The Party's Over

It's approaching mid-day. Early NFL games are nearly to half time. Nearly everywhere according to the Weather Channel winter is here already, despite the fact the calendar shows it's still more than a week off. Here, in the Sierra Foothills, it's coldly raining and has been all night and morning. The lake out back is filling and looking more and more with each hour like a bathtub about to overflow. I just switched the control to 'on' hoping a bit of heat takes the 'chill' off the air and brings my fingers back from relative numbness. I'm 'writing' weak narrative about time and weather as the opening for this blog post, lamely attempting to avoid spilling my 'news' of the day, thinking I ought to have a hot breakfast, take my meds, put on warmer clothes, clean my kitchen, do some laundry, put away some Christmas decoration cartons and get out a couple more. Anything, really, but post my 'ugly' ornies and confess my 'perfectionist recovery' exercise experience.

Ok - an attack of responsibility at that stream of thought DID prompt me to get up from the computer and take my BP/heart meds.

The 'first wave' of steady rain started yesterday with only a brief rest in the middle of the night so it was a cold, dark, rainy night to travel through to the site of the ugly ornament party. My driver was a brave and stubborn soul to come for me and convey me to the gathering. Few others braved the weather, choosing instead I'm sure to stay cozy and dry under the roofs of their toasty warm shelters, thereby reducing the sense of 'competition' I'd anticipated for the night. Good thing for me because my confidence needed 'life support'. After much anxiety about purposely making something UGLY, lack of ideas and frustration at the do-ability of ideas that finally came to me I was then surprisingly slammed into obstacles of equipment and tool malfunctions, shortage, lack and just plain poor quality materials. The only glue sticks I could put my hands on were producing abundantly string-y bonds, colors of 'craft' chennille pipe cleaners were inappropriate (where did THOSE come from?), I had NO actual glitter, 'glitter paint' (what WAS I doing with THAT anyway?) that looked gold in the container was merely pastel yellow on white plastic no matter how many coats applied and then the multiple coats remained 'tacky' and just would NOT dry. HOW was I going to 'save' ANYTHING worthy of even GOING to the party at all?????

I mean, REALLY!

My sarcastic, smart aleck, defiant 'self' started bending chenille sticks into letters spelling out u-g-l-y. I did it in all four colors - red, purple, school bus yellow and baby blue (again, where DID those COME from?) - I'd found and carefully spaced them in the shape of a circle on my table, hoping while my hands were busy my brain would come up with a better idea. It didn't. The string-y hot glue frustrated me enough that I stopped at two.
I thought I'd make them EVEN TACKIER with glitter but found none. (what craft-y gal has NO glitter? Later, relaying my disappointment by phone to Dearest Darlin', HE tells me there are vials of glitter in HIS toolbox. HOW'S THAT?! Who'd have thunk it?)

I did however find 'glitter paint' I remember having gotten for my girlfriend and neighbor's kids to use at my house eons ago. AHA! My daughter who was kicking off a short term career with some semi-homemade food/goodies company as a home party distributor when she visited last summer had left behind a baggie of some taster spoons I had no use for but hadn't yet tossed out. Those might make some kind of snowflake, I thought, and so arranged them for gluing. My resulting white plastic snowflake made of spoons and a water bottle cap I thought MIGHT be made UGLY enough to be a 'contender' by over-embellishing with the glitter paint, sequins and glass/plastic jewels. It really did LOOK gold in the bottle, so when it was only pale baby yellow when applied I thought just putting on MORE would be better. UGH! It never REALLY adhered and didn't get fully dry. But I was out of time. Further deliberation kept begging the question, WHAT does one DO with a YELLOW snowflake?????
Aaaaaargh! One. Yellow. Snowflake. I couldn't see making some joke of it relative to the warning about never eatting yellow snow. BUT...and this was when I realized the same God who made us in His image to create, has a fabulous sense of humor. And I took up a pen and wrote out the message I felt was imparted to me in the midst of my frustration. If you're one of the sentimentally religious folk who think of rain as 'God's' or 'Heaven's Tears' I warn you, stop reading now - you're liable to be offended.

The tag I strung on the yellow snowflake said: "This Yellow Snowflake is your sign: Hell HAS frozen over, and God is PISSED!"

It's Party Season

Exercise in 'perfectionist recovery' is on the calendar for tomorrow. Well, the 'exercise' part of it comes today. I've been procrastinating and was actually intending on totally avoiding the exercise altogether until a message from a friend quite forcefully manipulated me into it. Tomorrow is the ONE holiday 'party' of the season totally accessible to me - it's free, no bar tab or meal to buy because it's at a friend's home instead of a bar/restaurant and no live music I'd be susceptible to the urge I can't respond to to dance. And this manipulative friend of mine said she's coming to pick me up so the lack of current registration on my vehicle that keeps me house bound isn't an issue. The event? My friend, Tammi's, 2nd Annual UGLY Ornament party.

I didn't go last year despite the fact that everyone in my circle of friends did. I may have had other plans, or company...I don't remember. I think though, it was simply the requirement that everyone attending was to bring a handmade, UGLY ornament, to exchange with prizes for the 3 ugliest. I just couldn't get into the idea of making something UGLY on purpose.

And I didn't even yet know THEN that my 'word for the year' for 2009 was going to be 'Beauty'! But I wonder now if the thoughts seeded into my soul regarding the resistance to purposefully creating something UGLY helped crystalize the 2009 word of the year choice. Hmmmmm...ya think?

I'm completely amused that in this week that I'm mulling on my choice of word for the new year (and have, in fact, mentally chosen already unless 'life' - which as John Lennon said is what happens while you're making OTHER plans - somehow causes me to change my mind before 12:59 pm December 31st) that I get assaulted with a circumstance ABSOLUTELY in opposition to my current year's focus word. Isn't it ironic? Where does this go in the list of possible 12-steps for Perfectionists Anonymous recovery?

