Turning These Into This With Old Brushes And Paints

My friend Barb recently lost a friend quite unexpectedly. These two women have known each other for many years through church, children, ceremics, cooking, crafts and they had matured into their sixties together.



Barbara has been so sad since Margaret died. But she is trying hard to carry on with the church fair and all that entails as well as pick up the pieces of it that Margaret always handled. Not an easy task.



This church has a woman's craft group that meets once a week and they work together on group crafts and then individually at home on their own. Anyone who has ever organized a craft fair knows how much time and energy goes into the process. Needless to say, Barbara is wiped out.

And then she brought home a number of craft items to complete for the craft fair on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, in addition to signing up to help out in the kitchen that day; on top of her annual, yearly job of enticing crafters to purchase space, organize and plan out the spaces and pretty much set up the hall with some elves along as helpers.


I do not belong to this church and I do not help out at the fair. I do attend the fair though. Each year I find one or two items I can't live without and I love the White Elephant Table (which is really an entire room).



Barbara freaking out on the phone, "I am so tired. I don't know where to start. What to do. How to get it all done."



Kathy, "Barb, load the stuff in the car and get over here. I'll unload it all, and I will get those sleds painted for you well in advance of the fair. That'll be one less job for you to worry about."



Barbara, "I know. But I just can't ask you to do that."


Kathy, "You aren't asking. I'm telling. I am telling you to do it. And you will."


Barbara, "Okay, you're right. I'll bring them over. Are you sure?"


Kathy, "Yes!"


While waiting for Barb to arrive I run down to the basement (dangerous for a woman my age, I know) and start routing around for my acrylic paints and my brushes. I haven't painted in years and I'm wondering if I still can. Locating the items in an old plastic tub, tightly sealed and covered in dust I wonder if that dent in the lid is actually a cat body shape.



I lug the tub upstairs, pull out paints, brushes and other items I had no idea were stored there. Honestly I don't think I need them any more either. Yet another failure on my part. You know the one where you clean out, but you don't? Still, you talk about it enough that you actually think you've done it?

The brushes look like heck, after all they were well loved and well used and the bristles are still in excellent condition so I know I won't have to borrow or invest in any.


Anyway. Barbara arrives and I go out to meet her. The back of her little car is crammed with sleds. Yes! Old sleds. They have been painted red and green with a bit of white where I will add the snowmen.

I am to turn these old sleds into ...

this!

There are only nine sleds. Only nine. Just nine. That's all. And that is what friends are all about. Turing These Into This ...