The Unexpected

I'm still coughing. Two and a half weeks after I got sick, I've still got a nice deep phlegmy cough. A week after I got sick, Greg got sick and his temperature went all the way up to 103 degrees. THAT was terrifying. Shouldn't there be a chart somewhere to tell me when to drag an ailing adult into the hospital due to a high fever? Just give me a number. 103? 103.6? 104.2? It would be much easier if someone could just tell me when.

Regardless, he's better. I'm still coughing, but he's better. Last week was an amazing week for Dexter because we took him to a huge dog park every single night. Every single evening it was blue skies and cool and crisp air. We wore sweatshirts and walked in the dew and saw more dogs at the dog park than we've ever seen before.

Because we'd traveled several weekends in a row, we decided to stay home for the long Labor Day weekend. I decided that we would do amazing Pittsburgh things and be busy and happy and have fun. We would NOT just stay home and watch DVDs. Then the Rhoomba came in the mail and things got even MORE pleasant at home with the addition of super clean floors. I still haven't actually seen it in action because Greg only turns it on at night and early in the morning, but there is no animal fur on the floors which is quite a feat with 3 cats, a dog, and two foster kittens.

For Friday the 4th, we planned to go to a concert in Frick park of the Mediaeval Baebes a group of women and a couple of musicians who sing Medieval music. We had a picnic dinner and I got bitten by mosquitos through my jeans. I was reminded how much trouble my Music Theory Professor had taken to drill an intense disdain of parallel chords into our brains - and how effective those drills had apparently been. But I was glad to get out to do something different with Greg.

On Saturday morning we got a special diet-violating breakfast from our local diner-lady who knows us from our order on the phone, because she's trying to sell her place and may then go away for ever.


Here I pause to tell you something important that I'm still coming to grips with.

A few days earlier I finally read a message on Etsy that had been sent to me weeks ago. It was from a young woman in Seattle who had fallen in love with the rainbow patchwork skirt that I made.


She wanted to know if I would consider making another one for her to purchase. I wrote back, skeptical. I asked her if she was serious. She wrote back the very next day to assure me that she was serious. She included links to other patchwork skirts on Etsy that were going for $500 and asked how much I would want for one.

And I read that, and nearly fell over.

Then I really sat down and thought about it. The original skirt took me 5 months to make. Five months of grueling measuring and cutting and sewing square after square together. Five months of calculations and counting and then ruffling with a foot that doesn't QUITE fit on my sewing machine and makes a BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG noise whilst I'm sewing ruffles. Did I really want to consider making ANOTHER one?

Also - what about the original one! It was in my closet in a black bag. I hadn't even looked at it for over a year. I certainly hadn't worn it more than once. After it was mocked, it just wasn't quite the same. It's an intensely crazy skirt and I just wasn't as eager to find ways and situations in which to wear it after I felt such heartbreak about it - so it stayed in a bag in the back of my closet. Did I want to put myself through creating a new one (with the exact same colors) and remind myself of all the work that went into the first and all the disappointment I felt afterwards?

The answer was a resounding no.

And then I thought further... What if I offered to sell her the original? The original skirt was banished to exile. I wasn't wearing it, I had no intentions to wear it. It offended me, even though it was innocent. She wanted one just like it-- what about offering the original??

I thought about it for two days, almost constantly, because the next question was the most discomfiting of all. What the hell would I ask for it? What price? What was its worth?

I looked up other patch work skirts online and on Etsy - nothing really compared to the detail and intensity of my rainbow skirt. The skirt that's up for sale for $500 has 6 tiers and large patches, mine has 10 tiers and 4 inch squares. So I asked Greg for help. He came up with numerative logic. If I worked on it for 10 hours a week (Probably a conservative number) for 5 months (exactly as recorded in my recollections of the craft on craftster) at minimum wage ($5.00 an hour) it comes out to $1070. When considering the materials (Fabric and Thread), the value comes out to $1220 total.

I decided I would explain all of that in detail and knock off $220, because I'm not a professional and there would probably need to be some professional assistance with the reinforcement of seams (because the skirt is heavy and, with use, would strain seams of the higher tiers).

I asked for her to cover shipping, I stated I would retain the rights to all photos taken of the skirt prior to sending it to her. I asked her to send me a photo of herself wearing the skirt - because I'm a sentimental fool.

I'm not sure whether or not I expected that she would accept. One thousand dollars is a lot of money. Regardless, I didn't feel much of anything. I wasn't leery of selling the skirt, I wasn't feeling any emotional pull either way. It just made sense - I wasn't wearing the skirt, I wasn't using it for anything... Here was someone who wanted it and if they wanted to pay what I thought it was worth... Great.

And then she accepted.

She purchased and paid for it almost immediately after I posted it on Etsy. That was on Saturday.

So on Saturday (the 5th), After our illicit diet-violating breakfast, we ventured out to a big furniture store that was having big Labor Day sales to look for a KING SIZED BED.

It was a bit of a debate in my head. I knew I should probably just put the skirt money in savings and forget about it. Or put it towards the trip to California that we want to take before we start trying to get pregnant. Or put it towards future baby stuff. Or put it towards rennovations. Or put it towards a new furnace!!

