I am always amazed the variety and difficulty of the Round Tables offerings at Houseparties. Here are a few people searching through and shopping beforehand. Personally, I make it easy on myself and pretty much buy one of everything or in the case of Debbie Young's Washer and Dryer set, two of everything. I bought waaay to many kits but they were all lovely and I couldn't resist as usual. If only I actually finished the kits it would be okay but I just seem to collect them for projects I intend to do someday but someday doesn't seem to arrive. One of the funniest things was the Presidential Executive Washroom by Luci Hanson complete with a urinal with Presidential seal. I have no idea what to do with it, but I had to buy one!
For the Thursday Evening Workshop Set-up Donna Brewington presented Jane Payne with the special award of empty spray paint cans from the dozens of boxes she painted much to Jane's surprise and/or dismay! As we prepared for the onslaught of participants we enjoyed one last moment of laughter as a group that had counted, painted, cut and packaged tiny pieces for months.
The workshop was a full house and I think everyone had a great time in spite of the ballroom lighting. I had a great time having many of the participants who didn't finish come into Hospitality and finish up there. It's always exciting to me to see how people take the same container, the same instructions, the same components and come up with entirely different visions for their project. To me, that is the best part of miniatures -- the ability to express ourselves in ways that we never could in real life. I might not build a replica of the Oval Office in my house but I don't think twice about creating it in miniature and then decorating it to my own tastes and preferences or re-creating an actual office from a specific period of time.
Maybe I'm crazy (I've been called worse!) but I think a lot of what is wrong with society today is the lack of personal expression. People spend all their time earning money to spend on pre-created items in pre-created packages and they never touch their inner creativity to develop something themselves.
They never discover for themselves what it is to develop something and be unhappy with it and tear it apart and start over again and again until they get it right. To problem solve how to make the trim look to scale or make the draperies hang properly. They never discover the joy of "doing" and in so discovering find the joy of being. Creating something of beauty or interest from something that is normally considered garbage and looking at things with an entirely different eye is the greatest stress reliever of all!
The exception to that being , of course, when I am desperately trying to clean my Workroom and find myself debating over whether or not to throw out a minuscule piece of wood, fabric, etc.
I should have worked on my work room this weekend more than I did. I cleaned out a few boxes, but still have so much more to go through. This weekend, instead of being trapped in my windowless room, my family and I went to North Carolina to an apple orchard - SkyTop - and picked apples. The day was absolutely glorious and the sky the most brilliant blue. The apples, red, yellow and green and all mixtures and shades in between, were so heavy on the branches it was a miracle that they did not break under their weight. We walked along and picked and talked and taste-tested the apples until finally I just had to sit down and enjoy the view. Take in the scents and sights and sounds of the moment. The crunch and juiciness of a crisp red skin with white apple flesh
while the heat of the sun shown down and the shouts of children in the distance as they ran through the orchard.
I find the older I get the more time I take to observe the minute details of the ordinary things that make life so precious. It is the juice of the apple as it drips down your chin, the stickiness on your hand, the sun on your skin, the light in a loved ones eye and the squeak of the wheel on a wagon that makes a memory.
We picked apples as we went. Talking, taking our time. And each day, as I have taken my apple to snack on at work and I eat my apple inside my office with it's air conditioning and tight windows, I can smell the outside air and feel the hard ground underneath with me each crispy bite. Anyone want an apple?
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