It Worked!

Whoo-hoo! I didn’t need no stinkin’ professional after all! If I’d known how easy it is to fix those darned ear rocks, I’d have saved myself a whole lot of trouble over the last couple of years. Oh well. Got it now. The culprit was the right ear which I didn’t know before. It became obvious when I had my head back and turned towards the right. My eyes waved around madly, called “nystagmus”. It didn’t do that when I turned to the left. I think rolling over briskly in bed is what caused the ear rocks (properly called “otoconia”) to shift where they don’t belong in the first place so it stands to reason that rolling back will fix it. I feel like my head is one of those toy puzzles with the little steel balls that you have to wiggle through the maze to settle in the correct holes! Now I just have to be careful not to flip around in bed and get them back into the canal again. Whew.

Enough of that. Today’s unrelated subject that I wish to discuss is The Studio. Do you like a separate space just for your work or do you like to mix it in with the rest of your living area? My daughter-in-law’s mom is a professional artist and she much prefers to have a studio shared with other artists in a building that is dedicated to that purpose. It’s several kilometres away from her home. She says that when she goes to her studio on a regular time schedule she feels that it becomes a real job, as opposed to a hobby. I think she also enjoys the camaraderie and stimulation of working near other artists. Her paintings are wonderful and her technique is improving all the time.

However I’m the total opposite. If I had to go somewhere else to work I would never get around to it. I much prefer to have everything close at hand and right where I can get to it quickly whenever I want. My work is so much a part of my life that I can’t separate it out. I even take something to work on with me nearly every time I go out the door. T-Man jokes that I pack my craft supplies before my clothes when we go on vacation. No joke. I do! Three-hour border delays? Long drives? Stress-free knitting time.

Part of my reluctance to separate life and work stems from weaving. Most looms are big and not very portable. Weaving is a pretty solitary craft. When I began weaving my kids were little and I could barely afford a second-hand loom and some cheap yarn. No way I could pay a sitter or rental on a studio. I wove in the dining room! Who needs a dining table anyhow? We ate in the kitchen unless there was company. Then the loom got pushed aside and the table unburied from all the crafty debris and set for a meal. Worked for me! When the kids were older I wove in our bedroom and now, since they kindly grew up and left, I have the whole top floor of the house to dedicate to my stuff. There’s still knitting in the bedroom though. Gotta have it handy, right?

T-Man also has his work space in the basement though it’s on the To-Do List to clean and reorganise to make it more efficient. Our daughter carries on the family tradition. She has a spinning wheel in the living room and a whole room of her condo dedicated to her loom and craft supplies. Got her priorities straight!

So as you might know, I’m reluctant to make New Year’s Resolutions. If you don’t follow through you feel like you failed. However I would like to make a few Hope-To-Do’s. I want to continue cleaning out the junk in my house and organising the rest better. I want to weave again. I need some new placemats if nothing else! I have lots of yarns all ready and waiting. I also want to start a new hooked rug. I’ve been promising to do that for a couple of years now and it hasn’t happened yet. And I also want to sew the rag quilt that I planned several years ago but first I have to dye the fabrics. Then I want to paint, beginning with the bathroom and the front hall. Also touch up the kitchen cupboards. If I get really ambitious, the entire rest of the house, minus the kitchen, could use a freshening up. But I’m not holding my breath on that one because it’s a really big job! Especially upstairs where the cracks are still evident from the roofing in the summer of ‘08. Scraping, mudding and taping. Yoiks.

Always something on the list, huh? Did you notice how I distracted you from the lack of photos? Again. It’s dark outside. I’ve only got two half-socks. Nothing interesting here. Move right along.