Clearing my head

Sometimes life starts to move really fast and really slow at the same time.  School started and I've got something like 110 pages to write (4 different papers) in the next 3 months.  Two of these papers don't have topics yet, and I've been racking my brain and scouring scholarly journals in the last few days to try to come up with something that (1) I like, (2) my professor likes, (3) and that I can reasonably write a 40+ page research paper on before graduation.  Easy enough, right?  But it wasn't.  Let's just say I was being a bit naive about the research aspect, and a couple of hours doing hard time in the University library basement has woken me up to that fact.   But it's ok.  Now I know.  And I can do it, I just need to choose a topic..
So my mind was racing.. but then on the other hand, the NYC Mod guild meeting was coming up and I had *shock!* nothing for show and tell!  I had been drudging along on an overdue X-mas present that I just wasn't feeling anymore.  I was sick of piecing stars.  Twice I went into the sewing room with time on my hands and I just stared around blankly, waiting for a project to tell me it needed to be done. 
Nothing.
There was an imbalance, too much on the school side, not enough on the quilting side.  I needed something to clear my head, to give me something to dive in and focus on. 
I was sorting through old emails (yes, that's how lost I was) and came upon a link to this blog, and this quilt.  And I remembered AmandaJean's recent post about creating a simple stash quilt once a month.. and I thought, I can do this.. I should do this.
So from Thursday afternoon to Friday night, I put all my energy here.

George helped me sort fabrics, I ironed and cut 10.5" squares in the family room as he played.  After he went to bed I drew diagonal lines, paired, pieced, pressed, cut them apart, & pressed again. 

Friday after he went to bed I squared them up (I was jotting down paper topic ideas at the same time), laid them out, and pieced them together.  I made a whole quilt top in a 36 hour time frame.  I don't think I've done that for a long time.  

I have affectionately dubbed this my "Procrastination Quilt #1"-- allowing room for future projects of the same nature.  And boy do I feel better. 

I showed it at the guild mtg yesterday and was happy to hear other quilters say that sometimes you just need that.. something big and quick, to play with forgotten fabrics, to do something completely out of line with your previous/current creative path.  The strange thing was that I had been deathly afraid of HSTs for, um, forever, until about last fall.  I could do them, but didn't like the process.  Making them very big and having them go together so easily has given me a new found admiration for the unit. 

Ok, the Metro Mod meeting yesterday was a blast, as usual.  I'll try to get pics and a recap up before school on Wednesday..