Holiday Mantle

The Catholic in me is trouncing my very post-Reformation sense of interior decoration every year around this time. And by that I mean that my Episcopalian home goes all WASSAHHH CATHEDRAL OF TINSEL UP IN HERRR!

Oooh I loves the holiday hanging of greens and garland and general festooning of hearth and home. The real peppermint icing on all of that this year is that I have a REAL mantle. The kind that grown-ups have. Not the kind that newlyweds make out of IKEA bookshelves...

Appendix A:

or that yuppies make out of electric fireplaces...

Appendix B:

This year I've been going whole hog with the festivus of halldecking. Baby Girl got to help me in a big way.

We made angels for the mantle last weekend. I know you're waiting for the step-by-step tutorial that lists all of these scrapbooking tools by their proper name in an esoteric kind of way {oooh! lookit me! A scrapbook buff! no.} . But trust, you know I have no room in my creative space for precision. I hack it all.

For these angels, I credit the amazing art teach Mrs. B of St. Raph's School in Bay Village, OH who inspired the original cherubic model. These angels that Baby Girl and I hacked are made from scrapbook paper that was on sale 6 for $1 at Michael's which we (I) then rolled around various empty ink cartridge boxes, painted styrofoam balls and gold pipe cleaners. We used a glue pad + stamp + glitter for the special adornments on the angel gowns.

After the angels dried and found a place on the mantle like they were Norm finding his bar stool at Cheers, I couldn't wait for Baby Girl to wake up to see them. So, first thing last Monday, I woke her up and said all cryptically, Baby Girl, you're not going to believe what's in the living room!!

The FIRST THING out of that little pumpkin's pie hole? "Oh, Mom! We forgot to put wings on the angels!"

Are you kidding me? Can you imagine waking up with that much clarity of mind? What is that like, to not wake up with your mouth all chewed up inside from vexing dreams where you are forced to snort pixie sticks or you won't be able to catch the last bus for Albuquerque where your Girl Scout Troop AND your Irish step dancing teacher are waiting for you to bring them the feta cheese wraps!!

Anyway. I have yet to repair the wingless angels. They are managing with their obvious handicap in the meantime.

What I have done is make this fetching wreath, though! And yes that IS chalk paint on cardboard, thank you for noticing. This wreath took me no time, which is to say that it took only a few minutes to complete the concept after I messed with the ribbon for four hours.

Y'all, have a JOYful, crafty holiday season.

xoxo K

Content

I just typed the word "content" above. I used it in its adjective form. Emphasis on second syllable. Content. Satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else. I did not mean the noun form of content, emphasis on first syllable. Content. The subject or topics covered in a book or document.

As I typed, the thought struck me: I struggle with the adjective every day even though I spend my days and late late nights dealing with the noun. I write and edit content for a living. And yet I struggle to be content.

I am convinced that this word was given us by a woman, a Middle Englishwoman, struggling through a day of nursing and spooling thread, of hemming and bending over kettles. She was all pondering the Latin past participle continere, and thought, this grind isn't so bad. I mean, it really contains my day, my family, my life, me. I'm contentus, that's what.

She had found the secret. That girdle-rocking woman toiling away on the English moors discovered that contentment was a state of being contained by all the things that occupy the mind and weary the body, of being held by all that pushes the bounds of the heart until the last specks of sunlight, until the dancing doubt of night rushes in.

What does it look like to be contained, to be bound by the content of your life?

I am terrible at contentment, this incurable case of antsypants that ails me, these real estate woes that plague me week after week, these deafening fears about the great what ifs of my children's futures, these first world entitlements that cloud my view of what really matters.

This week we give thanks here in the land of plenty and I will think on at least a million and four things for which I should be thankful, if only...

But I am contained, I am hemmed in by a God who cares and who has eternity in the palm of His hand. I am not reaching beyond that which is in my power to change. I am not perseverating on minutiae. I am choosing to be contained and therefore I am content.

*** Leafpile with our neighbor gals. I enjoy how Baby Girl is off in the distance like a frankensteiness rising from the leafpile crypt.

And then here is my other child, looking a little indignant about autumn.

More to come on this crafternoon with Baby Girl Angel

Little video tonic for your soul

There are a lot of craptrocious things being done to children in our world right now. I'm a bit wrung out just pondering it all. So I'm posting this because it's been a tonic to my soul this week. In light of lawsuits and other licentious deeds, this is a Dixie cup of sunshine that I'm happy to share with you. Crank up your volume, and do like Ziggy says, Lift up your heart and sing....

(P.S. Sierra, you and your beautifuls inspired this!)