Tye-dye Queen and ear pain

I dyed ~30 shirts today. I love to Tye-dye and have been doing it for several years now. I love the process of trying to visualize the best way to fold and pinch, band or wrap the material to make a superior and unique design. I love the application of the dye and the knowledge that no matter how much planning and caution I apply, things will not turn out as planned. Evidence of this is always the color of my hands when I'm finished.

Tomorrow I will tear open small bags, cut rubber bands and reveal the designs that were made. I hate the time consuming process of opening and cutting but it all is made worth it when you open the shirt and see it for the first time. I have also perfected my method to the point that I no longer am required to do the most time intensive and water consuming chore. I do not rinse each shirt individually. I put them in my washer and run the rinse cycle two time before I wash the shirts. This cuts back on water, time and frustration shown in "bad" words.

The hardest part tomorrow will be marking each of the shirts in a way that will last through the rinsing, washing and drying. These shirt are tagless and therefore I'm having a difficult time solving this problem. I'm working on it. I have a few ideas that I'm still figuring out. It will be difficult at best either way because the shirts will be dripping a very staining liquid. My Mom suggested taking a picture of each of the shirts as I unwrap them and displaying the child's name with the shirt and then matching the designs to the pictures afterwards. This is a very time intensive solution but may be the only viable one.

I really wish that I could get paid to do something like this. I love the process of tye-dying so much. It can be overwhelming when you beginning but I am so energized by the end product. I'm still trying to find a large market of consumers that do not involve me traveling by van from concert to concert. I would love to do that one summer but I could see Mr. Husband having a problem with it. OK, it's not just that I could see it, he says, "NO!" every time I ask him. I also love Origami if you could combine that into the job as well.

The tye-dye has very much helped the day but there are several things trying to bring it down. ~*~My Mother-in-law's car would not start and I had to leave work early to go pick #1 Son up from his school. His school was so incredibly cool with the whole thing. I finally got there an hour after he was dismissed for the day. ~*~My boss was a major pain. I called her to my classroom to help with a student that was not listening. I'll save the story but when she gave me her suggestion of handling the problem while I was phoning her office, she actually shocked me into silence. The silence was so long that she actually came down to the room. She didn't do anything to help but she walked down and looked annoyed at me. ~*~ I am having pain in both of my ears. They do not feel clogged like they do when I'm laying down but it feels like someone is trying to puncture my eardrums with a needle. I'm not actually going to do this but I'm partly convinced that it would all be OK if I could just shove a pencil in my ear. 1,000 mg of Ibuprofen isn't don't enough and the alcohol is wearing off painfully too soon. I want it to magically just get better.

I'll stop now because this is staring to be me just whining. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to share the feeling that I had when I was sitting in the grass today ( I was daring and did not get bit by anything) the wind blowing by, the sun warm but not overwhelming, the peacefullness of Mother Nature around me while I was tying and dying shirts with the kids just a few feet away blowing bubbles, laughing together and going down the sliding board. I wanted to share the joy I felt when a friend from Seattle called and told me that she and her 16 week old baby are doing well. I wanted to share the intensive sense of calmness, rightness and intensive love that I feel for Mr. Husband when I just think of him. I wanted to share the overwhelming parental love I felt this morning when Middle Child woke up just as I as walking out the door. I was tempted to sneak out before he noticed but walked over to him and was gifted with a drunken stumble straight into my arms. Then him saying, "Bye, Mommy. I love you." All without me having to say a word. I wanted to tell you all about that but it just seems that I forgot to add those things when I was complaining.