Breathe

My youngest daughter sent me a text with this photo she'd taken, saying I probably had a quote for it. The photo was a pretty heart shaped leaf with some very good light on it. I manipulated it a bit in one of my phone apps and had to wait a few days for the quote to arrive in an email from a friend. The words are good reminders.

I think I like the gold version the best. But that might be because I have a different set of words on the blue photo that I will be writing more about later.

I Really Should....

I'm going to try and live out this weekend with a sense of wonder. 

It feels like I have misplaced it somewhere.

I really haven't.

It's only temporarily hidden from me.

That much I know.

I try to love, as well as I know how.

I think I live gently.

But boy, 

do I struggle 

with

gracefully letting go

of things not meant for me.

(The quote in the second photo is from Buddha's Little Instruction Book)

Fun is Transformational

I took my big camera out this past weekend and walked on my trail ("my trail" is actually a fire line breaking up two pieces of property, the piece that is not ours is "company land" where timber is grown) this past weekend. My cousin had gone through with his tractor and cleared it out a bit. I was looking for things I could take blurry pictures of to use as layers in my "thangs." But I also got several good focused photos.

I love how the trees are reflected in the water in the photo above. The tree that is down makes me think of a body with long legs.

I really wanted to put a quote on the picture but I never could get it where you could read the quote well. I tried several different things and finally gave up on the idea (at least temporarily!).

Tonight I skipped my workout class and came straight home from work and took a nap. I was tired and didn't feel well. I got up a little while ago and thought I'd get all the photos off my memory card and onto my computer. That made me want to play a little bit. And the photo above is evidence of my play.

My blogging/writing tribe has been trying to write more on our blogs and we have been using prompts to help us do so. Our latest prompt was "fun." This is one of my ideas of fun.

And now that I have written this, I will hurry back to bed and hopefully will wake up rested and ready for another day.

Speaking of another day, the quote I wanted to use with the photo (in either form) was this:

Here dies another day
during which I have had
eyes, ears, hands
and the great world round me;
and with tomorrow begins another.

Why am I allowed two?

(GK Chesterton)

Today Is My Birthday!

I might have been inadvertently "outed" this morning on Facebook, in my birthday wishes.

I'm not going to fret too much. It would take a curious person who would think to google "Annie Oddflower" to find me (or perhaps someone who would wait to ask me next week at work, not having thought to google for the information). As most of my blogging friends know, I have been waffling around with the idea of outing my own self, so if it has happened, so be it.

What better time to "come out" than on my even numbered birthday that is two years away from a certain number birthday that I can't yet say out loud?! How can I be so close to that number?! It might just be time for me to be braver about letting little annieoddflower be seen. Acceptance of all our self is very important to good mental health! And as far as pieces of me go, annie is benign, and sometimes wise sometimes poignant, sometimes witty. She surely isn't one of the darker shadow sides of me!

I am off to enjoy my day, beginning with getting outside (in the cold!) with my camera to see what I can find.

Oh, the "brave" angel is from a Kellie Rae Roberts collection. I found her on sale at the local Catholic book store.

Also, if you are a real live day to day person in my life who has found me, speak up! I don't like people sneaking around me and I can figure out you've been here in my statistics log (though I don't normally like dealing with statistics)!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Getting back into the groove of work after two long weeks off for the holidays, most of it spent in the quiet of the country, is generally a bit of an adjustment for me. Then, about the time I was settling back in, we had a snow day. It was a Friday so as soon as it seemed safe we loaded up and headed out to the country. We arrived to see our house and yard and the woods covered in snow. That was a fantastic weekend. I've been hoping for a couple of years to get to see a good accumulation of snow again and this was my hope come true! 

Then, the next week, we had two snow days! We stayed in town that time, and I got a few things done around the house that needed doing. And I returned to work joking that I reckoned we ought to get three snow days this week! But alas, it was not to be so. 

I recently told a couple of real life friends that there is a darkness that feels a bit like a black bear that is always pursuing me, and I am always running, trying to stay a step or two ahead of it. I would not say it is depression. But it is something. I wish I could turn and kill it once and for all. I'm grateful for friends in my life who can hear stuff like that from me and a) not think I am nuts for expressing myself that way, and b) not over worry about me when I express myself that way.

It has been a problem, for a couple of weeks now. I think partially the problem is that I am longing for light and spring time, ready for the season to change. And I have some real burdens on my plate at the moment. I am sometimes weary from trying to stay ahead of that bear. I try to remind myself that the feelings are temporary and will pass. 

I'm telling this because I have decided that I think the black bear is trying to tell me that I can do better and he has my back. I think his name is Awareness. But everybody knows "ignorance is bliss."

