I've Lollygagged

We don't do life easy.  Louis and I used to say when we had Shambley - our former dog- that some day we'd both wake up and the dog would be driving.

Well, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.  I just had a few intensely busy days. 

I’ve lollygagged today and felt really guilty.  Ah, not too guilty.  I had a show last week for my HS Class and a Party last night for the Christian artists forum I belong to.  Those two things should never be booked back to back. 

The kids were supposed to help with the matting, etc of their pieces for the show.  Well they changed the schedule and I had to do all 17 pieces by myself.  My studio was a mess of chopped up matt and cardboard.  I turned 4 extra tall narrow doors into a large display board for it and prepared promo materials for the sessions beginning in January.  Then, because the front came through and sat on us for 2 days, the place where we scheduled the event was flooded and it had to be postponed!


Meanwhile, Louis has been emptying and organizing storage and bringing the stuff in and stacking it around for me to deal with.  I sort of understand, but had to deal with that stuff before I could begin cleaning and decorating for the party.  They rescheduled the show for last night (Mon) and so I didn’t even get to go stand around and listen to the comments or answer questions about what, why and what’s next.

I got most of the decorating done by Sunday and though I did have to pick up a little to teach a lesson on Friday, I decided to ignore the Study and Studio and just keep the party in the main part of the house. 

I had about everything done and ready –fresh baked sweet bread, almond cookies, red and green pretzels, wassail, holiday punch, pinon coffee set up in the coffee maker.  The fireplace was ready for a match, the cd player ready to turn on.  But a few hours before the party, a member called to ask if he could have a place to set up slides to show.  Okay.  I’d just have to get in there and clean up the studio for him.  He showed up about 6:30 and nothing was done.  I’d had bunches of phone calls and people in and out.  It was crazy.  I suggested we set it up in the living room.  That wouldn’t work.  So his daughter and I began to clean the studio.  Nothing had been dusted or mopped or vacuumed, but there was no time for that.  I  hauled stuff out to the clay room where I piled it high and then onto the studio porch.  It went okay, but it wasn’t clean and I was so busy with it that the guests came and had to attend each other while I finished.  Sigh.  So much for the reputation I don’t have.

The party was a good humored event.  So much food, so many choices.  What I listed above was just what I contributed.  And I forgot to put out the spinach and roast beef pinwheels.  They were very good and Louis and I are enjoying the fact that they weren't eaten by the guests.  They consumed about a gallon of wassail and about a gallon and a half of holiday punch.  The pinon coffee was all gone and I could have made another pot, but things got busy. 

We played a version of the white elephant gift exchange game equipped with the two or three unwanted and the two or three really wanted gifts.  I gave one of the really wanteds and received one of the unwanteds, but who cares in the end!  One of the unwanteds was a Christmas tree with little black ribbons and little black balls.  It had a little black satin skirt attached and everyone called it the goth tree.  Another was a set of paperbacks and a cd.  The reason it was an unwanted was because it was received initially by a retired divorced lady and the one title that jumped out was something about handling your husband's mid-life crisis.  We all made jokes about our husbands and about her burying hers in the back yard.  The other titles were decent titles as was the cd.  But no one wanted it after that.

We watched the slides and yes they were worth it.  I must admit that even the slide he took while we steamed in the car in Colorado was worth it!  We sang some carols and we waved them off into the cold night, cleaned up the mess and went to bed happy.

So today I took it a little easy.  Tomorrow I'll finish cleaning the clay room and set my studio back up for teaching.  It will be fast and furious.  It's the way I live my life.  But today I lollygagged.