OK I have been lax

I have spent all of my time playing ZUMA, and not posting to blogger! Bad blogger! My friend L asked me what was going on. Anyway, I have a new art project started. Above is the color scheme.

Baby Cakes must approve, as she does not lie around

on just any old fabric (velvet is her favorite!)

And just for equal time, here is fuzzy bucket sniffing the air.

Quote of the Day

This really tickled my fancy:

If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.
Ogden Nash.

This is exactly where I am at! Of course, I plan on winning the lottery tonight, and then I won't have to worry about it.
(Is that positive thinking or what??)

Take action now on Healthcare Reform

I work in a healthcare related industry, and am very concerned about how we are handling our healthcare in the US. So much BS is being passed off as truth and it is really hard to find out what is going on. Check out this video

Postcard Book

I am trying something new. I get lots of postcards of varying sizes, and started saving them about 6 weeks ago. I have now started assembling them into signatures, which will be assembled into some kind of a book. We will see how is comes out.

As a first stage, I am gessoing them all, except for a few images which I want to retain.

I had to clear off my cutting table in order to do any work! Now I have room.

But enjoy it, as it will not stay clean and neat for long!

Beautiful bountiful day

My horoscope for today is:

August 08, 2009
Pisces (2/19-3/20)
You're set up to have one of those priceless days today. Don't take it for granted, but don't get too carried away being grateful, either. You can enjoy it without feeling indebted to whomever gets the show on the road for you. Remember, what goes around comes around, so if what's come your way is delightful, it's simply because it's your turn.

And I am reading Simple Abundance, A daybook of comfort and joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Yesterday's entry(which I did not read until today) is about Creature Comforts: the animals in our lives. So I am posting pictures of the two alien furballs that inhabit my life.

Fuzzy Bucket

Baby Cakes, AKA Fatso Catso, AKA Studio Cat

I have got my wireless connection back (I had inadvertantly turned it off! Had to read the Help Files to turn it back on!). Anyway, I am freed from my desk! This is now my workspace, on the daybed in my studio. In the winter I am planning to snuggle in my chaise lounge in front of the fireplace!

Great Quote

When we follow our authentic path with love, embracing our creative impulses, we live truth even if what we think we're doing is just planting a flower bed, cooking a meal, nurturing a child, editing a book, producing a television show, sewing a curtain, writing a brief, painting a picture, teaching a craft, composing a song or closing a deal.
Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach

Nothing much happening today

But it is Wednesday, so that is good. I have to work on getting my wireless card replaced and that may take all evening. Wish me luck!
Just barely missed the cutoff at work, if you make $X you had to take a 2% paycut and take a week of unpaid leave before the end of September. Luckily I am hourly, not salary, or I would be biting the bullet!

Another generation of quilters

My great-niece is staying with me for a week. To keep her from getting bored, we are working on a pillow with a kanji in the middle. She is practicing on paper here, but graduated to fabric later in the evening.

Women's Global Pathways - NM

Women's Global Pathways - NM is a dedicated self help organization. They support immigrant and refugee women from Bhutan, Eritrea, Somalia, Burundi, Congo, Mexico and Africa. I so admire a person who can leave all that they know and have and immigrate to another country with only a suitcase. Their life is difficult and the current economic situation makes it even more difficult.
There are ways you can help:
Women's Global Pathways - NM is a 501(c)3 organization and donations may be sent to:
Center of Southwest Culture, 500 Copper Suite 103, Albuquerque NM 87102. Please note "FOR NM REFUGEES" on the memo line of your check.
Any assitance you can give to these struggline refugees will be greatly appreciated. No donation is too small, as their need is great.

For more information, see our Ning website or email wpgnm@yahoo.com

Juliana Coles (Creator of Extreme Visual Journaling) and I have been working on setting up her classes in an online setting. We have been playing around and this is just a snippet from Julaina's Extreme Journalism 101 :Initation. We filmed during this class that she gave on July 25 at her magic studio in Albuquerque. If you think this is interesting, stay tuned as we will have more!

this particular snippet was about Replication.

Finally some art!

I was early to a birthday party at El Pinto last night, so I did some quick and dirty sketches of the foilage.

Not much art today

but this is a gorgeous picture my friend W. took at the Lotus pond at the Lavendar Festival in Los Ranchos. It is a very special place, and is only open to the public once a year.

Living on the side of Love

I do have a serious issue that I want to make sure eveyone hears about. I am Unitarian-Universalist, and this Sunday was the anniversary of the shooting in Tennessee. A deranged individual (who happens to have my last name-so we are probably distantly related... but that is another story) came into a Unitarian church in Knoxville during a program (with the children of the congergation present) and killed two members and wounded others.

In reaction to this, the Unitarian church is starting a "Living on the side of Love..."campaign.

The pledge is:

I believe in the inherent worth and diginity of every person. No one should be dehamanized through acts of exclusion, oppression, or violence because of one's identities, including immigrant status, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation, or political view. I pledge to stand in solidarity with people whose humanity is demeaned just because of who they are. I will stand, speak, pray, march and live on the side of love.

There is really no organized web site or anything, but please join me in taking this pledge.

