Christmas in July

at least it seems that way. I have already begun discussion with the Midland Historical Society about publicity and marketing for this year's display for Blue's Christmas Village. I have completed two houses and working on a third. I hope to have several more done by November 17th when it has to go up. There is an odd sense about the village. It is like it has a specific purpose and MY purpose is to see that it's purpose is fulfilled. I become excited when I think about it. I love watching people's faces as they lose themselves in the set up. My husband calls me an urban planner. I don't really plan much. I start setting them out and then they sort of tell me where they want to go. What happens in the end seems to come from somewhere else.

so...here it is 80 degree weather and I am thinking of the Christmas village. this year to go up the week before Thanksgiving. but I have included a picture of my Ernest Markham Clematis on the old birdhouse. I love the homey look.

MORE good news. My son is a semifinalist in the Bush's baked beans perfect pairs competition. hopefully he will get enough votes to make it to the final cookoff and be lucky enough or good enough to win his backyard makeover.

late again

I had thought that when I started this I would be just such an avid blogger. I have certainly found that that is not the case. I put most of my thoughts on paper in my morning journal. while typing the blog is fine, the actual putting pen to paper is somehow more intimate. I know there are people out there who do not agree with this. I had an email from one recently who said without question actual writing was NOT her thing. I have to admit that there were a couple in my groups and classes who felt the same, until they actually started doing it on a regular basis. I am quite committed to it. Every morning with my coffee, one will find me at the Dining room table scribbling away. Often I think there is no one on earth including myself who would be able to read it when it has become cold for two hours or more. But it has become the start to my day. I used to take my coffee and turn on the news and the weather. I find those boring now. Not that I don't want to know what is going on, it is just that the writing of my journal is so much more important to how I start my day. And lately, more and more, I am finding new ideas and new thoughts popping into my head as I write. So while I hope I can get into this practice called blogging, my morning coffee and my journal will have me keep on keeping on.

back at last

I cannot believe I took so long to get back to the blog. I am way overdue. There is little to excuse the fact. I put it on my list several times during the last few weeks and then proceeded not to do it. I want to commit to writing at least weekly and I am not sure why I did not. I did go through some bad health and some emotional issues but it was really no excuse.
The good news now is that the Prosperity by Design class is over and AW is winding down for the summer. This hopefully will allow me to spend more time in my garden and working on projects to nurture my inner artist. I truly miss that. BUT it will not happen this week. I am getting the house and grounds ready for guests. My son is coming in from Colorado and my brother is bringing his two sons for the wedding of my youngest on Saturday. I am setting an intention for good weather and good fun. I have never been to an outdoor/picnic wedding. And at least I didn't have to buy a Mother of the groom Dress! In spite of reservations, I wish them well.
And here is the sincerely wish that I don't put this off as long this time as I have. I was astounded when I looked at the last date. OH and before I forget. the Glow Project. It was interesting to note that it went over well in the Prosperity Class. But others I asked to participate sort of let it slip by. Those that have used it find that they seldom get past the first three on the list. Which is completely okay. It is where I find I work too. And it does help. I find it tremendously calming I do hope more will try it out. Til next time.

The Glow Project

In working on the Prosperity by Design group sessions, I had this idea for a project that I am hoping participants will work on. I have also sent out to family members and will be adding some friends to the project. I am really intersted in what happens. I am putting my instructions down here but since this has limited viewing am thinking of doing another blog somewhere else that might get some strangers involved just to see how it goes, what is experienced. I really hope that it is kept up for the entire ten weeks.
In the meantime this is what I have come up with. Initiated on April 14th, 2008, by Bluspider.

