7 point list

I had a to-do list today... it is my last day and suddenly I feel I need to get things done!

1. Pay all bills - mail them: isn't it odd that this kind of task gets shoved along, out of the way, until the last minute... and they are all last minute bills, none overdue, but somehow I knew I needed to attend to them and I did.
2. Move $$ where necessary... this goes hand in hand with the pay bills thing... this kind of paperwork is not something I hate, just something I put off... anyway, I visited this and know once again where I am down to the dime and can leave all cash where it is for another week.
3. go to gym, work what does not hurt.... I joined a new gym the other day, a bike ride or five minute walk from my front door. I want to use it, I want to get to a more fit place, I have felt myself slipping since menopause and I'd like to see if I can turn the tide a bit without going postal about it... anyway, I was there yesterday and have some sore spots, so went today and did some abs... the item that needs the most work.
4. go to yoga... going already! in one half hour.
5. make vision board... and just in the nick of time too, and glad I waited since I think what I want to include is much brighter and more cheerful than what I envisioned before... anyway, I will do this when I get back from yoga.
6. browse the net.... ye-gods! I can spend a lot of time here, but I have begun to discover you-tube(U-tube?) and found this series of encaustic tutorials plus so much more that I could just get lost here forever - like I discovered folks do art in their kitchens and here I am grousing that I can't do it because I don't have a studio... what a baby!... and I visited Judy Wise and honestly doesn't she just make you want to jump down and get to work...
and last...
7. clean my desk... well okay, most of it was just shoved onto another table (the one I should be making art on) but the desk looks manageable

Anyway, back to school tomorrow and I am looking forward to it... looking forward to saying "unity" and "focal point" to every kid at every level... knowing that with repetition they will get it. I think it is going to be a good year and Art Unraveled is next week.... hurray!

alien lifeforms

Yesterday Four and Two spent the night. They were so excited about the sleep over... the first thing we had to do was inflate the blow-up bed and lay out their sleeping bags, try out the pillows and get the favorite blankets and stuffed animals arranged. After that we went swimming. Four is turning into a brave swimmer who kicks and goes under to retrieve rings...Two is not so brave but showed me he can blow bubbles and stand on the bottom as long as I hold onto his hands... after swimming we went to swing for a few minutes and then home for macaroni and cheese ( Four told me he preferred the white kind, whoops!) after dinner we walked to Baskin Robbins for ice cream... it was a slow walk, there is so much to see - we had brought the field glasses)... golf balls and dead birds, broken pencils and sticks. Four asked me how much longer would it take to get there and I told him that if they continued to dawdle it might take an hour... He told me only Two dawdled (wrong)... but they both picked up the pace and we made it to Wild Berry sherbet cones... on the way home the dawdling continued, we found a great big dead bug the boys took turns carrying... they jumped off all the rocks three or four times and ran down all the hills... near the end of the walk we noticed a "star" in the sky and used the binoculars to see if we could get a better look... it was a planet!... everyone looked and we were so excited that we had to write ourselves a note when we got home so we would not forget.
After that they took a bubble bath and then ran around naked for a few minutes and played cars and blocks until I said PJ's on now and books... then we sat and read 11 books, one about tornadoes!, and suddenly Two was falling asleep so the last book was done and off to their comfy nest. Four asked what time it was and I said 10 (I lied a little, it was 9:35, but he had wanted to stay up until 10) Prayers, kisses and they were out.

Boys. They get so excited and interested in things... on the walk for ice cream I was reminded of hiking with B one day when he jumped off the trail, went into this squat and pretended his hiking stick was a rifle and mowed down hundreds of invisible bad guys before standing and resuming his nice adult walk... I wish I was like that, I wish I could just be 8 again... except I think at 8 I was already serious and task oriented... I think my intention for this year is to just do it for the fun of it... no serious thinking at all!

This morning we had pancakes and Four colored in the round circle of a planet I had drawn and then we called B and he told us we had seen Jupiter(we wrote "Jupiter" over the colored picture) and if we looked again closely we might see specks around it that are its moons... he was even good enough to talk directly to Four, who I know he does not understand...

Anyway, here I am, reminding myself that this is the first day of the rest of my life and if I want the centerpiece of my life to be "just have a lot of fun" it is completely okay. I'm going to color my hair today... always feels like risky business... and then go out to dinner with family later. Two more days until I go back to work... but think I might be looking forward to it.

days work

this is what I did yesterday... painted an old scale... and aside from the fact that the bird seems to be missing some of its body it suits me and suits my new bathroom...

scattered

I have 5 days until summer vacation is over and though I have enjoyed myself, and made big headway in the remodel-your-house category, I feel like I have frittered it all away.

