feeding my spirit

i have been stuck in something of a creative rut lately. i have a few orders that are behind and try as i might, i really struggled to get anything done that i was happy with. stitch, unpick, stitch, unpick.

i met up with an incredibly creative friend, lovely stacy, who gave me some great advice. feed my spirit. put aside what i was stuck on and focus on feeding my spirit. genius! so i have been. the photo above, rangitoto island, was part of that. mark and i went for a few lovely early evening walks. how amazing is the auckland waterfront? we really don't make enough use of it, considering we live 3 minutes from it.

i also took on a creative project. i found a foot stool at an op-shop, and decided to recover it. here is the 'before'...

i had made a baby blanket for my exhibition that i didn't quite get finished. it was the perfect size for my foot stool...what do you think?

stacy was bloody well right - putting my work projects aside and being spontaneously creative was brilliant. i feel like my 'tank' has been filled up some more. corny, yes. true though. thanks stace. legend. by the way, the foot stool i made, but that fab cushion is by stacy.

in fact, i have been able to work further on my orders. phew. and on top of that, i have made a few plans for future projects. secret squirrel though. but in the meantime, i stitch stitch stitch away. i know i'm not doing 'tips for success' anymore, but if i was, it would be a carbon copy of stacy's advice.

so, until next time...kia kaha. stand strong.

warning: contains badass-ness

its 3.33 am. mark is asleep. the cats are asleep. there is no sleep for this brighteyed one (me) tonight. and i have been on a detox all week. i'm not feeling grumpy though, in fact, i feel pretty good. but it's because of i have two heaters on, a glass of whiskey to my right, and a head full of bad bad swear words to keep me happy.

in my hour and a half of trying to get to sleep tonight, i had the opportunity to reflect on comfort 'food'. i'm not really a sweet tooth kind of girl and i'm not really a shopping therapist kind anymore either. no. my comfort-seeking usually revolves around a good glass of whiskey - sigh - and harry potter, my ridiculously adorable cats and getting bad people in trouble. and swearing.

yes, i said swearing. big, fat, offensive swear words.

today mark and i celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary in style - surrounded by swearing, hilarious swearing. about a billion months ago i emailed our favourite show (7days) about tickets, and after so much postponement on their behalf, we went to the show tonight. we had the best fricken seats in the world. middle of the front row. (7days is a weekly news show, hosted by comedian jeremy corbett, with one t, two t's? and two competing groups of 3 comedians.

my absolute delight in what some refer to as 'cuss words' became obvious to me as i realised i was actually crestfallen when corbs (aforementioned funny host) said that they were going to try to cut back on bad language. actually, my thoughts were 'well, what's the point then?' and 'why would they do that?!'.

but, i was not disappointed. there were about 4,000,170 swear words - really bad ones - and i was happy. so so happy. i was so happy in fact, that a total stranger turned to me at half time and said genuinely, "your laugh is lovely" and when mark and i, and about 20 people sitting around us stared slack jawed at her she clarified "so...hmmm...distinctive".

so you can tsk tsk all you like. but when you are awake at a million o'clock in the morning, and you mistake the local Tui singing out as a badly behaved car alarm, what will be keeping you warm?