The Shop Is On Vacation

I'm closing up my etsy drawers until April. There are a few craft shows coming up on the radar, which I'll announce on the sidebar here. If you're in Toronto, come on by and say hi!

peace

marnie

February Love

I love February. It's when the sun comes back into the house. November/December/January are gone, melted away in their darkness, and February arrives; still a little chill, a little coy, but leaving you with sun-warmed hair on a bright still day.


The true passing of the year is marked like that: the first musty smell of dried dead leaves in the fall, the first day that the sun leaves the back of your jacket between your shoulderblades warm, the first new earth smell of spring, and that day in August when it's so humid that the crooks of your elbows stick.


That's too far right now.

Now. Now I need to bring things back, closer to home. For more days like these:


There's a lot going on these days. Most of it very good, some of it everyday-worrisome. But home has been on my mind a lot lately. It's been February for a while, and for me that means the beginnings of my new year. Time to re-assess and re-imagine. We'll see what happens....

This is Supposed to Be Good For Me, But it Probably Won't Happen Again

Mr. S. likes to say that I think too much.


Sarah recently had a lovely post about potential; about that moment when your brain flexes and you start the process of nudging your limits around. She referenced a couple of other bloggers who had recently written about keeping it real, and now there's an In Real Life Flikr group. Right now I'm trying to keep my brain from going off in all directions like an exploding puffball of bunny tails, but here goes.


I don't do keeping it real. Not here, not in real life. Editing is my coping mechanism. Managing is the sweet music of my bedtime story. Mr. S. is probably afraid I'm going to manage him to the ground ;-) This seems to be in direct conflict with keeping it real. How to appreciate the beauty of the everyday when you'd really rather be vacuuming some of it up? I like a clean house. That doesn't mean it always happens. That doesn't mean I always care. It does mean that I try. I really do.


There are so many voices out there. Some of them shout, some of them whisper, but they are still other people's voices.

"The unexamined life is not worth living!"
"The unlived life is not worth examining!"
"Relax, let go, live in the moment!"
"Be wise, plan!"
"Be real!"
"Clean your room!"

ha!


As I read Safiya The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs for the hundred-thousandth-umpteenth time this evening, me with a bowl of not-fair-trade-not-organic pineapple in my lap (a most welcome gesture from Mr. S. the other day) and she with Sugar Snaps (!) in hers (a gesture from my father-in-law) finally a quiet, most welcome, voice came into my head that said to me calmly, "it's my life. all other voices can be taken under advisement, but it's my life."

What does my voice say?

i live with others who i love. i hum a little, dance once in a while, make a lot of food, clean, do some other stuff, try to pay attention, and in the end there is that pure aloneness which could be oneness, and that's why "it's my life" matters. just as i am. and my choices are my own.

My voice also says that homemade peanut butter cups are worth examining.


'Cause life with homemade peanut butter cups is worth living.


Now excuse me while I go clean....

Preparing to Love and Rummage

Did you know that I have precisely twenty-seven vintage aprons? What is that? A flock? A pride? A.....parliament of aprons? (Oh yes, definitely the last one ;-)


These ladies are taking over, so I will accompany some of them to the Love & Rummage Trunk Show in a week so that they can find new homes. Also finding new homes will be packages of fat quarters,


some of my usual wares, and a small project that I've been working on......


hee hee! Please come by and spread the love!

And in that spirit, of the money that changes hands between us that day, I will donate 10% to help make the weekly community lunch in our neighbourhood (the P.L.O.T. lunch coordinated by Shoelace Collective) a little more sweet for Valentine's.

See you next Sunday!