Today I woke up to a disaster in my kitchen... yesterday evening after dinner I started pulling things out of cabinets, moving things in, sorting, shoving, puzzling... I have plenty of tea. In fact I should give up coffee entirely and just work on the tea and maybe by Christmas I can justify brewing a cup of Joe... the counters the dining room table were full of cups and plates and vitamin bottles (rivals my tea collection).

Now it is afternoon and though I have sorted and boxed things for Goodwill and placed other things safely out of the way until the construction is over, the kitchen still looks a mess... I am painting a fat lady on my pulleditfromafreebin bathroom scale and at the same time painting a couple of found S&P shakers for youngest daughter... I've burned some CD's for a friend of mine and I am stripping one of my kitchen cabinet doors hoping I can get it to blend well enough that I do not have to strip them all..

What I would like to do... what would help me feel most ready to return to school ... is get everything organized, put away, dusted and neatly stacked. It is not going to happen. My kitchen project maybe will not happen until the end of August. Until then I will live around a fridg, stove and dishwasher in my entry along side an IKEA wardrobe (it will become my new pantry) still in the box. I'm going to try to box things and stash so that when all the parts come in, the kitchen will be worker friendly.

Anyway, shuffle bump crunch... that is how the day has been... a little of this, a little of that. I caught some kids throwing boxes out behind a Wendy's today, I nabbed a couple only to realize they smell pretty strongly of frozen chicken... they will sit outside in the sun until I am ready for them. I also picked up two more gallons of "oops" paint... the orange has to go in the middle bedroom... but right now if it happens before Christmas I am ok with it.

I'm happy. Lord knows why... maybe because my hair looks better today... check out this curly girl site even without the product they were using the twist and flip method of getting your hair to have a style really works... or maybe it is because when I pulled out my vitamins yesterday I took all them rather than skipping like I've done all summer... or it could be the Sonia Choquette CD's I've been listening to? Whatever it is, I am so thankful to be experiencing this shift.

I know I have been in the process of changing direction... part of it has been manifest in the art classes I have taken and will take in the next couple weeks, part of it is in this remodel of a house I thought I would be leaving... but where I am going, other than into my kitchen to face that cabinet door, I do not know. And that is okay too.

saying yes

There is something so majestic, so powerful, so promising about a thunderhead building on a hot humid summer day. We watch them dance around the outskirts of the valley, hugging the mountains, and hope that one of them will bless us with a little relief.

I think we are like this. Oh, maybe not as large, and for most of us not as beautiful. But we all hold this potential energy, and we dance around the edges, clinging to the sides, afraid to give up what we hold.

Yesterday I painted my bedroom (I love Home Depot "oops!" paint!) and while I painted I listened to four hours of Carolyn Myss on CD's. While I have read-at some of Myss' books I had never heard her speak. Wow, she is one tough lady.

The CD session had started with Wayne Dyer and transitioned into Myss. I was at first jarred by the difference in delivery. Dyer is all love and intention and corny stories and then comes Carolyn who delivers her message with the confidence of a Catholic school nun. I'm telling you, after I got over feeling uncomfortable I stood up straight and listened.

She would say, You want the future all spelled out for you... and I would answer her, yes, I do... she said, you want it to be easy... yes, I answered... you want there to be guarantees, you betcha, was the reply...in fact I had an ongoing dialogue with every CD she did. She said trinkets and crystals and OM meditations would never work. She said setting intentions, if the intentions were about what "I" want, like money, a soul mate(she really blasted this idea), a big house were worthless. And then she asked when were we going to say yes to what God wanted. Go ahead she said, say yes.

Then she said the most amazing thing... she said we knew. We knew what God wanted for our health, for our happiness and most of us were too lazy, uncommitted, or just plain scared to go after it. And by knowing what God wants for us(remember health, happiness, keys to the kingdom)she meant that we know what God wants us to do today, because we know what is good for us if we are paying attention at all. Like we know if we need to lose ten pounds, or if we need training for that job we'd like, or if the power bill is too high... and nearly all of us know what to do about these things. Eat less, exercise more. Take a class. Turn off a light.

She talked about becoming a medical intuitive and the years she spent studying, working hard to become this thing that God wanted. She was intuitive, but she needed to study for a long, long time in order to do her job. She said she can't find lost kids. She's tried. The point was, though, that even though she was following a call, it was not a switch that was flipped and like magic she was a full fledged medical intuitive with book deals and a lecture tour. She said saying yes was not a free ride.

