What are a few pee stains between family?

My favorite block of the pee quilt

the new doll house

tired and anxious as *&^% sitting in the super tall chair at the funeral home.

If you have never suffered from anxiety, then you probably should thank the deity of your choice and do a little happy dance for your good fortune.
If you have suffered even a little with anxiety, then you will do a little happy dance that I am the one dealing with it and not you.
On the very best days I struggle not to want to climb into the linen closet and never come out.
Most people that know me, who have worked with me will think that is an exaggeration, since I have a fairly fine tuned routine down pat, which helps me keep my shit together most of the time.
I am superficially one of those really high functioning people.
It is all part of my strategy for keeping my head together.   

LOOK BUSY! It makes you seem less crazy!

I can be counted on in emergencies and urgencies; I will get you sorted out and make it look normal.

On the inside I am a fraidy cat of the highest degree, nerves worn and frazzled.

Between Christmas and losing my grandfather and all of the giant loads of baggage that accompany death,  the last couple of weeks have been very difficult.  I was also off work.

Now for a normal person being off work would be a blessing, but for a nervous nelly like me, being off work takes away about %50 of my purpose in life and without purpose and direction I am nothing.
I am not the sort that enjoys time off.

My idle hands need no devil to do the dirty work, I can whip myself into quite a frenzy with one unfocused afternoon. By 7:00pm I am convinced that the world is coming to an end and that I might blow away, or disappear. If my grandparents house is sold, then will I cease to exist? I will not have any kind of home.  These are the kinds of irrational thoughts that float around in my head all the time and make me do things like knit ten hats, or make baked Alaska or never throw anything away.  As if I were supposed to keep myself tethered in order to exist. Batten down the hatches and wrap yourself in the rags of your elders...  Good thing I was in Campfire Girls for so many years, those knot tying skills are useful.  To make things worse, my son went home from the funeral with my brother for a few days.  That just about killed me.  When Maxwell is away I get a terrible feeling that I have forgotten something important and that feeling never goes away until he is safely back in my sight. 

On the positive side of things, my house is very clean.  There is not one article of dirty laundry around and there are heaps of cookies and baked goods. 

I also had the idea to dye that old quilt I found at my grandparents house with turmeric.

In my head it was a good idea, because using something natural is always nice, right?

And using a plant based dye would surely be better for the old, old fabric that some kind of synthetic thing.
I besides I happen to have a lot of turmeric on hand because it's part of Rolf latest harebrained health scheme.

I would use turmeric to dye that quilt, ridding it of all the old pee stains and make it a beautiful work of folk art!
That is what was in my head three days ago, when I filled our bathtub with hot water and turmeric and half a pot of coffee (it was there and seemed like a good pee stain hiding medium).
I threw the quilt into the tub and there it sat.
It was too light, you could hardly even tell there was anything other than water in the tub.  I was feeling guilty about using up any more of Rolf's turmeric, when I remembered I had a giant can of curry powder that we had purchased years ago.  So I threw about half into the tub with the quilt and by golly it finally started to look yellow and more importantly to hide the stains.
It was all going exceedingly well, until Mark came in and asked why the house smelled like Indian food.
I was too pleased by the color to notice that the house did indeed smell a little like a curry.  It was a small price to pay, as far as I was concerned.
Do you know how much a double cotton quilt soaked  in a bathtub full of curry water weighs?   
A LOT!
I wrestled the soggy mess into a laundry basket and put it in the washer to spin, dried it in the drier and now it is resting comfortably on the sofa in the livingroom, a lovely shade of yellow, with not a trace of old pee stains.
If that weren't enough to raise me out of my funk, I got a message on Facebook from my friend Rachael that said "check your porch." when I did, I found a huge, beautiful doll house, that has Freyja on cloud nine.
She has set it up, complete with a horse corral and a bird roost on the roof.
The dog keeps trying to bust the place up, by sticking her head in the attic and trying to squeeze into the dining-room and nap.  If we can keep Rosie out, I think this will be one of the best Freyja occupying devices we've had in years.