Wordless Wednesday

Pet Peeve

One of my pet peeves is writing in books. Not when it's my own books, lord knows I notate, comment and doodle in enough of my own. The peeve is when I find it in library books. I picked up "The Making of June," by Annie Ward at the library. I found it while browsing, hadn't heard of it before but it appealed to me and I am really enjoying it. But on page 91 I found this.

And I realized how much it bugs me when other people decide to edit books that aren't their own property. Oh, so smart, they find typos that the original editor missed and correct it IN PEN write right in the book. I don't know why it gets under my skin so much, it just does.

Sweet & Sour

I saw on my calendar that today is the Sweetest Day. I had heard it mentioned at other times but my curiosity led me to google it. Apparently it started in Cleveland in the 1920's by a man handing out candy to the less fortunate and now is celebrated by showing love and appreciation to your friends and family. It's kind of funny it even makes it onto a calendar if you ask me. Before I read that I was thinking it had something to do with the time of year, the harvest, the relativity of the angle of the sun to the equator. And really it is about a box of chocolates. Either way, a good reason to have a mini celebration.

I needed to read that because this week has been kind of rough. On the up side, none of us seem to have yet contracted the swine flu despite dire forecasts by the media. But it was just a bad energy week up here. I ended up working Thursday (to make up for not working on our holiday Monday) and working late. I went in with a bad attitude and I managed to hold my center until the end of the day and then it snowballed.

The previous day Riley came home from school WITHOUT his backpack, which all parents of school age children will realize is a disaster of epic proportions. A search of the school and the school bus turned up nothing. When my son sees his first therapist and that therapist asks him to remember back to the first traumatic experience he can remember, he will undoubtedly recall my reaction to him losing his backpack in first grade. Honestly, why do I so often forget that he is just six years old?

Then, yesterday was a weird little day. I had an early morning coffee with a good friend who I hadn't seen in a while. Important note here, I had a very strong coffee, something I guess I am no longer used to because I jitter bugged through the rest of the day. Right up to 6:00 p.m., I was out of my skin, irritated, unable to complete simple tasks or even a thought. I couldn't even pull supper together which didn't go over too well. I'm blaming it on the coffee. It was so unsettling though, I can't remember being so agitated.

I'd like to suggest that on this Sweetest Day you go out and do a little something to make someones life sweet. Make it a sugar treat, or a mental, emotional, spiritual sweet. One of my classmates in the Life is a Verb class I am taking talked this week about how when she does her groceries, she asks the checkout person what kind of candy bar is their favorite, then she adds one to her order and hands it to the person. I loved that. If we all reached out and touched someone with a small gesture, image how sweet this day would be.



P.S. I love Caramilk.

Wordless Wednesday

Shiver me timbers!

I know I'm not the only one freezing my kishkas off. We had our first frost over night last night. I was glad I didn't need the car before the sun (yes, the long lost sun!) came up and melted it off. We tried to walk down by the water with the dogs this morning but fagg-et-a-bout-it. It was so windy it was miserable, even with multiple layers, mitts and hats. WTF? It's only early October, we are supposed to be visited by an El Nino this year and yet the heat has been on full force, the wool socks out. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to lodge a formal complaint with someone about this kind of thing? It seems most of the northern part of this continent is freezing or has been snowed on already. Too soon, yes. Especially after the dismal season we dared to call summer this year. So here I am, on my country's Thanksgiving night, grousing about the menial. Any only 74 days until Christmas.

38, 39, 40

I can hardly believe that I have caught up with *e*'s weekly questions. Q41 will be asked only this Monday. Here are my tags Q38, Q39 and Q40.

"Gummies, jellies, chocolate, iced coffee, ideas, desires, wishes, hopes and dreams. I'm drinking it all in, digesting it and enjoying every bite." - Scrapbook paper, ink and stamps.


"At first I thought that almost everything brings me job, in some form when I stop and consider it. But much to my own surprise, deep down, my answer was 'my family.'" - Collage, acrylics, glazes, caran d'ache neocolor IIs, watercolor pencils, General's pencil.




"Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years - that there will always be time to..." - Scrapbook paper, masks, stamps and ink.

Retail Therapy

Some say, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. And with a rainy ped. day ahead of us, Riley and I did just that. He at Build-a-Bear, me at Sears. He getting some new accessories (after a stellar first report card yesterday), me scoring some wool socks for $3.99. Bonus! After leaving the equivalent of one kidney at the vitamin store (I'm a big believer in pumping the immune system during these dark and virus-riddled months), and after leaving the equivalent of another kidney at the grocery store (WTF is up with totals at the cash register?), we are home and shopped out. I did get to wondering in the dairy aisle how far removed from dairy some actual cheese is. I saw cheese, cheese food and cheese food product. What new mutation can they possibly do to extend cheese food product? I shudder to think and yet Riley's taste buds do go orgasmic over such things. Luckily he likes "real" cheese too.

Friday Haiku

This didn't take long, thanks to a couple of swift responses to my blue post.

