The Vintage Butterfly

The Pantry Challenge

2012-01-23T19:02:00.001-06:00

As this year began, my pantry, fridge and freezer were overflowing with food.

Gifts, leftovers, holiday stuff,
special things I only buy at Christmas,
stuff I bought while my brain was on autopilot...
it was just a lot.

What started off as an effort to just eat through it all turned into a little game I was playing in my head...how long could I go before I bought groceries? Two weeks in, I verbalized it to Robb. Three weeks in, the kids are annoyed, but are clear on the goal...No groceries until we eat what we have. Of course, we have broken down a couple of times for bread, eggs, milk, fresh fruit and dog food. But pantry stuff, canned goods, meat, snack foods...we are holding steady. I think Friday or Saturday is as long as I can hold out. We have actually emptied the jar of olives. The jar with one marachino cherry. The 1/8th of a bag of frozen lima beans. We had gotten so lazy with food over the holiday...I think we had it down to bacon and chocolate. It has been good to be a little more humble about what we eat. To be thankful for the lowly casserole.

You Again?

2012-01-19T09:59:00.001-06:00

You may have concluded from the scarcity of my online presence that I was swallowed up in a lake effect blizzard and permanently lost. Close. I got home from vacation at my parents house and fell into a depression.

How do I know it's depression? Because my single biggest goal in the morning is getting back in bed. I long to become invisible. I am genuinely annoyed at all the needy, whining entities that want my attention and won't leave me alone...you know who I mean, right? Like those loud requests from AT&T and Dish Network that come in the mail? The beeping on the microwave that tells me my coffee has been reheated. "Shut up and stop yelling at me, Beep. I'll get there when I can drag myself away from the space heater under my worktable where I am sitting here refreshing meaningless webpages that I don't care one tiny bit about." Exhausting, I tell you.

Well, I'm not in my 20's anymore. I know what it will take to get beyond this. I have tried the drugs. They do work but they have side effects I don't love. And you have to mess with a doctor which takes time and money.

It helps to talk a bit. I know I'm pretty tired and have absorbed a lot of changes in a short time and have some things that I'm angry and sad about. (But I feel badly bugging my friends.)

It helps to write, so I'm writing. (It's uninspiring garbage, but honest anyway.)

I will need to exercise. (Which is going to be tough considering putting in my contacts takes about all the energy I have.)

Lay off the wine (which is so very helpful for relaxing when you are really doing something, but not so good when you are already nearly catatonic.)

Spend time alone with God being honest about my emotions. (Ugh, that's not gonna be pretty.)

And I have to give myself some space and time. Which means I might say no to something you ask me for. Something you have every right to ask for. I just might not be able to deliver right now. It will nearly kill me to say no to you. I'd much rather say no to myself, drag myself forward and try to please you.

Ok, Depression. It's you again. You are real and ignoring you doesn't make things better. But you aren't the boss of me. You don't have to stick around and make me and my family miserable forever. I don't have much will to fight you, but if you wanna go, let's do this thing.

Driving Home...Eventually.

2012-01-03T14:30:00.002-06:00

We were going to head home today but somehow, it seemed better to just put on some socks and stay put.

Hypocrite

2011-12-08T08:20:00.001-06:00

Hypocrite is a church word. It used to be about the religious leaders in the Bible when Jesus was on earth. Now it's especially used about the church people on earth who say one thing but do something other than that. My kids, being PKs (pastor's kids, or the more cringe-worthy "preacher's kid") learned the word "Hypocrite" at about age 4 and use it effectively in everyday conversation. Usually on one another.

The other day, I had an "aha moment" when I realized I had about t-minus 11 months before one of them uses it on me. Because I have been guilty of something for awhile now that came to my mind while I was yelling at them. I believe the classic phrase is that "my heart smote me." Smote? That's a weird word when you type it out too. Past tense of "smite": to smack upside the head. Biblically, that's to death. Metaphorically, it's a rush of guilt, pain, repentance and disgust that knocks you on your butt.

That's why having kids is awesome. Because they show you so much about who you really are.

I was spouting my "First comes work and then comes play" adage which I learned at home. My parents were not exactly hypocrites in this area. For them (and they will totally admit to this, I think) it was first comes work and then comes just a little bit more work. But that's another topic. I was frustrated by the extremely normal tendency of the children to flake out, leave their stuff everywhere and forget to do their chores. Faces turned to screens, they were lost in vegging out. While I had tons of responsibilities to manage. "Come on! First comes work and then comes play. First put your stuff away, do your chores and then you can relax."

I don't do this.
I don't do my work first and then play.
I dink on Facebook. Pinterest. Twitter. Etsy. Shoot, I'll dink on Weather dot com if it keeps me from having to DO something. I'm Pavlov's dog to every tingle, bell, jingle, buzz, squeak, and other notification on my phone (almost always on me) or my computer (never more than 5 feet away.) I am living an artificial existence. And I feel frantic a lot of the time.

Source: lemontreecreations.blogspot.com via Michelle on Pinterest

My G-mail notifier just "dinged." I have two messages. Both on Facebook. I was tagged in something. And my brother made a joke in the long banter my sibs and I have going in a message about how to do our Christmas present exchange for the family. Neither are urgent. But it is taking considerable bandwidth to not click over to my other tab and mark them as read. Or worse, follow the links and get involved. Mulitply this attention deficit by about 30 or more because that's at least how many emails come my way each day and then I wonder why, at the end of the day, I feel nuts.

Last night, it was time to make dinner and I was, as is increasingly the case, floating around aimlessly, looking for my earbuds (I don't even want to know how much of my life I've lost looking for things I don't actually need in order to function.) I couldn't find them. Which leads me to feel really incompetent. I still hadn't cleaned. I still have a turkey carcass in my fridge from Thanksgiving. I have a stack of papers and a filter for a vent on my counter that I just keep shuffling. There are 7 blue rags lying flat across the front porch where I left them to dry over a week ago. I forgot an important deadline for some of Mattie's paperwork. The dog threw up a pair of underwear she ate off my bathroom floor yesterday. All of it made me want to scream. And all of it was preventable. ALL of it.

"I HATE feeling incompetent." I thought. And then I thought,
"Why do you feel incompetent?" And I answered myself...
"Because I'm not getting stuff done."
"Why not?"

And that's when it hit me.

"First comes work and then comes play." That moment. That uncomfortable moment when I realized I ask my kids to do something I'm not doing. That I would be sad if they were living the way I have been living. That I am using all kinds of things to distract me from things I don't feel like doing. And when they don't get done, I feel worse than if I had just done them and gotten them over with. Like a magnet the idea drew from my memory the sermon about worship. That one that still kind of haunts me. That worship isn't an escape from reality where we sing pretty songs that make us feel better about things sucking. It's looking reality in the face. It's being fully awake to all that's wrong and all that's right about God.

It also drew out the memory of a daily email I get about money. That many wealthy people aren't necessarily happy. But some are. A study showed that these people identified which things really made them happy and spent money on those things and chose not to spend money on things that didn't. The email encouraged you to look at your receipts and identify which things you still feel good about and which things you kind of hated yourself for...for example...Ate at a local restaurant, not a chain...Thumbs up. Ate at a fast food restaurant, thumbs down. I thought..."what if you used that principle for your other resources...like time?" Spent 2 hours dinking online...felt rushed and crappy. Spent an hour with a friend and an hour picking up the house....awesomeness.

My weird, unformed days require that I think like this. Otherwise, I'm going to a hypocrite who wastes the time that God gives me, vegging out and setting a crappy example for my kids of what true happiness is.

Today, I'm going to try to do differently. First the work that matters most: Taking care of my soul and listening to God (which often involves blogging, in case you wondered), then making my home good for my family, then running my business in an orderly way that lets me be available to my friends.

Doctor Carter used to tell me, "There is always enough time in the day to do God's will." Perhaps it's trite. But I tend to believe that I'm not living a very good life when I am either frantic or zoned out. There is a time and place for relaxing well. But I bet I'll be better at that when I do my work first and then play.

Peace, Be Still

2011-12-05T08:02:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the second Sunday of Advent. Already. I still have a pile of branches on my front porch from putting up the tree last week. The mantle is not decorated. No wreath on the door. Lights are up but with no creative thought...just put back where they were last year. No popcorn strings on the tree. I haven't made any cookies. I don't have a list made of what we are getting for the kids. I don't even know what the plan is this year for the extended family. I have commitments to do things for Christmas, but I have no plan for executing them yet. In short, I am behind. Profoundly so.

As a workaholic, I have most often operated in two speeds: "Faster than I can" and "Unconscious." Healthy people have more shift options than that, and I am learning to try them out. Just looking over my first paragraph, my natural bent is to drink two more cups of coffee and then literally wait for the wave of anxious adrenaline to shoot into my system, get up and go like crazy, sometimes without even a plan, just for the sheer activity. (The alternative to that is to drink two more cups of coffee and then sit and wring my hands, letting depression and anxiety wash over me, freezing me into a catatonic state of refreshing the Facebook homepage).

Yesterday was the Sunday of Peace. Shalom. The way things are supposed to be. From Jesus's story about the wheat and the weeds, Robb taught us that sometimes we can't just rip into the weeds. We have to let some things ride. That as far as it lies with us, we should be at peace with people. But that we have limits. That some things must be left to God's sovereignty. That activity for activity sake isn't necessarily the work of the Kingdom of Heaven. A message so counter-intuitive to me, I know it is true. A truth that requires faith not fear. It requires waiting without any anesthesia on God's hand to move.

God isn't going to hang up my Christmas decorations. But if I don't pay attention to waiting, to being peaceful, to making peace, what am I celebrating anyway? It's just activity. Feeding my dependency on adrenaline. This morning, I am trying to be still. It will probably always be hard for me. My mind will race. I will reach for coffee to keep me moving so I don't have to trust. I will feel panic. I will let myself be fueled by panic. But this morning, I pause in trust that being still is the better way.

The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past...

2011-11-24T09:59:00.001-06:00

Thanksgiving blisses me out. It makes my husband so happy. It's the holiday-season kick off. I remember anew that I can cook. The parade is on.

I started to think about thanksgivings...

The year in Boston ..the first year I made the dinner by myself. Robb's family came to our first apartment in Foxboro where I clogged the disposal with potato peels. Mattie was only a few months old and Matt and Karen were still just dating.

The second year in Boston I was about 8 weeks pregnant. Nauseous. And somehow I was talked into wearing a pilgrim costume at church. What the heck was that about? We had Thanksgiving at the Lathams with the Derfelts and confessed that we were leaving to take a new church in Michigan AND that I was pregnant. It was the least I ever ate on Thanksgiving!

The year we had a tragi-comic Thanksgiving in Virginia with Robb's parents. We played football in the back yard and my father in law (who we call Poopsie) tripped and hit the fence and cut his forehead open. Or the epic year we ran short of mashed potatoes and a pint-sized Mattie mooched them from her aunts and uncles.

Our first year in the house in Michigan and my parents came. I had two tiny kids and was (foolishly) determined to have a grown-up meal. I put the kids to bed early after feeding them and planned a fancy meal for just the grown ups. The kids refused to go to sleep and we ended up eating our first course soup with kids on our laps. My parents were utterly amused.

The year at the Hollyhock house here in Arkansas. When Courtney, Ron and Dora came bearing an insane amount of dessert. And I clogged the disposal with potato peels (are you sensing a theme here?) The curious plumbing sent water shooting down the walls of the living room from the ceiling. Our hosts were gone and I went screaming around trying to find a ladder yelling "We broke the house! We broke the house!"

The year Mattie was ten and awash in furious tween disdain. She single-handedly wrecked the peace and tranquility of the day. Which alerted her to her own personal power and became a turning point for us as parents. Handy for this year when we have another 10 year old on our hands.

Which takes me back to my own child-hood. The year we all had chicken pox and the only poultry my mom had in the house was a DUCK.

I love Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful. For all it. And for all that lies ahead.

The New Shop

2011-11-16T10:57:00.001-06:00

I haven't had a minute to blog.

Ok, that's probably an excuse. I have had plenty of time to blog...I just chose to spend that time on Pinterest, or going to my first Razorback Football game, or visiting our new and amazing museum Crystal Bridges. I've also been learning the wonders of Spotify (ok, so far it's not that wondrous to me, but I guess I'll get it eventually) and getting ready for two craft shows: The Artini Festival and The Little Craft Show.

And oh, yeah, I also opened a new etsy store....

They estimate 30,000 people attended the War Eagle Craft Fair. Probably 5,000 came by my booth and told me how much they loved what I made. I guess I'm a little dense because that's how many times it took to finally really hear that what I make is not bad. What I make is actually pretty unique. Ok, what I make is totally unique. Selling vintage is not unique. Running flea market booths is not unique. And while I love selling vintage, there is a limit to what I can do with it. There is no limit to what I can create, however. And so I finally made a turn in my thinking. I now believe in what I make. Up until now, I was practicing. I made a few things that I really liked and a lot of things that were just good experience. But now, I feel like I've finished my "undergrad" in mosaic and I'm ready to master my art. Until now, I was resting on the steadiness of selling vintage. Now, I'm ready to kick away the scaffolding and be brave enough to give my art my best attention.   It's a subtle shift, but a real one.

So, I have opened an Etsy shop featuring my work. In the past, I just put stuff in there that didn't sell after a show. I sort of slipped them into my vintage shop hoping they'd get noticed without me having to be bold enough to stand up for them. Now, they have their own place in the sun: TheMosaicButterfly.etsy.com.   If you have an Etsy account, please give me a little love and ad me to your circle or favorites. I really appreciate it.

I, and the rest of our family, am in a transition. Our roles, our jobs, our lives are changing. It is exciting and scary at the same time. Ready or not....here we go.

Mother of Invention

2011-11-09T11:48:00.002-06:00

I know that you are supposed to post a picture if you blog about food. But every bit of this meal was gone before I even thought about posting about it. It is neither lowfat nor Kosher, but if that doesn't bother you, this is a good, cheap meal I invented.

Crab Spaghetti

I used whole wheat, extra thin spaghetti, cooked according to the box instructions, with this sauce:

1 pkg of frozen imitation crab meat
1/2 stick of butter
2 or 3 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 TBSP of orange juice
2/3 cup or more of Parmesian cheese (in the plastic shaker)
2 cups of milk
smattering of dehydrated parsley

I sautee'd the garlic in half the butter and orange juice, added cut up crab until it was warmed through,
then added the milk and the rest of the butter until it was hot and then added the cheese and parsley until it was nice and saucy.

The kids inhaled it and it was cheap and quick to make.

The end.

Things I Love - Jeanne Oliver Designs

2011-11-08T08:54:00.000-06:00

Awhile ago, whilst bumbling around Etsy, I came across this print and had that immediate, emotional response of finding something really meaningful. We've been on a little quest as a family for some time now, finding art that looks like us. We created a gallery wall of our Dopplegangers.

It started with a book Dr. Carter gave me years ago that included free prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The red-haired bushy-goateed man made us laugh because it looked like Robb. I stayed late at a hot, Michigan auction waiting for the antique print of the boy with with the broken brim, who looked like Vin to me already years ago. The story was that the family who's things were being auctioned had lost a little boy years ago. His classmates had pooled their money to buy the print for the family because they said it looked like the boy. Then Mattie did a self-portrait in second grade that ended up on display at the Art Center of the Ozarks. And when I met a fellow Etsy artist at a show a couple of years ago, her diminutive print of "Spice" was my Charleigh. In Jeanne Oliver, I found mine.

And a word to the fellas. If you struggle to identify meaningful gifts, look only to your significant other's Etsy favorites. It's a little gallery where you cannot go wrong. You stroll in when you have time, pick anything, and become an instant hero. Trust me on this.

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-11-07T09:50:00.001-06:00

Last week overtook me and I failed to blog. I worked at Heartwood Gallery for two days getting the displays freshened up, I helped Calvin's GT class get ready for their Shakespeare festival. I loaded up both my flea market booths and took new Etsy pictures; I made one or two nutritious meals, met with my book group, had coffee with a friend, and started making mosaic ornaments to sell at the two holiday shows I am a part of. I hit two estate sales and came away with 18 dollars of goodies. And then I got a cold and literally stayed in bed all day on Saturday. It was an absolute relief to be so sick. I slept for hours and hours. We as a family couldn't remember the last time we had an empty Saturday. The kids played board games and Robb did laundry and made me homemade chicken soup.

Today is my birthday, so I am hitting the pause button on all that Monday requires and taking a moment to say that I have a beautiful life. I have an exquisite family. I have wonderful, warm, creative, interesting friends. I am tenderly cared for by God himself. I have more than I need. I get to make things and be creative. I am comfortable in my own skin. I am richly loved and I feel it. If I was a kitten, I'd purr. Since I'm just a person, I guess I'll have another cup of coffee and make something beautiful.

How to Make 3 Halloween Costumes for Less than 20 Dollars

2011-10-31T10:58:00.000-05:00

I love making Halloween costumes. I don't know why. I just get a kick out of it. But the challenge to me isn't how elaborate I can make a costume, but rather, how can I make them out of the cheapest materials possible. I think I did all right this year:

Behold, the Paper Doll:

We made this from scraps of fabric I had on hand,
a swatch of butcher paper
two sheets of poster board
spray adhesive
hot glue
and bias tape
and a feather from my feather duster

What I like about it:
1. Mattie designed the dress herself
2. It isn't ridiculously sexy for a young girl.

Look out for the LegoMan:

I made this from an empty cheese ball container (from Sam's)
a foam life belt from the thrift store (99 cents)
the bottom of an oatmeal container
two plastic drink cups
lots of hot glue
Krylon spray paint for plastic
and a circular metal candle holder that I cut in half to make the curved hands.

The only problem with this costume is that he can't use his hands much. But it turned out pretty cool.

And that brings us to Tinkerbell.

