Thursday Thoughts for 5/14 (w/pics)

Happy rainy Thursday! Here we go:

 

Barbara Ann Kipfer's FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from her book 14,000 Things to be Happy About):

1. Playing Crazy Eights.
2. A flawless sea.
3. Heat-resistant, clear-glass mugs.
4. Abandoning all your senses to a field of wildflowers.
5. Heavy Romanian crystal.

Henry W. Reich's FIVE THINGS THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF (from his book 2,501 Things That Really Piss Me Off):

1. Pete Rose has not been elected to the Hall of Fame.
2. There's no longer a distinction between fame and notoriety; it's now all just celebrity.
3. Naming airplane luggage after Amelia Earhart and expecting it to arrive at its destination.
4. Not being allowed to play on the Net all day at work.
5. Pork barrel legislation, especially when introduced by congressmen who loudly proclaim their aversion to high taxes and government waste.

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1. A friendly letter in the mail. (<3)
2. Hot coffee, cool shadows, soft rain.
3. That satisfying feeling that comes with tucking a bedspread underneath the pillows.
4. Binge-watching an old favorite series.
5. The smell of a newly-sharpened pencil.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

    ~Albert Einstein

 

TUMBLEDOWN STUFF:

Yesterday was all about cleaning and exercise. And after all the vacuuming was done, I took a long walk along the bike trail, past little ponds and the backyards of generic beige houses. I saw Canadien geese with their goslings, and mallards with their ducklings. I heard redwing blackbirds in the trees and saw milkweed fingers pushing up through the grass. It'd been months since I'd last passed it, but there was the shaggy and overgrown yard of my favorite house on the trail, with its paint-flaked birdhouses and weathered picket fence. I reminded myself to let the homeowners know just how much I appreciate their aesthetic.... I hadn't meant to walk so far, but I couldn't help continuing on to Pheasant Ridge. I discovered where the fire was, the one that James and I saw from a distance not long ago. All the cattails and brush in the wetland area was nothing but char. Sad.... And then it was home again, to a letter in the billbox and a glass of mead to read it with. Tacos for supper and a murder mystery on the telly. And now today it's all about drawing while streaming old episodes of Dark Shadows. Everytime I hear that theme song I can remember being small-ish (Ten? Eleven?) and sitting on the edge of her bed in my best friend Julie's room while she swooned over Barnabas Collins and I swooned over the dark, Gothic interior of Collinwood. (Or the 3-room set of Collinwood; I had no idea it was a stage and not the wonder-filled, shadowy, maze of a mansion that I imagined it to be.) And then years later when it was rerun again on television, I can remember occasionally calling in sick to work so I wouldn't miss the highlights. I can remember Barnabas's old cobwebby house with its crusty woodwork and dust-covered windows, and artist Sam Evans's cottage studio with its bachelor interior and enormous window, and the sensation that all was being videotaped live. A perfect show for bringing back the memories....

 

WHO WOULDN'T LIVE HERE??

Me here: Bad photo, but here's a little interior shot that I found online of Sam Evans's painting studio from the series. As a kid, I couldn't imagine a better place to live/work, with easels everywhere and diffused light from that window. I imagined the outside of the cottage to be shabby and overgrown, not realizing again that it was just a set, and that the windows were frosted and foliage-covered for a reason.

 

THE DAILY FLAME (Message from Your Inner Pilot Light, courtesy of Dr. Lissa Rankin):

Dear You:

 

You're asking me what I really love to do? You care how I want you to dress? You're paying attention to who I like to hang out with?    

I've SO been waiting for you to ask!  

Because if you let me guide you in your career, your relationships, your health, and your life, all the pieces will naturally fall into place.

 

Grateful you asked,

 

Your Inner Pilot Light

(Me here: Want your own daily message? Visit http://www.innerpilotlight.com/ for "daily email reminders from the core of who you are about how to live, love, heal & thrive.")

 

NEW: The MUTTS Comic of the Day:

Artwork copyright Patrick McDonnell

 

NEW! Suggestions from The Check Book -- 200 Ways to Balance Your Life by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie:

Get yourself a coloring book and a box of crayons and color a picture for someone you love.

 

A LITTLE SOMETHING:

www.checkiday.com says that today is:

Ascension

National Buttermilk Biscuit Day

National Dance Like a Chicken Day

The Stars and Stripes Forever Day

Underground America Day

 

CLOSING THOTZ:

Enjoy your day today. And may there be a shadowy, book-filled corner there where you can take a break and read and dream.

