Author: Jennifred Jones

The Feel for Your Craft

Jennifred Jones

A rough gouge in the back of the stair bannister needed to be filled; it would splinter your hand going up or down the steps.

It has taken about 4 layers of wood putty smoothed evenly by my fingers, and then sanded multiple times to feel the same as the rest of the beautifully shaped long piece of wood. Having puttied lots of wood projects, plastered many cracks, and frosted countless cakes (frosting cakes was where the skill began :)), I have developed a feel for the craft through a spatula!

So the baker can feel when the pie dough is just right to roll, the bread is smooth enough to rise, the scones are ready to shape…

The blacksmith can feel with his hammer if the metal is soft enough to pound and form, even the asphalt rollers know when the road is firmed and smoothed enough for traffic to flow.

Knitters know by feel the yarn over the needles, as do sewers feeding a garments fabric under the sewing machine’s foot.

We are made to start, learn, understand and develop crafts of all kinds. Everyone develops a feel for the work they do if they keep at it, and they will excel in their crafting!

‘It’s taking too long! It’s not turning our right!! I have to do it all over again!!!’

You are a craftsman learning your trade…whatever it may be, and no trade is beneath a person’s dignity or worth. We need good laborers in every field! (see previous posts on Laborers 1,2,3)

Develop a feel for your craft. There is no shame in the good work you are doing. No need to compare yours with another’s…all are valuable…they all fill a need for someone. There would be a void without your skill. 

Make it good! Yes, you can!!

Jamie Oliver is in today’s showcase! In spite of his renown, many still don’t know his story. He learned his craft alongside his parents in their English Pub…stirring, cooking, baking, concocting with any sort of veg or herb. His presentations are lovely, appetizing and doable! Early in his 20’s, he was on a mission to change the lunch menus of Britain’s schools and raise the standard of healthy thinking/studying, and after success there, came to America to help us. Find the story on uTube Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Check out his website and his great cookbooks written with heart and soul and health for any of us! https://www.jamieoliver.com/  

Your Good

Jennifred Jones

How many times have we had a good idea, good intentions, and never followed through with them?

How many times has it been a result of what somebody else said?

Don’t let another person downplay or destroy your good!!!

In other words, don’t stop doing your good because someone else does not approve or puts you down for doing it.

This can be seen in so many areas of our lives…we quench ourselves (hold back)…

  • If I appear to know the answer, someone else might feel bad (I have to remain at their level)
  • If I wear this new outfit, people will think I’m showing off (I have to look the same)
  • If I buy a nice car, people will think I’m trying to get attention (I can’t allow myself to have what I like) 
  • If I have a better idea, people will think I’m trying to ‘one-up’ them (I cannot share my thoughts)
  • If I help that person, people will think I’m trying to get something from them (I can’t be who I want to be)
  • If I want to improve my life, some will say ‘I’m too good for them’ (I can’t choose  betterment for me)

What’s the common denominator here?…’What will people think???’

Since when is our life to be determined by what other people think? We are adults, in charge of us, steering our own/family ship. The waters of life are tumultuous enough, why do we need to add the additional wave of other’s opinions and fears to sweep over us? (in some cases capsize and drown us out)

Let’s get back on board, start paddling in the direction of our own good choosing and keep moving forward!

There’s so much good needed in our individual arenas. Don’t let others stop you. Take charge of your own thoughts, ideas, and lives and keep on going!

You can do it!!!

  • 17 years after Strauss Brothers Meat closed its doors, the Strauss family members decided to bring back to life their unique history of ‘small batch’ meat seasonings – originally perfected to go with the family’s upstanding meat butchery from the early days of Detroit’s Eastern Market beginning 1954. We visited the market yesterday and met/talked with some of the ‘New’ Strauss Brothers family… sampling and purchasing their 3 prime meat seasonings. They could have let the good family idea remain a thing of the past, but decided instead to revive it and move ahead reintroducing quality taste for today’s good-meat-eating. Kudos to them for not getting lost in only a dream, but choosing to make it happen so we could experience some of their family flavors!!! https://www.straussbrothers.com/

We are Curators

Jennifred Jones

Oxford dictionary states ‘a curator is a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection’. 

Another quick google search states curators ‘also may research, authenticate, evaluate, and categorize the specimens in a collection.’

Reading from the NYT Licensing  website,  “News curation is the process of finding, analyzing, filtering, preserving and sharing the most relevant information on a specific topic…going through many different sources, choosing the best ones and then sharing these sources in an easy-to-read format…” https://nytlicensing.com/latest/methods/what-is-news-curation/

They are distilling from all the noise, opinions, viewpoints and other ‘fluff’, what really matters… collecting it, authenticating, evaluating, and categorizing it, keeping it, to present it in a useful vantage point for their readers.

We do the same thing in a multitude of categories in our own lives and families…collecting, sorting, analyzing, keeping, preserving and then ‘presenting’ to family and friends what we think and believe and have done. (whether it is a thing, idea or philosophy)

My aim is to be curator of good…any kind of good….helpful things, ideas, peoples, places…I want to find them, collect, analyze, evaluate, keep, preserve and present them to you.

We need to see them, we need to hear them, we need to experience them, we need to support them.

Good builds us up.

What will we choose to curate?

I will begin listing a few good websites, links, blogs, uTubes, etc. I curated and share them with you.
  • This beautiful woman, had her own interior design business and left it to start a non-profit redesigning and beautifying women/children shelters; equipping them with lovely sewing rooms to begin ‘crafting’ a new life filled with hope for them. Her home ground is the Detroit area, but her idea/mission now helps women all across the nation. She has a tremendous staff and volunteers there; however anyone can volunteer to sew needed travel size pillowcases, dolls, capes for kids…check it out. http://www.enchantedmakeovers.org.