A Crunchy Life

That sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Balance, like I was finding peace and tranquility, right?

In actuality, my balance was one between little bouts of freak-out and finding my breath and being present.  There may have been more middle ground, but to be honest, the week is a bit of a blur.

Why, you ask?

It was the last week of classes.  All the end-of-semester questions and details and prep for getting student papers and final exams came into play.

That would certainly be enough, right?

But no, it was also the week leading up to this spring’s Mayday! Underground show.  So yes, end-of-semester and show prep all mixed up together.  The little bouts of freak-out were born of nerves related to both events.  Tomorrow I get final papers from my Psychology of Women and Gender students, final exams from my Intro Psych students on Thursday.  But this Saturday past?  It was Mayday time!

Sadly I was only able to get shots with my phone this time around.  L3 had a Fiddle Club event all day at which L1, with our big camera, were at.  And then the camera battery died there.  Oops.

As usual, the people, both vendors and customers, were great. Mayday is the only show I’ve done, so I don’t know what other shows are like, but it’s always been a comfortable environment and a true feast for the eyes at this show. And even if sales might not have been what I had hoped, I pushed myself to make new items and try new things for this show. One of my favorites was a display item, the top on the dress form below (mini-me, my duct-tape form. I discovered last week that she is inappropriately named because she is actually bigger than me!).

The fern is a from a stencil I cut last year. I stenciled the pattern on in fabric paint, then spent several hours hand-stitching all the glass beads onto the fern pattern. I enjoyed it thoroughly and am in love with how it turned out. The top itself is a new design and I have a couple already made without the stencil that need photographing.

This week is going to be a practice in a different kind of balance: grading and gardening! Broccoli, peas, potatoes, and more need to go in the ground this week. The weather report looks beautiful, so I’m hopeful that my digging in the dirt can happen. I’ll also be scheming how I’m going to get photographs of all the new items to put in my shop, like that yummy pink and grey bag you see in that last picture, as well as the one mini-me is sporting.

The burgeoning energy of spring is bubbling up inside of me.  I look forward to riding its wave throughout the week.

What kind of balance have you been striking lately?