Mosaics

I had wanted to take a mosaics course for years, but as with many things we want in life, I'd put it off. There wasn't enough time in the day. I shouldn't take time for me when I should be spending it on the kids or the house. Maybe my Hebrew wasn't good enough to understand the instructions. In any case, this year I finally decided to go for it. And I love it. From the very first session, I knew. I knew that this was my thing. The thing I should have been doing all along. My first project was a simple dragonfly hot plate. Then I refinished a wooden bottle holder for the outdoor table. Next I made a table. I'm currently working on two projects: a lazy susan with a mandala pattern and a large decorative pot with a quail in reeds design. Some projects are based on ceramic tiles. Strong, durable tiles. Others are created from cut glass tiles. More fragile yet more vibrant. Cutting the tiles and creating a pattern out of broken pieces gives me time to slow down. It forces me to stop rushing. For ten minutes or half an hour or several hours, I've got my mind on creating something unnecessary. Something that no one needs. But those unnecessary objects I'm creating make me happy and proud and calm.

I guess that's how it is in the mosaic we make of our lives. We often get caught up in the nit picky cutting and gluing and forget to step back and marvel at the whole of our lives and all the little pieces it takes to make up our own work of art. Some of the pieces are more fragile. Some are more sturdy. But we need them all in order to make the whole of our mosaic. Seen independently, each of the people, experiences and places that go into our lives may seem insignificant or fleeting - yet they all add up to make up the who that we've become.

Nature's remedy

I love sitting next to my little fish pond. It's always peaceful there and there's always some little surprise. Sometimes it's a batch of new guppies that have hatched and are finding their way around their new home. Sometimes it's a couple of lovely dragonflies - red, blue, or both - flying in loops and swirls in search of lunch. And sometimes it's just having all three of our adopted frogs sitting on various lily pads at the same time, just chillin'. I love listening to the gurgling water as it splashes down from the rock water feature. It doesn't matter how stressful a day has been (or promises to be), the pond is a relaxing place where troubles just seem to shrink away. Inevitably, I start to wander around the rest of the garden, checking to see what new flowers have bloomed or what needs pruning or just enjoying being out in the garden for a few peaceful minutes. The hustle of daily life can't be escaped forever, but those few moments by the pond or just looking at what's growing in the garden are better than the most expensive of therapies.

A splash of color...or not.

I've put off painting the house since we moved in. It had been recommended to us when we first moved in, not to paint until we'd been here for at least a year - to give the house a chance to settle and avoid having to deal with cracks in the plaster after we'd already painted. So we waited. But then, once we'd moved in and all of our stuff was in the house, the idea of moving everything one room at a time wasn't really on my list of favorite weekend activities. So we put it off. And we put it off.

But this weekend I finally bit the bullet and started painting. I began in Meged's room as any day now she'll have her new desk delivered and I didn't really want to have that to move as well. So I left the three big kids to basically fend for themselves, tossed Holly in bed for her nap and proceeded to paint. It went fairly smoothly at first. I got three walls painted and began the fourth. That's when it happened.

The roller fell apart. And I'm too stubborn to just leave a wall partially painted and come back to it the next day when a replacement roller has been acquired. Besides, I didn't want to risk leaving a permanent line on the wall where I'd stopped and then needed to restart once the paint was already dry. But although I searched everywhere I could think of, I couldn't find any of my regular sized (meaning decent enough to justify painting a wall with) paint brushes. So what did I do, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you. I used one of my one-inch round craft brushes. To paint an entire wall. Yes. I know. I'm insane.

But...I got the job done. The next morning, however, I did hop over to our local hardware store. This time, though, I decided to avoid scraping the floor tiles for all of the roller splatter and opted for a sponge pad instead. I don't believe in using plastic drop cloths. And I don't have old sheets I'm willing to ruin. So I'd prefer to scrape than use unnecessary plastic. But I'd rather not scrape at all if it can be avoided by changing equipment. Sure, there were some drips with the sponge, but those were easy to get off the floor.

Now I have two bedrooms painted and three more to go - plus, of course, the hallway, bathrooms, living room, dining room and kitchen. But the bedrooms are the most important, so I'll focus on that for now and see how things progress regarding the rest of the house. Maybe I'll put that off until next summer!