[clay]

Like you, I, too, have had many medical challenges during last 2 months. I was hospitalized 2 weeks....in congestive heart failure!

My vision is still GREATLY impaired, and esp left eye. That makes right eye strain harder, so I spend several intervals a day doing special eye drops, moist, warm compresses, and I have to rest my eyes more than not.

I have suffered 4 falls....a concussion with last one, torn up my elbow and shins....have had 4 CT scans to ensure no brain bleeds.

I have several lung nodules being monitored, so spent a whole day enduring Pulmonary Function tests, plus a 6 min walk/endurance test....

Am on HIGH DOSE steroids that wreck my body, make my face look like a basketball, plus weight gain. HOPING to get weaned off this next month!

Am also on a very toxic (to lungs) med to control my Afib...so have to be constantly monitored on that! Am in Orlando (1.5 hr each way) 3 or 4 days a week! BUT I still plug away.

These meds rob me of my energy & breath BUT hopefully not too many more months.

These projects were born when I got all that bad news, so I just do a little here & there, as we have had ample time to do these.

I am "good" for most part....just living life as best I can.

Thank you all for your support/friendship/and participating, despite life's curveballs!!

Originally Posted by Gemme

I agree with clay. All is not lost! Honestly, I only spent 3 days on my projects and that was a couple of hours in the evenings after 9-11 hour work days. Part of that was my natural procrastinating tendency but the majority of it is that I've been struggling with a nasty escalating depressive event over the past several weeks that has really created an energy block (good thing the matchbox project was energy themed, no?) and stifled my creativity, not to mention making going through the basic motions of existence and working a very physically demanding job extremely difficult.

The reason the group created the 'craft jail' was because so many people were bailing on projects halfway through and/or were saying 'it's coming, it's coming' and nothing ever came. That's unfair to the remainder of the participants so we--as a group--designed as fair a consequence as we could think of and a short time out is really not horrible in the long run.

Given that these projects are often tiny bits of our secret self that we send off to everyone, it's a very personal thing when not everyone works the projects with the same intention. I'm still salty about the book that disappeared all those years ago. I did a really adorable collage in it!

clay had great suggestions and, you know, Soft....I think I might prefer the crushed project. It would have character and a story to go with it. I say send the squished ones as is along with whatever ones you complete this weekend. It would be about $30 in postage to overnight the boxes on Monday but it is what it is. I've had to pay it before when I was really behind on a project and I survived.