November, November!!!

Jeez, it's November already what happened? Did I stick my head so deep in the sand that I've missed months? I'm alive. My skin is still my own, my toes wiggle, and my elbows still remain some mystery behind my arm that occasionally I whack really hard reminding me that they exist. Its tragic for even a second if I have forgotten how precious life is and have not taken in every moment, second by second, frame by frame and lived it. Time to feel again.

Taking a Minute to Focus on Health

Coffee minus the caffeine and sugar today. Not even sure if that equals coffee to be honest. No sweet tea anymore......
I picked up way too many really awful habits while I was on my many vacations and while it's good in small doses, it's not so great for my daily lifestyle. I'm just focusing this week (OK more like the next four weeks) on eliminating sugar(processed,refined), caffeine, and alcohol (temporary, I need vino)and dairy (love cheese). I have not had a four legged animal in close to 22 years now so I guess that's not an issue. Eating mostly fruits, vegetables, and
some fish. Squeezed walking five miles daily and twenty on my bicycle as weather and time permit.
Some years ago I made a commitment to myself to live each day to it's fullest, try anything once, and commit to quality living and longevity. I realize there are things we can not control but of the things I can, I will. So this is just me getting back on track. Maybe if I get the time
I'll add some additional thoughts to how this is going. I do think sugar and dairy tend to leave me sluggish so I'm curious to see if I feel different without these foods in my system.

So why am I writing about it. Well for one I'm sulking at the moment of not having sugar in my decaf coffee but if this works out well for me I'd like to
keep a small log for anyone to follow if they are so inclined.

Bon Appetit

Quote(s) That I live by...

"The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.
Anais Nin"

Things I learned on Vacation

1. There is a bed out there more comfortable than my own.

2. The hotel pool will always be full of kids even at 10:30 pm.

3. The hotel hot tub will always be full of kids even at 10:30 pm.

4. When the hot tub does not have kids in it, it is usually because
it is broken.

5. The life rules I have set for myself will not be adhered to by all
people, i.e. adults who come down to the hotel's continental breakfast
in their pajamas.

6. The same person who channel surfs at home is also the same person who constantly
searches for a new radio station.

7. While the United States on a whole has moved on to "the little blue or yellow
packets" the room coffee "care package" will always have the pink crap that causes
cancer in lab rats.

8. The two sugars that come in the room coffee "care package" are always five less
than you need. Its some generic weak sugar that's a B grade at best.

9. A stiff drink and a snack every few hours makes everyone happy....

10. Its easier to find the METRO by instinct and common sense than by following the
little blue dot on my not-so-smart phone.

11. Past the point where I announce I have to use the bathroom you have exactly 47
miles to find me one.

Vacation travels are mostly over for at least a little while. It was really a lot of fun and always an adventure. I learn something new about myself and the people I'm with when we are placed outside our usual element. Mostly we all laughed and luckily we were all adult enough to know when to go to our respective corners and chill. Looking forward to another trip soon. Till then, Cheerio!!

Thats Life

It's Saturday. I'm just six days from sending another group of little people off in to the world or at least until they fly back into my classroom in September. Some of them are moving away, some are moving up, but the rest of my little chickies will be back. I will really be glad for the summer break. I recently had my teenagers "job shadow" me and they both commented that the energy level to keep up with 17 three and four year olds is insane. HAHA Yea, because if your not in control, the kids will be! I'd like to refer you to the class next door which I've gently dubbed the "LTFs". (Lord of The Flies) who is run by their fearless (fearful?) leader, BBOI (sorry can't share that one at this time). The LTFs have crazy music sung by the most annoying children's musicians ever allowed to even be produced, at a volume heard through the cinder blocks and up past the main office. My kids get the occasional Rafi....but we really strive for something a bit more calming. Anyway I'm way off course now......Ok so high energy, yours must be greater than theirs....blah blah blah....this is why at least every other day I end up taking the afternoon NAP, which is the best thing EVER!! Then there is the germ factor that I need a break from. I've seen it all this year from Swine to Strep. I only seem actually get sick right about the time we have a break. Like, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. My director recently complimented me on my great work ethic like perhaps she thinks I've been able to control getting sick for the better of the school. Hmmm?? Well, if it means a raise I will continue to allow her to believe it. This is the same woman who administered my last flu shot to me!

