You know you're...

...experiencing a life transition when you suddenly find yourself engaged in reading an issue of More and actually able to relate to the themes of the articles.

Twenty-four days until 40....

Studio Friday: Favorite Art Supply/ies

There is just no way to do this week's Studio Friday topic in one, easy picture. At least there was the option to explore the plural form of the word!

Favorite art supplies...let me count the ways. Um, no...perhaps not. Would take too long. The thing is, it gets complicated. There are my basic, all-time favorites from the standpoint that I use them, well, all the time. And then there are my favorites because of the technique they're a part of. And there is my ever-changing list of fun, new, trendy goodies that I can't get enough of. So the collage above represents a little of all of that.

Basic, all-time favorites: I'd have to start with cardstock. Love the vast array of colors and textures. I could easily scrap using nothing but cardstock...think how much money I'd save on patterned paper! LOL (Right...don't see that happening. But theoretically, I could do it.) Add to that my Fiskars paper cutter and scissors and my supply of various adhesives (love Hermafix dots for temporary, Tombow mono-adhesive for permanent, foam dots for dimension and glue dots -- which I just discovered recently, believe it or not -- for sticking the heavy, hard-to-stick things) and, if pressed, I could scrap my pictures using just these items. No other decorative elements necessary. Well, maybe a pen so I could journal and add dates, but that's it.

Techniques: This would mainly consist of my markers (love Stampin' Up's), pens (Zig Millenium set; a variety of Sakura GellyRoll pens), ink pads and rubber stamps, as well as things like sponge-tipped daubers, sponges, brushes, etc. that I can also use to apply ink to a page. There are so many different techniques I can do with ink and stamps that I really would never need to buy a rub-on or sticker. (Not that I don't buy these things... :} )

Trendy Goodies: Right now, that would be flowers. Oh, how I love me my flowers! Big (Heidi Swapp) or small (Prima) or in between....love, love, love all the things I can do with these beauties! The other goodies that I absolutely adore (and have for a long time, so they're more tried-and-true than they are trendy) are all things metal and/or things that give an aged look to a layout. (If it's made by 7Gypsies, so much the better. Truly.) Out of all the metal I use, brads are a staple item in my stash...especially antique copper and pewter. I go through these like water.

What are your favorite art supplies that you just couldn't live without?

[Edited: As I repost this from my old blog, I just have to note that I'm not including it here because it has any great written merit...I just love the collage I put together to go with the entry! LOL]

Favorites...

I've been going through boxes and envelopes and drawers full of picture lately in preparation for a project. It's taking way longer than it would otherwise if I didn't feel the need to stop and pause over so many pictures, wade through the memories and get all reflecty about life. But that's part of the process, isn't it? I'm enjoying it.

I love looking at our family pictures, they're all important, but some speak to me in really poignant and significant ways. I've collected a little pile of what are without a doubt some of my most favorite pictures of all time.

Me when I was three, playing at my mom's old portable typewriter...a definite foreshadowing for my love of writing that would emerge throughout the years that followed. I'm so glad one of my parents took the time to take this picture.

A self-taken picture of me just a couple years ago on what I believe to be the most perfect hair day I've ever had in my adult life.

Me with my dad on his 70th birthday. I'm sitting on his lap in this picture, and to me that is such a sweet juxtaposition to where we were emotionally with one another just a few years before that when I had been going through a really rebellious time in my life, hurting everyone I loved along the way.

Four generations...me, my mom, her mom and her grandmother. I love photos like that, that capture in one moment a breadth of life that spans more than ninety years. I love looking for pieces of myself in these women. So cool.

My son and two of his best friends from high school. My son had a lot of friends in school, but these two were the ones who were over here the most, who did the silliest (and some of the dumbest) things together (plus some things I probably still don't know about...probably don't want to!). They're the boys I'll always think of when I think of the good times in my son's high school years. Because there were some definite not-so-good times then, it's important to me to have a tangible reminder that there was good then, too. That's what I want to remember.

Thank God for pictures...and memories.

Time now for a word from the spelling police...

Ok, let me preface this by saying a few things:

1. I am a writer and have always been above average in the areas of spelling and grammar, thus I cannot help but spot errors in the areas, no matter what I'm reading.

2. I do not believe that blogs or personal e-mail should be places where people have to be totally anal about how they write (unless they want to). They're an informal venue. I get that.

3. While I do try and keep my blog spelling and grammar error free, I admittedly make mistakes, either from being lazy or being in a hurry or whatever. Refer to #2 above.

Ok...now that I've got those disclaimers out of the way...what I want to address are a few pet peeves of mine in the area of spelling, specifically the homonymic trio of peak/peek/pique. I can't tell you how often I see the first two of these used one for the other, nor how often I see one of the first two used when it is really the third the person means to use. Actually, I rarely ever see the third used at all, even when it is the word that should be used.

Peak: What you find at the top of a mountain.
Example: The view was beautiful from the mountain peak.

