EVERYTHING OLD....

It's funny how everything old just seems to come around new again. It is often as if there are only these few iterations of things that just shift slightly to reinvent themselves. 

But morning walks along our beautiful shoreline.... Same? Different? Definitely new each day in my mind. Always refreshing. Always gorgeous, no matter the weather. Always...the same and yet different as well.

In any case, makes my day!! Leaves me inspired. Off I go to create!

FUN CREATIVE MESS

Yay!! Tomorrow is another Sunday Studio Workshop aka Mixed Media Playtime. I'm like a kid in a candy store on these days, excited to sample all that appears.

We will be eight of us--creatives all! On the agenda (if you can even call it that) will be making journals for the upcoming Round Robin Journaling, Valentines, playing around with backgrounds, maybe some new image transfer techniques, and.........who knows?

We'll have some wonderful potluck nibbles, music, laughter, and more. See why I'm excited?

CAPTIVE AND CAPTIVATED

Gonna do it til it's right

The crow commands,
the captive must obey...

I hear them in the morning hours...they seem to call to me. And then throughout the day, even as a breeze blows through the canyon and the screech of a hawk can be heard...still they keep calling.

And so, captivated as I am, during these fallow days of winter, I strive to turn the tables and captivate them. I'll get it yet!

SWEET TIME

Sweet time

She was taking her own sweet time about it....

Doesn't that sound kinda negative? But when I stop to think about it sweet time sounds pretty great. This really got me thinking...what would I count as sweet time? Where would it take me?

Outside, of course. Beautiful, sun-drenched days always beckon. I can seldom think of a good reason to ignore the call, put on my walking shoes, grab a bottle of water and just head out. Even these brisk mornings seem not to deter me from hitting the road, so to speak.

Birdsong greets me each day as I head out of the door. What a great start! There are no rules. I can walk as far as I want and take my "sweet time."

As it turns out, sweet time for me is all about the beauty of simply being. Taking my own sweet time is slow and easy and could last forever. No negatives there.

The ease of this is welcome and exhilarating. It even occurs to me that not only is time of the essence as we have so often heard, but time IS the essence. At least this seems true with "sweet time."

What does sweet time look like to you? (and, please don't say it's a negative thing.) What discoveries can you find in this special time? Where does it take you?

For me, I will continue my wandering and watching and sitting and taking my own sweet time as it stretches out like a long, soft ribbon on the ocean breeze at the edge of the shore. 

AH, THE SEESAWS!

Balancing time

Do you remember being on a seesaw as a child and reaching down with your toes, trying to maintain the delicate balance with your friend on the other end?

Sometimes life seems a bit like that...the balancing so very tenuous.

In my previous blog post I spoke of wanting to keep it simple. Talk about a balancing act! WOW!

Two weeks into January and the simple too often already gets out of balance with too much, too many, too busy, too crazy. 

But commitment helps. This morning in the darkness of pre-dawn as I scrunched down into the warmth of the blankets, I heard the hoot of the neighborhood owl. It seemed to be ever so wisely reminding me of the simple, the balance. So, though I wanted to stay snug and warm, up I popped and headed for that first cup of coffee, committed to the healthy and simple choice of a morning walk.

As they say, one day at a time.

ALL AROUND GOOD FUN!

Fun journaling

As a group of us met last night to celebrate the 2019 Round Robin Journaling success I had many thoughts. Of course, first of all, what a wonderful group was gathered together in this celebration of creativity. But there's more.

Cindy started me off down this path a few years ago, asking that I join a group of artists who once monthly did a spread in a journal and then passed it along. This has now spread and is, for us, a local group of artists who create some of the most lively and creative pages each month. 

The idea is to experiment and to explore and to play with new and old techniques. Some of the work/play that comes from this is spectacular and I am pleased and humbled to be a part of this process.

Want to join us in 2020? Want to start your own group? Just let me know.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

Keeping it simple sometimes is best

In this new year of a new decade my thoughts turn to this blog. What do I want for it? What amount of my time can I commit to keeping it going? Should I again set myself a goal for weekly posts? These and other thoughts rumble and ramble through my mind.

Simple. Keep it simple. This very basic thought returns time and time again as I ponder.

Recognizing that simplicity is a state of mind that flows from the activities and choices we make each day, on this day with the first blog of the year I can commit to simple.

Simple means that keeping to the goal from 2019--because it worked--is the choice to make. So two blogs per week. And, like simplicity itself, the blogs will arise out of the activities and choices of the days.

Stay tuned.