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Inspire Me Thursday-Journal

This weeks Inspire Me Thursday journal entry:

A day in the life of me…

5:00 AM I wake up    9:00 PM I fall asleep.  AND In between:

I walk a lot (or ride the bus)
I make messes  (and sometimes clean them up)
I wander around the garden dreaming….
I tell my dogs “Hush.” 
I read and read and read and read.
I knit and knit and knit and knit.
I organize something (that doesn’t mean it will stay organized though).
I play with one year olds and change 28 diapers a day on average and wash my hands at least 75 times (it feels like more). 
I sing goofy songs, some that have been published and some that I make up. 
I ask myself, “Why do I do this?” 
I play on my computer. 
I stand in front of the refrigerator trying to decide what to eat.  Sometimes I get inspired.
I avoid washing the dishes for as long as possible. 
I listen to music that creates a mood, or that I can sing along to, or that makes me feel at peace or makes me dance with joy. 
I take pictures.
I watch shadows. 
I think too much. 
I gather ideas. 
I feel thankful for my friends and family. 
I eat chocolate.   
I try to live in the moment. 
I wish on the stars and appreciate the silence. 

Inspire Me Thursday-Copy cat

I was working on milk carton blocks for my class when the challenge for Inspire Me Thursday came along.  And so multiple pictures of Lola cover this block.

I made the milk carton block by cutting two paper milk cartons in half.  I fill one carton with waste paper and then push the other carton over the top of the filled carton.

I painted the block with acrylic paint and then glued the pictures on.  Each picture is slightly different as I used different filters on the image.  I then outlined each picture with pastels.  I’ll be covering the block with clear packaging tape or clear contact paper to make it more durable and washable for the children, so it’s not quite done. 

Sunday Scribblings-Simple

Simple

I like my food simple.   Just the basics:  a fruit, a vegetable, herbs, cheese, and a little bread….  Without the pesticides, chemical fertilizers, with out any genetic fussing.  Okay, maybe I like to take all those ingredients and make up wild concoctions.   This weekend it’s going to be rhubarb ginger jam.  Something I’ve never tried before.

I like my clothes simple.  Without logos, made from wool, or hemp, or organic cotton or refashioned from other clothes.  Okay, maybe a little ruffle would be fine.  This weekend I’m going to sew a new top or two, and work on the sweater I’m knitting. 

I like my life simple.  No television, no commercial radio stations, no car….  Okay, so I’ve become clueless about most popular culture (bit difficult to carry on a conversation with some people) and it’s going to take me 2 hours to get to work and back.  But it’s a beautiful morning, and I’ll burn off the extra calories I ate yesterday (that ice cream was darn good).  And I’ll arrive at work with a smile on my face.  I’ll spend my day making children smile, I hope.  And one year olds don’t care about popular culture.

I like my weekend simple.  I’ll come home and sit in a quite corner of my garden on Friday night, enjoy the evening light, let go of the week.  This weekend I have tomatoes to plant, grass to cut (with the push mower and the grass shears), a book I want to finish reading, and I’m going to walk to the farmer’s market.   Okay, so I always need to plan what I want to do, I always have more projects than I can really accomplish, but I’m getting better at living in the moment.

Not as simple as it seems… 

A flat sweatshirt and a garden project

I'm out of control....Started to refashion a sweatshirt that I've had for awhile.  It was a lot of fun cutting the seams open.  So much easier to quilt on.  Going to be interesting to see how it turns out.  It's my project for Wardrobe Refashion for next week.  I also have pictures of my jeans skirt that I finally finished posted there. 

Here's another project:  It's my hugelkulture.  I got the idea from Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway.  It's a pile of twigs on the bottom, and then some sod and compost and then some topsoil.  And then I planted potatoes in it.  They are doing beautifully.  The sticks are whips from my apple tree that I stuck in before the potatoes started coming up.  It's to keep the cats from digging around.  I'll pull them out soon.  The goal is to do a little composting, plus creating a mound like this is supposed to heat the soil up faster and use less water.  The real test will be how many potatoes I get.  That's assuming I don't start stealing them when they are little....

Inspire Me Thursday-Circles

Inspire Me Thursday's prompt for this week was "Circles."  I decided to look at that in several ways.

Gardening to me is a cyclical activity.  Circling through the seasons.  So I started with a picture I took in my garden. 

To make my circle shapes I used a cork to stamp the purple, the eraser on a pencil to stamp the green, and used the computer to crop a circle in the photo when I added the filter.

I highlighted the wings of the dragonfly with iridescent paint and a watercolor pencil.

Next I went looking for a circle quote that I really like by Ursula K. LeGuin.  I couldn't find what I was looking for, but I found this one!  I loved the idea of a "slow circle of nature."   It connected to how I got the dragon fly picture.

