Projects on the horizon

There's a lot of work to be done for school. This semester, my studio is designing a school for autistic children in Clifton Forge, VA, and I've been working on mine for a week now. My site is an existing high school that's been abandoned for a while, and it's been an interesting process fitting my program into the existing building. The school building is almost 100 years old, so I have the really interesting design problem of integrating new design into a century-old building. 

This is the "old school" on the right, and the addition from the 50's on the left.

I'm actually really excited about the potential that I have to make something incredible. But it's hard to look past the little things and see the possibilities when I'm actually drowning in little things. There's a lot to think about, and I've spent the last couple of days trying to fit as many of my programming elements into the existing space as I can. Then, I'll know how much additional space I'll need. 

I may be rambling. I also have a cold right now, so my head is full of pain and sleep, and there hasn't been much room for architecture. I do my work in studio and count down the hours to when I can go home, put my sweatpants on, and lay on the couch. 

I caught mono this summer, and so this year I've put taking care of myself ahead of other things. Sleep is not only a priority, but a necessity. I used to stay up late in studio working, but now I'm getting better at getting things done efficiently and then going home to bed. Also, it helps that I'm not courting Flash anymore. This time last year, we would stay up until 2 or 3, talking on Skype. Now that we've been together for 11 months, we find other times to talk. He's really understanding about my crazy desire for sleep, too. He wants me to be healthy just as much as I do- that way we can get back to adventuring.

While all my school stuff is going on though, I'm thinking about quilts in the back of my mind. Flash's sister had a  baby a year ago, and I want to make the little man a quilt. I've started brainstorming, and I'm really really excited. The sewing machine is in Nashville, so I'll be able to work on it over winter break. But she and I have been talking and we've decided on an orange and green color scheme. I've been stalking my other quilt blogs, looking for inspiration :)