LaRue's New Digs

We call our daughter B Fifi Larue. Her little brother started calling her Fifi out of the blue when she was in Kindergarten. He must have been 2; he could say her name, he just chose to call her Fifi.

The name has taken many variations over the years. Fee, Feef, and now Fifi Larue and its short form, Larue. (I just discovered there is a performer who goes by the name Fifi Larue. Did not know that.)

Larue told me she likes it when I call her that. I will do pretty much anything to make my kids smile and so I call her Larue. Larue plays soccer and Larue likes bling.

I made this shirt for Larue by placing a bajillion tiny swarovski crystals around a soccer ball pattern and applying them with heat to a shirt we already had. She is happy; another way I can make her smile.

baby gift

Nothing to get on my soapbox about today. Just wanted to show a little onesie I made for a friend of a friend. Love this kind of project.

Also digging my cards from MK.

Happy Birthday Bea!

My best friend Bea has a birthday coming up. Bea has two kids and a Mary Kay business and she completely rocks. I made her this silly MK charm for her birthday. Because I love her, I also made her one with her kids' names and their birthstones. (Abby assures me these are the right colors.)

I put it on a 24" ball chain necklace, which she can cut down if she wants to (and she will want to).

Pink Rulz, ladies.

Much love to you my dear friend. I've known you 19 years; I can't believe it. Soon we'll be dipping our toes in the ocean water and tanning our 40 year old saggy hides. Woo hoo!

Coming Soon

In response to one complaint too many from the daughter who does not play soccer about the grass at the soccer field (did you know playing on grass is actually part of soccer?) I created this vinyl backed fleece blanket to prevent grass from touching said complaining daughter. She will in all likelihood complain that the fleece side of it still gets touched by grass. She will have to learn to live.

Also coming soon to my etsy shop are stamped silver and copper cuff bracelets. How fun is that?

The Possibilities

Today begins my hopefully weekly series on artists and crafters whose work I admire. I hope to highlight these amazing people and their great work. We will start with one of my all time favorite people, Amy Poss of The Possibilities (get it?).

Amy remembers selling her work door to door as a child, always cherishing her inner "crazy desire to create." She started her professional life as an elementary teacher before she became a full time mom. Creativity and projects are part of her daily life. She says her husband, upon arriving home from a business trip, will stop at the door to sniff for paint smells. He figures she's been up to something crafty while he's been away.

"I love working with wire and beads," says Amy because the "simplicity of materials is appealing yet I can create some intricate pieces." She will sometimes also decoupage an item before embellishing with wire and beads.

Her inspiration comes from color schemes,magazines, specific room decor, and fabrics, but she says "original ideas I believe come from God. I have often seen His hand in the development in my business." In fact, I met Amy at a women's Bible Study, where she was in the group I was "facilitating." She gave me a beautiful wire wrapped cross at Christmas that hangs prominently in our home.

And to show how far a little love goes, Amy says she started her etsy business after

much encouragement from two creative pals: Jen and Brenda. I love both of them dearly and feel they are also a gift from God. I love all of their creations but my faves are coffee corsets from Jen and Brenda's key fobs.

Amy, like most moms, struggles with the balance part of work and family. She started the business because she wanted to be home, but "needed to pay some bills." And like most moms will leave the creative stuff to do when all the house stuff is done, which can mean late nights and "flying by the seat of your pants." People who work at being creative often have a hard time with the business part of it, especially if motherly duties demand attention. For that reason, Amy says she is working on writing down "specific and measurable attainable supercalifragilisticespealadocious goals." You know those creative types, abhorring goals, and schedules and lists that don't include a heavy portion of time spent doodling in our studios.


Amy's entire family, two sons and a daughter, is involved with her business. But she says Annie, her daughter is most deeply involved, as she is a creative genius in her own right. The two often compete to see who's design sells first at a show. Of course the boys want their mom do well and be happy but they don' have the same giddiness over new beads that she and Annie have. She also credits her husband with a new idea now available at her store: tooth fairy pails, which are super cute and come with a poem about this tooth fairy lady. (Personally, the tooth fairy hasn't been to my house in a while; she always seems to be on vacation.) Amy pays each of her kids for their help in her business because she feels it gives them an important role in her success and also "gives us that special connection as well as ownership of this endeavor."

Amy's work is available at her etsy shop, as well as The Spotted Umbrella in Jenks and The Gift Garden in Broken Arrow.

Dads, Daughters and Words

Our family went hiking at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge over Spring Break. With temperatures in the high 80s and three well rested kiddos, we had a fantastic time. I learned something about each of my children. Abby loves to climb and is so busy in her head that she doesn't notice any of the dangers. This should not surprise me as she has always been single minded.

Bronwyn did not, did not, did not like the heights and needed lots of encouragement but she did it and she's proud of herself. As are we.

