motivation

seriously, look at me getting my life back on track and a bit more well-rounded. My gal pal Nat and I have been exchanging altered postcards for a while. It's surprisingly fun - a small space to manipulate, so it's free for experimentation and not so threatening as something larger or more committed. We jot a note on the back, send it off, and wait to receive one in turn. Now, I got one from Nat in January which meant it was officially my turn to respond. However, I had this thing nearly finished in late Sept/early Oct, so it's ridiculous that I didn't manage to just finish it off and send it sooner.

Like I said, getting my life back together a bit. We had a big feast last night to celebrate Clareann's birthday in advance, featuring as many of her favorites from our repetoire as we could - crispy walnut-coated warm goat cheese balls on dressed greens, roasted spring vegetables with meyer lemon beurre blanc, a lemon-mustard-herb roast chicken and lemon-lavendar sugar cookies. I baked this great new bread recipe (blueberry bread, will try to include the recipe with my fiddly changes later this week) and made syrup for cherry cordials, only to realize that I'd forgotten to purchase seltzer! I gave Clareann the long-overdue haircut I'd promised and there were gifts and we all played games and laughed ourselves silly over foolish things. By midnight, Clareann and I had teamed up to sabotage the game so we could call it a night and sleep, while everyone else conspired to keep us from pulling it off.

All in all, I think the night did the lot of us some good. It wasn't even my birthday and it sure feels like I'm the lucky girl who got the gift: I woke up feeling like I WASN'T behind the eight ball for the first time this year. WHEW! Who knew, all we really needed was a good party to let go of this burden of stress and unhappiness? So today I awoke early, despite getting to bed late, and got some things done. Now I'm going to wrap up a few details for tomorrow, try to get a bit more grading done, and hit the sack early. Life feels a little lighter, a bit happier, and I think (I hope!) to be around a bit more now.

Anyhow, that's all. The postcard uses standard postcard (well, obviously), tissue paper, a couple magazine tears that I cut all to bits, bookbinding glue, and mehndi (henna) paste. All covered with some packing tape to protect it in transit, particularly that henna.

- just to tide you over till I finish this birthday tee!