Too much organization is evil

My head is bursting with random thoughts few of them extremely uplifting or spiritual. So as usual I will rid myself of them here. Let the purification process begin. I am not particularly artistic in as much as I do not have a lot of experience or knowledge in the realm of art. I do thoroughly enjoy looking at most any kind of art and I do occasionally pick up a paint brush. Mostly it's to paint the walls of a rent house but in my heart of hearts I fancy myself an artist. I enjoy creating, I am not always satisfied by the end product but I do delight in the process itself. I'm not much of a planner and my one true planning skill may be that some times this is deliberate. I do not orchestrate every event in my life, I sometimes just choose a path and see where it takes me. I guess that flows over to my art. Sometimes I am pleased with the results, so much so that I will spend a great deal of time examining it and saying to myself. WOW, I did that. More often it is just me looking down at my muddled mess thinking, it looked great 5 minutes ago. I don't always quit while I'm ahead. I love doing arts and crafts with children. Watching little ones create really knocks me out. They all have their own style and no one has really taught them much so they are still very creative and free. If you set a bunch of art supplies in front of 5 year olds and tell them to go for it. This is what happens. Some kids just start grabbing everything and pouring it on there paper and a lot of the time it's just a big mess but sometimes the results can be rather impressive. Those kids always look like they are having fun and they don't care about getting paint in there hair. Then there are the kids that plan everything out, they tend to be very meticulous and have a clear idea of what they want sometimes they are disapointed with their own results and often ask for more paper so that they can start over. While I've noticed that they appear focused and busy they don't always look very content. There are also the ones that aren't quite sure what they want to do and are afraid to do anything so they do very little or they just get inspired by what the person next to them is doing. Usually they are pretty happy when they are copying the guy next to them. Doing thier own thing just stresses them out too much. They do enjoy direction though and always seem proud of the dog or whatever it is I have suggested that they have drawn, glued painted etc. Of course there is also the kid that hates the whole having to make something bit and he usually spends his time making the other kids laugh, or being disruptive. This child seems to be enjoying themselves also and if you don't demand participation from him he will occasionally produce something that is not half bad.
Where is this going? I have no idea, stick with me though this could have a purpose. The afraid to do anything kid,used to be me. I would have copied the person next to me but I wanted to do my own thing. I was probably also quite certain that mine would not come out as well as theirs. Some where along the line I evolved into the grab everything and make a mess kid and that is pretty much who I am now, as an artist. My friend Cristal has tried to encourage me to use some planning in the creative process but I haven't managed to heed her advice.
The Craft Nazi
I volunteered to head up the crafts at VBS with another woman. This was about 4 years ago. I was looking forward to it. The lady I was paired up with seemed very nice. She always smiled at me at church and I had no reservations about working with her. Well the day came when we we met to discuss and decide on the crafts that we would do for VBS. I had thought of a dozen low cost, creative projects to go along with the lessons. One of which I remember being a paper mache fish (was very simple to make) to go along with one of the stories. Of course she did not really consider any of my projects. Her biggest objection to them was that they were not good enough souvenirs from the VBS experience. So she ended up ordering all kinds of religious crap from an oriental trading company like magazine. A lot of them had a lot of little parts and were complicated and I remember a lot of the kids gettting frustrated with them and there were a great number of kids that just gave up all together. I think maybe one or two of the kit crafts were good the others were pretty much a disaster. I'm not much of a control freak so I just went with the flow. I was rather tramatized by the little mini strokes she would have every time a kid stuck the paintbrush in paint to far or glued something upside down. Rather than sticking around to protect the children from the annal one. I jumped ship pretty quick and started volunteering elsewhere. She has continued to head up this particular venue and appears to be relaxing quite a bit and I think that she is actually doing a good job. I don't think that there are a ton of volunteers so I applaude her efforts and appreciate what she does, even though I don't always like the day she does it.
Lindy was sick with a stomache ache and needed to be near a bathroom on Friday. I called Lindy's Dad to pick her up while and by the time we left for VBS there was only about an hour left so instead of dropping Ranger off at the sitters I decided to just keep him with me.We trade off years with another church so this year it was not at our church. Ranger had a rather tramatic experience in this Church's nursery so of course the minute that he sees where we are headed he starts wailing and begging not go. I keep telling him that he is staying with me but he just isn't convinced. So I decided that we would just go in quickly and grab the kids fancy craft and woodshop projects which were laying on the various table. When I walked into the craft room with the boys in tow, the craft Nazi gives me this confused look as this is her free period. I explain to her that Lindy is ill and that we would like to get our crafts and leave because Ranger was in a foul mood. She did not express any sympathy and matter a factly stated that the crafts were not "organized" yet and that they were being organized now. I said that's ok we can wait a few minutes. Well I could tell that the boys being there was driving her nuts so I asked if I could help (thinking it might speed up the process). Of course I could not because her daughters had a system. I didn't really understand why I just couldn't grab my kids crafts off the tables but who am I to question the authority of the craft Nazi. Well Ranger is not settling down and it had been about 15 -20 minutes so I told her that I would just have to ask someone else to bring them to church for. Hoping that she would realize that she was being an unreasonably controlling. No such luck. Well it really was a lot to ask of someone to haul 3 extra bags of crafts, when they would probably have there hands full with their kids crap. So I imposed upon a friend from church to do just that. So henceforth I will refer to the obsessively controling one as the Craft Nazi. She has earned it in my opinion.
Now this has also opened up a can of worms in my busy little psyche. Now why is it that I just couldn't have picked up a bag and started grabbing them. Was I afraid of being impolite? I just don't know. Clearly this irritated me. I took a pole and it was decided that she is a wacko. It's weird cause as I was walking back to the truck with my disapointed kids I kept thinking stupid thoughts like, if only I would have said, please may I grab my kids stuff maybe she would have let me break her protocol. I decided that I am afraid of this woman. She kind of reminds me of my mother. I have issues, I freely admit this. Of course this means war. Just wait til the fall Craft Nazi, your daughters will be in my sunday school class and I'm going to have plenty of messy art! Nah you would probably take it out on your sweet little angels. I don't want you to give them those disapproving looks for mussing their clothes. I need to work on bitch technique.
My inner bitch has come of age and revealed herself this year. It is so, gratifying. I bitch, and release negative energy and it is gone and I find myself a happier person. If I am sorry for my excessive or unwarranted bitching (directed at Kelly for the most part) I apologize. It is also improving our relationship because there is little doubt about the issues that are bothering me. If I begin to feel a bout of uncontrollable bitching coming on. I warn my husband and children to stay away. Kelly is a good protector of his children because at these times he will make sure that the wee ones stay away. So really my self improvement goal is to be a more well balanced bitch. I especially need to work on my subtle bitch technique. I've got the explosive psycho bitch thing down pretty good. In my next blog I will compare and contrast the craft Nazi with my very own sweet mother. Who despite what I write and say about her I have tremendous admiration for.