Some hiking and some thoughts

In addition to some rambles in the interior of my brain, here are some pictures from a recent hike in the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.  Up high!  I love this hike.

So I’ve been sitting here this evening putting a layer of Mod Podge on a project I’m working on (not a fast process, this one) and thinking about things.  I like the meditative quality of crafting.  It doesn’t really matter sometimes what you’re doing, just sitting and doing and thinking and in my case, I’m usually listening to Pandora.  Speaking of, did you know Pandora is in danger of having to shut down because the federal government is charging internet broadcasters higher per-song rates than they do satellite or radio broadcasters?  This has me pretty steamed.  Muxtape has already closed down.

That’s a good example of what I’m thinking about.  It seems sometimes that there are about 1,000,000 things that bother me, and make me feel as though I should do something about them.  Most of the people I know have a similar problem - they’re concerned about social justice, the foibles of political systems, animal rights, the internet,  censorship, freedom of religion, questions of what art is and isn’t, gay rights, personal freedoms and civil rights, funding for scientific and medical research, the state of the ecosystem, etc. etc.  Some people I know are concerned about a lot of these or even all of them.

About a decade ago I started getting overwhelmed, and I decided that I needed to pick my battles.  I can’t go out and throw myself into everything that bothers me (though I’d like to).  Do I write my congressman about things?  Yup.  Do I work at a social justice/healthcare nonprofit? Yup.  Do I contribute to things and volunteer?  Yup. I have my things that I am concerned about and I couldn’t do *nothing*, but it’s not everything. I pick the things I can do something about at a given time in my life and do something about those.

From time to time, I change my mind about what to be concerned about.  Sometimes it’s more animals than medical, sometimes it’s more political than other times, sometimes it’s something random.  I definitely have a lot of opinions (about everything, all the time).  I also definitely believe that’s what they are - opinions.  If I think something, I don’t think you must think it, too.  If I do something to follow the dictates of my conscience, I don’t think others around me should necessarily do it too.  I think they should decide for themselves.  I’m a believer in everyone believing what they feel is right.  I have respect for people I agree with and people I don’t agree with equally.  I don’t agree with all my friends on things.  Mostly, I just prefer that people think about things.

Oddly (for me) I decided I would try being vegetarian last week.  I read yet another thing about stuff they do to animals in the meat processing plants, and it upset me, and I felt last-strawish about it.  I believe it was antibiotic injections for large populations that are causing antibiotic resistance in humans.  Sometimes I feel hypocritical for having pets and eating chickens.  Who said pets have a right to live and a chicken doesn’t?  Is it like Denis Leary, who once opined that some animals are preferred because they do “cute little things with their hands?”  I feel weird about being vegetarian, because my grandfather raised beef cattle all his life (and chickens and pigs). But he didn’t do nasty things to his animals, either.

Anyway, that’s the kind of things that wander through my head when I’m crafting.  I sit and paint and mod podge and sometimes cook and my brain churns out things for me to think about.  Plus, I got abruptly tired of all the reality TV and the fake news last week and canceled my cable, so I have a lot more thought time right now, too. Chances are I’ll end up with too much thought time and will start listening to NPR.  It’s times like these when I don’t want to watch something that I wish the old radio programs were still on.

Hope y’all are having a lovely week.  Keep your fingers crossed that I can get something - anything! - finished on my crafting agenda sometime.  It would be nice.

Jewelry design: wood

I would like to be able to carve wood.  And make more soap.  And dye, spin and weave.  But at the moment, none of those are particularly reasonable things to wish for, given the current number of projects I’m already neck deep in.  But at least it shows I’m not so tired of crafting anymore.

I’m pretty sure I still need a long vacation from work, but I do seem to be drawing myself slowly out of my recent funk.  Maybe it was the Omega-3’s I’ve been taking.  Maybe it’s that our high was only in the nineties today.  Maybe it was the Halloween swap I joined.  Oh, yes, I’m past ready for August to be gone.

Luckily, there’s such a thing as Etsy, where I can go find all of the things I only wish I could make, all conveniently available for purchase.  I have no idea what my life was like before Etsy.  Did I seriously buy jewelry elsewhere?  Carved wooden earrings with wooden posts are so much more interesting.  I didn’t even know you could buy wooden post earrings.  I’d like to borrow the woman who makes the earrings on the top right and have her show me how she does that.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom …

Roots Mahogany earrings. By Orno. Orno’s web shop is full of things I want to own with lovely photos.

Treasure Bird Cameo Wooden earrings by Genevieve Gail. Much pretty whimsical-ness here.

Chocolate Brown Wooden Filigree earrings by Designed by RJ. I love her colored wooden filigree.

Empress Wooden Hoops by Organic Love. Check out the posts on her earrings.

Ebony Wood Square earrings by Apartment 49. Lovely clean modern designs.

Daisy in the Woods carved wooden earrings by Lori Jaclyn’s Jewels.

Crossword earrings by Segmental (Russell Brown). A woodworker specializing in segmented wooden turnings gets inspired by a love of crosswords!

Wooden beads on large hoops by Mosaicroro. Many different beads, including yarn covered, available.

Tri Wood earrings by Uzumaki. She makes earrings for those with metal allergies/sensitivities.

Ridiculously Cute: Chewbacca Mouse

Since it’s Friday, and I found something that’s quite beyond ridiculously cute, I had to share it. Presenting Chewbacca Mouse from The House of Mouse on Etsy (via the Park Bench, my favorite nerdy women blog).

I always did love Chewbacca.