I don't really follow celebrity gossip or pay much attention to what is going on in the lives of stars. My own life is much more interesting to me, which is how I think it should be, and I have much better things to do with my time.
However, a story on Yahoo today caught my attention because it was about how Halle Berry looks good being part of a couple while Jennifer Aniston looks good single. Okay, yeah, they are both beautiful woman who make a living looking good. Curious about what the story said, I clicked on the link, which took me to this story on OMG.
Here's what the caption under Jennifer Aniston's picture says: "She can't score a hit at the box office, and she couldn't hang on to that slippery John Mayer, but we have to give Jennifer Aniston some much-deserved credit. Why? Look at her!"
Um talk about a backhanded compliment! Again, I don't follow celebrity lives or gossip, so I have no idea what happened between Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer. Actually the only two people who probably REALLY know what happened are Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer. But um, hello, maybe she didn't WANT to hold on to him. Maybe she did the breaking up. And even if she didn't this totally makes it sound like there is something wrong with her, like she "can't hold onto a man." This really pisses me off. The implication that a woman whose relationship ends for whatever reason automatically has something wrong with her is ridiculous. And she only gets credit for how she looks? Yes, I realize the article is titled 2 Hot 2 Handle, and I shouldn't have had high expections. But I think this is not only insulting to Jennifer Aniston, but to ALL single women. To all women. No wonder so many young girls and women have self esteem issues.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
10 Reasons I Love ShowMeEtsy
1. Wine! So, this probably isn't the top reason, but I had to list it first because not a conversation can be had with these women without wine being mentioned (and sometimes drunk). I love that!
2. Everyone is incredibly talented and unique. We all bring different strengths to the group.
3. This is an amazingly diverse group with huge variations in art and craft. We vary widely in age, style, background, life stage, education, everything, and yet we have formed this amazingly cohesive group.
4. We all have a great time together, but we also get lots of things accomplished.
5. While we may not always see eye-to-eye, this has not hindered us and compromise has been (maybe surprisingly) easy.
6. We all have lots to both teach to and learn from each other. Everyone is happy to both teach and learn.
7. Because we all have different strengths and weaknesses, we recognize the strengths of the others in the group and allow and encourage input from people whose strengths we appreciate. We don't look down on people for their weaknesses, but instead gently tease each other and support each other.
8. Speaking of support...that is also an amazing characteristic of this group. Everyone is supportive of the other members, not just in relation to our businesses and shops, but even with personal issues.
9. In only a short amount of time, we have come to know each other surprisingly well and many of us have an easy rapport that I hope makes others feel welcome to the group. I feel that everyone in the group makes an effort to make new members feel welcome.
10. Wine. Yes, I know I already said wine, but it had to be said again.
2. Everyone is incredibly talented and unique. We all bring different strengths to the group.
3. This is an amazingly diverse group with huge variations in art and craft. We vary widely in age, style, background, life stage, education, everything, and yet we have formed this amazingly cohesive group.
4. We all have a great time together, but we also get lots of things accomplished.
5. While we may not always see eye-to-eye, this has not hindered us and compromise has been (maybe surprisingly) easy.
6. We all have lots to both teach to and learn from each other. Everyone is happy to both teach and learn.
7. Because we all have different strengths and weaknesses, we recognize the strengths of the others in the group and allow and encourage input from people whose strengths we appreciate. We don't look down on people for their weaknesses, but instead gently tease each other and support each other.
8. Speaking of support...that is also an amazing characteristic of this group. Everyone is supportive of the other members, not just in relation to our businesses and shops, but even with personal issues.
9. In only a short amount of time, we have come to know each other surprisingly well and many of us have an easy rapport that I hope makes others feel welcome to the group. I feel that everyone in the group makes an effort to make new members feel welcome.
10. Wine. Yes, I know I already said wine, but it had to be said again.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Perfect Day
So I babysat my nieces most of the day and all evening today. We drove in and picked up my sister, and we all went to the zoo. As I was driving them home this evening, listening to For the Kids 3 (which I gave my niece for her 4th birthday) and listening to my niece tell me things, I was thinking about what a great day it was. It wasn't anything unusual...I've been to the zoo with them before. It was just the idea that it was a perfect day because I didn't want to be anywhere else or doing anything else except exactly what I was doing.
