tinahdee

Another recent addition to our family schedule is “reading time”. This is actually a resurrection of sorts – we have a history of reading this book or that to our kids when they were younger. Darin read them the Chronicles of Narnia four or five years ago and it was a wonderful time for them each night. I remember often hearing the kids begging for just one more chapter before bed.

We didn’t give up the tradition out of a conscious decision – like so many other things, it just faded away in the brighter light of the more urgent or up and coming. We’ve been focusing on teaching the kids about world and American history and current events, and there are some really good books out there on the topic if you’re willing to dig a bit. So we got a few of them and re-instituted our family reading time.

Of course things are different now, with a fourteen year old boy in the house who needs to be convinced that gathering around and listening to dad and/or mom reading is a great idea. But given the right choice in reading material and a little time, I think he’ll come around.

Enjoying family time and a meal at Daytona Beach, 2010

Looking back I realize more and more what a rough patch I’ve been through over the last two to three years. You could call it inner turmoil, I guess. And I knew at the time that things were not the greatest in my life, but I didn’t begin to understand the depths of that until I started to come out of it. I’ve come to understand more and more what the jewelry making has meant to me in one of the darkest places of my life.

Before I started making jewelry I was working full time as a freelance journalist specializing in enterprise technology. For about a decade I wrote about things like open source software, corporate servers, and the like. I’m a writer at heart – I always have been and I always will be. But writing about technology is not something my heart desires. I did it for the money, and that’s all. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’d daresay most of us work solely for the money and if we had the choice we’d not be getting up each morning and heading for our current job.

Jewelry making came to me in an unexpected way. I’d never made jewelry before, never had the desire to, and if you’d asked me I would have told you that I didn’t even have an aptitude for stringing beads attractively, let alone cutting, hammering, soldering, and melting metal. I didn’t like power tools or getting really dirty. But today, those things are my daily work and right now, they are where my heart is, and they are where my healing is. Jewelry making has literally been an unexpected lifeline out of the pit for me. And let me be clear: writing about technology wasn’t what put me in a pit. No, it’s much more complicated than that – and some of you might think it’s much sillier. And now that I am climbing out of the pit, I can see a bit better what put me there, and I can talk about what being there was like, and what it is like to see daylight again.

Where my heart is

Some days are just so introspective. Have you ever noticed that introspection does not lend itself to happy-go-lucky moods? When a friend dies, it makes me reflect on life, the fleeting nature of it and the many injustices and ironies in this world. That’s how it was for me yesterday.

It helps to run to something that comforts – but so many things offer a cold comfort that betrays me later. Only by running to something larger than myself can I be truly comforted. I find that larger thing when I run to the creative. Sitting at my table and making things connects me to my maker and I can find peace.

I’m still feeling introspective, but it is tempered with perspective.

Fall seven times, stand up eight

I wonder why they call it a wedding ring. After all, you don’t wear it only on your wedding day, like your wedding dress. A wedding ring is something that many people never ever take off. They should call it a marriage ring. Right?

The picture below is my marriage ring. It used to be my wedding ring. It was your average domed band made of gold – I think we got our rings at JC Penney or Sears. We were definitely looking for budget friendly stuff. Nothing original about that.

But of course many years later, I have learned how to do stuff to metal and make jewelry out of it. And one day, I took my wedding ring and made it into my marriage ring. I put it on the steel mandrel and hammered it all over, creating facets and tool marks on it. Instead of a plain jane standard issue wedding ring, I now had a one of a kind marriage ring. It represents to me all the things we have weathered together in our 17 years of marriage. Each blow of the hammer makes the ring more beautiful, just like our marriage. Every difficulty we have faced has made our relationship what it is today – a beautiful work of art.

Aw, gee whiz. I said I was going to blog every day, and then yesterday – my second day – I didn’t blog. A site outage (ok, my site was suspended by the host because I forgot to pay the bill) derailed my good intentions, and by the time the site was back up it was well into the afternoon. I had every intention of sitting down and writing, but other things were more urgent by then. You know – hunting down and making dinner, unwinding, refreshing my Etsy listings… everything but blogging. And then my husband Darin came home and he really is more important than blogging.

No blogging yesterday.

And I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but I experience this phenomena in other areas of my life too. (Exercising comes to mind.)  The important takes a back seat to the urgent all too often. I have a mental list of important things and I give mental lip service to the fact that these things need attention. Here’s my current list:

• My husband
• My kids at home
• My health (physical and mental)
• My true identity (being who I am)
• My adult kids
• My extended family
• My circle of friends

The reason I am committing to blogging every day is because I believe that writing is a true expression of myself. When I don’t do it, I am denying who I am, and I often stop writing when I am trying to hide something (usually subconsciously) because I know that when I write on a regular basis it is an open window to my heart. Can’t hide in front of an open window. There’s no glare to blind the observer, and the wind comes in to carry the perfume of my attitude out into the open.

That’s really important to me. So today I did it (almost) first. And as the days go by, I’ll work on keep this important thing as one of the first things I do each day. I’m looking forward to the insights.

Have you ever heard someone say that? It’s in reference to stuffing something inside you – something you’re trying to avoid or deny or hide or run from instead of dealing with.  The harder you stuff it, the more like it is to “come out sideways” as some form of alternate expression.

I think that’s why I make jewelry. It’s my writing, coming out sideways.

I’ve been writing since I could hold a crayon. It’s just what I do. Over the last five years of my life I have been writing less and less. Between mid life crises and dealing with the emotional rollercoaster of adult children leaving the nest, coupled with some serious dysfunction issues from my childhood, I’ve been stuffing the writing.

