Needlepoint

I walked into a needle point store with a few mom-friends. (roughly my age who have children) They had been talking about how relaxing it is to do needlepoint, and what wonderful gifts it makes. I am a crafty person, so I though this might be kinda cool. Though I was already thinking about taking up quilting, long enough to make one for my parents and in-laws, I really wasn't sure I needed to add another activity to my set of unfinished activities. The matronly old lady was very happy to have this relatively young group in the store. We wandering though the array of brightly colored threads, vast and varied patterns, and intricate pieces on the wall, with six to eight hundred dollar price tags. I was told that a two and a half by two piece had taken one of the moms six years to complete. SIX YEARS?! There were sickly sweet patterns for puppys and kittys, duck, dolphins and horses, each taking thousands of little, criss-crossed stitches, and over half of a DECADE to produce. The lady asked who had been there before. Of the four of us two had been, and the other one was very interested in starting. The lady was pleased, and she asked me if I waanted to start as well. "No!" was my swift reply. "Well, that was very definite," the lady chuckled, "Why not?" "Cause it takes six freaking years to finish one, and it only looks that good if you do it right! And you can only sell six years worth of work, and a million poked finger tips, for 700$" is what I did not say. "I'm busy already, I sure don't need another hobby." I smile politely at the woman who I now considered to be a lunatic. If not before she started needlepoint, certainly at some point since. And while I wanted to run out screaming, with my hands flailing above my head, I politely helped the other moms sift through pages of patterns, to select the source of their eventual insanity. When we left the store I directed my friends to an art store, where I selected four square canvases, a tube of black acrylic paint, and a tube of white acrylic paint. And when I went home, I sat down with my small variety of brushes, and in four short hours I created a beautiful scene of wild horses, running through the snow. Four hours. Four canvases. Done.