onward

this is it: the beginning of the rest of the half of this year.

i find myself in an odd place- the first half of the year was tumultuous. event after event, cars, boys, work, art, medical issues, sports, fights and reconciliations, funerals, trips and travel- really, almost ridiculous what was all packed into the first 6 months of this year.

and now, breath.

i find myself without a major project for maybe the first time in my life. website just needs some tweaking, but otherwise, i am all caught up. i knew this day would come, now i just don't know what to do with it.

i guess set new goals for the rest of the year. So here they are:

1. Get back in the ceramic studio.
2. Get out of credit debt, once and for all.
3. Take more rock climbing classes.
4. Learn French learn french learn french...
5. Get a new job.

That's it. That's really it. If I could accomplish all that by the end of this year....

when you know you know

i am a risk taker.

but sometimes, out on that ledge, that precarious high shelf, i get so scared, and i tremble and cry out for God to spare me... but if he doesn't and this becomes clear that this is where i must be, i stay and peer over the ledge.

sometimes that's the only way to know, the only way to really really know, the way to go on the right path.

and it's sad, that sometimes i have to be teetering out on that ledge, that the ledge is where I am being led, where the answers will finally come. but sometimes that's the way life has to go, sometimes this ledge is the only place where i will find the answers, and i refuse to shrink back.

so i went there, i looked from the ledge into the abyss and saw the lions licking their eager teeth, i saw the vultures circling in the sky, heard the rumble of coming storms, and tasted the sulfurous air. but across the abyss i saw the clear skies, the potential and hopes and possibilities. then i saw the thin, ragged rope which he's (again) offered me so i can cross, but this time, it's not enough. i need a sturdy bridge, or bulkhead, something to hold on to when the storms arrive and threaten to knock me off that ledge. i need a convincing argument, i need to see a fight in his eyes, and if that thin rope is all he wants to offer... all he can offer... then i withdraw.

i am a risk taker.

but i'm not a fool.

joy oh that joy

the looming death of Petunia

my dear, sweet guinea pig Petunia is enduring her last moments on Earth. Despite two recent trips to the vet, a shot of vitamins and drugs, she is not going to make it, her shallow breathing and listless body are making it evident. She hasn't eaten in days.

i will miss her. she is so sweet, I remember the first time my sister brought her home, she just loooved to be held and cuddled.

Her sister Iris is sleeping next to her right now; I am glad she has a friend to sit with her during this time. It's just the knowledge that she won't be on this Earth much longer, the finality of it, that is so sad. I will mourn her to let her go.

These were taken when she was healthy:

ambiguous but it needs to be said

.

.

.

i never wanted to be here, in this place that you've put me. 

and now that you've put me here, on this precarious high shelf, ready to tumble, i need to get myself down. 

and i will, oh i will. 

(and i'm not sure if you've put me here or if i've climbed up.) 

i'm not going to stay.

.

.

.

a series of unfortunate events

this looked nice:

new lamps on my porch:

a new library book, a clean guinea pig in my lap, and the night to myself:

until i heard angry buzzing, looked up, and saw hornets in our outdoor light. i guess they made a nest in the light... 

i ran inside.

oh well.

i haven't moved much

But with this view at the end of my bed (and a raging flu virus), would you?

keep me

the honk and the words "F---- Youuuuu" screamed in my direction snapped me out of my early morning reverie. A lady in a silver car was slightly in front of me, at the end of the on-ramp next to me, her window rolled down, cussing me out. I was eating a granola bar, listening to my book on tape, blindly following the car in front of me, in this typical bumper to bumper traffic that I knew would go on for the next hour. She didn't have her blinker on, wasn't trying to merge, and yet somehow decided I wasn't letting her in.

She pulled in behind me, and then a few minutes later, pulled alongside me on the other side of my car, and started screaming out her window at me again. I rolled up my window and turned up my book on tape, shaken, but resolute to give her nothing back. I couldn't believe she could be sooo angry, and wondered if screaming at me made her feel better. I started to really hate my commute again, but then looked at all the thousands of cars around me, and realized this was the first time I had ever been cussed out on the freeway, and for driving 3 hours a day, really, I had made some mistakes, but besides a random honk or two, no one had ever gotten this angry. So, she was an anomaly, not the average. I also wondered what kind of person she was like when she wasn't in a car, and if anyone I knew would make such an outrageous fool of themselves when provoked. It was embarrassing for her, I was embarrassed for her. For humanity. Sad, too.

That afternoon I went to the lake and sat on a bench eating my McDonald's. The lake was pure sparkling blue, the sky cloudless, and the wind gentle. Birdsong and waves filled my head. An older man with a walking stick came walking up to my bench, and in a friendly way he told me not too look too long at the lake, it would be dangerous for me. it was as though he had read my mind, as I was thinking that i would just spend all day here, at lake's edge. I said to him, yeah, i may never go back to work! He stopped and looked at me full-on, and exclaimed yes! exactly! you get it. and he went on to tell me he was in double danger, as he had a house on the lake in northern wisconsin, and had just come from there, and had a boat that he spent all his time on, named Wavewalker, after Star Wars. He said when he pulled the boat in for the final time yesterday, the boat had said to him, when are you coming back? and he laughed. I listened to him, fascinated, this old man was a kindred spirit, i knew it immediately. And strangely, he had the most vividly blue eyes, the exact same color of the lake. His eyes were otherworldly, I have never seen eyes like that, and couldn't tear my eyes away from his. they seemed to glow, almost. and after he walked on, I wondered if I had just encountered an angel.

