What a Sunday

Great Sunday, I went to a forum on what to do with our church mural as we build a new building, then went to the service and found this in the Order of Service (at First UU)

Affirmation by William Henry Channing
To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not repspectable, and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, think quitely, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.

When I got up this AM and saw all the balloons in the air, I knew it was the anniversary of my father's death. We came out of the hospital after he died and the whole sky was filled with beautiful balloons. That was the first time I saw a mass ascension. It was breathtaking and will always be associated with his death. It has been 18 years, and I still miss him!

Maybe not Fall anymore

This is what I woke up to this morning. I was puttering around and glanced out the window towards Sandia Peak and it was covered in snow, way down the mountain. No snow at my house, but pretty close!

We have had more precipation in the last month than we had the rest of the year!

I was inspired by a post on Quinn Creative to create a wavy lined nine patch, and fill it in with your attributes (only positive, not negative) and then journal about them. I took it a step further in my huge moleskine journal (blank until now). I had so much fun on one page that I put things that I love in a nine patch on the facing page. It was kinda strange, as I thought I was using the first page, but in actuality, it was the last page... so many of my words are not right side up, but I do not think that matters. Here is the beginning of the coloring process.

My words are creative, artsy, techy, nrrd, mother, evocatuer, tactile, dependable, spiritual. . I had impatience (which is very negative) so I took it out and put in the evocatuer. It is a very interesting process and I will post tomorrow when I have finished coloring. My Loves are Kittehs, the internet, fabric, spirals, labryinth, chocolate, red wine, fall, spring

Joanne's Haul

A local Joanne's is closing (there are three in Albuquerque) and I stopped by there. They had 50%, 75% and 90% off. If you live in Albuquerque, go before Oct. 6th, as that is the last day. Of course, they didn't have that much left, but a lot of stuff (buttons for 10 cents, ribbons for 25 cents, fancy yarn for a dollar, and a HUGE flower pot for $10) Anyway I bought all of this plus the flower pot for $28. Can't beat that!

Finish this Book by Keri Smith

I just ordered "Finish This Book" by Keri Smith. See below if you want to order your copy!

The premise is that this unfinished book needs to be finished. This is the starting page, don't you love my purple fingerprints? Since I had a variegated purple to blue ink pad, I figured why not purple fingerprints??

This is a sign that you are supposed to post so the people around you know you are seriously pursuing a great task. Since my two cats can't read, this was a little unnecessary, but I made it anyway!

The decision here was Option One - put the book on a shelf or give to someone who might continue with finishing the book, or continue -Option Two. I chose Option Two

Ponder this...

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. Jimmy Carter

Not making much art, but I am making watermelpons!

 Wild morning glories. I was watering them earlier in the summer, but gave up because none sprouted. Then after the rains started, the came back to life. Now I am watering them and they are doing great. Mother Nature is amazing.

 My largest watermelon- it is about 6 inches across.

 This is the second melon it is only about 3 inches across. They may not ripen before it is too cold, but it has been an interesting experiment. My cantelope bloomed like crazy but did not make any melons. I have a very hard time throwing away anything that is still alive, but when the cantelope got bugs I pulled it up and threw it away!

This is a mandala that I created in repsonse to a group working the Grand Mandala Round on the
Wild Precious Studio ning site. On the right side is where I journaled about the mandala and prompts. I did not realize that I was setting up a yellow/gold/purple scheme (when I was working on the mandala the right hand page was hidden, and when I opened it up to do my journaling I realized the pages were color co-ordinated). Of course, yellow and purple are some of my most favorite colors!

Did two things I had never done today...

The Sierra Club had a flash mob at the NM State Fair today- Sol, not coal. It was an interesting experience and I went along with the crowd and rode the City Bus! Never again, and that is all that I will say!
When the video is posted about the flash mob, I will put a link here

Flora on my morning walk

New Mexico has been in a drought (severe this year!). Since January 1, we have had less than two inches of rain, and most of that has come this summer. The summer is known as monsoon season which has a different meaning if you have lived in a tropical clime... Anyway, after the rains started, the flora just blossomed (pun intended). I walk some mornings on the walking trail that is right in front of my house. I noticed that after the rains flowers were everywhere. They are subtle, but definitely are noticeable. I took these pics this week.

 Michelmas Daisies among the cacti

 Orange Mallow

 Don't know what this is, but the small white flower you can see turns into this feathery seed head

 Don't know the name of this, but they are small compact yellow flowers

 White Daisy-like flowers

Another one that I don't the name of, but looks almost like babies breath

 Chamisa blooms

 Yellow Daisies

 Another Daisy that is almost through blooming

 Lots of yellow

This is a compact feathery yellow bush!

Quote from Pinterest

OK, I am hooked on pinterest and have found so many intersting quotes:
The recession won't be over until we raise a generation that know how to live on what they've got...
No attribution, but it is great!

