There was a time change this weekend. We lost an hour early Sunday morning, but it truly felt like I was running to catch that hour ever since Friday afternoon. I rocketed from one hectic event to another and each one seemed to be at least a hundred miles away, which makes for a very long ride in the car. None of those drives can compare in anxiety and perversion to that of weekend Atlanta traffic.
For some reason, those with authority decide weekends are the best time to close down a couple of the six interstate lanes of traffic for some nonexistant repairs. Well, they seemed nonexistant to me. At least, there were no workers, equipment, or vehicles anywhere to be seen. There were, however, a plethora of oversized orange and white plastic safety barrels. Couple these lane closures with a Georgia Tech football game and you've got the makings of a stomach churning crawl then standstill that requires your foot to hover oh so slightly over the brake pedal for an hour or six. And all the while as you're trying to exercise patience you must be sure to watch for the speed of light lane changers struggling and managing to get three feet further down the road. Yeah, there's a recipe for road rage if ever there was one.
I spent the whole weekend busy as sin. I was running so hard from one thing to another that I never took the time to enjoy any of the events in which I was participating. How freakin' sad is that? And these events should have been enjoyable. Instead, I found myself stressed out and frustrated or overwhelmed with fatigue from that stress and lack of sleep. So Monday morning, instead of thinking back on a groovy weekend, I found myself wondering how I was going to get through a week of work so I could have some time to work on crafting and gardening and catching up on rest, not to mention catch up on chores. Instead of smiling when thinking about my weekend, I found myself scheduling time to make a very long to do list for things that supposedly need to get done this week. I was adding "make a to do list" to my mental to do list. Jeez!
When I got to work that morning all of that changed. Because it was technically an hour early, it wasn't entirely daylight yet. The sky was just turning orange and it was getting lighter by the moment but the amazing thing that struck me as soon as I opened my car door were the birds. They were singing their little heads off! There were tweety sounds of all imaginable kinds and they were everywhere. Their sweet songs surrounded me and forced my eyes up to the dark trees in an attempt to spy the crooners. Only, I couldn't really see them because they fit so well into the landscape. They blended perfectly with the tree trunks, branches and leaves. But it didn't matter, I just stood there with a smile spreading across my face and my eyelids shutting. I must have stood there for a full minute until I snapped my eyes opened and laughed calling out to those tweety birds to sing it! Those little tweets had done their job of making me forget about all the rushing around and stress from my weekend. They reminded me to stand still for just a moment and remember that it's indeed a beautiful world.
I carried their song and beauty with me all the way into building. Then the door shut behind me and I was surrounded with dead silence and beige walls. My smile faltered only a little until I reminded myself that I could take the memory of their sweet songs and the colors of the beautiful morning any time I wanted. So that is how I spent my day.
Tutorial: Paperbag Nest for a Plush Tweety Bird
Select a preused paperbag for your nest.
Start rolling down the top of the bag towards the inside of the bag.
Keep on rollin' it down.
Keep rollin' til you get to the bottom.
Now, flip the thing over to deal with those two poking out pieces.
With your fingers or thumbs bend them toward the center and scrush them down.
Flip it over and your nest is complete. If it looks a little lumpy feel free to scrush up the edges to even them out.
Finally, insert bird and you're good to go :)
