I just wanted to pass this along because these are some very lovely folks who were our neighbors at last years Md Fairy Festival. PLUS, the things they make are simply awesome!
Please visit and if you need a kids gift or an amazing goblin doll ( these are Doran and Ferguson Favorites!) please help them out! They just had their sweet new baby a couple of months early and need a bit of help.
xoxo Dawn
Goblin Road Assistance page click me!!
( Orpha’s birthday cupcake-love)
We should try never to let our happy frame of mind be disturbed. Whether we are suffering at present of have suffered in the past,there is no reason to be unhappy. If we can remedy it, why be unhappy? And if we cannot, what is the use of being depressed about it? That just adds more unhappiness and does no good at all. — His holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
The good news and the bad news:
Much ado about HAPPINESS this sunny season. First, it’s summer… and that’s supposed to make instant Happy, right? No school. No alarm clocks. I am home with the kids for the summer, and that’s a really happy thing. For me. Mostly. The kids however are having a harder time keeping their happy on. I mean, it’s HOT, right? And everything EASY FUN to do equals money, it seems. It’s a challenge. Things that seems perfectly fun to me are met with “groan, not today….” So, I am trying to just let it be. I am also attempting to pursue some ideas even when met with the gripes, in hope that it’ll catch on.
Me? I am totally into the “life’s too short” thing right now. It is hard to balance the things that bring happy with the things that ought to be done category though. I had a huge fit of battle with this incongruence after we got home form the beach. On vacation, even with kids along 
, there is a great deal of “scheduled enjoyment.” You plan meal times, walks, beach time, sightseeing… all (hopefully)without the crap of life. You come home and POW! the normal crap du jour is waiting plus whatever you avoided while away. I tend to get way bogged down in that. I am trying to get better at NOT.
Here’s my plan for penniless joy. I am trying to give this a place in my ocd list of the day. ( You make those too, right?) To list the billions of things that I want to get done, and to include some joy. I never do that. It’s usually what is allowed after the list is exhausted for the day.
This is all very shorthand– You can fill it out and make it meaningful for you.
The PLAN
~BE in beauty
~Notice what’s right in front of you. All of it.
~Do something NEW. Learn a new something. See a new something.
~Read
~BE with a friend, or someone you love.
~Count yer blessings. Really.
~MAKE. Create. Art. Something useful. Something awesome. Something good to eat.
~ Be inspired.
~ Change something. Make it better. Or just different.
This is a work in progress. I’ll let you know how it goes. Please– let me know if you have any summer home-runs… I’d be glad of it!
I’ll leave it with this…
“Sounding the same call for joy whenever possible, the Hebrew sages say that when you are first welcomed into Heaven, a record is revealed to you of all the many times in your past when you could really have been happy and really enjoyed some moment but failed to do so, and then you are called to repent of each and every one of those moments.”
THE P.S.
Oh my STARS! It has taken me a week to write this one damn post! In the meantime I have had a stomach/gi virus that is just killing me! So I am getting caught up on lying around, and doing some baby knitting, and I just started a book last night called The Geography of Bliss– One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Place in the World. I’d picked it up at the library last visit along with some travel books to research all of the travel that isn’t happening this summer. The book is pretty great thus far…
Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, has covered a multitude of catastrophes and maladies from more than 30 countries over the past two decades. For The Geography of Bliss, however, he decided to tell the other side of the story by visiting some of the world’s most contented places. his site
It’s funny and thoughtful and often wise. I was drawn to it immediately because I ( and many of my dearest) have had so many years of “happiness resides in _____, and we just need to find a way to move there.” Fill in your choice– you probably know what I mean. So if you have fits of that sort of thinking, or are having a little wanderlust epizootie, like myself, you may want to check it out.
I think Jimmy said it best–
So, wow, it is zipping along, this summer. Four and a bit of weeks left until I return to the Montessori Kid Factory.
I’ve been so crappy about taking pictures and blogging.
Here are a few shots from the road thus traveled. Be on the lookout for more soon. And flying pigs, probably.
