sweet

What I'm up to

I know i have not been posting enough. I have considered doing a slow fade, or an abrupt goodbye, but then I think about the bloggers I have bloglined that pop up occasionally (Bel, Green Kitchen) and what a nice surprise it is to see them again, and how inspired I am by them when they do check in, that i think I will keep at it. Maybe some out there is smiling at their computer right now because I stopped to say hi.

So...hi!

I have meet some new people, Jenna could be considered our first regular at the ucc-she's taken 2 classes and has been very kind about us on her blog! She learned about my place from Allison who wrote our first blog hit! Allison also runs supercrafty.com (local business woman-gotta love that-go by some yarn!). And completely by coincidence, I picked up this book by this lady, who is friends with Jenna and Allison, and I ended up at her first book signing at B&N at the grove where I got to meet them all in person. I wish I had pictures. But I did get a signed copy for the ucc! And if you look at Laurie's picture you can see the top of my head and my roots! And then there is Faith, who came to our Gocco class and knows all these great ladies too.  So I have been rolling in the crafty goodness of the blogosphere and everything good that comes from it.

And, oh yeah, I have been busy "working". Here is a sampling of how I spend my days:

Playing with the vintage letterpress we bought for ucc.

Making "art coins"-30 mm, double sided pieces of art with the number 1 embedded somewhere on it. It's an idea we've been playing with and I'm hoping other people will get inspired and make some coinage too!

Natural dying-this is the bug juice-cochineal. It turned very purpley after this.

More dying-I think this was coffee and more bugs.

And finally a big

To all of you who have stopped by (that's hand letter pressed by the way), I really appreciate your support and your enthusiasum!

There is a bunch of knitting and a felt project waiting to be photographed, but I have no decent camera-it's amazing what a difference that makes! But I will try again soon!

:)

Fortune cookie sense

Oliver had his first existential melt down this evening. While  enthusiastically tucking into a serving of crispy beef he asked where it came from. The answer made him think, and that made him mad, and then tearful, and then suicidal. Yes, I said suicidal. His response to the ensuing conversation about all the different meat we eat and the animals it came from reduced him first to tears, then to proclaiming loudly that he didn't want to live on this earth where people hurt animals and so he wanted to take a gun and shoot himself. I swear to god, that is what he said.

You can imagine my liberalgunhatingandwheredidhehearthatgunscouldbeusedtshootyourselfwith dismay.

This is the boy who lives so in the moment that he never says what he did in school that day, never holds on to being angry, never remembers that kid who made him cry yesterday, all that matters is that he wants to play today. He is so in the here and now that any previous discussion about death has been met with a simple shrug, or childish rationalization, or blunt and meaningless (to him) truth. This tearful and angry Oliver took me by surprise, as did how emotional I ended up. And how responsible he held me for it all. Add to that how angry Tabby got because I made Oliver cry, well, you can guess where it all went. Tears all around.

When we had finally moved on enought to have our fortune cookies, Oliver's said, "You see everthing that happens in terms of it's larger meaning." Geeze, there way just no getting away from it tonight. Even as he went to bed Oliver was moaning that all he wants to do was die. That he doesn't want to be on this earth, and that no one is allowed in his room any more. I am surprised he didn't add that no one was allowed to play with his toys either, since he seemed to have sensed that he had the emotional upper hand.

To wind it up, by the time he was in bed, bathed and read to, he had decided he would still eat chicken, "'cause he doesn't really like live chickens." I almost explained how that wasn't the right way to think about it, but thought better of it.

I am smarter than a chicken after all, usually anyway.

;)