3 posts tagged “craft”

A good, and very industrious, friend of mine started blogging a few months ago. As expected, she has been very industrious about it. She blogs almost every day, adds photos and recipes. She has links to her friends' blogs - friends who are equally industrious (one even has two blogs she keeps updated). These friends, in turn, link to fabulous other blogs, run by super-industrious women who make plans and follow through on everything from crock-potting to crafting to living sustainably.

My friend and her friends blog, craft, have their own small businesses, and sell their wares on esty.com and at local fairs. They home school by creating fabulously themed education plans, go on frequent field trips, etc. They have night-out craft sessions, book clubs, and do all sorts of eco-conscious things: farm their own foods in their gardens, partake in organic co-ops, carry metal and bamboo picnic ware, recycle. I look upon them with amazement, gratitude, and thanks, as I have learned a lot from them. They've set the bar high, and I have been taking baby steps behind their lead.

Then, there's my blog; and by extension, my life. It's a bit spotty, admittedly. My life is currently filled with things I do a bit, or only got half way through. I post occasionally, and have yet to manage a photo that wasn't automatically included with a link. I craft, intermittently. I've got a big box of wool for felting, and a little bag inside of it with some half-finished projects. I've got a pile of cashmere sweaters collecting dust in our spare bathroom for more felting. I had started a paint-for-money venture that never got past filling my house up with small panels (three years later, some live still under a cabinet on my living room floor).

I go to the gym half as much as I used to, and therefore have gained back about half the weight I had lost after Spit Spot was born. We are veggie-friendly, but not vegetarian. We are eco-conscious. We're slowly but surely shifting to from plastic to metal containers, purchasing more glass for leftovers, buy organic and local where possible, attempt to reduce our carbon footprints, drive a Subaru. But I still have a "Tupperware cabinet" and I cook food in this Tupperware, in my microwave, more that I'd like to admit. I cook "real" dinners about half the time, and submit to plain (albeit whole grain or flax-infused) pasta with jarred sauce or frozen pizza more than makes me happy.

I've recently gone back to work, but it's only part-time, of course. I volunteer at Queenie's school about 20 hours a week, but I don't head a committee, as several of my friends do, while they juggle full-time jobs, or go to grad school, or get their law degrees.

It's all a bit underwhelming, and overwhelming at the same time.

Then today, in the shower, I realized that I need to shift my mind-set, and stop thinking of myself as incompetent, mediocre, a failure to be a working woman, a great mom, or even a competent hobbyist. My solution is to deem this year, Year of the Half-Assed. If the Chinese can call it Year of the Rat, why can't I name it, too? Perhaps it can even be Year of the Half-Assed Rat. Sounds odd, I know. But hey, whatever works.

Now, half an hour later, suddenly, I'm a success! I'm meeting all my parenting/professional/nutritional goals! Yay, me!

Feel free to borrow this, if you choose. I'm not copyrighting it or anything, as, you know, that would be too thorough.

I am not a crafty person. Have I said that before? I desire to be, with a whole studio of well-organized paper punchers, and ribbons, and embroidery thread. But I am not.

This morning, in an attempt to appease the wretched Queen, I attempted to learn, and teach, crochet. Her abuela bought it for her for Christmas and was supposed to teach her, as I have horrid memories of being inept at it as a child, but I think she spent all of 5 minutes on it. The yarn is still in skein form, not ball (which the instructions say is the first step. "Make ball to avoid tangles.").

In any case, I suck at it. I cannot believe it is this hard to do a damn chain stitch. I think 6.5 year old Queenie is actually better at it than me. I want to blame the cheap plastic flower tipped hook that came with the kit. I think it's too slippery. Is that lame?

I am also being trounced at Scrabulous by 2 people, one of whom I was happily trouncing just a couple days ago. That does not help.