So today, I met my friend Kel for coffee and was telling her about the Myss CD's. I told her all the things I have just told you. Then the topic shifted to relationships, and the coming school year, and hopes and dreams, and I said I had been having a lot of issues with leg and foot pain and one of the things I thought I needed to do was place myself on a yeast free diet, but I just could not do the two week, detox your body part.

And then I stopped. I laughed and said, See! That's it! This is exactly what she was saying. I know for some reason what I should do and I am already saying it is too hard. I am not saying yes to something pretty darned simple that I feel will improve my health and happiness.

You know, when we say things like 'following God' or doing what God wants... I think we envision this voice from burning bush kind of revelation, when what God or the Universe wants for us are mostly things we already know about. Simple things. And if I do the two week detox (= no sugar of any kind for two weeks) and do feel better, what might happen then?

And even as I tell you this, I hesitate... I hear myself whine, but I like fruit in the morning...

How to you place yourself in a posture where yes is the only answer? How to you let down your guard, let go of your ego, walk out the door and just trust that this is the way. How do you muster the courage to do what it takes, even if what it takes is only a one day at a time thing. How do you get over your spoiled laziness of always, always wanting it your way?

Don't know... but the clouds are building... I can either begin to harness the power or I can crash against the mountains. The choice is mine.

kentucky views

funny, I took no pictures of people, just rocks above

and under the water.... in sunlight and shade

and bark peeling like ancient wallpaper off a tree

and plants in pots sitting on my sister's front porch

and these two guys nestled still in last year's leaves

and how rocks and succulents look in the warm moist light of a Kentucky afternoon.

one down

the glass wall and door made the tiled shower, please ignore the ugly squeegee... a prettier one is in the process... looks, feels just like an upscale spa

the cabinet and tri-fold mirror ... check out the faucet...

now moving on to the kitchen... yesterday bought appliances, they are sitting in my dining room... the counter top, which is out of stock right now might mean this stage will not be done before September. When it is finished it will be soooooo nice.

class of '67

Well, here we are, sitting in the basement of the country club because it was raining cats and dogs outside. I am on the floor front and center... I am on the floor to prove that I can still get on the floor and up again. Mary is there in the front row with me, she is in the green, Patricia is right behind her with the naturally dark hair... she has a 30 year old and a 13 year old... Dee is next to Mary, still wears too much eye-liner and still completely, flawlessly nice.

There were men there, guys I went to school with, graduated with... Champie, who gave me my first kiss on a church sponsored hay-rack ride, Steve, Kathy's husband, Bobby T who still looked like a kid, Butch P. still rolling his eyes and saying outrageous things... but mostly the guys were people I would never know if I met them on the street. I didn't talk with them much. I spent most of my time talking with the women, the girls I went to school with....

I went to this reunion thinking "something" was there for me, and I came away not certain what it might be except I like where I live and what I have become. Maybe that is enough.

love&peace

home

I am home.
going is always nice... returning is always better
my own bed
pictures of the boys & family
my personal stuff
sigh!

Glad to be here and, this is taking me a bit by surprise, nearly ready to go back to work.

peace & love

6 things I like

Okay Roo-b... here ya' go...

Because i am right now in rain-soaked Forsythe, Illinois, and because yesterday evening my sister and i rode through our old home town:

1. I like sunshine... and most everything that goes with it... like dry air and dry clothes and cactus and trees that are a bit under control

2. I like clean houses... really clean... with clean windows and minimal clutter and doors that can open without a swarm of bugs entering in.

3. I like (love) the smell of sheets pulled fresh off the clothes line and still warm from the sun when they are smoothed on the bed

4. I like my sister... okay, somethimes she is a bit much for me... but I am very happy to say that maybe we both have matured or something... but I really like my sister and that makes me really happy to know. We went canoeing... she is a much better canoeing partner than B. who throws hissy fits when he gets splached.

5. I like good non-fiction because it is seldom disturbing like the book, the Bright Forever, that I read while we were camping last week. Currently reading Seeing God... not the least bit creepy.

6. I like the SIU sweatshirt I bought yesterday at the 710 bookstore in Carbondale, Illinois... after wanting an SIU sweatshirt for several years and not being able to find one, I was nearly giddy excited. it is not grey, which was my preference... but still plain. Anyway, Yeah!

tonight my class reunion... I'm getting kind of nervous/excited... driving through town was such an "ohmygod!" experience that i have this little feeling of dread... but it will be fine.

I will be home Tuesday night... will give a full report on Wednesday.

love & peace