Dreams Give Us Strength

October 12, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

October is for Dreams

The other side of night is day. Despair, hope. That is what the dream world provides. An escape from the horrors or pressures or stress of the day, or perhaps a continuation of the love, good times, and everlasting friendships of the day. Either way, the word “dreams” become part of our every day vocabulary.

I follow a blogger who has become a good friend through the years. Ann Koplow has been writing through the ups and downs of life, including a very recent heart surgery. Her blogs are full of unique pictures that relate to her topic at hand…all written with hope and love and a bit of humor. She shows us all that we should never stop dreaming.

It is her blog of December 28, 2015, that I bring to you this evening. If you like the ring of dreams, please check her blog The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally.

Day 1092: Dreams

Here are some of my associations with “Dreams” on this Monday of the week between Christmas and the New Year of 2016:

This time of year feels particularly dream-like to me.
I think and talk a lot about dreams, at work and elsewhere.
One of my favorite books is Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill, about the amazing healing that happens when people share dreams in groups.
Even though I’ve been living the dream of blogging daily for (almost) three years, I’ve written only four previous posts with “Dreams” in the title (here, here, here, and here).
When I got my first cardiac pacemaker at age ten in 1963, my being alive and well over fifty years later was just a dream.
I’ve had several dream jobs — including creating the recruitment video for Berklee College of Music in the 1990s — but nothing more satisfying than my current work as a psychotherapist.
When I was 44 years old, I consciously gave up the dream of ever having a child.
One month later, I found out I was pregnant with my dreamy son, Aaron.
Two nights ago I had a dream when I was falling from a great height to certain death, but because I knew I was dreaming, I wasn’t afraid, at all.
If a dream comes true and I get a call-back when I try out for The Voice on February 21, I’m going to sing Mad World, which has this line: The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.

Because I was dreaming so much yesterday, I forgot to take many photos. Which of these images seems the most dream-like, to you?

Dreams and Nightmares — Nightmares and Dreams

October 11, 2016October 12, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

October is for Dreams

Nightmares and Dreams. Two sides of the same card. Two sides of the same mirror. Two breaths from the same mouth. We cannot have one without the other. For how can you reach for the light if you’ve never been lost in the dark?

My friend Kat McDonald (Inner Focus) is an exceptional writer. Her writing is gritty and vivid and imaginative. I read this story back in 2013, and I remember it like it was yesterday. It stretches longer than my usual blog lengths, but do take the time to read it all. Get lost in her mind and figure out for yourself. Is it a dream? A nightmare? Or both?

Delirium

a new fever has me in its clutches… i can feel her long, bony, icy fingers twist my spine and contort my brain… i need paracetamol… i need a glass of water… i need to sleep…

but sleep won’t come easy…

paracetamol… a glass of water… bed.

i climb into bed… i am shaking… my hands are tingling… am i hungry..? am i over-tired..? i feel exhausted… i feel sick… nausea rushes at me like a jealous mistress… my head feels twice the size it should be… my forehead is hot… my feet are cold… i am shaking… i swallow the pills and wash them down with a long drink of water.

i climb into bed… the pillow feels cool beneath my heavy skull… i close my eyes and then it starts… i must ride this out until it breaks…

micro flashing neon lights spark inside my minds eye, igniting visions… visions… murky, but i look deeper… deeper into the grain and chaos… i see a face… a man’s face… it is Stalin… he is standing outside an old house… a house on a wild beach… a house with a red door… suddenly, he vomits all over himself… then dissolves into a puddle on the ground… i look out to sea… but the sea is not a sea… it is a vast expanse of rippling silken fabric, billowing in the breeze… i look up to the sky… a pterodactyl swoops in low over the water towards me… i duck for cover and close my eyes tight, anticipating being snatched up by the giant predatory bird… nothing… the wind has picked up the pace and snatches my breath… i gasp and open my eyes… i find myself atop one of the steel eagles that grace the lofty Chrysler Building in NYC… i am terrified… the wind is strong… my hair whips my face… i am too scared to look down… but i do… and now my palms are wet, sweating… i cannot hold on, i lose my grip… but wait! i am typing…

i am sat at a desk, in the middle of a forest, and i am typing… typing incoherent words on a sheet of stiff, white paper… The typewriter is old and battered and clunky… a pale blue Olivetti electric typewriter… my curious eyes follow the flex… it is plugged into a giant snail… the sound of my fingers tapping the keys rattles my brain… the words make no sense… the words make me shiver… i open a cupboard… an old farmhouse style larder- just like the one my Aunt Mary had at Fullerton Farm… i open the door and find hundreds of tins of Baked Beans… i close the door… but the door is a mirror now… i stare at my own reflection… i smile to her, but she does not smile back… she is naked… pale, gaunt… two headless horses appear behind me… one black as night, The other white as snow… the white one speaks to me in a language i cannot comprehend… but we start to dance… the floor beneath me turns to silver sand…

the sun is beating down on me… i pull the quilt around me and nestle into the comfort and familiarity of my bed, despite the madness of these visions… visions i have no control over… i cannot make them stop… they come, in a flood… my mind is a fairground… i look at my hands… six fingers on each hand… i cut off the tips of my fingers with a large pair of shears… they are bleeding… i put on a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves and go outside into the night… there are two moons in the sky… both are full and resplendent… the night is cool… i am alone… i look to my left and the buildings start to crumble and fall… an apple falls from the sky and rolls towards me, stopping at my feet… It speaks to me… beckoning me to take bite… i pick up the lilac apple and bite into its soft, juicy flesh… it tastes salty… so i throw it away… it explodes on impact… in the distance, i hear a child’s voice… it is my lover’a son… he appears out of nowhere, wearing a flappy bird t-shirt and red jeans… he is barefoot, as i am… he takes my hand and tells me to follow him… i do…

suddenly, i find myself, alone, inside a computer… i look at my hands… i am made of pixels… i peer through the screen and see a morbidly obese man, sitting on his sofa with a boxful of donuts… he is playing a computer game… he is controlling me and my movements… he is controlling the CGI world i now find myself locked in… i like it here, but i cannot stay… i call out for my lover’a son… but he is gone… he has left me a note… it reads “gone fishing, be home Tuesday!”… i smell coffee… i look down and find myself in a bathtub full of warm, steaming coffee… it stains my skin… my lover appears… he dries my wet skin with a cloud, gently patting it dry… he lovingly combs my wet hair and strokes my face… we kiss… and float out the wind into space… we swim through the stratosphere and look back at Earth… it looks radiant and blue… i take a bite… it tastes like battery acid… the shock cuts my tongue and i spit out blood and a chunk of France… “it never used to taste like this…” says my lover, his eyes filled with tears… he spits a mouthful of India out into the blue stratospheric air… he fades into the night… “soon…” he says, blowing kisses as he dissolves into the ether… i find myself in a deep, Belfast sink… the cold tap is turned on and the sink is filling up with tiny sea horses and goldfish… they sparkle and shimmer and swim around me… but i need to urinate…

i open my eyes, climb out of bed and make my way to the bathroom across the hall… my legs are shaking… i feel weak… perhaps sleep will come soon… i hope for a dreamless sleep… but instead, i find myself in a field full of rabbits… hundreds and thousands of rabbits… rabbits of all different colours… the pink ones are my favourites… odd… i hate the colour pink… but they are the friendliest… i reach up to the sky and reel in the sun… i hold it in my hands… it burns, but only momentarily… my cold hands chill its fire and it turns from burning amber to brittle blue… the sun shatters in my hands… i am left holding fragments of turquoise glass… i throw the shards up into the air… they tinkle and twinkle against the sky, like dying light… The tranquility of their peaceful chimes turns into an ugly chaos as the fragments of harmless light turn into bullets… they rain down all around me… everything has turned to dust… children lie dead around me… women scream… another bomb goes off… the ground shakes, like the thunder of the apocalypse… there is no colour… everything is grey… the course of death… i hear the wail of an electric guitar… someone, somewhere is playing a guitar… it wails, like a wounded animal… i cover my ears and crouch down, holding myself… crying… i open my eyes and see a young deer, chewing a leafy twig, at the foot of my sweating bed…

the pillow is damp… i turn it over and, with trembling hands, i gulp down a glass of cold, clean water… i close my eyes… please let me sleep… a dreamless sleep… please… these rapid fire flashbacks of former trips inside my minds eye and visions of my subconscious’ innermost thoughts and fears, as surreal as they are, are raping my brain… i am exhausted… i want calm… i want to feel well again… i look at the time… three hours have passed… i have been away for three hours…

i take two more pills, and water… and close my eyes…

but wait! my feet are covered in sand…

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Dreamcatchers

October 9, 2016October 9, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

DREAM CATCHERS

An ancient Chippewa tradition
The dream net has been made

For many generations
Where spirit dreams have played.

Hung above the cradle board,
Or in the lodge up high,

The dream net catches bad dreams,
While good dreams slip on by.

Bad dreams become entangled
Among the sinew thread.

Good dreams slip through the center hole,
While you dream upon your bed.

This is an ancient legend,
Since dreams will never cease,

Hang this dream net above your bed,
Dream on, and be at peace.

First People

What are Dreams?

October 8, 2016October 17, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

October is for Dreams

What are dreams?

This question has haunted mankind since primitives woke up laughing – or screaming – in the middle of the night.

There are plenty of websites, books, and discussion groups that offer theories and facts about the ethereal state of the human mind. I leave it to you to peruse the wavelengths to find your own technical explanation.

I would rather talk about the magic of dreams. The sensations that linger long after you are on with your day (or night). The memory that hangs at the edge of your thoughts that whispers … I can almost remember… and I remember feeling… but the words won’t come. It’s the world that you can almost reach – if only you could stretch farther, remember harder, sleep a little longer.

Dreams are the involuntary conjuring up of images, sounds, ideas and feelings as well as other sensations during sleep. Of course, it is possible to wake up, have a conscious moment of reality, then fall back asleep, either continuing the same dream path or steering it in a different direction.

