Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Follow your bliss - HUH?


bliss (blis) n. 1. Serene happiness. 2. The ecstasy of salvation; spirtual joy. 3. A cause of great delight or happiness -- See Synonyms at ecstasy.

ecstasy (ek'ste-se) n. 1. A state of exalted delight in which normal understanding is felt to be surpassed. 2. A state of any emotion so intense that rational thought and self-control are obliterated. 3. The trance, frenzy, or rapture associated with mystic or prophetic exaltation.




So, (enough with the lecture) this phrase, "Follow your Bliss," has become popular within the last two years and yet every once in a while it still stumps me. Now wait a minute -- I know it can mean to follow your happiness ----> I guess for too many years I really associated the definition in "spiritual" or "religious" terms. Why -- Huh? I don't have a clue maybe it is a past life or something who knows maybe I was a nun or a priest or a bishop or a goddess or saint OK whatever. I first saw a beautiful rub on with this phrase on it when I was working on my birthday album - yes another milestone. When you get to be my age, you run into a lot of milestones. Thanks to my friend Larcy (who is part of my extended family) my birthday was really special! I had a pink gorilla, cupcakes, and a celebration at a Recollections crop in 07. OK, it was 60, so stop asking already. I ended up using the phrase in that little pink book and I have slowly grown to accept the phrase defined in my own terms (now there is a scary thought).

So why the ramble tonight? I dunno know but let us trip over to the little pink skinny scrapbook album. I use to love 12 x 12 pages but with the increase in the wonderful collection of all types of albums on the market and my love of the altered arts, I now try to find unusual books to put my special collections of photos. For once, I did the "birthday book" shortly after the birthday instead of waiting for another milestone ... no comments, thank you! And I am getting ready to go to a crop this weekend in Hagerstown and I collected all of these photos of when I was younger last summer and it brings a lot of memories and forces you to really think about your childhood and what made you happy (or how you followed your bliss back then), what books you read, who your friends where, etc. And so this weekend I will be engrossed in a little house book which will be fun to work in with stamps, photos, rub ons, and what ever found objects I have.

I also decided when I started this blog that I wanted to share with you things I have created. Yes, I do believe that I do know the definition of bliss. It happens to me while creating and all of a sudden I realize that three hours have passed and I am always amazed. Then all of a sudden in that one moment, I realize that the creation I had been working on has been born and I am happy with it. . . usually... I do love the pink album and it was a joy to work on. Probably because all of the memories associated with that birthday are blissful (wow, I used the word again).



I hope you have a "bliss." I hope you follow it. To be blissless would not be any fun. So go forth in bliss and create. Hold your friends and family close. TA DA..... On a less than blissful note - I played singles tennis last night and got beat. We did two sets plus some games. It was fun. I do love running when playing tennis (yup, I know it helps instead of just watching the yellow ball fly by during the game.) Tomorrow night is my really busy night with a workout with Mr. Trainer Dude for half-hour and then we go into a tennis clinic for 1 1/2 by the time I get home I am really dragging my bliss. Stay tuned....

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Breezin' Sunday


I had a rather pleasant surprise today between 2:00 am - 3:00 am. I woke up and in a panic set my alarm for this morning thinking I had to go to work and YEA!!!! I rolled back over in about 15 minutes and realized NOPE, today is Sunday and turned the alarm off. LOVE those kind of mornings. I did errants today grocery shopping and laundry. I worked just a little on my Marie booklet and added some elements to an already "finished page." My problem sometimes is that I don't know when to stop adding. To me more is more not less. I head to a weekend retreat with the girls to do crafty stuff. Head out on Friday and I can't wait. I am going to be working on two projects I started at Korie's Summer in Paris Retreat this past July. One is a fabric book called "The Women Who Went Before Us" and the other is "Where I'm From Book."


I gathered my tools, my stamps, my projects, the food I am taking and all seems to be OK. One page I started working on this summer was that of my German Grandmother "Grandma" -- I love this photo of her as a young woman. I have numerous photos of both grandmothers and my mother throughout their years on this plane of existence. I hopefully will have some finished samples to show you next week when I return.