Charleigh always thinks up cool things that she wants to be for Halloween. The other two labor over it, auditioning ideas for their cool factor ...and I have to shoot some of their ideas down, like when Vin wanted to be Neil from Dead Poet's Society. (Not an easy one to explain at a stranger's front door.) But Chuck usually just pipes up sometime close to Halloween what she wants, typically low maintenance. So when I was in the thrift store the other day and a pair of fairy wings brushed my arm on the half-off rack, I was all over it. The wings turned out to be attached to a very cheap and flimsy green dress or shirt which reeked of BO. I took it home, took the wings off, soaked it in a vinegar bath and it turned out fine. At the thrift store, I also found a pair of camo ballerina flats, a big yardage of green felt for a dollar and a little piece of gold lame' for 25 cents.

I'm not a great seamstress, but I tweaked the dress into a shirt and a pair of pantaloons, and the felt into a tunic, to which I sewed the wings (which worked much better since the felt has more body than the flimsy stuff). I used a couple of scraps to make rosettes on her shoes and some more scraps for hair-bows. I also made a little over-skirt with the gold, trying to give her some warmth in layers. Finally, I bribed her to eat her eggs this morning by telling her she could wear some green eyeshadow. Done.

And that, my friends, is three cute costumes on the cheap.

It's All Too Much....

2011-10-27T09:39:00.001-05:00

....for a facebook status.

So here is a list, in no particular order, of random bits of news you might want to know:

1. Robb has some great job leads. Thanks to some of his great friends.

2. I changed the name of my Etsy shop from Vintagebutterfly94 (which was a terrible name...TERRIBLE) to The Classic Butterfly. This has produced a chain reaction of facepalms as I realize how many incarnations I can be found under on the interwebs. And none of the names are consistent. I suck at consistency. Marketing genius, I am not.

3. Whatever. I'm starting a new etsy shop devoted just to mosaics. Want to submit an idea for a name of that shop?

4. It's freezing cold and raining here today. It will be warmer tomorrow. To avoid turning on the heat, I shall clean my oven. Because I'm just that brilliant.

5. I restocked both my flea market booths yesterday. You should go and check them out because I put some good stuff in there.

6. Yesterday, I purchased a taxidermy fish. Because, really, why WOULDN'T I?

7. We've been watching The Wonder Years with the kids.

8. I applied to two art shows this morning: Artini and The Little Craft Show.

9. I have a birthday card I purchased for my sister in law before her birthday, which was over a week ago. I don't have the right address to send it to her. I can get that with one phone call, but I haven't had a minute. Do I send it or save it for next year?

10. I have lost my earbuds. Earbuds, if you are reading this...come back to me. Please. I need you in my life more than you know. We don't even have to talk about where you have been all this time. I don't care. I just want you back. And I'm worried about you. Picturing you out in this rain....it's driving me crazy. Please. Just tell me where you are and I will come get you. No questions asked.

11. Today, with news of a giant Legoman washing ashore in Florida circulating, I am making a Legoman costume for Vin. And a paperdoll costume for Mattie. And a Tinkerbell costume for Chuck. I have a lot of making to do.

12. I finished cleaning and organizing the garage. Is it weird that I like to just go out there and walk around all four sides of the van and think, "I ROCK at stacking stuff!"

13. I made baked oatmeal for breakfast yesterday with blueberry syrup. Gluten free, full of fiber and antioxidants and it tastes like pie. Awesome, much?

14. I feel weird stopping at 13.

15. Vin has a girlfriend. (Shhhhh. Don't tell him I told you.) I should have stopped at 14, but I have weird number issues.

When He Gets Laid Off From Work

2011-10-25T08:20:00.002-05:00

On Sunday night, Robb woke me up talking in his sleep. He was talking about work, which has happened before. Insomnia ensued. Which has happened before. What has never happened to us before, however, was that he went to work and found out his company is closing in two months.

I'm not going to be all super pious Christian and say I'm not worried because God will take care of us. I'm going to tell you that I'm really scared. But that I know that God will take care of us.

Over the years, in our ministries, this has happened to folks we know and love. Now it is our turn. Into every life, rain does fall. I'm ok with that.

I don't know exactly what I will be doing soon. I may have to go get a "real job." But for now, I'm going to focus on making and selling what I can. It's the only thing I really know how to do well. I've never had to work outside our home since the kids were born. (I've worked my fanny off FROM home for quite some time now.) I came home from the show feeling like I was going in the right direction...in a direction I could grow and be successful with. I'm going to roll with that for now.

So we begin a new season. One with lots of questions. Lots of unknowns. Lots of dark shadows. It will be interesting to see what the God whom we have served all these years will do to carry us forward. I'm glad He already knows.

Once Upon A Time

2011-10-20T21:51:00.001-05:00

The summer before college.

Eighteen years ago, I had long, curly giant 1990's hair and I had never fulfilled my dream of having the lead role in a play. Growing up in a small Christian school, time and budget rarely allowed for a full-length production, but in my 7th grade year, our ambitious English teacher pulled together a production of Annie, Get Your Gun. I was cast as Jessie, Annie's little snot-nose sister. Annie was played by Amber, a senior, whom I adored...largely because she noticed my existence. During one scene of the performance, I was suppose to lose a set of keys through a hole in my skirt pocket. Instead, they got stuck. That was a memorable moment for me.

Two years later, we put on A Man Called Peter. I was dying to play the role of Catherine. But my brother...who wanted a bit part as a guy who joins the army...was cast in the lead role as Peter Marshall. And obviously, I couldn't play my brother's wife. I was annoyed. I was in 9th grade. I was told there would be other plays. There weren't. Our ambitious, single English teacher moved away and got married and no other plays were produced from then on.

In 10th grade, Amber was in college now and her parents were going across the wide state of Pennsylvania to see her perform in her college production as the lead in The Little Foxes. It was one of those delicious, villainous roles that actors love to play. Her parents offered to take me and some other drama geeks along in their big baby blue Chevy van which only had one bench seat. The Geeks and I were in the back on the floor. On the way there, her kid brother threw up. That was a moment too.

As we pulled onto campus, I was surprised to see a real building...a collegiate looking building, with a clock tower chiming the time. It was pretty much that moment that I knew where I was going to attend college. It looked like a college. It wasn't too big. It didn't have "pink and blue sidewalks" like some of the colleges kids from our school went on to attend. They put on plays. That's all I needed to know. I was sold. I never even applied anywhere else.

The year was 1996. I had been on campus for 48 hours. I had no roommate, so my RA offered to go with me to find out about play try-outs. I didn't know anything about the play. I didn't know anything about how much time it would take out of my schedule. But I didn't have a job yet, either, so what difference did it make?

"I came to see what being in the play would involve." I said to the enormous 6 foot 6 inch man with curly hair who was leading the event. He smiled warmly...I recognized him as Brian Maxwell, the director that Amber had told me about. "Come in and you will find out." Which didn't answer my question at all.

I was handed a script with a snippet of a scene in it. Told the gist of the story. A Greek tragedy. I wanted to pronounce it "ante-gone" but I remembered that Amber had told me the name of the play was pronounced "antig-ony." She had preformed part of it with a friend for a class or something. We did some acting exercises. Played drama tag....an improv game. I read with a taller-than-me boy with dark hair and an appreciative smile. He seemed strong in the role...confident but not cocky. We had some chemistry. It was interesting reading for a part with a boy who really wanted a part in a play. I read from another scene with another boy. Very tall and thin, deathly serious about getting the part. He seemed to be urging me to do well so he would look good in the part. A day later, there were call-backs. A day later the cast list was posted. I had the lead role.

A mere seventy two hours on campus and I had the lead in the play, a boy to hang out with, and I was elected class treasurer. I thought I had died and gone to popularity heaven.

On a Bible college campus, time is warped. You live together, eat together, go to chapel together, go to class together, go to church together, do the play together, eat dinner together, and talk on the phone until lights out. If you are in a relationship, it's like light speed to whatever the next level is because instead of dating once a week, you are together constantly. And for Freshman, it's the worst. You recognize it for what it is as a superior Sophomore. Freshman Insanity. Your first time away from your home and family. You latch on to whoever is closest and go head first into a heavy duty relationship. So it was with the dark haired boy and me. Cast as my villain, we spend our time learning lines and making eyes at one another. Breaking the no-kissing rule. Spending every waking minute together. On our way to dinner one night, standing in line at the cafeteria, a couple of those superior sophomores were watching us like Statler and Waldorf.

"Dude. Are they dating or brother and sister?"
"Dude, no clue."
"They are together constantly."
"Freshman insanity."

And then they laughed like they hadn't paired off with a couple of girls in the first ten minutes of their Freshman year.

I lived and breathed Antigone. It was the topic of my English composition term paper. It was assigned reading for World Civilization, where we were required to discuss it in what could only be described as a fourth credit hour with the terrifying 26 year veteran professor who it was whispered had attended "Edinboro University" for his education. I found this baffling too. Edinboro was a small public college just north of my hometown. I don't know how long it took for me to realize they meant The University of Edinburgh, Scotland. When it was time to discuss the play, however, I argued with the professor passionately over the sanctity of humanity themes and pressed him hard on his unwillingness to protest at an anti-abortion rally with church denominations he did not approve of. He smiled. Changed the topic. He could have destroyed me. But out of a class of over 150 students, I had distinguished myself by interacting with him. It would not be the first time we would clash and he would smile.

The relationship with the boy, however, burned out like a sparkler. One minute he was fun and exciting. The next minute, he was claustrophobic. All that fast-forward time in the Bible college bubble had sped up the demise of our romance. It was all over for us...at least for me... just as daily afternoon and evening play practices were ramping up to the nearing performance.   Instead of fueling our chemistry onstage, our onstage interaction was flat and dull. He was sulky and uninterested in the play anymore.

My cast mate, Sue worked in the kitchen. She in fact, had the rather news-anchor-like job of counting how many students came to a meal.   Everyone knew her. She was ideal in the role of the Greek Chorus. When play practice ended at 4:30, it was time for her to eat her dinner ahead of time, and be ready to count heads at 5 p.m when the cafeteria opened for the rest of the student body. "Come and eat dinner with me." she said one night.

Casually.

The summer before we met.

"This is Robb. Robb, Vanessa. She's in the play with me." Sue introduced me to the guy who set his tray down next to us. He said hello. Left his tray behind and went back up front to fill two short glasses with Coke from the beverage center. While his back was to us, Sue quickly filled in..."We work in the kitchen together. He's fun. I wouldn't want to marry him or anything, but he would be fun to go out with. "

Robb's 1996 Doppleganger

He was wearing a black Micheal W. Smith concert t-shirt. The Go West tour. Baggy jeans with the cuffs rolled up. Plain white tennis shoes....Nikes. His hat was backwards. It looked as though his hair was cut crew-cut short, but when the hat came up, a thick flop of hair was revealed under the cap, parted down the middle, looking pretty much like Steven Curtis Chapman. So he liked Christian music, apparently. He was thin, not much taller than me. He had a long neck. He looked like....like nobody else I'd ever met. He had a funny smile as though he was constantly amused by whatever he was quietly observing.

Sue was great. Fun. Quirky. Artsy. If Sue wanted to date Robb, then, gosh darn it...Sue should get to date Robb. Somebody should date since I was done with boys for my entire foreseeable future. My Freshman insanity was OVER. So the conversation moved quickly, easily in an ironic direction. The topic was "What Kind of Girl is Robb Looking For." I was very bold. Much bolder than I would ever be if I was interested in dating him. But I was just there for Sue. For her benefit. So he would think, "Gosh, darn it...I should ask Sue out."

I would be in Sue's room later than evening, when the doorbell rang and a boy asked for Sue to come to the door. It was Robb. When Sue returned to her room after speaking with him and announced he had stopped by, I felt nothing but satisfaction. I had handled that little situation pretty well. Pretty well indeed.

Wasn't it wonderful that I was finally in a play, so I could help this little romance?

Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness

2011-10-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

Some photos I took on my way to the show last week. I'm not a morning person, but I do love the way the world looks at that time of day.

Daddy

2011-10-18T10:10:00.001-05:00

Today is my Daddy's birthday. So I am going to tell you about him.

He was the youngest of 6 kids, with an oldest sister and then 4 brothers who once tried to hang him. So I guess he learned that being charming was a good way to be in the world very early on. He was also what is colloquially known as a "pisscutter"...seemingly small and insignificant, but capable of remarkable things. Like convincing all the kids in his high school that being remarkably bowlegged meant that he was remarkably cute. If the situation arose for fighting, like say, a cow that he was milking kicked over the pail of milk, he broke his hand punching the cow. Date two girls at once who happened to be cousins? Of course. Wreck a new convertible? Done. Play a joke on a teacher with brownies that look like poop? You got it. Letter in sports? Absolutely. Volunteer for Vietnam after a semester of college because hippies tick you off...Hell, yeah. Come back after two tours, track down one of those cousins, drive across the country to go get her, marry her, and stay true-blue to her for over 40 years, uh huh. Raise a son and three daughters (three daughters is a pretty delightfully ironic gift to a man who charmed the girls pretty terribly in his day). Sir, yes, Sir. For my entire growing up years, he worked tirelessly at a family agri-business, simultaneously beautifying a patch of ground that once was just a mobile home and a bumpy yard into a home in a park-like setting. And then, when I was grown, he became an electrician, earned a journeyman's training, entered the realm of hospital maintenance and now holds a management position. He is smart. He works incredibly hard. He worships the ground my mom walks on. He loves us kids.

I have a scar on my knee from the time just he and I went out on a hot August afternoon to pick blackberries. I can still taste their wild, warm goodness. He prefers them in a pie, of course. In my minds eye, I see us when I was 8 years old, going running with him...with him cheering me on for keeping up with him as we pounded down the smoothed dirt road. In fourth grade, he took me on a date for my 10th birthday. He bought me a sweater and a necklace with my name on it, took me to dinner at a restaurant, which we only did about twice a year. Did you ever go to work with your dad? It was the joy of my life. I drove with him to the new location an hour away one whole summer. The drive was through the dense, gorgeous hills of Pennsylvania, and the destination was across the street from a bakery grocery store where I was tasked with choosing the donuts. I liked to test my mettle against a 50 pound bag of animal feed, helping to load up a truck. I learned to write sales slips, do the daily financial page, write the deposit slip, but most importantly, I learned to wait on customers. I loved it. He loved it that I loved it. We were a pair.

Sitting at the show this past week, the ladies next to me had framed-up a quilted sign that read, "The greatest gift a man can give his children is to love their mother." I was given that gift. The love Dad has for Mom defies description. He drives her crazy, like a persistent bee around a big red flower. In high school, it was utterly embarrassing. My husband was completely dumbfounded the first time he visited our house and my Dad wrapped my mother up in a dedicated embrace, bending her backwards, kissing her like the end of a romantic movie before heading out to work. "Does he always do that?" he inquired of me with saucer-like eyes. I barely looked up... "Every day of his life."

Special Forces Green Beret, proud and patriotic. Loves his grandkids and always gets the babies laughing; the kids swarm around him knowing candy or horsey rides could happen at any moment. A man with clean fingernails and polished shoes, who will in the next moment head out back to cut some firewood. He is strong and soft, simple and complex, hard working but drops anything to help.
He's been my most devoted cheerleader throughout the show this past week and doesn't hesitate to tell me how proud he is of me. I see him in my son...in his early rising and his bright blue eyes, his easy smile and unashamed hug and kiss, in his love for order and routine, and his sense of honor and right and wrong, his quickness to verbally praise the good. And of course, his appreciation for coffee, donuts and bacon.

Daddy, I love you. You are a wonderful Dad. You provided for me when I know you went without. I know you love me. We are still a pair. Happy Birthday.

Show Ready

2011-10-12T20:38:00.002-05:00

Have a few more price tags to whip up and some light switch covers to polish up, a few details to fix on a tiny mosaic and need to pick a layered outfit, figure out how to use my iphone credit card app, take off my old chipped nail polish, hope that Robb remembers to get change, find my receipt book and my change apron, watch the 11 news to see my booth in the background, pack some baby wipes and business cards, gather up some doo-dabs to use for demonstrating, and oh, yeah, make a list of what I have to do before tomorrow before 7 a.m. tomorrow.....

Homecoming

2011-10-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

It was a harried and anxious woman who flew out of XNA airport on Thursday morning. No fewer than 18 lists filled sticky notes on my MacBook's desktop. With the show happening this week, going away for a weekend was poor timing, but Robb was class president of his college class and a 15 year reunion just seemed like something he ought to attend. It had been 10 years since we were on campus, but I suspect all the ways we have changed in the last 6 years really made it seem like longer. We kept trying to find a word to describe how we were feeling about going back, but nervous wasn't quite right.

Some of my readers knew me then. Some of my readers know what it was like to attend a Bible college. It would take a book to fully describe it. I suggest Kevin Roose's Unlikely Disciple (which left me howling in helpless laughter). Ours were even stricter rules than those wild students at Liberty University. Curfew at 10 on school nights, midnight on the weekend. Lights out for freshman at 11:30. Freshman couldn't go on single dates. I wore a skirt or dress to class, guys wore dress pants and collared shirts. Upperclassman had to wear a jacket and tie. We attended chapel every day and church on Sunday morning and evening and prayer meetings on Wednesday night. We were required to be active in some form of ministry service and to share our faith for a certain number of hours. We were required three one credit classes in sharing our faith, in fact, which is money I would really like to have back, please and thank you. You had to have your room clean by chapel time (10 am) and your bathroom clean by the end of the day. You could not hold your boyfriend's hand on campus or kiss or any other form of public display of affection. Guys hair had to be short, above the ears, and thy could not wear facial hair. We couldn't attend movies and smoking or alcohol was a clear no-no. Some offenses resulted in fines. Some of the biggies would have meant expulsion. Most of the rules I kept faithfully. Several, I broke egregiously.

