Tag: friends

Something for me

A bunch of assorted flowers, marked down to $4.99 at the grocery store, became my mood-elevating craft project for today, with assistance from antique half-pint milk bottles, a tiny antique vase (lower left) from Debby, and a recycled liqueur bottle (front and center) from Timothy. I might also have been inspired by the Netflix series I’m watching.

I send those flowers with birthday memories for my mother (born March 4), and birthday wishes for Timmy, born March 4, and my never-let-me-down-once-since-we-met-at-age-eighteen friend Debbie, born March 5.

Plus I never slept last night–maybe a couple of hours from 9:30 to 11:30 this morning–and if I choose to continue work on Book 7, it’s suddenly going to turn radically different from what I thought.

Tiny Tuesday!


Eva, weighing in at under six pounds, looks so big compared to Delta in the distance, who weighs twenty pounds. Perspective…

However, this week’s theme is craftiness, not dogs. I watched something on Netflix that I won’t disclose; the very name connected to it is triggering to some people. I found it relaxing, and it made me think of this past weekend, when we gathered at Houndstooth Hall to belatedly celebrate Lindsey’s and Debby’s birthdays. For Lindsey, I usually bake a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Debby’s favorite is coconut, so she usually gets yellow cake, white frosting, and coconut. I decided this year to bake cupcakes and put out Duncan Hines Creamy Milk Chocolate and Duncan Hines Dolly Parton Creamy Buttercream Frostings, along with a bowl of shredded coconut and spreaders so everyone could choose and use their own frosting choices. When Lindsey saw that was my plan, she said, “AND SPRINKLES?” To which I said, “Yes! I have lots of sprinkles.”


It went so well that I think this may repeat for future birthday gatherings. I also keep a large assortment of cake candles in that cabinet, so we’re covered.

Back to my Netflix viewing: One focus was on ways to make a guest/friend/visitor/relative comfortable in your home. That made me think of one of my characters who lives in France, for whom a guest’s comfort has always been important. I flipped through my French Countryside Coloring Book because I remembered something specific about it.


Here’s the page I liked. On the property in the Neverending Saga, there are no vineyards, but there is an olive grove. I imagined Madame arranging a table outside on a pleasant afternoon, setting out breads, wines, cheeses, and fruits for friends. But today is TINY Tuesday, and that’s a big coloring page.

Fortunately, this book provides an option. Mini versions of all the coloring pages.

Voila! A scene I colored that measures less than three by four inches.

Whether you call it Tiny Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Shrovetide, I hope you find your place of comfort and celebration.

Sunday Sundries

The planets aligned last week (literally!). These are some of the things that happened as a result.

I went on a mending spree.

Repaired the decorative top of this soapstone box I featured last Sunday.


This ornament was already damaged when I bought it last December, but the parts were there and just needed to be glued. However, it was so fragile that even though I was able to attach the broken piece, in doing so, part of the front disintegrated in my hands and wasn’t fixable. Solution: glue a couple of gold, flowery sequins in place on the bottom right. Tom said I made a country music guitar fancy.

The first photo I posted in 2024 (i.e., last year) was of this Christmas ornament, which has always been special to me.

When I removed all the ornaments from the tree a few days after posting that photo, it was the only one I dropped. Not only was it broken in several places, so was my heart. I couldn’t throw it away. I had an idea for it and bought what I needed, but somehow it sat waiting over a year for repair and a new way to shine. Finally, last week, I put it all together.


Repaired with glue as best it could be and hanging in its own shadow box, surrounded by glistening snowflakes. Not lost; only changed; still loved.

For several years, I’ve had fifteen wooden, unpainted cigar boxes that once had a purpose they no longer served. I always wondered if I’d eventually do something crafty with them.


Yep. Paint and an old piece of my jewelry repurposed a wooden cigar box into a fairy box filled with goodies for Debby in a late celebration of her February birthday.

 

 

Paint and embellishments (including a star, the one remaining earring of a pair) repurposed a wooden cigar box into a steampunk box filled with goodies for Lindsey in a late celebration of her January birthday.

More craftiness will be shared in the coming days.

Sunday Sundries


I don’t think I’ve ever featured this book on here before, though I see it’s in a shot of a group of journals and other books I took in June of 2021, so it’s been around a while. The Magic of Mindset is a journal, by Johanna Wright, to be written in, so if I had filled in any of the pages (I haven’t), it’s likely what I wrote would be too private to share.


That’s still true with the page I’m featuring, where under the title “Expect Resistance,” a girl meeting a dragon says, “Oh, hi.” The text on the accompanying page says, “RESISTANCE is A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS. LIST all of the REASONS WHY IT FEELS impossible TO LET GO OF YOUR OLD MINDSET AND MOVE OUT OF the stuck PLACE.

Those little items on the plate are like small talismans (crystal ball held in cupped palms; a wee dachshund carved of wood; a soapstone container, lid off, to show a variety of tiny stones; a small river rock in the shape of a heart; a sunflower incense burner holding a stick of sandalwood incense) that are either from or reference people, all a part of my history, who at one time or another were a force that could either subdue my voice or inspire and encourage it.

Relationships are complicated, and more than once, I’ve allowed them to block the flow of my creative energy. This time, I want to face that dragon and make a choice truer to myself.

This week’s theme may be arriving organically on each new day.

