Moment of Confession: I am a Junkie.

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure." -Rumi

Alright, I have officially come out. I'm an addict of the junkyard. I love old people, and I love trash. Not trash that is actually garbage trash, but rather old junk that just needs a little creative kick for it's sparkle and glitter and glam to shine back. This includes furniture and old sticks, trees branches, preserved dried flowers. I don't know how but these treasures somehow find me. I put myself out there, and WHAM-- they hit me. If you are a lover of the rustic/natural/vintage/thrift store/flea marketing, I encourage you to take a gander and totally steal these ideas. Reuse what's already been beautifully created. Restoration is a most glorious sight to behold. Beware though, finding treasures means you are always up for a wild adventure when it seizes you.

Here are some ideas:




These two are pictures of a found ladder made bookshelf, old sticks in the woods, and a futon and dried eucalyptus given to me by my farm friends. Seriously cheap, seriously fun.

Next:






On the left is a an old rusted stool turned nightstand. On the right are old crates found outside the bakery/antique store. Great storage. Working on sewing fabric to cover clothes soon enough.





Mmm...if you are a lover of flowers like me, let your souls soar for a taste of these. Drying flowers is super easy. Watch this video to see how ridiculously simple the process actually is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxVvjgI2YWw





And the mirror: $4 at Goodwill.













Other ideas....







Here is a window with no wind found next to a random shut-down building. How to find a beautiful cottage quilt? The Geris seriously have quilts coming out their ears-- I have never seen so many in my life. The collage on the right is an easy way to hang those posters without the frame. I just put fabric behind the poster, added some random weeds and then an old wooden frame on the other side with dried lavender on a slice of wood. Dried lavender is like light to a room. It brings the aesthetic as well as the fragrance. Sheer delight.

And last but not least....my treasure of all treasures:



Something I have never understood in my life is how we have to have a pretty white porcelain tank take up so much room for our human bodily waste to tunnel itself through. It's strange for my brain to probe. So, because flushing every time you void wastes 2.2 gallons of water when already 1/3 of the world doesn't have access to clean water, it doesn't quite make sense why we kind of make this thing of a weird sort of porcelain golden calf thing. So, in response, I have laid out old Spanish moss around and on top of it to try and recreate it's natural "appeal." It's no whole in the dirt-- but trust me, you will piss in pure peace of mind. :D

"Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard."
---Paul McCartney

Press on in the world of junk dear friends! And may your imagination and creativity soar as you give and care for others amidst the process.

Observatory. Perspective.

When I got here to the big WV, i had lots of interesting ideas rolling inside of me to try out, to infuse, to dare. If there is anything in this sweet world of activities I love, it is fierce competition--I don't care if it is Irish rugby or a sweet chokeslam by the Undertaker at the infamous Wrestlemania. Either way, there is something that is unleashed within when solid competition results in some ephemeral sort of victory. It simply awakens us (hence validated by the popularity of something called....ESPN, is it?) Anyways, I had a couple of choices: 1.) Join a wimpy league of sorts of older post-primal multi-gender wannabe athletes who would rather reflect on their times of physical vitality than actually push themselves to something of value. No thanks. 2.) Attempt to coach. Spread the fierceness and hunger to the little ones and let the holy rage leave them drooling through their vastly young, youthful nights.

Here I am three months later after a basketball season with 9 and 10 year old boys left aghast, quite stunned. Fierce can hardly convey what when on. First, the boys laughed at the sight of their coach, being that a sophisticated and quite amiable young woman would dare to usher them into the long-awaited hoop dreams of intense basketball elite-hood. I didn't think they could handle this. I infrequently screamed, "Get hungry boys!" Well those little rascals understood that dis here Wo-man was gonna work their little tails and have so much fun they'd pass out with pure delight. To sum it all up briefly and nonetheless perceivable, we ended the season with our biggest success as this: The boys understood the difference between offense and defense. This was huge-- though it was not all the fierce intense insanity I'd hoped for, and though it was exhausting, it was finally attained. We ended the season shooting on the right basketball hoop. And, they came to understand and respect the feisty wit of a woman in the realm of sports. It was like, Boom-shakalaka, boys.

So to celebrate our crazy wild, intense season...I loaded the boys up for a run to Cicis--the place of many bathroom runs and the sketchiest (if even real) pizza ingredients known to man---we played with the claw machines and i whooped tail on ice hockey. I wanted to ask them if we could hang out after season and play, but, I, uh, knew I couldn't. I just knew our time of insane competition had come to an end. Fun at the heart of it, but done. They just showed up, played with their hearts, smiled just to hold a basketball, and life was simple.

On my way home I started to get really carried away by feeling this awry sort of sorrow for them. That soon enough they'll reach adolescence-- they'll start feeling more accepted by society for trying harder at intellectualism and their sports and impressing the ladies; they'll begin the neurotic tendencies of trying hard to be good, to be happy, to try whatever it takes to be at home in their own reckless, wild souls. I even look back as I tried so hard-- as a person, as a Christian. Tried to think great thoughts, tried to reconstruct long words and tried to give big hearty advice with great wisdom. But the truth is, everyone, somewhere, somehow-- 8 years old or 98 years old have come to grips with the shattering love of life, love of God at some point. The rest of our crazy, unwinded trails take off to somehow convert that loaded mystery that encountered us into words, lots of words, then the studying of those words and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then so we try to put this love thing into our lives. We try and try and try. We say, "Hey you, love, I'm trying to put you in my life here. Woulda just do that for a second?" Over and over, trying and trying. We think with our minds to try and understand our minds. We try to control ourselves with ourselves. We pray, honestly from our hearts, but end up just trying to listen to ourselves pray prayerful words. We push words to love, but our own wretchedness loves the splendor of the way our love looks rather than love itself. We try, and we suck at trying. Where is it in us where we become like the children again, to respond to life and love as unthinkingly and unknowingly possible without a mere wince of the eye? Maybe, yes, it is good to "know", but maybe not to know in the sense of understanding. Even as I'm writing this I feel this ache of slander that's been torn out. Noooo!! Seek, try to understand hence your "Faith may dwindle"!! That's what's been shoved in my brain into the afar abyss--- But this is how it is with truth. It keeps shocking us.

Shock. Then another. Then another. Until I'll I wanna do is escape that heinous rhythm that makes me feel powerless and nothing, but entirely loved, entirely at home, and somehow, impossibly possible.