What I know now, these 15 years later is that the breaking and the keeping of those rules was equally sacred. The slow, plodding discipline of cleaning the bathroom and the wild free-falls into God's grace, tasting forbidden fruits gave me a gift that not everyone experienced. I was not the student who couldn't understand the value of the rules and spent their whole time chafing against them and lost the opportunity to focus on anything other than getting out of there. And equally important, I was not the student who believed that my standing in heaven was bonded to my spotless record in the Office for Student Development. Knowing that I was a sinner, having the five dollar fine for kissing my boyfriend on campus (or rather, getting caught) kept me from the worst kind of pride...the insufferably self-righteous students (usually girls) who were shooting for perfection and thought they could hit it. (The guys, on the other hand, thought their standing in heaven was bonded to if they believed the right things about the Bible and it's teachings, thus resulting in the nearly constant rounds of theological ping-pong) I arrived on campus as a freshman one of those girls. I left as a married student, a true follower of God, with my sense of humor fully intact.

I suspect that going back was odd because Robb wears an earring and a tattoo. He is outwardly branded with a different kind of Christianity than we were taught there. We are no longer subscribers to our denominational teaching. No longer "in the fold." We went beyond what we were taught. Planted a church that values much different things than we were taught to value. In short, we break a lot of the rules.

But things change. Even when they stay the same. The rules at BBC are no longer the same. The students wear jeans to class. They boys have facial hair. The girls are allowed to be security guards. And most of the students don't come from The Denomination anymore. You think, driving on campus, that you will be going back in time. But you aren't. Kids are standing around with cell phones, and even if the dorm smells the same, now the lounge has an actual television in it.

I don't exactly know what I'm trying to say with this post, only maybe, that we thought we might be going back to visit as prodigals, and discovered instead, that we were products of our school. That we felt at home there with people we loved then and still love now. That without our time on that beautiful old campus...(which used to be a monastery) we would not be who we are now. It was a precious gift to go back, to remember. To think again on all the ways that God guided us. It deepened our faith and our confidence in what we are doing with our lives, and why we get up in the morning. It was good for our souls. It was sweet to go home.

War Eagle Fall 2011

2011-10-09T15:45:00.001-05:00

War Eagle Fall 2011, a set on Flickr.

Here's your sneak peek of what I'll be bringing to the show this year!

This Fresh Writer is Cute as Buttons

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

I don't really remember when I started reading the blog Mabel's House, but I will tell you that I'm pretty sure this Liz and I could be friends. Except she is sweeter than me. And her dog is smaller an therefore considerably more charming. I think what I like about her is that she has the habit of falling into scrapes, as L M Montgomery wrote of Anne Shirley. Real life, human, self-deprecating, funny, heartbreaking scrapes. She's real without being vulgar. Honest without making you blush. Imperfect. I'm so glad she wrote a book. I'm hoping to win a copy. And read it after a long day of screwing up but hoping for the best....

***

Once one has breathed in the deep pungent aroma of sewage, you never again forget the nose-hair singeing, eye clawing, throat gagging experience. It comes over you slowly. You begin to feel like a character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as your muscles involuntarily jerk and you run screaming and blowing raspberries. Anything to get away from the mind-numbing stench.

But let me explain.

It was 6:30 a.m. I was standing in my retro pink tiled bathroom trying to open my bleary eyes and ready myself for work. As I stood there, peering into the mirror and wondering what demented nighttime fairy had planted four new wrinkles on my face, I paused and sniffed.

“Matt… what’s that smell?”

Matt staggered from the bedroom in his underwear, eyes half shut. “I don’t smell anything.”

I pointed my nose into the air like a hunting dog. “Seriously? You can’t smell that? Did you go to the bathroom in here earlier? I told you to use the room spray when you do things like that.”

Matt puffed out his bare chest and gathered his pride as best a man can with sleep in his eyes and a small hole in the side of his underwear. “I just woke up!”

I frowned, catching a glimpse of my makeup-less hot-rollers-in-hair state and tried not to think about the fact that I looked fifty instead of twenty-nine. “Well, help me figure this out. Because something smells ripe.”

We sniffed the sink drain and ruled it out as a suspect.

“Is it coming from the toilet?” Matt asked, examining it from top to bottom.

“No, that’s not it,” I snapped. I’m not known for my milk of human kindness in a disaster. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a survivor. I plan on eating my radish like Scarlet and clawing my way out of the nuclear dust while dragging my loved ones with me. But I won’t be doing it with positive phrases and a smile.

“Hon, I just don’t know. We’ll call a plumber after work, maybe it’s coming from under the house.” Matt staggered a little, trying to get past me and out of our tiny bathroom.

“Well, that’s just great,” I moved aside and pulled the shower curtain back so I could perch on the side of the tub and give Matt room to move out the door.

That’s when the full brunt of nastiness filled the air around us, a swirling mix of excrement and acrid stench that would have brought the sewer dwelling Ninja Turtles to their knees. Where the normally slightly-clean-with-a-hint-of-soap-scum bottom of the tub should have been, there sloshed gallons and gallons of brown sewage.

I clutched the front of my sweatshirt and held my breath. Matt began to dry heave.

“Get out and shut the door!” I screamed as we bumbled into the hallway.

“I’ll deal with this,” Matt grabbed my shoulders, trying to talk and hold his breath at the same time.

I could feel my eyes glaze over, the horrors of typhoid and hepatitis in our bathtub filling my mind. But more importantly, I could envision our evaporated savings account. In my mind’s eye I could see the long, gray hallway at the bank. A worker shrouded in a black suit pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlatched a small locker labeled “Owen Bank Account.” Inside were two small stacks of quarters and a few crumpled dollar bills. It was bleak, not only because the banker with an unimaginative wardrobe gazed at me with an expression that could only be interpreted as “You’re a Big Fat Loser,” but also there was a very definite possibility we wouldn’t be able to pay for a plumber.

I wasn’t necessarily a spend thrift. In fact, I was downright frugal when it came to decorating with thrift store furniture and rewired vintage lamps. But the fact was, we were poor. We were starting out at starter jobs with starter salaries. We were starter adults with a starter bank account.

“Okay,” I nodded numbly, thankful that Matt was taking the lead on such a disastrous biohazard. “But make sure the plumber is super cheap. We don’t have much money!”

I left for work like a wino stumbling through a fog, not really remembering my commute, not really doing any work as I sipped my coffee and stared blankly at the computer screen. A disaster of such gargantuan proportions had previously been unthinkable in my life, and now I found myself attempting to push the image of a vast sea of bathtub poop from my mind. But I was sure of one thing: Anne Shirley never had to get ready for work while breathing raw sewage.

Captions Welcome

2011-09-30T08:16:00.000-05:00

Found her at the flea market (where I swear, I buy more than I sell, but I digress...) She will be in the Etsy store soon, but I am looking for just the right description of her facial expression. Your witty captions are welcome.

Three Days Later

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

You saw the frames I started with on Monday. Here they are after three solid, bleary-eyed days in the studio, 7 episodes of Downton Abby, two academy award winning movies, a couple of really insipid tv dramas, and a lot of cutting and piecing. I still have all the finish work to do on these, but at least I can see the finish line on the horizon.

Reverse Blogging - How Do I Price These?

2011-09-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

They are one of a kind.
Required extreme precision to execute.
Are made from fine materials-
Silverplate and vintage china
Can never be re-produced exactly

But are only 2 inches tall.

These Two

2011-09-27T09:04:00.000-05:00

These are my dogs, Sidney (the white one) and Peggy (the black one).

Sidney came about because I wanted a turtle. Went to the pet store and found a border collie and lab mix and was overwhelmed by memories of a dog we had as a kid. Thought she would be a great family dog. She hates children. She doesn't just herd them, she actually bites their toes. I have to lock her up when people visit. She's grown accustomed to our three kids, but she only puts up with them for the food they drop on the floor. She knows everything we say to her, and reads our facial expressions. Why do I keep a dog that is not kid friendly? Because it's hard to get rid of a body that big. And we love the old crank. We all do. She's 7 years old and we've grown accustomed to her and her ways. We'd be a little lost without her. Albeit, cleaner and less afraid for the neighbor children's toes. Sidney has ridden in a police car. She's a total whore for riding in cars, in fact. So when she runs away...which has been a few times...you can chase after her with a jar of peanut butter or you can just calmly get your keys and go after her with the door open. She's knows the sound of both cars and will totally forget about the whole world and all its smells if only she can get up in that front seat and ride like the wind. She is named after Sidney Bristow the spy on the tv show Alias.

Peggy is the dog that Robb picked out. She was the result of a bet. I was working at the gallery on a slow, boring day. He was out with the kids and found this puppy at one of those pet adoption events at Pet Smart. He called to say he was in love with the puppy. I could not see the puppy and was therefore not smitten. I told him that if I sold something that day at the gallery, we would get the puppy. He told the kids to pray. Three little kids in a minivan praying, "Dear Jesus, please let Mommy sell something." A scant 10 minutes later, a couple walked into the gallery, picked up my most expensive item and bought it. It took them longer to write the check than it took them to decide to buy it. So we have Peggy. The worlds sweetest dog. Who has a sock fetish. She rarely chews them, she just likes to have one in her mouth. In case, you know, you wanted to chase her and try to get it. That would be fun. Except she would never disobey on purpose. She always gives up the sock with complete compliance and respect. The higher you raise your voice, the lower she gets to the floor. She is perhaps the best dog I've ever had in my life. Charleigh is her biggest fan. What she lacks in manners, she makes up for in just being a sweetheart. Sadly, she is a chicken murderer, though. She spends her days looking through the fence at the neighbor's chickens, scheming how she might chase them and bite their heads. Like socks. She would never dream of running away and cars are loud and scary. She is named after Ronald Reagan's speech writer, Peggy Noonan.

These are my dogs. They are the reason my carpet is gross . They are the ones that chew up the fence and dig up the flowers and sneak up on the table to lick the remains of a meal. They are the ones that sit beside me when I'm quiet and look up at me with total devotion. They are the ones that make me feel safer when Robb is away at night. They are the ones that make me cuss and then laugh. They are as ritualistic as toddlers, not quite as demanding, but definitely as dirty. I don't know how I got to be a dog person. But I am.

Today's Project

2011-09-26T10:08:00.001-05:00

With just 10 working days till the show, this is what I'm starting today. This is the before shot. Hopefully I can make the after look like what I see in my imagination....

Posies

2011-09-21T08:29:00.000-05:00

I started my day yesterday looking at these:

And ended the day making this.

How To Mosaic - How Do You Get the Pieces Even?

2011-09-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

Another question people always ask me is is "How do you get the pieces like that...all even?" Or it's slightly annoying counterpoint, "You just smash all those dishes, huh? Just throw 'em on the ground...must be a great way to relieve stress."

On the contrary, I do NOT just smash dishes. Maybe I did that once with one stack of plates because I may or may not have been having a full on yelling fight with my husband, but it really didn't make for much of a controlled mosaic and it certainly didn't do much for the conversation. Except maybe, he knew I don't normally do that to my plates and realized how ticked I really was. (Oh yeah, news flash. Deliriously happy couples also have good old fashioned air-clearing fights once in a while. But that's a whole other post.)

hammer smashed shards make ugly mosaics

If you google "how to mosaic" at all, you are going to get a really crappy tutorial about just putting any old dish stuff in a pillowcase and tapping them with a hammer. Guess what? That looks ugly and sad. And it shreds the pillowcase to pieces, which I don't think they make very clear, either. I know that's not what you want to make. You want to make something pretty. So they will tell you to use proper eye protection and blah blah blah, but they don't tell you how to make a pretty mosaic.

If you want to make a controlled pattern and get the designs from the dishes that you really want to display, you will need the proper tools. You need different tools for different kinds of dishes. And you need to be able to tell the difference between the different kinds of dishes. I'm here to help you.

porcelain is translucent

This isn't precise, but there are about three different kinds of dishes that you will encounter: Porcelain, china and pottery. That's not entirely precise, but it's a good basic breakdown. Porcelain is generally very thin and is translucent. You will know it is porcelain when you hold it up to the light and you can see light through it. (Confusingly enough, some handmade pottery is also made of porcelain, but that's also a whole other post.) For mosaic purposes, porcelain is generally thin, often made in Japan or England, and is great for mosaics.

there is one porcelain plate in the stack...can you spot it?

China is a generic name for ironstone, earthenware, dishes, restaurant ware, vitrified china, ceramic, etc. It is made in various ways over the years, with a lot of different kinds of density. I won't bore you with the details, but this is basically what you are going to find on the tables of most people. And some of it is great to mosaic with and some of it lousy. It will take you lots of time and practice to figure out what you like to use and what you don't like to use, but if it has some flat surface to it, you can probably use it.

handmade pottery

Pottery is made of clay. Porcelain clay. Or other kinds of clay. But it is generally thicker and sturdier than china. Pottery is wonderful but hard to mosaic with because it's thick to cut and when it's handmade, isn't uniform in thickness. If I'm going to hammer-smash anything, pottery is probably it because you get really tired cutting thick pottery after a very short amount of time.

Now, there are two kinds of cutters. Tile nippers and rotary cutters. Tile nippers have two flat nips that look like teeth. Rotary cutters have two wheels. You use a rotary cutter on porcelain and tile nippers on china and pottery. You can also use a rotary cutter on most china, but not on pottery. It is probably going to be too thick for the wheels to get around.

You cannot use nippers on thin porcelain. It will make you cuss.

my collection of cutting tools

Tile nippers shatter porcelain into shivers and weird shapes. Porcelain is just too thin for the nippers to pinch the porcelain into a clean break.

So just to sum up: Nippers for china and pottery but not porcelain; Rotary cutter for porcelain and china but not pottery.

You can get tile nippers from the tile department of a hardware store. I got my rotary cutters from a craft store. They cost between 12 and 15 dollars each. (Unless you get your nippers from the thrift store for a mere $1.75 SCORE!)

To cut with nippers, you put the nippers teeth perpendicular to the edge of the dish. I generally try to cut a plate in half, then quarters, then eighths. It doesn't always work, but you get a better cut when you keep cutting your pieces in half than if you try to cut off just a bit at a time off a large piece. I have cut thousands of dishes now, so I've had lots of practice, but it doesn't always go the way you want it to. The more you know the kind of dish you have, though, the better your chances of making a good cut from the get-go.

I have several pairs of nippers. They get worn down after a while. But the worn ones are good for thicker pottery. The newer ones are good on thinner china. Robb got me the set on the right for Mother's Day five years ago now and just see where they've taken me.

To cut with the rotary cutters (which you could also use on glass. I just don't like working with glass very much.) you line up your wheels deep into the place where you want the cut to be. Nippers start a crack that becomes the break. Rotary cutters actually cut into the porcelain and pinch it apart. You get a good, controlled cut with rotary cutters, but they take a lot of practice. The screws that hold the wheels on get loose and you have to tighten them pretty often (the wheels are adjustable so you can make beveled cuts).

And there you have it. The right materials, the right tools, lots of practice is how you get those nice even pieces for your own mosaic projects. Happy nipping.

The Comfort of Work

2011-09-19T11:16:00.002-05:00

I went to private school, growing up. While everyone else in the 1980s was learning Michael Jackson and Madonna songs, I was reading c. 1880s Louisa May Alcott. This morning, I was thinking of a poem I remembered of hers which I probably was required to re-copy for a penmanship exercise (True story...I have lovely handwriting...a lost art in this modern world). It seeped into the crevices of my mind back then and I enjoyed re-discovering it today as I settle into another busy week of making.

A Song from the Suds

Queen of my tub, I merrily sing,
While the white foam raises high,
And sturdily wash, and rinse, and wring,
And fasten the clothes to dry;
Then out in the free fresh air they swing,
Under the sunny sky.

I wish we could wash from our hearts and our souls
The stains of the week away,
And let water and air by their magic make
Ourselves as pure as they;
Then on the earth there would be indeed
A glorious washing day!

Along the path of a useful life
Will heart's-ease ever bloom;
The busy mind has no time to think
Of sorrow, or care, or gloom;
And anxious thoughts may be swept away
As we busily wield a broom.

I am glad a task to me is given
To labor at day by day;
For it brings me health, and strength, and hope,
And I cheerfully learn to say-
"Head, you may think; heart, you may feel;
But hand, you shall work always!"

LouisaMay Alcott

Morning Glory

2011-09-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Wonder is better than perfectionism.

Too tired to water and weed, I'm just thankful for what is alive and blooming.

Shivah and Yahrzeit

2011-09-15T08:48:00.000-05:00

On September 11, a little girl in my fourth grade class lost her father, a fireman. His name was Geoffry. He was the only person who died that day that I personally knew. So I always think of her and her family on September 11.

Yesterday morning, a friend from Michigan called to read me an obituary. It was the woman who had illegal custody of my daughter before she came to us. The only person who really knew what my daughter's life was like at that formative time. I met her once.

Last night, my first college roommate died of cancer. We had not kept in contact. We weren't really close at all. But we lived together in a little cement block room, sharing a phone and a bathroom and clothes. She was 35. A wife and mother.

Two years ago today, a woman I knew my whole life died of brain tumors. Her oldest of five children was in my small Christian school class where we attended kindergarten through 12th grade together. They lived just down the road my grandparents, and my parents had grown up with them. I knew she was dying, but I didn't actually know she had died until months later. Because when it was announced on Facebook, I was trying to get to Michigan as quickly as possible.

Two years ago today, I was over at Hannah's house, shooting the breeze. It was starting to sprinkle and I decided I had better go back next door, get my phone and call the school to tell them I would pick up the kids. The phone rang while I was standing in my bathroom door, fixing my hair before running out. It was Robb. He was sobbing. My brother in law had been killed in a car accident.

----------

Several years ago, I read a book by Lauren Winner called Mudhouse Sabbath. She had grown up Jewish and converted to Christianity. But she writes about the strength her Jewish education brought to her Christian faith. Without question, what she wrote about mourning and grief was most powerful for me.

The Jewish custom when someone dies begins with Shivah. It is the first, most intense period of time after a death and funeral. You sit Shivah with someone who has suffered a loss by sitting on low chairs or the floor, to show that life is different now. And you don't talk. You don't say ridiculous, cliche' Christian phrases. You don't dress up and you don't try to do normal things. You sit quietly together and let the bereaved talk when they want to about the deceased. Traditionally, Shiva is a week. Sometimes less.

Shivah is followed by Shloshim, which is the first 30 days. And then Shanna...12 months. And then Yahrzeit is observed, the anniversary of the death. You light a 24 hour candle.

