From The Mud Puddle

Day 2 at the model home...

So far today, after eating a breakfast/lunch , I have surfed a bit, wrote a bit, read some and sifted through some magazines I brought. A friend stopped by to see the model and to say hello. That was nice. She didnt stay long though. There is this vanilla thing that plugs into the wall that is obnoxiously smelly. The walls are painted a pale yellow....wonder if they also painted the walls in it too? My husband suspects so.

Sifting through the magazine has been the thing though that has brought me a few thoughts. There for many years, as we looked to give nice gifts to our friends and family, I would make things . I gathered ideas from everywhere and searched for many months to be able to buy the materials at the cheapest price possible. I would make various holiday items, cooked, just different things, or sometimes a collection of smaller items. I remember one year I even taped big paper onto the wall for the kids to make our wrapping paper . I bought them some glitter crayons and they had a lot of fun. Just last night or the night before I saw the picture of my daughter sitting there with crayon in hand . Sometimes the gift ideas came from some of the crafts we did at MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Wherever the idea came from, it always had my touch to it, as I was the one handcrafting it from scratch. I would use everything available to me, from my glue gun, my sewing machine and my paints to carefully bring together what my mind had conceived. (there might even be a theological lesson in that-but for now I'll stick to what is on my mind) It was a joyous way of giving, giving from my hands , without breaking our budget for Christmas totally.

So looking through this paper crafts magazine, I was inspired, and thought back to those days when I took the time to make things. Some of that went to the wayside when I got sick a few years ago. I just didnt really feel very creative...and then of course somewhere in there we started doing phone book deliveries in December which really crunched my time. It afforded us to be able to buy gifts, but the thought of making much just was practically out of the question.

So I wonder , how I can feed this creativity in me practically and perhaps start making things again. Oh I may not have much time this year-but perhaps I need to save this issue for the coming year to refer to it, and prepare for another time. Perhaps part of the whole reason I enjoyed making things was that it was like giving a piece of myself away each time. A part of me was in each and every creation. And it was just plain fun. Hectic, yes, but defiately was fun-and fun watching people open that year's gifts from us. I do make things other times of the year (sewing, card making, etc) ...but there is just something about the mass production (aka the sweatshop as my husband affectionately called it many years back) about making things this time of year.

Im sure a lot of this is coming to mind from my prayers to God-especially as I try to retrace my steps back to the beginning, of the hows and whys Christmas is done as I mentioned in my prior post. Just pondering thoughts,

God bless you everyone!