no time for this

I started to think some more today about entering in the quilt symposium fabric contest. Is it worth the money I'd spend to get the exposure? Not only would I have to buy several yards of fabric to dye and print, but I'd also have to send a $35 check as an "entry fee" and get some large envelopes, not to mention postage...

I happened to be opening up my email this morning and found a 40% off coupon for JoAnn fabrics. Is this a sign that I should get off my butt and go get some fabric? I decided to take my coupon to the store in search of some quality 100% cotton white fabric. I found it fairly quickly, and I was thinking that the money might be worth the exposure. I went to the cutting table right away. Then, when I got to the cutting area, there was another lady ahead of me (most of the JoAnn customers during the day seem to have all the time in the world because their either retired or stay at home moms). There was no JoAnn employee anywhere in sight. I stood there for about half a minute and then decided to put the fabric back. It might be worth the money to gain some exposure, but I wasn't sure about how much time I had for it. Today is my day off, and it's already after noon. I still have other stuff to buy today, and some cleaning to do for our cookout this week. The submission is due on the 29th and today is already the 21st. I have to work all week, and it's just NOT going to happpen! At most, I could fit about 5 hours of art stuff in today, and that's not really enough time to print and dye 6-9 yards of fabric. I had also planned to finish photographing my work to put up on my Etsy site. I think that's more important right now anyway.

I also started thinking about how I decided not to go to the Broad Ripple Art Fair this weekend. I didn't want to do that AND the bowling, and completely miss seeing my husband on the only day off we get together. I figured that the Talbot Street Art Fair is coming up, and I'd just go to that instead. Well... today I realized that the weekend of the Talbot Street fair is the same weekend as my little brother's birthday party! What a crock! Don't even get me started on his party, because I was originally supposed to host it, and my Grandma guilted the whole family into letting her take it over. Well, don't ge me wrong, I do love Grandma, but dangit, she lives three hours away! Since I have to work just about every Saturday under the sun, I'm pretty much guaranteed to miss this art fair too. The only other major art fair here in town is Penrod, and there's just no way I'm paying $15 to get into it, not to mention parking. Art fairs just shouldn't cost that much to get into. I'm a bit bummed out about all of this.

This just feels like more evidence that I will end up choosing between the day job and the dream of being a professional artist. :-(