More tomorrow,

...me.

Wednesday Thoughts for 5/12 (w/pics)

Happy Wednesday; we're already halfway to Weekend Eve!

 

Barbara Ann Kipfer's FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT (from her book 14,000 Things to be Happy About):

1. Wearing one long braid.
2. An antique-lace hankie.
3. A beach strewn with timbers of uprooted wharves and broken boats.
4. Bran muffins.
5. Drafts scurrying like mice about the house.

Henry W. Reich's FIVE THINGS THAT REALLY PISS ME OFF (from his book 2,501 Things That Really Piss Me Off):

1. We've lost Peanuts.
2. We've lost Calvin & Hobbes.
3. Pauly Shore movies.
4. Polka dot lederhosen.
5. Hour-long messages on my answering machine that leave no space for other callers.

My FIVE THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT:

1. A floppy straw hat.
2. Lilacs in a mason jar.
3. Weetabix for breakfast.
4. Prescription sunglasses.
5. A pair of waterproof gardening clogs.

My ONE THING TO BE A POOPYHEAD ABOUT:

The sun is shining, the breeze is lilac-fresh, the clouds are few. All that's missing are some pillowcases fluttering on a clothesline. I have nothing to be a poopyhead about. Life is GOOD.

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

    ~Abraham Lincoln

 

TUMBLEDOWN STUFF:

I'm cleaning cages today. Vacuuming. Shredding junk mail into pet bedding. And now that some chores are finished, the backgarden bistro table (with its fancy cloth and potted geranium and view of all my smiling dandelions) is calling to me. Maybe some quick letterwriting is in order before the sketchbook comes out.

 

WHO WOULDN'T LIVE HERE??

Me here: How cool is this?? I'm not sure where I found this interesting photo, but I'd like to give credit where credit is due.

 

THE DAILY FLAME (Message from Your Inner Pilot Light, courtesy of Dr. Lissa Rankin):

Dear You:

 

You might think those you admire have it all together, and in comparison, you look like chopped liver (no offense to livers everywhere, of course). 

But it's not true. The truth is that we're all struggling, we're all flawed, and we're all willing to do almost anything to feel loved.    

But when you dig deeper and look beneath the surface, you'll strike gold. At the core, we're all beautiful, we're all whole, and we're all perfect.    

Not to toot my own horn, but you can thank me for the good stuff, baby.    

 

Beep beep,

 

Your Inner Pilot Light

(Me here: Want your own daily message? Visit http://www.innerpilotlight.com/ for "daily email reminders from the core of who you are about how to live, love, heal & thrive.")

 

NEW: The MUTTS Comic of the Day:

Artwork copyright Patrick McDonnell

 

NEW! Suggestions from The Check Book -- 200 Ways to Balance Your Life by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie:

Take a two-hour walk at whatever pace feels comfortable for you. Although it sounds tiring, you may find it the most relaxing thing you've done in a long time.

 

A LITTLE SOMETHING:

www.checkiday.com says that today is:

Donate a Day's Wages to Charity Day

Frog Jumping Day

National Apple Pie Day

National Leprechaun Day

National Night/Third Shift Workers Day

National Receptionists Day

Top Gun Day

CLOSING THOTZ:

 

More tomorrow,

...me.

Today's Little Treasures

Another golden day, full of 'pretty and promise.' And surprises too, apparently, as I sit down to write again for the second day in a row. Are you amazed?? I know I am....

My day began with soup -- homemade chickenwing bone broth that simmered all night as I slept. It was so fragrant to wake up to that I drank some for breakfast, standing at the back door with a hot mug of it and looking on as Tumbledown's resident chipmunk scrabbled in the messy drifts on my patio before posing sweetly for the camera.

I've yet to name him but am leaning towards Mr. Alvin Chips

 Afterwards, I penned a quick letter and walked it to the corner mailbox, taking a longer-than-necessary route. There's a house nearby that has a backyard coop, and I pass it regularly to get my 'chicken fix.' Today I found the hens enjoying a dust bath.

Such a happy surprise to see them 'out and about'

My letter safely mailed, I took a different route home again and came upon a pleasantly unkempt yard with drifts of these tiny flowers. I have no idea what they are (do you?) but I had all I could do to keep from pinching some.

Must strike up a friendship with this homeowner....

And then it was back home again to my unfinished yardwork. And just look what I found in the leaves I raked! This didn't come from my fire-pit. A fairy message sealed in flame perhaps? A sad verse. A bereavement poem. Filler on a newspaper page of obituaries. Still so beautiful and noteworthy.