The message, I think, was this: humans yes, can make you sad. can hurt you. but don't give up, on all humanity. keep hope. there are others who will buoy you up, and tell you about their boat that spoke to them, share their joy in the lake and nature, stop and have a friendly word, and go on. that, and God will keep me, will send me exactly what I need, exactly when I need it. I can trust him, for it has been proven to me, over and over and over.

it will all be ok.

ttd: pixel pusher

this is my quiet work that pays my bills, the pushing of pixels into order and art.

this is where i've been all day, at computer's edge, refusing every social invite this weekend to finish this project. 

and it is so near! one more day and it will be complete, oh happy thing that is!!!

I am thankful for this screenshot of a nearly completed illustration!!!!!! 

6 exclamations thankful.

unrelated

When I consider your heavens, 
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?

PS 8:3-4

 

 can i just take a minute to be thankful for this wine? for this delicious, relaxing wine that covered all the ills of commuting 2.5 hours tonight, including getting stuck in traffic on the way to ballet class and missing ballet and screaming at every car that honked at me because "yes i dont care i am taking up 3 lanes" and pulling many illegal moves in my car while just trying, at the least, to get home, to just forget it. then this wine. this wine that relaxed my shaking hands, and calmed my nerves, there is nothing i am more thankful for at this moment, than this wine.

and with that i am going to bed because i am waking up tomorrow morning to go running alongst the lake with a friend. first of many runs, we hope. the slow transformation of morning running habits begins tomorrow!!

TTD

Thanks day 6- Nephew. Thankful for this boy!



Thanks day 5- reading outside in the lawn, always.



Day 4- the crack that you don't see in this windshield anymore, that insurance completely covered the repair of. Many thanks.

I think I'm losing track of days. I take pictures but then run out of time to post them, or upload them to flickr.  For now, this is the best I can do.

"For now, this is the best I can do" - grace in so many ways that i hardly allow myself in my head...

NEON

Excuse me. This, my newest shade of nail polish, is the exact same color as this postit note. It also is the same color as the orange-yellow line painted on the pavement. It's neon bold, outrageously orange, ridiculously bright. In context of my achingly dull gray and beige studio at work, it doesn't belong.

You and me, nail polish, you and me.

I'm quite thankful for this nail polish.

thankful overload

1. package from my sister:
    family photos, guinea pig treats, guinea pig book, and card with a hot guy on the front (!!!)

2. package from the plume:
   summer cd, postcards, lip balm, lotion, tea, delicious smelling chocolate (it's nice to win!)

3. library books:
    Let's pretend this never happened by Jenny Lawson, and the girl with the dragon tattoo audiobook (for those commutessssss)

Despite all these unexpected gifts, it was really hard to refrain from perusing Madewell's super sale right now... I need red flats like nothing else. Restraint, restraint!

thirty thankful days

she over at the amazing blog speaking for herself is starting a thirty thankful days challenge. I am going to post one picture a day of something I am thankful for, and for the next 30 days, refrain from buying anything that isn't   food or gas, unless it's a gift. for someone else.

I am notoriously bad at challenges, but here it goes.

Day one, I am going to use a photo from over the weekend, because I am still so thankful for that camping trip! I am also thankful for the sound of wind in the trees, it is worth all my cds.

wind in leaves

i can't begin to explain to you how much of my heart belongs to the wild, to the untamed, the outdoors. I am most comfortable hiking through deep woods, looking out over a field, or the lake, or up at a sky full of stars. I never feel more loved by God than when I look at the stars, placed with such care, with such love, with such attention to detail. They whisper to me, I love you, look at My glory, love Me. so this weekend camping in Door County has left me full of the sun, empty of the city, full of green, and full of birdsong, empty of the haggardness of city living.

 

I want to try camping alone. I wish I had a dog to camp with. I wish I had a front lawn, all my own. I wish I could lean up on trees with no one to see, and clamber over rocks to get to point B. I wish I could refresh myself in lakes and ponds. I wish this were all part of my daily life.

I don't really know what to do with all these wishes.

All I know is the weekend spent in nature reaffirmed something that has been nagging at me, recently. It took the bad and sad and angry parts of me, and replaced it with smooth rocks and cool water. I feel purged. Empty. and whole.

It also reminded me of what i love about the city, the opportunities and possibilities for improvement.

I am torn.

the least of these

unknown

Focus.

I am taking up a 30 day self-portrait challenge to kick myself in the butt, and get my art under way. I've also done a lot of thinking lately of where I was 5 years, 3 years, 1 year ago, and where I might be in 1 year, 3 years, and 5. And, in 30 days. Life changes. Change is the theme of 2012, for me. So let's document it. Analyze it. Use it for inspiration.

In other news, I made the best fried egg of my life today. And some excellent rhubarb crisp. My cooking skillz have come a long way in 5 years!

cooking!

my first poached egg!

and fresh rhubarb from my dad's garden. it tastes like rainwater and all the tartness of the earth.