Love Through the Hard Times

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Mister had an aorta-femoral bypass surgery on July 7th.   The recovery process is very slow.  He is still in a great deal of pain and hardly eating at all.   I feel very responsible.  I think the mothering instinct must show up when anyone is sick!  I want so bad to make him eat, and the dance is precarious.  How much can I nag him before I just become annoying?   How important is it if he thinks I’m annoying if it gets him to eat?  I look at his incisions and if I see any redness I worry that’s it’s infected.  And so it goes.

So today I woke up feeling like a truck ran over me.  Two weeks of this has finally caused a fibro flare (Fibromyalgia flare-up).  So, of course, I freak out because if I’m sick how can I take care of him?  Thank God, he’s the kind of man that tells me to quit worrying; to take care of myself; that we’ll make it just fine.   I’m so blessed to have a husband who puts my well being first.  And we will both be okay, because we love and care for each other and will be sure we both get what we need.

The only art I’ve done the last few days is working in my art journal.  I tried making some ATC’s but they didn’t turn out anything like what I had in mind, so I threw them in the trash.  I do much better if I just start painting and let the art develop.  When I have something in mind, I often get frustrated.  However, though, I am working on the largest painting I’ve ever done.  It’s 24 x 36 in.  I can’t show you because it’s a gift for someone and dont’ want to ruin the surprise.  But it’s going really well, and looking as I planned!  I feel pretty accomplished to have painted somthing that big.

 

This is something I really want to do!!  We don’t have a headboard for our bed, so I think this would look really cool on the window behind the bed.  It looks like the person who did this (source unknown – I saw this on Patti van Doren’s blog) beaded the thread or chain or whatever she used to hand the danglies one.   In the windows of my studio I have lots of dangling prisms and other things so they would be great to hand on this.  I think it’s just beautiful!!

Blogging Identity

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When I started blogging….  no wait….I need to go back further than that.  When I started selling my art online,  I thought using my first name, Zura, would be a cool name for an artist and easily remembered.  My middle name is Beth, and that is what I’ve gone by all my life.  So I started using Zura for all online interactions.  Then I went to work at Artella and during the years I worked there I met many, many people in the online art community, and they all came to know me as Zura.  I had a certain image as an Artella employee, that I associated with the name/identity of Zura.

During my time at Artella, I started my own online business, Creative Clown.  I started teaching online courses and met many more people.  I started blogging and at that time it was an adjunct to my online business.  I read lots of blogs and articles about blogging and got all the do’s and don’ts stuck in my head.   Do have a catchy title, do have images in your posts, do be authentic, but don’t reveal too much personal information.  Then I got married, so I no longer have to have my online business to support myself.  I have a choice now.  And it has taken me almost two years to decide what I want to do about my art and my online interactions.   I’ve decided that I just want to do art for fun.  I hate creating something with the sole purpose of trying to sell it.  For me, it takes away all the fun and freedom of creating.   And I want to blog just as me.  Not as an artist, a teacher, an entrpreneur…just me.

Last night I realized that as long as I blog as Zura, I bring all those dos and don’ts with me.   Any given day, I think of no less than three things I want to blog about.  But when I come here and open the page to start typing, I start feeling like I should be more consistent, I should always have an appropriate image, I should have something inspiring to say.   It’s overwhelming, so I close the page and write nothing.  I want to blog as Beth.  I don’t mean that those of you who know me as Zura can’t use that name.  What I mean is that I want to forget all the goals I had when I chose to use that name online.  I want to go back to when I created because it was inside me and needed to come out, and for no other reason.  I want to go back to being the girl who just talks and talks and finds everyone and almost everything endlessly fascinating.

So, after all the stops and starts and attempts at being clever on this blog, I am finally going to be authentic here.  Just me, Beth, talking about my life, my interests, and I’m sure there will be a lot about my thoughts.  Lordie do I have thoughts!!

Stay tuned to see what evolves.  We’ll be finding out together!

Quote of the Day Discussion

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“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”  Kahlil Gibran

 

How do feel about this statement?  I am very uncomfortable with it.  I can’t accept that I chose the sorrows I’ve experienced.  Many of them are regrets about things I’ve done.  Why would I choose to hurt people?  It seems that if I could choose joy or sorrow I would never choose sorrow!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  I would love to be enlightened on how others perceive this.

Quotation of the Day Discussion

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If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad

As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing. . .

I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture,

which I must get rid of,  but never as a pleasure.

Lord Byron

Do you love to write?  Do you write in a journal?  Is it because you enjoy it, or do you need to do it?

Discussion Quote of the Day

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We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I’m not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for that.
Toni Morrison

I am going to start posting a quotation each day, that I hope will inspire discussions.   How does this quotation affect you? What is your response?  Is there a part of it that especially speaks to you?  Is your reaction positive or negative? Please join in by leaving a comment.

Should We Treat Everyone The Same?

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Tonight I was reading something that I had saved a while back.  It was the kind of article that lists a lot of things to do to live a better life.  Those often rile up my rebellious nature, but I am working on being open.  So, this one thing said, “treat everyone the same – a stranger, a friend, your mother.”   I had a strong negative reaction to that.  It just didn’t seem right.  But, in my attempt not to be rebellious, I considered that maybe that’s right.  Maybe you really should really treat people all the same.  I wasn’t convinced but I remained open to the idea.

