grrr...

the lure of amazon's free shipping option is always so enticing, until i realize that it may be weeks before i actually receive the items i've ordered.

case in point: on june 7 (please note--an entire 11 days before father's day) i order kelly's #1 wishlist item, season one of dark angel. in order to get free shipping, i must order $25 worth of goods. because i am a good steward of our family's resources (and a selfish spoiled princess) i also order greetings from knit cafe for myself. i make a mental note that the estimated delivery date is between june 14 and 16. "no problem," i think, because father's day is not until june 18. i immediately forget that i am having the order shipped to my office so no nosey husband of mine will figure out his awesome gift. also i forget to remember that all mail delivered to my office first goes through a clearinghouse which may add anywhere from 1 to 7 days to the estimated delivery date of ordered items (the clearinghouse is literally the black hole for mail).

every day since june 7 i've been tracking the status of my order. and today when my office mail arrived and it did not contain the best father's day present a man could hope for, i was crestfallen (not to mention, there was no sign of the spoiled rotten princess's book she so desperately needs!). i called amazon (actually, they call you...) and asked for an update on the status of my order. and surprisingly, the call center employee could not tell from their computer screen in india, where my order was, any better than i could.

lesson learned...pay the $4.98 for shipping and get your order in a timely manner or pay nothing and suffer the consequences.

much anticipated...

the shelf that tried to kill me...you can't even see the carefully camouflaged gaping wound holes in the wall, can you? (don't tell me even if you can, okay?)

seek and ye shall find...

nathaniel had a grade school teacher who used to ask her kids to seek out and find their passion. i know--odd request of 5th graders, but it is a very valuable question. one better asked sooner than later, in my opinion.

i'm sure the reason i feel it's such an important question is because i have yet to find my passion. let me restate that--i've found what makes me happy, but i haven't worked out a way to pay my bills doing it. i know lots of folks who are doing it and doing it very well (hi mb and kim!), but i, personally, haven't worked it out yet.

i love to create. to make stuff out of nothing or old cast-off bits of something, makes me smile. i enjoy the hunt for the perfect bit of vintage paper to add to a card i'm making. i like to turn bits of wire and pieces of glass into jewelry. my ideal outfit is one i've made from scratch or taken from someone else's rag pile and turned into something no one else has ever worn.

i have a very difficult time categorizing what it is i DO. and there are others who are popping up who have a similar aesthetic to mine and tend towards the same types of creating i do, but they don't feel the need to categorize themselves (that must be the boring virgo side of me...anxious to box things, analyze and investigate). sometimes it is best just to BE.

because of this failure to focus, though, my artistic to-do list looks like i've taken a page from an ADHD fiber fiend:

**make a felt doll and journal to accompany said doll on round robin journey (we're supposed
to start on june 15!)
**finish knitted pink cupcake
**finish other neopolitan colorway sock
**work on and finish the purple monstrosity sweater (knit from this pattern)
**make two small felted zipper bags (i haven't forgotten you angelica, honest)
**make father's day cards
**sew tote bags for "fun"
**make some headbands
**paint the bedroom and a shelf behr's river's edge
**start to work on my mother's 6oth birthday present (not 'til november, but it's out there!)
**make a kick-a _ _ care package for nathaniel who is leaving for 3 weeks of camp in less than 2 weeks (how can i top the book i made for him last year?)

buggin...

[i've had a picture to accompany this post for two days, but have been unable to upload pics to blogger. but after crying about low reader numbers and not posting for days, i couldn't leave the faithful high and dry so i'll go ahead and post without a pic. promise, it will be forthcoming.]

i took a 1/2 day off yesterday to complete a small re-deco project that had been nagging at me all week. as with most "small" projects, this one took an entire afternoon to complete and was replete with expletives, sweating and tears.

it all began with a $6 thrift store shelf.