Mindful Monday

Online, I found these “mindfulness” tattoos people have gotten.


mairaegito on Instagram


rachainsworth on Instagram


missmegstattoo on Instagram


matt.holistic_ink on Instagram


tinytattoos_feathertouch on Instagram

Like a couple of these, many tattoos were of words only: “Let Go” “Be In This Moment” “Be Still” “Be Here Now” “Breathe.” Keeping with this week’s theme, even when only words are used, I see them as symbolic reminders to be mindful.


tattoo gift of Rhonda, 2014

My only tattoo is this one for Aaron, to show he continues to be part of me, the nephew I love beyond death and separation. The tattoo reminds me to cherish what I have in the moment: family, pure love, laughter, and unity, and to try not to be overwhelmed by things not of this moment, whether the past or the unknown future.

Sunday Sundries: Time


Just so you know, none of these watches work, and that’s fine. I’m sure most of the ones on the left have a story, but I either don’t know or remember those stories. From left to right on the rolling pin, they are my mother’s Mickey Mouse watch, and four of her “old lady” watches, at least a couple of which likely came from my father. Number six with the blue face has no numbers or hands and is more of a cuff bracelet, so I don’t know if it was ever really a watch.

The next five are my wristwatches. The first is one I bought in NYC at Macy’s when the one to its right (a gift from Tom) stopped working. Why buy a replacement battery when I could get a watch at a famous department store? Timmy went with me and picked it out. Those were my last two new watches before cell phones made them obsolete. The two to the right were my “old lady” watches, I guess, when I taught or worked in the corporate world. And that’s my Mickey Mouse graduate school watch finishing the row.

There’s a symmetry/balance in that row of Mother’s watches and mine.

The three in the shadowbox hang in the writing sanctuary now: the Spiro Agnew watch I got when he was still Nixon’s vice president; my bicentennial watch I received as a gift in 1976 from the woman and her husband who would later become my first mother-in-law (and stepfather-in-law); and my Red Ribbon watch I got in the first half of the 1990s when I was an AIDS caregiver and activist.

On the table, on the right, is a musical-themed brooch that also contains a once-functional watch, and to its left, a pendant watch on a chain (possibly a gift from my first husband? Or maybe Tom? I don’t know!). I once had another beautiful pendant watch given to me by a sweet boyfriend circa the eighth grade. A couple of years later, I had to change clothes before band practice in the women’s restroom at a different school. I set the watch on a sink and forgot it. It was probably less than ten minutes later when I raced back to the restroom, but it had been taken, and no one ever turned it in.

Over the next few days, we’ll see how I address this week’s theme: Time. Maybe I’ll tease you with some excerpts from the Neverending Saga.

I’ve heard it’s not “cool” to like Coldplay, but I always have, so I leave you with their song “Clocks,” the lyrics of which could easily have been written by one of my characters to his muse, his love, his obsession.

The lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
Have brought me down upon my knees
Oh, I beg, I beg and plead
Singin’ come out of things unsaid
Shoot an apple off my head
And a trouble that can’t be named
A tiger’s waiting to be tamed, singin’
You are…You are
Confusion that never stops
Closing walls and ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home
I could not stop that you now know
Singin’ come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I a part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease? Singin’
You are…You are…You are
You are…You are…You are
And nothing else compares
Oh, no, nothing else compares
And nothing else compares
You are…You are
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go

More inspirations

I’m glad I chose inspirations as this week’s theme on my most recent Sunday Sundries post because I feel like doing so has reminded me all week of people I know personally, along with so much music and other art, that have inspired me throughout my life. There’s a lot in the world I’m shutting out right now, or trying to, but I never want to be closed off from what inspires me.

Yesterday, while running a multitude of errands, I needed to go to Michael’s to look for something jewelry-related. They didn’t have it, but I did find something else that made me happy. Pictured are inexpensive, plastic steampunk-style buttons. I don’t need them as buttons and can probably clip off the backs of those that have them. I want them to use in art collages on canvas. This has been an idea that’s percolated for a couple of years after I found a Southwestern artist on Instagram whose work I admired. I shared her stuff with Lynne, and at that point, the two of us began talking about and gathering little items and objects for possible multimedia future projects.

Here, for example, are some smaller charms that I began buying as I found them.

Let me tell you, these things were relatively expensive compared to the buttons. The cost alone made me hesitate to get started without a clear vision. I wanted the chance to experiment without feeling like I’d wasted money.

After I bought the buttons, I came home with steampunk on my mind, set the buttons in front of me, and opened this coloring book. I’m not sure what it is about steampunk design, costume, and art that intrigues me. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched any of the movies or TV shows that I think it’s been used in (with the exception of one episode of “Gilmore Girls”).


Here’s what I colored.

Below are containers with more of the items I’ve accumulated through the years with an eye toward this project, some from Lynne and some from my mother-in-law from her craft supplies.***


These are reproduction vintage papers Debby gave me either for a birthday or Christmas one year. I’d like to find a way to use them, too, in this project.

***An entire section of this post vanished when it was published. I mentioned how Lynne and I have through the years gone antiquing and thrifting, sometimes together, sometimes solo. I used the fun of those times not between two friends in the Neverending Saga, but with a couple doing that as they’re falling in love. Their shared enthusiasm leads them to new people, to gifts they give to each other, as part of the stories they imagine, and on spontaneous adventures.