THE GLOW PROJECT
One Light- Just Glow

This is a voluntary experiment.
It will take place over the course of the next few weeks. In your journal it would be helpful to write down anything you notice during the course of the experiment. Place the phrase “one light- just glow” or other reminder where you notice it. The objective is to picture, you, places, and things as emitting a glow. Whatever symbolizes this to you is fine. Lines like a cartoon light bulb, full body halo, or like it is in a spotlight… I hope this will include children as well as adults of all ages.
I ask that you do this a few seconds at a time at least once a day but more often as you think of it. One can do this while sitting at a stoplight, brushing their teeth, in the shower, taking a walk…whenever, for at least a few seconds but longer is fine.
First week: Think of yourself glowing.
Second week: add this. Think of a room in your house glowing. This could also be your vehicle.
Third week: add the entire house.
Fourth week: Your school, workplace (you or your spouse), a place you do business, or mode of public transportation.
Fifth week: Your community as a whole.
Sixth week: your State or Region
Seventh week: Your country
Eighth Week: Continent (or area outside your country such as a conflict zone)
Ninth week: Hemisphere (or area outside your continent such as a conflict zone)
Tenth week: The Earth.
After the tenth week you can go back and work on any individual focus. You can keep doing yourself and your room, your home and business while you add the rest. Or you may choose not to do this and come back to it. The main idea here is to keep it up every day for ten weeks, going through all the tiers and perhaps longer if you choose. To start with you and to move up is an easy way to adjust to this concept. If something comes to you while doing this process, write it down in a journal or a computer page. Date it. This can just be a list of impressions.
EXAMPLES: felt funny, my head tingled, this is dumb, calming, relaxes me…etc. I would be grateful for any of these impressions emailed to me at bluspiders@gmail.com. I will be putting it with data from others to get an overall picture. I am mainly interested if it changes through the weeks and if you find it easier or would just like to toss it...

The main idea here is that people often say they do not have time to do something or nothing to give. This is asking you only to GIVE a few seconds a day to a particular thought. And a thought that can be easily done while doing a multitude of other things at any time of the day or night. The hardest thing at this point would just be to REMIND yourself to do it.
So a note in the car, by the bathroom mirror, on a bookmark of those four words “One Light-Just Glow” can remind you to do this process until you make it a habit. Or one friend put up four different pictures of suns around the house to remind her. One really good idea is to set a reminder on your computer for each morning changing your focus each week on Monday Morning.
You are not asking for anything to happen, trying to change anything, alter your thinking, start a new religion, or redesign your life, NOTHING ELSE. Just GLOW.

creeping crud

Well, even though officially spring is here, I finally came down with the creeping crud that has spread through friends and family all winter. I was really only sick sick for a couple of days but the fatigue and cough that is hanging on is driving me nuts. I went to get my hair trimmed yesterday and felt pretty good when I walked out the door. Needless to say that it took about five minutes in the chair before I had that irresistible tickle that was not to be controlled. I saw myself in the mirror turning red, eyes running and coughs exploding out of me in little bursts. I felt like a fool and I do believe the others in the shop thought I was the reincarnation of Typhoid Mary. Luckily the stylist produced a high mentholated cough drop. It got me through my haircut and out the door. While I can deal with some of the chronic stuff with a sort of "that's the way it is ...figure it out" I hate this being SICK. I don't know where this virus, flu, super cold or whatever came from but it can go back and stay there. I feel like my whole life is on hold while trying to get my house cleaned and vacuumed, and work on my projects without coughing my head off. It ain't happening today. It didn't happen yesterday and lord only knows if it will happen tomorrow.

Eulogy to Miss Edison.
My sister has to put down her dog today. After going though the death of a beloved cat a little over a year ago, I feel her pain, in the very real sense of the word. It is amazing at times how these four legged creatures come into our lives and fill a void we often don’t even know we had. I know this time will be hard for my sister. While I felt and still feel the loss of our Blue Bengal Cat, there were still three lovely girls to cuddle, pet and purr on my lap. For my sister there was only Edison. This will make dishes, bedding and routine opening and closing of the door all the more evident by their absence.
Edison was there for some of the most trying times of my sister’s life. Walking the dog and stroking her head was on some days had to be the only activity that could seem real. And Edison adored my sister. My sister was her world and could do no wrong. I know that this unconditional and undemanding love was often that one last strand we sometimes find ourselves hanging on to.
Thank you Edison, for your devotion, love and care for my sister. Thank you for being there for her when the rest of us wouldn’t or couldn’t… You have done your job well. Rest in peace.

signs of spring

I haven't blogged because I have just not felt well. Then the feeling of not being well makes me feel depressed which does nothing to aid feeling better...in fact I end up feeling worse. I saw the MD today and we discussed my issues. I ended up with a cortisone injection in an area that has been giving me a lot of discomfort. Hoping this will help for now.