Today, in my heart, I sit Shiva for that woman. I don't say anything good or bad of her. For my roommate, Rachel....someone once part of my daily life...I interrupt my normal day to sit low for her. I feel the loss of my old high school friend for her mother and I light a candle for Kevin. I miss you, Man.

Her Children Rise Up and Call Her Blessed

2011-09-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

Today is my mom's 60th birthday.

My mom who had a pet turtle when she was little and smoked a cigar (that made her sick) when she was 15. My mom who was head majorette and played the clarinet in high school. My mom, who competed in the Miss Crawford County pageant and moved to California with her high school English teacher until her high school sweetheart called her up after two tours in Vietnam and said, "Hey Bonnie, I always thought we'd get married. Can I come pick you up?" My mom worked in a realtor's office while she was a new wife and mom and made a little house-trailer home. She sewed and painted and gardened and canned and decorated and made-do, long before there was any popularity (or Etsy paycheck) for that. She birthed four babies, used cloth diapers and made them all hot breakfasts and packed their lunches and cooked locally grown suppers for them every day. She crocheted blankets for all of her kids. She sewed their clothes -even my underwear, much to my extreme second grade chagrin - and brought us home-baked snacks like apple crisp on a big black tole tray while we watched tv. And I forgot to mention that she used a wringer to save water and hung all our clothes on the clothes line to save electricity.

Her sewing room moved from her bedroom to the basement to the garage, producing curtains, upholstery, stuffed animals, wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses and flower girl dresses and rag dolls, and literally hundreds of dresses which her three daughters wore to private school each day. Every baby she knew got a set of her home-made sleepers. She sewed reproduction clothing for antique porcelain dolls for years to make extra money....clothing that was tiny and intricate and usually from patterns she made up herself. She made curtains for our tree house.

She made choke-cherry jam and raspberry jam and peach jam and sometimes, grape. She canned peaches and pears and tomato juice and green beans and kidney beans and dilly beans and pickled beets and froze corn, peppers and peas and carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. And rhubarb, blueberries and raspberries. After she harvested it all herself. And not just a few quarts, but enough food to last the whole of November to April, Pennsylvania winters. Every year. I never had spaghetti sauce from a can til I was married. She could buy groceries for 6 people with 40 dollars. She didn't use coupons because she was better than coupons.

She made all of these outfits....

She endured pets inside and out that drove her nuts. She let us boil and eat the crayfish we caught in the creek. She sat through soccer games and basketball games and speech competitions and piano recitals. She drove us home from school each day. She locked us in the bathroom when we would argue and forced us to learn how to work things out instead of just ratting us out to Dad who would have spanked first and asked questions later. She sat at her sewing machine while I talked her ear off every day after school. I remember her signing my reading homework while nursing my baby sister. When we needed a note to take to school explaining why we we stayed home from school, she made the notes funny and signed them "Nurse Nancy." Sometimes she would sit at the piano and play a little bit that she figured out on her own...which was a lot for someone self-taught now that I think on it. She crocheted rugs out of bread bags and plastic shopping bags. She keeps the flowers pretty and masterminds all of the home improvement projects. And then she learned how to quilt. And mosaic. And decoupage. And don't even get me started about her camping out in the tree-house with my kids.

Are you getting what I'm saying here? I think it's pretty obvious.

My Mom is the Chuck Norris of homemaking.

Happy Birthday, Mom.
You kick ass.

How To Make a Mosaic Headboard - Part 2

2011-09-12T10:02:00.001-05:00

It's been a super productive weekend! I have finished the next steps on the mosaic headboard project, trying to answer the question, "How long does it take to make that?"

Now that the headboard is all laid out in the design that I want, it's a good idea to take a little break. Go out and eat some chips and salsa and have a Margarita. This is important in the process. Because if you take the next step right away, the pattern will be permanent and you have no more chances to tweak. You go, take a break, let your china-cutting calluses rest, and get some perspective.

In my case, I decided to change the rim at the curve across the corners. I ultimately switched it for some pieces that had more brown in them, which I thought was less jarring contrast than the plain white ones I had there originally.

Then comes the tricky work. I use clear contact paper to spread over the entire design. Slowly pull away the paper while laying the contact down, moving left to right. Don't try to pull off all the backing paper at once, or you will end up dropping the sticky part down where you don't want it and pulling the design apart. Just slowly lay it down, but don't apply any pressure yet. Once you have the entire piece covered, then you smooth it over with your hands, rubbing the sticky into the curves and low spots, pulling all the china to the top. Next, use a hair dryer and a paintbrush to really get the sticky stuff working, melting the plastic a bit to really hold the tesserae (broken china) to the contact paper. I suspect there is a cheaper product to do this job, but this really works for me. It was my mom's idea and she is pretty brilliant. I can't imagine making mosaics any other way.

On a small work, it would be fine to try to pull up the whole thing in one sheet, but realistically, anything bigger than one dinner plate is going to have pieces fall off when you pull it up. Which is actually good. If it was any stickier, you wouldn't be able to get it off when you lay it back down in the glue.

I cut the contact apart, making puzzle piece strips. I flip them over, with the bottom showing, but looking back in hind-sight, I begin to wonder if it would be easier to keep them right side up and just slide them into place instead of flipping them. See, you are always learning...

At this point, I decide to paint the headboard before gluing it all. Mostly because I need some proof that I making any progress at all.
I know that some of the paint will get scratched during the last step, but I decide it's worth it for the instant gratification created by the spray paint.

Three cans of Krylon's Satin Ivory later, the head and footboard have a stunningly perfect French country finish and I'm ready to glue. I have moved the whole operation out the garage by now, with plastic sheeting underneath for the paint but also for the globs of glue that will hit the floor, no matter how neat I am.

Next comes the glue, which I will apply with the floor trowel. I'm using regular mastic on this piece since water is not a factor, but for a back-splash, birdbath or outdoor piece, I would need to use a product designed for showers and swimming pools, which happens to be pretty unforgiving time-wise, so it is trickier to work with. The regular mastic will take at least a day or two to dry and cure. I use a trowel and try to keep it as even as possible, but I need the glue to be a little thicker than the comb on the trowel, to absorb the thickness differences between ironstone and porcelain plates.

Once the glue is on, it's time for the tough part of hunching over the headboard, flipping the puzzle pieces into place. What makes this frustrating is that as you hover a section before dropping it into place, at least one piece of china will drop off the bottom, falling into the glue in the wrong place and you will have it fish it out, and decide how you want to proceed. This frustration would have been alleviated a little bit if I was just sliding the pieces into place right side up, but not completely. China always falls off the contact paper. It just does. Not a lot, but some. You deal with it the best you can and move on. Don't push the pieces into the glue at this point either. Just set it on top of the glue and move on to the next piece until all the sections are in place.

After everything is on the glue, then I use a large sheet of matte board and lay it down on top of the design and rub it all into the glue. Your hands are curved and will push some parts down further than others, so something large and flat is best. I have tried using a rolling pin as well, but it puts too much pressure on it the china and can push a thin piece of porcelain down too far, causing glue to squeeze up between the plates and stick to the contact paper, which leaves no room for the grout and ruins the finish. Just a light, flat push is all you want to do.

Now, you want to wait a bit before pulling off the contact paper so that glue sets a bit. Right now, it is about the consistency of peanut butter, not enough to pull it away from the contact paper. But you also need the air to hit the glue in order for it to dry, so I started pulling contact paper pretty quickly. This will be a long, frustrating process, to be honest, because you just got it all nice and smooth and the contact paper will pull it up in places. Just work slowly, and don't expect it to be easy. Use the hair dryer again to soften the contact paper if necessary. Several hours later, I was done pulling up the contact paper and was starting to see a glimpse of what the final product was going look like.

You are now just two more steps away from a finished mosaic headboard and footboard. The glue needs to dry for several days to make sure it is fully cured. If you attempt to grout it too soon, you will get a cracked grout and worse, the wood on the headboard will try to absorb the moisture and will warp. So don't get impatient! (And how do you think I know this? I've been impatient before!)

And now, time to see your Favorite chiropractor. (that's funny, see, because my chiropractor is Dr. Favorite!) Take care of that lower back because you have two more steps to finish!

How Long Does it Take to Make That? - Part 1

2011-09-09T09:34:00.000-05:00

One of the most asked questions I hear from people about my mosaics is, "How long does that take?" Like many artists, I hesitate to answer because people immediately start figuring out how much you are making an hour. But the thing about being creative is that sometimes, the work just comes quickly and easily and sometimes, you labor over it for hours with seemingly small progress.

Angsty creativity aside, Here are the steps to creating a large work like this one:

First you decide on a base. This is a headboard I found at Neosho's town-wide garage sale this past spring. It just so happens to be exactly like the one I did last fall. Except this one has a foot board which I also gave the mosaic treatment to. The last time, I painted the headboard before working the mosaic, but I kept scratching it, especially while grouting, so I'm going to try waiting until I have it glued to paint it. Hopefully that's not a colossal mistake. But those are the risks I'm willing to take!

Next, you decide on a palette of china. It took me about six months to collect this china, but some of the pieces I have had in my collection for years, just waiting for the right project.

Next I mark out a pattern. On a piece this large, you need a plan. I use chalk to mark the piece, knowing that as I begin cutting, there will be changes that need to be made based on how the china breaks....which isn't always the way you hope.

The cutting goes on for a long time. In this case, I worked through one afternoon, a fantasy football draft, and then 5 episodes of Grey's Anatomy. It gets really dull between the time you envision the way you want it to go and how long it takes to really cut up all those plates (about 20 in all)...so you need a TV show with lots of talking to listen to, but something you sort of don't care about either, so you can focus on the work. In my case, I reached Season 4, which was the season that you discover you really pretty much hate all of them and hope they fail to become surgeons because they are terrible people with made up problems. Which made it really easy for me to cut china with gusto.

It's important to save all the pieces of the dishes, even the ones not part of the patterns,for filler.

At this point, my entire house is a mess because I've been here working on this instead of cleaning. So envision a total disaster all the way around this beautiful pattern. You start off being careful with shards, but at this point, I am also covered in chips, the floor is covered with chips, and it's time to stand up and stretch and go get a big handful of M&Ms. That's key to the project.

At this point, it looks impressive, but we are only about half done. It gets harry in the next steps. I use clear contact paper and spread it over the completed laid out pattern. This is the indirect method of mosaic. It would be impossible to lay out this pattern directly with glue because it would dry too fast and wouldn't allow for tweaking. Most importantly, you need to spread an even layer of glue to adjust for the thickness of the china so that the end result is flat, not bumpy.

Here's another tip. Pick someplace comfortable to work because you will be there for awhile. I made the mistake of just starting on this footboard without thinking, and that resulted in sitting "criss cross apple sauce" (formerly known as "Indian style" but that is now politically incorrect. A fact you might not know if you don't have school aged children, but I'm helpful that way.) Whatever you know it as, it's hard to sit that way for more than three hours.

Which kind of makes me a tortured artist.

This is as far as I am on this project, so come back on Monday for the next steps!

Now have some M&Ms because this was a long post.

Proof

2011-09-08T09:16:00.002-05:00

Once again, I have the picture to prove that thrift store shopping is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you'll get.

(I did not buy either the baby grand piano or the industrial sewing machine as neither one would fit into my car.)

Reverse Blogging - They Call it a Commode

2011-09-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

Day two of my reverse blogging project....I need answers to my burning questions.

Today, I need to know about this bowl and pitcher set. Back in the day it was called a commode set. Before there were indoor bathrooms, you had a wooden stand in your bedroom with a pitcher of a water and a bowl where you poured water to wash up. This set has a very high-end, rare maker's mark and is a desirable blue and white transferware pattern. However, it is also damaged. Both the bowl and the pitcher have condition issues. And the popularity of these sets has really dwindled since frankly, the people that used to collect them were people who remembered what it was like to use them. We are about a generation and half away from that time period now and the country blue and mauve decorating era is over (as it should be.) So my question today is...

Should I bust it up for mosaics or put in the flea market and sell it?

Reverse Blogging - Porch Swing

2011-09-06T08:37:00.000-05:00

Normally, blogging is about writing the things you know. I am going to be reverse blogging for a couple of days. I am going to ask you to do the writing about a couple of things I don't know about and need opinions, facts, or a few silly answers to make me laugh.

So question number one that has me stumped:

How do I hang this porch swing? The roof of my covered porch area is covered in aluminum siding, so I can't use a stud finder. I have tried pushing on it to find something firm underneath, but so far I just have two holes in the aluminum and nothing strong enough for my eye-hooks to screw into. The house is 5 or 6 years old, and the porch is under Vin's room, in front of the laundry room. Are there studs under there? I know I hit wood once, but my drill went through so easily, it didn't feel strong enough to hold up the swing. I am baffled.

Finding Inspiration

2011-09-01T09:46:00.003-05:00

Getting paid to be creative is hard sometimes. I've discovered I truly cringe over doing custom work....usually because the buyer has something in mind already, which worries me so much that it feels impossible to just do my thing. And getting inspired on cue is hard too. A looming deadline (like the War Eagle Craft Fair on October 13-16) can be helpful or it can be crippling. You come up with all kinds of tricks to get yourself in the zone to work. I think I found one that worked. Yesterday, I gave myself a little time to browse Etsy for beautiful things that belonged to the feel of the table I wanted to create.

Determining the "feel" of something is important to me. In the end, I want a piece that people can relate to. They will be able to do that when a piece has one coherent concept, instead of many dis-harmonious parts. Sometimes the concept is colors. Sometimes the concept is a motif. Sometimes the concept is contrasting old and new. But staying true to the concept makes a greater impact. Mosaic isn't hard. You glue stuff to other stuff. But making a mosaic that has the feeling of art takes thought.

So yesterday, I spent some time on Etsy, looking for beautiful things that fed the idea I had for my mosaic table. I decided to make a treasury (a curated collection of 12 items with 4 alternates) that depicted the concept I was trying to achieve.

Here is the treasury:

Now here is the table I laid out yesterday from this inspiration.

Show prep is grueling. It is messy. I am totally engrossed in it. But at least I can have a little fun getting inspired.

Peanut Butter

2011-08-30T08:28:00.000-05:00

We found out yesterday that this year at the kids school, they are NOT peanut free. I don't know why we would go from peanut free last year to not peanut free this year, but I will tell you this: Charleigh is thrilled. You should have seen her smacking her lips at the prospect of having peanut butter and jelly for lunch again.

I am absolutely sympathetic to cause of peanut allergies, with a niece and nephew that are dangerously allergic. But so long as they are 10 hours away, we are gonna have peanut butter fourteen different ways, including fried peanut butter and jelly for breakfast yesterday and this stir fry with peanut sauce for supper.

This is a super cheap meal too...I used a can of chicken, a half bag of long grain rice, 4 peppers from the farmer's market that had seen better days, a candy onion in the same condition as the peppers, a handful of baby carrots, several stalks of celery, a generous dollup of garlic and two tablespoons of butter. Using my cast iron skillet really helped to grill the edges of the veggies while keeping them still pretty crunchy.

But the sauce is really my favorite, so I'm jotting it down here so I don't have to go searching the interwebs for the idea that I tweaked a bit for us, which was.....

1 cup smooth peanut butter
a couple good dashes of soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
juice from one lime
1/2 cup water

I whisked this together over a low heat til it was smooth and creamy. Next time I will add some spiciness to it, or maybe some ginger or curry. But the creamy peanutty sauce over those veggies was just right. A few salted and roasted peanuts on top was the perfect garnish.

How I Hurt My Ankle Looking at Playboy Magazine

2011-08-29T08:34:00.000-05:00

So I am walking in the front door of one my flea markets with the intent to clean up my booth after a weekend of shopping carnage. (The first rule of flea marketing: stock on Friday, clean up the mess on Monday) I have a thousand things to do as usual, and I am focused on my mission until I open the door and see straight ahead of me a short stack of vintage Playboy magazines.

One of my weird quirks is that most of the time, I don't know how I think or feel about something until a good ten or 15 minutes after something happens that bothers me. Literally, it takes me 15 minutes to even know if I'm mad about something and by then, the thing is usually over. Which makes for some pretty hilarious marital fights sometimes.

In this case, my task was exactly 15 minutes. So I'm in my booth, cleaning up, fixing, arranging, simmering.

"Were those really Playboy magazines right inside the front door? I know people collect them. I've seen them around here before. But usually in a box. With a wrapper. Those were just sitting there at eye level. Right at the front door. Don't you have to have a permit or something for those? I think porn was on the list of things you can't sell at the other flea market. I know they are vintage, but ewww. Seriously...ewwww. Where have they been all these years and who has touched them? Ewwww. GERMS! EWWWWWWW! That's what we want at the front door? Welcome to the store! Have a dirty magazine! In fact, stand right here at the front counter for all the world to see you! Who does that?!"

As I get ready to leave with a handful of stuff in my arms, I turn my back to the front door, giving myself a parting glance at the Playboy magazines, making sure I really saw what I thought I saw. In one swift, graceful moment, I push on the door with my back, I slide my foot back to clear the threshold.... I miss. I catch my foot on the textured rug, I roll my ankle all the way over so the knobby ankle bones kiss the welcome mat. I keep my feet but know that something doesn't feel right.

Burning through my usual mental haze is the realization that I have just turned an ankle because of Playboy magazines.

At home, I call the manager. "I'm not the most uptight person that will walk in your door. I know they sell. But really....at the front door? I won't say another word about it if you decide not to move them, but it just seems like that's not good for business in the long run."

A week later, my ankle still hurts.

But the magazine are gone.

And I am the most clumsy moral crusader of all time.

Meet My Friends - Amber

2011-08-25T10:28:00.000-05:00

All of a sudden I realized....I know some stunning people. So I thought, I'd like to introduce you to them, one at a time in no particular order:

This is Amber. She's like white paint. She washes over you and you feel like everything is good and clean and bright. She makes things pop against the simple background she creates. She is an artist, a print-maker. A wife and a mother. Want to know what is young and fresh? Follow her taste. Exhibit A? She made a treasury that made it to the front of Etsy's homepage a few days ago. Exhibit B? She favors Twitter over Facebook.

