Elegant Snowballs Baby Shoes: January 27th to 29th.

Elegant snowballs were made on my holiday in Apollo Bay. It was apt. While the rest of the state was sweltering, Apollo Bay was in a little ball of coldness. Terribly weird. The sky was grey and cloudy, almost foggy. Clouds were sitting on the hills, and at night, in the amazing blackness, cars coming up the road were like invading spaceships as their lights triangled for hundreds of meters into the sky. If you drove ten or fifteen minutes in any direction the temperature went up six degrees and the sun came out. I like swimming, but in Apollo Bay I got shin-deep and decided reading my book under a towel was a much better option. I didn't get to read as a frozen boy followed me out shortly after and we ended up driving to the Twelve Apostles instead. Ironically the only swim we did manage to get for the weekend was at Fairhaven Beach (in the vicinity of where we would normally go) and so the only beneficiary of driving the extra hours in each direction to Apollo Bay was the shoes—they got done! (Except—there is always an except—for one little feature and the Charlieficationing process.)

The cute little booties are made of Moda Vera's Faith, a forty-thirty-thirty combination of acrylic, mohair and wool. Again I cheated somewhat on the neutral stakes. The wool is a pinky-grey. One slight idiosyncrasy, if you are thinking of making an offer when they're done, is that because the wool is variegated there was just enough of one colour to make a single boot and so the second boot is ever so slightly a different colour.

I like to think that means you are get the baby-equivalent of my very much coveted Vivienne Westwood two-tone brogues (pictured). I love these shoes so much—if you ever do see a size seven pair at the op-shop, grab them for me and I promise to pay you back (I can't seem to find them any other way; I am seriously contemplating doing a shoe-making course in order to make my own pair—and then go on to an illustrious career in the shoe industry).

Like I have revisited shoes here (second pair made in four weeks or so—see the slippers from project two), Osho was revisiting awareness on the turning points of the breath. His theory about his techniques is that—like the one hundred and twelve knitting projects—there must be one for you. (Shameless sales pitch enclosed). The first time he brought this up he apparently was talking about them in a scientific, factual way, but if the scientific and the factual aren't your cup of tea, if you are just not that into the periodic table, he suggests doing the same thing with devotion, utmost devotion. With love, faith and trust. This works for those who do, or who can start to, think of their bodies as temples (are there many in this self-depreciating society of ours who do still? probably, possibly). If your body is a temple, inside is the divine. Imagine that it is the divine in you that breathes and feels the turning of the breath. Imagine it is the divine in you that does any of the mundane or special things you do on a daily basis. I kind of like it. We could all probably make our lives feel a whole lot better if we could spare a little love for ourselves. Believing there is a divineness inside of you is a step in that direction. It is late, evangelists are on TV, I'm sugar deprived—all of these things are making me a little sentimental so just ignore me and believe whatever you like! I'm going to make my divine-me a cup of tea with three sugars.