So last weekend I worked on the snail print design for my friend’s bag lining. Now when they did their marketing research it was built upon the name of the brand which meant a groups of snails, or so they thought. As we discussed the drawings and further flushed out the toile design we came to the realization that it actually meant a group of quails. Whether auto correct, typo, divine intervention, the partners had been operating under the wrong information.

So now what? Did they continue forward with the snails and have a good story to tell? Or do they correct course and rework it using Quails? In business which makes the better marketing tool? This is still yet to be decided, but this weekend I will be working up a quail or two for comparison sake.

Next I will be building a platform and constructing a shed. Don’t worry (because I know you are) the shed is a kit I simply need to assembly, she said with universal pleading. One can hope right?

So over the past five years I have been doing the great purge. I have gone through a series of upheavals each one with a rapid shift in direction. There were moments were I was barely hanging on by the tips of my fingers for survival and sanity. Oh so dramatic, I know.

So that said I still have a pesky storage space haunting me. And letting go, I thought, is an easy trick for me. But I’m discovering I’m oddly more sentimental then I thought care to admit and it’s the strangest things I’m attached to.

Like a pack of matches from my trip to India for the hotel I stayed at the bird sanctuary Bhuratphur. They remind me of a dream I had for the future. Early one morning we arose before dawn and slipped out in skiffs into the marsh waters. The dreamy silence came to life breaking in crimson and bird song across the horizon. It was a truly magical moment.

The only other person on the water that morning was a National Geographic photographer on break from a series he was shooting on Bengal tigers. He shared his story over breakfast once we returned to the hotel. I remember thinking that’s what I want to do. But I have since realized that the nomadic life is not for me. Yet the matches remind me to dream big.

And then there are a few other oddities:

• A pair of Love IS (comic strip by Kim Caselli) Christmas Tree Ornaments that remind me of a time in my life when love was defined by the simplest things. When it seemed easy, gentle and kind, the sweetness of first loves, holding hands and Sunday crossword puzzles.
• A pair of earrings made by my friend Anja and me in middle school as we embarked on our great business venture Danja designs.
• The African gazelle headdress, I got after my grandparents past away, that makes me think of them and is honestly just pretty cool.
• An Agate the size of a teardrop I discovered at the feet of the matriarchs in my family on an afternoon beach combing. It was quite a coup.
• There is a rose I carved out of left over plaster one afternoon in high school.
• The tattered poem my friend Scott wrote for me on my 16^th birthday. The only poem I ever committee to memory.
• My violin, I have not played in centuries but hold on to just in case.
• A pair of cherubs that sit above my bedroom door, my protectors.
• The dollar I won on a bet with my granddad about what flavor ice cream was in his fridge. Seriously what was he thinking? I placed it in a photo album intending to use it to purchase a Karman Ghia when I turned 16.
• Striped socks. Seriously they have to have gargantuan holes before I am willing to throw them out. I will even darn them if needed. They simply make me happy. It is the little things.

So as much as I liked to tell people I am not a romantic, my baggage seems to say otherwise. My tough exterior conceals a tender heart weary from life’s travels. I am filling my nest full of dreams in which I cocoon.

Blast from This Blogs Past

• Fragrance – Scent of a Woman

The Weekend Reading List

• Why Women Shouldn’t be Ashamed of Their Leg Hair ~ A worthy experiment and an interesting debate about societal programming.
• The 6 Types of Female Friendships 
• Why you Shouldn’t have Sex with an Ex ~ Please read this to the end. It’s hilarious.
• The Hidden People ~ So i live this website and the incredible artists it highlights. Check it out.

Something Extra

Extreme-More Than Words

Image: Papercut by Saelee Oh