Goals 60 y 67-- find balance with possessions, learn calligraphy

I tend to do my best creative work when I have tons of supplies at hand and can make a big mess and let my subconscious fit things together. This, in combination with my small tendency to hoard, is a big enabler when I'm staring down some pretty paper at the craft store.

"I don't really need this paper for anything in particular, but something will come up...I'm sure of it!"

Two years later, I have stacks and stacks of paper, and scrap-booking paper and glues, and punches and eyelets and paper cutters and pens and markers and everything your little non-electronic crafting heart could desire.

Time for some projects to materialize so this pile can go down and I will come one step closer to finding balance with my possessions. Reeling on the insights of Three Signs of a Miserable Job I made the conscious decision to do everything in my power to make my job a loveable and loved job. How do these topics fit together? Read on after the break.

Goal 67-- LEARN CALLIGRAPHY

I've started to appreciate even vaguely legible handwriting since working with the four chicken scratch officiandos (aka. most of the mechanics at A Better Cycle, my worker owned bike shop... I own 1/6 of the shop!)

And while my normal penmanship is quite stately, I have always wanted to learn calligraphy. It's so beautiful, changing function into form. My favorite is the flowing scripts with all those flourishes.

I got a book from the library and set about tracing and copying. First the Uncial hand, a good beginner hand very uniform (and all capitol) letterforms. I practiced writing my mom's address on the cards I'd send.

Then I moved on to a Spencerian script pictured below. The first image is one of my earlier attempts when I still had to look at the primer for each letter.

It's been a few weeks and I've written dozens of addresses and about 70 little cards for all my coworkers at my craft store job. Here are two cards I wrote today. I think I'm ready to learn a third calligraphy hand!





I have yet to come across the tulip again, I can't for the life of me remember where I was when I saw it. My green thumb friend keeps naming and describing tulips "It could have been a parrot tulip...was it ruffly?" She's supposed to bring in her tulip catalog so I can flip through it and see if we can narrow it down. It was light pinks, very soft looking and just the absolutely perfect shape!