Later on this evening, my four-legged nephew, Oliver, is coming over for his pedicure. He is such a good boy when it comes to clipping his nails. SO, I need to run and get dinner ready before the little one gets over here. Hope your day was as breezin' as mine.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Still Cleaning my Plate in my World


Yup, today was a pretty good day in my honeysuckle kind of world. Started off misty and we didn't have the tennis clinic - bummer! BUT, I started moving and creating early. Two items of note: (1) I worked on my Painted Page Journal started at the Michelle Ward workshop in Wisconsin; and (2) a new Marie Antoinette booklet for submission to a special Somerset publication (Nov. 15 deadline). In that one I am using the Michelle Ward limited edition Marie stamps. I absolutely love them! I made a small book using the stamps for her earlier this summer. The Marie stamp is just like dressing a paper doll -- it is just so much fun to use the stickles, of course I also stickled myself -- nope, not on purpose. Just happen to always attract stuff like stickles, paint, glue, this stuff just jumps on me when I am not looking!


I call this page the Druid page. I enjoyed working on this. On the right hand side I decided to to fill it with ATC cards. I don't do that art form as much as I would like so this was a good practice run. I found a chapter title in an old book called, "The Tree and the Druid." and this jump started the page from there. I journaled on the side of the left hand page, "Out on a Limb A calling of the soul awakened the dark psychic waters swirling in the outer kingdom....She knew they were looking deep in the woods for the Fairy Tree -- it was fabled to hold deep magical powers or so the Druids believed. They danced in the moonlight. They called for the voices. The Delphine song soothed their souls. They knew the Revelation, the Light, the Truth, they believed."

The right hand side started with a pink tag I used in Michelle's *pink wink* campaign to gather pink socks in memory of her sister who lost her valiant battle with cystic fibrosis this summer. Under that I placed a transparency photo of my mother and aunt when they were young. And then began working on the ATC cards. "Working Girls" is one of my favorites. I love the B-Line stamp and use the three young women in many creations.
The "Paris" pattern card was a left over tag not used in an earlier project I sent off to my "sewing muse" -- you will meet her in a future post. She saved my sewing machine from a very cruel and horrible death-by-my-own-hands. (OK, I admit it. Yes, I did sucker punch it.) The third card was a left over experiment I did with wax last Christmas. I love encaustic waxing and use it on my holiday cards a lot.

The day was well spent and I am getting ready to go cook dinner. I enjoy cooking and can't wait for Top Chef to come on! I also plan on catching up on DVRed shows: Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters, Destination Truth, and Paranormal Egypt (i could do an entire blog on the Egypt one - not a pretty one either but it is like a train wreck that i keep DVRing every Friday on the Travel Channel. Oh Derek you Spinx you! if i see him run off into the night and throw himself on Egypt soil one more time, i will bury him with the mummies!)

Good night Mommy, Good Night Aunt Mary, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite. It has almost been 10 years since mother passed over to the other side - I still miss her but happy she is now free from that horrible stroke that left her paralyzed.
She fought a hard fight for five years!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Cleaning plates and clearing slates?

When I saw that message on Michelle's web site last weekend, I thought huh? I read it and then thought why not. As part of that crusade, I started this blog which I had been thinking about for the last three or four months. It was a big step since it also meant an obligation to it and to anyone reading it. I love reading a number of blogs and get bummed out when they are not updated for months on end - I worry about the blogger as part of my web family....and so these ramblings began.

With the creation of the blog I also had some other things to take care of around the nest here like a "sign" I had for two weeks and had not still hung. Do you wanna see my new sign I put in my kitchen? Sure you do. This is all thanks to Michelle Ward's Crusade # 23. Fall is a great time to change my attitude and get ready for colors and the holidays. I love the colors and I knew what I had to do.

TA DA: I began with finally putting up a sign that caught my eye on Claudine Hellmuth's web site. She had purchased it from Sundance for her new apartment in Washington, D.C. I originally thought about mounting it to the fridge - but that didn't seem to work - SO, I rearranged one wall and there it found it's spot. I just love it, I do.... I have no idea why that sign had such an appeal to me - maybe it is all the diners I have eaten in through out my life?

The next place I looked at in dismay was ALL the stuff on my dining room table. That was depressing. So I cleaned that up and started finding all the fall foliage (silk) I had stuck in different nooks and crannies and came up with this. Can't put those photos up tonight since they are in my camera and I am just too lazy to go downstairs and down load them. Maybe tomorrow. Like I said, I am frustrated with my blog at the moment and probably should not be writing at all... but I have to say that on Sunday morning when I wandered downstairs to make coffee - the dining room and kitchen made me feel happy just looking at it. The clean plate and slate was worth the effort.