Easter arriving with new snow on the ground did not make for much of a holiday but I was glad to have my son and his significant other over to share a meal and some time together. I was rewarded the next day with a "designer PEEP" from his stepson's basket. It made me smile. As do the birds outside my window. They are in color as they enter into the nest making season and eat the seed that falls on grass now showing some green. I am hopeful for spring and with it new life for the earth and for me.

In the meantime I have added a picture of one close to my heart. Portia, our youngest Bengal cat, is my ever close companion no matter how I feel. The bear, my husband, calls her my familiar, I just call her a furry bundle of love AKA "lap fungus". there is nothing like a warm purring cuddle to make everything seem it will be better soon.

good quotes

Have run into a zillion of late while researching for matierial for the upcoming Prosperity session I am facilitating. Each one is it's own precious gem of wisdom. Some of them really hit home. a good one this morning came out of Sark's "The Bodacious Book of Succulence"- "My life is full of mistakes. They are like pebbles on a good road" by Beatrice Wood. I realized that there was two ways of looking at this statement. One would be that these pebbles are laying around getting hit by tires, kicked up and chipping and cracking windshields resulting in frustration, curses and expense. The other view was of these pebbles joining other pebbles , glued down with the hot tar of love and friendship and tamped down with a huge truck of partnership and acceptance. They are formed and compacted in the long and sturdy road that is life. With each pebble having it's place, we need to realize that this is a one way street. Once we have moved beyond it, there is no real reason why we have to stop, pry the stone from the road to examine it, tarring our fingers in the process. Some times a good life is like a good road. There are lots of pebbles. But if we are lucky, they get mixed with lots of hot tar and molded with steady love and devotion.
It's what I like about good quotes, gives me an opportunity to see my pebbles from a new perspective.

Despair

"gratitude is a homely but effective antidote to dispair". (Julia Cameron) A year ago I would have thought that to be a really hokey thing to say. The practice though has taught me otherwise. When I am most down I find that listing some of the things that I am grateful for is very uplifting. And even more so is to list the things I cherish. After a topsy turvy weekend with one day very up and another very down it is hard to keep a perspective. so I sat down and listed things that were important. Starting with what I cherish. Not in the usual way of course, while sometimes I realize it just seems like the same list, saying it differently helps to change the view.
I cherish my husbands care of me. It gives me wings.
I cherish sun on snow. It makes me smile.
I cherish link Portia and I have. It soothes my soul.
I cherish my mornings writing and reading. It grounds my day.
I am grateful that I am in a situation that I can do this.
I am grateful that I have this new desk and printer.
I am grateful that I am finally learning things I thought I would never absorb.

a small list today, another tomorrow or the next. Each time a new look at old things. Each time I find that my mood goes up a little, my perspective changes. I find that my life is really filled with GOOD things. so many that at times it is not a matter of finding something to write but to narrow it down as to what to write now. And this is the kind of being overwhelmed that is wonderful. I am overwhelmed with good things in my life. From the awesome man that I married , to the friends I can call on, to the cats I "serve", the house that is "home", and a wonderful new car that is nothing like expected when we went shopping. Grateful and cherish are words that try to define feelings that really have no words.
And to have such a level of emotion, well, I am grateful for that.

STILL DEALING WITH DAVINCI

and still overwhelmed... The good news is that recently I have been asked to facilitate some 8 group sessions on prosperity and abundance. This is something after my own heart and I am having a blast putting the sessions together. I find the books fascinating and there is really a general theme or two that runs through all of them. I am putting it out there and here in black and white my hopes that this is a truely awesome touch of grace for all of us.

I went back and read some of the DaVinci message from the Finding Water exercise.
"Life itself is an experiment. We try this, we try that. Some things work out well and some ...not so well. Some exhaust us. We are endowed with insatiable curiosity and as artists we constantly invent and reinvent- taking things that seem like nothing and making them acceptable, or pleasing or aweinspiring. But most of all a blessing to ourselves and others."
Sounded like a whole lot of mumbo jumbo leaking out of my brain but when I went back and reread it it just made me feel good.