Peek: What you do between your fingers while watching the scary part of a movie.
Example: I peeked around the tree as the bear chased my friend over the edge of the mountain peak.

Pique: What you do when you're trying to arouse someone's attention or interest.
Example: Perhaps my story has piqued your curiosity, and you will want to take a peek at the peak yourself.

Thus, one cannot "peek" someone's interest (unless they're looking unbidden at that person's bank statement). Nor can they "peak" someone's interest, unless they can figure out how to form it into a point. Alas, you must pique their interest, period.

And speaking of bears...the bear-bare homonyms come in second place for the being misued most often, in my opinion. Just know that you can watch a bear bare his teeth, if you have the nerve. However, do not tell me you cannot bare the sight of it, lest I start to imagine you wearing not a stitch on your bare bottom. Hm...that might even frighten the bears!

Back to our normally scheduled show....

Edited to add: In case anyone cares, there is also a fourth, similar word, piqué, which is defined as a tightly woven fabric with raised patterns, such as waffles or ribbing (think polo shirt collars). It's not truly a homonym to the other two, though, as it is pronounced pi-KAY (the "i" sounding like a long "e" -- "pee"). Just felt the need to be complete. :}

Shift in Focus

One of my favorite aspects of photography is how even the tiniest change in focus yields a completely different image. The subject may seem the same at first glance, but then you notice your eye is drawn to different things in the two pictures. The shift in focus becomes significant.

I've noticed such a shift in the focus of my life lately. I knew it was there, that it was happening, but until this week, as I spent time moving and rearranging and purging and organizing my office/studio, I hadn't really been forced to take such close notice of it. It's been alternatingly startling, saddening and freeing, sometimes all at once.

I am a writer by trade. No, you won't find a novel with my name on it at your local bookstore, but for several years, you might have found my name in the byline of various articles in various magazines. I wrote about summer camps for kids, pros and cons of different prepared childbirth philosophies, how to outfit a layette on a budget, how to choose a pet for your child...if it had to do with pregnancy, infants or parenting, I probably wrote about it. I also wrote about writing, and I wrote about faith, and I wrote about how those two can be intertwined. For nearly seven years, I wrote these articles as a freelance writer, and for the time I had to put into it, I enjoyed moderate success. I was good at it, and I enjoyed it, both things a plus when it comes to your job.

But then something happened. Some things happened. A series of unfortunate, frustrating, maddening events took place in my life. The kinds of events that, as they continue for weeks and months and on into years, they rob you of your energy and your drive and your ability to think. So I spent the energy I did have fighting life's fires and dealing with crisis after crisis, having less and less time and inclination to write. I quit looking for new work. I resigned from regular gigs I'd had. Except for the personal journaling I have done since I was eight years old and the blog I had during that time, I quit writing.

At the time, it was a relief. I'd felt tired, burned out. It felt good to not be writing for the first time in a long time, to not have deadlines zooming at me. And so it stayed for the next couple years. I'd think about it from time to time, knowing that if I wanted to, I could go back to it. Sure, it would be hard, almost like starting over in some respects, but the basic skills and love for the craft would still be there. It would always be an option. It just turned out to be an option I never seemed to take.

And so, as I've spent this week cleaning my work space, it came as a surprise to me that I was so easily relegating my writing books to the bottom shelf of the bookcase when they'd always held a place of prominence up at the top. My folders of published articles moved from the top to the bottom file drawer. And the novels? The ones you won't find in Barnes & Noble? They, in their dozen or so folders, moved to the file cabinet that is hidden away in the closet.

At one point during all this movement, I sat down on the floor and started leafing through the myriad pages at hand. I read. I smiled at the words on the pages. Even the fiction. With each folder's contents, I remembered the storylines and how they'd come to me, what was going on in my life when I started writing them, the endings I'd knew they'd each get to if I was able to complete them. And the yearning to finish them pulsed faintly inside of me, yet I knew I'd only be kidding myself if I was to put them on my desk and tell myself I was going to work on them again. My focus for them just isn't there. Same with the articles that whirl through my head. Old habits are hard to break, even if you've ignored them for a long time, because though it has been over two years since I've sent a query to an editor, article ideas still come to me. I catch myself mentally composing a pitch before I realize I'm not going to put it on paper. Not now, anyway. (That's not to say I wouldn't be tickled to have some layouts published, but to me, that's an entirely different ball of wax.)

From my spot on the floor, I looked around and saw what now was the center of my world...the paper and stamps and inks, the bits of metal and ribbon and buttons and beads, the tripods and cameras and photos that come from them. These things have taken over, both my room and my mind. And as much as it is in my nature to want to write articles about the things that I'm most focused on, for now I'm content not to do so. Not now. For now I'm content just to live these things...to take the photos and work with them and create with them...to use the paper and adhesives and embellishments rather than to write about the supplies. It really is such a different way of dealing with life for me. Being and doing rather than writing. But it's ok. Who knows what tomorrow or next week or next year will bring. But for now, it's really ok.

