To count one's spoons

Oh, "to count one's spoons", and idiom about whether or not someone has stolen from you after a large party, at least that's what I found after all the spoon jokes and idioms I've been dodging.  I suspect English and it smacks of Georgian or Victorian, does it not?  There are a lot of spoonisms, that's for sure.

Apparently, spoons have been in use since paleolithic times.  Some of the first spoons are believed to have been shells.  The English etymology of the word spoon appears to be Anglo Saxon or old English "spon" - I'm paraphrasing here and writing from memory.

In my phonetic world, "spon" rhymes with spawn - this is where English can be complicated - I'm definitely in the middle of spawning some spoons.

1250 to be exact.  I'm making 1250 spoons with driftwood handles for one order and a few extra orders of 200 or so more for good measure.  What that means is right now I am all spoons, all the time - and it may not seem like a big deal to the production artists out there - but 1250 of anything is a big deal for me.  At this point, anyway.   Isn't it easy to imagine there would be some fun days and some dark days.   One can lose thier mind counting their spoons . . . over and over again.  I say with humor, the dark days are still steeped in excitement and fun.  I mean, I'm doing what I love to do for "my day job", and hope that I will continue to do so heading into the new year.

The 1250th spoon is on that top shelf.  I can get approx 600 spoons in a firing - that is after I've loaded the kiln.  Think of setting up 600 dominos - but before you get to the end, maybe number 500 or so, you tip over one of the dominos. . . imagine dropping one of the dominos down the side of the kiln and you have to fish it out - so you have to unload the whole kiln and start again.  Try that three times for one kiln load.  Oooh, ooh, ooh, it's like going on a spirit journey.

I can't yet give details on where the spoons are going; I will say a big retail outfit and after all the hard work, finding the wood, creating a wood shop along side my ceramic studio and having the experience of working on a big project, working with assistants, problem solving and having spoon dreams, it's all good news.

"To count one's spoons", oh yeah.  I'm counting my spoons, but not before they hatch ;-)