She sees things I would have never seen without her. She takes beautiful pictures, and some I make fun of. Because they are of me....at the parties she throws...which are so fun I forget to be on guard against her camera. She has the ability to plan and pay attention to details that endears her to both me and my husband. Her husband is the Curator of Worship Arts at Vintage Fellowship and she is as committed and faithful to her husband and her church as I am to mine. That creates a bond between us that I have only rarely experienced. I trust her. I've seen her under pressure and she is remarkable. She is a slow surprise, unfolding over time, that she would never reveal in a single encounter. She is too modest to reveal all her talent and experience and rarity at once. She is oblivious to how cool she is. She knows that not everything needs to be said aloud to be true. I adore her. I feel lucky to know her. She is my friend.

Something Pleasing and Attractive

2011-08-24T12:54:00.000-05:00

"Every time you feel in God's creatures something pleasing and attractive,
do not let your attention be arrested by them alone,
but, passing them by, transfer your thought to God and say:
'O my God, if Thy creations are so full of beauty, delight and joy,
how infinitely more full of beauty, delight and joy art Thou Thyself, Creator of all!""

-Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

What the Heck is Bakelite?

2011-08-23T09:42:00.002-05:00

Without fail, every time I scan the jewelry racks at my local thrift stores, I am searching for something in particular....shades of cranberry red, pumpkin orange, a mottled green, a toasted yellow. The average buyer thinks it's just old plastic that they are seeing on handles of silverware, bracelets, handles of toasters and tea-kettles, cases of radios, cameras, game pieces and dice, pool balls, furniture pulls, and knobs on chrome casseroles and coffee pots. But it is not just plastic, exactly. It is Bakelite....

or polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, is an early plastic. It is a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from an elimination reaction of phenol with formaldehyde, usually with a wood flour filler. It was developed in 1907 by Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland. (thank you Wikipedia)

Bakelite does not conduct heat and has been designated as a National Historical Landmark Chemical for being the worlds first synthetic plastic. It can be carved, but has no mold marks like you normally see on a modern piece of plastic. It yellows with age in a distinct way that collectors recognize quickly.

My first encounter with Bakelite came in a pumpkin orange bracelet I bought at a garage sale in Michigan for about a dollar. That was when eBay was hot and I was quickly able to research it, learn the tests for bakelite and immediately sell it for around 45 dollars as I recall. After that, I was hooked on Bakelite and have looked for it ever since. I've had many bracelets over the years, flatware, earrings, chromeware and furniture pulls. There is just something about it that collectors love...and I am with them.

You can test Bakelite in several ways: my favorite it to dip it in hot water and see if it brings out a smell of formaldahyde. Other ways include using Formula 409 cleaner on q-tip or simichrome polish swabbed across a piece to see yellowing on the cotton swab. The hot-pin test is naughty and should not be applied because it ruins the piece when the tester heats up a straight pin with a match and then pokes the item to see how it is affected by heat. I find non-Bakelite bracelets with burn marks in them all the time from people testing them this way. When you become more familiar with Bakelite, you can do the a simple visual and tactile test, looking for light scratches that new plastic doesn't have because it isn't old enough. Bakelite is also heavier than new plastic. It is dense and makes a gorgeous sound when two true Bakelite bracelets clink together.

While a modern plastic bangle has little value, a Bakelite collector expects to pay as much as 5000 dollars for a rare, carved, inlaid or extra large bangle. Of course, with those kind of possibilities there are fakes and reproductions, so you have to be cautious.

Bakelite is still used today in everyday things like brake pads and cooking pan handles, but not for decorative items because it is labor intensive to make. Searching for old Bakelite is one my favorite treasure hunts. You never know when or where you will find it, but I assure you, I am always looking.

(All of the pictures included are items I have sold in my etsy store. I have one bracelet available currently found here.)

The New and Improved Flea Market Booth

2011-08-22T08:00:00.043-05:00

First it looked like this and that was bad.


Then I painted it and put stuff in it, which was better. But then I laid a tile floor and painted it AGAIN and that was pretty great. Added some silly touches..... And some motivational speeches...blah blah blah

And then I found out my friend Annie is going to rent the booth next to me and that was the best of all!

I Found it in the Thrift Store

2011-08-19T08:00:00.001-05:00

It doesn't get much spookier than this.

(And of course I bought the pheasant. Duh.)

Tomatoes and Basil

2011-08-18T08:00:00.019-05:00

The farmer's market is loaded with tomatoes and basil! Hooray!

I buy a day old loaf of Everything Bread from the Walmart bakery for $1.09

a block of mozzarella cheese for $1.29

a pint of fresh tomatoes is about $3.00

and a big bunch of fresh basil is $2.00

for a total meal just over 7 dollars for 5 people (plus leftovers!)

I used my Ninja to chop the basil fine with two big dollops of canned roasted garlic,

2 tablespoons of olive oil

and all the Parmesan cheese I had on hand...(about 1/4 of a cup this time)

which makes a saucy paste altogether.

Smear a cookie sheet with olive oil

(don't use your pizza stone because you want it to get crusty on the bottom)

Cut the loaf in 1/2 inch pieces

spread with a spoonful of the basil paste

top with a sliced tomato

and a generous pinch of mozzarella.

Bake for about 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven,

and turn on the broiler for a few minutes at the end to toast the cheese on top.

This is a favorite meal for us on a Sunday night and the leftovers warm up nicely on a cast iron skillet.

Here We Go Again

2011-08-17T09:05:00.002-05:00

Charleigh is a big 2nd grader.

I told her to keep her teeth in her head. Three are hanging by strings.

Calvin is at the top of the food chain....fifth grade.

I told him to take care of his little sister. Which he would do anyway.

Mattie is a 7th grader. Which I am in denial about.

I told her to take her own preferences seriously but be kind to kids who looked like they were scared.

snapping pics in the car lane is always appreciated, right?

bye!

Love you!

I'll just be here when you get home. Looking at your baby pictures.

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

A Good Haul

2011-08-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

With the arrival of cooler (more human compatible) weather around here, there were several good estate and garage sales this past weekend, which led to the first good "haul" since the town wide garage sales in Neosho way back in April.

This, PLUS four sales down the Heartwood Gallery, is what a good day looks like in the junking business:

You will see these as mosaics in a month or two.


So stoked to find this electric Craftsman drill for 5 dollars. No more tired battery power drillin'.


I spy with my little eye and Art Deco umbrella handle that will fetch a pretty penny	!

Tick Tock, clocks are hot.

I know you are jealous of my blue He Man Doll.


I love to find proven items that have sold before.

Hipster Eyeglass frames, anyone?


This is not an old tackle box, exactly. It's more like a tetanus shot looking for a place to happen.

Have I mentioned that I love spray paint?

2011-08-15T11:34:00.003-05:00

WE HAD A DEAL!

Wherein We Eat Peaches.

2011-08-12T08:26:00.000-05:00

There is an orchard around the corner from us, and one of the best things about August is peach time. There is something about a sunwarmed, juicy peach that just makes me happy. Last year, I froze a bunch, slaving over the sink, peeling the fuzzy hide (after dipping them in boiling water.)   But we didn't use that many of the frozen ones...just for some cobblers here and there. What we really love around here is fresh peaches.

Robb makes a killer peach salsa...chuck full of cilantro and balsamic vinegar. I swear, it's 7 in the morning, and I could eat a big bowl of it right this second.

This year, we have a new wonderment. Make that two....Peach milkshakes and The Ninja Blender.

We have burned through approximately 12 blenders in our marriage, 3 in the past year alone. I like the vintage ones because they have more power, but we chronically break the glass container. And when I say "we" I mean everyone but me. But you know what I mean.   While it is green to use vintage, it is NOT green to lug around a blender base in the back of your mini van trying to decide which thrift store to inflict it on because it's never going to sell without the glass pitcher and will eventually end up in a dumpster and then the landfill along with the other 11 blenders we killed.

So started doing some research. I wanted a machine that we couldn't break in ten minutes, had some oomph and in a perfect world, could be used as both blender and food processor (since we have broken about 5 of those too.) The mini chopper I was using was in no way adequate in size to make salsa or guacamole. I planned to get a Cuisinart but their 2 in 1 model had a tiny food processor bowl and looked too complicated to enjoy. So after much debate, I went for the Ninja which I had seen originally in an infomercial while I was babysitting a certain master Heath Manz, whose sleep should not be disturbed. So I didn't lift my arm to change the channel. I ended up buying the Kitchen System 1200 (same as the 1100) from Bed Bath and Beyond and we've been using it for about a month.

The truth is that as a food processor, it's nowhere near as good as the old Cuisinart one I had (and broke).   But as a blender....it's kick-arse. Technically speaking.

This is our favorite recipe right now:

3 or 4 small peaches, washed and halved.
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 trays of ice.

The Ninja really does laugh at the ice before it turns it to snow. It's pretty awesome. And the sweetened condensed milk only has 80 calories. Split that five ways and this is a healthy snack that tastes amazing and has a wonderfully creamy texture.

I haven't tried out the dough blade yet, but for the love of the peach milkshake, I am happy as can be with my Ninja blender. And the pitcher is made of plastic. So it may actually survive. Although, currently, nobody is allowed to touch it unless they read the instruction manual.

(The Ninja people don't know I exist, FYI. I just wanted to brag on my blender.)

mmmm.....peaches......

A Milestone In Redemptive History

2011-08-10T14:53:00.000-05:00

August 9th, 2011 marked our 15th wedding anniversary. There is a part of me that feels a little goofy about it, but we celebrate our anniversaries like crazy. I know lots of couples who say, "Oh we don't have the money" or "It's just too busy right now to celebrate." But for us, I would sooner skip celebrating Christmas or Easter. As I was thinking it over (and planning Robb's gift of 15 of his favorite cigars...not terribly original, but guaranteeing 15 times that he will be able to be still and think and relax Charles Spurgeon-style) I realized that I don't hold the day in high regard because I'm a spoiled brat, but rather, because our day really is a holy day for us. Our spiritual health and our marital health have been tied to each other for 15, maybe even technically all 18 years we have loved each other.

On that warm August Friday night, Doug Messerall married us. A good man, he has served faithfully in a church that would have made a lesser man fall apart years ago. He still serves there, as far as a I know. Dr. Rembert Carter gave the "charge to the couple" -a practice that was common in our circles- a short sermonette just for the couple. In Doc's case, that was 40 minutes and included a print-out of every mention of marriage and family in the Bible with notes. I didn't realize it was long at the time, but I only really remember the main idea....that our marriage would be a "milestone in redemptive history." In the time that has unfolded since that night, I have come to realize what that means in a much fuller and more beautiful way.

Marriage has seasons just like everything else. We've had lean years, hard years, as well as the more recent years of tremendous plenty and blessing. I had doubts at times in the past because I'm fickle and struggle to make commitments because I don't trust myself to keep them perfectly. But I have always been fully invested in the belief that together, Robb and I were impacting the world for good. We have fought through the illusion that going backward was better than going forward and came to a place that is richer, more mature, more complex, more fascinating than the dating and falling in love phase ever could have been.

Another dear professor of ours, Dr. Firmin told a story in class one day that he had been engaged before he met and married his wife. He said that if he ever had a doubt about his choices, he had only to look at their two daughters to know that he had chosen perfectly. I recall pondering this idea, perhaps in a season of doubt, thinking, "Well of course you would adore your children, but isn't it possible that you would feel the same if you married someone else and had different children?" It was an odd thought to me. But then my thinking came to a clearing. I have that kind of assurance when I look at my youngest daughter, Charleigh, who is adopted. In all the might-have-been-scenarios, Charleigh would have been no matter what Robb and I had done. And we would not know her if I hadn't married Robb. Adopting her was another milestone in redemptive history.

So when my dear husband told me to pack a bag for overnight, pawn off the kids and the dogs and meet him at his work, I was ready for a celebration. He took me to a beautiful hotel where our room was bigger than our first apartment, and sent me to a three hour spa appointment where I had a facial, a massage and a mani-pedi (my first!) while he (and dang, this is still so hot to me) went to the health center and worked out, and then outside to enjoy one his cigars! We went out to dinner, laughed our heads off and had a grand time without an ounce of guilt. Fifteen beautiful years is something to celebrate with all our hearts, minds, bodies and souls.

Goin' Multi-Campus

2011-08-09T08:43:00.004-05:00

I know is shocking, but I sometimes do get tired of sitting with my laptop, toiling away for hours at my Etsy shop. (Truth: I tried to sit still through one listing and ended up texting with Robb and finding somebody's shoes.) Un-distracted, it takes me an hour or more per item to accomplish the finding, photographing, listing, selling, and shipping...that's each and every item. Some do take less, but then there is always a corresponding item that takes much longer...like say...a silver euphonium that needed to be polished, had multiple questions about it, and was a booger to pack. All that to say, I'm pretty sure I make about 6 dollars an hour when it's all said and done.

...And I'm on the computer a lot. And in 100+ degree weather, my computer has decided to say, "Yeah, No. I'm too hot and I won't work anymore. I'm shutting down the power supply cord until I'm cooled off."

So....I had this crazy idea. The flea market side of things is going well. It takes some time, but it is fun to play store. So I branched out and rented a second booth at All My Treasures on highway 16.

All My Treasures has been a flea market for over 22 years and is about three times the size of my other Flea. I'm thinking if I sell twice as much stuff in half the time I would sell it on Etsy, I will still be doing ok. And I won't have to work so hard on packing things that scare me.

BEFORE

So this morning, I headed down to repaint it (which could be changed again soon, but it was better than the chocolate poo that was currently on my pegboard walls) and put in the first wave of goodies. Here it is...I am vendor 106 and my booth is number 19. Come visit me soon!


AFTER

Ivy Leaf Green

2011-08-08T08:46:00.003-05:00

I imagine it's possible to reach a state of too much Krylon Ivy Leaf green, but I know I'm not there yet.

Just painted the last two this weekend. I should have just bought the case of paint in the first place.

American Pickers Got Nothin' on Me

2011-08-04T10:15:00.001-05:00

Of course I love watching American Pickers. They do what I do. Except I don't travel all over the country, just the tri-state area. And I don't climb in barns because NWA doesn't really have a lot of barns. And I don't have a Danielle. I am Frank, Mike AND Danielle in my operation. But do I find cool stuff? Yes, Ma'am, I do.

The other day, I was going through old files and found a stash of photos I had saved of some of my favorite scores of all time.

1. The 1950s dress. I confess I don't remember much about where I found this dress. But I do remember that it was patterned after Jackie Kennedy Onassis' wedding dress and that it sold for well over $200. I paid...$2.

2. This is a designer dress, created in 1980s...see the shoulder pads? I found it on the floor at an estate sale and thought it looked interesting. It sold for over $80. I paid.....25 cents.

3. At the beginning of the vintage camera craze, this Polaroid something model B was prized for it's special lens. I found it at a grungy mechanic garage with two sad little tables out beside it full of even more grungy junk. This looked like it had been fished out of a dumpster. It sold for over $75. I paid....50 cents.

4. It was one of those piping hot Arkansas summer days when a neighbor in our old neighborhood had a garage sale a block and a half away from me. This copper pitcher spoke to me out of the pile of stuff on a trailer the guy had brought out from his dad's place. It was purchased by a museum in Delaware for 40 some dollars. I paid...50 cents.

5. This is an Atomic Lamp from the early 1960s. I found it at the Salvation Army in Fayetteville early one Saturday morning. Can't even imagine why I was there early on a Saturday morning, but I was. I spotted the exact same lamp in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" (which was a horrible movie, btw.) I paid a whopping 10 dollars for this lamp...much more than I normally spend. I sold it for $300.

6. This is a signed piece of Higgins glass, a mid-century maker from Michigan. I found it at a garage sale where they didn't even have tables...just a bunch of trinkets set on top of plastic storage bins...which usually keeps me from stopping. I was in between sales, however, and hadn't seen one for a while, so I stopped. In a sea of novelty salt and pepper shakers, this stood out to me. One recently sold on Ebay for $75. I recall that I got about that much. I paid...75 cents.

7. Oh the mid-century lounge chair. I've had many of you in the past 10 years. But this one was just one of four with a matching settee that my friend alerted me about on the curb in Michigan. The settee remains the single largest item I have shipped...from Lansing to Cincinnati via Greyhound bus. Wasn't until about the 3rd one that I sold that I realized this fine model could be disassembled by removing just four screws, resulting in a lovely, flat package that met USPS limits. You can see the Danish symbol in the front right corner...a mark that still makes my heart flutter a little. You already know they were free...I sold them for $200 - $375.

8. This is a piece of Edwardian net lace with copper embroidery. I found it at an Arkansas estate sale run by a certain dealer who doesn't often let goods slip through his fingers. He sold me this with a pile of silk scarves for less than a dollar. I sold it for $119.

9. This is a dogwood plate made of Majolica, c. 1890s. I was on my way home from dropping Sara Christenson (then Williams) off at the airport when we still lived in Bentonville when I saw a sign for this garage sale, being held in a storage unit. I had taken a quarter off the kitchen counter on my way out the door and it was all I had on me. (It was probably all we had in the world at that time!) The man was asking 50 cents but it was after noon on a Saturday and he was clearly tired of trying to sell this old lady's stuff and he took my quarter. Imagine my delight when it sold for over $400.

10. And finally, the mac-daddy of them all. This was when we still had just one car and Robb was working at Family Christian Store. I could go out for an hour or two if I got up early to hit a few sales before he had to go to work. I found this at an estate sale in Johnson in a neighborhood I'm not even sure is safe in the dark. I paid two dollars for this pictorial map of Nantucket by Ruth Haviland Sutton. It sold for over $700.

And huh....I just realized I forgot to tell you about the diamond I found for a dime....

The problem with blogging everyday

2011-08-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

...is that I am sometimes in a very cranky mood and anything I say is going to annoy me more.

It's really important not to annoy yourself.

I Quit

2011-07-29T11:48:00.002-05:00

This past year has been all about becoming emotionally healthy.