Destruction

"Woe, woe, woe!" called the voice. Woe for my brothers and sisters! Woe for the holy trees! The woods are laid waste. The axe is loosed against us. We are being felled. Great trees are falling, falling, falling."
Voice of the Dryad, Chapter 2, The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis

Last fall, our neighbor two doors down came over asking about property lines. He was having his land surveyed and they were looking for a point of reference and wanted to know if we knew of any survey pins from when our survey was last done. Apparently there may have been some dispute of the line between his property and the neighbor in between us. My husband talked with him and showed him where the pins were, and I didn't give it much more thought.

Until a couple weeks ago.

We live in a fairly rural, wooded area, and so it is not uncommon to hear the sounds of outdoor machinery from time to time...tractors doing this or that. I noticed, however, that I'd heard the sound of a chain saw a few days in a row and I started to wonder about it. Then one day, as I glanced down the road, I saw a team of horses in the yard of our neighbor two doors down. I knew these to be the horses of an Amish team of men who clear land and buy the wood for whatever their purposes are. I'm not sure how a chain saw fits in to the Amish way of life, but they use the horses to skid the logs to where they need them to be.

Anyway, I assumed our neighbor must be thinning out his property, as some people do from time to time. My husband does the same here and at his parents' house, taking out the dead and diseased trees to open up space for the younger, healthier trees to grow. But two doors down, the chain saw kept going and going until I glanced out my kitchen window earlier this week and, looking across the property of the neighbor between us, I could see a vast open area where there had not been one before. Dozens and dozens of trees had been felled, their limbless trunks lying all over the upper yard of the man's property.

It was devastating to see. He'd cleared virtually the entire lot. I wanted to cry. The wife from the couple who lives between my house and the tree killer property clearer was outside yesterday and we talked briefly. I felt most the need to offer condolences. "I'm so sorry," I said. "I can't believe what they've done next door!" She shrugged helplessly, clearly feeling the loss of what had been a beautiful area destroyed in the name of subdivision and profit. She and her husband work hard to keep their property beautiful and healthy and alive. I've often been jealous of the gorgeous sanctuary they've created that has most of the birds in the area vying for a spot at their feeders. And while there is still a narrow strip of tall, old trees between their property and the next land over, it will do little -- even after the leaves are full and green -- to buffer them from whatever else the man next door plans to do. I feel terrible for them, like they've been violated. I feel like we've been violated, even two doors away from the destruction. I feel the same way for the land. Whatever the reasons, the fact is that it's been ravaged and it will take generations to begin to mitigate the loss that has been incurred.

Some things, I just do not understand.

Little Details

I have several dozen pictures of my dad from his childhood and young adulthood that I've been working to put into a heritage album since last fall. I pulled the project out again this weekend. I made great progress last fall and then stalled on it because I decided I wanted to scan all of the pictures so I'd have access to them in the future should I ever need them again.

I finally did that task this weekend, and as I scanned and then permanently adhered the photos to their layouts, I enjoyed looking at them all again. This picture in particular always makes me smile because my dad told me a story that goes with it...he was close to two years old in the picture, and he explained that his mom made him wear the dress because he was not being very successful with potty training. (Personally, I think expecting a not-yet-two-year-old boy to be potty trained is a bit extreme, especially in the day of outhouses, but he was a first child and it was a different time, I suppose.) I assume the dress was meant to make it easier for him to get the job done instead of having to fuss with pants. He, however, told the story like it was a punishment for continually messing his pants.

Whatever the reason for it, it's cute. And so is the teddy bear he's holding. However, what surprised me as I studied the picture for the umpteenth time this weekend was that I'd never noticed the hand holding him on the porch rail from near his lower back on the left. That hand was presumably my grandmother's...and as I looked closer, I could see a glimpse of the white shirt of her shoulder as she ducked down behind him so as not to be in the picture, and her hip protruding from the behind the side of the porch post at the lower left. I couldn't believe I'd never noticed these details before, and when I saw them, I thought they were just so cool. I suddenly had this connection with my grandmother as a young mother, holding her baby safely so he wouldn't fall off the porch rail while his picture was being taken, keeping herself out of the frame (as we all tend to do at times, don't we?). I love it.

The other thing about so many of these pictures from the early 1900s is that they really were of every day kinds of things. I don't know why I've always had the impression that photos then were mainly posed events. After all, cameras were likely found in far fewer households back then. I know my dad's family was not well-to-do, but there are dozens of pictures of him doing nothing special...just being. Maybe there were more to the pictures at the time, stories that have long since died with my grandmother and my dad. Most of the pictures have only a date, if that. (A few have richer descriptions written in my grandmother's hand, and they are so precious to me! I wonder if she ever imagined how much those pictures and words would mean to someone nearly 100 years later?) But I love studying the photos and imagining the circumstances around them. What a joy.