The author's name's a cinder, but Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is my guess

"Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said

Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days

That are no more, and shall no more return.

Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed;

I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn."
 
And now a glass of sun tea; gunmetal green brewed in a mason jar. I'll pour you some, too, ok? All that magickal discovery. I think we've earned it. :)
 

Love it cold, hate it hot, don't know why.

Another glorious spring day. And I hope your day's been glorious, too, my friend.

:),
...me

Just Me Saying Hi

Yep. It's been a looong time. Much has kept me from writing and sharing, but it's all stuff that's not worthy of a post.

A sun dog! It's almost holy, isn't it?

But now it's time to get back on the word horse and take a dang ride already. And today's a good day for it. Bright and windy and warm. There's a ring around the sun! And marsh brush surrounding Postage Stamp Pond is gearing up to become a watercolor wash of yellow and green. I'll give it another day or two (and I'd best pay attention so that I don't miss the moment).

I can aaaaalmost see a smear of green....

I can hear a lawn machine droning in the distance and smell hot tar as its tamped into the post-winter potholes. Two chickadees methodically excavate a crevice in my elderly (and possibly dying) locust tree, taking turns widening a mouth under the moustache of the Green Man face I've tacked to its trunk....

He doesn't seem too worried about it. :)

Fat earthworms appear with every sweep of my rake, and stands of catnip fill my nose with fragrance as I bruise them with the tines. The woodbine buds are plump and green, its ropes are supple, and I gather them up and drape them over the dome of the plastic jungle gym I rescued curbside on Garbage Day. Someday it'll all be a grandbug-sized (and hopefully gramma-sized) 'twig house,' at least that's what I see in my imagination; a future hollow mound of shady green just right for crawling into with a book.... Dreaming of crocheting a plastic-bag rug for its interior and hanging a sign over its door helps me enjoy the tedium of raking. Forget the 'spoonful of sugar.' My imagination is even better for helping the medicine go down....

Doesn't look like much yet, I know. But just you wait!

But I had to take a moment to come inside, brew a cuppa, and send you a long overdue post. It's felt good to write to you again! And now my cuppa's done, and there's still sooooooo much to do.

Best get to it!

Enjoy your day, my friend.

...me.
...

50 Shades of Gray

I did not draw that! It's the cover of my sketchbook. :)

No, this is not a post about my hair. :)

It's a post about this current creative block from hell I've been experiencing, and how I'm just plain tired of it.

I'm sure you're tired of it, too.

All my whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth during this time has lost me some followers. And I can't blame them for jumping ship, as I wouldn't want to read my negative postings either....

So although writing seems to help me sort out some things, I've been trying to focus on this issue without sharing too much.

I've also been actively in search of the Muse instead of waiting around for it to show up (or worse: scaring it away with all my desperate begging).

Recently I wondered if some uninterrupted time spent in the aisles of an art supply store might be inspirational. No hurries! Just the smells of paints and papers and pencils. Like shopping for school supplies only better. And my visit there just so happened to coincide with Valentine's Day and the release of the new movie '50 Shades of Grey.' (Don't ask: haven't seen it, don't want to, haven't read the book either, don't have to explain why.)

On purpose, I planted myself specifically in the Paper-and-Pencils Department and almost immediately took an interest in a sketchbook with pages of gray. I found some other colored paper items, too, as well as white pencils and gel pens. And upon seeing that I appeared to be even marginally excited again about some art supplies, James bought them for me for Valentine's Day. (Can't love this guy enough.)

Then I noticed that my new Strathmore gray-toned sketchbook came in a pad of 50 pages. Hmmmm.

And this gave me a lightbulb moment.

Since that time I've been pretty much up to my elbows and eyelids in a little series I'm calling '50 Shades of Fae.' Tiny netsuke-sized drawings of fantasy faces. On gray paper.

And -- I'm adding COLOR. I know! I can't believe it either.

I'm almost two dozen faces into the collection already and I hate to step away from it! I've been so focused that I've occasionally forgotten to eat or exercise, which probably isn't a good thing, really, although it IS when I think about all the times my childhood self got lost for long hours in a sketchbook and had to be pried away from it for the important things. Like school. Or supper....

And seriously -- it's been so dang long since I felt like this about drawing. The giddy, childlike feeling of hurry-up-and-get-your-chores-done-so-you-can-sit-with-a-sketchbook-and-a-pencil-and-a-Charlie-Chan-movie! I want to bathe in this feeling and roll around in it. I want to wear it.

