Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

Hello Lovelies!!

No fanfare, no confetti, no sobbing in hankies - just a quick note to let you wonderful folks know that I'll no longer be posting on our friend Blogger here.  But don't worry, you can still get your fix of Inspiration in the Everyday!! Just hop on over to www.mudstarceramics.com.  It makes more sense to have everything in once place, doesn't it?  Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

Thank you so much for following me here all this time. If I could lemon squeezy each and every one of you, I would.

xo Rae

Spoon Me.

Here's to a day made for spooning.  Happy Valentine's Day, lovelies!!

Shinrin-yoku or Forest Bathing

Thank you, Mercury, for getting your butt out of retrograde.  I've had enough of your shenanigans. Finally recovered from some ailments which had me down for the count.  I am giving them the finger and started walking again.  Not being able to walk for a few weeks made me realize how important they were to my mental health and my creativity.  I didn't realize how jammed up I was until I got in the brisk air, under my beloved trees again.  The Japanese call it Shinrin-yoku, or Forest Bathing.  Isn't that the most wonderful term?  It's the "healing medicine of being in the forest".

From Salem, MA, 1791.

My friends the trees spoke to me this morning and gave me an idea for some new work.  It's a modern riff on the needlepoint sampler.  It's still percolating, but it has something to do with embroidery, tiny ceramic pieces - something to do with tiny houses and stitched words.  Do I know how to embroider?  Uh...no.  But, as usual, when I don't know how to do something, I just plop into the deep end and figure it out as I go, making a gajillion mistakes and often drawing blood.

Enemy time and I will have to declare a cease fire.

A January Memo to Self

Happiness is a choice. Grumble or smile - it takes the same amount of energy.

A good night's sleep, a walk in brisk air and lots of water are better than Botox.

It's okay not to fit in.

Family is everything.

Life is too short to have toxic people in our lives.

Love saves the day.

Music soothes and enervates the soul.

Making things with one's hands brings joy.  It's a fact.

The smells of hot toast, coffee, popcorn, and bacon always make you hungry.

Needing quiet is not the same as being anti-social.

THANKS, LOVELIES!!

Thank you to all the wonderful friends, customers, and visitors this weekend at the Crafters' Marketplace. I am a lucky gal for all the support and love. Happy Turkey Day to all and stay tuned for Mudstar's next holiday show - XO!! Rae

Crafters' Marketplace This Weekend!

Hello, lovelies!! Been a busy bee, getting ready for the Crafters' Marketplace this weekend. The Bates Scholarship Fund is the worthy beneficiary, with the added benefit of your getting a hop on your holiday shop! If you're in the Princeton area, please stop by. And snag me some of that off-the-chain toffee from the toffee ladies.  (That's how good it is. They are just known as the toffee ladies. No proper names - none needed.  Fair warning: buy TWO boxes. You can give one away…) xo Rae

Strip It Away

Our days are just a quilt of the random, aren't they? But if you strip away the laundry, the making of dinner, the paying of bills, there are some beautiful things in there.

1) This snippet about Maurice Sendak and Terry Gross from her interview in the NY Times, this Sunday. It moved me to tears and I've been thinking about it ever since.  

On ‘‘Fresh Air,’’ we listen to Gross grapple with the most complex questions of existence — racial prejudice, faith, family, illness, morality, betrayal, gratitude. In 2011, when Maurice Sendak was 83, Gross called him at his home in Connecticut. What was meant to be a short conversation about his new book, ‘‘Bumble-Ardy,’’ became a meditation on his nearness to death. You feel Sendak looking over into it from his living room.

Sendak: Oh, God, there are so many beautiful things in this world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. You know, I have to tell you something.

Gross: Go ahead.

Sendak: You are the only person I have ever dealt with in terms of being interviewed or talking who brings this out in me.  There's something very unique and special in you, which I so trust.  When I heard that you were going to interview me or that you wanted to, I was really, really pleased. 

Sendak is scratchy and emotional, and Gross is gentle with him. ‘‘And almost certainly, I’ll go before you go,’’ he tells her. ‘‘So I won’t have to miss you.’’


2) Kiln-washing the shelves: heavy, messy and necessary.

Detail of our rotting pergola, which I find strangely beautiful.

3) A walk in the woods.


4) The good, practical advice from Stewart O'Nan to carry around the last sentence you wrote, so you can ruminate at the water cooler, in the car, on line at Shop Rite.

5) Finding inspiration up, down and all around.

6)"The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools." -- Henry Beston