There is fog...but also clarity. It brought me here again.
But there will not be much quilting. I'll just let him be.
I stitched a rainbow wishing star.
I was thinking about Deb Z's ( thank you for getting me into considering mode) comment yesterday. About community. About story. Probably having said it before or maybe in the glossary somewhere ( where I often say things to myself and I think ultimately will become more of a type of journal in 2024. ) but just that well, I think I am learning to find joy, not only in like-mindedness, but also in diversity. Because well... it is useful because that's the way it is. Will be. Sometimes that is hard. That's the way it is too. Maybe community has more to do with willingness to reconsider than with sameness. It maybe a radical kind of acceptance yet to be embraced. I wish for that here. I need all the puzzle pieces to get a bigger picture.
Thank you all for your kind comments and mostly for simply stopping by to consider mine.
We have a mouse problem in the attic. Last year it was the basement. We solved that. We recently caught quite a few, mostly at night. The man spends a lot of time driving them all over the valley and dropping them off in nice places across the river. Still trying to find where they are coming in. I imagine them arriving on small magic carpets. Landing in places out of a cat's reach.
Our mice filled my winter boots with black walnuts. The fabric bins hold empty seed hills from the bird feeder. So I can relate. I also love to make mice. Not on paper but in felt. Goes back to my FAO Schwartz Mouse House. For Christmas, I have mice in sleighs and on magic flying leaves, to name only a few.
Difference vs. sameness will require more thought, but just to say that one of the ways extremists in the right wing have eroded civic life is to make many unwillingly to tolerate an ounce of their difference.
Polarization…
Magic carpet mice. Love that.🥰
changes their story a bit…
I hope you stay warm and dry, and that your mice cannot find their way back! I send wishes for a speedy recovery for Bruno’s family. Thank you for the community you have built here.
there are so many, kinda worrying. Bruno is feeling much better
I am absolutely loving all the thoughts and conversations here; the mouse and the diverse community.
I AL AYS find Food For Thought here as well as Fodder for Creativity
I look forward to this blog of yours, that you so kindly share with us!!
And picturing the Man, so carefully driving, picking new spots for the meeses.
Good spirit that he is!
💚
I have to admit, they are so cute…
Hi Jude, Of course, I love your sweet rainbow wishing star and your thoughts also! This wishing star of yours reminds me of an experience I’ve had this past week with my young grandsons( 10 and 7 ). Noah wrote, in a newspaper he and Sam created, that most people wish on a star. He suggested we also try wishing on the first snowflake we see falling from the sky. I just loved his thought. Now I can add your rainbow wishing to my growing list of wishing possibilities.
Thank you for sharing your artful stitching and your musings with us. I am enjoying them so much.
Love the idea of a snow star or a wishing flake!
I like the thought of a mouse being the symbol of persistence!
Your mom sounds like a very creative person like yourself! Love love this community.. it is similar yet diversified! Looking forward to the New Year and all the wisdoms I can glean from you and everyone!
Good point, we are all different even tho we identify as a group.
If u mark the mice you would be amazed how far they travel and return.
Just such a lovely rainbow wishing star !!!
We had a mouse problem once (in winter) and two cats sleeping on the couch . . . I only found a dead mouse on the carpet once . . . not hungry clearly. No cats now so I hope the mice stay outside !!!
He got ine when we first moved here, hole under the dishwasher which wasn’t working anyway. Still a space there, but no hole.
All I can imagine right now, is the mouse on the magic carpet…..I’m sure I will see it one day… to the Happy Mouse on the carpet, and to you…Happy New Year!
It’s fun to imagine.
Winter mouse sounds like it would make an interesting storycloth for you! 💙
Season holds big context for the beast in me.
I like that!
Mouse Problem … this caught me by my funny bone. Oh how I needed to be tickled this way. We live in the mostly outside being vardo people. So your mice and The Man’s traveling to take them to other cozy places was something sweet to share with my vardo man. It made him smile as he undid the safety pins that hold one of our slow and steady for now remedies. Nothing permanent but enough. Mouse Woman wisdom✌️
Of Mice and Men! Ha…
This reminds me: A few years back my dog would only eat part of the kibbled food from his dish that I put out every morning. Then later he’d just stand and look at it, then up at me, like, “ew, I can’t eat that.” Then the next morning the dish would be empty and I’d rinse it out and refill it, assuming he finally broke down and finished it off. Then a month or so later my sister — with whom I share the house — went to check something in the heating unit closet and noticed some kibbles between the heater and the wall. She scooped out cups. Lots of cups. The exterminator was called. Holes were patched — at the heater and several holes around the foundation. The dog happily returned to eating his whole bowl of kibbles every day since it was no longer tainted with mouse scents. Then a few months later we were cleaning out the coat closet by the front door and found another pile of kibbles. The same with the linen closet that backs up to the coat closet. To date, that’s been the extent of it. The dog has crossed the rainbow bridge and now the only kibbles in the house are in the cat’s bowl. And the cat is quite territorial about his kibbles should any mouse holes develop. And I agree with Nancy D. You need to create a mouse character. Also, HAPPY 2024!
when I fist moved in I was finding birdeed and peanuts from the feeders in my fabric baskets, happy to say that is not the case any more. Soul-o is quite the hunter, so there are no mice in the main part of the house thank goodness.
Hi Jude, I love your ‘considering’ posts and thoughts.
You may already know this but if you put steel wool in any small cracks (in your attic) the mice cannot chew through and will not be able to get inside.
I had to do this in my old house and it worked!
Happy New Year!
yes, we did that in the basement and the garage and crawl space, but the attic is full of duct work and loose insulation and it is very hard to find all the cracks but we are working on it!
Happy back!
Happy peaceful transition into the new year and may good health follow. Sorry for the crummy Christmas little Bruno and family.
Thinking about what Deb Z said and then you too, about community. Diverse and complex communities are stronger than homogenized ones, just like a healthy diet is diverse in types of food consumed. But sometimes the noise of our differences distracts us from connecting through our underlying sameness (we’re all humans, we here in particular are all humans who do slow needle and textile crafts, etc). It seems more radical all the time to have conversations or participate in community with humans with differing opinions and beliefs. This should not be a radical idea but there it is. Our bubbles will collapse one day and leave a lot of bridges to be mended. We here can maintain bridges in tiny stitches. Happy New Year!
Yes, we have obvious common interests, but probably diversified thoughts. I think since I moved to a more mixed area, I have become more aware of people pieces of a bigger puzzle. How may reasons there are to share story. How much context matters, Mending is such a good metaphor. Sometimes it is hard to see our own narrowness.
Here it comes, another year!
Hmm…I define community as a group willing to work together. But then thinking about how communities are chosen and sometimes not. Thank you for always making me think… And I am smiling thinking about man driving around the valley with the mice. 🙂
There are many questions. I am caught in a place without too many answers right now but I feel ok about it. Freer. Online communities might be different…the way they form.
This man, considering place so seriously in the relocation… He is sleeping now, did a lot of night driving.
Well, your next textile creature must be a mouse! I have an old, old cupboard that has a mouse hole on top! Wily little creatures they are…
Maybe the mouse might become a symbol of persistence, ha! My mom wrote a little story about a winter mouse, I should illustrate it
That’s a sweet idea!
might get me back on paper…