National Letter Writing Week

This old WPA poster indicates the first week of October used to be National Letter Writing Week.  This coming week, enjoy sending copious amounts of mail to your friends and loved ones.  Try snail mail; everyone loves receiving a random and unexpected line.

Writing a love letter?  Make some scented ink:

1. Mix together 1 teaspoon of essential oil with 1 teaspoon of vodka  
2. Slowly add this mixture to a bottle of fountain ink
3. Shake well
4. Write away

Feel like you're not great at writing?  Check out the templates at writing help-central.  Or peruse Emily Post's 1922 article on writing etiquette preserved at Bartleby.  

Kids love receiving a sheet of stickers, coloring book, flat bracelets, foam crafts, or gift cards.  

This week, pop open that address book.  That letter will be appreciated.

Spoonflower

I just found out about the coolest fabric at Spoonflower.  Design it yourself.  I can think of a myriad of possibilities: an heirloom quilt, the kids might design their own school clothes, make handbags, curtains...you name it.  The Spoonflower blog hosts weekly contests that reflect the zeitgeist of modern fabrics. 

Check it out, and if you design your own fabric be sure to let us know.

Color, inspired.

Interpretation of the colors I see around me today.

Recycle for Peanuts

George Washington Carver is noted for inventing uses for the peanut and the sweet potato.  He is one of the nation's most famous inventors, but only received 3 US patents in his lifetime.  This month's issue of Missouri Life reveals he was also a recycler and conservationist long before the trends became chic.  

"No individual," he observed, "has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving something behind."  Carter's life and work are more than ample inspiration for us to go out and look at the world through fresh eyes.  Below is his favorite poem, a little inspiring treat all its own:

EQUIPMENT

Figure it out for yourself, my lad,
You've all that the greatest of men have had,
Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes
And a brain to use if you would be wise.
With this equipment they all began,
So start for the top and say, "I can."

Look them over, the wise and great
They take their food from a common plate,
And similar knives and forks they use,
With similar laces they tie their shoes.
The world considers them brave and smart,
But you've all they had when they made their start.

You can triumph and come to skill,
You can be great if you only will.
You're well equipped for what fight you choose,
You have legs and arms and a brain to use,
And the man who has risen great deeds to do
Began his life with no more than you.

You are the handicap you must face,
You are the one who must choose your place,
You must say where you want to go,
How much you will study the truth to know.
God has equipped you for life, but He
Lets you decide what you want to be.

Courage must come from the soul within,
The man must furnish the will to win.
So figure it out for yourself, my lad.
You were born with all that the great have had,
With your equipment they all began,
Get hold of yourself and say: "I can."

--Edgar A. Guest

  

Quote of the Day

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us or we find it not.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Meet me at the Fair

I have watched Meet Me In St. Louis many times.  State Fair, too.  Is it just me, or did fairs seem to be about finding a husband, out-baking the neighbors, and growing a pig so fat and pink and clean the judges all impulsively threw blue ribbons at your hardworking little boy?  I've never actually been to a fair like that.

I do remember growing up and attending country craft fairs.  Windsocks, painted geese and peculiar little trinkets as far as the eye could see.  And all crammed underneath miles of tents (greenhouse effect in action).  Country craft fairs can still be found here and there, but they seem to be more about deep fried food and free chiropractic assessments.

Interest in a new breed of fair is emerging among urban professionals.  The art fair.  I've been to two this year:  The Montrose Arts & Crafts Fair in outer Los Angeles, California and, most recently, the Saint Louis Art Fair in Clayton, Missouri.  Grab a cocktail and walk down rows of affordable art tastefully displayed.  Hungry?  Step into a locally renowned delicatessen or boulangerie.  

Read carefully, for I am about to reveal the secret of the art fair.  Don't buy any art.  My husband noticed a cigar shop on a corner where I picked up empty wooden cigar boxes for $2.00 a piece.  The real find was not scoring another artist's handiwork.  It was picking up supplies for my next-as-yet-undeveloped creations.  

Next time you're feeling uninspired, head to the new and improved fair.

What's in the Name

Refining is an establishment whereby something is purified or perfected.  The Oxford English Dictionary contends a refinery makes things "more fine, elegant or polished".  It also includes the process of "making distinctions in thought or language."

The Refinery is here to:

• Slough off the ragged edges of the past; clean up concepts to meet modern needs and aesthetics
• Recycle gently used objects into creative projects
• Challenge thinking about cheap mega-store purchases and encourage time consuming but honest practices individuals can be proud of
• Encourage thought in the seemingly mundane day-to-day living
• Be intentional
• Explore the benefits of discipline
• Provide information to C.Y.A. in case all hell breaks loose (you never know)
  

Life is an adventure not to be controlled by exterior circumstances, forces, or marketers.  Grab onto it and push life into a full blown experience.  The Refinery is here for its elegant mission: helping each reader and contributor identify the simple daily changes that make her/him a freer, truer, purer individual.  That's distinction of character.  That's what's in the name.

Welcome to The Refinery

Last Saturday I sat in an oversized but uncomfortable recliner in my 90-year-old grandmother's living room.  I like to poke around inside her head to hear unfathomable stories of the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, World War II...whatever valuable bit of history she's willing and able to recollect. 

Several afternoons passed like this between us, after which I've made a mad rush home to journal about an age gone by.  Gram is a vibrant window to the past.  She is a resource of lessons learned for the future.  Last Saturday she provided me with a question of her own.  "Do you think," she wondered aloud, "this generation could make it today the way we used to?"  

That night I peered over my mug of specialty store tea and gazed at the question now scribbled out in my journal.  People, it seems, used to be resourceful and have a hunger for self-education.  Are we, I pondered, so different?  Has romanticism separated today's culture from its foundations to the point the ages seem distant and impossible to recreate?

Their lives were hard.  Our lives possess their own challenges.  Their fears felt tangible.  Our fears feel tangible.  They loved.  We love.  Just as generations before us, we long to make an imprint on the world; we want to glean from its resources responsibly and make a difference to someone.

To answer Gram's question: yes, we could make it.  But we would probably make it a little different.  The Refinery is a post-modern blog about taking familiar concepts and processes from the past and translating them into significant concepts for today.  

Welcome, then, to The Refinery.