Sometimes the scary things we tend to run from are not the scary things we think they are. Sometimes if we'll slow down, just a little, and take a chance, we'll discover the scary things are there to teach us something.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Good Intentions and Optimistic Stories

 I spent the first morning of my weather-mandated two days off digging around in and trying to organize my fabric stash. I found some treasures, including a year's worth of "block of the month kits" and the hand stitched quilt squares from my first quilting class, both patiently waiting to be complete. I found cross stitch fabric. I found fabric cut with the pattern pinned on for a dress for me (which I might just finish, for the sake of my own curiosity!) I found a couple of pieces of fabric that were meant to become a dress and a suit for me. I found the tiny blue and white dress I'd lovingly smocked for my first born. And had never completed. I found this piece of smocking that was going to be a cute little sundress. If only it had been completed. 

I thought of the saying "The one who dies with the most toys wins" and the quilting related saying, "She who dies with the most fabrics wins." I don't have that much fabric. My stash is relatively small. I abandoned it all years ago. Maybe partly because I got busy with the business of raising children. I did not think I'd ever circle back around to sewing or quilting. I am a little bit surprised at my desire to come back to cutting out bits of fabric and piecing them back together in new ways. 

I spent the morning thinking to myself that I must somehow whittle down my interests and focus on taking a few of them seriously, rather than flitting around like a butterfly in a field of varying bright flowers. I was thinking this morning about how I can not do everything that seems to call to me. And I was thinking about exactly what all might be to me. Through the years I've seen myself as reader, seamstress, quilter, poet, writer, collage artist, photographer, mixed media artist, life-long student of life, purveyor of light, and quirky creative. 

I am all those things--"Jack of all trades, master of none?" I won't go there. That would cause me to compare myself to others, which often leads me to feel "less than." What I can do, what I must do is learn what I am and be such (see previous post for the artwork!), as Pindar so aptly puts it. 

I will be doing this for the rest of my life, I know. Occasionally the idea that I will be learning for the rest of my life what I am makes me feel like I am a remedial student of life. But for me, not learning what I am would be the greater tragedy. 

I had good intentions on completing all my projects. But we all know where the road that good intentions pave leads! And I know there are a lot whose road has been far rougher than mine, but this morning I sort of feel like I've been to hell and back. And maybe now I'm ready to pick up some of these long abandoned projects and to make something new out of the bits and pieces I've found. I do not say this with any great self-pity, only with great self-awareness, but that is one of my life stories, crafting my life out of bits and pieces. It was never my intention to screw myself up, but sometimes those bits and pieces descend from my own crappy decisions (note to self: forgive yourself, let it go, get up and try again). 

Part of what has fueled this bit of self-revelation was a quote I saw on Facebook about Pete Seeger, who died this morning at the age of 94: "Through the years, Mr. Seeger remained determinedly optimistic. 'The key to the future of the world,' he said in 1994, 'is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.'"

I know he was speaking more globally than I am this morning, but this is my optimistic story: the hope that I will find myself not only completing some of these unfinished fabric projects, but also the hope that I will continue to work on the biggest incomplete project of my life: MYSELF. 

I too remain determinedly optimistic.

RIP, Pete Seeger. And thanks.

May we all stay forever young.

(I'm convinced continuing learning and self-growth is one of the secrets.)

Thing

This week's word was "thing" or "things," however we want to interpret it. This is a thing I did over the weekend, inspired by an article on hand lettering I read. I thought I would try my hand at doing it. It isn't perfect but it's okay.

Things to try are always in my head. Today I tried a thing that has been in my head for at least ten years. I've joked over the years that I wanted to buy a machine quilting machine and quilt quilts. It's kind of been a joke because a) those things are expensive, b) I used to sew and quilt and have not done so for years, d) this would be starting a small business and I'm scared, c) well, I don't know. But today I did realize that when thinking about this thing, I have trouble differentiating between good sense and fear, so I don't know what I might actually do over a period of time about this particular endeavor. Maybe nothing.

Anyway, my aunt told me about a quilt shop that would give lessons on how to use the (in this case, $15,000) machine and would rent it to you to quilt your quilts. I went by for a visit a couple of weeks ago and I scheduled a lesson for today. So now today, part of my itch has been scratched. I sort of know how to use the machine. I did not tear it up. I did not stitch a finger (in spite of me having to adapt a tiny bit for being left handed). I did not do it perfectly. She did not say I was a genius quilter, but she did say I did well and listened carefully (but of course!).

I can't say I exactly loved it. But I can see where one could get into a flow and enjoy doing the work. And I am going to go back again and rent some more time on the machine for practice and play. I have at least three quilts top that I could finish. I have a couple of sets of blocks I could work on to make more tops. I have no lack of things to finish if I decided I wanted to do this.

See my photos below. It is not stellar work but I'm quite proud of it nonetheless (it is done on "practice" fabric with muslin for a backing, not a quilt top!).

 I did this flower at the end of the day when I was practicing and getting more of a feel for the machine (my biggest problem was that I needed to relax and let the machine do the work).

 And she showed me how to do a little heart, then move on to circles. It's hard to think about where you need to go on the quilt top and not to let yourself get boxed in. I must practice that more.

 This was done with some sort of thing called a work station. You traced around the pattern with a stylus from the back of the machine.