Ok to the point, the point, the point!!! Patience my dear reader! For the next three months all I have in front of me is books, travel, beaches, biking, outdoor activities and so therefore......i should also be able to PAINT more because I will no longer be sucked dry of creativity, emotional energy, and physical exhaustion. YEA!!! Oh but did I mention for the next three months I have no income..... paintings are for sale!!

A Conversation With Lillian Blades

Still looking for balance

It's been a week and I'm still trying to find a little balance and harmony in my life again. How does the arrival of one adult throw things so completely off. I did manage to go out on a hunt for materials on Sunday which made me feel like I was at least trying to keep the creative flow going. I have at least four paint projects to move through in the next five weeks. They are still all in various stages but as I'm emotionally pulled in five directions at the moment I just glance in to my room and think...., "be with you when I can."
Also this weekend I did make a stop at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington North Carolina. Lillian Blades (interview posted) has a beautiful exhibit up at the moment and her eclectic combination of materials and colors is so inspiring to me!
OK so it's Monday I have this whole week in front of me to start anytime I ready to jump in there again! Right? :)

Finding Space

Well I was going to write this about finding your own space but I clearly have no answer to this because in the 20min I have sat down to write....constant interuption. How is it I've gone from such solitary living to choas....

Well give me a few days and I'll tell you if I can find a way to balance it all..... :)

Eating on the go....

So today I decide to swing into tacobell after work, hungry! Very hungry. Preschool peanutbutter jelly sandwiches on white bread is not in any of my eat like an adult "food groups". So Taco Bell it is. I get two bean burritos and drive off. I decide I need to eat right then so I'm holding this bean burrito in my left hand...steering w/ my right when all the beans dump out on my lap. I hold the steering wheel along with the burrito in my left hand while reaching my right hand into the bag for napkins. My spiral thumb ring gets hooked on the handle of the t-bell bag and I can't get it unhooked at all. So there I am driving down the road with a now squished busted burrito in one hand, a t-bell bag hanging off my thumb, and beans in my lap..and I had to go a good mile like this before I had decent place to pull over...what a day! Haha

Lots of Activity in North Raleigh

Lots of Activity in North Raleigh

As was my life last night as a ladybug, I landed on a blade of grass that was strong and smooth. It seemed to extend to the sky in comparison to those blades around it. I balanced on small back foot, single axes, and determined that I could dip back down to the ground or I could spring upward and fly.....i flew

Kate Nash "Nicest Thing" Animation

Amos Lee - Keep it Loose, Keep it Tight (Live @ Abbey Road)

Taking a short break

Taking a short break from painting which started around 8 this morning....I did go get more canvases at some point. I have stopped to twitter every now and then. I changed up my music and let Pandora lead the way as far as mixes go.
I may take a photo later tonight and add it on here of the different works in progress. Maybe it is fun for people and myself to see the transition from drawing to painting. I have three canvases that are getting worked and two canvases that I'm getting ready to draw on. Ideas that came last night as I was drifting off.
I needed this today. I had to put the feelings somewhere. I'm beginning to think the whole series should be called my diary. Only maybe it's not what you see it is what you don't see....ok
rambling and need to shoot photos...
need to continue to express myself when words are not allowing me to today.

Sunday kinda love.....

Woke up with Sunday Kind of Love on my mind this morning. The beautiful voice of Etta James....I tried to belt out a few lines myself and then realized hers, in my head, might be the better choice!!

So after kicking my own ass for the last two days working on flower gardens with my preschool kids and then deciding that my own gardens were in sad shape I am almost finished. I was really going to ignore my own space this year and not invest a lot of time but working with the kids at school started a little stir in my soul. I looked at the sad little state of my raised box in the backyard, poked around in the dirt, and discovered some things had actually wintered over. The sage was coming in, the oregano, and even my beloved thyme with its dark green leaves on dainty twig stems. I can't ignore something that has survived and so there I was five hours later with new soil turned over, survivors replanted, and some new additions. While I was at the local plant place I also somehow accidentally (really accidentally, I swear!!) ended up with about ten other plants that begged me to take them home and put them out front. So I did. It is now Sunday morning and while some region of my shoulders are screaming and I can't seem to turn my head from left to right and there is a discovery of some muscle group in my legs that I have not used lately, I realize that my soul feels much like my garden. It has survived another round and there is always a chance for some new life.

