I am very busy.

My freelancing is going really well. I have some regular monthly work that keeps me moderately busy. Additionally, I have just taken on a bigger project that needs to launch at the end of August.

My oldest two are done school for the summer and will be spending the summer at home with me. I am hopeful they will mostly entertain themselves and let me work on that website that has to be done in eight weeks, but even if they do, there is still the matter of feeding them and taking them occasionally to the park or the library so as not to 100% neglect them all summer. So at some point I need to work out some kind of schedule and meal plan so that I will be better prepared for those efforts.

My dance troupe is now in heavy preparation for our summer performances. Opening night is less than two weeks away. Exciting. But also, super-busy last minute costume prep and OMG I still need so much practice time for all my pieces and there isn’t time around all the costume prep and freelancing.

Every year there’s a number of troupe choreographies – some that have been in the troupe repertoire for years, and some that we will have learned that year specifically for the following summer performances. And then there are opportunities for members of the troupe to put together small group pieces. So that’s your chance to pick and choose a little bit what you would like to dance to. People in my circle really enjoy the folkloric pieces, so I’m doing small group Bambutiyya, Khaleegy and Nubian pieces this year.

But now I am in a Nubian costuming pickle. We need four Nubian dresses completed in the next thirteen days and I seem to be the only person in the small group who is both a confident sewer and an owner of a sewing machine. I would actually like them done in the next three days because I still have to make a complete bedlah (Bra & Belt) set for myself and ten days is a ridiculous timeline for that kind of endeavour, but I’ll take what I can get.

For that reason, I have been the sketchiest of updaters around here for the last couple weeks. And I will continue to be for the next couple of weeks.

When that’s all done though, I may have a lot to say about Nubian costuming.

Or I may just have a lot of exhausted grunting to do.