Fighting the impulse...

Have you ever worked really hard on something? And initially, it turns out fantastic and you are glowing with pride and self-satisfaction?? And you sort of worship what you have created, and you anticipate other people being amazed and worshipful, even in awe of the workmanship of your hands???

Only to have it fall apart a few days later?

I am a creator. And I take great pride (probably too much) in what I do. Which is why, when something goes wrong, I tend to destroy my flawed creation.

Like a few years back when I destroyed an afghan because I had crocheted it incorrectly. Or all those paintings I started, and then wadded up and threw away (and I cringe when I think of the cost of canvas paper...) because they didn't look "right", or the jewelry I have made and ended up putting back in my bead box to "fix" later because I was a crazy person when I assembled the hideous things...

Something like that has happened...And let me tell you, I feel like smashing all those tiny, glass balls.

Making your own ornaments is supposed to be charming (and, believe me, it is), but like any worthwhile craft, it takes patience. LOTS of patience.

(I was telling Tammy yesterday that I would love to be a cake decorator, but don't have the patience for it. I watched my friend Tara create culinary masterpieces with fondant (yuck), and tried my hand at it, but, for some reason, my brain really wanted to see the finished product, and induced me to plop warm cake over warm cake until I had a blob of runny frosting and crumby cake.)

One thing about paint is that it has to dry (bet ya didn't know that!). It's handy that it doesn't dry as quickly as, say, superglue, and any painter would tell you that it makes creating a beautiful landscape easier. Now, squirting paint into a tiny, glass ball and hoping to be done in 10 minutes (or even 3 days later) is, I now find, silly.

I made 45 glass ornaments. It took me days. You see, the paint would slide off and leave "holes" and so I would have to do another layer (which isn't as simple as it sounds...it involved a lot of shaking and jumping up and down with each ornament). This went on for quite some time. FINALLY they were done (or so I thought). I packaged them up, and got ready to hand them out. As the first one left my hand and was placed confidently into the hands of the recipient, to my abject horror, I saw the tell-tales signs of the paint sliding off the glass. I shuddered. And then I looked at the other ornament in my hand that I was about to hand off (and had to) and swallowed hard as I saw, yet again, the gaping holes. Sometimes lessons in humility are...humiliating.

And then this morning, Pepper knocked one off the tree, and being glass, it broke all over the floor...and revealed very, VERY wet paint on the inside. What the..? I "finished" them 3-4 days ago.

So, I stand before you a woman fighting the impulse to take all my ornaments outside and throw them forcefully into the street.

Sigh...I know I am just going to take them all, swish some more paint in them, let them dry for the next 2 weeks, and hope against hope that they are dry at least by Christmas day.

I need a hug.