I know that I am a direct participant in my dreams – it’s not like I’m watching a television show – I am the television show. I conjure up faces I’ve never seen, faces I used to know, and faces that don’t belong with the bodies I see. I go places I’ve never been, experienced things I’ve never experienced, and often wake up wanting more.

Studies have shown that dreaming is important to our health and well being. Not being allowed to dream can lead to anxiety, depression, lack of coordination, and more. Not being allowed to dream is different than saying we don’t dream. We all dream. It’s just that some of us sleep harder than others, our dreams deeper and harder to recall.

What about nightmares, then? Are they part of the normal processing of life’s hardest lessons?

Nightmares are almost the other end of the tunnel. We get stuck, we can’t change course, and so we wander through the world of horror and emptiness and terror. Upon awakening we realize we are safe, but tell that to me when’m driving down a cliff side with my son in tow or I hear monsters in the room below making their way up the stairs. We try and reason our way out of our terror, mostly by telling ourselves it’s only a dream. Other times we burst into the waking world with our hearts pounding and our heads swirling, glad to have escaped the talons of the night one more time.

Researchers say nightmares are often caused by stress, conflict, fear, emotional problems, and medication, among others. In this day and age, who doesn’t suffer from anxiety? Kids yelling, spousal conflicts, traffic jams, attitudes at work – it’s hard not to take the ebb and flow of life as an insult half the time. So we seek refuge – or expression – in dreams.

What I would like to do during the month of October is explore this world through the eyes of others who have been here. Writers, poets, artists – both the heavenly and the ghastly – and experience this mysterious, elusive world through their eyes. Their dreams. Their creativity.

And as the month goes along, feel free to share your own dream worlds. Authors you enjoy, websites that fascinate, music that sends you into that world where no one can follow.

And yet where everyone you know exists.

Flash Fiction Dreams

October 7, 2016October 8, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

October is for Dreams

This flash fiction piece was inspired by my first novel (yet to be published), about a woman who drives through a cornfield, crashes into an old oak tree, and wakes up in small town 1880.

Was it a dream? Or did it really happen? Who is to say?

Pretzel Dawn

Her car streaks down the highway in the granite dawn, her heartbeat matching the thrum of the tires. Fluorescent pinpoints from distant skyscrapers become nothing more than blurred starlight as she madly races towards her destiny…a destiny she has waited to fill longer than she can remember.

A sliver of apprehension cuts into her thoughts. A foreboding, like a ghost crossing her path. Why is it an effort to remember the number of the exit? Why does the city in the distance waver as if seen through crackled glass?

Metropolis turns into suburbia and then into country, yet she cannot slow down. Eventually the Buick veers from the concrete onto the tarmac of some long forgotten road lined with the skeletal remains of fall. Her window is open, the last breath of night air chilling her, thrilling her. It’s not far now. Instinct drives her forward ― instinct and desire. He is somewhere ahead, pacing on the dew-covered grass beneath the maple archway. Watching. Waiting. She senses the sparkle of his chocolate eyes, his scent of sweat and hay and the muskiness from his turn-of-the-century charm.

The road ahead is shadowed. She doesn’t remember the giant oak tree on her last drive through this part of the countryside, nor the weathered barn in the distance. She cannot remember many details of her last visit — but it doesn’t matter. Her heart pounds faster as crimson streaks highlight the horizon. She cannot bear to let him slip away again. Not without a word, without a touch. He is dark and deep, passion and fury, a flicker of days gone by. He said he would wait for her, and she promised to return.

The car’s acceleration slows, and tears of frustration well in her blue eyes. She is lost. Too many turns. Too many distractions. She cannot tell cliffs from moors, fields from meadows. The dark crimson glow over her shoulder is now a soft magenta ribboned with blue. She is running out of time. Hills to mountains to boulders along the side of the crushed gravel road, yet this has to be the way. The road twists in a pretzel design, dead-ending at a forest dark and primeval. She drives to the maple archway at the edge of the wooded glen and stops.

He stands at the hedgerow, a masculine glow in the twinkling dawn. She fumbles and stumbles through the tall brown grass and into his arms. She has made her way back through time. Her need reaches out to him in the pale light of morning, his response soothing and gentle. His loving words curve and twist around her soul and down into the abyss of her dreams, curving and twirling and tumbling and swirling until they slowly turn into echoes from a conch shell. Eternity disappears in a starburst of angel wings, only to reappear as the soft drone of the morning alarm.

Once again, she has returned. Awake. And alone.

October is for Dreams — Dream Poetry

October 5, 2016October 7, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

October is for Dreams

My thoughts this cool October evening drift to the twilight mist that exists between worlds…the world of dreams. I also love to share the thoughts and creations of other dreamers.

Tonight let me share the magic of my friend and fellow blogger Brenda Davis Harsham. Her blog, Friendly Fairy Tales, is full of poetry and flowers and everything dreamy. Here are her thoughts on dreams.

If I Remembered My Dreams

If I remembered my
dreams,
I’d have great stories
with ambushes and
car chases through
city streets. I’d easily
evade cross-dressing
grandma clowns
and black-feathered
ballerinas.
I’d be chased
by giant grasshoppers.
I’d get away
in the nick of time.
I’d soar over over treetops
in a hot air balloon.
I’d solve impossible
theorems.
I’d invent a spaceship
or stow away in one.
I’d speak Spanish,
know the names of
all the stars,
and birds would take
seeds right from my hands.
Instead, I sleep as deep
as the Mariana Trench,
and if I swim with lantern fish,
dine on sea cucumber
or comb my hair with jellyfish,
I will never remember
or wake to tell the tale.

Take some time and wander through Brenda’s website https://friendlyfairytales.com. You’ll be glad you did.

October is for Dreams

October 3, 2016October 7, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

I admit it. I love Fall.

Not just because I am at the end of my hot flash phase. But the smells, the sights, the feel of warm afternoons and cool evenings, gorgeous sunsets, cuddling under blankets, and since I love the night time, earlier sunset times so I have more snuggle writing time.

Lately my world feels like its drifting in and out of the dream world. My dreams, others dreams, the magic and absurdity of our subconscious as it dances at the edge of twilight, gives me the sensation when I wake that I just had the most incredible adventure.

If I could only remember it.

So throughout the month of October, I’m going to hang around the dream world, bringing you poetry from other dreamers, pictures, stories, tales and myths. That way you can pull your blanket up a little closer to your face and hide when you must, play along if you want.

Four years ago today I wrote a blog about dreams. How perfect to start the month off getting lost in the shadows. Hope you enjoy.

To Dream or Not To Dream…That Is The Question

One of the yin-yangs of hormone fluctuation is sleep, or lack of it. Between hot flashes and finding a comfortable position, my REM’s make rare visits, leaving my consciousness floating in the bubbles of semi-sleep through the world of dreams. Now, many people say they don’t dream; others leave a notepad on their nightstand so they can record the ching chang jumble that comes out in the middle of the night. I believe we all dream, but length, depth and retaining capacity is what makes everyone’s claim different.

Scientists and talk show hosts tell us our lives are influenced by anything and everything, and our dreams are one way of dealing with all of it. Dreams, and their alter ego, nightmares, can result from everything from eating pizza before bed to an argument earlier in the day. Dreams can be triggered by stress, anticipation, having too much time on your hands or, more likely, not enough. Scary movies, sappy movies, long distance phone calls — everything can leave a chip in your mind that can explode into a myriad of dreamy scenarios.

The great thing about this flight through those shadowed clouds, though, is the variety of experiences it presents. I doubt my conscious mind could make up half the things my subconscious does. And if it could, would it be as fun? In my dreams I interact with bosses from 20 years ago and talk to family members who are no longer with me. I wander the halls of my grade school, look out on Lake Michigan from a high-rise balcony, and walk through castles of long ago. I have driven off cliffs and been chased by unseen dragony/monster things. I have stood in a shadowy alley talking to Edward Norton and had coffee with Kiefer Sutherland. I have run from building to building to building, either looking for something or trying to get somewhere, and have jumped and bounced and flown my way across the landscape.

Where in Jove’s name do we get these ideas from?

Being a writer, I often bring some of the unearthliness of my subconscious and put it into forms that entertain me and others. Without analyzing every laugh and tear, I try to bring these esoteric beings into my writing. The more nonsensical, the better. Other people transform their dreams into paintings, gardens, photography, and card making. So why not writing?

Of course, the down side of dreams is that they don’t always give you a direct answer to your cosmic questions. It is fairly obvious that when I dream of my son as a toddler rather than a college kid, I am searching for the olden days connection we had when I was omnipotent and he was subservient. When I am wandering through corridors and cross loading docks and down long hallways filled with shops and warehouses and theaters I am lost in more ways than I care to admit. But instead of interpreting these dreams as portents of bad things to come, I would rather see them as insights to the possibilities that lie ahead. We have the ability to choose which meanings we take to heart and which we toss out. We can choose to see rain in the clouds or we can just see clouds.

The best course is always to choose a little of both. Don’t ignore the clouds that are thunderheads, and don’t step out of a plane to bounce on their springy tops. But let those clouds be dragons or snakes or ships. Notice the thread of reality that runs through the middle, then make what you will of the rest. Don’t worry what others think your dreams mean, or if you can’t remember their endings. The old adage that it’s the journey that counts, not the destination, makes as much sense to your unconscious state of mind as your conscious one. Take that journey and run with it.

As for me, I’m looking forward to tonight. I told Kiefer I’d meet him at the coffee shop sometime around eleven. Maybe I’ll even ride my dragon there.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Riusuke Fukahori

October 2, 2016October 2, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

Riusuke Fukahori is known best for his resin-based studies of Japanese goldfish.

Riusuke Fukahori does it so realistically you never imagine that this is just his 3D art form of goldfish, captured as if time stood still.

