Swaying in the Breeze

This is my back porch swing. It’s not your ordinary back porch swing. It’s actually a twin mattress for which we built a frame and then suspended it from the porch ceiling with chain, making it a fabulous place to take a nap. I made the new pillows this weekend on my get-the-porch-back-in-shape-for-spring-and-summer marathon (which also included a heck of a lot of flower potting).

The striped pillows are actually recovered from previous summers. I just made new pillow covers out of Sunbrella fabric. The large floral pillows are my brainstorm I mentioned in my last post. Guess what I made them out of!? Two king size pillows and one four dollar vinyl tablecloth I picked up in the clearance aisle at Wally World. The tablecloth was 60” x 120”! That much Sunbrella would have cost me nearly $75! The brainstorm didn’t hit until the moment I happened to pass by the tablecloth, and I can’t even remember now what I was looking for! I wasn’t quite sure how it would sew up initially, but I really didn’t have any trouble with it. So there you have it. Go make yourself some fabulously awesome pillow covers out of a $4 tablecloth. Only basic sewing skills required!

As for that swing, I need to spend more time on it. My pace lately has been beyond frenetic, though I won’t be able to slow down much for another few weeks or so (thus my lack of blogs lately). Spring Break last week was just too much of a tease, even though it was a fairly busy tease at that. Today we had our Spring Fling; I dished out 800 slices of pizza in about 45 minutes. I think that was a record. Monday is my annual Student Awards program, truly my biggest event of the semester, and then closely on the heels of that program, I'm hosting the college-wide High Honors luncheon May 3, and I’m one of the two main contacts for Commencement, which is May 8. We’re expecting 800-900 grads to walk this year. In between all that, I have a big juried fine arts festival in Tifton May 1-2.

I’ve been struggling with all this juggling more than usual lately. In one aspect, my Artful Journey retreat was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever experienced; it did truly change my life. On the other side of that, it’s made me want to make changes in my life more and more, and those changes won’t come easy, if I’m able to make some of them at all. Sometimes being a grown-up is just no fun at all, is it? The bills still must be paid, your family still must have health insurance, your future still must include a retirement plan of some sort. The trick is figuring out where your follow-your-heart dreams fit when reality stares you boldly in the face. I’m continuing to work on that in little bits in pieces here and there. Mermaids and Mamas is coming together nicely, so that’s a wonderful start, but following my artful dreams full-time is still a long way away. So tell me. What do you do when you hit stumbling blocks? Other than lay on the swing and sway in the breeze...