Just one quick note about the new Survivor in Africa.... if you watched it you will get my drift. Dandy Randy looks like he should be running the Bates Motel- no kidding Sherlock! I am telling you when he had the white gauze around his head and then the red survivor bandanna over that - he looked down right scary! I certainly would not want to take a shower in his motel nor let him take photos of my wedding. Can you believe he is a wedding photographer. WOW. Thank you for stopping by listening to my rants tonight. Really - it is great in my honeysuckle breezin' world.... Please come back to visit.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Just another rainy day in my world


Just a quick update on my lunch date yesterday. YES, I did indeed have lunch with the Count who came incognito as Dick who rode a bike to lunch with a cute red baseball hat. Well, I suppose Count-type guys can get away with that..... I think.... I think I made a special effort to look really cute, after all at my age one needs all the help they can muster up!

It was fun catching up after one meeting and 23 years later. It is always fun how those long ago 30-something encounters live on in your mind for years and years and years - who said "get a life" -- I have one, thank-you! Nope, no photos from lunch when one is incognito one doesn't take photos. Who knows, maybe in another 23 years we will set another lunch...... AH HA - gives me an idea on another post at some time -- then and now. Yup, I have a few too many of those stories to share. . . . as I think most of us do if we are willing to admit it. Hickey's revisited, well I think the nose and chin got in the way and downtown Herndon at lunchtime -- not the same atmosphere as a dank, dark, spooky dungeon with a coffin. Ho Hum - the legend lives on only in my mind!?!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Hot date -- well kind of in my kind of world.....



The Year: 1985


The Show: Count Gore / Creature Feature


Milestone: Got hickey



Found a rubber stamp at Angela's Happy Stamper recently and it says: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." I looked at that stamp for weeks - obviously no one bought it. Then all of a sudden I'm thinking I can use it. I get it. I don't think we need to go into the "back story" here -- just know that on an interesting night a long time ago (1985) I met the Count and the rest is history..... or not. I haven't seen him again in 23 years. Except tomorrow (Wednesday) for lunch. Don't ask how I reconnected - weird things happen in my world. The Count was on Channel 20 for many years, then at some point moved out of the area, and then in 2005 moved back into the area. He has the COOLEST web site.... at http://countgore.com/gore/. When you Google the Count the description comes up: "Vampire horror host sex symbol Count Gore De Vol brings you Creature Feature, with vampires, zombies, werewolf, witches, monsters, ghouls, goblins, ..." Oh well, whatever rocks your boat.... I suppose. Anyway, me and Count will have a very public lunch and then another 25 years will pass and he will have by that time become a great grandfather or more Igors running amok in the dungeon or something or other. Will keep you posted, maybe. My life is pretty fun sitting and smelling the honeysuckles......

Surprise!


Can't believe it but I finally broke down and managed to create my blog. I have had a few who have been encouraging me to do this. Thank you Missy Michelle Ward (on right in photo) -- *applause* *applause* -- now I can participate in her "Crusades" on her Street Team blog. Love that artist! I had the wonderful opportunity to take a workshop she did in Wisconsin this past spring called "The Painted Page." What a great few days at a wonderful retreat, Valley Ridge Art Studio. Kathy and Bill were the greatest hosts. Michelle's blog has been an inspiration to many individuals around the world. If you haven't checked it out -- you need to. You can find her at http://michelleward.typepad.com/michelleward/ -- She was one of the first blogs I started reading and was totally amazed with her art work. I ordered a "house" kit from her, got all excited, laid out pages, and, never finished it. However, this little honeysuckle Okie girl is gonna finish it and will show it right here!

Digressing here: I have tried to get published in Somerset Studio magazine for a number of years but have not had the type of art work they were looking for. I have had a cards published in Take Ten and Stampers Sampler but Somerset was the big goal, the big dream, the big whatever. When Stampers announced their turquoise challenge last year I thought -- why not - I will do a "bag book" and submit. Well (do you know where this is going?), Stampers mailed their summer magazine out in June with all the turquoise stuff in it BUT not mine. Yes, I kept waiting to hear that it would be published. Nothing like having a little faith - oh yeah. At that point, I decided to retire that dream and concentrate on other stuff.....

As I slumped away into the sunset (slumping here) lost in thought, my Somerset magazine arrived and on page 112 there was my turquoise challenge submission. HUH? I am not questioning anything - I am just so happy to have finally managed to reach one of my goals! ; ) I did the snoopy dance. I am still in hog heaven here. Thank you Somerset! Thank you Somerset! OK, this is way too long, i am way too winded, i am way too excited, and so in closing all I can say -- is have a honeysuckle-kind-of-mornin! My world smells sweet in the honeysuckle breeze.