Orange and Turquoise

So if you've been over to take a look at my Pinterest boards, you may have noticed that I've been doing quite a bit of fasion pinning lately. I admit it, I'm obsessed. Obsessed. I have no idea "what it means" or if it's going anywhere or if it's just another one of my passing fancies.

And I don't care.

Because it's fun! And it makes me happy!

My latest creation...

Turns out mixing bright colors and glitter make me happy too!

More Crafty Fun

I mentioned 2 or 3 weeks ago that I'd been working like crazy on a bunch of craft projects. Then I showed you the boys' silhouettes and probably left you wondering what the heck I was talking about since that didn't seem to constitute much work. Or you might have completely forgotten about it.Totally understandable, says the woman who "forgot" to blog for 2 years. 

More back story than you probably need or want... I bought these curtains at least a year ago on a total whim. They matched nothing in our house. They weren't on sale. But they make me silly happy every time I come across them buried under a pile of other crap in the guest room closet.

Our house in West Linn has these lovely mouldings above all the windows - yippee architectural interest - that make curtains awkward - boo for my pretty curtains. So I hatched a brilliant plan to turn those pretty curtains into a duvet cover that I could use and see every. single. day.

So now you're totally expecting a photo of my new duvet cover. Which I haven't made yet.

What I do have is a photo of the material I bought to match the curtains so I could make a new jewelry organizer. I warned you there would be more back story than you needed...

I couldn't decide which one I liked best so I just bought a yard of each figuring I could make pillows with the leftovers. You know, after I get the duvet cover made.

Here's a shot of my old jewelry organization -

What you can't see in this shot is the pile of jewelry on the dresser because this was just not enough space. Now here's the new organizer -

Look at all that open space! Which disappeared as soon as I got more t-pins! But my mornings are so much more pleasant now. So pleasant I might be inspired to make that duvet cover after all...

One Dumb Thing I Used To Believe

Have you heard of that thing where you let an idea burble around in your head for awhile and then suddenly you're making progress on that idea without even thinking too much about it? Turns out there might be something to that. Who knew? While going through my email this morning I find myself jumping at the chance to include myself in Danielle LaPorte's Burning Question Series, already composing an answer in my head and saving the button for my sidebar without even once thinking that I was not good enough to join in.

And the thought of complete strangers ending up here reading my little blog? Totally exciting and not scary at all!

OK, that's a lie. It completely scares the crap out of me.

But I'm doing it anyway! Because this is the fear that will lead me forward...

What's one dumb thing I used to believe?

I believed (for a dreadfully long time) that there was something irrevocably broken in me. I knew, intellectually, that I was incredibly privileged so my depression and my failure to fit in had to be symptoms of something truly disgusting and sick and craven. I believed I deserved the pain I lived with.

Now I know, in my heart as well as my head, that I have always been whole. When I was told that certain parts of me were unacceptable, it was the person judging me who had the problem, not me. Now I believe that accepting and loving all the pieces of my sometimes strange and sad self makes me stronger and happier than I've ever been.

Inspiration Found: Les Twins

I was inspired by yesterday's post from Jamie Ridler Studios. She shared a link to a video of the Les Twins dancing that put my mind a-swirling. Even though Jamie warns us that the dance starts off small, it took me a few moments to realize it had already started. Please take a moment to go watch.

It made me wonder about how we choose to draw the lines between dancing and not-dancing, between art and not-art. It's easy to be amazed by the big moves, the complicated moves, the moves that we can never imagine our own bodies to be capable of. But when a dancer makes a simple gesture I make a hundred times a day - a turn of the head, the lift of an arm - and it takes my breath away? I believe those are the moments of real magic. Those are the moments when the lines between dancing and not-dancing are erased, and we are allowed a tiny glimpse of the Art of our existence.

Fashion

My latest fashion creation I put together for Pinterest...

Craft Binge

I've been a busy little crafty bee lately! It's felt really wonderful, especially after struggling to accept my own inner stillness during the holidays. First I did the silouettes I've been talking about doing forever...

I was so excited to get them done! The hardest part was finding a photo of each of my boys. Turns out I take very few pictures of their side views.

A Year With Myself - Week 2

I do not want to write this post. All week I watched myself avoid and avoid and avoid, fight an (almost) irresistible urge to jump ahead, skip this question. It can't be that important.

Unless resistance is a giant neon sign pointing to the very thing I need most.

I don't even have answers for the first set of questions. I have not found my soul's compass. Calling anything more into my life than I already have makes me feel selfish and ungrateful (every birthday and shooting star since high school has passed with only a wish for world peace). I have a singular inability to envision my own future 5 years or even 5 days from now, something that fills me with anxiety about how I'm going to manage to arrive when I have no way of recognizing my destination. And I only see myself as a goddess in the way that I see all women as goddesses, although I'm probably one of the lesser goddesses history has mostly forgotten.

This is the point where I decided I wouldn't do the Week 2 assignment. I was frustrated and sad to be asked to produce the very things I was hoping to have help finding.

I should have learned from Week 1 that there would be more. It was this assignment from Chapter 2 of the Full Adventure Kit:

"Take an old childhood photo of yourself and study it for a few minutes. What do you see in your childhood face? What do you feel?"

I've kept a childhood photo of myself on my dresser for a few years, an attempt to remind myself to cherish the little girl I was. I found it under a pile of books, reminding me of nothing except all the reading I keep promising myself I'll do.

I am a few months past my 9th birthday, posing on the front lawn on what must have been a warm spring day. It is Easter weekend, and I remember getting that large rabbit in my basket. I carry a purse and a stuffed rabbit - caught between childhood and my own desire to be grown up.

I see so much joy in this girl. She believes she is beautiful and smart and worthy of every adventure she craves.

And all I feel is a deep and aching sorrow, an unspeakable grief.

In only a few years that joy will begin to be etched away by self-loathing.

I know, in my head, that I am supposed to embrace all the bad things that will happen, all the bad things that did happen. Everything - the good, the bad, the indifferent - everything in my life has led me to this point. And since I love my life now, to wish for any different past is to wish it all away. Yet still.

Still I cannot stop myself from wishing something else for her.