Une Envie de Sel

My apologies for the plethora of posts lately, but I'm having one of those moments when I realize that my recent library of fabulous photos (all Q photos are fabulous, to my eye at least) is so overflowing, so bulging-at-the-seams, that I am in danger of running into the next season before I finish posting them. I know that it's only just barely February, but trust me, it's a real and present danger. And I know from past experience (all those beautiful flower photos from last summer!) that if I run into the next season before finishing my current season of photos, those unused photos just sink into obscurity somewhere in a disc file, never to be seen again. Which is, let's face it, a little bit tragic. So, the story I have to tell in this post is about a flat file cabinet.
Not intrigued?
Well, my drafter's soul thrills to the words "flat file". And in fact this was an item that has been missing from my studio for far too long. I have a lot of drawings and paintings - some of them quite large for watercolor, which have been floating around on random shelves and in unkempt stacks in our garage for far, far too long. This is no way to treat beloved paintings. I needed a flat file. I have needed a flat file for years. Relief came in the form of an early birthday present from my mum - a beautiful hardwood mission-style flat file which arrived in a delivery truck with only one driver, so that I (with my puny arms) had to wrestle the darned thing myself up a flight of stairs and through several sets of narrow doors into my studio.

Q came upon me in the process of unwrapping the piece, and was distractable only by dint of several yards of bubble wrap while I readied it for use. Distractable, that is, until she observed me screwing in the drawer handles (I'd bought my own) with a screwdriver.

My little tomboy, this riveted her instantly. She watched for all of fifteen seconds before wresting the screw driver from me and...
yup, she nailed it.
My little cabinet builder. I was going to take it away from her, but her skill was so fine and so instantaneous that I just let her go at it while I took up the camera and documented the whole thing.
This kid is TWO, might I remind you.
Sorry about her sartorial state these days. It's all, I'm afraid, down to Little Bear, the Minarik-written, Sendak-illustrated bear cub who learns that he doesn't need to wear clothes in the winter because he already has his very own natural fur coat. This story has been the bane of my existence this winter. I wish Little Bear had never darkened our door.

That said...do you just love her primal gesture of triumph in the last shot, after successfully mastering the screwdriver and the drawer-pulls? I'm going to have to get her a little toddler-sized tool belt, I think. Anyone know where I can find one?
Ahhhhhhhhh. Now that's more like it!