We the hoarders

Hoarders!  We are a funny bunch. Nope. That's not the royal we. It's just an expression of hope that others like me exist. That I am not alone. And why do I think we are a funny bunch? Because we manage to complicate our lives with things that are meant to simplify it and bring joy and peace. We hoard passions!! Can you believe that? That's right. Hoard passions!! I have these bazzilion things I feel the need to learn and do and I have absolutely no idea where to start. So, what do I do?? Well....what I do is drift around aimless and rudderless like a dandellion and land in some random place the wind happens to drop me. But again, nothing in my world is permanent. Not even my passions. So when I have barely started to explore the whole new world I have just landed in, I start to dream of and long for other new experiences and adventures and needless to say I am on my way there even before I know it. And once I am on my way, I long to go back where I came from and explore some more. But then I am already curious about the place I am going to......and this helplessness leads to stress and craziness (my husband can vouch for that part :))

So, what exactly is it that I love doing? Good question. Maybe this is my chance to figure things out for myself. Let's think about it. Well....hmm....so.....I....err....well....where do I start?! Ok, here you go and this is in no particular order of preference. I love to sew, knit, crochet, embroider. I love to play with clay. I love paper crafts (make my own greeting cards and lamp shades and that kind of stuff you know). I love to dance, I love to sing. I love to play the Violin (but I am no expert, not even close. I just started learning. ). I love to make toys for my daughter, nephew and niece. I love to play with Photoshop. I love Psychology.  I love to write.  I love drawing and painting. I love cooking.  I love photography. 

Now some people might call this creativity and talent but believe me when I say it's a curse. A very sadistic and rude joke. I can't so much as look at a matchstick without an idea pop into my head.  And do I ever get around to working on any of these projects? I have to, at this point, refer you to my very first post and then the third one. There lies the answer to the age old question,"Do I ever follow-up on my ideas".

I'm in love.....

There's been a new development in my life. I am in love. With 'X'. I have known X forever. Enjoyed X's company. X has been a part of my life for a long long time. My parents were always proud of my aquaintence with X. Not something that worried them. They were just happy for me. In fact they wanted me to take the relationship one step further and make a commitment. But I wasn't sure of that. Didn't want to commit to X. I loved Y more. Y was for me. But X has always been there. Stealthily lurking behind. Making sure to be there for me. At all times. And now I am in love with X too. Yeah! 'Too' which means I cannot get over my love with Y. Ever. But I know and believe that X and Y can co-exist. No trouble there....

Ok now people!! Don't start thinking up scandalous thoughts. Let me introduce you to X and Y before you go too far. Or maybe I should let you guess...hints anyone? Here you go. And these hints are a dead giveaway. Oh! BTW, no more grieving and lamenting over not being able to dance. It's just a silly little menescal tear and chondromalacia patella. I should be fit as a fiddle in a matter of months.

Sleeplessness

It's 3:30am. Why am I up? I have a long day ahead and I need the rest. I have a 3 year old to take care of. I need to wake up early in the morning and do what a good wife and mother does. Cook, clean, drive the husband and the daughter to work and school respectively. Sew. Pay bills. Study. Send e-mails about appointments I can't keep because something has come up.

Besides all of these, I have one very important thing to do. I have to chase my dreams. That in itself is a lot of work. Stressful. Especially when you are not even sure which dream to chase. Hard to keep doing when you are getting nowhere with any of them. I don't even know which of my dreams mean anything to me anymore. Like I said earlier, its OK to change one's mind. I think change is good. But there are 3 totally unrelated things in my life that I believe mean a lot to me. I am a dancer with a flare for designing and a very keen interest in Psychology. Life happened and I never got to get good at any of these. Now at 27, after being a housewife for 6 years, with a 3 year old doll for a daughter, here I am, up at 3:30 in the morning, wondering what to do with my life. Tough call. Especially for a person like me.... As of now, I think dancing is ruled out thanks to a busted knee, psychology will take forever and I doubt I have the bandwidth for that. So, I am just left with letting the designing 'bhoot' ride piggy-back on me and I sure do hope, this guy doesn't let go and fall off somewhere along the way.