Then I started thinking about love and what it does to you (or actually, to me). I mean, even though those girls aren't mine, I love them in a way that I couldn't ever express. And when you love someone that way, in a completely selfless, would do anything for them with no thought for yourself kind of way, it really has a profound affect on your heart. It makes me feel like my heart is completely open, vulnerable and easily broken yet at the same time immeasurably strong. Not having any of my own children, I can only imagine what it must feel like when the kids are your own. If what I feel is only a tiny bit of what it feels like to have your own kids, then I can certainly understand the quote by someone (who I can't remember at the moment and am too tired to look up) about how having kids is to forever have your heart walking around outside your body. I just wish that I could carry that feeling around with me all the time. But I don't know if humans are built for that, to feel like your heart is breaking and being mended all at the same time. Since I belive that God is Love, I think it is the closest to God I'll ever feel.
Then I started thinking about love and what it does to you (or actually, to me). I mean, even though those girls aren't mine, I love them in a way that I couldn't ever express. And when you love someone that way, in a completely selfless, would do anything for them with no thought for yourself kind of way, it really has a profound affect on your heart. It makes me feel like my heart is completely open, vulnerable and easily broken yet at the same time immeasurably strong. Not having any of my own children, I can only imagine what it must feel like when the kids are your own. If what I feel is only a tiny bit of what it feels like to have your own kids, then I can certainly understand the quote by someone (who I can't remember at the moment and am too tired to look up) about how having kids is to forever have your heart walking around outside your body. I just wish that I could carry that feeling around with me all the time. But I don't know if humans are built for that, to feel like your heart is breaking and being mended all at the same time. Since I belive that God is Love, I think it is the closest to God I'll ever feel.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Craft It Forward
One of the things that I really love about Etsy is that so many of the sellers on there buy from each other. Then people use things they have bought in their own creations to sell. I've been calling it craft-it-forward. It is such a great thing!
Here is an example: I bought lovely fiber from Spincerely. I then spun it into yarn, which was purchased by iWonder. She then crocheted it into a lovely flower that is for sale in her Etsy shop. The flower is perfect for someone to use as an embellishment on a hat or other item. I think it would be so cool if someone bought it from her, used it to embellish a hat, and then posted the hat for sale on Etsy. And then if someone bought the hat for herself or to give someone a gift.
What a great thing! By the time someone has an actual finished product to wear, the parts have lovingly been created by several people. I wrote in another post about the threads of love that connect crafters and people who buy the crafts and how those threads spread across the world. This is another great example of that. I would love to create something to deliberately trace in this way. I have actually been thinking about buying fiber and asking for information on the origins of it (farm where the sheep were raised, etc), spinning it into yarn and listing the yarn in my shop for a low price, asking that the person who buys it uses it to make something else to sell for a low price and sends me information about what they make, asking the person who buys it from them to do the same, and so on until it gets to the finished product. Then everyone who had a part in taking it from the beginning to the finished product would get to see each stage and know who bought it in the end to wear.
This whole process is so much more personal than just walking into a store and buying something. It shows how much care artists and crafter put into their work. I just think that is such an awesome, powerful thing, especially nowadays, when we are so disconnected from each other in so many ways.
Here is an example: I bought lovely fiber from Spincerely. I then spun it into yarn, which was purchased by iWonder. She then crocheted it into a lovely flower that is for sale in her Etsy shop. The flower is perfect for someone to use as an embellishment on a hat or other item. I think it would be so cool if someone bought it from her, used it to embellish a hat, and then posted the hat for sale on Etsy. And then if someone bought the hat for herself or to give someone a gift.
What a great thing! By the time someone has an actual finished product to wear, the parts have lovingly been created by several people. I wrote in another post about the threads of love that connect crafters and people who buy the crafts and how those threads spread across the world. This is another great example of that. I would love to create something to deliberately trace in this way. I have actually been thinking about buying fiber and asking for information on the origins of it (farm where the sheep were raised, etc), spinning it into yarn and listing the yarn in my shop for a low price, asking that the person who buys it uses it to make something else to sell for a low price and sends me information about what they make, asking the person who buys it from them to do the same, and so on until it gets to the finished product. Then everyone who had a part in taking it from the beginning to the finished product would get to see each stage and know who bought it in the end to wear.