The whole thing's not without its drawbacks, of course. Most of the time I leave out the get-your-chores-done part (I've always been an instant-gratification kind of girl....). Plus, sitting for long hours isn't as comfy as it was back in my youth. And let's not forget that substituting a bag of mini-marshmallows and a beer for my supper takes its toll immediately.

Still....!

DRAWING!

On a whim (and to hold myself accountable) I've been sharing my daily progress on social media. The feedback I'm getting has all been positive so far. Mostly because I'm sure my friends are just flippin' happy to have me creating instead of whining.

Some have asked me what my plans are for this series. Honestly? I haven't a clue.... It's too soon. Plus, the idea of making this dipped-in-gold happy circumstance be about money somehow just rubs me the wrong way.

So for now I'm going to keep thoughts of money out of the Big Picture. Because I don't like thoughts about money. And also because I'm having too much fun focusing on the Little Picture(s).

For now, this right here is a '50 Shades' I can get excited about. :)
...

Searching, Struggling, Scribbling

I'm still struggling with The Block. Probably the biggest creative block of my life. And I hate it. And I suspect I've bored you silly with it, which I think accounts for why I've blogged so infrequently since my Trip-of-a-Lifetime-Epic-Dream-Come-True Adventure.

But there's no getting around the fact that a big part of me has gone AWOL since my return. It's the part that exists between my imagination and my hands. Maybe it's my shadow. And even though months have passed since my Adventure I'm still trying to catch that elusive connection and sew it back onto myself. But it's hiding somewhere in Derbyshire and doesn't want to be found....

Life continues on in spite of Adventures, and things have been rollercoastery here since my return. So much so, that I've yet to nail down a lot of what I experienced there. And then I lost almost all of the photos I took! And then I grieved. Losing my shadow just seemed like part of the trauma. And it wasn't until well after Fest that I began to really worry about it.

As always, it helps to write, but drawing still seems out of the question. Why, exactly?? I wish I knew.... I begin a sketch and want to wreck it right away. I feel like a toddler with a big fat crayon and little clumsy hands, like I haven't the skills to execute all the Amazing that I see in my head.

This has to be overcome. Now. Months have passed! Folks depend on me. I have work to do!

I promised myself I'd begin this new year with some attitude. Tell myself that I won't stand for this any longer, no excuses, pick up that pencil and make a mark, scribble if that's what it takes! And I might just find out that what's been struggling to surface is the experience of my Big Adventure. There has to be a reason my shadow is still far away, right? Losing my mind/hand connection immediately upon my return from England can't be a coincidence....

And maybe by stepping off the rollercoaster here and focusing intently on my memories of there I can reconnect my two halves and feel like myself again....

Myself. Only different. Because Me-Before-England doesn't exist any longer. And I have yet to really try on and walk around in Me-After....

*blink*

(Sounds of crickets chirping)

Well, huh....

This could be interesting.
...

Will Wake for Adventure

Makeup's on, coffee's in -- I've been up for hours....

This rarely happens.

I'm a Night Owl of the highest order. And even knowing that I'd need an early start today didn't help me fall asleep any faster. But it seems I'll wake for Adventure. 

Who knew?

I accompanied James in to his work this morning and he dropped me off at a nearby posh mall, one with a designer coffee shop and a real estate broker, and sweet little stores that sell Coach bags, Tiffany memorabilia, and weird stuff like blinged-out deck shoes.... 

Nothing's open yet, of course, but the halllways are still full of people getting their exercise. The Silver Sneakers crowd. Folks my own age. Women dramatically madeup and perfectly coiffed, wearing diamonds with their workout wear. Men in their high-waisted Dockers and cardigans.

And then there's ME. Jeans and a hoodie and my Adventure Bag full of what James likes to calll my 'artist bumperstickers.' Inside are my art supplies.

Nothing makes me want to retreat back to my mess and my menagerie quite so much as being in such an environment. Right now I'm way out of my comfort zone.... 

But I'm only here because it's a conveniennt drop-off point. James has a half day today and he's got the afternoon planned. So I thought it'd be more convenient for him if I waited here, somewhere close, where we could get the afternoon off to a quicker start.

So while I wait I thought I'd write to you. And eat my peanutbutter sandwich. And perhaps draw a Little Something and perhaps even abandon it here. And maybe someone will find it, someone who wears clothes that aren't worn and don't come from the Goodwill, like mine.

Better yet, maybe someone frugal and comfortable and creative and totallly out of their comfort zone will find it.

And maybe it'll make their day.

...