OFFLINE FOR A WHILE

My modem died and instead of buying a new one, I am going to upgrade to highspeeed. Unfortunatley, they will not ship me the modem until next friday. I am having to go to hot spots to get connected, so will probably not be back on blogger until next Saturday!
WITHDRAWAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Archetype cards from Consulting the Oracle class with Juliana Coles

This weekend I took a great class from Juliana Coles

called Consulting the Oracle.

We made archetype cards, and these are some of mine

My wanderer card. Quote is "Not all who wander are lost" J.R.R. Tolkein

Back of my wanderer card

This was my innocent card, but it morphed into a combination of innocent/orphan. This was one of my "wounded cards" - Juliana had us use the fallouts from other cards to put together a new card (see the masking tape "bandages"). Words are innocence, lost, waif, cold, wet, hungry

"The back of my combination Innocent/Orphan card. It has a transparency of my great-niece Amber and a picture of "little shari". My words added to the card are ebmryo, innocent and little shari

Martyr Card, words are I am high and mighty at work- not sure where that came from, as I was certainly low man on the totem pole today! Back of my wanderer card

My Hedonist card, just started. This is usually my main archetype card.

Back of the heodonist card. I tried to make them uniform, but different colors??

My Magician card. It started out as the warrior (and thus my power color- Red) but it morphed into the Magician. You may have to enlarge to see the three magical figures dancing across the magic carpets. That was the deciding factor.



Back of my magician card

My warrior card (and not a trace of red to be found.) We needed to write our strenghts, and I did not want to write on my card, so I attached another page.

Back of the expanded Warrior card

Consulting the Oracle with Juliana Coles

Consulting the Oracle class with Juliana Coles, July 18-19, 2009. Albuquerque NM

I found a fascinating book called "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex"

Copyright Date 1950.

Just could not resist this at a Book Sale.

This is the inside cover. Note the pocket we constructed

on the left hand side of the page containing our Archetype Cards.

Juliana wanted us to make an "ugly" page. I followed directions, but everyone else made theirs pretty. Oh well. This is alcolhol inks on wet paper with a piece of burlap on the right hand edge. This was supposed to be our introductory spread.

This is my spread for the Orphan card. I felt like paper dolls were appropriate.

Intermediate page in the introductory section.

We listed our Shoulds, then our should nots (which were very similar, amazingly). I wrote mine, then washed them with white paint, obscuring some of the writing.

One of the dividers that we had to create.

My spread for the Innocent card. This was a representation

of what it was like before I was born. I wrote "embryo" and "Little Shari"

with my non-dominant hand and used red alcolhol ink and purple marker.

My representation of the Warrior card. We listed our shortcomings,

and then were supposed to destroy them with great gusto and violence.

We traded letters to the Universe about what we wanted to accomplish,

and then had to answer someone else's letter as if it were our own.

Jule's letter could apply to me to, so I just plowed ahead.

All in all, it was a very interesting experience.

Messy, but interesting.
Check out Juliana's classes

Long time since my last post...

Things have been really tough at work, with a huge project, short timeline and lots to do. But I got it finished (keep saying that I am not going to do that, but I do it anyway...). It is HOT here this afternoon (you will note that I am just commenting, not complaining! When it was cold I promised that I would not complain about it being hot!)

I had an interesting morning today. I am in my car, open the garage door, and it opens, then immediatley crashes back down. Luckily (due to misadventures with other garage door openers in my past) I had not moved my car. I got out expecting to see a broken spring (that happened about 16 months ago and was $200) but it was the bracket that hooks the opener to the door. Looks simple to do, but I have not been able to find a bracket. I looked at Lowes and may have to go to a garage door installer. Hate to pay them to fix it, but I may have to.

I have a new laptop and it has Vista on it. We are going to have to support it at work, so I figured that I would bite the bullet. I have avoided it on purpose for all this time.... So far it is not bad, and the whole system is MUCH faster than my old desktop. I have not put much on it yet, but that will happen. Luckily I have a setup where I can have two machines. Never enough time to do what we want!

I am taking a class with Juliana Coles this weekend, working with archetypes. I can't wait

Wind Farm

They are building a wind farm on the way to my Mother's house. It is on a high bluff southeast of Albuquerque. I am impressed with how slow and deliberate the blades turn, it is almost a dance. I took a short video, but will not be able to upload tonight.

This is my Mother, sister and I. We all have the same chin!

Cutt off all of my hair!

Since it has been hot and muggy for the last week, and I have been down this week, I went and had all of my hair cut off! I am going to try to go spiky, but may not be able to pull it off! Anyway, I needed a change, and this is it!
No picutres yet, as it is too much of a shock!

Here is another experiment, a slideshow

Fourth of July Celebration and Fireworks watching party

Pamela (our hostess) has a very charming courtyard
with grass, flowers, birds and animals.

After dinner and before fireworks, a large storm blew

through and left this gorgeous rainbow behind. It

was a full arc, and very intense, with a secondary faint arc.

The whole group.

Happy Fourth of July

What is independence? Freedom from all laws

or bonds except those of one's own being, control'd

by the universal ones.

- Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871

Distressing News from Dallas

Kathi Woodard
11-17-1948 to 7/1/2009