Remember rick-rack? The trim that your mom sewed on curtains and aprons and around the hem of your little-girl dresses? Well, I’m crazy for it.

I’ve been changed by living in Mexico where colorful embellishment is without restraint, in fact it is celebrated all the way to the grave where the cemeteries are filled with brightly painted monuments and plastic flowers.

I recently found a cache of rick-rack in every color under the sun. I bought 2 meters of every color and proceeded to sew rings of zigzaggy color around all my skirts. I started looking for other things that could use more colorful rick-rack: pillows, place-mats, Wally’s overalls, a collar for Winky…it’s a good thing I ran out or Wally would have had to take it away from me. Like candy to a kid – I couldn’t get enough!

This celebration of color is a way of life in Mexico where everything everywhere is vivid-isimo. But for me it has more to do with the state of mind I’ve come to. I’m joy-full of the ordinary, everyday kinds of joys; small things…like rick-rack.