For my next trick...

I seem to have lost my sense of fun, which is a giant load of crap. I love to laugh and to hear the people around me laugh, and I feel like there hasn't been nearly enough goofy silliness this summer.

I think it comes from having to make good choices for myself and two little people. As summer wears on, they get stir crazy and start making me wholly crazy. Constantly playing Jimminy Cricket has me wore out. 

This week's quote is a reminder to myself: do something goofy, weird, and altogether unexpected. 

I invite you to join me in my quest for mischief.

Friday?!

Hey y'all! 

This summer has me WORN OUT and it's not even July yet! Thank goodness next week is the huge family vacation to the beach. I have missed the ocean. I am packing my art journal supplies (and the kids' art journal supplies) so there will be show-and-tell when I return. 

Because we have acquired a new fuzzy housemate (an orange kitten named Hank), and because the other two animals get depressed when we go, we have invested in a house sitter to come stay at the house. She comes highly recommended--but I still have that STRANGER IN MY HOUSE moment every now and again. 

Not to shirk my duties on the eve of our departure, I have a tutorial up on The Pagan Village today. I'm showing how to make a collage in an Altoids tin like that adorable owl up above. It was hard to make just that one guy. I'm completely enamored with collage--it combines the mindless tasks of cutting and gluing with everything I love about design: color, texture, shape, layout. Plus it gives me an excuse to paw through my 

extensive paper stash. 

The kids have TWO play dates today. The first at a friends' house to watch the Blackhawks rally and the second at the pool. I have already decided that Sunday will be spent in my PJs doing whatever I feel like doing, read: NOT running all over town. 

Mom

circa 1980

circa 1986

I was going to post this on Sunday, which was not only Mother's Day but also my mom's birthday. However, it took me this long to get my thoughts out of my brain and into a coherent share-able form. So here goes.

My Mom is awesome. She taught me so many things intentionally and unintentionally and I am so grateful that I got to be her daughter. 

The top things she has taught me:

1. Always choose your words carefully. You can be honest without being cruel.

2. Girls and boys are equal in every task. She was one of the only women in her field for a very long time. Her tenacity and hard work have paved the way for so many (and they don't even know it). And this dovetails into

3. You can have a family and a career. She would leave for work at 6 a.m. so that she could pick us up after school and we could have dinner as a family. She was the leader of my Girl Scout Troop--and there she taught us how to build a fire (and cook over it), how to be a leader, how to work toward goals.

4. Always question new information. This is probably because she spent most of her time in a lab and looking at medical study results. But the lesson has taught me to be a careful consumer of information and always look to the original source. Full disclosure: when I was younger, it annoyed me to no end that she was always asking me "where did you learn that?"

5. Learn new things. She was always trying new recipes, taking classes, and reading. When I was home from college in the summer, we took watercolor classes together. I have tried food from all over the globe (one of my comfort foods is Kefta from Morocco). I have continued to take classes online and in real life (and will be going to grad school in the fall). And I have read enough books to fill a library.

6. Find time to do what you love. Yes, spending time being a mom/wife/friend IS important. But it's also important to spend time doing what nourishes you. When I was in high school, I remember she would get up and go running at 5 in the morning. On the weekends you could find her in the garden or weaving at her loom. 

7. Travel as often as you can. Pay attention to what's different. Enjoy the differences. We have traveled together, and we have traveled separately. But we are always scheming our next big trip.

8. Be a good listener. My mom is the person I call when I need to get things out of my head and into the world. I find myself on the listening end of many conversations. It's amazing how much better you can make people feel by just listening, and not merely waiting for a lull in the conversation so you can put in your two cents.

9. Be kind. The world is full of hurt, which as a nurse in a pediatric oncology ward she saw every day. The thing I remember her saying most often is "Don't be mean". And I have said the same to my children. 

10. Work hard. It's true that both of my parents have a strong work ethic. They both have masters-level degrees, and they have both succeeded in their fields. For my mom, I think it is a matter of "do the job in front of you" as well as being the eldest of 5. I learned that just because things are hard it doesn't mean that you should give up. 

This list has the potential to be never ending. I am learning new lessons every year as I go through my own trials of motherhood and finding my place in the world. I would not be the woman I am without such an amazing role model. I hope that I am encouraging my kids and allowing them the space to grow in the way my mom did for me. 

I love you Mom!

(I know you don't like the attention, so I won't do this again. But I just had to put it out there once)

Hello, Friday!

My week has flown by.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I'll be working on a painting (sketch, top)and stringing up constellation pendants (bottom). 

Enjoy yourselves, lovelies!