Fukahori alternates between pouring resin into a vessel and painting goldfish with acrylic paint, giving the resulting work a three-dimensional optical effect.

Most of his works are contained in conventional household items, such as cups and bowls.

The artist was initially attracted to his goldfish because he admired them and viewed their domestication as a metaphor for the stifling conditions of modern life.

Though he infamously keeps dozens of fish around his studio for observation, Fukahori prefers to execute his works from his impressions and memories, and depicts both existing species of fish and invented hybrids.

As Fukahori states, “I didn’t invent resin and not the first to use resin. I am not a resin artist. I am a goldfish artist.”

And as one can see, Riusuke Fukahori does so in exquisite beauty and detail.

More fantastic art by Riusuke Fukahori can be found on his Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/RiusukeFukahori. A fantastic video of Riusuke performing his art can be found at Riusuke Fukahori.

Best Friends

September 28, 2016September 29, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Do you have a best friend?

You know — someone who knows all your secrets, keeps all your secrets, and shares all their secrets. Someone who doesn’t care what you look like, how much money you have, or what you snack on before you go to bed. Someone who loves you, funky wardrobe, personal hangups, and all.

I look back on my life, and see a number that fit that description. A neighborhood girlfriend when I was small. A couple of girls in high school. Another who went with me to the dances at the Navy base in my very early 20s. Different jobs, different besties. 3 or 4 when my children were babies; one or two from my various jobs. I have been blessed to have had their friendship. I don’t talk to but a few these days, and even then a year can go by without a face-to-face meeting.

I have been thinking about all of this since my footing in Bestieland right now is not as solid as it used to be. Different callings often mean different directions. And sometimes the parameters of friendship change.

What does “best friend” really mean?

I am inclined to think the terminology and significance of it changes through your life. When I was younger it was important to have a “best” friend. That buddy that was almost attached to you at the hip. What you bought she bought. Where you went she went.

As you get older, your parameters change. You don’t necessarily need to be attached at the hip, but it’s great to have someone to drink wine with or go to hang at the park with you and your kids.

Different jobs through my life have provided different Best Friends. From grade school to high school to my file clerk job in my late teens to downtown Chicago in my late 20s to my besties when my children were babies — all were gifts in my life at a time when I needed them. These people came into my life for a reason. As I did into theirs. And often, when you have learned and grown from having this person in your life, it’s time to move on.

But does someone always have to move on?

I look back to my grade school years. L was my first real best friend — until she wanted to go play with A, who was older. My Great Lakes Navy Base besties married Navy men and shipped off to who-knows-where. C worked downtown with me, but when the company folded, so did we. D and L and J and I were all besties when we were raising babies. Living near each other they hung together, but because I moved to another state, I didn’t.

Was I better off knowing all of them?

No doubt.

Were they all my “best” friends?

Definitely.

As I grow older I understand why being best friends is a two-way street. You need to give and take. To support and clarify. To be willing to correct and be corrected. Best friends hold onto each other because their souls feel good together. And you don’t need to be attached at the hip, either. Just knowing the other person is a phone call away makes life a little easier.

My besties are at the same point in life that I am. Women who have learned and felt the things I have. Women who take me just the way I am yet encourage me to be much more. We laugh and cry and jabber together just like my friends and I did 40 years ago.

Einstein’s time line doesn’t exist for those whose hearts have connected. Whether that connection was years ago or yesterday. Let go of the ones who let go of you, and hold onto the ones who stay.

It’s not the space where best friends used to exist that matters, but the space in which they will always exist that makes you whole.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Harps

September 25, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

The Harp that once through Tara’s halls

The soul of music shed,

Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls

As if that soul were fled.

So sleeps the pride of former days,

So glory’s thrill is o’er,

And hearts, that once beat high for praise,

Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright

The harp of Tara swells:

The chord alone, that breaks at night,

Its tale of ruin tells.

Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,

The only throb she gives,

Is when some heart indignant breaks,

To show that still she lives.

Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

Roots vs. Vines

September 24, 2016September 24, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 1 Comment

There are books upon books written about men brains vs female brains. How they are wired, how they work. How they process. This is not a blog to debate the validity of such — I am mere more to prove that such assumptions are more or less true.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about creativity. I suggested her boyfriend (a really talented graphic artist) start a website or blog with his art and photography. Show off his work. He joined our conversation, and said he shows his work off on Facebook. To his friends. He said setting up and keeping a site going was too much like work.

I was fine with that. But I had to laugh. Because that’s all I seem to think about. Not just the webpage part — the writing/art/decorating/creative part.

It was like earlier today I called home. Hubby was putting up new pantry and laundry room doors. Very sharp. Very nice. After 15 years of dogs and kids and cats and abuse it is nice to finally start remodeling my house. I started talking about a new wine rack and hanging a new picture I found and maybe a rug under the table and cleaning out the buffet and giving most of the glasses to Good Will and there was nothing but silence on the other end of the phone. I waited for a reaction and could have filed my nails within the time gap.

When we resumed the conversation my hubby said he hadn’t thought of all that. That some of those things weren’t on his top 10 list of things to do. He was back on the door-thing and the sanding-the ceiling-in-the-bedroom thing. The mowing-the-lawn-thing tomorrow. He was nowhere in the creative atmosphere of the decorating-thing or the making-the-dining-room-feel-like-an-Italian-veranda-thing. My mind was twisting and twirling up the wall like a runaway vine while his was forming strong, sturdy roots in the ground.

I don’t know if my creative tendencies are a good thing or a bad thing. Or if they are a “thing” at all. I know we all have a creative streak in us, but some are able to keep it in perspective. Most times I behave myself, but other times I’m off and running without a thought as to time or materials or the end result.

It’s like I finally know what I want and I don’t want to be talked out of it. My Sunday Evening Art blog, my middle-age madness blog, my writing female fantasy fiction time travel novels, all may seem runaway madness to some, but they are life affirming to me. Every time I get creative it’s like reaching up to the sun and getting high on Vitamin D.

I know that that’s just where I am in life right now. Other friends of mine are in the whenever-its-convenient time. Or after-I-take-care-of-other-things time. I’ve been through those phases too. I’ve been responsible all my life. Raising kids, working, making ends meet. I’ve not always had the time to hang with my Creative Muse.

But now I make time. And the pigheaded person in me wonders why everyone else doesn’t make time, too. When my piggy feet touch the ground again, I realize that everybody IS making time in their own way. Not everyone needs a website or needs to get published in order to let their creativity soar. Some do it by just doing it. Period.

But as for me — I am having fun with the pick-out-paint-to-edge-the-new-rug thing and the heroine-travels-through-the-veil-to-another-world thing.

Why not?

You Rock!

September 20, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

When I started this blog back on April 18, 2011, I must have had 20 blogs already written ahead of time. That’s how excited I was. Before I started my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blog, I probably had 10 or 11 artists on hold. That, too, shows how excited I was to get started.

Now days I am more of a on-the-spot blog writer, sharing the Goddess’s humor as she calls. Which is all the time. And my Art Blog’s collection is doubling all the time as I find more and more unique artists to showcase.

This is what creativity is all about.

Doing what you love. When you want to. Because you want to.

I don’t have an anniversary to celebrate, or moment in time to highlight today. All I wanted to do was thank you all for supporting me, reading me, looking at my art. Telling your friends. Or just checking me out yourself.

I can’t believe there are so many branches to Creativity. I’ve talked to quilters, sculptors, painters, publicists, graphic artists, gardeners, writers, poets, photographers, calligraphers — all sorts of artists with all sorts of stories. Everyone has a different story, background, reason for exploring their creative side.

Think of the things you can create! Dragons, spaceships, murderers, gardens, parentless heroes, ghosts, musical prodigies, statues, symbols. You can change history, travel through history, interpret history. As an artist there is nothing you can’t do.

This is why I encourage all of you to “do your thing.” Know your base is strong and expand from there. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the arts. And the more you do it, the better you get at it.

I just wanted to take time to than you all. For your friendship, for your curiosity. And for your encouragement. I hope we hang together for a dozen more years. I hope you continue to enjoy my art and my pretzel-logic mind. You inspire me, and I hope I do the same for you.

Huzzah!

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Gustav Klimt

September 18, 2016September 18, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was the leading figure of the so-called Vienna Secession, an art movement that rebelled against the established art concepts and introduced a new style similar to Art Nouveau.

To bring more abstract and purer forms to the designs of buildings and furniture, glass and metalwork, the group gave birth to another form of modernism in the visual arts and they named their own new movement: Secession.

Klimt was seen as an artist who was far ahead of his time.

Much of the work that was produced during the Austrian born artist’s career, however, was seen as controversial.

Although symbolism was used in many of his art forms, it was not at all subtle, and it went far beyond what the imagination during the time frame accepted.

Klimt’s primary subject was the female body, and his works bordered on eroticism.

Although his work was not widely accepted during his time, some of the pieces that Gustav Klimt did create during his career are today seen as some of the most important and influential pieces to come out of Austria.

More of Gustav Klimt’s work can be found at http://www.klimtgallery.org and http://www.gustav-klimt.com.

Keep Your List Long

September 17, 2016September 17, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

Due to a change of plans, I am home alone for the weekend. The weather is beautiful, the sun warm, the breeze making my windchimes sing.

So far I want to drive to the gas station for flavored coffee, write a couple of chapters on my novel, move the stuff from my tiny closet to a now-spare-bedroom closet, vacuum, dust, make shrimp in red sauce, walk the magic trail behind the university, walk my own magic trail on my property, sew bling on a particular top, change the kitty litter, shorten the sleeves on a new hoodie, watch the rest of Rome, write a poem, find new artists for my SEAG, read my WordPress buddie’s blogs, ride my bike, rearrange the deck, brush out the cat, and edit another novel.

And it’s only mid-morning.

The only thing I’ve managed to do so far is go get flavored coffee.

Am I the only one who plans big and falls short? All the time?

