I have 
songs I love
turned all the way up
and I made homemade brownies
(for the first time, like, ever)
and my husband
is feeling happy and loved
and while,
okay,
I have a gnarly headache
overall
things are good.
Still stressful,
but good.
Or maybe
I’m just focusing on
the little joys
instead of the 
(still very real and unsolved)
challenges facing us.
But we’ll get there
and I’ll work my way through them
one knot at a time,
like untangling yarn. 
One problem at a time,
and eventually you finish the skein.

Speaking of yarn,
I pulled out my old dyes this week,
just to see if they were still good
after all these years.

And it looks like they still work.
They seem to have taken well
to this handspun silk of mine
from (what feels like)
ages ago,
though I want to do more rinsing
from the bit I did earlier today.
Still, that is
undeniably
red.

I’m weighing the pros and cons
of doing a bit more dyeing of fiber.
I enjoy doing it,
but right now,
we just don’t have
the room in the budget
for hobbies that don’t pay for themselves. 
(Or, as in the case of the chickens,
feeds us.)
I do need something other than jewelry –
just to make ends meet –
because jewelry ends up
costing as much
(or more)
than it brings in most months.
So, it’s not quite the ideal business.
(Or even a good one, really,
from a numbers standpoint.)
I’ll work the CAD designs
but I really need something 
to help pull our budget out of the red
from month to month.
It’s stressing Steve out,
and, well,
me too, obviously.
So, I started destashing all of my old yarns this weekend,
and if enough of them sell,
maybe I’ll dye some more,
I am way more excited about the potential
of dyeing fiber again
than I expected to be. 

(At this point,
making anything other than jewelry
sounds good.
You know it’s really bad when I bake.
See also: brownies.
I don’t even *like* brownies, y’all.)

All of that said,
there is a measure of satisfaction
in the realization that I had this weekend,
that I have done 
enough random 
Making Of Things
that when I get
inevitably bored
with the current thing
I can swap to a new (but old) one
without needing
new supplies 
or needing to learn new skills.
i just pick up where I left off. 
It’s a waltz between disciplines
a step-and-twirl-slide-and-pivot
between things I love,
a slow weaving of a rainbow of threads
into the tapestry that is my art and creation.

I realize
the lack of consistency
and variety
makes me hard
to market and sell;
it makes for an impossible business model,
and irregular income. 
I will likely
never be a Someone
with my hands
in so many different things –
but I will be happy
and engaged
and screw it
who needs genius recognized 
when you can live happy
anyway?