The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Category: Monday
Inked (repost)
As some of you may know, I lost my youngest son four years ago. Last Saturday I finally got a tattoo honoring him and my love for him.
My friend Tiffany at Tiffany Arp-Daleo Artworks had lost her mother, someone who meant as much to her as my loved ones do to me. Today she posted a lovely post about the tattoo she got to honor her mother.
Tattoos are not for everyone. But for those who get them, each one is special and magical. It takes a special person to share their grief and connection both in body ink and in a blog.
Here is hers.
I wanted to do something special to remember my mom, who passed away on December 9th. We often joked about getting matching mom/daughter tattoos, but it never happened.
When she was first diagnosed with dementia, she went through her things and got rid of a lot. Besides being a great artist, she was also a writer and wrote poems and stories, but sadly, most of that she threw away. While I was going through her remaining belongings, I found this poem on a small piece of paper and decided to keep it. She probably wrote it after my dad passed away.
It took some effort to find someone who was willing to do the tattoo on the specific date, and someone who could do the lettering exactly in her handwriting. I found my guy at Seventh Serpent Tattoo, and I couldn’t be happier with the final tattoo, he nailed it. 😊
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Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Maarten Vrolijk
Maarten Vrolijk is an Amsterdam-based artist and designer who considers it important to elaborate on the simple, unequivocal nature of a product or art work and has been creating his works for over 25 years.
His aesthetic and ‘art language’ is particularly unusual because it consciously plays with shapes, colours and materials in an uncontrived way.
He also believes his pieces should also make people’s everyday lives that bit more beautiful through the many little details that evoke the unexpected.
Vrolijk is perhaps best known for glass vessels with their outgrowth of colored glass fragments.
The volatility in accomplishing the exceptional thickness of his vases creates a risky balance between strength and delicacy.
The thermal stress caused when trying to equalize the interior and exterior temperature of the cooling vessels, is fraught with the threat of breakage.
To create each piece, a meticulously patterned bed of broken glass pieces is strategically laid down and heated to a specific temperature in order to be properly fused to a nascent blown glass form.
The temperature and timing must be precisely in tandem. It is a high-stakes process that results in a kind of frozen sense of chaos.
More of Maarten Vrolijk’s unique glasswork can be found at https://www.maartenvrolijk.com/
Additions to the Family
Say hello to the two newest additions to our family. Darth and Vader.
I need two cats like I need a hole in the head.
Having just turned 73, I find myself with less patience for disruptions in my daily life. Art and Crafts and laundry are done at my speed, not the world’s. As my productivity has slowed, so has my organizational skills.
And you can’t organize two little black kittens.
Don’t get me wrong — we lost my cat Mysty last Fall, and as you can see (Caturdays) I do love cats. We just put our 14-year-old dog down two weeks ago, and my heart was heavy.
This is the way of life. I get it.
We have a year-old lab, who is still full of energy and curiosity. Match that with two 10-week-old kittens, and you can imagine the chaos it brings.
We were told that, if possible, take two kitties, for they will keep each other occupied, keeping the stress away from you. But with all the clip clip clip from one side of the house to the other, they do indeed keep each other busy.
And even though I complain like an old granny half the time, it warms my heart to see life start all over again. Life and laughter and discovery of new friends, even though the friends are of the feline variety.
Don’t let life slow down for you too much. Two kitties might not be the answer, but make sure there’s life around you — life that’s full of life. Life that brings hope to your open heart.
Even if they meow louder than a thunderstorm …..
Faerie Paths — Tattoos
Tattoos are like stories – they’re symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.
~ Pamela Anderson
Faerie Paths — Passions
When you start to do the things that you truly love, it wouldn’t matter whether it’s Monday or Friday; you would be so excited to wake up each morning to work on your passions.
~ Edmond Mbiaka
Monday Monday (repost)
Over the weekend I went back into the black hole depths of this Humoring the Goddess blog looking for posts that had Monday in the title.
There have been quite a few attempts to comprehend and write about the first day of the work week. I smiled as I read all of them. So many different directions on the same topic.
That’s the beauty of Creativity. Looking behind is just as much fun as looking ahead.
So for all of you reading this this fine Monday morning — DO IT. And don’t stop.
MONDAY MONDAY 
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
(do you know the song yet?)
Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
So good to me (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be ..
All the oldies out there knew the song by the first six syllables. Funny how engrained music is into us. Even when we don’t think about it.
Was trying to come up with a topic, a theme, for this cloudy, cold Monday. But if there’s nothing there there’s nothing there.
Then a slip of lyrics passed through my head.
Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
I was a freshman in high school when the Mamas and Papas sang this song. I was escaping the horrors of middle school at that time. Those were rough times, especially for a geeky, smelly kid like me.
Not really stepping back, but I do know that even back then music made a difference in my life. The Beatles were my saviors, the Dave Clark Five my happiness. No one could break the bond between me and Paul or me and Dave. My writing started way back then, too. I used to have a notebook with my first love story written in it, but it is long gone. Perhaps it disappeared when it served its purpose.
Music was an escape when I was young. An emotional booster, an answer for self-consciousness and self-doubt. I didn’t think about doing drugs or getting drunk or having sex back then. (Shows you how backwards my freshman year was.)
