Time out - followed by "time in" again

We've been having a few problems round here lately. I've had a lot of stress at work and I have had to take some "time out" from beading because there didn't seem to be enough hours in the day (you know the feeling?). But yesterday I was able to re-start making things again, just for a few hours, and it was GREAT. I felt so calm and happy to be able to think about crafting problems rather than those seemingly-insoluble problems I've been battling with at work.

The problem I've been enjoying thinking about is: what to make my youngest sister for Christmas? She has just got a swanky new job and asked for some bracelets that could look sophisticated enough to wear for work - not too chunky or dangly.

I'm not sure I've found the solution yet, to be honest, but I wondered about using seed beads. I haven't done any seed-beading for ages so I started with a simple spiral rope. I was aiming for a wave-ripple effect with a palette of blues (in four different tones and surface effects), and this worked quite well, but the bracelet ended up being a bit casual in the overall effect. So now it's time to go back to the drawing-board for her present! But hey, it's a start, after a long break. In my experience getting started is the important thing, so much so that it almost doesn't matter what you do.

Seedy beady wonderfulness

To explain the interesting mossy background in the picture: today my son and I went to a birthday party. It was one of those parties where the whole class (and a good number from the class above, too) got invited to a big party in the village hall where they had balloons, music and organized games, and it was CRAZY loud. My son didn't react very well to all the noise and commotion, and he needed quite a lot of input from me. We ended up having to have a "time-out" outside for five minutes - I didn't frame it as a punishment or anything, it was just so that he could calm down and have a bit of quiet. When we were outside I realised how tense I'd been and how he must have been reacting to that too.

While we were waiting, I took a quick picture of the seed-bead bracelet on the mossy wall. It was then that we both realised that it wasn't in fact the end of the world if he couldn't manage to take part in every single noisy game. I think he also realised that he hadn't let me down or anything, and that I understood how hard he'd found it. After that, he asked to go back to the party and, curiously, he behaved much better.

So: time-out can be a good thing. For grown-ups as well as small children.