This whole process is so much more personal than just walking into a store and buying something. It shows how much care artists and crafter put into their work. I just think that is such an awesome, powerful thing, especially nowadays, when we are so disconnected from each other in so many ways.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Olympics
Like many others right now, I have been excitedly watching the Olympics. As I have been spinning yarn and preparing for the Cool Art, Hot Jazz show, I have had the TV on, tuned to the Olympics. I have also been interestedly reading Olympics-related stories online.
I always feel bad for those countries that don't win that many medals. I'm proud of the US team and glad when they win medals. I've certainly been glued to the TV during every swimming final that Michael Phelps has been in. I sit in my living room and cheer for him as if my thoughts and good wishes will somehow create a wave to push him that much faster to the finish line. I certainly would love to see him win 8 gold medals and think it is wonderful that he is now the winningest Olympian in history. But, would I feel any differently about that if he were from a different country? I don't think that I would. And as fascinated as I am with watching him finish race after race in world record time, I'm equally fascinated by people like the Mexican synchronized divers who won Mexico's first medal (and only so far) in the 2008 games, which I believe was also the country's first medal in the event. Or Abhinav Bindra, who won India's first individual gold medal ever and the first gold medal for the country since 1980. I think that is one of the great things about the Olympics. I watch and root for the underdogs and feel sad for those who lose, regardless of what country they are from. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be from a country that never leads with the most medals and how much people from those countries may be pulling for their athletes.
I have been thinking quite a bit about gymnastics. It was so great to watch the elation of the men's team when they won the bronze medal. And it was so sad to me to watch the disappointment of the women's team when they won the silver. Not sad because the didn't take gold but sad because winning a silver medal at the Olympics, a SILVER MEDAL wasn't enough to make them happy. It makes me sad that there is all this pressure that says to them "you aren't good enough" when they didn't win a gold. Yes, I understand that drive to win, and that is probably what makes them top athletes. I also understand being disappointed about not winning a gold. What bothers me is how some of the media is portraying this like it is a tragedy. From one article I read it sounds like the team has moved past their initial disppointment, which is good.
Another interesting thing about the Olympics is that I will watch sports that I normally would have no interest in, like basketball. I just love the Olympics, the spirit it is intended to have and instill, and therefore I will watch just about any sport (I have to say that I really couldn't get interested in water polo). I'm looking forward to much more Olympics viewing and am excited for the track and field events to start.
I always feel bad for those countries that don't win that many medals. I'm proud of the US team and glad when they win medals. I've certainly been glued to the TV during every swimming final that Michael Phelps has been in. I sit in my living room and cheer for him as if my thoughts and good wishes will somehow create a wave to push him that much faster to the finish line. I certainly would love to see him win 8 gold medals and think it is wonderful that he is now the winningest Olympian in history. But, would I feel any differently about that if he were from a different country? I don't think that I would. And as fascinated as I am with watching him finish race after race in world record time, I'm equally fascinated by people like the Mexican synchronized divers who won Mexico's first medal (and only so far) in the 2008 games, which I believe was also the country's first medal in the event. Or Abhinav Bindra, who won India's first individual gold medal ever and the first gold medal for the country since 1980. I think that is one of the great things about the Olympics. I watch and root for the underdogs and feel sad for those who lose, regardless of what country they are from. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be from a country that never leads with the most medals and how much people from those countries may be pulling for their athletes.
I have been thinking quite a bit about gymnastics. It was so great to watch the elation of the men's team when they won the bronze medal. And it was so sad to me to watch the disappointment of the women's team when they won the silver. Not sad because the didn't take gold but sad because winning a silver medal at the Olympics, a SILVER MEDAL wasn't enough to make them happy. It makes me sad that there is all this pressure that says to them "you aren't good enough" when they didn't win a gold. Yes, I understand that drive to win, and that is probably what makes them top athletes. I also understand being disappointed about not winning a gold. What bothers me is how some of the media is portraying this like it is a tragedy. From one article I read it sounds like the team has moved past their initial disppointment, which is good.
Another interesting thing about the Olympics is that I will watch sports that I normally would have no interest in, like basketball. I just love the Olympics, the spirit it is intended to have and instill, and therefore I will watch just about any sport (I have to say that I really couldn't get interested in water polo). I'm looking forward to much more Olympics viewing and am excited for the track and field events to start.
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