Finding your Creative Space When Life Throws You a Curve Ball, then Still Managing to Do Something Really Stupid

Now that the nightmare is ending,

and things are starting to settle down a bit,

I know that I'll be going home in two weeks.

I'll clean my creative space there and begin to work at melting glass to make beads.

In the meantime, I'll continue to find places to work,

and make the spaces work, 

to feed my muse,

and allow her to play.

The story began a year ago, when my then, 32 year old daughter was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, which is a cancer of the plasma cell of the blood.

One of the treatments for this disease is a stem cell transplant.

In January of 2011, Jenny and I traveled to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, for her stem cell harvest.

That event was very successful, and we waited until the doctors decided it was time for her transplant.

The transplant happened on June 2, 2011.

Before that, in mid May, my dog Pixie and I moved in with Jenny for the duration of the transplant.

There we were:

Pixie, me, Jenny, Walter, Marvin, and, at one point, my son Nick came to stay with us, too.

Whew!  Those are a lot of bodies for Jenny's condo.  We saturated the space!

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This is Pixie and Walter, finally, cuddling on the bed!

When Jenny came home from the hospital, post transplant,

I knew that my Muse was demanding to be let loose, or she would explode.

There are restrictions here, and good ones, by the condo association, that meant I could not set up my torch and kiln, so I was forced to find other media in which to work.

Now, here's the stupid part, and maybe you can guess what's coming.

I took a lot of photos this past week to show you my make shift creative spaces.

They do spread out all over Jenny's condo.

They included two cats and a dog like the photo above.

They included my quiet spaces where I could think or allow my mind to rest.

Tonight,

when I downloaded them,

I made the mistake of deciding to clean out my photos and open up some disc space on my computer.

I did that, 

and I deleted 980 photos that I thought were not connected to the photos I had just downloaded.

Oh, my,

I was so wrong.

I deleted my recent photos,

and they are gone.

No quiet spaces to share.

No busy places to share.

I only have these quick photos to share.

Walter is guarding my IPad, which I need, and Marvin is watching the window while I work.

Pixie is guarding one of my quiet spaces because she doesn't care.

These felted birds are on another workspace.

I worked a bit with tin, and I have hopes to work with it more.

Now, rather than show you the places where I worked during this time,

I can only show you a few of the things I made.

And, last but not least,

here I am hiding under my hat.

Life threw us a curve ball, but I did something stupid.

Just wait until next year.

No more curve balls, just a beautiful workspace that you will love!