Life Here is Short. Make it Happy.

Jane made this plate of cookies for her grade six party tomorrow. She first made one ENTIRE batch thinking that baking soda was the same as baking powder. (Woops, I think we've all tried THAT one). Those went in the garbage. Even Sammy wouldn't eat those....) Then, whilst baby-sitting her brothers so her father and I could go buy more groceries to stuff into them.... She mixed, shaped, and baked her second batch. And my, oh, my. Were we impressed to see what lengths she went to to have fun making these treats. (The spider took eleven minutes to bake, she tells me.) And in case you are a bit slow, the letters read "Happy Halloween". There. Shove that in your pipe and smoke it. Happy.
Gosh. Its hard to say who's handsome-er.
And I wasn't talking about Jane and Eve's pumpkins, either. (A little too much candy indulgence, perhaps?)
Cast your cares aside for one day. Eat some candy with your kids. Or your neighbors kids. Or your cat. Or, even all by yourself.

But if you want to share with a spider..... wait eleven minutes, and come to Niverville.
Spider Capital of the World.

Pinch me. Or not- Its the Weekend.

The smell of portabello mushrooms with red pesto and feta cheese steaming on the barbeque and wine waiting in my favourite cobalt blue goblet is the sweetest way to kiss good-bye to my last two daycare babes on the cusp of a glorious weekend. Excellent company, impassioned conversation, and the promise of hours with my textiles yet to come send me to bed early with a smile clung to the corners of my lips.

Saturday morning dawned with no dreaded alarm or glommy eyes begging for more rest. No sweet smelling babies to crawl across my favourite drafting table- the wide expanse of floor covered in colours, swirls, checks, and strips of delicious piecing potential. There is an hour or two of cutting and sewing before Jane lures me away to our favorite haunt- the local thrift shop whose windows boast promise of half price. We come away grinning- a perfect pair of skates for a dollar. Two large housecoats perfect for repurposing; one in swirls of old fashioned colour and the other a soft pink chennille. A bag of fabric scraps apparently hoarded since the 1970's, complete with vintage patterns of ladies underwear, bridal wear for dolls, and fashion clothes for those 21 inch fashion barbies we never had back in the day. No ugly sweaters or cougar accessories, but who can survive too much stimulation before noonday?

Time for a toasted tomatoe before loading the girls up for a day in the city. We begin at Value Village where new heights of joy are found in a pale purple chennille bedspread, a heavy green spread perfect for carpet bags, two vintage curtain panels, an old broach, and a packet of placemats perfect for Christmassy table runners. Then off to the real world- the mall for Arianna's skinny jeans, a soft sweatshirt for Jane, and even a little something new for mama.

We've spent much of the day, enjoyed each others company, and taken a break from the regular monotony of sibling rivalry, dishes, tidying, and homework. As though that were not already too much to hope for, peaceful ride home is followed by the surprise of an unsolicited meal of pork tenderloin, baby potatoes, and stuffed tomato whipped up by the sweet love of my life.

Sometimes life can have a storybook quality. Moments or hours that are too much to wish for, but are true and real. And now, off to church- where the music will fill me, beginning in my heart, radiating down my limbs, and ending in that happy lump in my throat.

Seasonal Winds

There's no denying that a different wind has been blowing in. Daycare walks have been few and far between with the wind and the wet to contend with. Still, along with that dreaded change another wind has come again- that irresistable urge to create!

Brian's sister is launching a "home store" (similar to home-schooling but completely unrelated) for the Christmas season. She'll be turning the front room of her lovely, well-fixed-up character home into a crafty vendor's paradise. I've taken the bait.


Priding myself on normally being sort of wanna-be-ish practical, I have always thought of retail magazines of a luxury broaching on carnal sin. Lately though, if the hounds release me, my wallet and I are carried directly to the nearest glossy sleeved brothel and I scan and salavate for something different.

Well, this week I found it! Cloth, Paper, and Scissors is unique. Its subtitles are
collage, mixed media, artistic discovery. And it delivers! (not to my door, but in the artistic sense).

It was a short leap from there to deciding what my tags for the Christmas store would look like. I used the pages out of an old autograph book, then glued borrowed letters from a flyer to form the word "re joyce" which I thought went nicely with my basic addiction to repurposing anything that isn't glued down.

So, the blood is pumping happy pumps and the days feel too short again. But in a good way. The kind of short that at the end I can say- Hey! I still have five things I'm in the middle of, and I wanted to spend an hour or two reading my book! (The Red Tent, by Anita Diamont).

If I Were Made of Time and Infinite Resources

... I would lose myself for hours in my beautiful, inspired sewing room. I would piece and patch and form into beauty the multitude of intentions and ideas that live in my head. (and quite a few pieces from ideas that I've stolen from other talented artists out there.)