I often wonder if I would have enough time to do it all if I were retired. Doing the job thing from 6 a.m. through 4:30 p.m. (that includes getting ready) five days a week doesn’t leave much time to fool around. You would think I would have an Architectural Digest-sort of house, lovely gardens, published novels, spiffy wardrobe, plus time to excercise/walk/ride with all the free time I have before I go to sleep at night.

We’re never home on the weekends — whose fault is that? Between visiting the kids and camping and my hubby leaving for work at 4 p.m. on Sundays, there’s not much time left for anything except doing the dishes and laundry. And maybe ONE fun, great meal. If we’re around.

I have talked to many retirees who have told me it doesn’t get better.

It gets worse.

How can that be?

They let me in on a secret. The more time they have the more they think they can do.

Of course, sitting on the deck, listening to the wind blow the windchimes, gets equal billing with mowing the lawn. Painting a picture gets just as much private time as washing and putting away laundry. And they still manage to see kids, grandkids, friends, old co-workers. They manage to get a walk in along with stopping by the farmer’s market, build things in their workshop, write poetry, rearrange furniture, watch a movie, repair the lawnmower, and dozens of other things.

Many of them say they don’t have enough time in their day, either.

I’m beginning to think that Einstein knew more than he told us. That time is relative. For one person time flies by; for others, it takes an eternity to tick out an hour.

I tell myself I’d rather have an overly-long list of “to-do”s than a short list of anything. Having too many things to do in one day assures you that there will be things to do tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. That the Reaper can’t possibly come and visit because your list is too long and he’ll just have to come back when that list is done.

Which makes me think of a few more things I’d like to add…

If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time

September 15, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

I was writing a blog for work today, talking about how music can bring memories of days gone by. And it got me to thinking — if you could turn back the hands of time, what would you change?

I already hear whispers of “I wouldn’t change a thing” or “I love my life just the way it is” or “my scars have made me who I am today.” All of that is good and well, but there is always something we wish we could have done, changed, said.

There are few things I would change about my life. I love where I am, I love my family. Knowing me, I would have loved a different husband, different children, different grandchildren. Love is love. I was not popular in my younger younger years, but I feel my heart has grown into a beautiful maple tree because of that.

But things I would have changed — there are always a few.

I would have gone to college. Back in my day (what a cliche!) half the girls went to college, half got married. Although I didn’t get married I did fall in the second half. Maybe I didn’t have the money at the time. Or the inspiration. But since I’ve always been a writer and an artist, I should have learned more about both. It most likely would have led me down a different career path, but it would have been more of a career and less of a job.

I would have put more effort into saving my bed and breakfast. It was a gorgeous house, a dream come true. I owned it for 7 years, always moving backwards financially instead of forward. Instead of trying to support my end of the upkeep with paying guests, I should have gotten a full-time job and run the B&B on the weekends.

I would have talked to my parents more. I would have asked them about their childhood. Their teens. Their young married years. Who they loved. Who they hated. The hard times. The family problems. The war. Their illnesses. I would not have let their lives be nothing more than spectres dancing in the sunlight.

Hindsight is such a strange bedfellow at times.

It’s not so much living in the past as re-experiencing it. I would still take the hard knocks, but I would savor the sweetness even more. I would have brought the friends I left behind into the future with me. I would right all wrongs, mend all fences, and keep the love the way it used to be.

I would cherish every moment of every day much more than I did when I was younger. I would not, could not change the deaths of those who have gone before me, but I would have made much more of the time we had when they were alive.

If I could turn back the hands of time, I would never have let go of the things that meant the most to me.

But perhaps that’s what the future is for. Never letting go.

Gif A Roonie

September 14, 2016January 12, 2024 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Once again, I have been wandering through the world of Gif. A glimpse here, a peek there, movings and swirlings and all kinds of sparkly things hid around every corner. How can I resist?

Enjoy the magic…

Ride My See Saw…er…Bike

September 12, 2016September 26, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

The other night I found out that riding a bicycle is not the same as riding a bicycle.

Silly me.

I haven’t been on a bike in a couple of years — maybe now or then, but more like waaay back then. Well, last weekend we went camping at a beautiful campground in Door County, Wisconsin. My grandson brought his bike, and I did, too. I had started a health kick the week before (fodder for another blog, no doubt), so why not get the exercise thing going too?

I road like a pro through the campground, down to the lake, around the “O” (the campsite circle) right behind my GB. Kept up with him, too. I was very proud. Came home, continued to eat better, walked during morning and afternoon breaks, feeling better and better. So I pulled out my bike last night and took a little ride up and down my little country road.

This was where real bicycling comes in.

If you have ever seen a Teletubbie riding a bicycle, this was a mirror image. The road has low hills — I mean, not the North Carolina kind — these are the barely-noticable-hardly-upgrade road.

I might as well have been riding up the North Carolina kind.

I huffed and puffed and whined my way past my house, my breath coming hard and shallow. What was up with that? What about all the walking I’ve been doing? The bike riding at the campground? I’ve even given up ice cream before bed!

As you all know, retraining a life-time of bad habits takes a lot longer than the perverbial three weeks. I am a believer that it’s never too late to change your path. I’m not giving up good food — I’m just eating less of it. Trash food (like chips and dip) even less. I figure I’m 63 and, Goddess willing, I’d like to see 73. And 83. Hell — even 93!

So back to bike riding. I must say it felt good to feel the burn, the weak knees, the pounding in my chest. It showed that I was still alive and kicking — or, rather, peddling. I am taking tonight off, though. A little weak in the thigh, perhaps. But the decision to change my ways is still strong. I’d like to think of myself more as of a unicorn riding a bike…proud, steady, perhaps a bit awkward, but always moving forward.

Like my desire to write.

I’ve managed to put a little of me in my main character in my novels. She’s middle-aged, witty, astral, and outspoken. She’s also a little thicker than most willowy leading ladies. My men like a little meat on their paramours.

I guarantee, though, she doesn’t ride a bicycle.

Sunday Morning Art Gallery Blog — The Aftermath of 9/11 in Art

September 11, 2016September 11, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts — such is the duty of the artist.

~ Robert Schumann

Lady Liberty Memorial, 9/11 Memorial Museum

9-11-memorial-freehold-nj-nick-zelinsky — 9/11 Memorial, Freehold, NJ

brooklyn — Brooklyn Wall of Rememberance

hero-image-pentagon-memorial-photo-credit-mike-myers — Pentagon Memorial, Washington D.C.

Remembering Our Heroes, United Airlines Flight 175 Memorial Quilt. Collection, 9/11 Memorial Museum

tumbling-woman-eric-fischl — Tumbling Woman, Eric Fischl

fdny_quilt — Fire Department New York Memorial Quilt

lower-school-art-students-of-porter-gaud-schoolsc — Lower School Art Students of Porter Gaud School, South Carolina

flight-crew-memorial — Flight Crew Memorial, Grapevine, Texas

911-dust-to-dnamikey-flowers-kevinclarke — Dust to DNA, Bianca Nazzaruolo

Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning, Spencer Finch, 9/11 Memorial Museum

to-lift-a-nation-ground-zero — To Lift A Nation, Ground Zero, Stan Watts

teardrop-memorialbayonne-nj — Teardrop Memorial, Bayonne, NJ, Zurab Tsereteli

The National Tribute Quilt, 9/11 Memorial Museum

9/11 Memorial Museum, New York, Snøhetta and Davis Brody Bond

On My Way I Found the Holocaust

September 7, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 16 Comments

On my way to researching something else…

Doesn’t it always happen this way? Earlier today I was searching for events that took place on September 8 for a blog I was writing for work, and I came across this:

1941 Sep 8, The entire Jewish community of Meretsch, Lithuania, was exterminated.

An entire community.

My curiosity took me through pages and pages of Holocaust history. Here is some of what I found: (It’s kinda long..)

1941        Jun 22, Second world war began in Lithuania. Lithuania rebelled against Russian occupation.
1941        Jun 24, Entire Jewish male population of Gorzhdy, Lithuania, was exterminated.
1941        Jun 26, Lithuanian fascists massacred 2,300 Jews in Kovno.
1941        Jul 7, Nazis executed 5,000 Jews in Kovno, Lithuania.
1941        Jul 14, 6,000 Lithuanian Jews were exterminated at Viszalsyan Camp.
1941        Jul 24, Nazis massacred the entire Jewish population of Grodz, Lithuania.
1941        Jul 29, All the Jews at Linkuva were killed.
1941        July, In northwestern Lithuania 9,000 Jews were killed by Lithuanian police.
1941        Sep 8, The entire Jewish community of Meretsch, Lithuania was exterminated.
1941        Sep 15, Nazis killed 800 Jewish women at Shkudvil, Lithuania.

1941 Oct 28, In Kaunas (Kovno), about 70 miles from Vilna 9,000 Jews were murdered. 900 French Jews died there on 18 May 1944.

1941 Dec 25, In northwestern Lithuania 400 young Jewish women were killed by Lithuanian police.

1941 At the Rainis Forest in the Telsiai region 74 Lithuanians were killed by Soviet NKVD and KGB troops.
1941 In Lithuania German forces slaughtered some 12,000 Jews in Stoklishki (Alytus).

1941-1944 40,000 Jews are slaughtered in Vilnius, Lithuania.  Almost 55,000 Jews were executed at Paneriai, outside of Vilnius.
1942        May 7, A Nazi decree ordered all Jewish pregnant women of Kovno Ghetto executed.
1944        Mar 27, Some 2,000 Jews were murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania.
1945        Jan 30, Nazi SS guards shot down an estimated 4,000 Jewish prisoners on the Baltic coast at Palmnicken, Kaliningrad

And that is only in Lithuania.