I will do my best!
Shangriladidah on 94th st.
Lily’s learns to KNIT!
The new family member– Bob the budgie– bequeathed to us by the neighbor Bob, who is not a budgie. Here is the Bantam pecker who roams his yard, is NOT our pet, and drives all of Reisterstown crazy.
The Mid Atlantic Hedgehog Show
Both girls got awesome ribbons for being awesome Jr. handlers. It was a fun day. Sort of like a hedgehog pageant and olympics rolled into one!
The Artscape and peanut adventures ( see Jim for more)
Lastly, here’s Punkin all doozied-up.
Love this song. Get’s stuck in my head like a much needed anthem.
Funny my fingers are all cracked and ouchy from so much dyeing. I do wear gloves… one of lifes great mysteries I guess.
Happy Friday.
Good To BE.
Well I am fighting with a cold… It is keeping those new pics delayed for another day… but I wanted to get the giveaway going. I promise those pics tomorrow! I have been so hard at work on fiber for this weekend.
Gnomegarden was featured on the HYP website today. I am getting so excited for Sunday! Here are the details on the great big giveaway–
Just leave a comment here telling me what your dream yarn or fiber would look like– You can describe it literally, or by mood, or color, or metaphor. You can post a picture or reference that you’d like to see inspire a yarn, I am game for anything. Here’s the deal. I will choose a winner at random next weekend ( so that all the new friends from this weekend get a shot). The winner will get that yarn or fiber created for them. At least 4oz of squooshy love from the gnomegirl! You don’t have to be present at the Yarn Party– though I will be so glad if you come. I may also award a honorable mention purely subjectively on the comment that most inspires my yarny heart.
Ok, that’s all for tonight. Please try to make it to Savage Mill on Sunday if you can– there will be so much crafty wonderment to behold. Please say “hi” and introduce yourself if we have not met before!
More tomorrow!
Dawn
Oh, poor abandoned blog o’ mine.
Jim is giving us a make-over. He’ll be adding more goodies in the next few days. Thanks from the bottom of my Valentine candy heart, Jimmy!
It’s late and I don’t have time for much. I’ve missed the internets and my webbed friends.
SO much life. Once I was enmeshed in the great-blog-break, it was like when I fall behind on corresponding with a friend– I keep waiting for that perfect time to sit and pen an epic missive, catching up on all that has passed. and waiting. and waiting.
How about just some pictures for tonight?
From The Holidays– I have so much to be thankful for. I had the gift of time spent with my family– here and at the beach with mom and sisters and tribes.
Here are a few wonders of the season to share~
The most gnomely window decoration of all time from my darling Erin. Lordy, how I adore it.
Gloriously sparkly and teeny-tiny decorations from my friend Jen the most excellent hat maker. Please visit her shop for felted hat amazement!
A beeswax gnome candle which I shall enjoy forever, because how on earth could I light his head aflame!?
The most adorable gnome and cookies from my ravelry gnomesap partner.
Thank you friends, I treasure them all!
I have been knitting a bunch in between the busy.
A bunch of Holiday gifts.
Also, some gnomish gifts–
saartje’s booties– a really great pattern for little feet.
a gnome set for a sweet little baby, newly hatched.
and my gnome contribution to the swap.
This was the Holiday of window-stars too. I have given most of them away, but here is one that stayed. I am ever thankful to my sister Sharney for once teaching me to make these.
I have much to catch up on. I have gotten a good start during the ice-age of the Mid Atlantic region. Jim did so much of the shoveling… I sewed crazily small clothing for kids dolls, and got a little centered.
The poppets made a snow-hotel out front, about 3 feet of snow overtop of where my garden patiently waits for Spring and the great thaw.
Mighty Jim shoveled the driveway, like with a SHOVEL. That is so. much. snow.
I am slowly getting organized again and I am in a mad-mental-frenzy of new fiber-work. The physical part will commence this week.
More news from Snowlandia soon! Stay warm and let me know if you’d like a room in the hotel! Room are cheap!!