Elliot is a maniac on the rocks. That boy jumped from rock to rock like a billy goat. He was sure-footed and confident and fast. He said "cherries," if he got nervous and then promptly returned to jumping like a super hero through the saddle of rocks between two mountains.

On our second day we hiked a short distance to the forty foot hole so we could watch them jump into the very cold water in the ravine. There they collected snails and started a snail zoo, tried splashing, ate apples and enjoyed themselves to the fullest.

Another family hiked to the same location, a dad and his son and daughter. The son was about 13 and also confident, maybe overly so. He made me start a few times as I watched him clamber down the side of the rocky gulch rather too quickly. I was sure we were going to be calling EMS. I wondered briefly how that would be possible. The daughter stayed behind to snap photos of his exploits as he descended and ascended. Then she made it down. Dad came along behind slowly and without confidence. He made me nervous too, for other reasons.

When we were all standing at the bottom, watching the kids, he told us his son usually gets hurt when they hike. (Big suprise.) He said his knees are bad so he, "hikes like a girl." Instant hackles.

I had to ask him what he meant by that. He said that meant he hiked like me. He could only hope! At least I could do it upright. I dislike that metaphor as it is usually used as an insult. Hiking, or running, or throwing like a girl usually means one sucks at it. I was offended but he had another little nugget of misogyny for us.

This dad then said, "We bring his sister along so she can take pictures."

Oh, right, because clearly the daughter can't climb as well or be smart enough to observe her surroundings or enjoy herself. She was an afterthought. I politely walked away while hubby talked to him some more about where to go. I was furious.

Now, in all likelihood, he didn't really mean what he said. He meant his knees are bad so he's not as able as he used to be. He meant, his son enjoys this more than his daughter. My husband and I talked about this for a while. It got me thinking about how we talk to our girls.

But more it made me wonder about that little girl. She was probably 12 and heard her dad use her as a prop, a cast off, an afterthought. I wondered what she heard when he said that. Did she hear, "She is good at taking pictures." or did she hear, "He doesn't really want me here."

Of course, I don't know but it was a reminder that our words matter and our words have a life of their own once they wisp from our lips.

Sisters: Please

The book club I attend just finished our discussion of Nancy Horan's Loving Frank. The book is a fictionalized account of the love affair between married Mehmah Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect. Roughly 10 women gathered to discuss the book and its tragic ending.

Set in the early 20th century, it focuses on the intensely difficult choices a married mother faced when thinking of leaving her marriage and children to pursue this affair. While I in no way sympathize with adultery, I was left feeling that its much deeper than black and white. In fact, I felt that this woman faced the same choices and struggles women are still facing today.

Back then, women were overtly objectified; they grew up, maybe went to school, married, had kids and made a home. That was it. Maybe they volunteered, maybe they had quaint artistic hobbies, but that was it, especially for women of a certain class. Working was discouraged, even frowned upon.

I find today's objectification much more subtle. The fact that companies still advertise car parts to men and cleaning products to women gets my panties in a bunch. My daughter, who happens to love spiders, dinosaurs and dragons, often laments the lack of t-shirts with those things on them for girls. (We buy for her in the "boys" department if we have to.) Barbie, the symbol of all that is traditionally (and distorted) feminine just celebrated 50 years.

And women still ask themselves if they are making the right choices. Should I marry? Should I have kids? When I have kids, do I stay at home, giving up all I have worked for to stay home with them, or do I return to work outside the home? Which is better?

Many people have pontificated on this issue and they all claim to be experts. Books are written, studies are done, children are questioned, surveys are circulated. But just like Mehmah Cheney, is it really that easy? Is there a one size fits all answer for how we live our lives.

Clearly not; just look around. The variety available to women is staggering. So why don't women give each other and themselves the right to make their own choices. The most divisive thing we can do is fail to support each other. (This starts in middle school, but that's for another day.) When I hear a mom criticize another mom for her life choices I feel angry. What right do I have to dictate how another person should live her life?

As I have aged, my views on this and many other things have altered, which I suppose indicates growth. I used to think it was easy; you just have your kids and give them all. Wow is that hard. On the other hand, my sister returned to work shortly after her first was born. Wow is that hard.

You see? We are all doing hard work. We are all trying to make the best choices for our families. We simply have to get to the place where we are okay with difference. So Mehmah Cheney, in the book anyway, had to decide between a more artistic life outside of her marriage and with a married man and giving up herself to stay with her husband and children. Could she have lived a fulfilling life within her marriage? I don't know. And was leaving her husband really the best alternative? Was what she gained worth what she surrendered?

It was the public animosity that staggered her; and it is what tears us down still. We don't need so called experts to tell us what our kids need, if we are paying attention to them. We don't need some stranger to tell us that one choice is better than another. What we do need, though, is a community of women willing to accept all the different choices we can make in life.

Then we can teach our daughters, and our sons, that women can buy car parts and men can clean toilets, we can show them that the sky is the limit, we can teach them that there is no such thing as man's work and women's work. Isn't that they kind of world you want your kids to inherit?