Choices…

I was all set to blog about my great day yesterday, spending the day at an American Sewing Guild event, featuring Shirley Adams, who is one of my long time idols.  I watched Shirley’s show, Sewing Connections, for years when my kids were really young, she inspired me to do many things with my scraps of Handwoven Fabric, all stored in the attic, from my production days.  I was all set to blog about how wonderful it was to spend the day, looking at her work, her patterns, her techniques, and tips.  I was all set to show photos, and brag about what a wonderful time I had.  Except…

I didn’t go…

You see, I got off a plane last Sunday night, and I hit the ground running a marathon that I was ill prepared to run.  I blogged about tying in the 900 ends to get a loom ready for an all day series of lectures at an elementary school, and I blogged about teaching at the Newark Museum on Tuesday, and I blogged extensively about my experiences teaching all day on Wednesday at that elementary school.  By Thursday I never wanted to see my studio again, and by Friday I was beginning to use the “B” word.  You know, BURNOUT!  I haven’t felt like this since the year leading up to my diagnosis of cancer.  I swore I’d never put myself into that situation again, where I’d lost control, and that my life was consuming me, at a huge cost to my health and my family.  I’m getting dangerously close again…

So Friday afternoon, I had lunch with a very old friend, one whom I hadn’t seen in years, it was a very healing lunch, though we never mentioned my current state of mind, I didn’t need to, I heard what I needed to hear.  I looked at my husband Friday night, as he is preparing to leave for Saudi Arabia for three weeks, and knowing both of my children would be active elsewhere on Saturday, and my husband would be puttering around in the yard, trying to do it all alone before he left, I said to my self, “Enough”.  I would have loved to have seen Shirley Adams, truth is, I needed to be home more.

My husband and I slept in, and at 8:50 the phone rang, and to my utter dismay, the caller ID said it was my sister from Maryland calling, which could only mean one thing that early Saturday morning, something happened to my mom.  I picked up the phone with dread in my voice, and to my shock, a chipper sister’s voice said, “So what are you guys doing today?”  Turns out, she was on a tour bus coming up the NJ Turnpike on the way to Manhattan, with a load of High School drama kids, as a chaperone for a field trip, and had a couple of extra tickets to see…

So my husband and I got up, walked into town for some bagels for breakfast, and did about an hour of yard work.  We showered and headed into the city, and met my sister for an afternoon Matinée.  Of course the show was wonderful, and it was great to see my sister, and her husband, and meet some of the other teachers who work with her husband.  This was not at all what I thought we would be doing today, and I loved how the universe handed me such a gift.

After the show, all 50 High School students trekked the couple of blocks from the Ambassador Theatre to 44th street for

dinner at John’s Pizza.  The food was amazing and they accommodated 50 hungry teens beautifully and I’d eat there again in a heartbeat.  The facility itself is gorgeous, presumably an old Theatre renovated into a restaurant, the domed ceiling is worth the trip.
After dinner, we all hugged goodbye, my sister et al boarded the bus for Maryland, and my husband and I walked the two blocks back to Port Authority, where we parked the car.  We had parked on the roof of the car park there, and the twilight colors of the buildings and spectacular views of 42nd street will give me much inspiration if I ever have time to make things in my studio again.