Miscellaneous

Warning: This post is just going to be a mish-mash of thoughts and updates. Don’t expect anything terribly coherent. 😉

First, thank you to all of you who commented on my quilt square for Laura. I did enjoy stitching it, so I’m looking forward to stitching all of Titania at some point. Fairy Moon comes first, though.

On the personal, self-discovery front, I had some REALLY good conversations with my dad while we were up there this weekend. I also had to reconcile myself to my Pap’s death some more. Dad suggested that since one of my personal goals is to learn how to draw that I take some time while we were up to go through Pap’s books in his art studio. That was a somber, somewhat surreal and strange experience. I hadn’t been down in his art studio (which is in the basement of their house) for years. It’s in disarray because some furniture pieces have been removed and his work is absolutely everywhere. It took my breath away to realize just how talented this man was. He had such an incredible gift; I wish that I had had the forethought to want to share in his knowledge before he left.

So, we came home with PILES of books. I suspect that most of them will be over my head, but I’ve committed to this personal endeavor, so I’ll enroll in some online beginner classes, if I have to. I hope that with a bit of attention and self-nurturing, I’ll be able to tease out some hidden talent in myself. I consider myself to have a pretty good eye for color and I think that’s part of the battle.

Now to force myself to set aside some “me” time every day, or at least every week.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I’m thinking of taking on a writing project. Lelia will be glad to hear this. 🙂 Terry suggested that maybe I start off by writing a short book about Pap’s life and career as an artist. I gave it some serious thought in the shower yesterday morning (some of my best thinking time) and realized that I really want to give this a try. I’m going to buy a small digital recorder so that I can interview Gram, and maybe some other people if I can do enough research to dig up others with whom I can speak. I’ll have Terry takes some pictures of his work through the years, as I know for a fact that I still saw some of his fashion drawings down in his studio from when he was doing work for department stores. I just have to make sure that Dad and Gram don’t do any more cleanup. 😉

Once I’m done, I’ll actually be able to self-publish real books, thanks to lulu.com. If it turns out well, I could even give out some copies to family members, maybe for Christmas? That’s probably too ambitious, but we’ll see what kind of running start I can get.

On the Dr. Steve front, I’m bored. Seriously. I know that he probably thinks that I’m intelligent enough to just reprogram my negative thought patterns using this cognitive therapy, but I’ve realized that I have a problem. I’m looking for more instant gratification. When I first went to the guy at work, I cried for the entire 30 minutes, put all of this junk out onto the table, received some feedback from him, cried for hours afterwards, processed and then I felt great! That’s the kind of feeling that I’m looking for. I feel the need to dig into some of my repressed issues and work through processing them in a more positive way so that I can let them go and move on with my life.

So, I’m going to have to have a chat with Dr. Steve when I see him again in the beginning of May. I figured out a good analogy on the way home from the visit, as I was talking through things with Terry. It’s like I have several splinters lodged deep within my soul. They’ve become infected and, as a result, my body is reacting with a fever to help kill off the infection. So, Dr. Steve has me taking Advil or Motrin or Tylenol or whatever to reduce the fever and get it under control. That’s great. We’re controlling the fever, but the underlying cause is still there. And until we get in there and dig those splinters out, I’m never going to heal completely.

We’ll see what Dr. Steve thinks about that.

On the stitching front, even if I can stop sleeping through my evenings and actually make some progress, I can’t show any of it to you because the three projects I have lined up right now are a model and two exchange pieces. Ah, those nasty secrets. 😉 But then, you already knew that from yesterday’s post. I did finally get a start on the model last night, and even though it’s bigger than I usually stitch for models, I’m determined to push through it as quickly as possible.

Oh, one last thing. I mentioned that I’ve finished my autobiography for now. Anyone who is curious enough about me to read 15 pages of blabbering is welcome to a copy. Email me if you are interested – jenna at magees dot net.