A New Year

You know it just wouldn't be the same if I actually posted about things when they happen! LOL!

Anyway, as always this time of year, I've been reflecting on the year past and the year to come. Last year my resolution was to make a lot of art. What I underestimated last year, was how much of my time and energy would be required to finish unfinished business, to tie up loose ends, to get myself fully outfitted and squarely on the path of the life of my choosing. It turns out that when you have to get divorced, sell your house, get a new job, have surgery and meet someone new...well, that stuff takes a lot of energy. And that's ok. I feel good about 2008. I accomplished a lot, I had a lot of fun and a lot of wonderful time with family and friends, and I'm in a good place now.

So here's the thing, while I ran short on time and energy for doing, I did do a lot of thinking about the kinds of things I WANT to spend my time doing. And now I'm teetering on the edge of the pit of just sitting around thinking about what I want to do all the time. Sitting is SO comfortable!

So rather than make a resolution, this year I'm going to do the thing where you pick a word for the year. Christine Kane has a good guide for this and that's where I found my word: Action. I'm still getting comfortable with this word. It's not a word that's among my favorites (create, imagine, laugh, joy, kindness, etc.), but that's ok. The fact that I'm not completely comfortable with it means that it's the challenge I need. Just that little daily reminder to stop sitting and thinking and get up and start doing. Whew. Scary.

Since it is the 4th already, I'm happy to report that so far this year I've taken action to clean up and organize my studio. I never really finished unpacking that room. I just got it to a semi-functional point and went with it. 16 months later, semi-functional has deteriorated to not-functional-at-all. Lately I can't even find anything. So I've added some storage, rearranged to make better use of space and assigned permanent homes for things like fake flowers, alphabet stamps, bottle caps. Plus, I've created actual work space! LOL!

Happy New Year everyone!

Again with the snow

Or rather, again and again and again. As of yesterday morning we've had 69 inches, 61.5 in the month of December alone. I'm ready for summer now. Today. Please.

Scene from a Happy Christmas

Hope everyone had as happy a Christmas as Emily did!

Snowed in

So, um, it finally snowed...



19.4 inches in 24 hours, 24 inches total over 36 hours. My trusty Saturn handles really well in the snow, but Thursday I couldn't get out of my driveway. No worries, as my office, along with the rest of the city was closed. The MALLS were closed! The state patrol told everyone to stay home unless they had a major emergency.



Friday was a snow day as well...everyone was still stuck. Pistol and I went for a very short walk to check out the snow.



Mostly we hung out on the couch, crocheting and cuddling.

Family portrait

Man, I HATE losing to the Cougs. But we did have a LOT of fun!


AshLee covered her bases - that's Vandal gear underneath her Husky gear.

The vital importance of goofing off

Too much of my creative time has been in bits and pieces crammed in here and there. That works fine for stitching or paint layering or embellishing things I've already mostly figured out. It does NOT work for designing, developing, testing ideas. Those lovely, wonderful tasks require larger chunks of time, time to get lost in playing around, goofing off. I finally took an evening to do that this week and this is the excellent mess I made. I didn't "accomplish" anything and that was perfectly fine. The point wasn't to accomplish, but to let my mind rest and refresh and slip back into a creative groove. To get things percolating. I goofed off until I was tired, then went to bed. I woke up feeling refreshed and bubbling over with ideas and design solutions. Love that feeling!

I have been making some stuff

I finished up some new dresses last week. These three are currently for sale at the Lady Bug Gallery at Sew Uniquely You.

Preparing for the colorless and cold

Ha! Who am I kidding? I'm not preparing for anything. Life is a blur of work and bad football. Quiet moments with the camera and the cat are rare.

I'm not ready for the colorless and the cold. I'm still busy lamenting the fact that I lost the best of the color and the heat, stuck in bed recovering from my surgery. On the other hand, I got a cold last week that didn't turn into a sinus infection...the surgery was so worth it. Life is such a balance. The colorless and the cold make the color and the heat that much sweeter.


Pistol thinks these concrete edgers are a cat sidewalk. He walks everywhere on them.