Yesterday I was coming down my walk when the dragon fly on the lamb's ear caught my eye.  I grabbed my camera and took this picture.  I think the dragon fly was too cold to fly because it was so still for a long time.  It was difficult to take a picture that would show the wings.  I'm wondering if I'd put a piece of paper behind the dragon fly if the wings would have shown up better?  I'm going to try it the next time I find a dragonfly that is so still. 

Sunday Scribblings-Masks

In response to Sunday Scribblings prompt: 

Thinking about masks made me realize that at some point in my life, I decided that I wanted to live a life where I could be all me, all the time.  I’m not really sure this was a conscious decision for me. And I don’t think that this is true for everyone, that they need this kind of space, but for me it was and is.  I have had times in my life when I had to have a certain persona.   I was miserable.   I am not “me” if I have to wear professional clothes all the time, if I have to keep my shoes on all day, if I can’t burst out singing.   There is a price to pay for that in our society.  I don’t make as much money as I would have if I’d climbed on a professional ladder.  I am not considered “successful” in certain circles.  But I am happy.  And so, the masks that interest me the most, are the ones for fun, to create mystery, to tell a story. I want to go back to Venice and wander the alleys and look into windows at masks, to watch artists at work on their creations, to think about the mask a city can wear….    

Inspire Me Thursday-Journal

This weeks prompt for Inspire Me Thursday's journal entry was to write/create about the last dream you remember having.  So hard for me.  I sometimes wake up with a vague sense of a dream, but I can't remember them.  I am, for the most part, a very sound sleeper. 

I did however, wake up last night crying.  So strange.  It's been such a good week and I'd had a great day....

I did this really quickly.  I'm really having fun with pastels. 

Inspire Me Thursday-Journal

Well here's another prompt to get me motivated.  Inspire me Thursday has added a journal entry prompt.  Since this is something I've been working on since January, I might as well share here too. 

This is my journal cover.  It's a three ring binder I've had since college (don't even want to think how long that's been, I'm such a pack rat).  I really dislike the vinyl cover so I've covered it up with a photo from a magazine I like, masking tape, electrical tape, and some leaf prints I made.  I doodled on the masking tape with pastels, so I covered the top with clear packaging tape to keep it from smearing.  So come on in....

The first prompt was to write about something I might do today.  I set myself the goal to not use a photograph and no filters from software.  I think this is a goal I'm going to set for the Inspire me Thursday Journal prompts.  I did use pastels, colored ink, paint, scraps of fabric, yarn, and paper that were on my table, and my stapler.   I really liked the effect of the paint and ink over the pastels.  I'm going to explore that some more.  And I really need to clean up my table on a more regular basis. 

Inspire Me Thursday-Silence

  The prompt for Inspire Me Thursday this week was "silence."  With two dogs, that's hard to come up with around here sometimes.  This is what I came up with.

I started with a photo I took in the garden.  I printed it out on a canvas that was prepped for ink jet printers.  This was the first time I'd tried this product and I wasn't really impressed.  I wanted to stitch yarn on it, but it's too hard to push the needle through and I didn't want to spent hours poking holes. 

The next idea was to glue paper around the edges and use up some of my scraps.  So of course, while I'm digging around I find fabric scraps too.  And on they went.  This is where the canvas became a benefit.  It holds up to gluing fabric on very well.   I could have used the sewing machine, but I wanted to stay away from things that created noise. 

Then, since my water color pencils were sitting there, I decided to try highlighting the picture.  It worked wonderfully, again the canvas holds up well.  Actually, using the water color pencils to blend in more color solved my unhappiness with the canvas, it made the colors more blended.

After scanning my piece,  I just had to see what it looked like with a filter from a software editing program.  And I liked it even better.  One thing I learned from this process was that I really like the filters because it blends edges together. 

Sunday Scribblings-Second Chances

What really came to mind when I glimpsed at the Sunday Scribblings prompt “Second Chances’ wasn’t regrets, or things that I wanted to do again, but rather how thankful for the second chances I’ve had in my life and for the people that have made them possible.

My sweetest second chance is Briar Rose.  Briar was an abandoned puppy.  She was found in a box with her 5 other siblings at 4 weeks of age.  That Briar was given a second chance at life by someone finding her and taking care of her has meant that I’ve had the most wonderful opportunity to have her be a part of my life. 

The most important second chance I’ve had in my life was the opportunity to student teach a second time.  That opportunity let me have the chance to leave the idea of being an elementary teacher behind and find my real passion, where my real talents are without having any regrets.  It gave me the chance to learn that not accomplishing a dream isn’t a failure.  That having things go a different way than you thought it would means you might find a better way, a more true path. 

Thank you to everyone who makes second chances possible.