if you scroll way, way down at the bottom of this screen you will see my little site counter. just now i noticed that it has surpassed 20,000 hits. who knows who my readers are? i know many of you in real life. i'm sure there are some that come and visit and don't come back again. that's expected because i do that too...start down the rabbit hole and find myself at someone's site that i simply adore, forget to add it to my favorites, close the window, and then **poof** never do i find it again. then there are few folks out there that i didn't know visitors then i see them out and about and they'll talk to me about something i've only written about here, not any where else in my life and then i know they're queen for a day devotees.
any way you come to be here, i'm grateful for you. thanks for reading what i write, liking what i make, and then taking the time to tell me about it.
sincerely, you all mean a lot to me.
******************
and for you know who, here is a link to two of my newest daily reads
brooklyn tweed - the photos alone are a good reason to visit, but there's also wonderful knit items, links to tons of other great knitters and his writing about his own handspun is almost the push i need to try my hand at it...not quite, though.
knitty.com - the winter issue is out and it is chock full of goodies. there's a section on spinning too. very nice!
Showing posts with label meta-meta-oxen free. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meta-meta-oxen free. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
secret? what secret?
i found a journal i had begun, first in november 2002 and then took up again in january 2005, right after my run in with the "c" word. i read a few pages. i was quite clearly working through some issues. some of the issues were "wow, i can't believe i had cancer" related; but many of them were everyday life issues, contemplating living each day with intention and purpose. not unlike what i've been thinking about lately.
what really caught my eye, though, was on my mondo beyondo list (a suggestion i got from andrea). one of the items on the list was, "own a vintage VW and paint a crown on the side or the top." wow! it's like i worked the secret even before i knew there was a secret because 5 months later i became the proud owner of a 1965 bubblegum pink VW squareback station wagon.
so, does that really mean the secret works and that just by putting my wishes out into the universe that it brought the VW to me? or does that mean that folks who believe in the secret are more likely to attribute any remote coincidences to the secret?
editor's note: after i wrote the above i read this. which made me wonder all 100th monkey-like if there are lots of folks questioning how the secret works. what are your thoughts on the secret?
what really caught my eye, though, was on my mondo beyondo list (a suggestion i got from andrea). one of the items on the list was, "own a vintage VW and paint a crown on the side or the top." wow! it's like i worked the secret even before i knew there was a secret because 5 months later i became the proud owner of a 1965 bubblegum pink VW squareback station wagon.
so, does that really mean the secret works and that just by putting my wishes out into the universe that it brought the VW to me? or does that mean that folks who believe in the secret are more likely to attribute any remote coincidences to the secret?
editor's note: after i wrote the above i read this. which made me wonder all 100th monkey-like if there are lots of folks questioning how the secret works. what are your thoughts on the secret?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
well, of course...
we've lived in our house for 17 years. right after we moved in i got a book of advice and how-tos for first time homeowners from the library. i don't remember much about this book other than this: anything that you want to do your home needs to be done in the first two years after you move in or you will never do it. how true.
when we first moved in, we had a newborn and a strict budget. that combination of circumstances meant that after we paid to have the hardwood floors refinished and painted the interior, our time and money were gone. thank goodness we knew lots of people willing to be paid for their manual labor in pizza and beer.
since those first salad days, we have done a fair number of updates to the house, mostly interior things, but recently, i've been busy in the yard. in the past i haven't done too much. this was in no small part due to the fact that my neighbor has a very ugly back yard, strewn with cast off, broken down little tykes goods (her daughters are into double digit ages now, far past the developmental stage for plastic play houses), rusty swing sets, a giant trampoline, two run down homemade dog houses, three broken barbecue pits, a deteriorating picnic table, countless trash cans and innumerable bicycles. she also seems to think that taking out one's trash, cleaning up after one's dogs or mowing one's lawn are tasks that only need be performed quarterly. so, beautifying my yard felt a bit like an exercise in futility.
something in me has snapped, though, and i am dedicating much of my time to creating a living environment (inside and surrounding my home) that reflects who and what i am.
there have been many discussions of late in the queen's household about change and what that change may signify. remember? hair length...tatooes and the like? so the hair has been shortened (i'm heading to short hair by degrees) and i've decided on a tatoo, but am waiting for a particularly significant anniversary to mark my body (more on that later). and, of course, all of that thinking lead to even more thinking.
i started to ponder what holds me back from doing the things i so often wish i was doing or hope for. often, in more ways than one, i was holding other people responsible for my contentment. "if only so and so didn't feel "X-way" then i could do {fill in the blank}. but you know what? that's just not fair.