Friends to the rescue
Got permission to wallow
Pass the chocolate

Blue

I have been feeling kind of blue these last few weeks. My own kind of hibernating, I guess. I've been silent, trying to figure out how to pull myself together. Really at a loss for words, which doesn't happen often to me. I've been blog hopping and not commenting much but I am continually encouraged and inspired by the art, the photos, the ideas and process (praw-cess?!) others are going through. I'll find my voice again soon, I'm hoping to pull a Friday Haiku out of myself somehow someway today.

Wordless Wednesday

Q37

*e*'s 37th' question: What sparks my creativity?

My simple, one word answer - Everything!

Scrapbook embellishments, watercolor pencils, ink.

'Tis The Season

On my morning walk this:


They may have bird brains, but they are smart enough to am-scray N-O-W. It is alway a pleasure to see them return, though.

And on my afternoon walk, I took a few snaps of a tree on our block, the maple tree that never fails to disappoint. Some years the leaves on the trees just seem to turn brown and fall off, but not this tree, ever.

Q36

*e*'s 36th question is, "What do you never want to forget?"

Scrapbook paper and embellishments, ribbon, ink. The back reads:

I never want to forget that everyday is a gift, every moment divine, every wish is heard and, somewhere, all prayers are answered.

Haiku Friday

Scritch, scritch, scratch, rub, rub
My first day wearing wool socks
Yup, fall has arrived

October Calendar Page

I remember now why I chose this for my October page when I was putting it together at the end of last year. The look of "spent", forgotten, all webby and Halloweeny. It's been grim this last week - cold and dark and generally dispiriting. Therefore, my quotes: "Relax and let everything go to hell" (Sol Lewitt) and "Almost always the creative dedicated minority has made the world better" (Martin Luther King Jr.). It was a dark and stormy week, indeed.

Wordless Wednesay

Fighting the Good Fight or, On Aging - Part 482

I have been fighting the good fight for any number of years. I'm talking dry skin. The summer months are fading to just memory when my good fight consisted of sloughing the cracked and scale-like skin off my heels. These days, the only time I see my heels are on the yoga mat and in the shower. My focus has now shifted to my hands. With the exception of a woman's neck, little more tells her age than the skin on her hands. I have two problem areas, the side of the index finger on my right hand and the knuckle of my left pinkie. Don't ask me why, but these two spots are inconsolable. And now with hand washing season in full swing, I am not only fighting the good fight, I am in full battle. It's me against the lizard who seems poised to take over my hands. I have tried all kinds of cremes, lotions and milks. I stop short of sleeping with Vaseline under gloves and I feel like I'm losing. The Body Shop's hemp hand protector is good but no match for those two hot spots of mine. Any suggestions out there?

Q35

I was lucky enough to have a lot of studio time this week. I got two tags done and much exploration in the Super Nova art journal class. Here is *e*'s question number 35 - What kind of goddess am I?:

The back reads: I am a Super Goddess. I leap buildings in a single bound. I have x-ray vision, a sixth sense and supersonic hearing. There is nothing that can keep me down. I can do anything!

I swear some days this is true. Scanned magazine images, scrapbook embellishments, stamps and ink.

Gratitude

In all my kvetching about where I live, I sometimes forget that within a block and a half of our house we can do this:



And this:


And this:


I found this piece of beach glass today, a color I have never seen before:

It was a beautiful autumn day that necessitated a good fleecey sweatshirt and sunglasses. On the way home we were followed by this:


A beautiful white cat that seemed to want to adopt us. She was oblivious to everything around her except for us. But she abandoned us before we reached the house and decided to go her own way.


We are trying to squeeze out every moment of outdoor time now, so keenly aware of the spirit of hibernation on our heels.

Blogaversary and a Mysterious Give-Away

Today is my one year blogaversary. I can't believe it's been a year and at the same time I can't believe it's only been a year. Creating this was a real labour and to sound like so many other before me, I have met wonderfully creative people and truly supportive and generous friends. It has allowed me a forum to put my art "out there" and to learn in a way that would never have been possible even ten years ago. Ain't technology grand?! So in light of all this, I am going to offer a very mysterious give-away. I am in the throes of Julie Prichard's Super Nova Art Journaling class which started about ten days ago and runs until around the end of October. I am also starting Carmen Torbus' Spill It! class in less than a week. I am going to give away one my results from those classes. Already I've been producing like a fiend (for me anyway), not quite finished pieces on water color paper mostly 5 x7, a few 4 x 6. But in view of the quantity and the fact that they aren't even finished I am not posting any photos (as yet anyway). I will wait until the end of October for all the classes to have run and to have worked all the techniques taught and then choose one of the finished products. Basically you're saying "Oh yes please, choose me!" for something you have never seen, but if you read here on a regular basis, and know my style, then you have a general idea. Leave a comment and you'll be entered into the draw. Mention the give away on your blog and I'll enter your name twice. You don't have to have a blog to enter, an email address is enough. I'm not sure when I will be closing entries, probably only just before I run the random integer generator at the end of October. I love surprises, don't you?!