Feeding my soul

I've learned to do without grand adventures and wild spending sprees.
The ring leader asked us to speak about what magazines we subscribe to. My answer is: None.
I have a couple reasons.
I can't afford to subscribe to magazines. That's one of those added luxuries that many people eliminate when they are trimming budgets. My budget is already trimmed by three kids.
My second reason is that I rarely like most of anything in any magazine. I might flip through an entire magazine and find one or two things that briefly catch my eye. If I happen to find a few more than that at a bookstore, then I'll buy that issue.
I don't need ideas from a book or magazine. I have more ideas than I'll ever get around to making in my head. I do, however, like to keep up with the newer techniques and materials available. But, I've kind of rambled off my thought for the day...
I don't need much to make me feel like I've had some nourishment for my soul.
I had a wonderful time last night meeting with my "woman friends" whom I've missed seeing for so long. We could have sat there all night and chatted about everything. We are all very creative people, but it's been a while since we've actually made stuff. I see the corner turning on that. I've not made a doll in Months. But, my creativity in that direction was encouraged again last night. I'm just beginning to see figures in my art on the horizon. I'm supposed to make a masked faced bed doll and have been sluggish to do that.
Today, I had to take Delaney to get her stitches out. Yesterday my DH took her, but she pitched such a fit, everyone gave up and told us to soak them and try again today. So, she was fine, until it came time to actually do it, then she pitched a fit again. We spent two hours there and, eventually, we just all held her down and did it. She was so mad at us, she refused the lollipop at the end. But, of course, she looks so much better without the scabs and threads hanging from her lip. She was ready to attend her best friend's Birthday party.
I was in such shaky shape, I decided to stop at the Thrift shop in town on the way home. I spent about 2 hours there and felt wonderful when I left. I found some small treasures that made me happy. Then, driving by the Presbyterian church, they were having a sale, so we stopped there too. I found a humorous book on the Greek culture for the kids, a poster of the Aztec calendar, a box of fabric scraps and trim, and bag with an old cloth doll in very bad shape, but also some clothes and an adorable pair of doll socks.
Sometimes I feel badly about what I see at some of these sales. Today, there were whole boxes filled with scrapbooks which were filled with poem after poem, hand written and pasted on each page. There were also several posters of printed poems, speeches, essays, etc... And , again, boxes filled with these sorts of things framed. I could tell that whoever owned them was, at one time, a school teacher. I could tell that this person had to have been elderly, because the handwriting was that older style. I know these things would have been a scrapbooking/ collage artist's dream find. I don't have room for all of that stuff. I do, however, have a few things like that from my great Aunt's stuff. Her husband was quite the wordsmith and humorist.
I don't have the space to feel sorry for other people's stuff, even though I DO feel sorry for it.
Someone cared enough to sit down and collect all these words. These words were so important, they made whole collections of them. Now, the owner is probably gone and someone cleared out their belongings. That's the typical story in this area anyway.
I rediscovered that I have fun looking through stuff at church sales. I remembered the feeling of acquiring something that could be useful to me and my art. I need to remember to put the church sale date on my calendar so I don't work that day. (I missed the three big ones last year subbing)
I saw, through those scrapbooks, that there's a passion in your avocations, a joy you receive from making, collecting and doing that is not appreciated financially in this country. Maybe everything I do will end up at some church sale too. That's ok. It made me happy doing it.