Why?

Why did I leave the safe harbor of ebby.com and venture out into the murky waters of the Internet? I should have known that I would only find heartache and 50 million more reasons why I’m a looser. Here I had been doing so well, keeping my eyes on God (mostly – not counting when my eyes were scanning the horizon for my next dream house) and not getting caught up in the daily beating that surfing the Internet can sometimes feel like to me. No facebook, no blog hopping, no feeling like a schmuck as I compared my overwhelmed and depressed insides to other people’s hyper-productive and have-it-all-together outsides. And then, in a moment of weakness, forgetting my weakness, I went here and saw this. She makes me want to throw myself off a cliff. How do other women manage it?

Ask…

…and you shall receive.

Summertime

I remember when I used to look forward to the summer as a time when I could finally catch up with friends and relax a little. Even up until last year I would catch myself saying to friends who wanted to get together “Well, maybe it will be easier to match up our schedules during summer.” Ha! Now I know better. Summer is insane and totally non-stop. It is daily trips to the community pool for swim lessons and carpooling lots of bigger kids to swim team. It is a never-ending cycle of applying sunscreen to children and showering off the chlorine. It is wet, soggy swim suits and towels hanging from every hook in the house. It is keeping track of snacks and water bottles and towels and goggles and making sure that everybody has what they need, and then being constantly vigilant that none of my children drown. It is trying to coordinate napping and feeding and nursing for young ones; play dates and sleep overs and movies and activities for older ones. This summer it is sanding the kitchen cabinets down to the wood, spackling holes, painting walls, re-grouting tile, repairing dormer windows, cutting back the prickly hedge that hasn’t been pruned since we moved in ten years ago and which was threatening to reach the roof line, and a hundred other little projects that have to be finished before we can put our house on the market. Mix in my addiction to ebby.com, my daily devotion to P90X, and a little freelance design on the side and the result is zero time for blogging or much of anything else.

But I love it. I love our hot summers and living at the pool, I love my little projects and dreaming of the perfect house, and damn it, by the end of the summer I’m posting pictures of my guns.

Remember me?

I could never keep a journal when I was young because whenever I took a break from writing, I always felt like I had to “catch up” on events whenever I went back to it, like the diary was going to be confused if I didn’t fill in all the intervening details between the last time I wrote and the present, only that could get rather tedious, especially when it had been months. I’m feeling a little bit like that now, but I have such limited time, I know it’s ridiculous to try to write a real blog entry. So here is what I did with the extra free time I got today on account of it being mother’s day. And just in time to make the deadline for getting them to the hostess for this text/wire swap…

I’m so pleased with how they turned out! Time consuming little buggers, though. I’ve actually been working on them in every spare moment I could find for the last two weeks. I just put the finishing touches on them today.

And here’s one special little guy that won’t ship out with the rest but who is going to a dear friend whom I’ve neglected terribly lately. I’m sorry I’ve been so absent and quiet… I do think about you every day.

egg madness

Comic relief

Have I mentioned lately the particular genius that is Libby? She took these photos over Christmas break and still when I look at them I laugh until I can barely breath.

To see mine you’ll have to go and check out my new fb profile pic.

More process

I finally joined another swap. It’s been over a year since I participated in one, and this one was irresistible. We’re all making winged charms with text, a la Deryn Mentock. I had started playing around with this technique right before the swap came up, so it seemed like providence. I’m not entirely happy with them yet, but I’m getting there. The proportions seem a little off to me. I got these beautiful amazonite stones in the mail today, along with some yellow turquoise that I can’t wait to use.

I’ve also been having lots of fun figuring out how to make some fairly basic stuff with the sterling silver wire – twisted jump rings and such. I’ve started a necklace and a bracelet now that are both sitting unfinished. Almost all of these techniques require hammering and my very limited baby free time usually comes when she is sleeping, so progress is rather slow. It doesn’t help that I don’t have a finished product in mind! Process, right? These simple little sterling rings make me so darn happy, though.

Process

I got to collage yesterday with a lovely group of friends. We all agreed (again) that we need to do this more often. I spent Elzy’s nap time that morning cutting out this bird stencil (and complimentary mask) and another deer one. I think this might be my most favorite collage I’ve done yet, which is cool because, at the suggestion of a fellow collager, I was really trying to focus on process, not product.

Wishes

“Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.”

Happy Birthday Daryl. Eleven never looked so beautiful.

Stick that in your pipe

“He wants to fly me to Kansas City for the day?” I ask, incredulously. There must be some mistake. I was sure this client had dropped me like a hot potato when he went to a big shot firm for guidance with his brand identity. I assumed that they had convinced him to go to an equally big shot ad agency who would transform him into a rock star overnight. Hot burning shame, the kind that makes my stomach do flip flops, coursed through me whenever I thought about the ideas I had presented to him for updating his Web site. Because I suck. Oh, and did I mention that I’m a fraud?

“Yeah, he wants to get together all the people that he trusts so that we can start hammering some of this out.” People that he trusts. ahem.

I’m freaking out. I don’t know whether to jump up and down excitedly or run screaming in the other direction. “Sounds good” I say.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit is what I’m thinking. I’m going on a business trip! Somebody else is paying not only for my time but for my airfare to fly to another city so that I can share my skills with them. If I had made a vision board in the last few years, this would have been on it. An airplane, a svelt, confident lady in a smart outfit and an Acme laptop bag filled with brilliant designs.

But what if I fuck it up? Oh my God, I think I might make myself sick.

“Isn’t there some part of you that feels like you deserve this, though?” Patrick asks. “Like, maybe that small spot on your left heal, and it’s down there saying ‘I’m here! and I know that you worked hard for this and you deserve it!’”

“If that voice is there, it’s awfully quiet.”

“You’re going to have to develop it then,” he says, “or you won’t be able to enjoy the plane ride.”

“I know,” I say. “Because I’ll be too busy throwing up in the bathroom, right?”

“Right.”

I go to my Tuesday night meeting and the topic is grandiose thinking and the satisfactions of remaining right-sized. I drink up the message greedily. I need this reminder. It’s not about design awards or getting recruited by an awesome design firm or even about the money. It’s not about me at all. I’m pretty sure it’s about clearing all that gunk away so that I can be a channel. It’s about being of service. When I think of it that way, it doesn’t seem so overwhelming and I think I might even be able to enjoy it, because I have worked awful hard at this.

Now if I can only I hadn’t given away my breast pump…