Semi-Daily Scribbles

Fourth place taught Beulah a lesson. She'd always been top of the heap. No crafter came close to Beulah's attention to detail and sense of whimsy. Her favorite season was all of them. Each and every day was a holiday in Beulah's book. Her recent lowly showing at the county fair, however, brought home something a lot more contemplative than another First Place ribbon. What Beulah learned was her tricks and notions were all used up. She hadn't been innovative, let alone terribly original, in a long, long time. Laurels made for a really comfortable cushion. Once you'd collected enough of them, as Beulah had over the years, was there any reason at all to mess with a crowd-pleasing recipe? Actually, no. This realization was what got Beulah to ask herself the hard question:

Why am I in the game?

Beulah didn't have an answer, but did get a surge of energy to clean her work space. Craft supplies were inventoried, and Beulah's favorite tools were bagged up and set aside. The uncomfortable thought came to her as she got her room in order. Along with laurels, Beulah picked up quite a few crutches along the way. Her dependency on following the path of the tried and true blinded her from seeing with her gut instead of her head. Beulah hauled out a few of her prize winning creations, and felt nothing as she poked holes in a canvas of painted daisies, yanked red threads out of a crazy quilt, smashed an ashtray and reduced it to jagged, cobalt blue shards.