BEST Monday ever

The Earth has music for those who listen

--Shakespeare

The weather is finally spring-like around here and I am spending many blissful hours outside. But that is not what makes this the BEST MONDAY EVER.

This is the best ever because today I found out that I was accepted to the graduate program. Starting this fall, I will be pursuing a masters degree in Library and Information Science. I am SUPER EXCITED. Today, I am enjoying the good news. Tomorrow, I will buckle down and get all the paperwork started--financial aid paperwork, health history paperwork, enrollment paperwork...and probably paperwork I don't know about yet. 

Oooh, I just love it when a plan comes together!

Weekend ahoy!

The warm weather is rolling in and with it comes my cat-like desire to sit under the sun.
I'm planning some projects that will encourage some outdoor art-making--at least that's the intention. It's currently very windy.
With all the rain last week our basement flooded, rendering my art space uninhabitable. It threw me off my game this week, but I plan to be back in the art-making mode by Monday.
Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy yourselves!

Spring blossoms

Spring has arrived!
I think. I'm pretty sure.
Don't quote me on it because this is the Midwest and sometimes it snows in late April.
The flowers are blooming and the birds are nesting.

Happy Spring!

Hidee! I have a tutorial up over here on how to make the upcyled paper nest you see above.

I decided a while back that Fridays would be Photo Fridays and I got this amazing new camera for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and I have found myself too intimidated by the camera to use it every day. And that's ridiculous, right? It's a tool. It's made to be used. 

Next week, the kids are on spring break, and I am going to get out that camera and use it. I'm going to spend a whole DAY taking photos at one hour intervals. I'm going to use ALL the settings and try adjusting manually the shutter speed and aperture. I'm going to use that camera and I'm going to get over my trepidations. 

Also, I'm going to work on some projects and meet some deadlines and see about getting a part-time gig for a regular cash flow. 

Art!

I'm trying to get into art journaling. It's a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I think I've worked so long with the goal of making a finished, stand-alone piece that the concept of putting all that time and energy into a page that will be hidden away seems foreign.
But I thought it would be a good place to record some of my travel experiences. So I'm going to keep at it.

Happy Friday!

Hi there!
I've got a tutorial up on the Pagan Village; it's Crafting a Dream Journal. I find dreams to be inspiring--it's a place where logic and rules are set aside and any combination of things can come together. Maybe that's why I like children's artwork so much; they aren't bound by what's "right"--they are just in the process of creation.

My mom is in town for the weekend--yay! So I will be spending my weekend enjoying her company. I hope that you get to spend some time in the company of people you love. 

Well hidee!

I have been crazy busy! I went out of town over the weekend to do a little tattooing and a little visiting. We got home last night at 8 pm, when I looked at the calendar and realized that I have a commissioned painting due Friday.
Now I'm grabbing my supplies and loading up the car; I teach private art lessons on Wednesdays. Today we are working in charcoal and doing a still life.

DO SOMETHING

We are what we repeatedly do
--Aristotle

What do you do? When you're not busy surviving? When you have moments of uninterrupted time?
Do you read? Bake? Make soap? Knit? Do you compose operettas?
Please don't tell me you do NOTHING.

Life is full of amazing things to do, places to explore, and people to meet. Stop doing nothing and go do SOMETHING.

Take pictures, make a map, play with Legos, plan a trip, visit a new restaurant. The world is out there, waiting for you: go and meet her!

Quiet day

It's quiet around here. Today, we lost our cat Lunchbox to multiple organ failure. She had been a part of our lives for a long time, and she was wonderful with the kids. We're going to spend the weekend saying our goodbyes and I'll see you again on Monday.

This will be the week...

Kindness is a language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see --Mark Twain

This will be the week that I will live in kindness. 

This will be the week that I will forgive myself for not accomplishing everything on the list.

This will be the week that I remember how many wonderful people I have in my life. 

To be inspired by the kindness of strangers, please visit I Believe In Strangers. It's a website dedicated to stories of kindness, and I'm not going to lie I was crying like a baby by story number 3. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Today is my little brother's birthday. And not to brag, but he is the coolest little brother of all time.

Here's to you, Jono! Amazing musician, superfun uncle, and the best friend a sister could ask for. We love you to the moon and back!

Check out his band's newest EP on bandcamp!

Quote of the week

Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a fondness for Emerson. He was an American essayist and poet who was born in 1803 and died in 1882. He believed in the divinity of nature and the equality of all people. He influenced Whitman and Thoreau. If you want to read more of his work you can go here.

