And then, my brain turned back on

Getting off of Cymbalta is definitely one of the best feelings I’ve had in….well, around half a year, I suppose.  I mean, I’m still far from even my own damaged version of “being at 100%” — though, hopefully, that too will start seeing some positive changes, after my upcoming (and long-awaited) Rheumatology & then Pain Clinic appointments — but I’m finding out just how right I was, that I was too zonked to even think properly about what I wanted to have the spoons to do.  Suddenly I’m back to going through life with at least one train of thought running on a second track at all times, plotting and scheming and planning and imagining.

Wait, you mean I didn’t finish turning the slatted side-piece of Ash’s old crib, into a jewelry organizer?  Maybe it was because I only had plastic craft mesh for the earring-hanging panels, not metal mesh, which would look soooo much nicer.  I mean, sure, the necklaces will hang off of pushpins with their pins pried out and then the sticky-outy-parts glued onto the wood, because that compressed wood does NOT want me to push anything into it, but I could surface that plastic easily enough, to look like coordinating metal.  Granted, one of the reasons I thought up this project was because I could make something rather useful with supplies I already had on hand, and I do not have metal mesh on hand, but…  But then, it’s not cheap.  It’s not always expensive, either, if you think outside the box, but it’s not CHEAP.  That’s why I never got enough of it to create guards for the electric baseboard heaters in this rental, so the air would keep coming out, but not so much in the way of dust/small toys/fingers would easily get in.  Of course, metal mesh ribbon with wired edges, of the right width, might be more cost-effective AND attractive, and would still let me accomplish the laying-flat look for neatness, with the can-lift-it-up feature so that I can hang studs as well as hooks.  Hrrmmm.  Well, I’ll have to keep an eye out.

And really, why not make some sort of slatted hanger attachment, so that Steffan’s ties actually stay organized in the closet, hanging nicely, visible, AND not constantly sliding off?  Hell, I could make that from cardboard.  It doesn’t matter how nice it looks, it’s a tie hanger in a closet.

Oooh, I could totally manage a home-made, multi-level, water-drip birdbath.  I think I even have everything I’d need for it, since we already have some concrete patch stuff we got in desperation a couple of years back, when our landlords were useless.  We’ve talked about getting a bigger birdbath, since our little St.Francis one doesn’t give the birds much room to play, but, really, it’s always cooler to make something yourself.  It’s also easier to end up with something that suits your taste, but which you can actually afford, that way.  Well, sometimes.  If you’re me, anyway.  Granted, I always have this habit of my designs running away with me, and then I go from, “I could easily make that, and with stuff I already have on hand,” to…  Well for example, wouldn’t it be cool if I created a piece meant to not just fill but fit AGAINST a window-space, which would combine a bird bath and feeders, in some attractive way, with the outermost frame of the design holding a pane of glass so that one-way-mirror window film could be used?!  Then you’d look out your window and have some pretty thing to look at no matter what, but when birds were about you’d get a wildlife show RIGHT THERE and you could be an inch away and the birds would never know to be startled.

I need to get the fabric to test the pattern that designed itself in my head, for a winter hat that looks like a knight’s helm with attached gorget, with a button-pivoting, slitted visor that can be pushed up out of the way, or down over the face to allow breathing and vision, but still protect more from freezing air and wind-blown wetness.  I mean, Ash won’t fit in his current winter hat (with sewn-on scarf), next year, and even if the mystery thing a friend knitted for him turns out to be a hat, he always needs at least two so it’s not a major problem if one gets forgotten in his school cubby or on the bus.  Besides, he’s going to be seven, which means I’m going to have to get creative if I want to extend the years when I can keep him as warm as possible, while still letting him look cool.

Oh, I still haven’t altered that skirt?  Spring is on the way, and I’ll want to be taking advantage of swishy-skirt weather, soon.  I should get on that.

It’s probably about time to add some more to the “As Ash Grows” memory quilt, because the memorabilia box of iconic-Ash clothes is getting full again.  Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing from the start with the clothes we just couldn’t give away, because they hadn’t stopped being perfect for him, once he outgrew them.  I’m vaguely applique-ing them (my sewing machine only does so much)  in a sort of mosaic over what will be the top layer of a quilt, so at the top you’ve got things like the teeny-tiny, preemie-sized, blue onesie and the blue-stars fuzzy blanket that Ash came home from the hospital in, and further down you’ve got the “little prince” dragon sleeper he was wearing the first time I managed to catch him smiling on camera, and further down you’ve got….well it keeps going, really, and instead of cutting pieces out of the stuff and using those for quilt squares, I’m putting things together in a way that lets you see how big he was when he had each of the special pieces of (mostly) clothing.  To go with some of the assorted dragons, frog princes, knights, heartbreaker and troublemaker references, etc., I’ve got gaps filled in by fabric transfer photo paper, showing some choice pictures of the outfits in action.

Why have I not yet acquired one of the giant plastic treasure chests and altered it to look like a COOL giant treasure chest that can be locked, so we have one, simple place to hide away anything we gather for Ash, that he doesn’t get until later?  I mean, sure, I’d much rather have a wooden one to work with, but those are insanely overpriced for anything of decent size, even if they are very plain and you are staining the wood and adding decorative hardware and fun little details to make it look like something that belongs in a castle, yourself, and while I’ve done some decorative carving here and there, and slapped together a castle facade on a wooden bunk-bed frame, actually making anything….really making anything….out of wood, is not one of my specialties.  So I’m just guessing….and so far I’ve resisted looking into it enough to check this….that it’s way thriftier, if not classier (I’m strapped for cash, not crazy), to get a half decent plastic one and go to town with things like dark-walnut-grain-fake-wood-contact-paper, and rub-n-buff for fake metal stripping, and stuff like that.

Of course, some of the stops my mind makes along this track of HELP! I  CAN’T TURN MY CREATIVITY OFF NOW THAT IT FINALLY STARTED UP AGAIN are even less realistic.  Like, my body would oh so very very very appreciatively love to be able to sleep (and chances are, it might actually manage something closer to decent sleep) on the softest Tempurpedic mattress, and better yet if it’s one of those ones on the base that lets you move various zones of it up and down, for those times when one of us is crazy congested, or whatever….and even though that’s probably never ever going to happen, my mind still goes, ok, but how would you work around that kind of base, to make a fun bed for yourself and hubby, that uses twisted wire covered in floral tape covered in paint to make gnarly, semi-realistic yet also conveniently bendy and reparable stylized tree branches to be the posts of the bed….?  I mean, as for how to do the branches, no problem, my mind did that part in a few seconds.  I’ve even worked out how to give the spreading branches interchangeable tips so that we could use “fake florals” to change the bed with the seasons.  I’m not sure how to design things so that we could have the fantasy forest-grown bed but not lose the canopy bed feature we’ve got with our current, wrought-iron frame, though.

It just goes on and on and on.  I can’t say that it’s necessarily increasing my productivity, as of yet, but at least it’s a far more satisfying way to go about not getting the practical things done, than just lying there in a fog.