I feel like I should apologize for only posting these short or business/product-updatey posts lately. I am at another one of those barely-keeping-up-with-life points and blogging keeps slipping off my list, even though I have multiple ideas for multiple different blog posts on multiple different blogs a day. It is really frustrating and I’m upset and stressed/sad feeling it about it lately, to be honest. I also recognize…this again…I always want to shut everything off during the first week of February. I’ve written about it lots of other times before! (See this post: The Ongoing Crisis of Abundance. Blah, blah, nothing new!) I have lots of writing energy lately, but almost no writing opportunities and it feels very stifling and “oppressive” almost. I have fragments of time, snips and snaps, dribs and drabs, but no long stretches of uninterrupted, focused, clear time to write. The posts I do manage are eeked out amidst what feels like constant noise and with a strained feeling of not doing the right thing—or, of not enjoying it. If someone else has to hold the baby for me to write, I feel like I “should” be holding him. If I hold the baby and write at the same time I feel like I “should” be smelling his head and when I have to jiggle him against my shoulder and type with one hand, it feels like I am doing neither thing well–writing or mothering. And yet, I can’t stop the wave of ideas and topics from building in me each morning and wishing to be expressed. It is exhausting and I cannot seem to actually figure out when my many big writing projects are going to be accomplished if I can hardly manage to even get one or two mediocre blog posts published each week. ::::::sob:::::: This is not what I set out to type at all! I’m just really tired of the pervasive sensation of not having enough time. It feels awful. Though, truly, all it takes is about two hours of sustained attention on something and bing! I’m back to feeling optimistic and fulfilled and full of promise instead of wrung out and not “caught up,” the way I feel at this actual moment.

I read this quote in an old post:

“I know that for me, writing has something in common with nursing the baby. I can’t do it if I don’t do it all the time. Put it aside to build up strength, the flow will dwindle and finally disappear. When the baby was at my breast ten times a day, I had a rare secret feeling that we were violating a law of nature, defying a form of entropy…One cannot hoard some things. The more I gave the baby, the more I had to give her, and had I tried to conserve myself, I would have found that I conserved nothing.”

via Writing and Nursing | Talk Birth.

And, it spoke to me again, as both the mother of a nursling and as a writer.

So, back to my quick biz updates. Despite the no writing and no time, we have been making some pretty stuff!

We’ve re-carved, re-molded, and re-cast our womb labyrinth pendant:

The original version was less symmetrical. The new one still isn’t perfect, but I like it better! And, life–and the labyrinth of life and birth–is also not perfect.

With an eye on my Red Tent projects this year, we also added some simple, pretty crescent moon pendants to the shop:

We also created a Reiki-inspired Cho Ku Rei pendant. I like the new rectangle design. Mark created this one entirely on his own.

And, finally, a customer requested this design for a new baby in my heart miscarriage memorial pendant.

We don’t usually take custom requests in pewter because of the time and energy required to mold and cast a new design–it just doesn’t make sense for a one-time use–but her image spoke to us and we knew it would speak to others also. So, Mark carved her design in linoleum block and then molded and cast it and the first few he has cast are now available in our shop.