I had planned on spending this week outdoors doing outdoorsy things, but when I woke up this morning it was 12 degrees. If it can crawl above 20, I'll bundle up and brave the chill. I was hoping to introduce the kids to geocaching this week. I've looked and there are 3 caches within walking distance of the house. This is all part of my grand plan to spend more time outside with them. Lately we have gotten lazy and have spent more time indoors than I care to admit.

Photo Friday!

Well how do?!

Happy Friday to you! The above collage is our December holiday round-up, as seen through the lens of my new camera (Thanks Mom and Dad!) There was music and my baby niece and gobs of family. It was the best.

If you're looking for an easy weekend project, I have a polymer clay pendant tutorial up over on The Pagan Village.

Coming up next week on the blog: silhouette portraits, some Emerson, and more fun with MY NEW CAMERA. I'm still getting used to having a "for real" camera again--and looking for any tips to help me get back into the swing of taking pictures. Have you done a photo challenge before? Did you enjoy it? 

Welcome 2013!

A while ago, I decided that I wasn't going to make resolutions any more. Instead I make goals. In the past this has included things like learn how to make creme brule and how to open champagne bottles. Last year I made A LOT of goals, and I accomplished most of them but I was feeling burned out by November.

This year I have limited myself to five goals that I can stretch out over the year.
1. Make art every day ( for at least 10 minutes)
2. Become more comfortable with photography. ( Ideally, I'd like to get to the point where having a camera in my hand feels natural)
3. Enter a reader challenge in Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine
4. Make time to play outside with the kids
5. Continue with belly dance and bicycling

What are your goals for 2013?

I'm still here.

Hello All.
I had to step away from the Internet for a few days following Friday's hideous occurrence. I needed to spend time in the present, with my family and friends. As the days go by, the pain in my heart aches a little less--but I suspect that it will never be gone. The knowledge that what happened in Connecticut could have easily happened any where, to anyone's children, will always be stored away inside my brain.

When life hands me things that are too big, too raw, and too much I turn to poetry. I have been reciting Emily Dickinson over the past few days:

My life closed twice before its close --
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.


For me, it is so very appropriate that this Friday is the Winter Solstice. A time when the darkness gives way to the light. The days begin to lengthen ever so gradually, and we are pushed out of winter and pulled towards spring. 

One of my personal rituals is to check in with the Maes Howe web cam. 
Maes Howe is a prehistoric chambered cairn--a burial mound made of rough-hewn stone. The entrance is aligned with the setting sun on the Winter Solstice. As the sun makes it's descent on the shortest day, the room fills with light. 

I invite all of you to celebrate the returning of the light on Friday night. Light candles, sing songs, and fill your heart and homes with the people you love. 

Trees and Poetry

The Maple Tree by John Clare

The Maple with its tassel flowers of green
That turns to red, a stag horn shapèd seed
Just spreading out its scalloped leaves is seen,
Of yellowish hue yet beautifully green.
Bark ribb'd like corduroy in seamy screed
That farther up the stem is smoother seen,
Where the white hemlock with white umbel flowers
Up each spread stoven to the branches towers
And mossy round the stoven spread dark green
And blotched leaved orchis and the blue-bell flowers—
Thickly they grow and neath the leaves are seen.
I love to see them gemm'd with morning hours.
I love the lone green places where they be
And the sweet clothing of the Maple tree.

The Leaf And The Tree by Edna St. Vincent Millay

When will you learn, myself, to be
a dying leaf on a living tree?
Budding, swelling, growing strong,
Wearing green, but not for long,
Drawing sustenance from air,
That other leaves, and you not there,
May bud, and at the autumn's call
Wearing russet, ready to fall?
Has not this trunk a deed to do
Unguessed by small and tremulous you?
Shall not these branches in the end
To wisdom and the truth ascend?
And the great lightning plunging by
Look sidewise with a golden eye
To glimpse a tree so tall and proud
It sheds its leaves upon a cloud?

Here, I think, is the heart's grief:
The tree, no mightier than the leaf,
Makes firm its root and spreads it crown
And stands; but in the end comes down.
That airy top no boy could climb

Is trodden in a little time
By cattle on their way to drink.
The fluttering thoughts a leaf can think,
That hears the wind and waits its turn,
Have taught it all a tree can learn.
Time can make soft that iron wood.
The tallest trunk that ever stood,
In time, without a dream to keep,
Crawls in beside the root to sleep.

******************************************************************

There are literally hundreds of poems that feature trees. In all my travels, I love to watch how the trees change as you move from one latitude to the next. I love how something that we take for granted in our everyday wanderings changes as the seasons spin from one to the next. I love how the smell of spruce and pine makes me think of childhood Christmases, how the smell of lemons brings back spring in Sorrento.

What's your favorite tree?