the shelf is about three feet long had four little pegs underneath the book shelf part. on the sides were, what i assumed, decorative scroll pieces. the scroll pieces extended about 4 inches underneath the pegs on either side of the shelf. the scrolls were, in my opinion, too long. on wednesday night i asked nathaniel to saw them off so i could hang the shelf directly over the kitchen bulletin board. nathaniel explained how the scroll pieces were not just pretty, but functional as they served as a counterbalance for the shelf and whatever weight was placed upon it. without the scroll pieces, the shelf was in danger of pulling out of the wall. i poo-poo-d him...he is, after all, only 16 years old. i am older and wiser and assured him that i would not place anything too heavy on the shelf and incur the wrath of no counterbalance. let me tell you, i fly in the face of the laws of physics.

fast forward to yesterday afternoon. picture this. freshly painted shelf holding roughly three years worth of everyday food, six vintage cookbooks, an antique recipe tin, and a tin tray painted with clovers. then imagine me on a kitchen chair holding the fully loaded shelf that has JUST pulled out from the plaster wall. follow this with much cursing, stinky sweating and then the tears. of course i was the only one home. but rest assured i would not be discouraged.

by 4:30 p.m. the shelf was securely attached to the wall and sporting some, but not ALL of the contents previously listed. all the plaster dust was vacuumed up. the only thing left to do was to admire the destruction, errrr, i mean handywork.

why?

my blog visit numbers are way down. and i am forced to ask myself, "why?"

possible answers include...

#1 my updates have become sporadic at best. folks have given up on me.

#2 there are so many other blogs to read and sometimes we must make a choice about how we spend our time.

#3 it's summer and my regular readers are busy gardening, walking, playing tennis, etc.

#4 i'm not very interesting anymore.

i know that #1 is the most likely, but i feel #4 most acutely.

once again i am caught in the game of examining why and how i blog. a few months ago i decided that this forum was too public to share some parts of my life. someone from my past had found my blog. not that this person was weird or a stalker or anything. it just drove home in a bold manner how vulnerable this medium can make a person. somewhere in the back of my mind i KNEW that anyone on the entire planet with access to the internet could find me if they wanted to, but i also subconsciously rationalized that only folks who i knew and loved would be checking in here. the entire experience freaked me the hell out, to be honest (those of you who know me, know i excel a bit at the freak out) and i didn't like feeling that way. so i dialed back on my entries and felt quite put-out by having to do that, even though it was my own choice. now, i feel the strain of wanting to share more and can't muster the courage on some days to do so. that's why you've seen more pics here and less words.

i'm coming up on my one year blog-iversary (july 1) so i'll be deciding in the next few weeks if i'll continue posting to this forum or if my experiment has been exhausted. if you have an opinion, good, bad or otherwise, feel free to weigh in.

and now for a pretty picture of pansies from the missouri botanical garden.

one more glass pic...

i've been thinking quite a bit about words and how we use them and how they use us. the ones i choose most often seem inoccuous...they wouldn't hurt anyone or me if i heard them. but the problem with that theory is that i have infused them with the meaning i intend and those may not be clearly understood by the receiver's ear. it's difficult to come up with examples, but i think many of you can relate. i often feel as though i spend a good deal of time explaining what i meant to say. how can that be? we all speak the same language, generally, and they say that we may only use a fraction of the vocabulary available to us so really we have a small cache of words to choose from in any given situation. my goal is to, at the very least, be precise.

in grade school i knew a prissy girl (okay, i knew a number of prissy girls, but there was one in particular) who aimed to correct everyone elses' english language transgressions. whenever anyone would say, "oh, wait a second!" she would retort, "oh, a second is up. you should have said 'wait a moment!'" it was very disquieting. each and every time it occurred, i'd avert my eyes to convey my embarassment for the prissy girl. she didn't realise how very rude she was being. that being said, ever since, i do try to say, "moment" instead of "second."

i just want those around me to know how i feel about them and not be confused. honestly, it's just my tender gratitude for sharing their lives with me i want them to grasp. love is a simple word really.

chihuly and dinner...

magical...words cannot suffice. glass, love and neon melt together for a perfect late spring evening.