(no subject)

[dragonlady7]

I got the last presents all packaged up and sent off via Priority Mail today, so they'll arrive Saturday. Phew.

The last presents for the family I won't be seeing in January, that is.

Now I can begin to think about the family I'll be seeing in January. *dread settles in*
I don't know what I'm getting most of them. I don't know what I'm getting Farmkid, who is old enough now to register whether I get her something cool or fall down on it entirely.
What I want to do is to make Carhartt-style overalls, like the ones her parents wear for farm work, for her 14.5" doll. (I bought her a set of coveralls last year, which maybe still fit her?) She's old enough to help out around the farm, and if she can dress her doll up, it's yet another axis of her interest.
I don't really want to make her anything; this last debacle of freaking out about basic sewing tasks for my other niece has pointed out that I'm pretty burnt-out on Making and maybe should just buy shit for people, but I just Googled around and I genuinely don't think I can buy Carhartts for a doll. (There's tons of hits for overalls for dolls of that size, but they are all very emphatically Cute Fashion Overalls, and that's really really really really not what I want. I was actually considering, if I made my own coveralls, sanding the knees down and adding stains (like, with tea probably, I'm not an animal) so the coveralls would actually look like the doll had ever worked on a farm for one single minute.)

I have to make my mother something embroidered, I just do. And I'm stressing out about it. And I can't help that. She'd say "well just make something easy!" and not understand that the entire point of this is that it has to be something nice or I'm just insulting myself. There's no easy way out. I have to do this. Argh.

I've just been sitting on the couch all evening like a lump, and finally dragged myself up to take my shoes off and go into the kitchen and see if Dude needed help with dinner, and said how I felt guilty not to be working on anything, and he said "You've been working really hard and under a lot of stress and I think you just need to sit around and not do anything for a bit," which was at first really validating to hear, and then I got depressed because I haven't been working all that hard, not really, and he looked at me and said, "well, you've been really stressed out, and i don't think it matters why, really," which was nice to say.
He also went on to point out that it was mean of my mom to ask me for a gift I can't afford, and when I looked confused, he said "Time is money, and you don't have time, and to ask for something time-intensive is asking for something you can't afford, in the same way that asking for something that costs a lot of money would be rude if you were poor," which is really a clear and succinct way of putting it.

I complain about Dude a lot on here because it's cathartic to do so, but I don't often come back and point out that while he's as obtuse as a box of bricks about some things, he's actually pretty astute about other things, and I have kept him around for like, most of my entire adult life, for some fairly good reasons.

Comments

[light_of_summer]

Yay, Dude! I think he's right on all those counts, with the minor quibble that I think I'd say your mom's request was inconsiderate, rather than mean or rude (which imply intentionality to me).

Thanks for sharing a good Dude story!

[toujours_nigel]

+1

[dragonlady7]

Well, right. I mean, they're shades of meaning, and he just used the harshest one because it was just a conversation between the two of us and I was clearly feeling like I was overreacting.

[toujours_nigel]

I agree with Dude, but if you're gonna have to do this regardless, why not a wreath? Like one of those cute floral wreaths one sees embroidered everywhere, but stick in something historical from the period your mother likes, and maybe put her name and birthday in the middle? I'll send you a sample on Insta in a minute. I think you can rig that up for machine embroidery pretty easily, and if you use that as a frontpiece for whatever bag or cushion-cover or just plain frame it, that should be okay for a gift.

[wyomingnot]

he said "Time is money, and you don't have time, and to ask for something time-intensive is asking for something you can't afford, in the same way that asking for something that costs a lot of money would be rude if you were poor,"

Okay, you can keep him. ;)

[dragonlady7]

I do plan on keeping him, if I can. Sometimes I wonder what he gets out of it but then sometimes I feel like he doesn't deserve me so really, it all evens out.