$free choices

I. Free!

I was given gifts of earmuffs and a pair of mittens at work the other day. The mittens were made for me by a regular customer. She even asked what colors I like. 

She is a possible model for me: 
she crafts lots of things, and she both sells and gives them away with lightness. She doesn't seem to have any hang-up whatsoever about either.

BELOW: Wearing my mittens and earmuffs at a burger joint near work, where I had French fries for lunch yesterday. It's joined to a laundromat and smells pleasantly of hot-dryers inside. 
Outside, it smells like drugs. When I walked up, people were bent over in the sheltered doorway of the laundromat, smoking crack (chemically smelling).
 In the parking lot round the other side sat a police car.
Such is life in the 'hood.

Anyway--even though the mittens were a warm and welcome gift of love, the gift of earmuffs are my favorite, because of work politics:

Mr. Jester Mushroom was the only manager at work this holiday week. He's assistant manager, but that mostly means he has a set of keys--he's still "one of us" workers (so far). 
The mood was mellow.

Jester was at the cash register, giving the cashier a break, when I stopped on my way out to pay for the earmuffs. They had a new tag, but no price.

"How much are they?" Jester asked.

"Esmeralda will know," I said. 

I turned to ask our coworker who hangs clothes. She is a warm and lovely person, from Mexico, and her English is not fluent.

"Three," she said, which seemed very fair.

Jester started to ring it up on the register, then stopped and said, 
"Esmeralda, did you say three or free?"

"Free," she said. "Free!"

And Jester agreed. "Free."

This gift helped me especially much because I've not been able to shake the ick of the so-called 'thank-you' dinner last Sunday.
Getting REAL free love from coworkers and customers re-sets my mood.

This morning, a volunteer Vicky is picking me up to go to her Congregational church--a liberal congregation, tending toward wealth, like the one I went to last month, but with less gibberish?
We shall see.

II. Pick Your Own Sticks

I'm interested, but I'm not looking for a home church. 
As I keep saying, the most important thing is to
Do My Own Work. 

When I find myself ruminating about the store––(sometimes thinking about shopping baskets in the middle of the night--I resent that!)––I remind myself to think about my projects. 
Which works, but man, my mind runs to that old groove.

Stop it, mind!

I must ponder, for instance, how to make God's eyes. 
Yet more snow has covered the ground, so it's the end of pick-up sticks for the season. I like natural sticks best, but if I'm going to keep making them this winter, I'll have to use other things. Chopsticks worked, pencils not so much. 
I'll keep my eyes open.

 The wool and wood eyes seem to weather well.

III. Choose Your Own Colors

After I address my Christmas prints this afternoon, I will start a new lino print. 

I want to print a library card!
Do you remember I printed punch cards?
I loved those and the whole idea of hand-making everyday things that are now machine-made of plastic.

My sister has started quilting since she quit working six years ago. 
(She is happy and engaged in retirement--very. 
She reminds me of our ever-active Auntie Vi . . . which also reminds me that much as I cherished Vi, I did not love everything about her--for instance, that she always insisted Every Day Is a SUNNY Day. 
Spare me.)

A friend helps Sister choose her fabrics because, she says, "I'm no good at choosing colors."

How can you be bad at choosing colors?
Just choose ones you like!

But... no. I get it actually. 
Working in Housewares, I see that people are often spectacularly bad to anything to do with DESIGN---from color to placement.
So very bad at it. 
Like, putting tiny objects on dark, bottom shelves or behind tall things.

But I'd still rather make my own mistakes in craft/art than follow someone else's "correct" way. 
I mean, what's the point?

I guess the point is getting the finished object--a perfect quilt.
My sister sews the patches with a sewing machine, and she also hires someone with a long-arm sewing machine to top-stitch (the decorative stitches on the quilt top).
The quilt looks exactly like what it is:
machine assembled.

She's happy and proud, so that's fine for her--no harm! 

(And it’s not AI designed, though Sister keeps texting me AI material… yesterday, a synopsis of a book she read. Why? Is her brain going?

Sometimes I truly wonder. 

But bink says she was always like this. I hope it’s that and not loss of mental acuity.)

For me, this kind of quilt-making is a model of what I don't want to do.

So... on with library cards. 

Hey, I could print pennies too!