Really. I am pathetic... and dithering even more than usual.

A lovely little trip to Charleston and Savannah kept Senor and me busy over the long weekend. (More about that later.) Before and after our Southern Living excursion, I've been running around looking for picture frames and making deposits for our library's Friends group's membership drive. (Can you guess how many $5 and $10 checks add up to $10,000?)

In September I submitted electronically two of my Madonna images to the New Hampshire Institute of Art's Biennial  and was waiting to hear if I'd be lucky enough to make the final cut. Before I received any news, I took the image files to a local copy shop that specializes in large format prints. In the process I realized that I had switched the dimensions of the two unintentionally. Bummer. Would I be disqualified before I even left the gate?

Late last week, NHIA sent notice that one of the two images had been selected for the show. (Yeah! Only 55 out of 350 entries were accepted. Not the Shopping Madonna, but the Paraclete instead.) So I started buying frame parts, because my entry was  an irregular size, and not the size noted on the entry form anyway. Works on paper must be submitted under glass.

I bought two 28" sides with a 40% off coupon. I intended to return a week later for the 22" sides with a second 40% coupon. This particular frame required gluing and a separate glass purchase. (I was thinking I might have a piece at home that I could try to cut. (Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! were the words that blinked in my brain.)

A day later I bought a separate 22"x28" frame with glass and ran back to the printer to see if he'd started the job. I wanted to be sure he included enough extra paper around the 16"x21" image to make it self-matting. He rolled his eyes when I tried to describe what I wanted and then he begged me to take the files back and insert crop marks. So I did and burned another CD.

Wednesday, not only did I resize the picture closer to the dimensions submitted, I added a neat brown mat to fill out the extra space to the edge of the frame. Then I reconnoitered with the printer who assured me there was a 50/50 chance that the brown mat would have weird bars at the edges of the image. I could pay for a test strip or I could take my chances. "What the heck. Go for it," I said. My middle name is Reckless.

While I was contemplating how to get creative with weird brown bars, I purchased a third 16"x20" standard frame with glass that a moron could assemble. It is ornately tacky - sort of like the picture it will receive. It was on sale - 40% off to be precise - and by the time I returned my other frame aberrations, I only had to cough up $2 more. O Happy Day.

Is it a wonder that I don't get anything accomplished? Add to that 8½ hours of recording checks for deposit and updating donor lists and you have yesterday and today.