A Bit of Rambling

I have bags upon bags of folded fabrics in random boxes in my bedroom. Organizing them is one of my many forthcoming projects. They have been multiplying over the years, as I buy fabric that I think I can't live without (on sale, probably) with the intent to make some garment out of it later, or I begin a sewing project with gusto and never make it past prewashing the fabric. Before we moved from Texas, my fabric collection took on a new flavor. My Mema was one who saved fabric, too. (Of course, she made quilts out of her scraps, which I aspire to do one day; hence, the fabric hoarding.) You know how some people have the strangest collections? They collect odd things that you would never have thought of collecting, and you wonder for the life of you why on earth they collect these things...rolling pins, suspenders, tea kettles, PEZ dispensers...you get the idea. Well, I guess if I were so inclined, I might collect vintage fabrics. So before we moved from Texas, I took the opportunity to go through my late Mema's sewing cabinets to claim any treasures I might have a use for or a sentimental attachment to. No one else in my family is inclined to sew or quilt, etc., so the unclaimed goods will likely remain as I left them that day until Dandy goes on to be with Mema one of these days. Among her things were, of course, many folded pieces of "material," as she would have called it. Many of them were pieces I recognized from Easter dresses gone by, or what not. And many of them were hideously outdated with a splash of funk. I saw potential in these gems and saved them from certain death. I can't even describe them, they were so varied and bizarrely printed. (I only wish I could flash back to a time when they were new so I could understand why they were sold in the first place.) One such piece was retrieved from my stash tonight while on a hunt to find fabric suitable to make Ava some new long-sleeved bibs (the slicky coating on her store-bought "raincoat" bib is peeling badly now, and it seems that no one carries a long-sleeved bib now). It's sort of beige (probably originally white or off-white) with an orange print of trees and medieval-looking minstrels, some on horseback with a lyre, some on foot playing something resembling an oboe, you get the idea. So I said to Britt, "Hey, here we go...a happy fabric with traveling minstrels." To which he replied, "You know, we always say 'traveling minstrel'. Why are minstrels always traveling? I guess a stationary minstrel would be a town troubadour." Funny how vintage fabric can inspire such an odd realization.

Pain and Resurrection

Here I sit in utter disbelief that a blocked tear duct can cause one so much pain. I think I coped better with birthing labor than I am coping right now. I just hope I can go to sleep tonight in spite of my throbbing eye (and that the problem will magically go away). According to some medical web sites, blocked tear ducts generally affect only infants and are very uncommon among non-elderly adults. I always find a way around these laws of nature. My body just hears "very uncommon" and decides it would be novel to acquire said problem. It is so unnerving! Now that I have read that it can be cause for concern to have chronic blockage of the lacrimal system (or something like that), I will of course be preoccupied by the possibility of damage to my eyesight if this is left untreated, or worse, by fear that a tumor is causing it. Just what I need--a tumor in my head mucking up my tear ducts. Way to go Body. Way to get a detrimental uncommon malady this time. I am feverishly attempting to discover recommended doctors on our insurance plan, but of course the DocFind feature on their web site is horrendous. I finally got tired of scrolling through the options around number 352. Enough!

On a lighter note, I am still reeling from the miraculous clock resurrection that took place in our dining area earlier this week. I have had this cheapo clock for so long that I can't even remember if it jumped on my life's journey wagon in 1997 when I signed my first apartment lease or in 1999 when I married Britt and set up house in the good ol' Fleetwood. It's just a five dollar Wal-Mart jobber. Anyway, from time to time it would quit, so I just replaced the battery and that seemed to do the trick. Well, during the past year it has seemed to quit regardless of battery strength, but before we would take time to pitch it in the trash where it seemingly belongs, it would start up again and seem to keep good time. So time and time again it has earned the right to continue on the journey. This time I felt sure it was dead for good. It hung there motionless for so many days that I finally retrained my brain NOT to look up there to note the time. Then one evening this week Britt says to me, "Oh, I see you got the clock working again." I glanced at the wall, and sure enough the thing was tictocking right along. Nothing unusual there. But when I said, "No, I didn't do it," Britt said, "Huh. Well, it's set right. That's odd. Do you mean it started back up at the exact right time? You're kidding me." He honestly thought I was kidding him. I was as amazed as he was! That's one of those things that would never happen again in a million years. I guess the ol' Ingraham has bought itself some more time on our wall.

Pondering

This quote grabbed me at Barnes & Noble yesterday. It's hard to wrap my brain around.

"Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity--the courage to live by grace." - George Santayana

Scrapbooking...again

Well, I'm back at it. Gearing up to scrapbook, that is. (It seems funny to me to use the word "scrapbook" as a verb. I think the veterans of the hobby would say "scrap" rather than "scrapbook" when used as a verb, at least some of them.) I think my fascination with scrapbooking began about three years ago, maybe more, but I haven't actually ever "scrapbooked" anything. I've never actually completed a layout. Nope. Not even one. I bought some materials back when my interest was piqued so many years ago, and I started making a really neat mosaic-style layout of pictures from Christmas. It was looking very impressive for a first try, and I would have been proud of it if I had ever glued the pictures down. Back then it was common for us to have to clear off the kitchen table in a big hurry because we were having people for dinner or someone was coming over who wasn't allowed to know how messy we are, so my carefully arranged pieces eventually got shuffled as they were whisked away at some point. Everything ended up in some container somewhere in my sewing room. The reason I took up the effort back then is I knew we would have a child at some point in the foreseeable future, and I wanted to get my practicing years out of the way before I had a child's life to document. Everyone makes fun of her first attempts or says how much better they've gotten at scrapbooking over the years. So didn't want my first baby to have a dumb-looking book and all the other children to have really creative works of art. So I decided to sabotage my general family photos during the childless years. That was all scrapped, in a much different sense of the word, and I have no idea where all my supplies are now.

Back in May 2004, I sat in front of this very computer joining an online scrapbooking community in hopes of learning from the more experienced "scrappers" and finding some inspiration. My firstborn (age six months) was in the next room. I had yet to scrap a single thing. Some friendly woman from the group sent me a box of baby-related scrapbook supplies that she would never need, which was great! But we were on the cusp of a major cross-country move (with a baby), and that was no time to begin scrapping. We have been in Virginia now for six months this week. (Wow...six months already!?) My daughter is just shy of fifteen months, toddling, talking, and sprouting molars like crazy, and yet I have only pictures. Envelope after envelope of pictures. Hundreds of pictures! And not one scrapbook page.

So I have made up my mind that February is the month that the first page will be finished. It probably won't be the mosaic I started so many years ago, as I have no earthly idea where it is now! And it won't be any of Ava's pictures because I don't want to do stupid to anything that will appear in her memory book. My goal is to transfer all the pictures of when we were young and just dating, traveling, getting married, etc. from the horrible, evil, yellowing-already magnetic album into a modern acid-free album where they belong. I have purchased the basics that I didn't already have, and I'm on the hunt for the past purchases lurking around here undiscovered, so I'm almost ready. I even have a scrap buddy lined up. It's time to jump in and get scrappin'! For February, I will settle for getting the ball rolling at long last. I've been touching the water with my toe long enough.