Monday, January 26, 2009

I'll follow the sun

Early morning sun trying to get into the neighbors attic.


As far as I know, my neighbors only use their attic for storage. Their very large house is in the morning sun's path, and often my first glimpse of light when I put up the curtain is this fire in their attic. This picture doesn't do it justice, but I have no upstairs windows facing that direction. I imagine an artist and model up there taking advantage of the chiaroscuro!



I moved these globes to a safe spot while I was organizing the girls' room yesterday.
The sunlight found them here.



I love all the seasons. Yes, winter, too. I love snow and snow activities. It is true, though, that in winter I seek the sun as often as I seek shade in summer. Maybe more, because sunlight in winter, and its play upon snow, is so beautiful.


This tree, so lovely bare in winter, is also our shade in summer.


The sun is shining this morning. I hope it's warm enough to thaw the frozen bathroom tap. This is the one thing that has been hard about this winter for me, trying to keep this hole in the ground heated.


At least I got some new copper bling...






Peace.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Writing it down.

The 6yo has begun to write. And such a lovely start.




25 Random Things About Me

(This meme is going around facebook, and I got tagged. I wrote a list of 25 things, and now I find myself editing it endlessly.)


1. I like to make pie. Pear-blueberry is my current favorite.
2. I wish I had some pie right now.
3. My tub drain is still frozen and the words "standing water" enter my head when I go in the bathroom.
4. Worse than the tub drain being frozen ('cause I can bail it & it's not that bad taking a shower standing in inches of icy water), the washer is frozen and I can't go this long without doing laundry, so it looks like the 'mat for me.
5. I grew up in southern California. My mom still lives in my childhood home.
6. Growing up, I preferred the beach at night, and spent many hours up on lifeguard station M watching the moonlight on the water.
7. When I visit my family now, I want to spend as many daylight hours in the ocean as I can.
8. Whenever I float in the ocean, Atlantic and Pacific are the two that I've tried, I like to close my eyes and picture a map of the coastline and water. I imagine a little dot in the water representing me. What?
9. I started a girls flag football league for my school district in elementary school. Yes, I played center. And yes, there is a great photo in my yearbook of a kick off with the ball long flying away and my finger still in holding pose.
10. In high school, a friend in MGM with me decided he would make up awards for each of us in the group so that we would all have something to add to the awards section on our college applications. I received the Paul Klee Humanitarian Award, and was quite proud of it.
11. I am an artist. I have sometimes thought that discovering at a young age that I share a birthday with Picasso had something to do with it. Recently, clicking around the 'net, I read on someone's blog (I don't even remember whose), that she had a similar thought. Now I wonder how many of us there are.
12. I loved it when Brian O'Doherty, a professor of mine in college at the end of the last century, remarked that in the near future Picasso would be referred to as "that 20th century artist."
13. Dancing to live music is one of the top five physical pleasure in life for me.
14. I thought one of the top five physical pleasures in life was the same for everybody. However, when I was in a mother's group with eight other women, all of them married to men, I was shocked by how few of them put sex in the top five. One woman even asked if reading counts as a physical pleasure.
15. I've never been married, but...
16. I *do* love to read. I'm embarrassed to say that most of my reading these days is online.
17. I miss books. Curling up in bed with a laptop just isn't the same. Yes, I know what you're thinking -- I miss that, too.
18. Legend has it that, as a child, I walked through the neighborhood singing, and all the neighborhood kids followed me around.
19. I am still amazed that I started a band (as a woman over forty with two young children), that a bunch of stellar professional musicians volunteered to be in it, and that we got to play at the Iron Horse. We opened for Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys the first time and the Wilders the second time.
20. I am also amazed that my first out-of-town gig, and biggest crowd ever, was playing solo at EschaCon08, in Philadelphia. Thank you, NYMary.
21. I am enjoying seeing all the photos on facebook.
22. I don't think you're supposed to edit these lists, but I'm doin' it anyway.
23. I would like to invent, if it hasn't been invented already, a family-size all-season pedal car that stores energy as you pedal and taps that energy to help you motor up big hills.
24. I have a fantasy of closing the highways to cars one day a week and folks enjoying vacations that take them slowly across country by bicycle.
25. Insomnia does kinda mess with me, but I do love these quiet hours.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Renewing America's Promise


A brand new day.



(who's surprised that I'm not the first person to think of this song in this context?)












Peace.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Feed the birds

Our friend Jacy is putting some old bread and clementine slices on the tree.
(while I wait in the cozy house!)