It's hard to believe it was only a year ago that Robb kept hearing about a book called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero. When he mentioned the title to the oversight team at Vintage Fellowship, there was an immediate response..."YES! We should read that!" So he ordered the book, started reading it, and declared I HAD to read it. So I did. And then so many things started to change, I doubt I could really explain them all.

After reading it together, we wanted Vintage to read it. But we decided to take it slow and so we had a small group of leaders that we worked through it with in the fall. Those leaders led groups in the spring.

A few months ago, Gerri Scazzero's book I Quit: Stop Pretending Everything is Fine and Change Your Life showed up in the mail as a free gift, since we had bought a LOT of copies of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. It sat on the nightstand for a long time. Until the right time, I guess.

The impetus behind Emotionally Healthy Spirituality flowed out of a conflict between church planter Peter Scazzero and his wife Gerri. She sat him down one day and told him that she wasn't going to attend his church anymore because she didn't trust his leadership.

I Quit is the internal story that Gerri has to tell about what was happening inside of her over the years as a mother of 4 little girls while her husband was planting a church in New York City. While EHS is theological and spiritual, I Quit is practical and psychological.

The Bible says that as you think in your heart, that's what you are. Gerri's book explains a lot about how people think and what they really are.

Her chapters are:

Quit Being Afraid of What Others Think
Quit Lying
Quit Dying to the Wrong Things
Quit Denying Anger, Sadness and Fear
Quit Blaming
Quit Overfunctioning
Quit Faulty Thinking
Quit Living Someone Else's Life

Intrigued? Honestly, I wasn't at first. If I wasn't for my experience with Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, I wouldn't have read it. The claims seem a little too big. And too Oprah-ish. But I should have realized that with Ruth Graham and Kay Warren recommending the book, Gerri Scazzero had something to say.

I don't know what effect the book would have on someone else, but I came away from reading it with two things...freedom and confidence.

Freedom is something I have not always had in my adult life. I was deeply weighed down by other Christians and their expectations of me. Even five years in a church that gives me all the freedom in the world didn't make it clear to me how to BE free. To a lesser extent, I feel the expectations of non-church people as well. I am just keenly aware in most situations what people want from me. And being a compliant person, I'm likely to give it to them. Which gets exhausting and depressing. So I hide. I begin to wonder if it's possible that I'm not as introverted as I have thought I was all this time...I just had lousy boundaries and took on other people's stuff too easily. But when you are free to just be yourself, when you know what your own edges are, it makes it a lot easier to be around other people and even to enjoy them, because you aren't trying to respond to all their non-verbal communication. You are just being. Yourself. Who God made you to be. Which makes Him happy. Which makes me happy.

People assume I am confident because of the fake poise techniques I learned in school. I'm as scared as anyone a lot of the time. I am uncertain about my choices. I am keenly aware of my capacity to screw up. But what flows out of accepting the freedom to be yourself is a confidence that being calm, steady, resolute, happy, peaceful, and relaxed is good. It's good to feel that most of the time and not the tense, on guard, over-prepared, super-responsible mindset I maintained for years.

Where the rubber meets the road is that while reading this book...

I dealt with two major conflicts that have been hanging over my life for months, even years.
I stopped wearing my hair in a dowdy style that I was hiding behind.
I was able to differentiate my journey from my husband's journey instead of feeling guilty that I'm not exercising with him.
I recognized that I am super sensitive about over-functioning and feel guilty a lot of the time that I don't do it. This book alleviated that guilt, making my soul feel much quieter.
I understand what role anger plays in my life and I know how to use it to propel myself to make something good come from it.
I am thankful and proud of people at Vintage who take care of tasks that I feel responsible for. In the past, I just felt like a failure, that I wasn't a good pastor's wife.

I still have things to work out. There are certain people that still trip my wires and take me back to places I don't want to go. I need more practice identifying what works and what doesn't. But I have a frame work because of reading this book that makes sense to me. I wish I had read it years ago. But I'm grateful that I read it now.

Lastly, Gerri and I have a LOT in common. But this isn't a book just for pastor's wives. We all have things we need to quit.

Now this is Junk

2011-07-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

A glance around my garage, and some people only see junk. But I disagree. My stuff is cool! My stuff is beautiful. It has proven it's worth over time. It has history. It was well made in the first place by people who were probably paid a fair price to make it. And much of my stuff will only increase in value over time.

This, my friends, is junk of the most egregious kind. It makes my eyeballs ache.

No, Seriously.... WHAT did she bring home this time?

2011-07-27T19:56:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I found something that made me giddy. Like two or three weeks at least! So, inspired by a new episode of American Pickers, I headed to my favorite thrift store this morning with a little time to kill between appointments. I'm not trying to be annoying when I tell you I prayed a little bit that God would have something there for me. Which was asking a bit, since I was just there yesterday. It's true. I was just there. But until I top my previous record of stopping at that thrift store twice in one day, I figured I'm still good. Sure enough, I found two great old plates for my mosaics, followed by a silver-plated cream and sugar. A couple of lamps caught my eye, but lamps are a pain in the tookus to ship. So I only buy a lamp to resell if I think it is freakin' awesome. And then I turned around and found this:

It's a big vase.
A floor vase, 30 inches tall, to be exact.

It is marked Mexico.
I think it's what is known as "Tourist Pottery" for reasons you can probably put together.

It's in perfect condition.

I would guess, based on some old postcards I had once, that this dates to the 1960s or even 1950s and that it is hand-painted.

And I think it's kind of awesome.

So does Charleigh.

Peggy clearly prefers socks to pottery.

Things I Make - Chilren's Rocking Chair

2011-07-26T08:10:00.002-05:00

BEFORE

This was an ugly little rocking chair I bought from a garage sale for a dollar. It was literally falling to pieces, but I thought it might be cute with a little work. I was pretty much wrong about that. It needed a LOT of work. Which required me to stand in my 102 degree garage with sweat dripping off the tip of my nose while I tried to figure out how to remove the rusted bolts. Eventually, I worked them all loose and decided to paint this dark wood.

I actually really like dark wood, but this was in pretty bad shape and really needed to be freshened up if a tiny hiney was ever going to want to sit in it again.

Unlike the telephone bench, this took much less paint to cover than I thought it would. But I was only going for a shabby look, not a full coverage painting job, so that made it simple to just use up a partial can of white spray paint. I really love it when I use up partial cans of stuff.

For the cushion, I wanted to use some of the embroidery linens I find so often. I decided on a dresser scarf that was stained on one end, but had this large basket of flowers for it's main design. The cotton was a little thin, so I reinforced it with an old cotton huck towel. I starched and ironed the fabric, sewed the towel to the the dresser scarf, and stapled it to the seat of the rocker.

AFTER

After stapling the seat cover on, I had to poke some holes in the sides to fit the bolts back into place. I used a sharp, long screw, but a small screwdriver would probably work too.

And that is how the ugly gold and brown rocking chair became the cute, shabby chic rocking chair.

Things I Make - Telephone Bench

2011-07-25T09:05:00.002-05:00

Here's a little make-over I've had on my mind for a while now.

BEFORE

This is a telephone table. Back in the day, a telephone was plugged into the wall, Children. And it rang like this "Brrrrrrrrring." It did not take pictures or play music or connect to the internet or that nutty thing called texting. It was only for making phone calls and you could only use it in the place it was plugged into the wall. You were limited by the length of your cord and if you were lucky you had a really, really long, curly cord so you could crawl under the kitchen table and hide from your siblings a little bit while you talked to your boyfriend. But I digress.

AFTER

The telephone table was nicely designed to hold not only the telephone, but also telephone books. Children, those are the things that are in plastic bags that get dropped off at the end of our driveway that we put straight into the recycling bin. OH!!!! the Children say.

Nowadays, this little bench lends itself to new uses. Like a bench by the door to put on shoes. Or a kid's bedroom where they can sit on it and.... text (ironic, huh?) Or they cover it with clothes they try on, decide not to wear and ultimately put in the dirty clothes pile.

I spray painted this after taking off the wooden pieces with a screw driver. And it took way more spray paint than you would think because of those round tube surfaces. It required all of the partial can I had on a hand, a trip to the store, and another can to finish it.

Then with the cushions, I used a little stack of fabric book samples to make a patchwork cover. That took about as much time as the trip to the store. Obviously, it would be simpler with a single piece of fabric to cover the seat and arm-rest, but I am trying to use up what I have on hand. Charleigh really like the part when I stapled the covers on. She shot a couple of the staples into the seat for her contribution to the project.

The spray paint was nice and dry by the time I finished sewing the covers, so I just screwed the pieces back on and it's done.

(Find this little gem at the Fayetteville Trading Post very soon.)

I will trade you....

2011-07-21T23:27:00.001-05:00

Three bright, capable kids 630 feet in the air at the St. Louis Arch

Today, I was still totally buried in what felt like urgent work. The ant invasion in our house this year had risen to a crescendo, the flower gardens had attained jungle conditions and there were things that didn't belong in every room I looked at (and believe me, I avoided some rooms!) So I remembered something my blog friend Cindy posted a while back and traded my kids chores for extra time on the computer.

For every chore they did today that I didn't have to supervise, answer questions about, or otherwise mostly do myself, they got a half hour of extra computer time. It was wonderful. They cleaned the bathroom sinks, swept the floors, vacuumed, dusted, put away laundry, threw away grass clippings, paired socks, emptied the dishwasher and refilled it, cleaned the kitchen sink and washed the front window. It was a huge help to me and I didn't feel guilty when they had extra time to play games online because I knew they had really worked hard.

There is no deadline with housework, but having things clean and sparkly really does help me to be more productive. Robb came home to a welcoming house which I know made him feel better too. The kids were proud of their contribution. It was a win all around and we will definitely do that again!

I didn't blog today

2011-07-20T22:48:00.004-05:00

....I went shopping.

Why I'm A Better Fan Now

2011-07-19T11:18:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe that I have now been to TWO U2 concerts in my life. Sunday night in St. Louis and 6 years ago in Chicago for the Vertigo tour. In those six years so many things have changed, but as I danced and screamed and jumped at the concert on Sunday, I realized that I was a much better fan at this concert. I think I know who to thank for that.

Vintage Fellowship.

Here's why:

Back then, I couldn't really publicly write about loving U2. They are a rock band. Yes they are Christians, but they are also a cussing, drinking, Irish rock band. Our previous churches would not approve of listening to rock musicians let alone loving them and going to their concerts. Vintage is a place where people love all kinds of music and share their passion for it with everyone. It's not uncommon at Vintage to sing an old hymn with a redeemed Beatles song in the same set. Southern Gospel to....WHAT is that stuff that Jonathan plays for Vesper's services? Whatever it is, it's amazing. It is soul expanding to hear every kind of music and respond to truth wherever it is found.

Back then, I was uncomfortable with my body. I know I didn't dance at the Vertigo tour concert. But I know I wanted to. You did not raise your hands in church, let alone dance. You could tap your foot, or occasionally, brutally and awkwardly, clap. I felt trapped inside my body most of the time in church, wearing it modestly like a burka, not showing anything of what was inside me. Only tears were acceptable during "special music." At Vintage, its safe for me to show my emotional skin. It's taken me years, but I danced at our friend's wedding. And I danced at the concert. Somebody behind us has pictures of a mid-thirties mom jumping up and down and waving her hands in the air like a fool. A completely un-self-conscious, joy-filled nut.

Back then, I didn't know what social justice was, let alone care about it. At Vintage, I have learned so much about living in the real world and how I can help. In previous churches, I felt afraid to get involved in something in the community because the only place that was acceptable for me to serve was in the church. Which was ironic because the churches only really helped other churches that they agreed with; the unfiltered world, not so much. At Vintage, I have served a meal in a soup kitchen, learned about the evils of sex trafficking, embraced my responsibility to recycle and conserve water, become informed about the food that we eat, and grown in my compassion for the struggles of the LGBT community. When U2 sang Walk On, I already knew why the song was written and how it supported Aung San Suu Kyi and I was happy to hear that she had been released from house arrest. I was moved by the Amnesty International workers candles and what they represented.

Back then, there was very little ceremony, only routine. I realized as I watched the two couples in front of me, that people long for ceremony. They want some way to be guided into larger experiences. As they drank the night away, you could see their awkward desire to connect with one another to strengthen the bond that was created by what we were experiencing. They high-fived, clinked their bottles of beer together, trying to connect what was happening to who they were with. Being at the concert with our kids, of course we hugged and kissed and laughed and took pictures of ourselves together. But because of our Vintage family and the ceremony we experience there, it was a familiar feeling. Something big was happening in our souls and we were ready for it because something big happens in our souls almost every week at Vintage.

(I want to apologize to Larry and Adam. Because I wanted pictures of them too, but my camera was slow. I love you guys just as much as Bono and The Edge )

The St. Louis City Museum

2011-07-18T08:00:00.003-05:00

The unexpected artistic inspiration of a wildly creative place.

It's More Beautiful Than You Thought

2011-07-15T21:58:00.001-05:00

The St.Louis Arch

Things I Made - The Tea Set Lamp

2011-07-14T20:19:00.000-05:00

I am always buying old china and dishes to cut up to make mosaics. Notice I say cut up...not smash up because despite what everyone thinks, I seldom just smash something. In order to get the best of a design from a plate, it takes skillful and practiced cutting to get the right pieces.

Anywhoo....I found this little tea set at an estate sale. And by estate sale, I mean a table full of not entirely old stuff in front of a trailer that I drove 12 miles to find. Because sometimes people sort of play fast and loose with the actual meaning of the phrase "estate sale." Another post for another time.

So this set caught my eye for a number of reasons...The hand-painting was really darling. It is textured. They are signed with an Asian symbol by the painter. The dishes are totally crazed. (In dish-talk, that means that moisture is under the glaze, causing it to crackle and darken. ) But mostly, I fell for them because they have butterflies on them. And my name means butterfly, so I just like them. Wherever I find them.

For a good 8 months, they sat on my shelf, because it never seemed right to cut them up. I just couldn't bring myself to risk having one of those sweet butterflies cracking up into fourteen un-recognizable pieces. Then one day, the stars aligned (ie. I was under pressure to make things for a show) and I happened to have a ceramic tip for my electric Dremel tool. (Free tip...don't buy an battery powered Dremel. They are weak-sissy tools that can't hold their charge.) Whatever these are made of, it is rock hard. I burned through two Dremel tips in no time. That's why other people who make lamps out of dishes are smart enough to use porcelain dishes instead. But I like a challenge.

I played with stacking the pieces in various ways until I came up with a configuration that worked, drilled holes in each base, and then put a lamp rod through. Ideally the lamp rod would reach the bottom and have a narrow nut that would screw it on, but the saucer on this set was extremely flat on the bottom and didn't really allow much space for a nut to screw it tight. So the neck of the lamp spins free. It's not conventional, but it won't hurt. Before the final configuration, I used epoxy to glue the pieces together. I also Dremelled a notch for the cord to nestle into so that the lamp would sit flush.

The end result, you can see, is pretty cute. My next Odyssey is going to be making-over lamp shades. I have 12 of them stacked up in the garage, ready for me to work some magic. But for now, I rather liked the effect of this simple brown kraft paper shade. Except I am tempted in this very moment to try to paint a similar design as the lamp on the shade. What do you think?

The lamp is available to purchase here or at Heartwood Gallery.

It Could be Worse

2011-07-13T08:32:00.000-05:00

You could have your head stuck in an empty bag of dog food.

What The Heck is a Treasury?

2011-07-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

brick and mortar display at Anthropologie

If you know people who are part of the Etsy community, you may have heard us talk about Treasuries. We make them, tweet them, and heart them. And if we are in one, we hope above all else that it gets to the front page. Lost already? Let me explain.

A treasury is a set of 12 items chosen around a theme. Nine make it to the front page (ie. the always changing group of items you see when you go to Etsy.com) and 3 are alternates, should something sell from that original list of nine before it is chosen for the front page. These curated lists reflect a particular person's interests, taste and definition of beauty. It functions like a display or even a front window in a physical (ie. brick and mortar) store. Anyone registered with Etsy can make one by going to this page. Some people and groups make an art of making treasuries, just like marketing geniuses make an art of store displays.

Anyone with an Etsy account can make a treasury, but Etsy admin makes the choice about which treasuries go on the front page. I don't know exactly how they decide, but Etsy promotes certain themes each month as a guideline, like outdoor weddings, back to school, holidays, etc. A good treasury has a wide price range of goods, is visually beautiful and incorporates a mix of vintage and handmade. The treasuries are on the front page for a half an hour...which is why it is so desirable to have an item in the front page treasury. People all over the world will see it and often, the item is purchased within minutes. Not to mention, the whole wide world gets a glimpse of your store and your style.

Making treasuries is also a good networking tool. I can learn a lot from sellers who make it to the front page frequently. And I often mark the makers of treasuries as favorites so that I can learn more about what is considered top quality in the minds of Etsy administration. Which in turn helps me in my photography and descriptions.

A Treasury I Made

Recently, (I think?) Etsy has added the option of "hearting" or marking a treasury as a favorite. The reason your friends in the Etsy community share these treasuries on Facebook and Twitter and their blogs is to give a treasury momentum, which helps it get noticed, possibly sending it to the front page. It's really nice of you to check these treasuries out and leave a comment or even click on a few of the items that have been collected there. Here are some other examples of Treasuries I have made.

So now you know what a treasury is and why they are made and what they hope to accomplish. Click away!

The Ugly Underbelly

2011-07-11T10:32:00.001-05:00

I have been selling stuff for over 9 years now. First on Ebay and now on Etsy and through a gallery and flea market. Most of the time, everything works out hunky-dory, but occasionally you go through seasons that are just no fun. I have been going through a season that is just no fun.

In the past month, I had a buyer report me for non-delivery. That was new. (It was an international order and it just takes a long time.) Then Canada had a postal strike so I couldn't even send a box their way for awhile. Another buyer from January contacted me to say that her very large insurance refund had not come through yet. Another box was returned, undeliverable. Another buyer was unhappy with the quality of their item. For a two week period, I had almost no orders (which is really odd). At the flea market, I had over 100 dollars worth of stuff stolen. And at the gallery there was a controversy over a possible new artist. Some things that happened were my mistakes. Most were completely out of my control. All of them were rather stressful as they required extra time, energy and money that won't be recouped in the immediate future.