July – August 1941: Dozens thousands of Russian Jews are murdered by the Einzatzgruppen (extermination squads) in the occupied territories. Here are some examples:

5,200 Jews murdered in Byalistok
2,000 Jews murdered in Minsk
5,000 Jews murdered in Vilna
5,000 Jews murdered in Brest-Litovsk
5,000 Jews murdered in Tarnopol
3,500 Jews murdered in Zloczow
11,000 Jews murdered in Pinsk
14,000 Jews murdered in Kamenets Podolsk
12,287 Jews murdered in Kishinev

148,000 Jews are murdered in Bessarabia between July and October 1941.

December 8: Chelmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp begins operations: 340,000 Jews, 20,000 Poles and Czechs murdered by April 1943.

March 17: Extermination begins in Belzec; by end of 1942 600,000 Jews murdered.

May: Extermination by gas begins in Sobibor killing center; by October 1943, 250,000 Jews murdered.

Country Estimated Murdered

Austria 50,000

Belgium 25,000

Bohemia/Moravia 78,000

Denmark 60

Estonia 2,000

Finland 7

France 77,000

Germany 142,000

Greece 65,000

Hungary 550,000

Italy 7,500

Latvia 70,000

Lithuania 140,000

Luxembourg 1,000

Netherlands 100,000

Norway 762

Poland 3,000,000

Romania 270,000

Slovakia 71,000

Soviet Union 1,000,000

Yugoslavia 60,000

It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered approximately 1.1 million.

My mind cannot begin to wrap around those numbers. Some are as large as a town. A high school. A football game. One million people is more than the city of San Francisco.

When we say “We Will Never Forget” when 9/11 comes along, let’s not forget the horror that came before. And let’s vow never to let it happen again.

Poetic inspiration: Being understood

September 6, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

A lovely reflection of a writer’s truth.

Business in Rhyme

Not everyone hast to “get” your writing.

It takes

(one approving nod,

one enticing smile,

one spark in those eyes)

to touch only one soul

and your story changes the world.

Maja S. Todorovic

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Camping 102

September 5, 2016September 6, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

I missed our Sunday Evening Art Gallery post yesterday as I was camping for the weekend with my crazy family. We try and rent side-by-side sites, all the better to have the grandkids run helter skelter between grandparent campers. What one grandparent doesn’t have the other does. Riding vehicles, pokey sticks for the fire, dog treats, juice boxes — grandparents are a cornicopia of things to make the world a better place.

There is a payment for those hidden tokens, though. Marshmallows and flower hunting come at a price.

I haven’t ridden a bicycle in a couple of years. Well, this past weekend changed all that. Bicycle to the bathroom. Bicycle to the beach. Bicycle around the “O”. All with my 6-year-old grandson. First ride in the morning, last ride in the evening. Not to be left behind as a lazy granny, I’m peddling off towards the sunset, blinded by the light, laughing as I’m crying. It wouldn’t be proper to say what part of my body hurts the most, but let’s just say it’s in the middle of the word SassY.

We also play Polish Horseshoes, a game made of string and blocks of wood and dowel rods. I’m sure there’s a professional name and version of this game, but not by us. And the more the participants drink, the harder it is to hit simple blocks of wood. We cook enough food for every meal to feed an army. Sometimes it’s a mishmash of Polish and Mexican and Belgium; other times it’s carefully planned exercises in free-for-all. I suppose that’s to ensure that there’s something on the table everyone likes. And leftovers to make their way to all ends of the state.

That’s why I need more bicycle rides.

Beach time is tella tubby time, but the grandkids don’t notice, so neither do I. It’s a time to build sand castles, endure freezing water temperatures, and wander over to the food stand for an ice cream cone. It doesn’t matter that the ice cream is fattening or the sand is corrosive — all it means is that for a short time GB and I were building castles in the air and drowning the poor sand soldiers made of plopped pillars of sand.

The best times are when family and friends sit around the campfire. Night has descended, the birds and squirrels are asleep, and the park’s raccoon pack hasn’t made it down to our campsite yet. We settle in our chairs, drink our drinks, make sticky, messy, yummy Smores, and talk about our lives. We all become human around the fire — not some speedy office hero, super mom, retired teacher, or trained security guard. We are just family people, sharing family thoughts, dreaming of the best way to retire or clean out our basements or keep in touch with other family members who don’t want to keep in touch. We tell each other what a good job we’ve done as parents and friends and children, how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and how we would fix it if we could. Then we finally make it back home, derierres and leg muscles sore, hearts fixed.

Family Time, Friend Time, is so important to human survival. We don’t have to be best friends with the world to be best friends to one. Find one. Find a dozen. Share yourself. People will accept you, quirks and all.

And who better to share smores with than someone who is as full of sticky sweet sugar as you?

New Galleries Open at the Gallery!!

September 2, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

As we head into the “Last Vacation Weekend of the Summer”, I want to show off a couple of new Sunday Evening Galleries I’ve added recently. I have to admit the images are stunning, the artwork remarkable. Please go check them out if you get time!

Jellyfish

http://wp.me/p5LGaO-Pt

Face Off

http://wp.me/p5LGaO-P1

Earrings

http://wp.me/s5LGaO-earrings

Natalya Sots

http://wp.me/p5LGaO-ND

See you on the other side of Reality!

Hellloooo….Cosmos Calling

August 30, 2016November 7, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

The Cosmos is always calling — are you listening?

I tend to block incoming calls, leaving a message that I’ll get back shortly. And, of course, when I call back, it’s too late. The message has disappeared. Moved On. Taken a Hike. Good Bye.

So today is a good day to start remembering and rewriting some of the messages my old friend Cosmos has been sending.

When the Muse is there She’s there. When she’s not she’s not. Quit trying to make wine out of hot dogs. You can’t force the words, the strokes, the stitches. Leave the door wide open but take your trek elsewhere for a while. As long as it’s creative, even if it’s mindless, it encourages Her return.
If it doesn’t have anything to do with your realm, keep your mouth shut. Your conservative or over-the-top opinions won’t change the state of politics or sports or Hollywood. Misery loves company and yakkers need an audience. Don’t be the bigmouth or the enabler.
DO stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Abuse is rampant. Child, animal, elder — A bully is always a bully. Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. If you notice something, and don’t want to confront the culprit, report it. Tell someone. Be their strength.
There is no such thing as a leisurely dinner outside. Especially this time of year. Quit trying to sell us wine and laughter and best friends sitting at a big table surrounded by land and woods. It doesn’t work that way. Just ask the mosquitoes and flies. Or the chiggers that chew your ankles.
Wine, chocolate, and whipped cream are the answers to all of life’s problems.
Organization is the name of the game. Most of us are O-Negative, but with an infusion of creativity, energy, and optimism, even the smallest o can grow to be a fairly decent sized O. Just put away what you take out, close what you open, measure before you cut, and find yourself a Muse or Spirit Guide to give you a pinch in the keester now and then.
Taco Cat spelled backwards is Taco Cat.
Universal Truth #6327: Everything makes sense to someone (see Cosmic).
The Cosmos is full of random moves disguised as calculated theories. So it is with winning. A few odds: winning the Powerball, 1 in 292,201,338; dying from an asteroid strike, 1 in 74,817,414; attacked by a shark, 1 in 3,748,006; becoming a movie star: 1 in 1,505,000; getting struck by lightning: 1 in 1,107,143; being killed by a vending machine, 1 in 112,000,000; being killed by a coconut, 1 in 270,000,000. Since the odds never make sense, odds are that you might as well give up the odds and go with a sure thing. Like I before E. Except after C. Oh, and there’s an A in there too…
Don’t be fooled by the “peaceful life” in the country. It can be just as loud as the city. Birds are worse than car horns.

The Cosmos gave me a bunch of messages this past weekend, and this time I was listening. Friendship is forever, there are stories around every corner, if you connect your soul with the soul of the universe, anything can happen. Then I gave the o’l Cos some advice I’ve learned along the way.

Love. There’s 1,000s of chances to find it. Life. There’s only one chance to live it.
Creativity is a way of life.
Jon Snow is not dead.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Richard Preston

August 28, 2016August 29, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Talented Canadian artist Richard Preston has been experimenting with textures and shapes all his life.

In 1979 Preston began to establish West Coast Jacket – the first in a series of military jackets.

Beading or embroidering them, he creates a different story or on every jacket.

Army clothing embroidered with the sun, clouds, scattering stars, river flows, flowers (including a lush pink wreath on the head of the skeleton symbolizing death), and designs with a touch of psychedelic aesthetics, makes a strong and rather contradictory impression, turning each jacket – originally impersonal thing – in a unique and truly conceptual object.

Preston, working with new material, draws attention to global problems, in particular, demilitarization.

Preston does not limit himself by the narrow direction in art, trying himself as a painter, sculptor, designer, photographer, writer, actor, and musician.

One of his hobbies was working with beads, and for nearly thirty years he made original creations, filled with real ethnic motifs and vibrant energies of the author.

A series “stratigraphy” is devoted to geology. With ribbons, threads and beads, the artist tried to show different periods of his work, as well as layers of different rocks of the earth tells the story of its formation.

More of Richard Preston’s work can be found at http://viola.bz/richard-prestons-textile-art/ and at http://www.prestvilleartsite.com/.

Say Something Nice

August 22, 2016August 23, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

I am on a new kick here.

It’s coming around slowly. I don’t always think about it, I don’t always do it. But when I do, it becomes one of those sparkly little bubbles that burst inside of me.

I’m talking about inpromptu interactions with others.

Now I know what you are thinking. Or at least what I am thinking. I don’t need new friends, I’m too busy, I’m too shy, I’m too awkward. Strangers might have cooties. I know — it’s a common misconception. (Strangers don’t always have cooties).

But I’m talking about saying something nice or making someone smile. Usually its just in passing, but there’s something about catching someone off-guard with a complement or gesture that leaves a smile lingering on both their lips and yours for some time to come.

