The Creative Process

A while back I took a new tact with the kids.  If I got frusterated or angry, I began to under-react.  By this I mean lower my voice instead of raise it, and not get over wrought over those childhood annoyances that really aren't worth over-reacting to (the accidental spill even though I just finished cleaning and they should know better, you know that stuff).  I've found that the reaction my kids have is fantastic, they are quicker to respond to my even tolerance of a situation, than the fly off the handle one.

I've taken a similar inner count to ten approach as I begin new creative projects.  Teaching myself to sew for one.  You'd think I'd completly lose it after the repeated bobbin threadings as I began, or the time I sewed a pocket on upside down and had to pick each individual thread out.  You know what?  I didn't; just laughed and went on.  The process was much more enjoyable.  I also like that it's so much more an immediate gratification, when compared to something like knitting that takes me months to complete an afghan.  So I can afford to take the time to mess up and figure it out.  (though I think I may try to learn crochet, guess I'm a glutton for punishment :)

Yesterday I made a great rice pudding, and for some reason the stars were way out of sync.  The rice, for some reason, took forever to absorb.  And even though I took pains to carefully tempur my egg, what happened?  It of course scrambled when I incorporated it.  So taking the same under-react tact, I patiently skimmed all of the scrambled mess out and didn't just pitch the whole pot.

Today B and I spend time pouring over the seed catalogs and officially lined out our berry patch.  How exciting!  Even though the ground is now frozen solid and the plants won't even be mailed until April, the planning is progress in and of itself.  So inspired we were, we dug out all of the beautiful red currants we froze last spring (which here was June) and made our first Red Currant Jelly!!  It tastes divine.  We'll see, we seem to be having problems with it setting up, either it will by morning, or it will be a great syrup for pancakes or over ice cream.  You see, this is the type of under-reacting that I need to keep my sanity.

Guess what?  It works!