Oh, and the 'condition' for my ride to the party? I'm to make not just one, but TWO ugly ornaments - my own and one for my 'driver'. Recovering Perfectionist Dilemma #2: do I make hers a bit less ugly than MINE, hoping to WIN???? After all, perfectionists are competitive as well, are we not?

TA DA! Tuesday #11

TA-DA! I'm sitting at my desk and I WILL post SOMETHING this morning and cross my fingers and HOPE someone else comes by and has a comment to share that is more significant and more triumphant than I can manage today.

I'm grumpy and discouraged. I started about 3 additional blog posts since last Tuesday's TA-DA!, but do you see them here???? NO!

I tried to get into Wishcasting Wednesday - what do you wish to say Yes to, I think it was - but even after reading some really fine wishes and casting an affirmative agreement with the wisher, I just couldn't get into the spirit of it. One of those little voices, you know the ones that get portrayed on TV commercials and in old movies sitting on opposite shoulders speaking directly in one's ear, anyway - one of those, kept telling me wishing was a trick writers use in fairy tales and involve genies and bottles or fairy godmothers and unless you believe in all that malarkey if you desire something you might consider wishing you just have to make the concentrated effort necessary. So, all my efforts at wishing rose like little soap bubbles and then one by one got POPPED as if they;d collided with prickly cactus.

On Thursday I began a post amid stalled progress and the paralyzing effect of perfectionism driven procrastination on getting my family room drapery done and realized as I was writing that I could and ought to be just sewing and steaming and hanging the durn things instead of writing about it. So I deleted what I'd begun and started a new post intended to motivate myself with an invitation to a virtual visit, welcoming you inside. And then I had to laugh at myself over that one! Me, the self confessed decor magazine addict. HA! I was no sooner going to finish and hang that drapery than I was going to have to jar the entire image by putting an eyesore piece of furniture into the MOST PROMINANT spot in that room in order to make space in the OTHER room to begin moving my 'studio' to its new location in order to accomodate Darlin's kin when they come here to live.

Then, Sunday, I was going to blog about ironic stumbling blocks. I was reduced to tears and mumbling swear words because I couldn't manage with my arthritic fingers to switch my vacuum cleaner from floor pickup to the hose attachment for upholstery and clearing cobwebs from the ceiling corners. During the prior week I had moved a loveseat - not heavy but bulky - without any assistance from the front room into the bedroom after much struggle. Getting it through the narrow bedroom door was like birthing a breech baby - it had to be stood up on one arm in a hallway, guided 'round a corner and then carefully slipped through an opening that no amount of laboring was going to make any bigger. I had also moved our MONSTER weight - comparable to a Volkswagon, okay, I exaggerate a little but it is about the size and weight of my ex's old Harley Lowrider - antique clamshell sleeper sofa, back and forth across the family room 3-4 times (like pushing that ol' Harley UPHILL out of gas) before finally admitting defeat and recognizing I could not have it, a hexagonal 60 inch mahogany 'game table' w/chairs AND the eyesore sofa necessary to incorporate into the room AND the recliner and two occasional chairs thus having to then remove the table top and its pedestal base. I'd done all that shuffling about - moved the big eyesore sofa from the front room to the family room - and I CLEARLY recall when the eyesore got put into the front room it had taken two hefty 20-something year old guys to get it there - all by myself. Plus unloaded, moved and re-loaded and over full 6 foot tall book case and now I couldn't slide a FLIPPIN' SWITCH on the vacuum without the assistance of a screw driver or pliers?!?!

Then yesterday I called 'home' to check on my sister and then intended after getting a report to call Mom at the nursing home and whaddya know but Mom answered the phone at the house! She'd come home from the nursing home last Wednesday and NOBODY had told me! I felt like the kid skipped over while on a bathroom break when birthday treats got passed out in grade school.

So...it may sound like a stretch but it really, really is a TA-DA! just to post a blog for me today. What's yours?

Avoidance/Procrastination by Another Name

Today I'm creating - - - - - PILES!

That's my psuedonym/alternate label I'm choosing to asign for the too-familiar perfectionist tactic of avoidance/procrastination I'm recognizing as I sort and stack materials for projects I have to get done before the 2d Saturday from now. I've even resorted to my long favored drink/drug of choice - rearranging furniture, when what I need to deal with are boxes, papers, ribbon, wire, sheets and the tools I'll need to turn all this 'stuff' into objects of beauty, preferably breathtaking beauty for 40th birthday party decorations (centerpieces for the banquet and seating tables and a faux version of a stunning french sculpture focal point for the stage adjoining the dance floor). But, the two chairs on the 'library' wall of the family room REALLY do look much cozier with a smaller table/chest between them so two folks sitting there would almost touch knees instead of 6+ feet between them! And the rustic 6 foot long sofa table I had between them REALLY is 'JUST RIGHT' behind the sofa now!

I think anxiety must be exponentially multiplied when a currently recovering perfectionist attempts to do 'work' for another dyed in the wool perfectionist. I was flattered and deeply honored when my dear friend asked my help in preparing for her big 4-0 birthday, in large part due to the fact that I know what a perfectionist she is and therefor her asking me is in fact quite the compliment. I know her desire is for something out of the ordinary and it means something to her to have it done with 'love' in it, rather than buying assembly line manufactured/packaged goods, even though she could well afford to do that considering the spare no expense attitude evidenced thus far in the supplies she's hauled in. Would you ever think of gift wrapping with scrapbook papers????

------wishing I had company for coffee and a chat or it'd be lovely to have a dinner and a movie date for Julie & Julia.