Went to Irishfest this past weekend. A marvelous place for true-blooded and adopted Irishmen/women. Lotta love during and between songs. I saw this man waving to someone behind me, obviously getting their attention to where he was sitting. As I was walking by I leaned in and waved back. He laughed, I laughed, and I kept walking. Another granny had green flowers tucked through her grey locks. Looked special — and I told her so. I was taken with a young girl’s skirt at work, and told her so. She was delighted with her thank you, and so was I. Another woman at work has been wearing more “girly” tops, and I thought she looked great. Instead of just nodding and moving on, I told her so.

I have complemented sparkly sandals and bold necklaces. Sharp-looking men’s shirts and grandmother’s sweaters. Each time there is that nanosecond where the recipient is surprised (is she talking to me?) caught in their eye like a thief on tape. Their thank-you is always gracious, and I watch them walk away with a smile. And I wonder — why is it so hard to be nice to someone?

There is enough terrorism in the world to fill 10 planets. Enough sadness, enough psychos. Why not take someone else’s mind off their problems for a half-second and say something nice to them or about them?

Fashion is a favorite topic. I enjoy people who dress for themselves. Anything between a subtle and over-the-top statement always makes me smile. I might not wear what they wear, look how they look, but I appreciate their efforts. Just like it takes one second to bend down and say “hello” to babies and their parents or to laugh with a stranger about the rain or having to go back to work. You don’t have to know somebody to say something nice. Something funny.

So if it’s so easy to smile or nod why is it so hard to say something nice?

It’s getting passed the uncomfortableness of leaving your own space, if only for a second, and entering someone else’s special space. Maybe we’re afraid that our efforts will be rebuffed. That someone will give us “that look” and egos will be recrushed and hearts rebroken. It’s tender territory in there — that’s why you can do both parties such good.

I try to do three a day. I’ve been falling behind most days. It’s not that I’m not a nice person — it’s just that most of the time my mind is off wandering three zones ahead of me, and the realization that I’ve really “liked” something comes in a delayed reaction.

Try complimenting someone at work or at a party or shopping at Walmart. Give it the ‘ol college try. You’ll be surprised the sunshine you’ll bring to the world.

Either that or someone will think you goofy — which, in the end, isn’t too bad a way to be viewed either —

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Full Circle

August 21, 2016August 23, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I fell in love with the atmosphere, art, and the Biltmore I found in North Carolina.

My visit gave me a greater appreciation of the world of individuality, art, and wealth.

Last weekend I wandered through the competition barn of a small county fair.

When I came upon the Art Show, I knew I had come full circle.

I realized that this is where it all starts.

This is where Jackson Pollock and John Singer Sargent began.

Where Dali dabbled and Wiggans wandered.

This is where Richard Morris Hunt found architecture and Katsushika Hokusai played with ink drawings.

Where either because of a parent’s encouragement or despite lack of it, a creativity seed found fertility and grew.

This is the uncharted land of creativity, of space and design and imagination.

This…is Art.

Pictures courtesy of Vilas County Fair, 2016

and CJA, 2016

Cat’s Eyes

August 17, 2016August 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

My life has been a whirlwind these past few weeks. I’ve taken off to North Carolina and visited my bff and a city that was fun and busy and full of Southern charm, went to work for two days, then took off to Northern Wisconsin and noshed and laughed and cackled with friends while we hid from the rain.

It seems everyone had fun these past few weeks except for one.

Mysty.

My Cat.

Do you ever get punished by your pets for going away? I have two cats, a toughy, lovey boy tuxedo named Tom, and a once-tiny-now-balloony girl Mysty.

Tom could care less when I come and go. He sleeps with whomever is around, including sometimes the dogs. Mysty is another story.

Everytime I go away and then return she makes eye contact, barely acknowledging my return, then gives me the cold shoulder for the day.

I didn’t think cats held grudges. But this one does.

When I’m home she’s on my computer, twisting her cute little head sideways, insisting on pets. She sleeps by my head, climbs all over me when I watch TV, all that cute little cat stuff.

But when I’ve been gone a few days — worse, when the whole family has been away and the cats have been left alone — well, hell hath no fury like a kitty scorned.

Of course, things are back to normal after a long day. I don’t think cats have that long of a memory span, and besides, they want to be fed. And pet. But for those few first hours, I swear my cat pouts and looks forlornly out the window, dreaming of a house where her master momma stayed home and played with her every day.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t leave my first born until he was 2 or 3. Just think of the dramatic sigh a toddler would make, looking forlornly out the window, dreaming of a house where his momma stayed home and played with him every day.

That is, until grandma or grandpa gave him popcorn or a Butterfinger or took him to the park. Which was instantly after I drove away.

Maybe I should offer a Butterfinger to Mysty…

Remembering Italktoomuchitis

August 16, 2016August 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Greetings!

Although I think all my past blogs are funny/magical/clever, I don’t often repost them for the fear that thousands of likes rather than an appropriate few will jam the WP system.

Keeping that in mind, I was wandering through the rocky mountains of my memory and thought about this blog from June 2012. It hits the bullseye once again.

Chit Chattin’ Cathy

I subscribe to a few blogs where the author has broken out of their silent shell, finally finding a voice that is sparkling and true. It’s not easy sharing something as personal as one’s self ― especially if that “self” has been suppressed for longer than one can imagine. I appreciate their efforts to finally let the world know who they are.

I, on the other hand, suffer from Italktoomuchitis.

I don’t remember when I contracted this disease. It certainly wasn’t in grade school (too ugly), nor high school (too busy trying to get pinned). I worked in downtown Chicago for a PR department, but trust me, it was far from glamorous…or talkative ( I was rather submissive in those days). Found love, got married and had babies. I didn’t think of myself as overly verbal back then. But now I wonder — when did I become so…chatty?

Chatty is a relative word. Those of us old enough can remember the “Chatty Cathy” doll. Pull her string and she’d say a half dozen things. What a novel idea at the time. For those of you a bit younger, this phenomenon was a highlight in Steve Martin’s tirade in Planes, Trains and Automobiles: “It’s like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn’t pull it out and snap it back – you would. Gnah..gnah…” Well, I’m beginning to think I’m that doll — and I’m the one pulling the string.

These last few years I think I’ve carried the chatty thing a bit too far. One question and everybody knows what I had for dinner last night, why I think my cousin’s child is out of control, the cramps I had this morning, and how much my dentist charged for root canal. I spill my son’s secrets to his wife, and tell my customers not to buy today for it goes on sale tomorrow. What is wrong with me? Since when have I become this effervescent fount of non-interesting information? I find I want to respond to everything. I have an answer for everything. Whether or not it’s informed. I find I have little patience for opinions other than mine, and need to comment on every and all things that come my way. I try and keep my mouth shut most of the time, but believe me, sometimes it’s a struggle.

I wonder if it’s that old person syndrome. You know ― the older you get, the less you care about what others think. That seemed like such a cliché when I was younger. All those old fogies saying what they want to, not caring if they offend this person or that. Most over 70 were a little crotchety and unreasonable, but hey, maybe they just weren’t thinking straight. Pre-Alzheimer’s and such.

As I got older I started to get where they were coming from. Now that I’m teasing the 60 mark, I’m finding those outspoken 70-year-olds weren’t so far off the mark after all. Having spent a lifetime trying to get my thoughts and opinions across to others, I can see why caution is thrown to the wind and oldies say just what they think. I’ve been questioned and second-guessed more times than you can count; I’ve been unsure of my choices and bothered by the choices of others. I sometimes wonder if I should have turned right instead of left, if I would have made a difference, if I should have said something back then.

And I have gotten to the point where I’m tired of not being listened to.

I’m not saying that my opinion is any better than anyone else’s. We know the world by what we’ve experienced. I have kept my thoughts and opinions respectful and private. But in suppressing the nonsense that runs constantly through my head, I find myself talking and sharing more than when I was 20. It’s like the filter is broken. And I wonder — is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Through this need to reveal more than the neighborhood stripper, I find myself volunteering information that no one is interested in. Well, maybe they are, but in a superficial sort of way. I think we all do that — we listen to others babble their life stories, their grocery store nightmares, their crazy family history or their list of illnesses. We listen because we really do care. Not that we can do anything about their stories, but because we know that sometimes others just need someone to listen.

Often the babble that comes out of other mouths has nothing to do with what’s really going on inside. Maybe the storyteller suffers from insecurities, or illness, or loneliness. Maybe sharing the story of their kid’s accomplishments is a way to assure them that they did a good job as a mother or father. Maybe all they want is to be noticed. To be cared about. To be liked.

Many things fuel our chatter — or lack of. Where we’ve come from is not nearly as important as where we are headed. If chit chatting about great recipes or the knucklehead in the cubicle down the hall gives us a little clearer sense of self, I’m all for it. We all need to get the chit out of our heads so we can think clearer and feel stronger. And as long as the chat is not destructive, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of babble at the bubbler.

Alas, sometimes I think my only solution is to wire my jaws shut.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Atmosphere, Art and the Biltmore — Part 3

August 14, 2016October 15, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

George Vanderbilt’s 250-room French Renaissance chateau is a true marvel, the largest undertaking in residential architecture. Over a six-year period, an entire community of craftsmen came together to create America’s premier home and the environmental wonderland that surrounded it.

…original art by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and John Singer Sargent..magnificent 16th century tapestries, a Library with 10,000 volumes, a Banquet Hall with a 70-foot ceiling, 35 bedrooms, an indoor pool, and a bowling alley. Almost all of the priceless objects that you see throughout the house are from George and Edith Vanderbilt’s original collection. ~~ Biltmore Estate History

Can you imagine a world where you could wander room to room and constantly be dazzled by antique furniture, paintings, tapestries, crystal, and more?

Can you imagine a world where servants attend your every need?

Flowers burgeoning from every garden, fires crackling from 65 different fireplaces, and lavish dinners on the Vanderbilts’ burgundy-and-gold-bordered china made in England by Minton and Spode Copeland, silver flatware featuring an engraved Old English pattern from Frances Higgins, London, 1894, and delicate, feather-light crystal from Baccarat. (~~A Very Biltmore Thanksgiving).

