The Porch Postscript

January is drawing to a close, and I'm reflecting.  Reflecting on the direction I'd like to take all three of my blogs.  Reflecting on where I want to take my creativity.  Reflecting on my journaling journey. Three blogs, it's a lot, but it is what it is.  I needed separation with this new blogging journey.  In the past, it was all dumped in one place and in the end, it just didn't work.   Here on The Porch Postscript , I've built a place for me to purge random thoughts and ideas about my life.  Things will wax and wane here, some spurts being longer than others.  You might also notice there are times of crickets here.  Not all my thoughts need to be public.  Trust me! Stacy Petersen Photography is just what it says it is.  It's my photography portfolio.  The words are limited here.  I share photo title and the place and date taken.  I haven't put anything new up in a while, but I'll get back to it when the weather gets nice again.  I'm

It's been a while since I wrote, and some of you might be wondering why.  The answer is simple - I've been holed up in my studio creating, which is by far my most loved thing in the world.  When the desire to create hits, the desire to do much else disappears.  I love making things, and while I have dozens of crafty options, paper is my first love. Over the weekend I listened to a few episodes of Crafty Chat on YouTube.  There were a couple of episodes with the CEO of Hero Arts that I really enjoyed, probably because it took me down memory lane.  Back to the days of mail order rubber stamp catalogs, before the big scrapbooking trend and way before mixed media was a thing.  It dawned on me, I've been doing this for a really long time, nearly three decades, a quarter of a century. I wandered down this path when I was in high school when a rubber stamping store opened in my hometown.  Rocky Mountain Impressions was a tiny little shop, lined with wood mounted stamps.  It

I don't think people realize how healing creativity is.  No.  Really.  I've been creative my whole life and as I have gotten older and struggled through rough spots in life I've realized that my art and creativity help me get through those bumps in life.  It rebuilds my momentum and fills up the spots in my soul that stress and daily life drain out and empty. I've spent the quite a bit of time in my studio creating and working on new cards, the last few days.  Trying new techniques and looking for myself in the lost chaos of the daily grind.  While I have a day job that I love, but it's taxing on my mind and sometimes my emotions, often times stressful.  Being creative helps refill all those places.  It gives me time to let my mind wander and be free.   Right now I'm focused on exploring mixed media and learning new techniques to stash in my mental closet of card making skills.  This is where you picture that hall closet that is stuffed to the max and

Are you ready for another round from the well of my deep thoughts?  Yes?  Well ready or not, here we go, down the rabbit hole of Stacy's wandering mind. The past couple of days I've really begun to wonder where have all the manners gone?  No.  Seriously.  Do you know?  When did we become such a rude, self-obsessed, self-serving bunch of knotheads? In the past few days, as in since Monday, I've been called names, hung up on, and yelled at for things I can't and don't control.  I've had people just walk in and interrupt meetings, without even a blink or apology for the interruption.  Again I ask when did we become so rude? When did it become acceptable to talk on the phone while mailing a package, ordering food or doing business at the bank?  When did it become acceptable to talk back to the customer in a demeaning tone?  When did rudeness become the norm? I was taught - You give the janitor the same respect as the president of the company .  In high sch

Are you a societal failure?  WOW!  Did I just opened a big can of worms, didn't I?  Yep.  Get your coffee and let's talk about this. I'm a societal failure!  I don't fit the mold on so many levels.  What's more, I'm proud of it!  How have I failed in the eyes of society?  I don't have a degree, I got married later, I don't have kids and I'm an artist. Let's start with NO COLLEGE DEGREE.  That's right, I don't have a degree.  What's more, I don't want one.  Now, let's put things on the table right now.  I'm not against college.  I work with college-bound students five days a week.  However, college isn't for everyone and it shouldn't be forced on anyone, let alone someone who is still trying to figure out what they're interests are. We start asking children what they want to be when they grow up once they're  old enough to talk.  They tout things that don't always fit in the box society has built

Good Morning.  Have you started to settle back into your daily routines?  Or are you still sorting it all out? I'm happily getting back into my everyday groove.  Loved being on vacation and celebrating the holidays, but I'm a creature of habit.  Having a routine helps me stay grounded.  There's a quote I pulled out of something I read a while back that is so very fitting of my nature. Highly sensitive people, having daily rituals in their lives can help them feel at one with their world, instead of just being overwhelmed by it most of the time.   I love my mornings.  They are slow and filled with daily rituals, or habits if you will.  I read blogs, sip coffee, post on Facebook & Instagram, write, enjoy breakfast with my Hubby and work through a yoga routine.  I'm blessed with a part-time job that allows me these luxuries. This year I'm considering adding an art journal to my mornings.  I've been thinking about this for quite a while and late last

Happy New Year!  It's time to get back to reality.  Are you ready?  I'm not sure I am, but I have to go there anyway.  Back to work, time to start the Spring Semester.  Working for an educational consortium comes with so many perks and rewards, but starting a new semester isn't one of them.  Things will be a little bit of a madhouse for the next couple of weeks, but I digress.  Today's post isn't about going back to work, and quite honestly is a little raw and may not be a read for everyone. I started my morning with this yoga video , let's just say I'm a bit off my game.  I let my daily practice laps a bit over the last three weeks.  It's time to get back to it.  Yoga has helped me in so many ways.  The movement and stretching are what it's about for me.  I don't follow a yoga practice for spiritual or meditational guidance.  This practice started as a way to heal my back, and increase movement in my very sedentary lifestyle.  Where am I going

