Today I wanted to share another of my mom's creations (besides myself ).

Do you ever have a moment when you're thinking abstractly, daydreaming, whatever, and then in one instant it all comes together, perfectly?  Before that moment, you had no idea that it would happen, and after that moment you can't imagine it any other way.  Even if you just couldn't quite put your finger on it before, that flash of realization sets it and you realize that's always how it had to be.

That's how every one of Mom's designs seems to me.  Beads in stacks of jars and piles of packets don't do much for me - I can oogle the "oh, pretty!" but can never really visualize how it'll come together.  Silver and copper findings and spools of chain are beautiful to look at, but I don't have the perspective to imagine what you do with them.  Then she comes out of her workroom with some new pretty thing, and for half a second, I get it - I can see that she has the vision I'm lacking, and that she's able to put it to wonderful use.

Mom has such a good eye for jewelrymaking - she has the skills and creativity to turn those beads and findings and chain into Real Actual Jewelry.  It amazes me every time.

Take this, for example:

Mom took that stack of jars...

...and mixed and matched them with some of these pieces...

...and played around with them and arranged them a few different ways in her head before setting them out with jump rings and chain.  She could, I'm sure, visualize the finished product as she tried different things.

And before I knew it, she'd come up with this:

An amazingly gorgeous necklace for my grandmother - her mother-in-law - for Christmas!

I'm absolutely awestruck.

As is often the case when one artist admires another's work, I feel very modest and humbled by my own.

"Sticks and string? Anybody can do that.  It's nothing special.  But making JEWELRY?  Wow.  That's skill."

while Mom probably thinks, "Making jewelry? Anybody can do that.  It's nothing special.  But turning sticks and string into socks and sweaters? Wow.  That's skill."

I love the cluster of carefully-wrapped pearls.  Mom consulted me while she was adding them, asking "Is this too many? Too few? Should I add one here?" and when I said, "uh....I dunno.  Sure?  Um...No?" she shoo'ed me out of the room and figured it out for herself.  Which is good, because I probably would've given her the wrong advice.

Mom even thoughtfully included a magnetic clasp, to help Grandmother's arthritic hands:

This kind of talent really - continually - amazes me.

(I just hope she makes one for me - soon!)

I have so much to blog about - so many exciting things from this past weekend in Kansas City, and stretching back even further.  But I guess the best I can do is address them one at a time, one day at a time.

The most exciting thing from last weekend is, without a doubt, my "big" (and big) Christmas gift from Mom and Dad:

Have you ever known a person to blog from beyond the grave?  No?  Well now you have.  Because when I got this, I died.  (See? I even Tweeted it).

I must have been a very good girl this year, because Santa sure treated me well - a KitchenAid Professional 600, in a gorgeous velvety heart-stoppingly amazing steel blue color.

I immediately tore it out of the box and hauled it into their kitchen and whipped up an angel food cake, and I tell you what - this mixer is AMAZING.  I cannot wait to make bread! and cookies! and marshmallows!

Everything about it is so solid, so strong.  The bowl lifts (unlike the lower-priced KitchenAid mixers, where the mixer head tilts backwards), adding extra strength and durability to the whole system.  It has a 575 watt motor, which doesn't mean much to me but I assume translates to "really freaking powerful."  It weighs about 40 lb, which means that once it has a home on my counter, it's gonna STAY on the counter

And it's so elegant in its simplicity!  The speeds are 1-10, not "mashed potatoes" through "egg whites".  There's no digital display or timer or a voice that yells at you when it's time to add more liquid.  Just beautiful, simple, mixer.

It came with three pieces:  a wire whisk (in the machine, pictured above), a paddle for cookie doughs &etc:

...and an evil-looking dough hook for pizza dough, bread dough, grandma's hot roll dough, and whatever other doughs I might fancy to knead:

Holy cow, I love this thing.