First Time

there it was -- staring right at me. i stared back. it stared back. it's gleaming eyes taunting me, telling me i could never make anything as beautiful.  we kept at it for a few minutes. my eyes started to water, my mouth went dry and my knees started to go wobbly on me. my hand reached for the computer mouse but i could not bring myself to click away from the image. it had me. i lost.
that fateful friday i found myself trolling a nearby mall looking for supplies. i checked out the huge department store after which the whole mall is named and found a few but i gave them one look and didn't really feel THAT excited about what they had since they were all in plastic. i went to another and walked out within a few seconds -- too tacky. i was about to give up (i had given myself an hour to browse so i would have enough time to get home by 9 pm) when my eyes fell upon a shop that was decorated like a garden gazebo. having lost all but one little percentage of hope, i walked into it and i found what i was looking for. i could not decide what to buy, i could not bring myself to choose. i wanted them all. but my wallet said NO so i reluctantly put back several of the items i had picked and walked over to the counter with the ones that i knew i had fallen into a straight-away, head-over-heels, no-looking-back, you-and-me-against-the-world kind of love.

that same evening, i sat down with makeshift clumsy tools and proceeded to bend, shape, loop and twist. an hour later, i sat back in my chair and smiled. there it was -- my very first one. not bad for someone who never took lessons. not bad for something made using my dad's heavy, dumpy pliers. i went back to the website where i saw "IT", raised my masterpiece in triumph to the computer screen and said: "See, I made one."

here are photos of that first piece. my very first one which i have kept and which i intend to keep.

Tweak Tweak

I have this thing about tweaking something till it's dead. I tend to poke around and rearrange things, never really being satisfied enough with what is there. That's a problem, right?

Sometimes, you just really have to know when to quit. Sometimes, fixing something that ain't broke not only breaks it -- it could actually cause it to disintegrate into a little puff of smoke.

I have been visiting and revisiting this blog, checking to see what I can do to improve it, thinking about content and lay-out and what widgets and gadgets I want to add or delete. I am obsessing over whether I have the right "look". I keep thinking about what tone this blog should have, I am nervous about telling people about it because it might not be good enough. That's a problem, right?

A wise, wise friend told me once that I have "performance anxiety". Something I made or created is never good enough to show and needs to be tweaked and probed and scrubbed and retouched just so, just in the right amount so it will be acceptable. In the end, it is never exhibited and no one knows it's there. And she has whacked me over the head many, many times because of this. She told me that I shouldn't obsess over that, and just go ahead and step out of the shadows. She told me that I should stop worrying about anyone liking what I make, but that I should just go ahead and create it. What is important is that I am true to my vision and my creative integrity is intact.

That is one reason why I decided to create this blog. So I could step out there and be visible. So I could just put forward the crazy ideas and visuals that live in my head and throb so painfully in my heart. It's my notebook, like the others I keep hidden but this time I'm having other people take a peek into it. I figured that this exercise would help cure me of my so-called "performance anxiety" so that I could just be me -- no tweaking, no probing, no retouching.

But first let me adjust this template a bit more -- that gadget for the links page doesn't quite look right there. And then maybe I'll see if I do like this template. After that, I guess I'll see if I can edit the posts a bit. And then after I guess I should...

This Ain't As Easy As It Seems

Been trying to figure out how to work this blog template. A little frustrating but mostly it's been fun. I am no techie and (don't laugh) I just recently learned how to insert links. But I've heard it said - "Learn something new everyday". So here I am, learning something new again. As always.

Tweaking and twiddling with this template will probably throw my blog off-whack and kill it. Curiosity killed the cat right? But hey, a cat has nine lives.

Page One

I've always carried a notebook with me. I write most things down in it - to-do lists, phone numbers, notes to self, insights, rants. I also doodle in them - little sketches of people and places that I found interesting, designs for my jewelry, floor plans for my dream home, a dress I would like to wear, a pair of shoes that I would like to buy, scenes from last night's dream.

What will I write in this one you ask. I don't really know yet for sure. What I do know is that one part (yeah, I've always carried the kind with the little dividers) will be about everyday things and once in a while, everyday rants. Another will be about one of my passions and that is creating things by hand and it will also feature other artisans who have a passion for handmade. One section will take you traveling through places in my country, the Philippines, so you can see not only how beautiful it is here but also what our local artists and artisans are up to. There will be a section for four-letter words but these are not the kind of four-letter words you expect.

Go ahead - turn the page. Read on.