Here we go...

Munchkin 1 stayed home with a fever and sore throat today, and it was my turn in the stay-home-with-the-sick-kid rotation. I've been trying lately to have realistic expectations for what I will accomplish between leaving school in the afternoon and lying down in bed at night, and this means I've been leaving my gigantic bag of "to-read, to-grade, to-do" in the office. So that's how I found myself at home today with nary a paper to grade. After some laundry, morning news shows, knitting, and last night's DVRed American Idol. After putting A1 down for a nap, falling asleep for a little while myself, drinking some coffee, picking A2 up from school, fulfilling sick munchkin's wildest food dreams (Chick-Fil-A), coming back home, putting Sesame Street on for A2, etc., I finally settled down for some thinking about the grant work. I called my Dad-O, who is equaled only by my big brother when it comes to project-planning-sounding-board-and-problem-solving-guru-ing.

I would like to resolve something in print right here/right now--I will write. I will not edit. I will post. I will let the pragmatist win the smackdown against perfection. In the past five minutes, A1 has asked for bedtime snack, and A2 has unraveled an entire ball of yarn and found my cell phone and called someone (if that someone is you, I hope she provided you with some scintillating conversation). If I'm looking for perfection, there will never be any words on the page. So consider this my apologia for anything uninteresting or ill-written. What's a working mom to do?

So, the conversation with Dad yielded a few ideas. First, my original plan was to use metal frame kits for the framing and cut my own mats. The frame kits would cost about $150 for 10 frames, though, and Dad mentioned that he would teach me how to make wooden frames and let me borrow his saws if I decided to go that route. If we did that, I could re-purpose the $150 to a nail-gun-type-thing to help with the framing, learn a new skill, and keep using the framing gun even after this project is finished. I'm considering it.

Second, I am going to need to add a ShopVac to the supply list.

Third, I signed up for free email coupons for every craft store and art shop in the greater Indianapolis area while I was on the phone with Dad. Those 40% off Michael's and JoAnn coupons could come in handy, especially now that I learned from E that Michael's accepts competitors' coupons.

Fourth, if I can save money by buying some items on Craigslist and using coupons, I want to buy a digital SLR. With the camera, I can take nice-quality pictures of those native plants, frame them with my mad framing skills, and add the inspirational photos to the poetry and pottery show.

(G just realized that the reason our house has felt so cold the last few days is that one of the munchkins opened the front window about 2 inches at some point.)

After talking with Dad-O, I sat down to watch part of a DVRed episode of Craft in America for inspiration. Wouldn't you know that the episode began with pottery in the Carolinas, then progressed to a glass-blower who uses native plants as inspiration. I'm considering this TV-watching official research. A little dilemma bubbled up, though. While I'm interested in learning about native Indiana plants and using them as inspiration, the summer plants that are most cemented in my memories are those in East Tennessee. And I have poems about East Tennessee I could use. Should I drive on down to Sharps Chapel and use those plants? Should I stick to Indiana? Should I do both? I foresee a few weekend road trips in the spring to take some photos. Who's up for some plant-watching?

I wondered, when I sat down to type, whether or not I would have much to say. I haven't even gotten to the meaty stuff about deferred dreams and Willa Cather, and my friend M and her guitar, and the Harlem Renaissance, and the Great Gatsby, and my former student C, and this little thread I've been following for the last few weeks, considering harnessing and putting into a poem or a pot. More on that later.