NaNoJouMo...Day 19

fray...
another late one.

NaNoJouMo...Day 17

Sumptuous...

Am late getting this posted, and wish I could do one a day. Love that Dawn is doing this.

Ollie's fae

I just love the fairies that my daughter draws. They always brighten my day.

She wrote a poem about this one:

Smudge, Smudge

ate the fudge.

Jumped in a puddle

and couldn't cuddle

caught a frog

in a bog

named it Maisy

and picked a daisy.

living your truth

My week started out with my dryer going out, never a good thing with four monkeys to keep clothed, and proceeded as follows...

Monday: a call from my husband "Bad news. I backed into the car."

Tuesday: I had a flat tire.

Wednesday: I broke the heat lamp for my son's bearded dragon (those suckers cost $30!)

Thursday: I awoke with a cold

I was cheerily getting into my car the other day when I realized that, surprisingly, none of this had phased me (well except for the heat lamp because it was necessary and also not mine). I was on my way home to play with my art supplies and therefore life was good.

Later I read Ashley's post and came to the conclusion that when you are living your truth, all of the crap (that used to set me off and make such drama in my life) just seems to melt away. As I was sitting down to my blog this morning I also read this post on truth. Makes me wonder if some day I'll be able to figure out my truth enough to put it into words like these brave women.

And on the other hand...I got a new-to-me washer and dryer set that's red (love it!) and stackable to fit better in our remodeling. The car that was backed into was a very old hand-me-down from my parents that acts a car to use when things like, I get a flat tire and need a car to use. My husband also discovered my battery was bad, so I got a new one, avoiding the usual stranding that occurs when my battery goes out. We got a new heat lamp. And, well, a cold is just a cold and part of life.

A Year in the Life of an Art Journal...

Life...

Created my pages today based on the latest prompt, LIFE, and technique of writing over book text. Instead of writing over text in a printed book I chose to journal about life and then create over my own text. Just really an excuse to do the journaling I felt I needed. Another thing mentioned was to create pages based on music.

I was listening to Fly One Time by Ben Harper and Relentless 7.

Random, floating thoughts

Am all over the place today. Can't seem to get grounded in order to get things done (that I feel I need to get done). Started these pages yesterday but they just didn't feel right. When I sat down to them today I felt like the floating lady.

Have a lot of random things floating around like...

• standing in line at 5 am tomorrow so that I can register my demigods for Camp Half Blood this summer.

• when am I going to find time to create the kids' annual gift photo albums...along with everything else that needs to be done for the holidays

• the apple pie that I want to bake with my youngest after he gets home from preschool

• E.A.S.T.

Many thanks Cathy for my catalogue. I have never been to EAST and am so excited about going this year. I'm even more excited because I know people exhibiting, some I haven't seen in awhile, so am looking forward to many surprises and discoveries along the way. Still trying to decide if I want to do this as a family, or if I can stand the guilt it will take to go it alone.

• The newest member of our family, Argus, my son's bearded dragon

• the really cool operation beautiful that I heard about last night on the radio

• a little bubble of an idea that Cathy put in my head about studying artists one at a time

• and the wonderful, random little bits of my kids' lives I get to discover throughout the day like this

Photo Friday

Liquid..

Photo Friday

Dark...

In the dark there is always light

How do you measure success?

Over the past few months I have been working off and on from a writing prompts book by Susan Wittig Albert. My mom actually bought it for my daughter, but being 9, some of the topics require a bit more living in order to write about them. The other week the topic was about 'how do you measure success?' (actually I think it was artistic success, but I enjoyed looking at it in many areas of my life) and since then it's been on my mind quite a bit.

What I found out was that as I began to write, I naturally started out by focusing on things like the happiness of myself and my family, but as I wrote it broke down a little bit more with each sentence. Like I just kept zooming in as I wrote.

By doing this I was able to see what was important to me in life as well as seeing what goals I need to be setting for myself. This kinda goes back to my weeding & sorting.

Also, as a mom, it's really easy to pull in the success of my kids and make that my own too...although this can be tricky so as not to make their struggles and failures also mine as well as placing my ideas of success onto them. Make sense?

Cool thing about this is that everyone's answers to this will be different. Therefore, the key is to get to know what the measurements on your own yardstick look like and not to confuse them with those on someone else's.

Wordless Wednesday