It was a different time, a different world, far removed from the air and light we breathe today.

Everyone should visit a castle once in their lifetime.

We may not want to live there, but we can, for a brief moment, experience the opulance of days gone by.

Read all about the Biltmore Estate at http://www.biltmore.com/

Atmosphere, Art, and the Biltmore — Part 2

August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Art

Who doesn’t enjoy looking at the world through others eyes?

Who doesn’t have a painting of flowers or a scenery print or a portrait hanging on their wall?

Who hasn’t collected a glass vase or pottery mug or bronze sun to hang on their porch?

Art is created in a broad stroke with largest paint brush imagineable. It’s the appreciation of another’s work enough to research it, talk about it, collect it, share it. It depends on one’s perspective of life. One sees a sea of flowers; another a gateway of pain. One sees squiggles; another, divinity.

It’s all relative — it’s all Art.

Don’t compare what you see in an artist’s dream with what others see. If you’d like, read the artist’s explanation, then feel it, interpret it as you will. As with many other virtues, Art is an ideal all men strive for but often misunderstand. It is an expression of you but a reflection of others.

Some incredible interpretations found on my journey through North Carolina:

Next: the Biltmore

Atmosphere, Art, and the Biltmore — Part 1

August 10, 2016August 11, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Atmosphere

A whirlwind weekend brings out all sorts of thoughts and emotions. Especially when you spend the special moments with people you really enjoy. Kids, mates, friends, cousins — all can bring a sense of magic and wonder to your life every time you turn around.

Spending a weekend in Ashville, North Carolina, was one of those times. It was a little bit of freedom, a little bit of music, a little bit of adventure. Though we live hundreds of miles apart, my friend and I met to renew friendship, share burst balloons, and explore ways to move forward in the world and ways of Creativity.

Every region has its own traditions, its own style, its own way of doing things. Midwest Wisconsin is a lot different from Western North Carolina. Ashville is a decent size city nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. Heat, humidity, and lush greenery run rampant through the streets and countryside. The people are gracious, drive like maniacs, and wonderfully creative.

The streets were filled with art galleries, outdoor eateries, and pubs full of music. Friday night the air was warm and humid and the streets full of artists strutting their goods. A bare-chested bearded dude with a pink rabbit hat walked his dog passed a girl painting henna hands and a poet who wrote you a personal poem for a small donation. Musicians of all colors and sizes hung out on street corners and in front of bistros, playing guitars, flutes, and violins. Trios one corner, a girl singing with a guitar across the street, all sharing their talent and the night.

Breweries offered their specialized creations while fruit bars mingled with marvelously unique chocolate shops. Tiny Christmas lights hung over outdoor eating spaces, Italian specialities competing with tapas and Oriental sesame noodles. Young and old strolled up and down the main street, skinny girls with striped faerie leggings walking with women in sun dresses and guys in properly preppy shirts. It was a cornicopia of life and laughs and conversation and music. Something my little Wisconsin town doesn’t offer.

Art galleries flourished on main streets and side streets. Most were closed by the time I wandered past their windows, but the ones who were open boasted Dichroic glass sculptures and abstract printmaking. Some mediums I had never seen before. Offbeat novelty shops brought back memories of the 60s, selling incense and scented soaps, colorfully graphic socks, sassy self-awareness books, unicorn candle holders, and violet gum.

The Village Art & Craft Fair was a marvelous beehive of amazing art and artists. Just like art fairs across the country, the hard work and inspiration of craftsmen left me breathless. I didn’t always understand the method or their behind-the-scenes inspiration, but I did understand the end result of jewelry, mosaic tile shoes, pottery, tables, hand-blown glass balls filled with feathers, and dark ceramic clay sculptures. A lot of artists were local; others returned year after year to showcase their latest wares.

Finalizing my journey at the immortal Biltmore Estate, my whole world of art and architecture and photography and history exploded into one cosmic experience. I was actually able to be in the “now” each and every day. And the “now” was cool, fun, and satisfying.

Creativity is universal. It is the expression of our heart’s deepest secrets, our imagination’s fondest dreams. I really believe that once you open that door new worlds present themselves all the time. Like a symphony, moods and memories are created by each special note you experience.

Find a way to experience it.

NEXT: Art

Off To See the Wizard (of Biltmore)

August 3, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

Sagittarius personality traits

Sagittarius is a fun and exciting sign. The explorer and philosopher of the zodiac, they are typically interested in new experiences, new knowledge and new places.

As it is written, so it shall be.

This weekend I am taking an adventure I’ve not taken before. I am meeting my creative, crazy fun friend in the artsy city of Asheville, North Carolina — home of the Biltmore Estate.

No husband. No kids. No grandkids. No dogs. No cats. Just temporarily, you know.

Already I’m happy.

It has taken me 63 years to be able to go off and take a trip through the creative world with my bestie by my side. I can finally submerge myself in art of all kinds — painting, sculpture, jewelry, textiles. Something my hubby could not (in truthful conscience) enjoy.

It has taken me 63 years to get to this wide-eyed amazement point in my life. 40 years ago I was working downtown Chicago, too busy trying to make my way in the business world. 30 years ago I was busy being a newlywed and first-time mom, losing my downtown job and looking for a part-time one so I could be home with my son. 20 years ago I was busing being a full-time mom, trying to my hand at running a B&B while being a full-time soccer mom and baseball mom. 10 years ago I was busy working full-time again, trying to run from bankruptcy and dealing with one son’s college years and the other son’s high school years.

There wasn’t time for unique art galleries or writing blogs or going to live concerts. Guess I was just busy living.

But now the kids are working and raising their own kids and bankruptcy is nothing more than a bad dream as is the B&B experiment. Now is the time for me to reconnect to who I’ve always been. I’ve always been a painter, a writer, a stenciller. I have always had a love affair with the creative side of the world. From faeries to role-playing, from making my own jewelery to writing poetry. I’ve stuffed it into pockets of time and under the leaves on the wooded paths I’ve walked and in the drawers of dressing tables.

Now it’s my turn to play.

Now I get to discover and explore and dream and live the Bohemian life of an artist with someone who is as Bohemian as I am.

If only for 4 days.

I get to meet all kinds of people, people who heard the calling of the Art Muse and did something about it. I don’t need to live the dream to be a part of it.

If only for 4 days.

Make a point to take a side trip out of your reality too, now and then. It’s good for the soul. It’s good for the heart. It’s good for manifesting your creative future.

And it’s damn good for your friendship, too.

Practicing this exercise will make you more confident in your creative work

August 1, 2016August 1, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

If you have a few spare minutes, come read Maja’s post…get your confidence back and keep it running. We are all artists!

Business in Rhyme

Most of the confidence we develop throughout the years stem from our past experiences – predominantly on how other people perceived us and our work. Not gaining enough recognition, pile of rejection letters and even just a random bad comment can blow away all our creative self-esteem – that many people stop creating all together. Paying too much attention on other people opinions can instill fear that paralyzes not only our creative outlets but practically our complete approach to life. That kind of attitude leads to isolation, avoidance of trying new things and not sharing our accomplishments with the world.

The good news is that we have control of our feelings towards what creatively we can offer to the world.

When you get to the root of this problem, it’s all about belief and what we chose to believe. You can chose to believe that:

you are creative person,
your…

View original post 841 more words

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Karina Llergo

July 31, 2016September 22, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Karina Llergo works to find fresh ways to evoke energy through human motion by turning human figures into fluid art.

Dance, air and water are big influences her work.

According to Karina, “From dancers I take the beautiful mobility of their bodies, from air, its provoking rhythmic motion and from water, its captivating deconstructed reflections.”

“I know a piece is completed when I close my eyes and feel its rhythm of dance, water and air singing in harmony.”

As a lifelong dancer, competitive swimmer and avid skydiver, she found herself drawn to depicting on canvas the palpable energy of the human body in motion.

Of Mexican, Armenian and Spanish descent, Karina’s diverse background influences her life in every way, as does her insatiable passion for the creative arts.

More of Karina Llergo‘s gorgeous artwork can be found at her website http://karinallergosalto.com/

You can also find Karina on Facebook www.facebook.com/KarinaLlergoSalto and

Instagram instagram.com/karinallergosalto#

Side Trip — Gwennie’s World

July 28, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

Sometimes you find a blog that says more with pictures than with dialogue. This is what I find with my Belgium friend Rita, aka Gwennie.

I tend to shy away from commenting on photography blogs, because with today’s equipment the most fantastic images can be found all over the Internet, and I am in awe of it all.

I take a personal interest in Gwennie’s World (https://gwenniesworld.wordpress.com/) and her former blog Gwennie’s Garden (https://gwenniesgarden.wordpress.com/) because her photos are so up close and personal. I have tried flower photography myself, but since my only weapon is a cellphone, they pale in comparison.

Maybe it’s because I’m all thumbs at gardening, or that she lives in the North of Belgium at the border with the Netherlands, but I have never seen such gorgeous pictures of plants. Whether from a flower show or her own garden, Rita has a knack for catching the details of the simplest — and most unique — plants.

I really want you to take time and drop over to her blog, Gwennies World, and see her magic for yourself. Here are some images to get you going:

Gwenniesworld

https://gwenniesworld.wordpress.com/

Gwennies Garden

(https://gwenniesgarden.wordpress.com/)

Thanks for joining me on this fun Side Trip! See you Soon!

Behind the Internet Mask Part II

July 26, 2016July 27, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Rarely do I delete posts.

I mean, they are who I am.

But I tire of whiney warnings and

bleak blabber.

So this particular blog has been unplugged.

Replaced by my favorite guy

Emmett!

Yours Truly,

The Unicorn

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Leonid Afremov

July 24, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. ~~ Pablo Picasso

Leonid Afremov (born July 12, 1955 in Vitebsk, Belarus) is a Russian–Israeli modern impressionistic artist who works mainly with a palette knife and oils.

Afremov likes to view his artwork as politically neutral — no hidden messages, no alternate agenda.

