Clover Army

January 16.  As soon as the sun is up, I can smell the faint aroma of my tiny basil plants; it's one of those unexpected things that is so tiny and brief, but the pleasure received is immense and sometimes even memorable.   Practically speaking, I am annoyed by the clover leaves coming up with a vengeance, and hope to weed them in the next couple of days in the afternoon coolness. 

It didn't take too long for me to get back inside my head yesterday, as once again I'm feeling I don't have enough time to try out all the ideas I have. And I'm not physically tired. But I had to spend quite a bit of time washing more dishes and posts from Thursday night. Finally all done.  But the oven looks like it could use some TLC...

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Last night I felt the living room looked oh, so wrong, with all my work stuff out of the way. I was ready to resume work, or activities associated with textile or design, and I did, I looked through Ben's photographs choose ones to play with, finding interesting lines, motifs, trying to select pics that are different from what I normally select, but not in the living room.

This morning, I like the comparatively stark emptiness; it provides space to breathe deeply and, would I be right in describing it "loosely"? It appeals to the person who always wanted to live in a disused art gallery with all the walls and nooks ready to display art, a space created for appreciative minds to leave the daily busy-ness and be with oneself, a space waiting to be adorned thoughtfully, but not just yet.  So much potential it makes me head spin, and I get all that from a cleared coffee table and surrounds, lucky me.

I might try to contain my work in the stash/design room and downstairs for a while.  Even though I know it won't last.

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I've been meaning to show you the stamp on Lalla's Christmas card; a commemorative joint issue celebrating 45 years of diplomatic relations between Kuwait and Romania, and guess what?!

I wanted to know if the entire series is dedicated to textiles of crafts from both countries, and leave it to bloggers around the world to do us a favor; here they are, though I was hoping for multiple textile stamps, the Romania version, (the currency and the Arabic lettering being the difference.) 

Lalla's father was the biggest philatelist I've known in my life, and by "knowing" I never met Mr Jones but since Dad has always been prolific in buying and using interesting Japanese stamps, we facilitated their exchanging stamps a couple of times. And this year she addressed the card in my maiden name. I'd like to think all this is pointing me in a new direction.