GIFTS

Know what I love most about my new art classes? It's that they are making me look at the world through new eyes. I'm seeing things in a whole new way -- things like sheep and donkeys and radishes. I've gone years without buying any radishes. Doing that little sketching lesson must have brought them back onto my radar though, for when I saw something called "watermelon radish" on Bountiful Sprout's last availability list, I found myself thinking "Hmmm. Why not?"

When I cut into that first one, the sheer beauty of it had me gasping with delight, then sent me running for my camera.

It tickled me no end that I was using "watermelon" radishes to make a watermelon salsa!

It was then that they came to me -- the words I had been searching for. Words to complete a page in my art journal. A page that had been crafted from bits and pieces of stuff I might normally have thrown away, but now found myself looking at through new eyes -- things like buttons, pretty napkins, crumpled lunch sack paper or the wrappers from those gorgeous Nectar soaps that John occasionally gifts me with.

A little envelope of goodies in the corner of the page, made from a cellophane bag my jeweler gifted me with, when he was changing the battery on my watch.