Practicing Patience...NOW

OK, have you ever had one of THOSE days? Like, for instance, the kind of day where you wake up, nuke a cup of coffee and then drop the whole thing on your cat, foot and floor. Toasty warm, burnt-foot goodness. NOT! Once you see the cat is OK, you realize that, not only is coffee forming a lovely brown pond on the tile, but it is also dripping from the ceiling! The ceiling! Joy of joys! After much cleaning and maintaining positive thoughts, another cup of coffee is prepared...only to be slopped all over the stove. More patient thoughts ensue and off we go.


THEN, when you are taking the kids to school, a person in a hurry is honking at you to turn right when there is absolutely-not-enough room to execute the maneuver without removing part of the bumper of the car in front of you. So, in the spirit of calm centeredness, you smile sweetly and shrug to the other driver, as if to say "Sorry. As much as I would like to accommodate your wishes, darling, I can't". At which point the lady goes bizerko and attempts to illegally pass you AND the entire row of cars in front of you (which, remember, is impeding YOUR ability to turn) and is honking like a goose on steroids. During mating season. Not only does she almost cause an accident, her teen daughter looks as if she would like to evaporate. Then, to add insult to injury, she ends up having to wait behind you, honking and swearing at everyone, her eyes beginning to look suspiciously like Marty Feldman's. She finally zips around everyone, profanities dancing off her lips like a fairy celebrating Bel thane, and hucks her daughter's banana peel out of the window.

I could feel the love.

My thoughts about this are as follows: The universe is trying to teach me patience and knew, in omniscience, that cleaning up coffee was a good start to practicing for the next step, which was dealing with the extreme peculiarities of others who may or may not be nutso. If I HAD had my standard two cups of joe, I might have had a shaky, caffeine-fueled reaction and could have accidentally hit the gas pedal when the other driver's forehead veins began to move of their own accord. (A true visual distraction if there ever was one.)

At any rate, it was a great opportunity to talk to my children about how to respond to irrational behavior. We also chatted about how our actions can have an impact, either positive or negative, on the world around us. What you give out is what you get back. That sort of thing.

Instead of griping about the lady, the kids ended up feeling sort of sorry for her. After all, it must be very stressful to live like that. And I won't even mention being the daughter of someone who behaves like that. Tiring, to say the least.

That is all I have time to share today. I still have an ill one at home, so my photo tutorial on needlefelting is a bit of a wash for today. Mea culpa. I do have a photo of my most recent piece that will be going up on etsy either tonight or tomorrow, though.



Barring any more illnesses, I will do my best to photograph the stages of needlefelting basic shapes tomorrow.

Until next time, happy crafting! Happy parenting, too!