Crackpot confessions

Last year's birthday found me and my gal pals at the Riverview Wine Bar, drinking my favorite Sobon Organic Zinfandel. Lots of it. We were very.... festive! One of my gifts was a lovely tall ceramic pot in the most amazing yellow gold (but not ochre, as that reminds me of baby poop) and I managed to put in a great flower arrangement and found just the right spot by our back stairs. It made me smile daily.

This year, Bob thoughtfully put all of the ceramic pots full of dirt on a cart, so I could wheel them from winter storage in the garage to the back yard, front steps, boulevard gardens - wherever. Slightly less thoughtful was the placement of the cart - too close to my car to get X buckled into his car seat. Completely thoughtless was when I was in a frustrated hurry and attempted to move said cart without checking to see exactly how precariously the load was balanced.

Guess which pot broke? Yup.

So I left it on the garage floor, stifled the urge to do a chalk crime scene outline, and got some crazy glue. But when I finally picked up the pieces (literally, as figuratively would require more time and talent for therapy than can reasonably be expected of me right now...) I realized how badly broken it was. Sighing with resignation, I put it in the garbage can. My next thought: is this something I can purchase guilt-free? Because I can't wait a year and it's doubtful anything so fabulous would be lurking at the thrift stores. And this hardly qualifies as a necessity.

"There's no such thing as needs (sic)." - from X, my Zen boy, ten seconds ago.

I know that children are especially intuitive, but sometimes it's just creepy.

I was at a garage sale yesterday (surprise, surprise) and as we were leaving I noticed a box of sample cabinet doors. I bought 4, $2 each. They make awesome backing for mosaics. And a magpie such as myself always has a few zillion colorful and shiny things begging to be made into a mosaic. Luckily garbage day is today, and I was able to rescue pieces of pot for a new life in some yet-to-be determined form.

But first they have to sit in the basement with the rest of my crafty crap for a few years, you know, to season.

This is a mosaic I did last fall, on a cabinet door. It features pieces of a handblown glass globe that shattered, bits of sea glass from our trip to Barcelona, and chunks from a destroyed bus shelter. It is the sole adornment in our sunny front room, and I like how the colors sparkle.

I didn't use the right kind of cement, so it's crackly.

Some people having a learning curve. Mine is more like a cliff.