Crafts -- good or bad?

I stayed some place recently that had an entire set of animals made out of seashells. Little seashell sculptures if you will. My impression was that these had been around a while. I started thinking about my own fits of craftiness over time. I realized the styles of crafts change, sometimes dramatically. Sometimes I go to a relative's house and see a craft I made, say, 20 years ago. Yes, I was an adult then but it was a different time and those things shouldn't still exist. They should have gone to goodwill heaven long ago.

When I got married, there was a sort of country thing going on in crafts. Lots of duck and bunny based projects. I did t-shirt and sweatshirt painting too. Yes, I did. But it was okay then. So as I look back at things that are now sad or ugly years later, I wonder if there is such a thing as timeless crafts.

I think of knitting and crocheting, hand art that has gone on for centuries. While some things can carry on through time, a lace tablecloth perhaps, some things are scars on the surface of craft-dom. I'm thinking of the knit lady-doll-toilet-paper-covers of the 70s. Now, in the 70s I was delighted by a purse knitted into the base of cut off plastic soap bottle. But I was 7.

Even today when I decide I want to make something and I go look at crochet patterns, I am sometimes horrified. No, I don't want to make a yarn owl, nor a vest that fits no one. It makes me scared that I participate in the art.

I used to be much more crafty-inclined. For some reason, that tendency has been fading the last 6 years or so. Maybe it is a temporary lull. A friend did recently show me how to make felt acorns and I had a spasm and created a whole bowl full. Now I'm making essentially the same thing, only it's holly berries. A small voice in my head is concerned I'm creating something that a few years from now will make me cringe. But in spite of the voice I carry on with the roving wool making the felted berries. Felting is in right now. So it's safe... for now. But everyone who receives one, needs to think about a date to discard it, please.

It seems like many things have had a hey-day. Ducks, cows, bunnies...have had their day. Can you think of any old or new scary crafts?

Notes to my older self

I've been thinking for the last couple years that there are so many things I can learn from my grandparents and the older people in my life. Some of the things I've learned from direct statements by them but some are by observing their lives.

I wonder though if the younger me, now, maybe is unrealistic for what I will be capable of say in my 70s or 80s, if I make it that far. Or maybe what I think I will want will be dramatically different than I think it is right now.

So here goes. Notes to my older self in no particular order:

• Don't complain. Or at least get it out of my system and move on.
• Try to see something good in each day.
• Shower regularly. 
• Get dressed everyday.
• Keep socializing, even if I don't feel like it.
• Don't get too picky about food or you'll be a prisoner to your own tastes.
• Don't get too picky that no one's help is good enough.
• Stop and smell the flowers.
• If I end up somewhere new, make new friends.
• Tell people you appreciate them while they are here, rather than saying it to others when they're gone.
• If no one invites me, I will invite them. (Christmas, birthdays, etc)
• Try to make it easier for whoever has to take care of things when I'm gone. (downsize and clean out).
• Enjoy what I have even if it means using it up.
• Life is what you make it.
• Use the good dishes.
• Young people help you feel young.
• Cliques exist even in retirement homes. That is never ending.
• Go to the doctor even if I don't want to go. Take the medicine they prescribe according to directions.
• Walk.
• Get time outdoors.
• If you get out of the habit of something, it's over. (cooking, driving, shopping) Keep doing things as long as possible.
• Try to leave space for other music styles, clothes styles, etc. to not all be horrible because they aren't what I liked.

I'm sure there's more. What would you add? Any objections?

I also hope when I'm older I'll be able to afford a cleaning helper and regular pedicures, but I suppose that's pure indulgence.

Of course, I really need to start practicing this stuff now, why not? Right?

As good as it gets

I had a conversation once with a friend from high school about how we thought we were fat in our 20s and now, uh, well, several years, okay decades later, we think how good we looked when we first got out of high school. (Please note: I'm not talking about fashion, just looks.)

Often in the mornings going through my morning ablutions and I'm feeling fussy or I'm complaining, I try to remember today is the youngest day of the rest of my life. Today is the least wrinkles, barring surgery, that I will have for the rest of my days here. So I need to appreciate what I've got today, rather than look back in 20 more years and think how good I had it and didn't know it.

I suppose it could be the skinniest day of the rest of my life but I don't know, people do take up fitness at various ages, so it's possible to have a thinner phase of life. So far my track record has been a slow escalation which all things continuing to be what they are means today is probably the skinniest day of my life as well.

I wish I could say I appreciate this fact and live in it's fullness each day. I don't. But I am learning to remind myself that today may be as good as it gets, so don't disavow that person in the mirror today. This may indeed be as good as it gets. But a little more make up might not hurt.