I can't believe I didn't tell you about my jewellery making thing. I had an epiphany last week. Kevin’s tickets are booked to come back, and it was a month from that day when he returns (yay! for returning).

In the meantime, I still had a month with no motivation to do anything constructive (it’s 3 1/2 weeks now!). I thought about doing my own little National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but writing isn't what I need to be focused on now. What I need to be doing is making jewellery and selling it. I've been really slackass on the domestic front, and also poor, and also, I can do this, which just astonishes me, so hello, writing 2000 words a day isn't going to leave me any time to make anything.

So I had an epiphany. Instead of fifty thousand words in thirty days, I'm going to make fifty necklaces! It might be a bit of an ambitious goal, but I don’t care. I need a goal, and this is it. And it’s working! I haven’t had the greatest quality going on - I was lured by the softness of coloured acrylic-covered wire, and I paid for it. BUT, yesterday I made a completely delicious piece out of a gorgeous slice of geode my lovely man bought for me the last time work sent him away.

Anyway, you can see the ones I’ve done and photographed here. The design is entirely CSS, which I’m proud of, and it’s one I debated using for the entirety of nightingayle.com, but decided against it. I don’t love it enough to go through all that work for it :)

In other good news, while discussing the Work Situation with a co-worker, I realized I had a Good Feeling about my current job, and I quite suddenly realized it was the type of feeling I sometimes have that my friends have dubbed the Gayle Is Never Wrong feeling. That brightened my life considerably: I have faith that my job is going to improve tremendously. It’s already pretty good, but I just have this feeling that it’s going to get Great. Not to mention a very negative-energy-filled person at work no is longer there, and in her place is a positive-energy-filled person. The difference in the office is palpable. And hey, the free books are streaming in. I LOVE that part of my job.

Plus, I spoke to my kevin three days in a row this week - I convinced him it was OK to call me at work, and he did. That made the rest of the week feel really short. Although, I didn’t talk to him since then, and the weekend is over, but.. I’m just assuming he’ll call me at work again tomorrow. I hope.

And today, i finally got started on the purse I plan to make with the fabrics I have from my grandparents and my aunt. I bought the liner fabric a few weeks ago, and I’ve been itching to get at it for what seems like forever, but I haven’t got my poor sewing machine to the repair shop yet (A. it’s fifty bucks I can’t really spare right now, and B. that damn thing is HEAVY and I really don’t know if I can get it down the stairs and into the car).

I plan for the outside to be hand-appliqued, crazy-quilt style, but I wanted to sew the liner really strong with the machine. But today I got fed up putting it off and I jumped up and started cutting the liner. It’s all sewed together! I screwed it up a bit, of course - I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t - but I can fix it. It’ll only be on the inside, anyway, so no biggie. I just need to tidy up the edges and I can start with the fun bit! I figure even though it’s hand-stitched, I did it really close and tight, and besides, the whole thing is going to be covered in stitches by the time I’m done, so it should be really strong.

I just wish it wasn’t bedtime so I could keep going - but that’s OK. I’m going to hit the fabric store first thing in the morning, I think, to buy some fusible web, so I can applique the pieces any way I like and do the decorative stitching over the edges. I’m so excited!

So, I’m doing well. I don’t have my Shauna very often, and I don't know how to make friends (or even keep the ones I have); it's scarily difficult. But I'm finding things to do - the yoga class really helps, and I think I've figured out my money situation, which was causing some stress as well.. The big thing that's helping me is the jewellery-making drive I started: it gives me a real motivation to do something constructive.

And of course, knowing that so many people care so much about how I'm doing, helps even more.

I'm doing OK. I'll make it. I always knew I would, it was just sad and hard. But today I'm good; I'm counting on being good tomorrow; and soon, he'll be home. Soon soon. Yes. Soon.