But I really wanted something solid. And Greg put it into words for me before I realized it myself. I wanted something I could point to and say "I made a skirt, sold it, and we were able to buy THIS." And a King Sized Bed? Boy Oh Boy.

Somehow the whole idea of being able to fit it up our stairs escaped BOTH of our minds whilst we were deciding. In the end, Greg, while originally skeptical, came around to the concept of a king sized bed. I think it was because of my amazing reasoning skillz. First of all, I complain alot about our full sized bed. Yes - it has beautiful carvings. That is its only virtue. It is HIGH. I have to hop up into bed. If I get pregnant, Greg would have to build me stairs to get up into it. It is SMALL. I can't tell you how many times I've kneed Greg in his man parts because I am a crazy limbs-flung-out-to the-edges-of-the-universe sleeper. Also, because I sleep best while imitating a starfish, I don't sleep well in the full sized bed - there's just not enough room. Fourth, when we have babies I want to cuddle them on Sunday Mornings just like I did with my parents when I was little, and they won't even be able to get up INTO the full sized bed, let alone fit in there with us.


And last, but not least, I finally admitted something we'd both been thinking for a long time. The mattress we specially purchased for our full-sized bed is just too soft. It's too soft for both of us. As comfortable and nice as it is when you first climb into bed and lay down, actually sleeping on it gave us both neck cricks and unsound nights of sleep. It wasn't terrible - it was better than our previous antique mattress... but it wasn't right for us. We both needed something firmer.

After a little mental thrashing, Greg came around to the idea and then threw himself into it and fully committed. So we headed out, on Saturday morning, to a furniture store.

And we bought a mattress. It was maybe the third king sized mattress/box spring that we tried out. They were liquidating their inventory because they were moving to a different location, so we were laying down on mattresses in a room full of plastic covered mattresses that were discounted 50-80%. The third one we tried, we laid down just relaxed. Greg made me get up and try a few more (always the voice of reason)... but I was sold already. As it turns out I have great taste because the one I fell in love with was solid Latex. It doesn't have to be rotated, it doesn't age the same way a normal mattress does, it came with a low-profile split box spring, it is GREAT for allergy sufferers because it doesn't host dust mites etc., and it was going for less than what we paid for our full sized mattress.

Greg picked it up on Sunday after renting a truck from Lowe's (delivery was NOT included), and a friend came over and we got it up the stairs and into our bedroom. It was quite the process and we were finally reminded of why we hadn't seriously considered a King sized bed --- because it SHOULDN'T HAVE FIT. But because we bought a Latex mattress we could fold it and bend it and roll it together and squeeze it on up the stairs. It didn't take that long, but it took a lot of sweaty effort.

And now, we have a king sized bed. We've stored our former frame in our closet, which works fairly well. And we've taken the full sized mattress and box spring to our dining room in hopes that we can figure out what to do with it without getting rid of it.

We have a King Sized Bed.

Saturday night we saw a Pittsburgh Pirate's game for fun, and on Sunday we did a bunch of stuff around the house and took Dexter to the dog park again. Monday we did some clothes shopping and had lunch at a place where you can get all-you-can-eat Alaskan King Crab legs for $24, and we took Dexter to a town pool where you could pay $2 to go in with your dog for one hour after they had closed the pool for the season for everyone else. The moral of the story there is that Dexter DOES NOT ENJOY WATER.

When we got home we settled down for dinner and some crafting and some kitten-holding... and at around 10:00 p.m., I finally focused on the fact that now I actually had to pack up the rainbow skirt to send to the young lady in Seattle. Because she bought it. And paid for it.

And then I started to understand, emotionally, what was happening.


I got this bed for this skirt with enough money left over for season four of Friends which seems very much worth it.


There was no way in the world that I was going to back out of sending it, but I would be lying if I told you I wasn't heartbroken.

Because I was heartbroken.

There were some very quiet tears that I think almost escaped Greg's notice. There was some very quiet mourning for what I was giving up - for the effort I had put into that. There was sadness for how much I loved... Love that skirt, and how very pretty it actually is. There was appreciation for how much it really does reflect ME - There are Strawberry Shortcake fabrics and butterfly fabrics and button fabrics and swirly fabrics and every kind of fabric that I could possibly love. I touched every square inch on that skirt, I stitched every stitch.


I cried.

And then I put it in a box, and wrapped it in rainbow and iridescent tissue paper.


I put a note in with it and I taped it up.


I drew all over the box and made it beautiful - no where near as beautiful as what was inside, but good enough.


And I set it in the hallway, out of sight.


And I couldn't relax for a long time.

I crafted and sewed... and Greg knew something was wrong, but I couldn't talk about it. I just needed time. So the poor man stayed up late with me. And then forgot to set his alarm. And we woke up at 8:00 a.m. when my inner alarm clock said "WARNING". FYI, Greg is supposed to be AT work at 8:00 a.m.

So he scrambled out the door, package in hand so that he can mail it at the post office today.

And it's done.

I feel a little empty, and I feel a little proud.

This has been a very strange weekend.