Perseverance

My first official blocking project!

These earrings came out fantabulous. Blocking is a lot easier than I thought and I don't know why I was so intimidated by it for so long. I tend to believe things are a lot harder than they actually are. Makes it difficult to actually want to try things, ya know? But, here's the result of taking the risk and jumping into it! Not too shabby =)


Here's Ellie helping out. =) "Oh how cute, she says the baby's helping but she's just sleeping aaaawwww" NO. If you've tried to get anything done while watching a baby, you know. A sleeping child is a HUGE help.

I don't know why she looks so angry here lol.

 

Also I FINALLY listed this necklace I made weeks ago! (Which you can check out at my shop: The Silver Cord)  I love this picture of the Bean and me ^_^ And incidentally my mom got me those earrings in Israel. Love'em.

 

That necklace actually taught me a valuable lesson. I had been trying to figure out how to make the cord from a pattern I found, but it made absolutely no sense. I had been all set to give up when I thought, "If I constantly give up, how am I ever going to accomplish anything? How would anyone accomplish anything without a little effort and thought?" So I kept trying, and it turned out to be so much easier than it looked at first. Not only that, it was exactly what I had been looking for when I went in search of that pattern.

Perseverance has been lacking in my life up till now. When I was younger, I would sit and think about doing things. I would plan things out to great detail in my mind, turning them around and seeing every possible outcome. But when it came to actually doing those things, I failed miserably. It was like I had lead on my legs.

But lately I have...energy. There are still days when I get stuck on facebook and waste hours doing nothing. But those days (which are now becoming hours of the day rather than whole days) are becoming fewer and fewer.  Now when I decide to do something (for the most part), I do it. It's a good feeling.

Mom thoughts =)

Well hello there.

I'm a mom now! Baby Girl was born June 10th, at 11:11pm, after 24 hours of labor. I never anticipated that the longest day of my life so far would go by so quickly.

My little one on the way home from the hospital, at a day and a half old:

And yesterday, at 2 and a half months:

Since I had my awakening, I've run quite often into the concept of love, for myself and for others (OOOBviously). Love for myself was always difficult for me to comprehend. Not sure why. The reflective nature of "love for the self" wasn't easy. I had trouble turning inwards. And now that I'm writing and thinking about this, I realize that it's intimately linked with my difficulty in sticking to a meditation practice. Trouble turning inward. (I just had an "aha" moment when I realized the link between meditation, love for self, and recognizing God. They can all be described as "turning inward." Something so simple can show you so much, and yet it's not so simple sometimes, is it? And yet, it is O_o You're right there, after all. Just see yourself.)

ANYWAY. My point. Since my daughter was born, "Love" has become a concept I am understanding more and more. Yes, it is absolute delight in the totality of this little creature, but it's more than that, more than "delight". It's total acceptance. And yeah, you see these two words thrown around a lot. But that's because they are TRUE. My daughter shits on my hand while I've got her diaper open, I smile at her and clean it up. She won't go to sleep at 3 in the morning and I'm near tears with exhaustion and frustration, I pick her up and can't help but love how warm she is. I'm running late for an appointment because I have to feed my daughter? You can wait, my baby needs to eat. (For context, I HATE being late, no matter what it's for. But for Baby Girl, I'll make the whole world wait and not blink an eye.)

No, I didn't bring you here to sit through a diatribe about how much I love my daughter. (But yeah.....she's pretty great.) The point is, I love my daughter the way God loves me. Completely. Without judgement.

I can't help but think of Jesus when I think of this relationship. He called himself the "Son of God." People assume he meant the literal, biological "son" of God. But, that's not the case at all. He only meant that he was one small part of the whole, created by and reflecting the whole, as a child does his parents. Didn't he also say that we are all children of God? I don't understand why people ignore this.

It's also said that we were created in God's image. Yes, of course, as ENERGY. What a vain, narrow-minded race we are to think God has two eyes and a nose, lol. The patterns of energy that make up our own bodies also make up the whole of the energy of the universe. We reflect that energy, we share it, we ARE it.

Anyway, I've come to believe, or to be honest, to realize, that love is a necessary component of life. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to live. If I didn't love my daughter, those 3AM wake up calls would go unanswered because I just wouldn't care. Of course, I would MUCH rather sleep than get up again to try to figure out why she's screaming this time. But I love her. So up I get. She would be a filthy, malnourished, terrified little girl if I didn't love her. Pretty dark and scary not to be loved, I'd say. How do you think you'd get along if your mother didn't love you? If your friends didn't love you? If God didn't love you?

On a less fanatical note, there are three things that matter most to me right now; creating things, spirituality, and my daughter. So rather than keeping the three separate, I think they need to be brought together here. They make up my one life, so why keep them separate? =P

I've slacked HARD in the last 2 and a half years trying to get my Etsy shop up and running. Now, I'm actually taking more complete steps to get myself set up there. Slowly but surely. And actually taking it seriously. I don't have anything up there yet, but there are many ideas and several works-in-progress. I figure I got time, right? lol. Life is short but there sure is a lot of it to live ;)

Empty now but a couple pairs of earrings up soon: www.thesilvercord.etsy.com