From a couple weeks ago...

**I started another blog for writing things, and then figured, why separate them?  This is my blog, I'll do what I want with it, so there will be more writing here, probably less sewing centric posts and more things about everything. Enjoy!**

A while ago I asked my kids what love means.  What they think it means to be loved, to love someone else, and to show love.  I was brainstorming something and was looking for some fresh eyes in expressing ideas.

They whispered adorably for a few minutes, and then my oldest said one of those wisely clear things I was hoping for.

"Love is when the place you are in is the place you should be."

Isn't that perfect? I wrote it down immediately.

The day before I asked this was a little touch and go.  There are some days that I find so incredibly full of love, yet so incredibly frustrating!!  Each instruction I give, each reminder for caution, each prompt to be clean is obviously given drenched in motherly love, rooted in my concern for their well being! Obviously, these little cherubs of mine know this deep down in their guts, just as I did when I was their age, but obviously still do things with ignorance, and rudeness, and attitude. Of course they do! They're kids.

I'm constantly wondering how much concern is enough and how much is too much.  How many reminders are too many and what is reasonable and responsible.  How much sass should I tolerate and shrug off and what kind of lessons should I be teaching them?  It's a constant back and forth struggle in my head, as I'm sure it is for all parents.  It can be difficult to take comfort in that, especially when if feels like I'm getting all the levels wrong, everyone is reacting badly, like I've miscalculated the formula by just one number and it ruins the entire equation.

I've noticed how resourceful these kids of mine have gotten, and how much like me they are.  I vividly remember clambering all over the kitchen counters, snooping for my mom's chocolate stash, and then I found a kid spoon stuck in the Nutella jar of our present day cabinets. 

It's exciting and equally terrifying watching them grow up, get stronger, expand their world and their decisions, and become their own people.

I'm also trying to intentionally cultivate my creativity and started with all those feelings swirling around after this rough day we'd gone through.  I drew a bunch of birds gathered in a heart, with a few flying away and wrote "sometimes you have to let your heart fly," which still feels incredibly immature and middle school, but anyway, that's what I wrote and that's what I drew.

I have a hard time expressing my own feelings, they always seem so syrupy, naive, and unproductive that I usually try to ignore them so being creative has always worked to help make sense of things, or at least acknowledge them enough to move forward.   As long as our mothering instincts come from a place of love and reasonable logic, then the next generation should turn out alright.

Two Custom Posie Dolls

I had a chance to make two dolls for a friend to give her daughters for Christmas this year.  We worked to customize them to resemble her daughters and to use fabrics with each girls' favorite colors.  Now that it's after Christmas, I think it's safe to show them to you.  Poor pictures aside I think they turned out pretty cute.

Email me anytime if you ever want to customize a doll like this: ladyfacemakes@gmail.com

Winter Vacation Pictures

Keep the earth below my feet
For all my sweat, my blood runs weak
Let me learn from where I have been
Keep my eyes to serve, my hands to learn

We had the best vacation, it was so good for all of our spirits.  Looking at these pictures made me all teary again.  Those lyrics are from Mumford and Sons song "Below My Feet" and I love it.  Hope you all had a very merry Christmas and that your new year is off to a great start!  

Winter reading

After the craft market it was really nice to take it easy for a while.  Or at least in between baking and present wrapping.  Lots of that time was book time.  Here's what I read recently:

Everything is Perfect When You're A Liar by Kelly Oxford - I loved this book!! It was hilarious, relatable, and fast! Minus lots of experiences with weed, I'd really want to be friends with this lady.  She is seriously entertaining, and a very bold person.  She reminds me of my 4 year old who will ask people why they did things that are mean, or compliment strangers clothing, and just treats everyone the same, with an outspoken inclusiveness that Oxford also has.  Except Kelly Oxford is not 4 and 1/2 so to read her stories is wildly amusing.  She's also done a ton of truly varied things! She has 3 kids, she's a Canadian and they just do things differently than Americans so that's always fun for me, she went to L.A. to find Leonardo DiCaprio in the days before Titanic, talked her way out of a ticket after already getting a ticket, and was a personal guest of a magician in Vegas.  It's inspiring how she takes opportunities and just goes for things, even though it's sometimes very reckless.  I hope she writes more, I love love loved this book.  It was light enough and funny enough and inspiring enough.  So much fun.

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey - not your typical alien story, this follows a girl who has survived an alien invasion on our planet that has wiped out about 97% of the population. The Others, as she calls them, are crafty, and sent 4 waves of attack on Earth.  The story suddenly splits into narration between Cassie and a couple other characters and that's where I started to lose interest.  I liked Cassie's part the best and could've done without the others.  But it did give perspective that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.  It's clever but it didn't hook me as much as I'd hoped.  There is a unique twist that I didn't see coming, but it wasn't written in a very believable way, at least for me, so it didn't grab me as much as it was meant to.  Perhaps because I think it's a YA book? I'm not sure.  I'm usually really into end if the world stories.  There is a second book but I probably won't read it.  Don't get me wrong, this was interesting, just didn't compel me all the way through. 

Brilliance by Marcus Sakey - This is a fast paced story of an alternate future in which 1% of the population is made up of "Brilliants" or those with abnormal abilities.  Computer level pattern recognition, coding, body language reading, math skills so great they broke the stock market, etc.  The normal population has become very worried about the abnormals and because of a few dangerous ones, they have reason to be.  The story follows agent Cooper, who is a brilliant but also takes down other brilliants who pose a threat to the safety and security of the rest of the population.  I don't want to spoil it.  It's really interesting.  I did predict the twist, but it was still well done.  I bought the kindle book and then the whispersync addition (I find those are frequently cheaper than just buying the audiobook) and thought the performance was a little more perform-y than I personally like for people to be when they're reading to me, but the story was good.  There's a second Book that I've already started listening to.  

Have you been reading anything compelling lately??  Winter reading time is the BEST.