An experiment

Several months ago, I discovered this website. Now, it may not be to everybody's taste, but I immediately fell in love and then into a deep despair because I knew I would probably never be that funny. (I got over it.) From there, I started reading the author's personal website and got to see a little more about him, and he turned out to be rather fascinating. He had a girlfriend in Scotland and he wanted to marry her. He worked in a coffee bar and made very little money but he had a few thousand readers and he decided to put up a donation button. And now, every month, I try to budget some money to give to him (I try to budget $20, but I often have to do less. He asked his readers to give one dollar a month, and I believe only about one percent have given anything.) He doesn't know me. I've never written to him directly or communicated in any way, but I read every word he puts online and for that I think he deserves something from me for that. There aren't many sites out there that inspire me to daily visits, so I try to support the ones that do. (He married his girlfriend, by the way, but is still saving to move to Scotland to be with her.)

So now I am about to head out to Kansas City, for a business that has no money and can't actually pay me. I have eschewed paid work in order to focus entirely on this project and so, as I suspected, I am going to KC completely fucking broke. (I had money saved up, but then David broke a tooth and that took up what I had saved and more.) If I need a cab, I'll have to pay for it. If I need to eat, I'll have to pay for it. I'm going to stuff Power Bars in my purse and hope that I can live on those, but I doubt it. When Devon starts school in the fall, we will have some relief, because then I won't be paying for her daycare anymore (and yes, I could pull her out of daycare now, but I'd never get any work done and she LOVES it there.) I need to consider shutting off the cable TV for a while.

There is no way for me to know when or if GenQ could become profitable, but if it does it is likely to be a while. Before I knew GenQ was even happening, I had plans for some projects that I hoped would make up for some of the loss from losing my Quilter's Home work (and no other mags out there are interested in what I write or pay as well). However, the time necessary for work on GenQ has made pursuit of those projects next to impossible. If things ease up this summer with the second issue, then that may change.

When I return from KC, I am going to start organizing a fabric sale here on the blog. It pains me to do it, but I have to. I have also decided to put up my own donation button, which you can see at the top of the right hand column. Several people have suggested this in the past, but I have always resisted it. I hate asking for money, and so I'm not going to. I'm just going to leave that button there and whatever happens, happens. (And for those brave souls who do click the button - Sundara Silver is me. I had a home-based silver jewelry business when I started my PayPal account and I can't seem to change it to just my real name.)

BUT. Because I love you, and I realize I haven't been very entertaining these last few days, I will leave you with a very special present. I give you the first submission to the 2013 Quilter's Shirtless Man and Spicy Burrito Calendar:

Is that not the most awesome thing ever? These guys are all brothers and they and their sisters made a calendar of their mom's quilts for her for Christmas last year. But for the last month, the boys all shed their shirts and grabbed burritos! She sent me this on Christmas Day, so it was like a gift for me too, and when the boys all said they'd be happy to have the picture in the calendar, I just about died.

The three on the right are performers—the Platt Brothers—and I believe it's the hottie on the far right who is named Cheetah (a name, his mother assures me, he gave himself. Apparently, she tried to name him Ben, but he informed her at age six that she got it wrong and he made it legal when he was 16). The rest are Flynn, Cy, and Boone—and if those don't sound like the names of four brothers from a Nora Roberts quartet, I don't know what does. Hopefully, this will assuage all the weirdos who saw the 2012 calendar and were all, "Why aren't they all buff? I only want buff guys with quilts and burritos on my wall." So, here ya go, ya whiners. Four of 'em. Now leave the rest of us to our cuddle bears.

So this is just the beginning of the awesomeness that will be the QSMASBC for 2013. Also on track and hopefully to be completed this summer: a book. Specifically, all my Quilter's Home humor pieces plus a few new ones that will only be found in the book. I'm doing design and layout myself on this one and will self-publish as well. (I could just imagine trying to pitch that to C&T or Martingale: "Yeah, it's all previously published stuff, but in all the places where it originally said 'poop' I'm going to change it to 'shit'.") It's even going to have a special introductory section called How To Quilt! Rest assured, you will come away with WAY more knowledge about quilting than you ever thought possible. I won't guarantee that it will be useful information or that it won't get you arrested in certain states, but it will be edifying.

Now I need to go estimate how many tampons are reasonable to pack just in case and try to get my favorite smelly soap into a travel bottle without also pouring it down my pants. If don't manage to check in before Thursday, wish me luck with my attempts to be personable without a full meal or access to Dr. Pepper. I just got my 16GB SD card for my camera so I hope to be back with lots of pictures of people trying to grab David Butler's ass when Amy's not looking.