Gosh, I just feel so validated

So who knew that God's eyes (ojos de Dios) would be making a comeback?

Not to brag or anything, but I did.

At least I decided they were back for ME last month, when I re-taught myself the process and started obsessively making them and planning to teach my girls how to make them at camp this summer. I wanted to hang ojos all through my house. Color, color, bursts and blasts of it popping against the great expanse of whiteness I've been painting everywhere. Do you know that I'm even painting my floors white?

I was geared up to go into mass production and present bright happy handmade ojos to all of the 2008 spring crop of babies being harvested by my fertile friends, but I lost my nerve. I think it happened when I gave one to a dear young woman I know and love who was getting married and heading off for a rustic week of honeymooning in the back of a Suburban and then for two months living at a boy scout camp. (Say it with me: WOWWWWW.) Doesn't she seem like the perfect campy candidate for one of my giant eyes? But her response was one of confusion; she was definitely underwhelmed. And lest you think that's because it was the only gift I gave her to get her started down that gravel road to marital bliss, I should say that I also busted my piggy bank for her AND printed her wedding announcements, gratis. "I'm older than Mod Podge," I reminded myself, pointer finger self-waggling. "How can I presume to know anymore what's in? what's fresh? Who really wants a weird God's eye from a ol' lady?" You see how it is when the mean-spirited aging devils decide to pick on you? I for one am too quick to follow their lead.

Was I wrong to doubt myself? Of course! But not because Readymade has just put my latest obsession back on the cool map. But because I AM older than Mod Podge, and so I've been around the crafting block a few times, and so I ought to know a little something about what's timely . . . or find myself scheduled for a lucky guess now and then. But even if ojos de Dios were never of interest to DIYers again, I still love them. I love being reminded by the vibrant eyes of wood and wool and silk and cotton and acrylic that I am watched over, loved, and—probably more often than I could stand to know—chuckled at by the Source of all creativity, delight, and benevolence.

I think I'll collect some sticks and break out my yarn stash again.

So who wants a God's eye now?

It's comin' on Christmas

Thank heaven for:

•a brain and two feet that got themselves and the rest of me out of the mall, tout de suite
•the nice candy lady (not Lois, unfortunately—guess it wasn't her shift) who helped me choose an exciting assortment for she-whose-name-I-drew-for-Christmas' advent calendar
•keeping my head and resisting temptation when the intoxicating scent of deep chocolate filled my nostrils
•online Christmas shopping when I can't handle crowds and besides can't find what I'm after locally
•clean sheets on the bed
•coming up with a simple alternative to the handmade gift I was about to overwhelm myself making
•talking to my older friend Iris, the one who's got terminal cancer, and her telling me what she says to God every night: I think you ought to reconsider. You're really not gonna want me up there. I'm not gonna just show up and say, "Welp, whuddya want me to do NOW?" I'm gonna be a real pain in your a••!
•beautiful skeins of yarns that feel as good as they look
•praying to find some jeans to fit me while I'm fleshed out and can't fit my real clothes, then finding some good ones second-hand
•coming to terms with the fact that my body is something of a shape-shifter, which means I need to store my full range of sizes rather than annually give the fat clothes the boot for those few minutes when I fit comfortably into smaller numbers
•helping lay out Opera Miss' voice recital program
•wordplay
•allowing myself to say no when I don't feel well
•the bittersweet joy of another close family member announcing a pregnancy (current tally: 3 little chickens in the incubator and 1 just hatched out)
•offering "Coach" my early morning hair-fluffing services gratis, in the women's bathroom at the Fieldhouse Salon
•the prompt and lucrative sale of our old stockpile of beautiful art papers, many of which are no longer produced (sick and wrong!)
•learning that Kitty's pneumonia isn't so horrible that she can't come home from the hospital in a day or two
•old Stargate SG-1 episodes that aren't dogs, unlike the one we watched tonight
•sleep
•mirrors that are kinder than others
•this song (and the fact that "the best baby that I ever had" stuck around):

Matters of import

1. I wrote a little pome.

I fight
with flight
all day
but come night
all's right
once I climb
into the nest
and rest myself
beneath
your wing
your breast sings
its slumbering
warmth into
my soaring heart

2. I deleted my dream blog, but not before moving all of its files to Bright Street. If you'd like to peruse the goods, click on the label "Adventures in Slumberland" in the sidebar and what will appear before your eyes but almost two dozen dreams, mine and a few others', including the one I posted yesterday, which you may have missed, since it was a double-post day. I would suggest reading the oldest post first, just because.

3. Next I'll merge my food blog.

4. Today I will finish culling my yarn stash. Again. Perhaps for the last time. Good thing, because it's a lot like pulling teeth. Molars. Or maybe wisdom teeth.