I'm not whining. I mean, I HAVE whined. I have asked myself if I'm in the wrong line of work and maybe I should get a REAL job at....at....at....you know....someplace that I can wear my pajamas, work in bed until 9:30, be around my kids and church folks if they need me, be at home most of the time, not have to buy a work wardrobe, and limit my driving to places I would probably go anyway for fun. Flexibility is expensive.

Robb laughs at me a little bit. "Sometimes works sucks. That's normal."

He's totally right. It is normal. You do have lousy stuff happen that is out of your control. What is in your control is trying to handle things with concern for your customers, understanding that they might be coming on aggressively because they think they have to in order to get the attention they need for their problem. They don't know me. They don't know that all I want in the world is a smooth transaction with a happy customer, maybe even a returning customer. I hate it when something doesn't go smoothly and I hate it when an item gets broken in the mail. The reality is that the more people that are involved in the process, the greater the chances that something will go wrong. All I can do is pack boxes to survive a four foot drop, use common sense in labeling them (because it's easier than you think to switch two labels on similar boxes!) and pray they are treated well when I send them out the door.

I hope it's not too weird to say that some items give me a bad feeling when I ship them. There is something about the interplay I have had with the customer already that I just know when a box isn't going to make it, no matter how I ship it. I've been wrong on my "bad feelings" before, but not often. This too is out of my control.

It helps to have an action plan for certain kinds of problems. In my case, if I switch the labels, I pay for the items to be shipped to the right location and refund all the shipping fees the customers paid in the first place. I have begun insuring anything over 50 dollars. I can afford to refund something that is broken if is less than 50 bucks, but after that it gets rather spendy.
Recently, I have learned that a seller can file an insurance claim and have a refund sent to the customer. I will be doing this from now on. The process is so complicated and frustrating, I don't want my customers to have this burden any more. If an item disappoints for quality reasons, I usually give a percentage refund. I am well acquainted with the taste of humble pie. To err is human.

I do wonder how some sellers never seem to get a negative feedback score. I have one out of over 1400 transactions. The buyer left no comment about her problem and would not respond to any messages. I also have 11 neutral comments. I have addressed each and every one of them as well, asking what I could do better, how I could fix their concerns. Some I was able to fix and some they just didn't respond. I confess that I find reading people's feedback on etsy and ebay wildly entertaining and can spend hours scrolling through pages of comments. Geeky, I know.

For me, being in business is a spiritual exercise. My values don't allow me to simply focus on the bottom line. I choose not to reveal my Christianity in my selling venues because I personally tend to be suspicious of a seller who uses their faith as a selling point. But I do think carefully about how to act like a Christian when things go wrong. It often comes back to fear and trust. Do I trust God to provide for us? If I do, I won't be stingy and unfair to a customer with a legitimate concern. On the other hand, I can also trust God to give me the confidence I need to deal with a customer that is a bully. I don't have to be afraid to handle a conflict. I always try to remember my Philo of Alexandria...

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is in a great battle."

And now, it's time to pack a box.

The Birthday Boy

2011-07-08T09:53:00.000-05:00

I often wonder about my son...what he will grow up to be.

I worry, of course, because I know that life will be tough to navigate if you don't learn to turn down each and every dessert that comes your way, to finish books that seem a little boring at first, and to save your money for a rainy day instead of letting it burn a hole in your pocket.

On the other hand, when you are incredibly bright and curious and aren't afraid of girls, when you always notice babies and love to make them laugh, when you look out for others and care about the people around you, well...maybe you will turn out just fine.

My sweet boy, Calvin is not at all embarrassed to hold my hand or kiss me goodbye in front of anybody. He cheerfully greets me every morning, happy that the day has started, the only morning person and the only extrovert in this house. He is the sweetest of big brothers to Charleigh and tries hard to understand his big sister, even though she is very different from him. He knows that Mattie is almost a teenager and maybe that explains why she won't let him hug and kiss her. He loves football and video games and doing well at school. He is a good friend and has some very good buddies that are all really good guys, too. He is happy that our friend Jamal has moved back into the area so he will have somebody to play Risk and other board games with and he has recently discovered the podcast, "Stuff You Missed in History Class." He keeps a box of papers and cards that are important to him and is a sentimental fellow about his Kindergarten teacher, Bonnie Culp.

My Vin is ten years old today. I love him the way a mother loves her only son...that strange mix of adoring him, worrying about him, annoying him by worrying about him, laughing at him, being so utterly grateful for him and then going back to adoring him.

Oh, The Places We Go...

2011-07-07T09:36:00.001-05:00

Robb's sister, niece and nephew arrived in town on Thursday and his parents arrived on Saturday, so we have been running a household of 10 people for the last few days. Sorry for the spotty posting...I was probably washing some towels!

Where there are ten people, there will be adventure. Like when we went to the NWA Natural's baseball game on July 4th for the fireworks and one of them landed on my father in law. You read that right. We had finally settled on a spot on the grass after moving and being moved three times, and were feeling groovy about our clear line of vision when early into the show, a low-flung firework came flaming down in the exact spot my father in law (who we call Poopsie) was sitting. He saw it coming, scooted backward and it fell on the corner of our blanket, where he neatly patted out the fire. I'm not going to lie to you...the rest of the show was a little nerve-wracking!

The next morning, a little weary from our adventure the night before (which included popping off a few of our own fireworks for the first time ever and now we understand how addictive they are but I digress...) we were planning a trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder house in Mansfield, MO, followed by our first time ever to Silver Dollar City. Did I mention there are 10 of us to get ready to go? Well, one of those ten people was getting her hair done when her Mama realized that she had head lice. You read that right, too. Now this certain somebody happens to have long, straight espresso black hair which is highly favored by head lice. Which is why she has had it three times and no one else in the house seems to get it. (Although my head is wicked itchy right now, but then again, so is yours. I see you scratching.) I used to freak out over head lice. I believed we would not get them from the sheer force of my will. But when you have an adopted child, they teach you things. Like how not to freak out over head lice. It's a bonding experience. We pick the nits. We kill the bugs. We know the drill. We get it done. But we are also very late getting away for our trip.

Flexibility is a beautiful thing. You put your heads together...(but not too close because of the lice, right?) and come up with a new plan. Go to Silver Dollar City after 3 p.m. and your ticket is good for the next day too. So we broke it up and got more bang for our buck. Silver Dollar City sandwiched around Laura Ingalls Wilder house. Home by 9 the next night and ready for a quiet day.....

washing towels.

Things I Love - Fourth of July

2011-07-04T09:41:00.000-05:00

When I was very small, Fourth of July was one of the best holidays ever. I lived in a small town and we would drive to an even smaller town for a parade. It was the late 1970s and that parade was a classic amalgamation of local school marching bands, red and yellow firetrucks tossing candy off the back, a few classic cars, and my favorite, the grand finale, the spinning Shriner Fez cars.

Then we folded up our aluminum lawn chairs and headed home to get our potato salad and spend the day at our aunt and uncle's house. Back then, they had no kids of their own and so one messy day of wet grassy feet and red Kool Aid spills was okay by them. I had a thousand cousins, more or less, and 14 aunts and 14 uncles plus two Grandparents who drove a wondrous white 1976 Chevy Impala that smelled like Avon perfumes and Old Spice aftershave.

When it finally grew dark, after tossing water balloons and stuffing ourselves on Jello and hotdogs, somebody produced Sparklers for us to light up. Half terrified, half mesmerized, we waved our prickly wands, holding on with sticky fingers until the last spark fell into the grass and we were taken home and tucked into bed, exhausted and blissed out.

You Never Know....

2011-07-01T11:39:00.001-05:00

what is lurking at the thrift store. And that is why I find it so VERY entertaining.

What Did She Bring Home This Time?

2011-06-30T09:25:00.001-05:00

I was pretty excited to go to my favorite thrift store yesterday morning soon after they opened. It didn't take me long to fill up the cart for a grand-total of 25 dollars. Here's my favorite find of the day.

And just how did this bike make it into my possession? Well, my friends at the thrift store tell me that this bike hit the display floor early this week. A man attempted to switch the 10 dollar price tag to a 25 cent tag at the checkout. He was caught and the bike was put in the back for a couple of days lest he come back and attempt the same trick. It went back on the floor just in time for me to buy it instead!

I haven't spent any time cleaning it up, but this little 18 inch gem was made in the 1960s. I think it was the spoke covers that really sold me!

This Ain't Working

2011-06-29T07:25:00.000-05:00

Two or is it three? weeks into summer, and we still have not exactly found our rhythm. And unlike summers in the past, there is no camp or trip to Nana and Poppa's to look forward to. (shhhh, I haven't broken the bummer news on that last one yet.) Going into summer, I had just one or two expectations, (or so I thought), of being relaxed with the kids and just hanging out around the pool, combating my workaholicism. I even talked with a friend about helping one another plan fun things to do.

So far, it has been anything but relaxed. I have found myself totally on edge, snapping at everyone, frustrated with myself, and downright angry with the kids. I am appalled by my own behavior, alternating between making excuses and making lists for myself. "How's the workaholic thing going, Vanessa?" I would say kinda lousy.

Finally, in a sit-down with Robb (punctuated by at least 4 interruptions), it starts to clear up for me. I'm a work-at-home mom and I just added three people into my life and routine. And then I wondered why it wasn't working. Duh. I failed to adjust my expectations. Summer means kids, pool and garden need my attention now too. It's no wonder I was angry and on edge. I've been trying to do too much.

I've been reading Geri Scazzero's book "I Quit." Geri is Peter Scazzero's wife and co-writer of the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality book that Robb and I read last summer and then studied as a church together at Vintage this year. I'd like to have coffee with Geri. Actually, I would have liked to have coffee with Geri when I was 25. That would have been really helpful. Last night I was reading her chapter on Anger, Sadness and Fear. It seems so elemental, but she wrote, "Through anger, God may help us discover what we really want, get us to pay attention to even deeper emotions, help us identify unmet expectations and sometimes, see the folly of our sin."

I was annoyed with myself for being angry. It didn't match with what I wanted to be this summer. I felt defeated by my emotions as I saw myself pushing Robb and the kids away by my brusque attitude. I could feel myself slipping further and further into a negative quicksand that I couldn't seem to escape.

Now what? Well, I'm blogging. That's healthy. I'm having coffee with a friend...my first time to get out of the house alone since....um....I can't remember exactly. I've asked Robb to make dinner a couple of nights a week and help with menus to help shoulder the load of feeding my three charming Bottomless Pits three times a day. And I've made a schedule for the days that helps me keep track of what I need to accomplish daily. And we realized how much we have missed our family morning prayers since school ended, so we're trying to have them in the evening now. Probably the biggest difference, though, is recognizing unrealistic expectations.

So I'm curious about other work-at-home moms and dads. How are you managing your summer work-load?

Things I Make - The Decoupage Bike

2011-06-28T08:58:00.001-05:00

When I do a show, I hear at least 25 people say, "I'm going to do that. I have stuff saved in a box to do that." Another 20 people ask, "Do you teach classes?" I would, I suppose, but I would have to actually DO it. And I just have stuff saved somewhere to teach a class. I'm going to do that sometime.... for now, I'm just going to show you how to do things on my blog.

This morning, I'm going to show how I made my decoupage bike. Which is in Eureka Springs right now. But I'm going to get it and bring it home to Fayetteville this week. Sometime. You know, in all my free time. That I always think I'm going to have in the summer. When in reality, I have three times as much to do and less time to do it in. Because I sleep in til 7:30. Because I CAN!

So the bike....

First I collected images from 1950s travel magazines of bikes. I trimmed them a bit, but waited to really trim them until I knew where I was going to place them on the actual bike.

Then, for some contrast and interest, I pulled maps from a torn 1900s geography book. This was great to work with because the pages were quite thick, but they were also fragile because they were so old. The paper gets tissue thin when you add the glue, so you have to really think about how you are going to use the paper before you glob it up.

The bike, I should mention, was a 10 dollar score at Potter's House Thrift. I was at the back of the store (ok, I was leaving the bathroom! I had a lot of coffee with Kathy Freeman that morning) and saw it on my way to the front where I was going for a cart. A man was walking toward me when I literally grabbed the handle bars without breaking stride. I just knew by the shape of it that it was what I wanted, and glancing down to see the 10 dollar price tag just confirmed my hopes. The man coming my direction let out a "OH MAN! as the bike went past him. "Original pedals!" He declared. He would have swooped my bike up if I had not grabbed it that second. My friend Grace would not rest until she discovered it was not a Schwinn, as I assumed, but rather a Manton and Smith Golden Eagle Pacer.

I always really struggle to know if I'm going to alter a vintage item. There are two chairs in my garage right now that I'm wrestling with this very second. There are two things I just never want to do...wreck a truly fine antique or use bad grammar on a tv interview (so far in the two tv interviews I have done, I managed to use correct grammar. Life goal accomplished.) All that to say, I do a lot of research before radically alter something old.

This bike, however, had been unevenly oversprayed somehow with what looked like polyurethane and would have had to be stripped completely to restore it. It would have been equal work to take it back as it would to take it foreward, so I dug in.

This would probably be a good outdoor project, since the glue and paper fall all over the place, but it was pouring rain when I worked on this and also, it looked pretty in my studio. So that's where I did it.

I used a brush to paint on Modge Podge, smoothed out the paper as I went, adding small strips to cover all the metal. When the glue dried, I covered it with three coats of Modge Podge, waiting for about 15 minutes between each coat. I let this harden completely before spraying the whole thing with Krylon triple thick glaze to seal it. (Don't worry, I sprayed it outside. It had stopped raining by then.)

Because the original striped seat was also oversprayed with the nasty yellowed polyurethane or ??? I spray painted the seat as well. I started with a tangerine orange but switched to bubblegum pink, both colors in the antique maps.

The bike should be fully functional and could be hosed off if needed. Should a person decoupage a bike? Why would they want to? That falls in the realm of true artistic opinion. I did it because I wanted to. The bike could be used as is or it could be hung as a sculptural piece. Obviously, using it will result in wear and tear. I'm fine with it either way. I just want it to be loved.

Things I Love

2011-06-27T09:06:00.001-05:00

If you visit my actual blog, not just read it in a blog reader or on facebook or whatever, you may have noticed the little widget (I love that widget is an official word) on my sidebar. I have one that shows stuff in my own Etsy shop up in the tabs across the top, but I really love the one on the side because it shows off the things I have noticed in my travels through Etsy-land and marked as favorites.

The reason this is so cool is that when my birthday or some other gift-giving holiday rolls around, my sweet husband scrolls through this magic assortment and buys me presents! Which is why I am really careful about what I mark as a favorite; some people just "Heart" things willy-nilly, but my favorites are almost more curated than my own shop.

At the top of my list is this necklace that Robb bought for me for Christmas. It's pretty obvious why I would be drawn to china. And up-cycling (that's when you use something old to make something new but better...it's not up-cycling if you are just making more junk to say that you used junk...that's why regretsy.com is in business). Broken china jewelry isn't rare, but I think that The Broken Plate has a great take on this kind of jewelry. It has a modern feel that isn't too granny. It's all about the china and how great it is; it's not, "Oh, I'm so cool...I used a plate in my jewelry." It's a subtle difference, but a good one. I'm sure there are lots of copy-cats wrapping up broken shards into jewelry, but this artist has a consistently beautiful product.

The other plus about this seller is that she is wildly successful. I love seeing sellers that are really making their craft work for them and setting a great example for the rest of us how to do it. Juliet Ames is doing just fine without my plug for her. I love the fact that the same person that made my necklace made one that Rachel Ray is wearing. Find out more about her here: http://ibreakplates.com.

New

2011-06-26T15:43:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, I just need things to change. And change takes so much time. So I do what any sane, rational person does....I cut off all my hair to get the change-ball rolling. I look in the mirror and think, "I cannot seem to do anything about anything, but I can cut off my hair!" And then next thing I know, bam, wam, POWIE! I have a new blog set-up, a new banner for my etsy store, and I am thin and organized. Ok, maybe not the last two, but a girl can dream.

I have been in a funk for a while now with my blog. I haven't really known where it was going anymore. When I started blogging over six years ago, it was because I needed an outlet to comment on the adventure of starting Vintage. Now, Vintage is 5 years old and Facebook is the place for pictures of my kids on their first day of school. But the thought of closing down my blog felt like murdering a friend. And I still really like blogging....much more than I like tweeting. So I decided to just tweet about my blog. And blog about the things I still really love...like finding beautiful things in real life and in the cyber world of Etsy, making things, sharing my heart and soul, and occasionally making fun of weird stuff that amuses me.

Incidentally, the one thing that has been constant in all this time? The house in Michigan still hasn't sold. Proof positive that the more things change, the more they stay the same....

It's the Last Day of School

2011-06-07T09:17:00.001-05:00

This school year has flown by...I don't think I ever felt like I got on top of it. And I think I spent the entire month of May writing a check for five dollars for this or that field trip. The kids love to inform me of what is coming soon. "Hey mom, in two years, we'll be in three different schools!" Yikes. Color me scattered.

Last year, the summer was planned to the enth degree with trips all over the country, camps and more. But we bonked on filling out the camp forms this year, so we are only on the waiting list. And neither of our cars is really road worthy for a cross-country trek. So I don't know what we are going to be doing this summer.

So I am going to dream a little. I am dreaming of saying yes to the kids as often as I possibly can. Yes to the library and going to garage sales and having friends over and going to friend's houses. And I am putting together a little list of things I can teach them if I just take the time....practical things like how to wash their own clothes, but also things we just always seem too busy for: teaching Mattie to sew on her groovy vintage sewing machine. Showing Vin new techniques on the digital camera. Reading the Little House on the Prairie books with Charleigh.

