The Creation of Thoughts

One of the nice things about the EtsyBloggers team is that they select a team member every month to be their "Featured Etsy Blogger" - meaning that their shop will be featured on as many blogs as hopefully there are team members. For May, CREATEaThought was the lucky recipient of this honor. And of course, since I can't do anything "simply" - I'm going to weave my feature of this great little shop and its owner into my thoughts on "creating thoughts"...

So... what does it take to create a thought? Well, I guess a working brain is a good place to start - although I've created a few thoughts before my brain was completely engaged and fully functioning - so maybe I'll qualify the first requirement as a working brain stem (minimal life support (like breathing) only!). I suppose an external event might be the next requirement, since I know in my life, that most of my thoughts come in direct response to something happening around me...

Most of these events revolve around my family and my home. Since my husband also works from home most of the time in his career as a network engineer, we spend pretty much 24/7 together, so you can imagine the thoughts that find their way into my brain at times... (I love you honey!) And of course my daughter can be counted on to call and say "hi" every day (had I realized we'd spend so much time together sharing so much now, I would have never worried about staying close when she was a teen!) The only days that really concern me are the ones where ALL the kids call - I create some crazy thoughts on those days, because I'm sure that the only reason they're all calling at once is because they know I'm dying from some unknown-to-me disease of the week! Okay, truth be told, I used to tease them about that when it would occasionally happen when the last one left the roost - but it's my job as their mother to make sure that they know that such shocking events can actually (figuratively at least) throw me into cardiac arrest! And of course there's Sadie and Trooper - aka DD and the HFH (Demon Dog and the Hound from Hell), our beloved puppies (alright, they're 8 - but they act like puppies most of the time!) whose antics provoke a wide range of thought creation throughout the day!

So seriously, with all these wonderful thought inspiring entities in my world, I guess it's really not hard for me to create casual thoughts. Toss in a few shows on the History channel or, Discovery Science, a discussion of quantum physics or some other mystery of life and the universe, and you can just imagine the virtual chef's salad of thought creation going on in my head.

I had someone suggest that I keep a journal at one point in my youth - so I gave it a shot. After spending 2 hours a night for a week writing down my "thoughts", I gave up (writer's cramp!). I did find that journaling was great tho - just perhaps a somewhat toned down version. Sometimes I run across one of them (since they are scattered throughout my "memorabilia") and as I read my entries, I find myself amazed that the feelings come back so clearly and memories become so vivid... and I know that my "past" is only as far away as my thoughts allow it to be. I hope someday when I'm gone, and my kids or grandkids are going thru my "stuff", that they'll take a few moments to read some of the thoughts I've created, some of the memories that were important enough to me to write them down... and I hope that enables me to live on just a little longer - even if it is only in the thoughts that they create.

All of the photos in this article are items from CREATEaThought - a wonderful Etsy shop with a great selection of new, recycled, upcycled and just generally cool cards, purses, magnets, frames, prints, journals and jewelry! Be sure to stop by and see this amazing store :) You can also visit her blog here.