Inadvertent Bead Soup

Sippin a late afternoon diet coke from Mickie D's, and listening to "Find the Cost of Freedom" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. I am such a Boomer! In the time it took me to write that sentence, the music slid into "The Times They Are A-Changin'" covered by Simon and Garfunkle. Spotify never lets me down. (Although the next song in the Daily Mix is "Love the One You're With" by Crosby, Stills & Nash, and I don't think Dave would approve of me following that sentiment...)

Yesterday was the first just relax, go with the flow, and be creative day I've had since I retired. I did NOTHING on any list, nor did I meditate, yoga, blog, or walk the dog. Instead I: 

• had a facial
• dropped by the Austin Bead Gallery (ABG) for a refresher lesson on Peyote wrapping (I am beading a deer antler)
• started designing labels for the biscotti I want to package and give to friends
• went to the retirement-from-data.world party at Jewboy Subs thrown by my wonderful spouse
• drank an entire bottle of lovely Roederer collection 242 champagne
• went to bed at 8:45 like a really old person

So, bead soup. Where does that come from? I learned about bead soup from Laura at ABG. It refers to the practice of taking a bunch of seed beads and other small to medium beads (usually odds and ends leftover from projects in limited quantities), and mixing them all together in a baggie. This soup is then the material used for any abstract bead project--like the antler I am working on. I have a bead soup that I carefully made for my antler, and yesterday as I was looking for a few more beads to add to it, I dropped a whole tray of little boxes of beads on the floor of my studio. Some of them opened, some of them did not. Those that opened spewed little beads EVERYWHERE. My first thought when they hit the floor was "CRAP that's going to be a mess to sort!" But when I swept them all together to pick up, I saw that they made a really nice bead soup (shown above). As you might guess, I choose to see the inadvertent bead soup as a serendipitous metaphor for my life right now. It's kind of like, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade--only with beads!

CRASH! Something just hit the floor behind me. I looked over at a swinging strand of carabiners and thought, "Huh, how did whatever that was happen?" Then I saw both the 19-lb cat slink under the table and the newly fallen container of red #15 Miyuki delicas spilled open on the floor. After yelling at the cat, banishing him from the studio, and sweeping up the wee beads, I have decided to just take the pile as a new addition to my bead soup of life.