The Death of Creativity

YEARS ago when we bought our first house, there were no appliances. As we were standing in Sears listening to the salesman talk about the different features, Howard debated the extra expense of a self cleaning oven. When he asked me what I thought, I asked him how many times he'd cleaned the oven in our apartment. It was at least five or six times so I replied, great - I've cleaned it once - do you want self cleaning? He did. That was almost thirty years ago. We've had self cleaning ovens ever since.

Yesterday, Howard cleaned the oven. Pulling out the manual, we discovered that our new stove has a Sabbath setting for use on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays. Really? This setting allows the oven to stay on overriding the factory preset 12 hour energy saving feature and prevents any lights and sounds from displaying. From what I can discern on the Internet...

... this feature means that a Jewish woman will not have to "light a fire" and therefore will not be working on the Sabbath. It reminded me of a quilt I saw years ago showing a woman's hands washing dishes, cleaning, cooking, holding a baby and performing other tasks. I believe the title was No Wife Of Mine Will Ever Work.




Holidays are a lot of work, especially for women. I don't know about you but I've had some pretty cranky holidays when I've felt as if I am the only one slaving away while everyone else is having fun. Since I'm not a cook, days and days of cooking larger than ordinary meals do not make my heart go thump to say nothing of the extra laundry, cleaning, and mess around my house. Clutter jars my senses and puts me on edge.

I must have thrown a superb hissy fit last year because Howard is being extremely careful to help out. This is good. I expect all my children to help out and my son-in-law and my son's wives when they marry and eventually my grandchildren. IMHO - a larger family should disperse the work load not pile more and more on one person.

As I explained mid hissy fit, if having the family home to visit means a whole lot of work for me and I'm exhausted and stretched beyond measure and working non-stop while they are "on holiday", I will not want the family to come home. Since I love them, and want to see them, and want them to have fun at home, that's definitely not a good thing.

Any day now, I'll be typing the menu up to put on the fridge. It'll come with sign up slots for who is going to be in charge and who is going to help. And if the floor needs vacuuming, I know for a fact that the other five people in this house have experience as they do with potty cleaning. I support the many hands make light work adage.




Along with my word of the year sentence of intent, I am thinking about how to word one of my goals for next year in a positive and motivating way. It's about fashion fabric. I used to have one six foot length of shelving which expanded to two six foot lengths and then three and now there's another eight feet on the floor and it's starting to pile up two high and every time I pull one piece out, there's a mess left behind. I have too much fabric.

Stop buying fabric is a goal that will not work for me. Instead of less, I'd end up with more. In some positive way, I want to word a goal that promotes creativity by using what I have and purchasing only what I need. If that sounds familiar, it's because I've tried this several times in several ways and so far I've floundered each time which - according to what I wrote yesterday and believe - would mean it was a should not a would goal. I may have reached the would point. I hope so. I'd rather not feel guilty every time I look in the closet.

Yesterday, I applied for three jobs. Eventually, I will be hired somewhere and that will change the amount of time that I have to sew. Ideally, it will also change the amount of time that I have to shop for incredibly lovely, creatively sparkling, on sale at an unbelievable price, fabric. I have no trouble finding those deals although right now, I'm at the point of overload that kills creativity and that's never a good thing. The death of creativity is a highly motivating reason to NOT accumulate more.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - house cleaning today and that's it, we're ready