I would hire a life coach for myself. I would learn how to have goals and a plan that would move me from a whole bunch of loose ended theories and wonderings to an intentioned way of concluding a thing or two before I turn to dust.

I would sign up for a neat thing I saw in a pamphlet at my sisters annual procrastinators birthday party this weekend. It was a weekly meeting about intentional journalling. That sounds so incredibly wonderful. To journal in the company of others who love to do so, and to have a facilitator to help us write and explore new ideas.

I would join the gym, not to beat my body into what I wish it would become, but instead to feel it work, to celebrate that all the joints and ligaments and muscles can team up and work in unision. To embrace my aging self and dance with it.

I would install a self-cleaning floor.

I would hire someone to put baseboards in my kitchen.

I would volunteer in a gritty downtown soup kitchen.

I would travel to Alberta and spend a week organizing my sister Laura. On the way there, I would stop at my friend Nancy's and drink some wine and talk about God with her.

I would set aside one night of the week for a stitch 'n bitch at my house. Except I would never call it that. I'm much too upright to say such a crass and inappropriate word. I would never suggest that my friends would fit such descriptions, or that they would accept me for another minute if they heard such foul mouthedness emerge from my lips. But. I would like to spend an evening a week with my beloved fabrics and buttons and friends. Stitching, creating, sipping, laughing, connecting.

I would go for a walk every night after supper while the children rip each other to shreds washing the dishes.

but as it stands, this post was begun first thing this morning, and I've had no time to complete it until late afternoon. I have nearly paid my bills for August now.

So, time and money do have their constraints. Lets just see what I manage to squeeze in, because if my life were entirely manageable, I'd likely die from boredom.

No Time to Whine.... About Turning Forty

Sometimes I think I could ditch all the books and therapies and meds and just spend a lot more time with my beloved buttons.

Recent gifts from two people I love have set my creativity on fire.

Brian bought me two amazing original mixed media drawings by Andrea Pratt to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary. He had them framed in handsome black matt and as soon as I saw them, I knew I wanted a set of four.

I played with the idea of going on Andrea's fish and cat themes, but the vintage pieces I had with those motifs were quite colourful

and detracted from the exquisate beauty of the prints.

So I turned to my favourite medium:

Buttons.

I had a new stash from my friend Cheri, so I sat down with them and my tins full of treasures and picked a number of favourites to sew onto black velvet.

By supper time I had the red wall patched, and my beautiful collection mounted.

I'm almost forty, and my couch sucks, but I must have the absolute most beautiful buttons in all the world. And the most amazing drawings from Andrea.

And the most thoughtful people to gift me with such beauty.

Why Sensible People Don't Throw Costume Parties

Canada Day holiday and I'm not "working" today. I mean to say that I'm not going to get paid to work today.

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Some time to venture into my "work space" and contemplate doing something about the endless clutter squatting there.

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This is what my sewing room looks like for about 14 seconds after I've spent half a day cleaning it up.

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All the vintage fabrics and trims I've collected over the past 15 years or so are properly stored away in old suitcases or cleverly stacked on my big old wooden work table.

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Then I have a space to work in, so I open up the suitcases and begin to rummage through them.

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Then I plan a party and have to go about de-cluttering the living room, dining room, bathroom, and kitchen.

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I deposit large piles of strange things under my wooden work table.

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The things I simply don't have time to identify, I shove into a grocery bag and huck under that same table.

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If I were sensible and i didn't collect stuff to begin with, I wouldn't have to figure out how to keep it all tidy.

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If I were sensible, I wouldn't plan fun, fun parties where we laugh our guts out and play

dres

s-up. I couldn't plan them, because I wouldn't have collected all the props for that particular theme.

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If I were sensible, I'd likely live in a conservative bungalow, a nice tidy one without old fabric spilling out of bags and boxes.

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I'm awfully glad I'm not sensible.

Sweet, Sunny Saturday

There is a blog that I love to hate. A wonderfully creative person who appears to whip together the most wonderful stuff out of bits of fabric. I like to imagine she does this while simultaneously home-schooling her eleven obedient, ruddy cheeked cherubs who dine on her slowly and methodically prepared meals of organic, home grown vegetables and tofu. She likely follows a budget, works out by howing beets or kumquat, and never colors her hair. Like I said, I hate her.
That's only because I rarely find time any more to make stuff. And I happen to like doing that sort of thing.




Lots of coloured buttons with bits of old thread still attached to them make me insanely happy.
Old scraps of quilted squares make me weak in the knees.
So on this sunny Saturday, I had nothing but time and oppurtunity to put a few of those hoarded bits together.




I hope you don't hate me.