if i love roses and forsythia and hydrangeas and azaleas and peonies, and i want to be able to cut them for a bouquet in my dining room, then it's up to me to plant then, water them, tend to them and arrange them. i refuse to wait until my neighbor cleans up her act, because that will mean that i may die before getting a garden that i love.
if i want the basement cleared out of my junk (yea, hi, there, kelly, you can use this entry against me sometime in the future when i say that it isn't ALL my junk...i know it is), then that's on me. same with cleaning the basement floor and painting it...if i'm the only one in the family that it bothers, then it's my job to do something about it.
ditto for painting the bathroom, reorganizing the hallway linen closet, culling my closet for out-of-date clothes. i have to take care of me and my stuff. that's not anyone else's responsibility.
because, here's the harsh reality about this "aha" moment...i am the only one ultimately on the hook for my own happiness. wishing that someone else could read my mind or figure out what it is that i desire just breeds resentment. i can make myself happy and if a trellis covered with trumpet vine makes me smile then i need to get my hands dirty and plant one.
when we first moved in, we had a newborn and a strict budget. that combination of circumstances meant that after we paid to have the hardwood floors refinished and painted the interior, our time and money were gone. thank goodness we knew lots of people willing to be paid for their manual labor in pizza and beer.
since those first salad days, we have done a fair number of updates to the house, mostly interior things, but recently, i've been busy in the yard. in the past i haven't done too much. this was in no small part due to the fact that my neighbor has a very ugly back yard, strewn with cast off, broken down little tykes goods (her daughters are into double digit ages now, far past the developmental stage for plastic play houses), rusty swing sets, a giant trampoline, two run down homemade dog houses, three broken barbecue pits, a deteriorating picnic table, countless trash cans and innumerable bicycles. she also seems to think that taking out one's trash, cleaning up after one's dogs or mowing one's lawn are tasks that only need be performed quarterly. so, beautifying my yard felt a bit like an exercise in futility.
something in me has snapped, though, and i am dedicating much of my time to creating a living environment (inside and surrounding my home) that reflects who and what i am.
there have been many discussions of late in the queen's household about change and what that change may signify. remember? hair length...tatooes and the like? so the hair has been shortened (i'm heading to short hair by degrees) and i've decided on a tatoo, but am waiting for a particularly significant anniversary to mark my body (more on that later). and, of course, all of that thinking lead to even more thinking.
i started to ponder what holds me back from doing the things i so often wish i was doing or hope for. often, in more ways than one, i was holding other people responsible for my contentment. "if only so and so didn't feel "X-way" then i could do {fill in the blank}. but you know what? that's just not fair.
if i love roses and forsythia and hydrangeas and azaleas and peonies, and i want to be able to cut them for a bouquet in my dining room, then it's up to me to plant then, water them, tend to them and arrange them. i refuse to wait until my neighbor cleans up her act, because that will mean that i may die before getting a garden that i love.
if i want the basement cleared out of my junk (yea, hi, there, kelly, you can use this entry against me sometime in the future when i say that it isn't ALL my junk...i know it is), then that's on me. same with cleaning the basement floor and painting it...if i'm the only one in the family that it bothers, then it's my job to do something about it.
ditto for painting the bathroom, reorganizing the hallway linen closet, culling my closet for out-of-date clothes. i have to take care of me and my stuff. that's not anyone else's responsibility.
because, here's the harsh reality about this "aha" moment...i am the only one ultimately on the hook for my own happiness. wishing that someone else could read my mind or figure out what it is that i desire just breeds resentment. i can make myself happy and if a trellis covered with trumpet vine makes me smile then i need to get my hands dirty and plant one.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
seriously, i'm not that old...
it was 1980. i was a freshman in high school. i got a writing internship at "indianapolis magazine." my job was to gather all of the interesting events for the month of the upcoming issue and write a blurb meant to entice "hoosiers" (hey, that's what those folks from indiana are called) to attend said events. sounds easy enough, doesn't it?
what i didn't know when i took the job was that i had to talk on the phone with each event's organizer to gather the details. we all know how much i adore talking on the phone.
i showed up for many afternoons and pretended at gathering vital information. i looked at the information i had gathered and i thought about what would comprise an interesting two sentence description of the event. i deeply contemplated the concept of "who, what, where, when and how." i wrote two blurbs. i left a pile of information on my counter-top desk near the copier.
and then i stopped showing up.
i used my two month-long failed internship on my resume for the next five years.
and 27 years later i wrote a blog entry about it to clear my conscience.
what i didn't know when i took the job was that i had to talk on the phone with each event's organizer to gather the details. we all know how much i adore talking on the phone.