Well...I guess writing helps. Two paragraphs earlier I was wondering what I was doing up so early. Now I not only know why I am up, but also what I want to do with my life. Wow! That's quite an achievement. Guess I'll just be happy with that for now and leave it at that.

Good(rest of the)night.....

It's OK to change your mind...

A very tiny wooden desk. A comfortable chair with a straight back. A notebook-just plain white sheets of paper. A bottle of turquoise ink. A fountain pen. This is how I would rather write. Where every thought, every emotion is captured. Forever. Where a thought cannot be 'backspaced'. Where I put down everything that I feel at that moment. I can change my mind and strike it off but it does not go away. It's not lost. The fact that I thought that thought remains and is there for me to see. Nothing to be sorry about. Nothing to be hidden. It's just a change of mind. I accept it, let it be and move on. I don't have to make it vanish into thin air as if it was never there. And if I do want to erase a recorded thought, it is a conscious well thought decision where I light a candle and hold the paper to the flame till it is all destroyed and then I get rid of the ashes. Much more complex than hitting a geometrical shape that tries to act like a button of sorts.

I just love the silence of a pen gliding over paper, spilling my thoughts. Without any distractions. Without the mindless chatter of the keyboard. Without the bright light shining in my face, the ads, the 'page layouts', the 'settings', the stress of remembering to 'save' the work. Writing blogs is so stressful for me that I invariably hit the wrong button thingie (whatever they are called) on the screen and lose everything. I hate the fact that I have to go back and type words again because my 'that' is 'taht' and I have 'typred' instead of 'typed'. I would never do that on paper.

So anyway, the point I am getting at is that I thought I would have this blog exclusively for my craft ideas but now I think I will start writing other stuff too (this and that, about life in general) coz I can't bear the thought of maintaining more than 1 blog. And if you hear nothing from my end for too long, that's because I have accidentally deleted something I totally loved and am not on talking terms with my desktop!! Since we have this innate hatred for each other, it takes us a really long time to forgive and forget :)

We, the vagabond minimalists...

Hmmm....so, we are vagabond minimalists. We hop across continents, and when we stay in a place for a few years, we move houses everytime our lease ends. Most people would find that painful but we like it. I know. We are weirdos. Our daughter is a bit confused about this whole process now but since she is a cleaniness freak (why do I say that about a 3 year old? That's got to be a whole new post!!) and the house is a big mess for a month before we move out, the joy and relief on her face when we do finally move into a clean empty house is a sight worth seeing. She thinks we moved because the house got too messy for us to handle :)

Anyway, it all works out in our favour. I get to do a lot of DIY stuff (sewing and artwork and interior decoration using pure unadulterated 'junk'). Hubby dearest gets to get rid of a lot of 'junk' (when I fail in my attempts to emotionally blackmail him to keep) and the little doll gets to redo her room all over again. We all get our way with a little bit of compromise thrown in for some flavor. And we all live happily ever after....ever after being until we move again :)

Anyway, at this point it must be really obvious that we don't own a house. So, I just do DIY projects and come up with ideas for each house based on what we already have there. Of all the houses we have lived in so far, one house had curtains and really heavy ones at that. I wanted to buy some curtain rings to pretty them up but we, as a rule try and address our 'wants' with things lying around the house. So, what did I use for curtain rings? Paper clips. Jumbo ones. With beads at the sharp ends to keep them from snagging the fabric.
Minimalistic and elegant.

Simple things....

We are minimalists...my husband and I. Which means we desperately try not to tread into the cursed forbidden territory of 'wants'. That is not to say that we always succeed. But we try. And we try hard. It goes without saying that my husband is better at it than me coz I am the artist. I see junk (defined as stuff that my husband would throw away in a millionth of a second with no regrets whatsoever) and I get ideas. I collect. I keep. For later......yeah! yeah! It's that same dude who never comes...but I wait and I wait in vain.....

Anyway, I wouldn't say that I never do anything with my ideas. I almost never do anything with them. And then there are those couple of moments here and there when I am overcome by motivation and inspiration and I end up putting some of the teeny tiny ideas to test and this blog is about those rare moments that almost never happen :)

Most of my ideas are original, some are inspired by others on the web, some are just an effortless modification of existing ideas.

So, here I go.....