A really interesting side bar is that this past weekend I went to Barnes and Noble and found a book. "How to think like DaVinci". needless to say, I bought it.

BRRRR

As I warm up my butt,
and defrost my nose
I knit more wool socks
to thaw out my toes
Temperatures plummet
snows off the chart
BUT I love Michigan
with all my COOOLD heart.

and temps are cold and more snow is falling. I am not sure when the last winter came that was so cold and so miserable. well, aspects of it are miserable. I found this morning I got to practice a bit of mindfulness and being in the NOW while shoveling the driveway.
The partly cloudy skies would play peek -a- boo with the sun. What was awesome standing there watching the sun's rays glisten on the top layer of snow. The old Diamond cliche was so appropriate. It just filled me to the point of immobility until the clouds would say "enough" and hide it again for a few minutes while I got some work done.
E. Tolle talks about being in the NOW and how much it can do for us. I usually don't think about it much nor strive for it. But at times like that , in the middle of work that I hate , and a back that agrees with me, I find myself totally here, totally aware and it feels great.

what would DaVinci do?

I am so overwhelmed I feel like shreaking
So many ideas, my brain must be leaking
Bead, paint or write to name just a few
Plus housework, laundry and errands to do.

People say I'm so lucky; my talents so mixed
On days like today, I feel like I'm hexed.
Thoughts race around til my head's filled with Smog
To hell with it all, I think I'll just blog.

okay, I know. bad Poetry. but the feeling is true. Some days I just feel so overwhelmed with all the stuff I want to do added to the stuff on my SHOULD list that my head just spins. In a obvious attempt to escape I take a nap or lose myself in the latest and greatest murder mystery.

Some of this surfaced recently when doing a Divining Rod exercise in the J Cameron book, "Finding Water." The exercise had us find an artist/writer and try to imagine what they would say to you. DaVinci came to mind immediately. ( I think I have always envied his talents and the many many things he accomplished and dreamed about in his lifetime.)
the words that came out went like this:

"There is never enough time to do it all. Keep writing down the ideas. Perhas these are not meant for YOU to complete, but to share and spark another, to add on or embellish THEIR ideas. Or for some inventor or budding artist to see their own life's work. the might be's, the could have been's, the why not's, the starting place to tomorrow and the day after ...these are not to be lost. If not the projects...list the ideas"

this was all well and good when I heard the soft male voice in my head. speaking with a slight Italian accent. and at the time I felt like I just heard something so profound, even though it IS stuff that I knew. but today, with my artist list and list of things to do, and with a deadline (my husband comes home from 5 days in Ohio) it doesn't seem enough. It seems Leonardo, I want to do it all and I want to do it now. My mind can't focus and my body doesn't know which way to run. Crossing things off only brings to mind ten more things to add.
So tell me....What did you do to know...what to do?

The first day

After agonizing for weeks whether or not I am was going to do this. I have decided to do SOMETHING even if it is wrong.
I guess the best way to start is to give some clue as to who and what I am.

As the profile states I am a 57 year old female. Married to "the bear" for 36 1/2 years, a retired law enforcement officer who now works with emergency services software. We have two adult sons. one who lives close by and another who lives 1500 miles away. Both are not married but in what I would call permanent relationships.
I am basically retired from the active workforce myself and this is mostly because I deal with a chronic condition that is a first cousin to Fibromyalgia. and I usually use that term because it is one that most people understand. I have worked with Reiki, "running energy" and other forms of non traditional belief and alternative health practices since 1989. And those have kept me going. BUT after some serious thinking have added the title of "a multimedia artist. " BY multi media I mean that I never know what I am going to be working with next. Locally, I am somewhat known for my beading, gardening, and the Holiday village consisting of 65 handpainted houses with more added each year. In the last two years I have expanded my horizons by taking a memoir writing class and have ended up facilitating memoir/journal writing group. I committed myself fully to twelve weeks of the ARTIST'S WAY with five other wonderful women. We are still together as a group and now working on a follow up book FINDING WATER. I awaken every morning eager to write my pages even though they are often labeled "the great whine".
SO the hardest part is over. I have begun with this small introduction of who I am. Where it will go from here I have no idea but am eager to find out what this new adventure holds for me.