lady is hauling her ass! this is good. I have to poop! OH MY GOD WE ARE GOING OUTSIDE!!! My leash my leash my leash LEASH LEASH LEASH. BITE THE HIPPO HEAD
AND SIT. I can sit, I know how to sit. I am sitting. I have to poop.
OH MY GOD! We’re at the second door! SIT! I am sitting because I know how but the hippohead won’t sit! Stupid hippohead. I will bite the hippohead. I sit again and wait. I have to poop.
OUTSIDE!!! Is that someone across the street? Who is that? WHO ARE YOU?? WHO ARE YOU?? Stay away from here!! This is my yard!!! HEY! YOU! I’m talking to…oh right, the fat lady tells me to hurry. Hurry? Hurry?
I have to poop! Where should I poop? The ground! Where? the ground! Okay. Nose! I have a nose! I will find the place! HEY! WHO ARE YOU?? get away from my house! Oh yeah, I have to poop!
Sniff sniff sniff sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffffffffffffffffffffff this smells like rabbit! POOP! I have to poop. Where is the spot? I can’t find the spot. Is that a leaf or is that something walking towards me? I think it’s a leaf. Does the leaf poop? Oh right. poop.
Fat lady is talking to me. She is dumb. She poops in the same place every day. Lazy. She doesn’t find the spot.
Maybe it’s on the other side of the sidewalk? maybe? okay, I will go there! Oh my god I have to poop! I really have to poop! I can’t find the spot. Where is the hippohead? oh, over there.
Maybe I missed the spot back over there? I should sniff there again. I think I smell bacon. Do I smell bacon? what’s going on? OH! I’m outside! AWESOME! I should run around! Why am I not running around? OH RIGHT! I have to poop and I can’t find the spot.
OH NO OH NO! It wants to come out and I can’t find the spot. SCRUUUUUUUUUNCH!!! shuffle shuffle no no no no
HERE!!! Yeah, I found it and I am putting my poo…hey, was that a dog in the car that just drove by?
Oh my god! There’s fresh poop behind me! Who the hell did that?? Oh, it’s mine. Smells like mine.
wait…what? oh, pee! I have too pee. Let’s see, I can’t pee on my poop…I can’t pee near my poop….um…..oh god that feels so good!

Olio – a miscellaneous collection of things

1. I am completely addicted to my graphics tablet, as you can see below. it is quite possibly the awesomest thing on the planet. As mentioned before, it has a few issues but most of those can be overcome with determination and swearing. The one thing I can’t figure out is why I can’t use it to draw freeform lines in photoshop. It won’t track the pen tip and just makes a straight line from point a to point b with none of the curves I drew in the middle. It tracks the pen tip on other things like the circle tool and stuff like that, but not freeform lines. It does just fine with freeform lines in ImageReady, which came bundled with Photoshop. Mostly I don’t mind using ImageReady, it does most everything I need to do and it easily jumps back and forth with Photoshop so I can jump into PS to do the more advanced things…BUT I downloaded some brush sets that are awesome in PS but IR can’t use them. And I want to use them, but I can’t get the program to track the pen in freeform. Sigh.
1a. David may be regretting this particular purchase.
2. The sinuses surrounding my right eye (the maximilaris, sphenoidal and ethmoidal) are completely packed with the snot of the devil himself. I also have a fever, I ache and I feel a little petulant. Fucking flu.
3. The dogs are all passed out and cute. My dogs are cute. And awesome. What BigPharma doesn’t want you to know is that dogs are the greatest cure for stress and blood pressure. When I touch my dogs I have a real, physical reaction. I can feel myself relaxing. I need these dogs probably more than they need me.
4. The Humane Society had mastiff/shar pei puppies last week. The universe teases me. The universe loves to make me squirm! The universe makes me regret not living in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere allowing me to have a herd of dogs (and cats and goats and chickens).
5. Now that Maddie’s health has improved so much (thank you Dr Pierce Fleming, International Vet of Mystery) she is actually active and more interested in the world. Where before all she could focus on was how much her feet hurt, now she can focus on playing with me. The other day she and I were playing Hufhuffle. Hufhuffle is a game where Maddie stands on the bed and I stand at the foot of the bed, I punch the bed and posture with fake ferocity and she rears up and tries to pounce on my hands (she’s part cat). Then I trick her by shoving her across the bed and she jumps back even more excite. The little piggy tail helicopters all over the place. If she does catch my hand she holds it down with both paws and licks it furiously. When you play with Maddie you will never feel her teeth, she’ll grab your hand in her mouth and she does it so gently that you’d think she didn’t have teeth.
The other night, while we were hufhuffling (it is so called as that is the sound she makes when we play) Chester was out in the kitchen eating. At the sound of the game he came running in and jumped on the bed. Chester has different ideas about play, he is faster and harder and has giant sharp teeth that you have to remind him not to use. He also mock-growls. Maddie does not allow growling to happen near me. As he growled and lunged at me, she jumped between and had him on his back in a split second. She holds him until he goes slack and then lets him up and chases him out of the room, but that’s not enough, she must also stand guard at the bedroom door. I distract her and call her back and we hufhuffle again while Chester finishes his dinner.
5a. There’s something almost primal that wakes up when you watch someone or something protect you. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe. I’ve said it before, Maddie’s only mission in life is to keep me safe. For a while it was hard on her because she believed I was in danger all the time. She’s come to learn that mostly I am okay and I am not going to be eaten by the other dogs at the park or swallowed whole every time I leave the house. When I take a bath she patrols the hallway outside the bathroom, she is always at my side wherever I am in the house. When she doesn’t understand something, she puts herself between me and the confusion. Sometimes she tries to figure out why David is making me yell, she investigates this with vigor and concern. It’s hard to explain to a dog that I don’t need her hippo head on my face during special time. But again, it’s hard not to appreciate her intent and her efforts. She’s punched in, on the job, doing what she does best and she loves it. her salary is belly rubs and hugs and sleeping next to me at night.
6. I also love Anna Bratton, though not in the same way in which I love my dogs, David or a good beer. Last month I asked her if she could whip up a little design to go on little cards that could be added to my handmade gifts. boom. She sends me some options, I pick the one I like and then we discuss layout and suddenly I have the identity/logo ever! I mean I know it helps that she loves dinosaurs as much as or more than I do! but still, she does it perfectly every time! That’s why when I got another idea this weekend she was the first one I called. I can’t talk about the new idea yet, it’s still in a goo stage and I’d rather wait until it firms up a but, but anyway, we talked on the phone for 20 minutes on Friday and then last night she sent me some preliminaries that were so spot on. She managed to capture the essence of everything I was going for! Let’s hear it for Anna!
6a. Bubbo Designs is something I am hoping to get together by spring so I can start selling patterns and whatnot.
6b. So now that’s 2 big projects, the second of which might require me to take a class. Combine big projects and my graphics tablet and you’ll find I haven’t crocheted in a few days.
6c. It’s fine though. I burned out over christmas. I still owe people some mittens, but they have promised patience.
7. The awesome thing about being sick is that you can recognize that you just wrote a huge amount of nothing and you just don’t care. The bad thing about being sick is that you start to wonder if it is okay to start wiping your nose on your shirt because you are too tired to get up and get some tissue (TISSUE).