Embrace The Suck

"If I stitch fast enough does it count as aerobic exercise?" I suppose I should have expected it. I let my guard down. I thought I was stronger than Joanne's siren song. Believing I had tamed my demons, I wandered into Walmart, for a zipper or some thread. I can't remember what it was now, but it seemed important at the time. Perhaps if I'd just said "NO!" made an abrupt right face and headed for automotives I would have been okay. But I have enough experience with 12-step programs to know that once I stepped foot in the craft section, i.e. yarn, scrap-booking supplies, and fabric, even if it was just for one spool of thread, I was a goner. When I quit smoking, all those years ago, I was told, and ultimately proved correct, that one is only "a puff away from a pack a day." I was smoke-free for twelve years before that fateful night, around the bridge table, where I was commiserating with fellow Navy wives about our seafaring husbands. "H...

Today, is my sister Linda's birthday. Last year I was able to list the 63 reasons why I love her. I just re-read that post and have to say it pretty well sums up all the reasons she is so special to me. If I had to pick just one more item to add to the list, I'd have to say that when it comes to a home painting project she has got to be the most patient person I know. That's a story she'd have to tell herself. But suffice it to say, if you mention paint to her, she might see any number of colors, the most pedominant, however, would have to be red! I'm hoping that the birthday gift her sweetie gives her this year has to do with a completed project and a free pass when it comes to going to the Lowe's paint department any time in the near future! Today is also St. Valentine's Day. To others in the world it is a day to talk of love. Good love and being it or bad love and not being in it. Hopeful love and wishing on a star for it or lasting love and not knowing ...

"God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer." Anne Sexton In the past Dad has encouraged me to write by doing an exercise his high school English teacher assigned him. The only requirement is to write about what you see outside your window. On any given day, I doubt I'd see more than the oak tree that's been there longer than I can remember, or the weeds in the flower bed or the hand trowel I left on the window sill three months ago when I was in an unaccustomed fit of de-vining whatever it was that was strangling the Holly bushes. The exercise, like any, is meant to stretch unused muscles. In this case, my imagination and vision, not my biceps or hamstrings. I tend to write more about what I do than what I see. However, if I expand the original directions to describe what I see right outside the garage door, I could tell you about this perfectly lovely orchid plant that amazes me every year. The plant starts getting buds on it about the time that the Florida wea...

"Gulp down your fear and jump in the water. You won’t drown." ~Carol D. O'Dell My last post was on January 21st. I have to be honest, I don't know where the time has gone. It's not that I haven't considered posting a simple thought or two; I've had a few ideas. I have self-diagnosed my problem as not being able to serve two muses at the same time. While I haven't been writing, I have been sewing. Making quilts is all about bits and pieces so it's no surprise that my creative process(s) has been in fits and starts. My sweetie actually mentioned the other day that he'd like to see a table/sewing area set up in his office space so I wouldn't have to use the dining room table. Reading between his lines I figured he was letting me know the ambience of fabric, thread, pins, ironing board, and sewing machine was less than pleasing. He's right, of course. I had to remind him, however, that the dining room table has been the sewing table of choi...