Author: becauseidrift

I had planned on making 2 bowls out of clay in the shape of the third graders hands,

but then when I tried to turn the bowls out of the mold the hands broke into several pieces.  So I was in a panic.  I called Mary, my cousin, and explained that I was sorry but I would not be able to finish these bowls for the PTO auction the following Saturday.  Nothing like waiting till the last-minute.

What a puzzle!

With Marys help we were able to put all of the hands back together to make 30 individual hands.  Then to the kiln for firing.  A couple of days later Mary came back to help me glaze them and back in to the kiln they went.

Now What?

I thought ok…. a mosaic.  What can I do with thirty broken hands.  How am I ever going to
make it look good.  I mean, especially for an Auction.  I found a board in my She Shack that was already cut.  It was about 4’x 18″and had a fish drawn on it.  Of course, I took it from another project I was thinking about.  I laid out my idea.  A flower pot with the saying “Growing Knowledge One Hand at a Time” with the hands being the flowers.  After,  laying the whole thing out, I snapped a quick picture and sent it to Morgan, my daughter.

No one will buy that…

is what Morgan told me.  It is too unorganized.  You need to keep thinking about it.  Heart break…I had been working on the placement for several hours so that each hand had the special place on the board.  “Okay” was all I said and turned the lights off on my shed and walked out.

I took a second look a the design laid out.

The problem was there wasn’t enough space to make it work.  Thirty pottery hands looked crazy coming from the pot I had created.  I could cut another board to make it work or needed a new design.

The next morning I woke up with a new design.

This is what I call divine intervention.   I know that all my gifts are from above.  I also know that God speaks to me in my sleep.  Whenever, I am in a quandary.  I always sleep on it because the answers miraculously appear in my mind in the morning.  I am not going to go as far as to say all my problems are solved but I will say, I always have clarity.

Just a tree.

A large grand tree with the third graders hands as leaves.  There is enough room to make this design and with Marys help we can make it happen.

Final note…

Don’t give up. Keep working through whatever you are doing.  Things may turn out better than you may have imagined. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or for an opinion.  There are people in your life that are willing to help if you ask.  And remember to always thank those who have helped you on your journey.

Thank you…

Mary for your help and friendship.  Sarah for allowing me to be apart of this project and to Morgan for always being brutally honest.  Last but not least to James for building me the She Shack and allowing me to enjoy it. Love you all!!!!

And to Brooke for teaching me how to get around in this program.  I am so computer illiterate.

What should I do today?

Hmm. Mosaics? No. Redo my bedroom? No. Make a concrete top for my table? No, and thus I drift. I think the drifting started when I was in elementary school. I never finished an assignment.   I was that kid. You know the one who had their own desk in the principals’ office. From the time I was in the third grade I had to go sit with the principal while I finished my homework from the day before. He and I we were friends or at least that’s what I thought. I really had no idea that was supposed to be punishment.

It was during my time in elementary,

that I was exposed to my first art class. I had to go to summer school for reading and since I was there my mother enrolled me into an art class. I am pretty sure everyone at summer school with me thought that having to go to school in the summer was the worst thing ever, but I thought it was fun. We made dough out of bread and glue and molded them into roses. We also did block printing using a linoleum block, and I made a clowns face. When I went to junior high school it was so much of the same. The teacher would say turn to page one and I turned to doodling. I would doodle pages and pages of nonsense. My note taking looked like the rough draft of a coloring book. I had drifted in every class all day, everyday.

With that said,

I am pretty much like that today. If I am doing dishes all these thoughts of what I could be doing run through my head. Two hours later with my dishes still in the sink, I am holding my next best newest project in hand. I walk in the house and go “OH! I really need to get the dishes done before James Schwartz walks in so he thinks I did something today before lunch”.

James is my husband.

My person, the reason I am happy and able to do what I do. I married him right out of college and have been married to him for 28 years. He has learned to live with my crazy drifting. In some ways he has contributed to it. When we were first married I couldn’t wait to open my present at Christmas thinking I was getting a piece of jewelry, only to open the box to a big blue Kitchen Aide Mixer. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mixer, but I really wanted jewelry. Year after year I waited for jewelry only to get some other tool. After four years I decided that if I was getting tools, I needed to start asking for the tools I wanted. Wha La…. A drifting beast was born. The first tool that I asked for and received from James wa
s an electric chain saw. I love it. I was so tired of waiting on SOMEONE to trim the oak trees in the front of my house. So, I became that someone. I plugged my chainsaw in and started cutting the unwanted branches. It was truly the best gift I had received. Over the years I have received some pretty awesome gifts. Yes they are tools and yes I use them all and yes they help me drift.

Some people think of drifting as a negative thing…

that happens when you cannot pay attention to what’s really going on. I think of drifting as brainstorming. I get my best ideas when I should be doing something constructive or organized. I will tell you I am 54 and I am just now getting a handle on this whole drifting issue. It is totally ok to be different and it is ok to be me.

In the next blogs I invite you to drift along with me.