Custom Order Recap: A Mother's Day, Rain-Inspired Delight

Hi, Hey, Hello!  It's been a while.  I hope it's been real.  I hope you celebrated your mom, or any important woman in your life, to the fullest of your capacities.  We had a three-day celebration for my mom here in CO and it was grand despite the snow.  Although! it continues through today as I woke up to my particularly wonderful mom having sent me a link to some fabulous adult coloring pages (which just means they're a little more complicated than those for the chilluns.)  I can't wait.

I was asked by a very kind, very thoughtful, and quite open-minded customer to embroider a pillow for Mother's Day for the client's mom.  Despite the final projects and papers I was wrapping up, the request included the sewing of a small dog, and if nothing else, that dog's face combined with the sentiment behind the pillow said, "Make me."

The client asked that the pillow include the dog and the mom, and after being sent a particularly charming picture of the companions walking in the rain, wearing matching raincoats, I was inspired.  

So I assembled, cut, sent the idea on for approval…

Then appliquéd, embroidered, and well, fell in love with this little family from NorCal.

I hope it was a wonderful, memorable Mother's Day and a gift that will be cherished.  Thank you for the honor!

Love, 

Jo

P.S.  Keep the custom orders coming!

Back to Life

The class.  The class that I spent countless hours wondering how I would get through, keeping my head down so I didn't realize it was taking over my brain, is over.  It took approximately 3.56 months of full mental and time capacity to finish the doozy.  And finish it I did, in every way possible considering by the end of it I was over it x 100.  I was also over the 76 page project that put a bow on the whole thing. A bow is too pleasant a word for that piece.

And my other class is done, too!  So a brief respite I have despite having to study for a state exam coming up this Saturday, and I have a pillow to make!  A Mother's Day pillow, nonetheless.  It should be grand.

Taking off the shackles and letting my tightly wound muscles relax will take a few days, but it feels great to be somewhat free again - in mind and spirit.

I hope you are smiling and are filled with love and joy.

Cheers!
Jo

Spring + Happiness

Lots of goodness to breath in. 

Some thoughts.

I may be slightly manic right now.  I feel like mania is my only explanation for feeling like there is a light, or warmth, or just plain happiness radiating from my chest.  Pure mania.

Or maybe it's that the sun is shining in that Spring brightness way and I got a glimpse of leaf buds fighting their way from their branches yesterday.

Perhaps it's that the Husband and I had a conversation about loving our dog crazily and unconditionally and that was freeing considering I usually think I'm just spoiling him into some unrealistic form of life.

Most likely it's attributable to the brain bending conversations I have had with a couple dear friends about changing my state of mind, trying to follow some of the criteria in this 21 Days of Happiness log, and just generally letting things be.  Let it be, let it be, let it be.

I guess I don't really care about the reason.  I'm just overjoyed that the school assignments aren't weighing me down, that sorting through my closet for spring gets me a little too excited, and that life is swinging to and fro, and I get to live it.

I volunteer and observe in five classrooms at four schools throughout the week.  I think that adds up to hanging around with over 120 kiddos.  And in my classroom experiences now and previously, there are always those few students that tug at my heartstrings in subtle ways.  Don't get me wrong, they all do, but there are a few that I seem to understand a little bit better than others.  I love the differences each bring to assignments, the way one science experiment can be traditional for one student, and a lesson in the lotion-water plants create on Mars for another.  I can't make this stuff up.  And I love that.

Maybe what I'm trying to get at is I, for this brief moment, am realizing that I don't have to go searching for happiness, I can find it right here.  It's a philosophical and constant practice, yes, but it's possible.

To the hunt,
Jo

It's Almost Sweet, Sweet Spring

I just received an email stating my Etsy listings were getting ready to expire.  So soon?   I won't bore you and myself with what-if's and should-of's, but let's just say that the business of making pillows is not conducive to the school work, classroom observations, and school volunteering that are currently cluttering my hours to the brim.  Like a full cookie jar, but instead of cookies overflowing the lid, it's educational reform policy, assessment interventions, and the sociological backward-ness of bilingual education.  I'm very grateful to be back in school, but cookies sound so easy at the moment.

The goals for which I was sure I would stick - two pillows a month? sure! - have fallen behind, which is neither to the left nor right, but somewhere beneath my consciousness.  Silly material sitting in that glorious bin in my office, what are you doing there?

Resting.  Peacefully resting before the flurry of creation.

I wrote a classmate that I was floating blissfully drunk and ignorant in a sea of chaotic confusion at the moment.  Time to put on the proverbial sunscreen, if you know what I mean.  That's alright, the wavering equilibrium is good for my muscles, challenging for my brain, and learning to better handle stress is an exercise that would be awesome for me if I actually did that.  Ha.  "This too shall pass," after all.

So for now!  The pillows are stuck in the vibrant and beautiful air of imagination.  I will renew the Etsy listings, and get some more work done in the future.  I have seven weeks left in this one particularly challenging class.  Until then, I release you, pillows.  I'll see you soon.   And who knows, maybe letting go is the catalyst I need to get going again!?  (CHEERS TO CATALYSTS.)

Happy almost Spring.  Boy, does that make me joy-filled.

To the upcoming greener pastures,
Jo

P.S.  Have you seen this app!?  Paper 53.  It's remarkable.  I used it to create some faux watercolored eucalyptus trees, for example.  They remind me of elephant feet.

P.S.S.  I just did some smile-ups.  :D

Because literacy is important.

And this took me forever and ever.  *Slow claps.*

On to the next class(es).

Happy March!
Jo

Snow Sounds

The heater kicked on, otherwise, silence.  As discussed with my second graders this last week, rain goes plop, snow says nothing.

I'm at the tale end of a week spent in school survival mode trying to get through final projects and a paper before tomorrow when my sister will be here for a much anticipated visit.  It's also her birthday today.  For her, I am forever grateful.

I just took some ingredients out of the freezer to thaw for dinner, told the husband, and nearly killed him with passive aggressive glaring when he requested I stop by the grocery store for an additional ingredient that would make the dinner that much better.

Operating near capacity makes me realize how very much I limit the size of my capacity with my own expectations and brain.  My sore calf muscles are case in point.  I recently did a WOD, during which my mind was saying, "Stop, no you can do this.  Try harder.  OK.  Enough.  Wait.  Breath.  Stop.  Come on!  Enough." After, I realized how much harder I could have pushed myself…a metaphor for my life.

To lull myself to sleep after some long days, I am continuing on a journey with Cheryl Strayed and Wild, diving into the mess of literature she read, currently this, and generally getting lost in the life it breaths.  Lost to found?  My kind of subject matter, including the beautiful, relevant, and poignant poetry of Adrienne Rich.  I write all of the last bit with high recommendations.

“No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,

sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,

dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,

our animal passion rooted in the city.” 

― Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language

“I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,

and somehow, each of us will help the other live,

and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.” 

― Adrienne Rich, Twenty One Love Poems

“To write as if your life depended on it; 
to write across the chalkboard, 
putting up there in public the words you have dredged; 
sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- 
words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.” 

― Adrienne Rich

I am in a place without much forward planning.  I know the next pillow will come, but today needs tackling.

I hope you're tackling yours, too.

Happiest of Birthdays, Katie.

Seize these days,
Jo