I've been inching my way back into the Blue Rain Room. Ever so slowly. Despite our damp and chilly weekend, it must be a spring thing. Have I said it before? I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Whine, whine, whine. My friend Marianne, who makes jewelry, makes these beautiful labradorite necklaces and earrings. I have a pair of earrings, and the stones have a beautiful blue-grey iridescence. Labradorite is supposed to help you find your true purpose, and seriously right now those earrings are not enough. I want her to make me a freaking tiara.

Part of me says, just accept it that you're a crafting dabbler. The urge comes and goes. You can put colors together and make some nice things, but as far as any real skill, eh. Would I love to be an Alicia or an Amy? And write books and have a little etsy.com shop? To spend my days thinking about my life and writing about it on this blog and capturing it on film. To write books? Books?!? God, yes. Oh, god yes. But instead I get lazy and knit rectangles of scarves rather than challenging myself to do more. I rush to go to work and cook dinners and watch Project Runway, and I yell about homework and I don't vacuum enough. And I think that if I had a real creative spark, I'd be up in the Blue Rain Room every second I could. I wouldn't just pass through on my way to fold laundry. I'd have genuine ideas of my own instead of shades of copies of everyone else's.

I'm hard on myself, I know. This is where my friend Sarah and I would say, "If I'm not going to be hard on myself, who will?" (Hey buddy! I'll e-mail you back soon, I promise!) But I've been thinking this way a lot lately. Thinking more than doing. In my more rational moments, I realize that I've had a strong creative push at work this fall and winter, and that it's hard to be creative in too many places at once. So, okay. I don't feel okay about it, but I guess I have to be. I'm still trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing here, anyway.

So this weekend I dipped my toe back in the work. I saw these rice pillows over on wisecraft, and I loved them. So of course I stole the idea (totally giving credit, of course, and hey, she posts instructions right there on the blog). I made one as a quick birthday present for a friend who's having a rough month, and after that we were off and running. Back in another life, when I was a labor support doula, I made literal rice socks for all of my clients. I wish I could have sewn these back then. Super-duper easy. Seam, seam, seam, you're done. I have one with lavender, and two without. I'll send one of the unscented ones to my sister-in-law who is on bedrest and due with her first baby in a few weeks. If I had more lavender, I would have made about a million more. As soon as I pick some up, I will. Rice pillows for everyone.

Maybe if I drape one over my own shoulders (2 minutes in the microwave), I'll slow down and relax a bit. It's just the tiniest bit possible that I could go a little easier on myself.