Protecting Your Family

Has anyone given any thought at all to how dangerous it is to put the little decal families on the back of their vehicles???
I was behind one today that not only gave me the number of family members that belonged with that vehicle but also their names, their sexes, there birth order and also the names of all the family pets. As a teacher of preschoolers I'm here to tell you even the shyest child or the most reserved child in my class will pretty much open up once you start talking to them about things that are familiar to them. You are giving perfect strangers the keys to communicating with your child. Children believe that if you know their parent's names, you know about their siblings or you know about their pets you must be a friend to the family. Period. I had every intention of keeping this blog about art, literature, music, and fun but I couldn't let this go without being said. For those of you parents who insist there would be no chance for a stranger to come into contact with your child there is. People who prey on children wait for that chance and no matter how good your intentions, no matter how vigil your watch, at some point, we all look away. We get pulled away. We get distracted. So if you have the "decal family"or you know someone with the "decal family" just think about this and decide if it's worth the grief to you to give this kind of information out to the strangers around you.

Finally a break through, so the artist says.

I had some bleak hour last night that shot me through to the other side and with it came the idea on how to deal with the looming elephant in the corner...
Why it seems like I have to go through some emotional purge before I can release the idea is beyond me but I recognize it and have learned to embrace it because good things always come of it. Well at least I hope good things. Paintings at least. So Groove is still with me in case your wondering along with an ahh moment when a few people (and that is a few....)are standing in your corner telling you to push on.
Oh let me briefly tell you about the reading portion of this blog....I know I said I'd get back to DH Lawrence. (i fully intend to) It's just that.....so far I love his foreword more so than the actual rants, which are far worse than mine here. He did get into the mention of the solar plexus and I'm thinking hmmmm..... solar plexus, solar plexus what could that mean...I don't trust he has the medical expertise to actual be telling me the truth about it. Low and behold he is correct but even more so HA, it is more familiar to me (not medical at all, not anything you can see) as Chakra....those lovely powers within the body to become centered not just with ones self but life around us. It is energy. It is flow. There is a point to this because recently I also read the Kamasutra (Vatsyayana) and was like, " really this is it." I thought this was going to be more on the spiritual level. (my ebook did not even have pictures) Hey, those of you who know what I'm talking about if you did not "read" the book, you only got about 20% percent of it....The first few chapters interesting, funny, and a bit titillating for a book written in 1st to 6th century a.d., but really, the rest is about castes and social rules, blah, blah, blah. Ok! So clearly not where the chakra is. So moving into Tantra now. (jeez, get sex off your brains) I'm looking for the whole spiritual enlightenment. Personal little journey to continue staying connected to life. Connecting the dots if you will. I keep finding familiar locations and people on this journey. Why am I looking? It never quits. This is how I pull in the energy to push out the next piece. I'm not done with you D. H. (Fantasia Of The Unconscious) I just find that your, Lady Chatterley's Lover is, well, much easier to understand!

The Artist is Speaking today..

Some days it is hard to leave the paints and canvas and go to the "real job" (which I love too!). I'm working on this tribal art with a teeny tiny brush and I know when it's all done it's going to be awesome but it's not easy to commit to. So it hit me sometime yesterday and I found my Groove which was missing for four days. Groove has it's own agenda, it shanghais my heart in other directions or just goes funk on me now and then. So Groove came back and we have been going strong.
There is a large elephant hanging out in the corner though beckoning me. It could be as my dear friend Mat puts it "my next Mona Lisa"...It's in stage two of painting, lines drawn, base colors laid, and its the beginning of all beginnings. Every painting is like a love affair. Your drawn into it, it whispers of possibility, the infatuation, the satisfaction, and then the final end where you look back upon it and wow, if it's the real deal,
you have created something for life.
It's there branded in your mind and your heart. It's a piece of your soul out on display.....
Stay with me awhile Groove, we need this new love...

Lets start with D.H. Lawrence

So I've had Fantasia of the Unconscious now for weeks and I can't get past his foreword. I usually skip forewords. I flip quickly thinking blah blah blah get to the meat of this already. So here I am stuck in his foreword and amused by it. (I have read other books meanwhile ok) He offers no apologies and begins this book by first telling it like it is, really just because you can read does not mean your going to get this. Idiots please exit to your left. Closed minded thinkers to the right.
I always feel this way when I paint. People get excited and say Oh! I want to see your work....well I like to put a disclaimer on it. You May NOt get it... Not my problem! It's like this, that just because you have eyes does not mean we see things the same way.... So thank you dear D.H. for putting it so eloquently.

There is more....(it's a long Foreword)