i showed up for many afternoons and pretended at gathering vital information. i looked at the information i had gathered and i thought about what would comprise an interesting two sentence description of the event. i deeply contemplated the concept of "who, what, where, when and how." i wrote two blurbs. i left a pile of information on my counter-top desk near the copier.
and then i stopped showing up.
i used my two month-long failed internship on my resume for the next five years.
and 27 years later i wrote a blog entry about it to clear my conscience.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
reach out...
i don't like to talk on the telephone -- you all know that.
but perhaps you didn't know that i am not so good at keeping in touch, in general. you could send me an e-mail and i will, most likely respond, but there's a good chance, i might not too. if you call me and i don't pick up the phone and you leave a message, i probably won't call you back. it's not that i don't like people, it's that i don't understand why people like me.
okay, that's not entirely true. it's that i like to think i'm humble. and with that humility comes the self-awareness that what i have to say is not all that dang important.
i've read a bit of miss manners in my time and mostly she counsels us to think that the things we have to say and the knowledge we desire to impart on the world are inconsequential compared to what we have to learn from those around us...oh yeah, and that responding to an invitation in a timely fashion is first and foremost on the scale of social decency.
********
i've been absent around here of late due to one or all of the following:
1. i have a wicked viral thing and it is all i can do to get my keester in gear every day and go to work;
2. my co-worker is going to be on maternity leave for at least another three weeks and four attorneys can sure crank out some work!
3. nothing exciting has happened lately...except a bunch of knitting and some finished sewing projects. pictures tomorrow. i know you can't wait.
'til then, please send me an e-mail and i'll probably get back to you, but please don't call me on the phone.
but perhaps you didn't know that i am not so good at keeping in touch, in general. you could send me an e-mail and i will, most likely respond, but there's a good chance, i might not too. if you call me and i don't pick up the phone and you leave a message, i probably won't call you back. it's not that i don't like people, it's that i don't understand why people like me.
okay, that's not entirely true. it's that i like to think i'm humble. and with that humility comes the self-awareness that what i have to say is not all that dang important.
i've read a bit of miss manners in my time and mostly she counsels us to think that the things we have to say and the knowledge we desire to impart on the world are inconsequential compared to what we have to learn from those around us...oh yeah, and that responding to an invitation in a timely fashion is first and foremost on the scale of social decency.
********
i've been absent around here of late due to one or all of the following:
1. i have a wicked viral thing and it is all i can do to get my keester in gear every day and go to work;
2. my co-worker is going to be on maternity leave for at least another three weeks and four attorneys can sure crank out some work!
3. nothing exciting has happened lately...except a bunch of knitting and some finished sewing projects. pictures tomorrow. i know you can't wait.
'til then, please send me an e-mail and i'll probably get back to you, but please don't call me on the phone.
Monday, February 05, 2007
whoa nelly...
my co-worker is out on maternity leave for the next six to eight weeks so the number of folks i assist has gone from two to four and a half (someone doesn't need much assisting...they're not 1/2 a person). so my work week has gone from a relatively laid back 40 hours to a whopping 55-60 hours. cuts way down on crafting time...not to mention, cooking, cleaning, sleeping, spending time with family and friends time.
but this weekend i did manage to make it into two of the stores where i sell my wares on consignment. i dropped off a dozen tissue holders and two junk bracelets (think cracker jack prize meets vintage sparkle meets jingle jangle bling) to recycled rose in kirkwood. and then i dropped off ten sets of my fabric cards to subterranean books in university city.
it's an odd feeling turning over your goods to semi-strangers and asking them to care for them and sell them. it's a feeling i can get used to though, as i'm not so good at self-promotion. both of these consignment opportunities came to me through friends who gave me an in and to both of them i'm mighty grateful.
it made me think about a lot of the cliches attached to success...
1) success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration....
2) it's not what you know, it's who you know...
3) you need to be in the right place at the right time...
