inhale...exhale...relax your shoulders...repeat as often as needed

Friday, February 17, 2012

accountability results

On Monday, I invited folks to join me on another accountability project. Here's the challenge/project I went with: Pick one material possession that you love and represent it in a new way--ink, paint, pencil, paper, fabric, whatever. Tell a little bit of its story. I have been thinking about my version all week, and fumbled around with it a good bit. I finally got started on it yesterday. Here is one of my favorite possessions...
around the rim, "love&kisses"
Years ago, Batman brought me this lovely Emma Bridgewater mug. He wrapped it carefully, tucked it into his luggage and brought it back with him from a business trip to London. 

As I began to think of how to represent it in a new way, I thought of the times when I most often drink tea. 
  1. I drink tea, often as part of a morning meditation, while watching birds at the feeder.
  2. I drink tea while reading...magazines, poetry, books, letters, newspapers...snuggled up in the "comfy chair", sitting on the porch or curled up in bed.
  3. I drink tea while walking around the yard, most often in Vermont, gazing at the view, dreaming about and planning for the future. I often end up in the garden, too.
So, I began making some tea bags, one for each kind of tea drinking...
  • birdseed
  • text that reads "Poetry, Books, Magazines, Letters and Newspapers"
  • a fortune cookie slip that reads, "Keep in mind your most cherished dreams of the future", a bit of birchbark and a few tiny birch branches from trees at  our "bit of earth".
I wondered what to do next...certainly a challenge like this deserves more bang for the buck. But when I shared this photo with Lindsey, she liked the tea bags and what they represented. I decided that after a long week, and self-imposed expectations, perhaps...as the Buddha says....this is enough. 

How about you? Did you make progress on your project? Please share a link to your blog if you have one!



4 comments:

  1. Love what you did, Karen! Sorry to say I did not make what I had planned. My idea left me feeling uninspired, but I may put something else together tomorrow! I'm in a bit of a February funk - need to make something happy!

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  2. That's a beautiful interpretation Karen! It is definitely enough.

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  3. Alas, the Oregon weather thwarted my plans. That has actually been an ongoing problem for all of my shop endeavors, I may need to figure out an indoor photography option. BUT, I spent some time working on preparing content for my new blog which I hope to launch in the summer, so all was not lost.

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  4. That's a beautiful mug and what a great project you created. I can imagine this tea speculation sparking even more projects.

    Thanks for the comment about my newly decluttered blog. I always find your blog so clean-looking that I was surprised to hear that you think it needs decluttering, too!

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