Stack your Journals

Over at Altered Pages, Seth Apter had a great idea: On September 21, 2011, post your stack of journals, handmade journals, artwork--whatever you stack up in your studio.
As you can see from my stack, I like messy (in the background and my journals)

The Red Tent

I want, no I need a Red Tent! I wonder if I could transform my living room?

Found this on Facebook

Truly Amazing, this is RECYCLING!

We Art the People 2011

This is an experiment in video-ing. I took pictures as I stepped through the  festival, and then set them up in a video.

I walked all around (this is an annual affair and I go whenever I am in town) and only bought two small pictures of bugs of all things.
I did find a gorgeous solar powered patio lamp, but the vendor wasn't able to take a credit card so I had to pass.

My personal take on 9/11/11

Ten years after (also an old rock and roll band...)
I was living in Houston Texas and at  work at the Downtown headquarters of Bank of America on 9/11. One of my coworkers said "Oh wow, a plane slammed into a skyscraper in New York..."
Soon we realized the import of this statement, and found a TV to watch in awestruck disbelief. As soon as it was ascertained that there was a fourth plane unaccounted for, downtown Houston was evacuated and we all went home. I watched from home, completely overwhelmed. I finally decided to go and donate blood, as that was SOMETHING THAT I COULD DO. Not realizing how total the destruction was, we all thought that there would be this tremendous need for blood. The line was long, and most of the afternoon was taken up at the Houston Blood Center.

I was feeling totally powerless. There had to be SOMETHING THAT I COULD DO. My minister, Gail Lindsy Mariner of First Unitarian Universalist church, spoke eloquently at a special service about how she was concerned about the association of the flag with the militaristic backlash after the event. Her quote is "In my spare moments I'm trying to figure out how to morph stars into doves so I can create a flag where the stars in the field of blue transform into birds of peace as you scan from left to right." Being a fibre artist, this image blossomed in my brain complete and whole. I went home, dragged out all of my red, white and blue fabric and made my own flag. The peace doves were taken from a chilren's website, Peace Pals and are created from fabric applied to freezer paper.

This piece was exhibited at the International Festival of Quilts in Houston that October (we were all amazed that so many pieces could be completed in 6 weeks -over  300 pieces were received) and published in a book of the exhibit titled "America from the Heart" .
Working on this piece brought me peace and acceptance, and I still have it hanging prominently in my home. The doves of peace are a little ragged from moves and being cat toys, but they are still streaming off of the flag!

Change to my blog

I made changes to the header and dates on the blog, but I am not sure if I like this font, it looked cute on the website, but not so cute here. Now that I have finally got it to work, it should be easy to change or remove. I found out how to do it here and it was NOT as easy as Kevin would have you believe (of course had I read the directions completely, it would not have taken so long....).
Still on vacation, so I seem to think today is Sunday instead of Friday!
I made one more run to Borders, and they have really sold off a lot of stuff. I found a book that I have needed to read for quite some time (self help and I have been avoiding it). Well, the universe spoke to me today. In the checkout line, alone on a shelf was THE BOOK. All by it's lonesome... just waiting for me. And instead of $24.99, it was $2.49. So I had to buy it. I will probably spend the afternoon reading it, and hopefully it will do some good!
I have also set up a zibbet shop, will see if it is easier than Etsy. I added two of my prayer flags (one red and one blue) to both etsy and zibbet.
Well, this was from Friday, but I saved as a draft rather than publishing, so I am posting it now. 

Had an Etsy Question about Vintage dictionary pages

A potential customer asked me if the pages would go through a inkjet printer. I said I did not know, and since my printer was brand new, I did not want to try it, but the more I thought about it, the more curious I became. So I tried it, and it worked like a charm. The image above is a dictionary page that I attached securely to a carrier sheet (just printer paper) and printed a digital collage that I created and posted earlier this summer.

Just added a new item to my etsy page

 Click here for the listing.

I've been on vacation...

Nothing exotic, I went to my Mother's 88th birthday on Monday, but no big trips for me, as  I have a tear in the vitreous fluid in my right eye.
Several weeks ago I told you about a book that I got for 99 cents at Borders, called "The Worst Case Scenario Almanac - Politics"
Here is a quote from that book:
"The first professional female journalist in the United States, Anne Royall, was rebuffed in her efforts to gain an interview with the country's president, John Quincy Adams, in 1825. After hearing that Adams started every day off with a 5 AM skinny dip in Washington, D.C.'s Potomac River, Royall ambushed him. When the president emerged from the river naked, he found Royall sitting on his clothes. She refused to let him dress until he conducted an interview with her. Adams agreed and Royall became the first woman to interview a U.S. President.

Underwater Museum

It always amazes me what you can find on the interwebs!
Check out his website here
Happy Labor Day weekend, even though I am on call until Monday AM!

Great Video

Growing is Forever from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.