One of the big negatives about being a workaholic is that I operate in two speeds: Super-fast go mode and basically dead. I rarely function in a low-gear, steadily productive, energy saving, balanced way. I don't even know what that looks like or if people really do work like that at all. I've spent the last few weeks since recognizing my workaholic problem in the part of my crazy cycle where I don't do anything. I'm too worn out. I've been running full-tilt since February. I'm exhausted. I need rest. I am conscious of trying to rest. But soon, I will be tempted to ramp up again. I can feel my curiosity returning, which usually leads to taking on projects. With nothing particularly stressful happening during the summer, I can usually keep it under control, but with the season change in the fall, I will launch into another cycle of crazy. I'd like to avoid that cycle if possible. I'd like to try to plan for it and keep myself from going to that place that is so destructive to myself, my family and my relationships.

So I am dreaming of an industrious summer this year. One in which I use each day to accomplish real goals. But also a summer when I shut down early each night and sit on the patio with my husband and recognize how good we have it. A summer that I don't regret. A summer when I don't run away from my kids and hide behind work. I find the thought kind of challenging, but I know that sleeping in til 7:30 every day will really help!

I KNEW he looked familiar.

2011-06-03T20:09:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the wonder of Netflix, I was watching Family Ties, when I finally figured out who Vin reminds me of.

Sorting...

2011-05-26T11:17:00.001-05:00

Well. Before I jump into the pile of work that is rising by the moment, I had better take a minute to survey what is in front of me and try to separate this big pile of mental debris so I can be realistic about what can be done with this day....

Friday: Rehearsal dinner for Erin and Daniel's Wedding. It was driving in the pouring rain that made us realize with white knuckle moments, sliding around on the highway, just how badly we need new tires. In the budget for money, but we've just bonked on making time for it. What a silly way to die...just too busy to change the tires?

Saturday: The big day when we would set up the pool, use the weed-wacker for the first time, and try out the new manual lawn mower I snagged for a mere 3 dollars at an estate sale the day before. The reality: the brand new expensive weedwacker wouldn't start. The pool was mostly set up, but we ran out of time to put on the filter, since we spent such a ridiculous amount of time trying to start the weedwacker. And the grass was much too wet to even try to mow, even after a day of sunshine. The yard is soup. We were sunburned. Went to the wedding and danced like a fool. Exactly the right thing after such a frustrating day. Came home and slept deeply.

Sunday: Church in the morning where I could not concentrate. This is something I can't write about publicly, but I had noise in my head, a frantic static. This situation still has to be addressed and I know how hard it is going to be to address and I don't have the guts to do it right now. It has to wait. My elbows itched.

At the Block Street Party

After church, we headed down to the Block Street Party to support friends who were displaying work there. Heartwood couldn't muster enough volunteer power to man a booth and I couldn't must the strength to make it happen. I feel simultaneously bad about this and glad that I didn't sacrifice my family time and Sabbath for something I couldn't realistically take on. Points to me for recognizing a limit. We ate amazing food from Hammondtree's Grillenium Falcon. Cheese = Comfort. Came home to try to nap a bit while finishing laundry and thinking about what needed to be done before Robb and I could leave for Savannah. Tried to keep our Sunday night tradition of toast and hot chocolate, America's Funniest Home Videos and an episode of Alias on DVD. Folding laundry left over from Saturday kind of bulged in on that. More itchiness, this time on the palms of my hands.

Awoke Monday morning to the news of Joplin's disaster. That file is just too large to process. Had to pack and get ready to go. Covered with itchy spots. Fearing poison ivy until I figured out it was hives. Hurry to the airport. Reminded again to get new tires as we drove in the pouring rain. More white knuckles. Slapping head over not taking the van instead. Breathed a sigh of what we now know was misplaced relief that the worst was over. Flight delayed. And delayed. And delayed. For 4 hours. Finally got on the plane where we flew straight through the storm with heavy turbulence most of the way. I don't deal with motion sickness well. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate instead of breathing calmly. Nauseous, lips and fingers numb from trying to breathe slowly, feet freezing from the air conditioning at my feet, miserable. Learned later that Robb was scared too. Which means it was bad. Finally, we descended in Atlanta, late, but with enough time to eat a meal and drink a beer. Which helped me sleep through the next, much smoother flight. Where a baby behind us wailed miserably through take off and landing. Poor little thing. I wished I could join him.

We had high hopes of having Monday evening to relax and see Savannah a bit, but it was late. We crashed. I awoke to blistered hives everywhere. I took a Claritin for the first time in my life and was grateful when it halted the swelling I could feel in my lip at the hotel breakfast room. We had a couple of hours to spend before starting the book buying, so we headed out about 40 minutes to the edge of Tybee Island where we saw dolphins (and took work calls) on the pier. We didn't realize that that couple of hours on that 96 degree pier would be the best part of the whole trip.

From noon to six that day, we were in a room the size of my bathroom with no windows buying used textbooks. I will not elaborate on that part of the day. Except that I understand now why Robb dreads traveling.

By this time, we knew that horrible weather was headed in the direction of our kids and home. Back at the hotel, we were glued to the Weather channel, waiting for the worst. Completely helpless. Outside, Savannah was balmy and beautiful but we couldn't enjoy it. Calculating that we were in for a long night, we walked to a restaurant and ate on their rooftop terrace to fortify us for whatever we would face that night. We communicated almost nonstop with friends and family on our phones, grateful for our friend Adam who was staying with the kids. He made the decision to take them to the University campus where he lives and works, knowing they would be safer in the cement walls of the dorms than our subdivision if anything really went wrong. We sat with phones, open laptops and the Weather Channel long into the night, watching the storms pound Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas. The storms broke around home, to the north and south of us. Adam reported that everything was fine. To the south of home, things were bad.

Exhausted from the short night, we had to be back at the school at 8 a.m. to finish the book-buying by noon, pack up the boxes, do the paperwork, arrange a truck for shipping, fed-ex the printers and supplies back to Robb's work and get lunch. It was 98 degrees. The hives were the worst that morning, but the Claritin worked. After a busy morning of book buying, we had a few hours and drove out to St. Boneventure Cemetery. I don't know why, but cemeteries tend to relax me. It was beautiful and theatrical, just like all of Savannah, a town that knows who it is and has no need to try to be anything else. I took a lot of pictures.

And then it was time to go back to the airport, where were delayed again, but prepared with an overnight bag if we couldn't get back home. Savannah to Atlanta was short and smooth. We didnt' have enough time for a sit down meal in the ATL airport, and had our supper on our knees, sitting in very full plane that had to stop on the runway for a mechanical glitch and get back in line for take off, and then in flight, the pilot decided to skirt the storms that were hitting Little Rock and Memphis, which took longer, but resulted in a much smoother and less terrifying flight.


From the plane window, storm over Little Rock

Robb rejoiced that it was not raining as we drove home, kissed our sleeping babies, and sank into bed, exhausted. Not the happy getaway we hoped for. In fact, we mutually agreed that it was the worst trip ever.

Here at home, I have boxes to ship. The flea market to stock. Phonecalls to make. Sales to attend. Menus to make. Housework to do.

But I am home. And we are safe. And the car is going to the shop.

Hello Part 2

2011-05-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

So, it's been a little over a week since I made the awkward realization that I am a workaholic. Many of my good friends have gently asked the question..."Now what?" Usually with the post-script, "No rush." Ironic, see?

In this time frame, I've had a three events for exercising different responses: The fridge totally died and had to be replaced in a short time frame. The restoration company that completed the cleanup on the house in Michigan called DEMANDING their money (which I thought was taken care of already by the insurance company.) And I threw a bridal shower for a friend from church. All three of these are events that normally would have me instantly squeezing my own adrenaline gland to reach maximum turbo boost. From what I am gathering, other people do not go into red alert over these kinds of things like I do. So I attempted to breathe. Pray. Make manageable, realistic lists. Delegate. Essentially, deny myself access to my panic button.

I've also done a bit more reading...arming myself with enough information to keep myself from justifying my actions and slipping back into the old way. I have a long way to go. I will probably need some professional help sorting it out. But the number one thing that I am focusing on is recognizing that my actions, my blur of actions, is harmful to my kids and my marriage. Not the good, sane, Proverbs 31 kind of profitable activity, but the kind of work-buzz I go to when I feel threatened, uncertain, insecure, and overwhelmed. From what I have read, the children of workaholics have many similarities to the children of alcoholics.

Right now I only have a kind of police sketch of what it would look like in everyday life to recover. I periodically think of things that belong on a list of characteristics of healthy vs the old way I do/did them. I'm still guessing about it. But here are some of the things I am actively facing:

1. stop multi-tasking - learn to grow comfortable with stillness
2. be realistic about the length of time it takes to accomplish something
3. submit to stopping, even when I haven't finished a task
4. eat three meals a day
5. give the kids my actual attention

I'm also taking a little trip away next week with Robb. It is actually to work for his company, but it will be a change of pace and I know that will be good for me to get a different perspective.

and now.... to sleep.

Hello

2011-05-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

This is a Thursday. At 10 a.m. And for the first time since I can remember in a long time, I am sitting on my couch in my pajamas and I don't have to go anywhere or be somewhere, or carry something, price something, make something, sell something, ship something, cook something, deliver something....I could go on. Kind of like Lloyd Dobler....

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

Honestly, I don't want that as my career right now either. At least not today. Not yesterday either. Probably not tomorrow.

My name is Vanessa. And I'm a workaholic. I've been on a binge and now I have to deal with the consequences. My life is way out of balance. I'm not Martha Stewart. I'm just a unfocused person with too many butterfly projects that I sometimes manage well and sometimes get out of control. Right now, my projects are out of control. This is the ugly underbelly of the life of an entrepreneur. I am addicted to busyness to help me believe I have the illusion of some control. I have a lot of things going on around me that are way outside of my control. Everyone has ways of coping with stress. My way is to work. It's a very socially acceptable way of dealing with stress in our culture, but it's not really very effective and it doesn't really help.

In my case, it is making things more stressful. Because everyday, I wake up and think, "I am behind. I have to hurry. There is no way to get it all done. I HAVE to get it all done. I will feel good when I get it all done." I don't get it all done. I don't feel good. And I wouldn't feel good even if I did finish it all because I would think up more things to do. I find it difficult to ever relax. I sneak work on days I should be resting. My family misses me because even when I am here, I am not really here. I'm off in busy-land doing my busy-thing so I don't have to face the things that scare me, or trust in a God I cannot see, or feel the things I need to feel. I will push relationships aside to cling to my busyness. I will also push aside food, pleasure, sleep, and personal hygiene to maintain my working. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.

I've always been this way. I learned it at home. I remember just about stroking out on busyness in high school when I got mono, but college was where I really went crazy, probably because I worked for not one, but TWO workaholic professors. My favorite cartoon is The Incredibles, especially Dash. Remember in the movie when his mom, Elasty-Girl tells him he can run "as fast as he can" and he becomes delighted and repeats with bliss "As FAST as I can!?"     That's how I feel when I can work with nothing to stop me. Except, my dad coined a phrase that is more accurate of us...."Faster than I can."

When I googled "workaholic" and found the Workaholics Anonymous page, it had a quiz of 20 questions to see if you might be a workaholic. If you answer yes to 3 of them, you might be. I answered yes to all 20.

If I was you, I would be thinking, "What's the big deal? So you work. There are worse ways to be in the world."   Which is true. I mean, line up all the addictions in the world according to their level of damage and being addicted to work is maybe on the low end of the spectrum. Which is comforting until you come face to face with the fact that the trajectory of your relationship with your kids isn't anywhere near what you hope for. That you are almost incapacitated by your busyness and unable to help others around you. That you have strangled your friendships. That you are denying the kind of spiritual life you say you believe and that your church and your husband teach. That for all your real-ness, you are faking confidence, faking accomplishments, faking living, faking wholeness, faking happiness.

Unlike other addictions, you can't just give up work. And there are seasons that are busier than others. But if I stop enough to acknowledge it, I know when I am on a binge. By then it is usually too late to stop until I get sick, have a massive argument with my husband, or run full tilt into some other momentum stopper.

These binges are directly related to stress, which is unavoidable. A peep into my mental windows? Robb is traveling a lot and has a lot of extra duties. Do I slow down to accommodate his busyness? Just the opposite...I match his pace to deal with my missing him. A series of things breaks or needs repair (this time: the roof, the fridge, the food processor and the cars) Even if we have money set aside in the emergency fund, I will kick into high gear trying to sell more stuff on Ebay, craigslist and etsy. These things rarely generate enough money to really cover the need, but I will plow over everyone and everything in my way to make extra money as if we are in a situation of Marshall law, excusing myself for being brusque with the kids, probably scaring them in the process. All for the illusion of controlling the situation. But writing is supposed to help. So I am writing.

And honestly, I don't know how I will ever adjust the value I place on being a hard worker. Robb laughed a bit when we talked about it the other night. I think he was a little amused that this was the first time I had ever considered that being a workaholic isn't a compliment. "You think it's more Godly to be a workaholic, don't you?" he asked. I twisted my lips into an ironic line, "Who cares if your Godly if you work hard?" I countered, shamefacedly.

I need to change.

I didn't want to write this post. I waver between believing it is self-indulgent garbage and being ashamed to show what I am really doing and thinking.   On the other hand, I look back over the last three months and see with 20/20 that everything that happened from re-making Heartwood, to the show being canceled, from the end of the Emotionally Healthy series to Lent, from the roof leaking to the refrigerator dying, as a unique combination of events that has broken me down. I know that it is God gunning for me to be more than a scattered spaz with 9 tabs open in Firefox who can't remember when I'm standing in the bathroom whether I went pee or not. That I was created for more than this.   I know it. But I don't know how to get to that more place. Or what more even is. I guess, for now, I'm just accepting that the way I instinctively react to stress is not necessarily the best way to deal with it.

More later. I hope.

Big Stuff

2011-04-18T08:48:00.000-05:00

So this past week has been a big one.

We got insurance checks from State Farm for the house in Michigan. But I thought they were copies and put them in the drawer. Robb just discovered they were ACTUAL checks this morning.

I was notified on Monday that Etsy wanted to do a feature on our home for their weekly Get The Look Home Decor blog post. This is kind of a big deal. Ok, I'm lying. It's huge. Etsy told people all over the world to look at my house. Robb thought this was hilarious and threatened to take pictures of the garage and the kids closets and put them in my Flickr feed. And then he thanked me for making our home beautiful. And I rubbed his whiskery chin and said, "Except the garage." You can see the article here.

The kids had their Benchmark exams last week. Which is kind of miserable for everyone. I had to yell a little bit when one of Mattie's teachers wouldn't let her get her lunch from her locker because it would disrupt other testers. Mattie's school is way over-crowded and if you live in this district I implore you to vote yes to the new middle school. That place is way too full of middle school hormones.

Robb is shopping for a book agent. He has been working on a book for some time now and began looking for an agent and publisher. Most people talk about writing books but never do it. Then when they get to this point, they get stuck trying to get it published. He sent out inquiries last week. It takes a long time, but he got started!

In less than three weeks, it is time for the spring War Eagle Craft show. This is the last of my uber-busy activities to knock out this spring and I am so eager to put up the pool and let it be summer already. But I have a good opportunity for some press coverage at the show and I want to parlay that to benefit my Etsy shop as well as Heartwood Gallery. So much to do still. And so, three more weeks and then I get my life back...

Two Stories that I'm trying to Make Sense of

2011-04-12T09:15:00.002-05:00

Last week, while my body was occupied with pulling off Heartwood Gallery's Grand Re-Opening event, my mind was clouded over with two stories that dominated my thoughts.

The first story surrounds Rob Bell and his new book, entitled Love Wins, wherein he questions the way many churches I have been a part of view heaven and hell and who goes there. I am half way through the book myself, and like his other work (Velvet Elvis, Nooma videos, Sex God, Drops Like Stars) it's more poetically and conversationally, "Hey, what if...."    Predictably, a lot of well-known church leaders (and a lot of nobodies) are having a fit, calling names (like heretic) and wagging their heads in fake sadness that Rob Bell is no longer orthodox and they have to part ways with him. Except they probably weren't really with him before, anyway.

My Robb, always the theologian, was excited to read the book the first minute he could and promptly wrote a review on his blog, The Grenzian. Which was pretty much like putting out a hunk of fresh meat in our backyard in July....it drew the flies. People who had read the book wanted Robb's take on it. People who hadn't read the book wanted Robb's take on it. And people who just wanted to piss on the book in as many forums as possible showed up too.

The second story was this blog: http://bangladeshmksspeak.com, which was created by a group of missionary kids who were sexually abused by a Missionary doctor serving in Bangladesh in the late 1980s. Frustrated by the lack of justice and action on the part of the mission agency that terminated this missionary, the victims created the blog.

I wanted to turn away from this train wreck. It has very little to do with me, I suppose. Except that I have friends at this mission agency. That in our past church affiliations, ABWE was THE mission agency. And it appears that ABWE could have done more, but they didn't.

This is at least the fourth time I have heard a story like this in my years in this association of churches. Different characters, same hideous plot. Criminal activity covered up, muffled, or just plain ignored by administrations that claimed they feared it would "hurt the gospel."   I could go into detail that would curdle your blood. I could tell you that these are situations that deeply wounded people very close to me. And I can tell you that we have very little vocabulary to talk about it. We don't know how to talk about it, so we don't.

So are these two stories related? For me, they are. Because many of the people who are having a fit about Rob Bell and his book are the same people who are NOT throwing a fit about the way this abuse is being handled. They wouldn't touch Rob's book with tongs and they criticize Mars Hill and other churches like it. They pride themselves on their good theology and their orthodox belief. But in their relentless attention to the details of every theological i dotted and t being crossed, they have created an environment where hideous crimes against children can happen and be covered up.   It's not just one bad missionary in an isolated event. It's a way of doing church and thinking about the Bible that lets evil grow like a mold right along side it. I have seen it happen. And I am disgusted by it. I am angry.
And I want nothing to do with that kind of Christianity ever again.

I still have friends at ABWE. I still love them. But I hope they understand that I have taken a different path for some extremely serious reasons. Rob Bell is asking some serious theological questions. But so are the missionary kids.