4) the squeaky wheel gets the grease...
i've worked hard, on and off, at making a go of selling my art, and when it comes right down to it, i like the act of creating a whole helluva lot more than i do selling. i'm pretty much a hermit at heart. although to the outsider, i seem at ease with myself and can speak relatively calmly to most people i meet without sounding like a total moron, inside, i am a blubbering mess. so the interactive part of selling can get me in a real tizzy. i think there are a lot of art patrons that enjoy the interaction with the artist almost as much as they enjoy the art itself. so i don't have the chance to make a connection with those buyers. i do tend to sell more to people who know me or who are at least acquainted with me; i suppose i am missing that boat in a consignment setting, but it's a trade-off i'm willing to make for my mental health.
i ran into a fellow artist at a bead store last week and she asked me if i sold a lot of stuff from my blog. the answer was simple, "nope, never, not once." i've posted pics here and not ever had a nibble. i even made a sister blog that was just about the selling of the stuff and didn't sell one thing. i don't know why. i don't even have a guess. i suppose i could try one of the on-line artist shops for selling. it all seems like a tremendous amount of work (the pictures, the posting, the e-mails with the potential buyers, working out the payments, the packing, the shipping, the waiting to see if the item arrived safely and meets the buyers every expectation, dealing with the returns if the item is not what they expected...on and on..and on). ugh...it could give the queen an ulcer already.
i mean, it all seems entirely overwhelming and i think it would even if i didn't also have a semi-stressful full-time day job.
so i continue to create and make and give and ponder what it all means (i do that quite often, in case you haven't noticed). perhaps all it means is that i have to embrace my own limitations. maybe it means that i am meant to create in obscurity until my death when my son will unearth my trove and unleash them on the world to great acclaim. but most likely what it means is that i will keep on putting time into making treasured items one precious stitch, bead, tiny glued piece of paper at a time and share them with the people i love the most.
but this weekend i did manage to make it into two of the stores where i sell my wares on consignment. i dropped off a dozen tissue holders and two junk bracelets (think cracker jack prize meets vintage sparkle meets jingle jangle bling) to recycled rose in kirkwood. and then i dropped off ten sets of my fabric cards to subterranean books in university city.
it's an odd feeling turning over your goods to semi-strangers and asking them to care for them and sell them. it's a feeling i can get used to though, as i'm not so good at self-promotion. both of these consignment opportunities came to me through friends who gave me an in and to both of them i'm mighty grateful.
it made me think about a lot of the cliches attached to success...
1) success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration....
2) it's not what you know, it's who you know...
3) you need to be in the right place at the right time...
4) the squeaky wheel gets the grease...
i've worked hard, on and off, at making a go of selling my art, and when it comes right down to it, i like the act of creating a whole helluva lot more than i do selling. i'm pretty much a hermit at heart. although to the outsider, i seem at ease with myself and can speak relatively calmly to most people i meet without sounding like a total moron, inside, i am a blubbering mess. so the interactive part of selling can get me in a real tizzy. i think there are a lot of art patrons that enjoy the interaction with the artist almost as much as they enjoy the art itself. so i don't have the chance to make a connection with those buyers. i do tend to sell more to people who know me or who are at least acquainted with me; i suppose i am missing that boat in a consignment setting, but it's a trade-off i'm willing to make for my mental health.
i ran into a fellow artist at a bead store last week and she asked me if i sold a lot of stuff from my blog. the answer was simple, "nope, never, not once." i've posted pics here and not ever had a nibble. i even made a sister blog that was just about the selling of the stuff and didn't sell one thing. i don't know why. i don't even have a guess. i suppose i could try one of the on-line artist shops for selling. it all seems like a tremendous amount of work (the pictures, the posting, the e-mails with the potential buyers, working out the payments, the packing, the shipping, the waiting to see if the item arrived safely and meets the buyers every expectation, dealing with the returns if the item is not what they expected...on and on..and on). ugh...it could give the queen an ulcer already.
i mean, it all seems entirely overwhelming and i think it would even if i didn't also have a semi-stressful full-time day job.
so i continue to create and make and give and ponder what it all means (i do that quite often, in case you haven't noticed). perhaps all it means is that i have to embrace my own limitations. maybe it means that i am meant to create in obscurity until my death when my son will unearth my trove and unleash them on the world to great acclaim. but most likely what it means is that i will keep on putting time into making treasured items one precious stitch, bead, tiny glued piece of paper at a time and share them with the people i love the most.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
friends...
one evening last week i went to a get together of local artists. turns out, some of them (most with whom i am merely an acquaintance) read my blog. they don't comment, but they lurk and read and were nice enough to tell me they like the queenly content. so nice!
then, a friend sent me an e-mail and said that a mutual friend had told her she should check out my blog and she did...and guess what? she liked the queen's musings too! go figure!
i guess that means my hit numbers keep going up not JUST because i'm constantly checking my own blog out, but because folks like me...they really like me.
phew...what a relief.
then, a friend sent me an e-mail and said that a mutual friend had told her she should check out my blog and she did...and guess what? she liked the queen's musings too! go figure!
i guess that means my hit numbers keep going up not JUST because i'm constantly checking my own blog out, but because folks like me...they really like me.
phew...what a relief.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)