But Last Train to Clarksville by the the Monkees and Summer In The City by the Lovin’ Spoonful and Five O’Clock World by the Vogues were songs that wrapped around those hard times and cushioned decisions in my life like why I never had a date Saturday nights or if my girlfriends wanted to have a pajama party or should I try out for the school play when I couldn’t sing.
I wonder if kids today have an inkling of that innocence. If they ever have a chance to be kids. If they ever have a choice to not be a part of the violence and discrimination and hatred that swirls around all of us.
I suppose songs like WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (I wouldn’t look up the words if I were you) reflects the current needs and desires within a high-school education, the need to be free and understood and in control. Maybe innocence in its banal form is not needed anymore. Better to be smart than be exploited.
These days I find myself wandering back to that innocence I probably never really had. I have had enough of death and prejudice and politics to last a lifetime of discovery. Time for a bit of innocence to return to the world.
Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her whenever it starts?
And it’s magic if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie………..
Pumped Up Mondays
If Saturdays are the beginning of your playday, Mondays are usually the beginning of your work week.
For me they are also the beginning of my creative week. I always start off wanting to write, craft, paint, and research. Quite a busy start to a retiree’s week.
Yesterday I took the (not so big) step of signing up for Peacock, the NBC version of Hulu or Netflix. A majority of shows are free, but it’s not because I was in need of something to watch. I came across what I was looking for:
Face Off.
Five season’s worth.
I happen to LOVE that TV series. Every week a group of artists create masks and faces and outfits based on the weekly challenge theme.
The things these “ameteurs” come up with are amazing.
I realize they are experts in their field. I’m sure you know someone — yourself, even — that could come up with a short story, a quilting pattern, knit a scarf, or paint a painting or a calligraphy sign in competition time. That’s how good you are.
But it’s just the process — the intuitive, inventive way their mind thinks that gets me going.
I get the same feeling watching cooking competition shows. How could these average “Joes” and “JoAnns” cook something like that in less than an hour?
The first and most important reason is because they love doing what they do. They all may be auto mechanics or beauticians or grade school teachers in their “other” life but they are artists in this one. They may even be full-time creators.
I come back from these shows with a new sense of energy and purpose. And I try and share it.
I have one friend thinking of starting to write a book on her and her father’s experiences. So exciting! Another friend went to a quilting seminar this week for a few days. How great! One of my good friends went on a scrapbooking weekend not long ago. Nothing but talking and scrapbooking. How can you lose? Another of my friends is coming to my state (not far from me, it seems) to do some sort of crafting seminar/conference/get together. How great is that?
I’ve done an art gallery on Face Off, and could probably do a dozen more. So it is with you that do ceramics or computer design or photography. My good friend from my old work is a photographer AND graphic designer — what great things he comes up with!
Find something that fuels your passion and go for it. Let someone else’s work inspire you — not to be them, not to do what they do, but let their work encourage you do try new things and go new directions.
Make practice fun. Make mistakes fun. Make success even MORE fun.
Let me know what you are working on so I can continue to get pumped up in the Art World.
Feels Good! You ought to try it!
Monday Again?
Here it is — it’s Monday again.
The typical drag-your-derriere out of bed, increase your coffee intake, turn-the-sound-down-on-the-news kinda morning.
Now you would think that, since being retired for a year, I’d be over that kind of gut-kick reaction to just another day of the week.
I’m not.
Maybe my first reaction is a form of habit. After all, I worked for fifty years, all on the day shift, always having to get up at 6 a.m. five days a week. I don’t think you can just “turn off” that kind of Pavlov’s dog reaction.
Maybe it’s because there’s always something that needs to be done. No matter your country, state, town, marital status, or pant’s size, there’s always something you need to do on a Monday morning. Laundry. Call the plumber. Send your kids off to school. Go to a doctor’s appointment.
There’s always something waiting for you Monday Morning.
I do admit that days here tend to blur into one another. I find myself asking myself (or others) what day it is. Isn’t today Tuesday? Don’t we have to drop something off at the post office today? Did we talk to the kids about Saturday yesterday? Or three days ago?
I think with being home every day with the fear of Covid 19 striking you or those you love tends to blur your thoughts and memories after a while. I never thought I was going to be a jet setter once I retired, but there were things I was going to finally be able to do.
UhHuh. Not yet. No way. Sit down.
I think we all take a major sigh Monday mornings because it gives us a sense of routine. Of beginning again. Even if we don’t do the things we used to do, it gets us in the mind set that there are daily responsibilities we need to take care of every day.
Acknowledging Monday makes retirees blend in better with those who still have to work five days a week. Gets us into a fixed rhythm like doing homework five days a week. Gives us a sense of routine. Of setting goals and finishing them all within a specific time frame.
For most of us, weekends are still the time we set aside to do things we don’t normally do during the “work” week. Vacation. Visit family. Mow the lawn. Change the oil in the car. Stay up late. Go to the Farmer’s Market.
We need to keep our special time special. We can’t allow one day to melt into the next into the next. It gets too easy to let go and have life become one melted puddle day after day, week after week. No differentiation to remind us that we are always growing, always learning, and always making order out of chaos every single day.
Today is Monday. I’ve already had a slice of cheesecake for breakfast, thrown in a load of laundry, brushed the cat, and made a to-do list for the week. I may not be punching a time clock like days of old, but I feel that I still fit in the rhythm of the day and of the week. That I fit in with the buzzing world around me. At least for four more days.
Can’t wait till Saturday!
Humoring the Goddess 