Not an hour later, though, I read this, by Abubakar Jamil: “Be of equal grace to all you meet.”

That sat much better with me.  No rebellion there.

I looked up the word grace at dictionary.com

grace

/greɪs/ Show Spelled [greys] Show IPA noun, verb, graced, grac·ing.

–noun 

1. elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action.
2.a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment.
3.favor or good will.


4.a manifestation of favor, especially by a superior: It was only through the dean’s grace that I wasn’t expelled from school.
5.mercy; clemency; pardon: an act of grace.
6.favor shown in granting a delay or temporary immunity.
7.an allowance of time after a debt or bill has become payable granted to the debtor before suit can be brought against him or her or a penalty applied: The life insurance premium is due today, but we have 31 days’ grace before the policy lapses.
8.Theology . 

a.the freely given, unmerited favor and love of god.
b.the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.
c.a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.
d.Also called state of grace. the condition of being in God’s favor or one of the elect.
9.moral strength: the grace to perform a duty.
10.a short prayer before or after a meal, in which a blessing is asked and thanks are given.
11.( usually initial capital letter ) a formal title used in addressing or mentioning a duke, duchess, or archbishop, and formerly also a sovereign (usually preceded by your, his,  etc.).
12.Graces, Classical Mythology . the goddesses of beauty, daughters of zeus and Eurynome, worshiped in Greece as the Charities and in Rome as the Gratiae.
13.Music . grace note.


–verb (used with object) 

14.to lend or add grace to; adorn: Many fine paintings graced the rooms of the house.
15.to favor or honor: to grace an occasion with one’s presence
After reading through all these definitions,  I imagined giving favor or honor to people.  Yes, I’d like to give as much favor to a stranger as I would my mother.  I would not, however, necessarily give the stranger as much honor as I would my mother.
I do get the point these authors are making.  That you shouldn’t be kind to strangers and then go home and yell at your wife, husband or kids.  Not should you treat your family with kindness then walk past some stranger in need and ignore them.
It feels important to me to sort this out.  To determine what my beliefs are about how to treat all people in a way that honors each of us, but reserves certain respect and honor for people who hold the most important place in my life.
That gives me something to write about in my journal, and to focus on for a while.  I will try to pay close attention to how I treat everyone, and see if I’m living what I believe to be the loving way to live.

Art Journaling Style

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I am trying something new in my art journal.   I write in my journal.  I write a lot!  So what I’ve done for a long time is create art on pages, usually several at a time.  Then when I’m ready to write, the pages are ready for me to write on.

However, this method isn’t conducive to having the page match what I’m writing about. I might be feeling really pissy then I open my journal to the next page ready to write on and it’s all arted up with sunshine and happy colors.  lol  That just ain’t right!!

So, with the “In the Sun” class I’m taking, I started working in the journal that I won.  The first assignment was to create a title page and write what your goals are for this journal.   I made it my goal to start doing simpler art on the pages so that I can create the art and write on the page at the same time.

I also want to include more “stuff” from my day on my pages.  I used to do that a lot but got out of the habit.   I have a lot of things from the TX trip for Laddan’s wedding, but I never glued it in my journal.  I’m thinking of doing a few pages just about the wedding.  I can glue in all sorts of mementos I kept, plus a few pictures, too.

Here is the first spread in the new journal.


What do Ralph Waldo Emerson and Journaling Prompts Have in Common?

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The answer is …. Inspiration!!!

This  Ralph Waldo Emerson site has teamed up, I guess, with the Domino Project to provide daily prompts from Mr. Emerson.  You’ll get a prompt each day in your email.  I just learned about it today, so I’m obviously late, but who cares, it’s still  going to be fun!  One of my favorite things is to work in my journal from a quotation.  And ole Ralph said a lot of groovy stuff so this is going to be very inspiring for me.

I don’t know about you, but right now I need something to inspire me to work in my journal.  I keep picking it up and writing, “It’s so hot!”.  Seems that’s all I can think about these days, so I look forward to having something meaningful to write about.

Another couple of inspiring things I’m trying out are two free classes at Art Journaling Ning.  One is by Les Herger and it’s all about the Cult of Stuff we mixed media types collect.  The lessons are encouragement to try art supplies you’ve bought then never used.  The other is called “In the Sun” and it’s a class about creating a summer journal.

If you know of other free or low cost journal inspiration around the net, please leave a comment below!!

I won something!!  Letters and Journals on Facebook has a giveaway and I won!!  I got this journal from BookJournals.com.

It’s actually spiral bound. (This is just an image of the cover)  and they left some of the pages in, along with plain white paper.  It is super cool!!!!

Back to WordPress

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I had my blog at Blogger for several months and I just didn’t like it.  So I’m back on WordPress and I hope that I will post more often now.  I’m still working on the site…getting the other pages created, adding new artwork to my galleries, etc.

I have a shop at Artfire.  It’s similar to Etsy, but I like it better.  If you want to check it out it’s here http://www.artfire.com/users/creativeclown.  I just uploaded three new pieces of work.

My son, Laddan, got married last weekend.  I will post pictures soon. It was an absolutely beautiful, very happy and fun wedding.  I’m blessed with another daughter-in-law!!  I’m so grateful for my happy family!