Newsy post and a GIVEAWAY

Thank you all for the love and support this week. It has been a rough week for more than simply the friend-thing. Finally heard about the insulting settlement offer the insurance company tossed in our lap for the car accident I was a passenger in at 29 weeks pregnant with Lucy where damage appeared on the placenta, but was not the cause of death. Insulting is a kind word. Tomorrow I meet with my new OB for the first time. Both anxious and excited to see what she has to say, and to hear Thor's heartbeat. Even though I can feel him moving, I am still not convinced that everything is fine until someone wearing a stethoscope says it is so. And even then, they have been wrong before, you know. The main wild card is simply what happens now--we shall see.


I am not in terribly dire spirits anymore, but still sort of this general greyness hanging over my head. And SO...here's to the good stuff, I have some announcements.

ONE: Community Poem deadline on still life 365 is tomorrow! There is still time to submit your command for healing. Just know that I am under the belief that we never quite heal from our baby's death, and like Elizabeth McCracken, I believe that "closure is bullshit." So this is perhaps one of those challenges that will be a bit more radical. The directions are right here, and you can submit on the comment section of that post, or this one, or you can email me at stilllife365days(at)gmail(dot)com. The new Community Poem goes up on February 1st, so you know, comments will be closed at 12 pm or when I get around to it, because I need time to compile it.

TWO: Whenever I am a bit down, I like to do a giveaway, or some random act of kindness or weirdness for someone else. Tomorrow IS Friday, after all.

As many of you know, this week was deemed the most depressing week, or last week was, and this one isn't any better, really. It is still grey and wet and cold and it has gone on FAR too long and with WAY too much bad shit happening to beautiful people. And so, in the spirit of banishing the bullshit, I am giving something I made away! YAY!

Something needle felted, but what? That is is up to you. You get to decide which design and form you would like in your comment. The winner will get something made especially for them.

You can pick a needle felted heart, either with funky colors (your choice) or your baby's name (no need to have had a baby to enter this one)

I can make this is a bunch of styles and with any colors that are meaningful to you.










These two I made for my beautiful friend Sarah with her babies' names.









OR you can choose a Dia de los Muertos calavera, these styles are pretty much set, but showing you that there can be two different ways the same calavera style can look.

 OR you can choose some SUSHI

OR you can choose, to be a bit cheeky, the anatomical heart, which is as anatomically correct as you can get with a needle and some roving. I did have my husband's medical textbooks out on the couch next to me, needling away.

OR you can choose a Friend of the Bees piece.

In the comment section of this post, please let me know which one you would like. The sushi would be for EITHER the roll, OR the tamago nigiri, OR the salmon nigiri.

You can choose to have any piece either as a magnet, or a pin, or just the way they are--unadorned.

Anyone is welcome to participate. No need to be a babylost mama, just a reader. If you choose the heart, please specify what you want the heart to look like, or to say, if you want someone's name on it, or something Ghost-ish like "Ditto", and what colors you would like. If you choose the sushi, indicate which sushi is your favorite. Sushi looks really cool as a roll, cut and sliced, then made into magnets. I did that for forward tumble and was very pleased with the outcome. She took an awesome picture of it. If you choose a Friend of the Bees, indicate what color you would like as a background. The anatomical heart and the calavera are what they are. Sorry. I am good, but I cannot change the form of a heart, but still tell me if you want it as a magnet or pin.

So, okay, again the choices are: heart, anatomical heart, Friend of the Bees, Calavera or Sushi. Here are some color choices (who knew this picture would have more than a show-off to Jen?)

Those little packages have variants of teal/aqua, bright red/orange, purple/magenta, and some other ones I can't remember and am too lazy to look at right now.

Good luck. I will randomize a winner either Friday night, or Saturday morning. I will close comments when I do it! Hope this is a good giveaway. I might choose two if I am feeling it.

(Y'all know what is going on here, right? I need needle felting projects for my nervous energy.)