ARGH! How can I have another cold already? Or possibly a recurrence of the same cold?

TheUniverse obviously thinks I need a little more enforced rest and Thinking time, so who am I to argue? So a bit more on those Thinking Thoughts …

In those recent “what will we do in our retirement?” discussions with Don, I mentioned I’d like to spend time taking all manner of creative-type classes. Later after thinking on it, I realised it was kind of dumb to wait to do anything about this. Apart from the fact that we’ll have significantly less disposable income in retirement, wouldn’t it be better for me to begin investigating activities I might like to do now? Why wait until #2026 to start?

And I did precisely nothing about following it up.

And then I read the end of procrastination which cemented my thinking. Enjoy the journey! Devote time to the the things that align with my values! Carpe the whatevs and take action now instead of waiting!

And still I did pretty much nothing to progress it.

FINALLY after a whole lot of Sick Day Thinking and inspired by the excellent anyresemblance’s recent flower arranging class, I signed up for kintsugi at my local Community College.

All the materials, including the pre-broken plate, were provided, so I just needed to turn up after work on Wednesday evening with an apron to protect my clothes.

I’ve never done any sort of craft class before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect (and was ever-so-slightly concerned that I’d be the only old lady). But I really, really enjoyed it! It was a great and diverse small group of people and really positive and enthusiastic vibe.

We used a modern kintsugi method with epoxy, putty and brass powder (the traditional method uses lacquer and takes many, many weeks) and were encouraged to take pix of our progress – but obviously I needed no encouragement to whip the phone out.

The highly summarised steps below – there was quite a bit of un-photographed digging and scraping:

first step – file a channel into the edges of your broken plate

second step – 2-part epoxy your plate together and washi tape around the channel

third step – fill the channel with 2-part adhesive putty

fourth step – paint 2-part epoxy over the putty and sprinkle with brass powder

fin

Let’s just say I’m not going to win any kintsugi awards any time soon, but I am so very glad I went!

We got to keep the tools and brass powder, so later in the week I grabbed some supplies (including wee plates to break) to practice on with the idea that if I improve, I’ll sign myself up for a proper class using the traditional method.

supplies

I now also have quite a list of other classes I’d like to try – from resin, to weaving, to enamelling, to drawing, to boro, to soap making, to glass platter making.

I’m so accustomed to teaching myself to do things, but I could definitely really get into this more structured creative learning!