Good morning.  This is it, the last day of 2016.  Over the last week, I've read a lot about goal setting, resolutions, and saying goodbye to 2016. Just a few days ago I was asked about my goals for 2017.  It's always fascinating to me how so many people are always so gun-hoe about "making a fresh start" with the ringing in of the new year, then as the year goes on many of those "fresh starts" are lost along the way.  Why do you need a new year to make a "fresh start" or to set new goals?  But I digress. I confess I don't set goals and I don't make resolutions.  When I was in my 20's I used to fall victim to the resolution trap, only to fail by the end of January or at best late February.  Then I felt terrible for days and beat myself up about the failure.  Then one year I stopped.  I stopped setting myself up for the failures.  Since then I've figured out the connection between the world of goals/resolutions and me.  I feel very

Where have you been?  Oh, wait.  You're probably asking me that, aren't you?  Well, I ran away to paradise for a couple of weeks.  I've been on an island, soaking up the vitamin D, and enjoying 10 hours of daylight.  Did you just read that and think "What?  Who talks like this?"  If you aren't from Alaska and have never lived here then this might sound like some fresh brand of crazy talk, but it's not.  Okay, fine I'll explain. When you live in the Interior of Alaska, you experience the shortest day of the year, known as "Winter Solstice," in a totally different way.  On this day our area has only about four hours of daylight.  No, don't adjust your glasses or your computer screen.  You read that right.  FOUR FREAKING HOURS - that's it!!  You view this day as a right of passage and begin counting the minutes that will become hours of daylight.  You've survived the darkness.  With the lack of light, comes a lack of vitamin D.  

The flu!  Is there anything worse?  Yeah, I can't think of anything either.  I got sick over the weekend, spent most of two days in bed.  I finally feel human again, after three days!  The only upside, I lost 3.6 pounds.  It's a hell of a way to lose weight.  I'll spare the details, but this little bug sucked.  I'm thrilled it was just a few days of hell.  I'm not a good sick person, not that anyone is a good sick person, but I'm a terrible sick person.  I'm whiny, hard to be around, and unable to make decisions about anything.  I also spend a lot of time apologizing for things that I really can't control.  These are all things that are not a part of my natural personality, but we'll save that discussion for another day. So, now that the flu is over where do I go from here?  Moving past the flu, I've added a couple of new blogs to my reading list: Against All Grain - really inspiring to me, as of late I've been giving a lot of thought t

Winter storm warning, it's started snowing since 5:30 am yesterday morning.  It's more of the fine, dry snow.  The kind that limits visibility when a car passes you on the road.  The temp has risen to five below zero.  Regular heat wave here in the Interior.  I'm guessing when I say we got about four to five inches. I've officially reached an age where the cold bothers me.  This is the first winter where cold has really bothered my hands, as in my hands hurt and I'm still looking for the right gloves kind of hurt. Up until now, I've always been loyal to Isotoner gloves.  I love them.  They were the perfect gloves, warm enough, yet still great for functionality.  I own a pair of what I'll call ski gloves for lack of a better description, they're the big bulky kind.  Super warm, but totally dysfunctional for handling anything but ski poles.  Currently, I'm wearing a pair of Hubby's mittens with the flip-top, that exposes fingerless mitts.  Wh

Do your best friends know you love them?  No, I mean it.  The friends you've had the longest, the ones who could tell your secrets.  When was the last time you told them you cared?  I know there are zillions of people who've had the same best friend for their entire lives.  I'm not one of those zillions.  My best friends are the people I've picked up along the road of life. My oldest friend and I knew each other before we were born.  Yeah, go ahead and laugh, but it's true.  Our mom's bowled together, were pregnant at the same time and we were born days apart.  We grew up together.  We went to church together.  We teased each other through junior and senior high.  We haven't seen each other in over ten years and we live thousands of miles apart, but we stay in touch on Facebook.  He's a cop and I pray for his safety every day. In junior high, I met an upperclassman that took a liking to me.  I was in the eighth grade.  We've been friends ever s

How's the weather there?  The cold is starting to settle in.  It was below zero for a few days in a row.  Snow on the ground, cars plugged in, people nestled in cozy houses.  Winter has finally arrived in Alaska.  Today the wind has picked up and will blow away much of the powdery snow. The past couple of years we've had "mild" winters.  Temps dipping down to 20 or 30 below, but never staying there very long.  Limited snowfall, mostly of the dry powdery variety.  We haven't seen a really cold "traditional" winter since 2012 when we moved to Alaska. I'm pushing myself to take more winter photographs.  For help on this journey, I'm using the Capture Your 365 photo prompts.  Sharing my perspective of the world through the lens, any lens. This shot of a cabin I pass nearly every day, on my way to work.  I've played with a few editing effects, adding the border, the snow falling, and the focal blur, along with a little color adjustment.