It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood.....

And it is. Beautiful sunshine, yesterday it got up to 48 degrees and it's already 46 this morning. Pretty good when it hasn't been much above freezing here for a month. this has been the worst winter, or should I say the closest thing to a real winter, we've had here in a long time.
I finished the gourd that was in one of my previous post, ("collecting") and plan to post it on Etsy later today. Heres' a sneak peek:

 

And I thought  for those of you who've never seen a "raw" gourd, these are some I took a picture of a couple of years ago. They've been dried but not cleaned.                  
 

I used to hate the cleaning process, I don't have much patience and it seem to take SO long.  I wanted to get to the creating part. Then I realized that the cleaning was part of the creating. After that it became a meditation time, a time when I could (try) to let my mind be still and listen to God. That's hard for me, being quiet. I believe God gave me this particular artform to show me that patience is a virtue.Sometimes it takes up to a year for them to dry, depending on the size.. I have to clean them, wait for them to dry again, color them, wait for that to dry, and each time I add an embellishment I have to wait for the glue to dry on that. And sometimes, I just can't get the look I want, so I sit the gourd on a shelf and wait for something to come to me about what it needs. Patiently.

Yes, God, I get the message, and I'm really trying. I know you will be patient with me while I'm trying!