Arts, Crafts, Valentines, Baseball

Dawn was talking the other day about not being crafty, and I could only nod in agreement. In fact, my lack of arts and crafts acumen was the subject of one of my first blog posts ever. And my position still stands: drawing, painting, clay, painting on clay, origami, beading, all that stuff: bores me to tears. Except for making Valentines.

Making Valentines is big in our house. The dining room table is covered with newspaper and supplies for at least a week (must clean that up--tomorrow). We have a shoebox of Valentine supplies and every year we augment it to replace what was used up the year before: stickers, doily hearts, foil hearts, red cardboard hearts, stamps and stamp pads, glue sticks, some old Valentine's napkins which we've just about used up. M and E have always brought homemade Valentines to school, though it's sometimes a travail (I feel that I've blogged the travail: ah yes, here we go) (this year I was pleased to see that three other kids in E's class--girls, of course--made their Valentines too, and she was really quite cheerful, self-motivated, and creative about the process).

We all make family Valentines, and because S always works in the evening, we give each other Valentines when we wake up in the morning (these days E is creating episodes of a TV show, E's Excellent Experts, on the Macbook, and she filmed Episode Four this morning, the Valentine's episode, where she gave out Valentine awards, in envelopes, a la the Grammies--S won Fastest Valentine Making, I believe I won Most Creative, and M won Best, which came with three pieces of chocolate gelt and a dollar).

And, you know, I get into it. I like cutting out hearts and choosing stamps and arranging stickers. I like writing little notes. OK, so I only made four Valentines, but they were pretty good: a tiny one for S, and another all in white, and an inside-out one for M, and a pretty one for E. So what is it about the Valentines that suddenly makes the arts and crafts bearable? I think maybe it's that the effort is so contained. The materials are there, and you don't need to think too much, you just need to arrange them. Limits: when it comes to art, I like clear limits and activities that demand no skill but cutting and pasting. Actually, I kind of like making collages too. So there you have it: the uncreative nature of my sole creative facility.

As for baseball, I don't quite have a post's worth of material, but I will say two things:

1) Spring training!!

2) It seems quite clear that Roger Clemens is lying, which just kind of boggles my mind, though it shouldn't--see Marion Jones--but the gall, chutzpah, etc. is just remarkable, though, then again, that's the nature of Roger Clemens, who seems determined to give everyone--except a pathetic collection of congresspeople--ever more reasons to despise him.