March New Moon TUSAL and a Little Bit O'Green

Here's my ort jar, out for display for this month's New Moon TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long).  At some point this will get turned into a larger mason jar, but I want to keep this one out as long as I have room in it (or until moving day, whichever comes first), so I smooshed it down pretty good before taking the picture.  I'm curious what others plan to do with these piles of orts? I'm thinking of using this as stuffing for some end of the year ornament.

We finally got around to switching out Deanna's very pink February tree and got it ready for Spring.  For right now, it feels a little bare (much like the trees outside), but there is a garland of daffodils, and a few Celtic and St. Paddy's decorations (not the same thing, I know).  We've also got a couple hints of Ostara and Easter there, with more to come over the next couple weeks, as we remove the Irish items and replace with eggs and rabbits and probably NOT any birds nests, though one of these years I am going to sit down and make a few for the tree.

I'm pretty iffy about St. Patrick's Day - he's a saint  for having 'driven the snakes out of Ireland'.. and the snakes in question where the Druids that were there.  It is a story of religious conquest, and I'm sort of biased toward the side that was defeated, so....

But St. Patricks day has very little to do with St. Patrick (he doesn't even get a cartoon version of himself a symbol, unlike St. Nick) and not all that much to do with Ireland.  The symbols, though... I like those.  Faery folk, tokens of good fortune, rainbows for hope and prosperity, silliness and merriment and goodnatured trickery.. It's not in me to find any fault with this little holiday.  Beyond even that, for me, it has some delightful personal memories attached - I used to work for a man who was Irish-American and sung in Irish pubs at night as one of his hobbies. He even looked quite a bit like a leprechaun.   And St. Patrick's Day was his holiday - he'd come into work with a large box and pull out ... a black plastic cauldron filled with chocolate coins, shamrock garland, rainbow decorations, shortbread cookies .... all sorts of decorations and goodies.  And he set up a display on the coffee table in the break room, wish everyone he saw all day a Happy Saint Patrick's Day, often bring in a big pot of stew to simmer in the kitchen for everyone's lunch. He went out for the day like many of us did for Christmas, and it was just flatly impossible not to go through the day smiling.

He's the reason why I have a few of these decorations for my tree - and come the day, I'll toss on some good Irish drinking tunes, and lift a glass to one of the sweetest men I've ever had the pleasure of working for.

(shared with Someday Crafts St. Patrick's Day Party)