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Reflecting & Counting Blessings

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Sitting here this morning, sipping coffee, with my feet up,  watching the geese and swans fly by my studio window.  I may not be making art right now, but this is still my studio.  My happy place, the place where I write, make art, create cards, sew, knit, and daydream about my next creative endeavor.  This is the same desk I surf social media from and where I seem to be counting my blessings these days.  Because I'm counting my blessings quite a bit right now. What are we all thankful for right now?  No really, what are you thankful for?  Let's take a minute and focus on the positive things.  Walk away from the news briefings and the number counting and the terrible game of telephone the press plays with everything.  Are you with family during all of this?  Are you in a small town where there are far fewer cases of COVID-19?  Are you able to work from home? Are you able to put meals on the table? This is a house of introverts, so this isn't having a significant impa

On Eating Local

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Let's start this article with honestly.  I've never been one to research where the things I buy come from.  I do buy locally in terms of supporting local businesses, but I've never really paid attention to things like country of origin when it comes to food.  I've blindly trusted the system.  Fast forward to today, where farmers and ranchers are plowing crops under, washing dairy down the drain, and euthanizing animals ready for slaughter.  Yet, grocery stores are rationing items to customers as "1 per person" because there isn't enough to keep the shelves stocked.  WTF?  Our system is broken and now is the time to change it.  We've become very used to cheap food, with no care as to where it's grown, processed, or packaged. I've been trying to educate myself on the current food situation and what is happening.  Before anyone gets on their soapbox and starts with the hoarding rant.  I'd like to point out a few things I've learned in th

Currently March 2020

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It all seems like it started with daylights savings time, a full moon and Friday the 13th.  Then came COVID-19 (aka Carona Virus) and now it's been snowing on and off for three days in Interior Alaska. Meme from Facebook Our world is shutting down one piece at a time.  First the public schools.  Then went the bars,  restaurants, gyms and even churches.  There are snarky comments about hoarding.   Toilet paper is selling out as fast as it hits shelves. I don't even have the words to explain how I feel about all of the things going on.  I'm saddened by the number of people who won't take it seriously.  I'm angry at how the news chooses to cover things like this.  I'm worried about my family that is thousands of miles from me at this crazy time.  I'm amazed at the kindness people are sharing in this time of panic.  I'm awestruck by the diversity of some business as they change and morph to help with the changing needs of our country.  I'm concer

Top 5 Be's - How Will You Be?

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Be...  Finish that statement.  How will you "Be"?  Go ahead.  I'll wait (insert Jeopardy music here).  In all seriousness when was the last time, you thought about that?  How do you want to be? How we act, react and treat our family, friends and those around us is always changing and growing.  Especially as we ourselves change and grow through our experiences.  The ever disconnecting way we interact with the world is lessening the human contact, well before and beyond the realm of social media.  We've been pressing "1 for English" most of my adult life and I remember when "self-check" became a thing.  As of late, I'm been really thinking about how I've been reacting to things and how others are reacting to me.  I'm working to change my own disconnected attitude.  In breaking my thoughts down, I hope to provide you with some food for thought and with something to consider the next time you act or react. Here are the FIVE things I w

Lived in or Messy?

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Housekeeping is such a relative perspective, isn't it?  No really.  Think about that one person's hot mess is a lived in house.  One person's clean house is another person's worst nightmare.  I'm the lived in house that finds overly clean houses to be a nightmare.  There is nothing that makes me more self-conscious than visiting someone who has one of those "everything in its place homes." We have two cats and a dog, can you say hair?  I'm a creative, so I'd rather be creating than cleaning any day of the week.  If you came to see how clean my house is then you came for the wrong reasons.  Our house is lived in.  It's not dirty.  It's not disgusting.  It's lived in. You don't have to take your shoes off when you come here and you'll go home with dirty socks if you do.  My animals live here, so don't sit if you don't want to go home with some sort of hair somewhere on you.  You'll often find dirty dishes in the

Let's Be Candid Shall We?

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can·did ˈkandəd/ adjective 1 . truthful and straightforward; frank. synonyms: frank, outspoken, forthright, blunt, open, honest, truthful, sincere, direct, plain-spoken, straightforward, ingenious, bluff; Being brave.  Following my path.  Following my calling.  Following my detour.  Whatever you want to call it.  I'm doing it one step at a time.  The other part of this journey is I'm finding my tribe, surrounding myself with like-minded people. Find it on Amazon I'm seven chapters into Lindsay McKenzie's book Follow Your Detour , about the halfway mark of the book.  I'm no speed reader, and I'm reading about 20 minutes a day while I walk on the elliptical.  Lindsay is very open and raw with how they got to be the fulltime RVers they are today, but it's about more than that.  It's about the pain, the fear, the healing and the leep of faith they had to take to follow their detour. This read came along at just the

Wandering & Wondering

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I go through these phases once or twice a year.  I wander through my thoughts and wonder what I'm doing, how could I be doing it better, if I should be doing something different.  I run off with wild abandon on a creative journey, sure that this will be the right one, the one that will set me free.  Only to find burned out at the end of each venture because I don't know how to pace myself or take the right steps to make it work and grow. I've found myself exploring many things.  Some of the paths I've ventured down include: Cookbook writing (wrote and self-published two books) Food Blogger (wrote for 7 years and then removed it from the internet) Handmade Gift Shop on Etsy (three years of thinking sewing would set me free) Photography Blog (goes in fits and starts, still posting, but not consistent) Card Blogger (I've learned I'm not a DIY, step by step blogger) Handmade Card Artist (still doing this but in a bit of a creative slump) Life Blog (you&#