You see, writing opens a channel from the depths of my heart and puts the contents therein on display to myself and to the world (should I choose to share my words that way). And sometimes, it’s just too hard to look and see what’s in there. There’s something in there that even to this day I am afraid to identify and face. And I know that the more I write, the closer I get to staring that thing down, whatever it is, face to face.

A couple of years ago, in the zenith of my despair, I put away a few things that were just too painful to carry. One of those things was writing. For all the joy and insight it brought to me and I daresay to at least one other person, the corresponding threat of pain was too risky. I didn’t realize at the time that was why I couldn’t do it anymore. But it is very clear to me now.

The jewelry making is the writing, coming out sideways. Hammering and burning and bending the metal is a non-verbal channel to my heart, which makes it easier for me to deal with then the words. The little pieces of body adornment that result are really little pieces of my heart.

One of the ways I can recognize that the jewelry-making is a direct line to my heart, is that I always end up with irrational fear surrounding the things that open up my heart. I start practicing avoidance – I find a dozen other things I need to do first, before I go out to the workshop and start creating.

And I have found a billion things to do now, before sitting down to write the things that are in my heart. Ironically, though, the very reason I find myself writing on this clear cold morning is because I am avoiding my other heart activity – making the jewelry. Funny. But hey, whatever works.

And now, because I have a commitment to the people who have chosen to put their trust in me and express their appreciation of my craft, I’m heading out to the workshop to do something I love very much.

truth

Darin and I went to the granite yard to look for a couple of small pieces of granite to go in the new part of our house. We needed a piece to go in the niche above the fireplace, and also in the new bathroom. The scrap yard is a good place to find a bargain – all the cut pieces leftover from jobs go there, and since technically they’ve already been paid for, the granite supplier lets these leftovers go very cheaply.

While we were there, we found a very lovely piece that looks handpainted. It looks like an artist took a brush and made strokes with different paint colors. It’s amazing to me that something this beautiful was literally cut out of the side of a mountain. The piece is about 2.5′ x 3.5′ x almost 2″ thick. Darin says a piece of “rosso fuoco” like this one would easily go for $75 a square foot – but because it was a scrap, we got it for $5 a square foot. Now that’s a bargain!

After examining it, we decided it is too beautiful to cut, even though it is big enough to use for a bathroom vanity top. Instead, we’re going to find a place to hang it – a very sturdy place, since it is so heavy. Here’s a close up shot of the pattern.

rosso fuoco granite

A couple of weeks ago my oldest child Heather asked me to come with her as she was fitted for her wedding dress. I brought my camera, I hope she didn’t mind too much. I’m not sure the shop owner was too happy with me. But hey, I want to remember what I can remember, and I may not be privy to every detail of Heather’s wedding planning. But I was there for this part. And I want to remember.

The dress shop

The cute little shop Heather ordered her dress from is in downtown St. Petersburg.

Will it fit?

Happy Face

Heather’s face in this picture reminds me of when she was a little girl. She looks excited to be finally trying on her wedding dress. I can only imagine the thoughts running through her mind. Isn’t this what every little girl dreams of? I’m happy for her.

It needs some adjustments, but overall she’s looking lovely – as she would regardless of the dress.

I can’t believe she’s 27 already, and that next month I’ll watch proudly as she takes another step into womanhood. Being a wife is one of the most difficult, challenging, but supremely rewarding roles a woman can fill. My prayers and hopes go with her!

Heather, Mackenzie and Liam - three of my five lovely children

So glad to find out that someone says I can call what I do “art”. I’m a non-conformist from way back. I have my own “special” way of doing things that don’t follow the established rules. Lots of people out there just can’t understand not following the rules. But Chris Guillebeau says breaking the rules is an art form. In case you haven’t heard of Mr. Guillebeau, I thought I would share a bit about him and his site, called “The Art of Nonconformity“.

Guillebeau says: “My mission is to help people live unconventional lives, make their own choices, and change the world.” He has never had a “real” job, having been self-employed his entire adult life. Guillebeau sells advice but he also gives away a lot of very interesting and inspiring content, like his “A Brief Guide To World Domination”, available in PDF format. Here are a few interesting tidbits:

“You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.” Now that’s music to an artist’s ears, right?

“You can focus the majority of your time on the things you enjoy, and you can also make an incredible difference in the lives of other people while you are at it.”

“…you need to devote as much time as it takes to find out what you can offer the world that no one else can.”

“When you finally come out with something truly worth caring about, people will notice.”

I just signed up for Guillebeau’s email updates, so I’m looking forward to reading more of his stuff. He also recently published a for-pay report called “Art and Money: How to Thrive as an Artist Without Selling Out”. I’m thinking of purchasing that, and if I do I’ll write a review of it here. In the meantime, here’s a preview video:

I got the idea to make a piece of jewelry that could help breastfeeding moms from a customer who was asking if I could make her a couple of my initial rings with L and R. She explained her idea, and I thought it was a good one! She never did do the custom order, but the idea stuck with me. Finally, yesterday, I sat down at my bench and came up with what I think is an even better method for breastfeeding moms. The ring is made from #10 flat sterling wire, and holds a 5mm round stone (there are a lot of different kinds, check the listing). On either side of the stone is a small letter – an L, and an R. Each is facing a different way, so that when you’re wearing the ring, the letter on the left is right side up and the letter on the right is upside down. When you’re done breastfeeding, take the ring off, flip it around, and put it back on.

I’ve been wearing mine since yesterday, and even though my breastfeeding days are long gone, I love this ring! The tiny letters are subtly small, so this is not like trying to wear your nursing bracelet out in public. No one would know what it is unless you showed them. This attractive ring goes everywhere – to the store, out to eat, or anywhere your day takes you. You can even sleep with it on, which helps for that groggy first feeding of the day (or middle of the night).

Sterling breastfeeding reminder ring $60