5. It's June!

Yard sale and a Sabbath

Yesterday I had another amazing "shopping with Jesus" session. This one was completely unexpected; Rob and I had ridden our bikes in the early morning to buy eggs and avocados and to say no to free cheese danishes at Sam's Club, and we discovered on the way home that our across the block neighbors were hosting an estate sale. These folks are yard sale pros—it's a hobby for them, a year-round-stockpiling sort of thing. I usually check in with them during their monthly sales for the sake of 'hood solidarity and end up buying much of nothing. Vague antiques, heavy on the rustic? Nah, already got some. Budweiser cans recycled into a crocheted hat? Pretty stylin', but sorry, I'll pass. Once in a while a piece of crummy costume jewelry, but that's typically where I draw the line.

But yesterday. We scored: a full set of Czech "Bohemian" fine china from looks like the 60s (we've been hunting for lovely and affordable dishes for ages); a full set of small and smaller cut glass goblets (I've broken every glass in the house but three); an ancient Polaroid Land Camera in mint condition (been hunting a good one for years); a cool vintage makeup mirror (have been wishing for a nice stand-up mirror for the bathroom); a beautiful white linen tablecloth with calla lily damask design (I swoon over pretty linens), plus another vintage tablecloth—cotton with fun blue embroidery, plus plus MORE linen that Rob will wantonly beat into fiber for papermaking; a whopping two sacks of vintage mohair yarn in a fabulous better-than-Muppets shade of red (I am in sore need of some knitting therapy); and . . . now I've forgotten if there was something else . . . oh, yes, a present Rob bought for Gary of the tiaras which I won't reveal since he hasn't received it yet and may be lurking about. Do you want to know how much this all cost? Let's just say all the vintage linens were a mere buck, and so was all the mohair. And let's just also say that the person who never has money in her wallet (that would be Geo) had enough on hand to pay for all of these delightful surprises. After a few days of some heavy emotional cloud cover, a little cheerful sun managed to peek through; I had to laugh to myself, look heavenward, and ask, "You're just trying to cheer me up, aren't you?"

Onto Sunday. Mother's Day is nowhere near my favorite day of the year, and there are too many other women who struggle with it for one reason or another (and another and another) for me to believe I need to list out my issues; they already leap across universal synapses and flow into the great cosmic wince. They're lonesome salmon swimming upstream right alongside your own fishies of inadequacy. But today wasn't so bad. Much better than I'd anticipated, actually. Mercifully, the church pianist accompanying the Primary as they sang their annual four-minute production of "Mother, I Love You" did so with one uneasy finger, and her (ahem) inventive rhythm interrupted the flow of the children's chi decidely enough to distract me from any tears under consideration, and to drive the hotheaded woman in the pew next to me into a rocking rage, which further distracted (and perversely delighted) me. So I survived the performance. The second sacrament meeting talk (we'll skip the first one) was on Family Home Evening. Relief. And a good talk. I had visiting family to look at during church; that was nice, also easy on the eyes. The menfolk sang a song to all the women in the congregation, and Rob, by way of percussion, sneezed near the end. I loved that. Then, instead of going straight home as I'd half-planned, I stayed but was a Sunday School truant and spent the hour in the hallway, talking with my two favorite young hipsters and their mom and Rob. *sigh* But when the third hour rolled around, I was even gladder I'd stuck it out. My Mum-in-law who, like me, works with the teenage girls in our congregation, taught a great, exciting lesson to them on journalling. Becca and 8-year-old E. (who was dressed rather like Alice in Wonderland) spent the hour with us instead of their rightful age groups, and didn't I love that? And then . . . the Mother's Day love offerings were given out to all the women. So, wha'dja git? Carnations? Oh, brute, bite your tongue! And while you're at it, go ahead and swallow your tongue, because this year we got treated right: nothing to keep alive, nothing to read, no faux gold medals, just plates of chocolate-dipped strawberries, toothpick-skewered fruits, and rich eclairs. Brownie points? Yes, indeed.

Then the afternoon turned into cutting and arranging M-day flowers, time and tasty food with extended family (which I found easier to manage today, a step or two out from the dark center of grieving), visiting an elderly friend, home with Rob, talking quietly, crocheting, reading out loud, planning the week, and now blogging.

My father-in-law called me Miss Beautiful this evening, and told me I looked like a movie star. I've been feeling a lot like The Creature from the Black Lagoon all week, but I don't think that was quite the kind of reference he was aiming for. It's charming and funny the power a dad or a dad-in-law can wield with just such cheesy, sweet little compliments.

Sabbath's over now. I did get a rest of sorts. Ready for another Monday? We'll see!