Phew. It’s two in the morning, and I’ve been going all day. This morning and afternoon I went antiquing/craft shopping, mostly hunting for inspiration. The last two days I’ve talked about mounting vintage brooches on old book covers, and I’ve gotten absolutely obsessed with the idea that you can use books for something other than reading. Talk about a novel idea. (Get it, novel?) Granted, I’ve used books for decoration before, but I’ve never cut them up strictly for parts until yesterday. This afternoon at a thrift store I rifled through a stack of books and judged them solely by their covers. I can’t tell you how good it felt.

No reading required.

Walking away from the thrift store with the above stack of pretty books, my mind raced with creative options. I thought, I could do this, I could do that. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, somewhat like staring at the menu at The Cheesecake Factory. Seriously, too many options! But this is life. Whether we’re crafting, writing, or picking out what to eat for dinner, we could go in a thousand directions. And whereas I tend to take decision-making rather seriously (like, What if I don’t choose the right thing?), I really think it’s meant to be more playful than profound. I mean, yes, even seemingly trivial choices have consequences. But if your following you heart, being kind, and having fun, I’m not sure you can go wrong.

Looking back at nearly a thousand days of blogging, I KNOW I haven’t always said or done the “right” or ideal thing. But here’s something I absolutely know to true–it’s better to create imperfectly than to not create at all.

This evening I babysat two boys, and we (well, me and one of the boys) played Fort Smith Opoly, our town’s nod to the famous (or is it infamous?) Monopoly board game. Y’all, I thought we’d be done super-quick, but the game went on for over two hours. We didn’t even get to finish; the boys had to go to bed. That being said, when we did wrap up I was kicking my opponent’s little rear end. He had two thousand dollars, and I had seven.

But don’t go asking me for a loan for your creative projects. You can’t spend Fort Smith Opoly money at Hobby Lobby.

It’s fake.

Recently I heard Caroline Myss say something like, “Think of all the wonderful things that have happened in your life–you didn’t plan any of them. Now think all the disasters in your life–you planned all of them.” Oh my gosh, y’all, I laughed out loud. How true. Every mentor or true-blue friend I’ve ever has been someone who just “showed up.” You know, randomly. Conversely, most every thorn in my flesh has been someone I saw and thought, I really need to get to know them. The idea being that it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to trust our own wisdom a little less and the wisdom of the gods a little more.

The idea being that they’re on our side and want good things for us.

For me what’s difficult about trusting heaven is that I’m not in control. Now, I KNOW I’m not in control, but one of the reasons I like to obsess over every little detail of creative projects is because it makes me FEEL like I am. This is all an illusion. (Give it up, Nancy.) I can brag about winning Fort Smith Opoly tonight, but if we’d ended the game thirty minutes earlier I wouldn’t have had even a hundred dollars because THREE times I rolled the dice and had to pay my little friend $2,000 when I landed on Downtown Fort Smith, which he owned and had developed to the enth degree. My point being that both my bad fortune and my good fortune were largely out of my hands, left to the roll of the dice. Left up to heaven. (Pause.) More and more I’m seeing whatever heaven sends my way as more than enough, better than I could plan for. So long as I get to play the game (of Fort Smith Opoly, of life), I’m content. So long as I get to create, I’m happy.

This dog, however, is apparently only happy when he’s hoarding five-hundred-dollar bills.

Don’t bother telling him they’re not real.