Of course, it snowed again after she did this, but hopefully the birds will still be able to find their treats...





Peace.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Yesterday's Lunch



Yogurt with banana slices, oats, and cinnamon (the marks on the wall look like the bowl is smokin'!), cranberry juice/water cocktail, ubiquitous clementine. Yum.

What will it be today?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Mug Shot



It's ten degrees outside. Tea with milk and whiskey, in my favorite mug, is a very good thing.

Self Portrait, Part II





I had hoped to draw a self portrait today for the self-portrait-a-week project, but with all the vole excitement, it'll have to be a photograph instead (taken just after I got home from delivering the vole to the woods).




Peace.

Yes, I could be cleaning house right now...

...but I choose not to.

Instead, here's yet another internet meme.



things you've done: bold
things you want to do: italicize
things you haven't done and don't want to: regular font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to a Disney theme park
8. climbed a mountain
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped
12. visited Paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the Mona Lisa
20. slept on an overnight train
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in Venice
29. seen a total eclipse of the sun
30. watched a sunrise or sunset
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise
33. been to Niagara Falls
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the leaning tower of Pisa
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen Michelangelo's David
41. sung karaoke
42. seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistine Chapel
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the great wall of China
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold Girl Scout cookies
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood
65. gone sky diving
66. visited a concentration camp
67. bounced a check
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the Lincoln memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the Everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in London
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the Grand Canyon
80. published a book
81. visited the Vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible
86. visited the White House
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating*
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen the Alamo in person
96. swum in the great Salt Lake
97. been involved in a law suit
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee





*lobster

Self Portrait, Part I




Yet another picture of a picture from the past. My friend Christine took this picture of me at my old apartment, standing next to a pastel self portrait I had started. I never finished the drawing, because I liked where it was and was afraid of ruining the energy if I went back in for details.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More Clean Up


I finally took the tree down yesterday.
Look at all that lovely empty space!




We like to keep our tree in the yard,
Standing in the snow until Spring.
We sprinkle it with snacks for the birds.





Peace.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Pictures of pictures




When I saw this post at m.heart's place this morning, it sent me looking for this photograph. I apologize for the poor picture quality, since I don't know how to work my scanner, you get a picture of a picture.

I took this picture from the window of an art gallery during my friend's father's opening. I had taken a series of portraits of my friend in a nook by the window. When I looked out the window, I saw this message painted there. "You want this, too." Yes, I thought, I do want this, too -- the life of a professional artist, building and showing a body of work. It is a comforting thought to me that even the walls outside knew this about me.

The hunt through boxes of pictures revealed some other treasures.



This is my favorite Halloween costume. As an adult, before I had children, my costumes always involved fake blood and zombie make-up. Usually I had a head wound that dripped aesthetically down my face. For the costume pictured, though, I chose instead "the heartless bitch," 'cause she always gets her man (and I never did)! Huh, it doesn't seem as amusing typed here as it did saying it at that party. Oh, curse you, maturity!




"Look up, mom!" This picture is from my mother's first trip to New York to visit me. It was January. It was wind-chill below zero her whole trip, so I have lots of photographs of us at tourist spots with scarves wrapped over our faces! It is still hard for me to believe that these buildings are gone. It is hard to believe that the Supreme Court was allowed to make a partisan decision eight years ago, with tragic results.

Yet, I am willing to believe that we are now on the path to healing. One week from tomorrow, we make it official.



Peace.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Good People Day



(I love this guy. I'm gonna go watch more...)

Clean up




Still cleaning up and putting away, post-holiday. All the ornaments and wise men have been tucked in for the long wait 'til next December. The tree is still up with its lights on. A friend pointed out that it's not really until mid-January or early February that the winter seems too long and dark, so why do we rush to get rid of our sign of light and life? It does look lovely -- here would be a good place for a picture of it, but the camera is upstairs, so it'll have to wait...


Update: here's a photo!



I'm about to take the tree outside for the birds...

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

After


Hair combed, washed, and trimmed!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Sledding with Jacy

Taking turns...





And all together for the last run of the day...









Peace.

Remembering Townes and Hank

This beautiful poster was created by Philip Price


Townes Van Zandt
(7 March 1944 - 1 January 1997)


Hank Williams
(17 September 1923 - 1 January 1953)










Peace.

2009 So Far...

My favorite plate burst when I picked it up
from last night's party stack.



The cold water tap is frozen and the pipes may burst.
I put the space heater down in the hole!






My heart almost burst with joy and love,
seeing the girls create their own sledding fun!





Happy New Year!




Peace.