And... Breathe...

I'm still here. I know it's been a month since I posted and all I can say is I was fighting with being overwhelmed. I have enough to occupy 40 hours a day when I only get 24 and something had to give for a while. I felt much like the picture above. Like I had so much to get done and only this little window available to me.

Anyway, so I am simplifying. If I have disappeared from your follower list please know that it is nothing against you or your blog personally. I have trimmed my list from roughly 130 sites down to 60 as I've found that to be a good manageable number. I am still taking pictures (and I'll post some of those tomorrow) but I won't be taking pictures everyday. The simple reason is that if you work all day, come home to do homework and make dinner, get all the chores done and then try to fit in pictures every night then at some point you have to concede that the rest of your life isn't possible anymore. And that's a concession that I can't make.

I am a mother, a fiance, a crafter, a camera enthusiast, a woodworker, an employee, a daughter, sister, etc. And I love all of these things. But I also need to fit in books, drink coffee, and breathe. I can't make jewelry if I don't have time to come up with ideas. I can't take a picture of the same thing everyday and I can't get a different picture if I don't leave the house.

Now don't think that I'm just complaining. I'm not. I have a plan. I commit to going to work (obviously). I commit to being a family member in all the various ways (love you all!). And for the rest I commit to do the best I can, when I can. I took a 4 day breather in Oregon and I feel sane again. Over the last week I am starting to feel like I am me and I can feel some of the creative mojo coming back. I have pictures to post of a DVD bookcase that I've built (it's *huge*) and tonight I am starting on the playhouse bed that I've been promising my daughter. I'm excited about things to come and I can't wait to share it with you all.

Fire

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire.

The photo-a-day project is turning out to be a lot of fun! Come see us (and join in?) over at flickr/BlogCamp365. Here's what I'm up to.

What it all means (or the title anyway)

This morning I was reading Beth over on Be Yourself...Everyone Else is Taken and she is talking about the meaning of her blog title along with many people over at Synch-ro-ni-zing. It occurs to me that I've never really explained my blog, either the URL or the title, so this seems like the perfect opportunity.

indigoamethyst came first. This has been my handle for some time starting with MySpace (yes, I have one of those) and then here and also on Facebook and Twitter. The amethyst is my birthstone but I'm not very fond of the very pale watery amethyst. I am in love, though, with the really deep amethyst. Indigo is a very deep shade for an amethyst and my favorite. And although it doesn't always come out in my blog there are deep facets to me too (somewhere), much like an amethyst which is reflective and doesn't always show the hidden depths, or at least I like to think so.

Turning Stones came later. I love stones and rocks and, much like the ocean, feel a pull towards them. I have a few jars throughout the house of rocks in all types. Part of the reason is just the tie to earthy nature. I think of rocks and immediately have the feeling of hiking along a trail and looking out at a view and my heart is so full in an instant that I could burst. To someone who has never felt this it's hard to explain but only really beautiful nature (a stretched out valley, a wide ocean) and my children evoke this response in me. In that moment I could scream with joy and burst into tears at the same time. I want to spin in a circle with my hands stretched to the blue sky and laugh or take off running down a hill. Maybe this means I'm a little nuts (shocker, right?) but I am immensely joyful and immensely sad in the same moment. I LOVE that feeling.

Turning Stones is also about self discovery. As a child I played outside in the forest a lot and I quickly discovered that there is always something under every rock. And it's never the same. Oh, it may look very similar, but it's not the same. And by turning over the stones you get to see a whole world that you've previously missed noticing. I have now been divorced for about a year and a half. And in that time I have been continuously turning over the stones and finding parts of me that I had lost in the last 10 years or had never discovered in the first place. I've always been pretty sure of myself but I'm learning so much more every day. I learn about me as a person, as a mom, as a partner, a daughter, a friend.

My blog is a bit of a mishmash of personal stories, children, crafts and how to make them, decorating, and childhood memories and the photos I've taken along the way but I think the big picture is that it's me. I'm a mishmash of all of these things and then some and to be true to me this blog is as well. Turning Stones is my reminder to never stop looking outward at all of the beauty in this world, to never stop looking behind the ugly bits of it to find the treasures underneath, and to never stop looking inside of me and discovering there too.

What stones have you turned over recently? I'd love to hear about it.

It's almost time

My favorite holiday is almost upon us and I don't mean Thanksgiving (with a working single mom we just had mac n' cheese for Turkey Day more than once anyway). But Christmas is another matter all together. It's about family and being together. It's about those very pretty lights and childhood memories that warm me up on a cold gray day. About that incredibly annoying chirping bird Christmas ornament that we all love to hate and the bubble lights that I could watch for hours. And all of those great Christmas traditions that I need to pass on to my own kids.

For years mom made Lee and I a doll each Christmas (the clowns above and the pink and blue dolls below) and I think I'd like to find a pattern for Erin this year. Instead of putting names on individual stockings my parents put everyone's presents in one giant stocking and then a scrap of paper taped to the mantel with names on the style of paper that was ours. We then dumped it all out together and started digging into the pile for the matching paper that wrapped up gum, jacks, and silly putty.

Now as an adult I'm wondering what happened. Christmas was magic and memories and now it's scheduling and negotiating. I am probably going to have 4 different Christmas gatherings with family this year (at home with the kids, with mom, with dad, and with E's family) and it makes me a little sad. I want my kids to have the magic that is Christmas and Christmaspalooza just feels lacking in the spirit of it somehow, never mind that part of it may not happen until February between one parent's trip and another's surgery. Is it still Christmas if it happens in Feb. because it doesn't feel like it...



I don't know. Maybe once I get the tree up on Friday I will be able to find the Christmas spirit in all of it because I want my magic back.



And these happy little faces are going to get their magic and tradition because childhood has no do-overs.

Unhappy or Dissatisfied?

There's blog I used to read fairly often, before it ever occurred to me to make my own blog and regularly follow others, that I had forgotten about. So I looked in on his blog today (and added it to my follow list) and came across a very interesting post (here) on the difference between being unhappy and being dissatisfied.

To partially quote Ed:

An unhappy person is:
* Grumpy or agitated: unhappy people bitch.
* Needy: unhappy people take from those around them.
* Mopey: unhappy people suck the energy out of a room.

A dissatisfied person:
* Sees something that’s not how it should be
* Doesn’t want to accept that the problem exists

and

Unhappiness causes you to miss out on being present. Here’s the thing: you can be dissatisfied and still be happy. Being unhappy causes you to focus on yourself- on your own lack of happiness or whatever it is you’re bitching about, and meanwhile the whole happy, amazing, wonderful world of possibilities goes on without you. You can be a dissatisfied person and still appreciate that world, take part it in and receive what it has to offer.

Go here to read the rest of what he said. It will definitely give you something to think on.