He tries to draw the viewer towards certain feelings rather than telling a story through his work.

While Afremov’s early works are influenced by the masterpieces of older painters, his artwork is very unique and recognizable.

The artist invites us to experience the world of simple beauty which constantly surrounds us.

Leonid’s art easily transports you to other worlds, other times, other ways of thinking and feeling.

And, after all, isn’t that the purpose of Art?

Leonid Afremov’s artwork can be viewed and purchased at https://afremov.com/. You can also follow Leonid and his artwork on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/leonidafremovofficialpage and at Twitter at https://twitter.com/AfremovArt.

Fuzz Brain

July 18, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Do you ever have days where you feel…fuzzy?

Not cuddle fuzzy, not peach navel fuzzy, but cotton-candy-in-the-head fuzzy.

I suppose it’s best to count out major contributors, or at least fit them into the symphony’s score. Medication. check. A little, not much. Sleep. A little, not much. Stress. Much, not a little. Sugar. Cut way back. Alcohol. None. Smoking. Never. Other recreants. Not for 40 years. Blood Pressure. Surprisingly normal. Blood Sugar. Low as well. Cholesterol. Working on it.

So all second tier maladies accounted for. First tier…cancer, leukemia, dementia. All being watched.

So why the fuzzies?

I used to think that when I couldn’t quite focus it was because messages and stories were coming through from astral places. Not like direct alien vibrations, but, you know — inspiration from beyond. No matter what your belief system, there’s always someone from the beyond sending you positive vibes –Grandma, Jesus, Shakespeare. You can’t rationalize it — it just is.

So when the fuzzies used to come I had a hard time focusing on anything constructive. Like work. Or responsibilities. It’s like the fuzzies opened a hole to another dimension. One where logic is more like paper chains hung in the trees…pretty, but not practical.

It’s hard to think when your mind is full of cotton candy. You look one direction…it’s niiice. You turn around…it’s niiice. You look up in the sky, it’s…well, you get it. It’s like being high without drugs, religion, or the Patronus Charm.

During these lost and found fuzzies inspiration is there for the taking. If you have the energy to take it. What I mean by that is that there are no rules in the fuzzies. Every design, every plot, every daydream has merit. Fireflies become faeries. High school teachers become drug dealers. The rosey pink of sunset becomes the daytime sky of an alien world.

I’ m not saying you can create the next Rembrandt masterpiece or write the Great American Novel while fuzzy. But when inspiration eludes you, there can be redemption in the clouds.

For example.

Tonight I was in the funky fuzzies. Spent 2 hours going through the same 6 folders looking for a piece of paper I knew I’d seen in one of them earlier this evening. I mean this is a big duh. How can you not find what you just saw? Fuzzies. After hours of curling one piece of paper after the other, I finally found what I was looking for in the folder with the receipts jammed into it.

So crabby as well as fuzzy, I posted such on Facebook. As I perused the mental states of all my friends, I came across a post about gorgeous blingy gladiator up-the-calf sparkle shoes. And I thought…Sunday Evening Art Blog! How cosmic was that?

Of course, cosmic can always be equated with chance, luck, calculation, physics, or a dozen other flow charts. The point is that even when you are wandering through the Cotton Candy Fuzzies you can get input for your creativity. Just pay attention. Know inspiration can drop in at any time and be ready to take note. Write it down, bookmark it, write it on your arm in eye liner. Just keep the message and come back when the fog has lifted.

The test, of course, is not to bring the Fuzzies into work tomorrow. If I’m not careful my whimsical nothingness will get lost in the stacks of data I’ve yet to enter.

Talk about the bottomless well…

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Face Off

July 17, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Face Off is a competition/elimination series in which special effects make-up artists participate in elaborate challenges for a grand prize and the honor of being Hollywood’s next great effects artist.

I know that the premise is television based, but the fascinating art that comes from amateur artists transcends the medium.

Each week, the artists create monsters, aliens, goddesses, and other imaginary characters, and come up with strange and often nightmarish creations.

If you can get past the bizzarre end product of the art, take a closer look at the talent it takes to create beauties and monstrosities.

Like an art show competition, artists compete not only with each other but with their own creativity.

Everyone has the same tools, the same timeline, yet they must come up with a design that has never been seen before.

As writers and painters take images from the mind and bring them into the second dimension, prosthetic artists must bring that same vision into the third dimension, giving it depth, weight, and height.

There are no computer generated effects here — only pure, hard work, deft fingers, and the drive to create something magnificent.

Face Off is can be found on the SciFi Channel and at their website, http://www.syfy.com/faceoff.

Wearing Purple

July 16, 2016July 17, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

I feel like I was shopping drunk yesterday evening. Of course, I did go out to dinner first, but I don’t believe either the walleye or the potato pancake contained any alcohol. Nor the McDonald’s ice cream cone.

But I digress.

In a couple of weeks I’m going to meet my bestie in Ashville, North Carolina, and hit the Art Scene like a internet data conversion analyst specialist online art director writer. I was in need of a few new artsy outfits to fit in with my fellow abstractionists and surrealists, so I made a pit stop at the most fashionable store around — Walmart.

Now, I’m sure you have seen those pictures on the Internet of Walmart “shoppers”…the images that show off the uniqueness of the characters and their wardrobes. Well, walking out of of the store a half hour later, I am afraid I will be added to their hidden camera library.

First off, I bought a pair of capris. No problem. Except they’re purple. Which is to match the purple and teal print open style Kimono shawl. Which matches the teal peasant top.

What was I thinking?

Every early winter I write a blog about what women over 50 shouldn’t wear. Fuzzy purple leggings always leads the list. Now I’m afraid purple capris will be second. I am running parallel with all the advice I so willingly gave about dressing your age.

Now, the fuzzy purple leggings I’ve been exposed to and write about are a long way from the royal purple cotton capris that are peeking out of my Walmart bag. The fuzzy leggings are usually wrapped around legs that are too big to wear something that tight, and don’t have the advantage of a long tunic to hide additional large body parts. The purple cotton mid-calf pants hang loosely on my chicken legs, and the teal peasant blouse with the same undercurrent of blues will hang down far enough to semi-cover my estomac and derrière. (Sounds less offensive when spoken in French, no?) Then comes the flowery sheer scarf that set this whole wardrobe malfunction into motion. It’s really a pretty shawl thing…it’s sheer and light and one of those patterned things that chubby women shouldn’t wear.

Since I am in this wardrobe for the long hall, I don’t see myself as a chubby old lady in purple capris, but rather a tall, willowy creative artist with a thing for fashion. Since I don’t have to look at myself in the mirror too often, I can picture myself however I wish. When the breeze blows the kimono scarf around my body I can turn into the sultry maiden looking across the moors for her lost lover, or the skeleton thin strutter down the fashion runway. I can be the trendsetting Zelda Fitzgerald or the fashion pioneer Elsa Schiaparelli.

I can also be the poster woman for weird, over-colored, middle aged+ women. Pathetic, insecure, never quite fitting in, never really confident, drawing too much attention to herself wearing bright prints and too-bold colors.

But not today. Or tomorrow.

I’ll let you know how the outfit turns out in the light of day. After a good night’s sleep. And a shower. And some body spray. And a touch of makeup.

Oh my goodness — I just thought — is this totally unexpected phase reflective of the first few lines of Jenny Joseph’s poem….?

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!

Chinese Magic

July 12, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

I have a confession to make.

Sometimes in the evening, all by myself except the dogs and cats, doing a little research (not real writing), I’ve found myself checking into Netflix for background entertainment. Not so bad, really…

Except I’ve been watching these really strange, weird, truly localized movies from China and Japan. Period pieces especially, but fantasy ones too. Mojin: The Lost Legend. Journey to the West: The Legend of the Monkey King. Fearless. Seven Samarai.

And I have to tell you, it’s strange fun.

As one might expect, although there are universal themes that run through every movie, every culture has its own take on how to present those themes. Chinese and Japanese cinematography is every bit as amazing and imaginative as its partners in other countries. There may be a bit more martial arts (at least there are in the movies I’ve chosen), and their approach to the walking dead and magic and monsters is unique to their audience. The music might sometimes be off (Jazz in Mojin?), but that might be to contrast modernism with ancient worlds. They do a lot of swearing in these movies, too, but since I don’t understand a word of it, I’m not offended.

There is something wonderfully mysterious about ancient Chinese and Japanese culture. To many who are born and raised in the United States in general and the Midwest in particular, these countries are as far away as the Andromeda Galaxy. The language, the traditions, are so different that you can’t help but be wrapped up in their heady perfume. Even if the genres are fantasy, you can learn a lot about a culture from the way they interact with each other. The things they say. The things they don’t say.

I am finding this true in art, too. I feel like I’ve lived so long with blinders on that I never knew there was art outside of Monet and Renoir. That a painting, a sculpture, a movie, can speak thousands of words about a person’s heritage, beliefs, and history. That the art of the Netherlands is just as mysterious and beautiful as that of Harlem. That there is a place in history for shoguns as well as scullions.

And all the fields of Creativity are speaking to us.

Of course, the main reason I don’t get much writing done is that I have to read the subtitles on the screen. (That’s how I know about the swearing.) And you really have to concentrate, because each movie has different inferences. Like the one I just watched was big into Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The one the other night was big into Buddha. And Fearless was about the founder and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation. Important conversations and innuendoes that you would miss if you were merely listening to the movie while, say, doing the dishes.

The Han Dynasty. The 18th Dynasty of Tutankhamun. The Age of the Vikings from 8th century to mid 11th century A.D. The Middle Ages. Genghis Khan, Emperor of the Mongol Empire in 1206. Worlds we can only imagine. Worlds only writers and historians can imagine. I just can’t resist books and documentaries and movies that put only a toe into those oceans of the past. Time travel of the most extraordinary kind.

Maybe that’s why these exotic Chinese movies interest me so much. Even if made in modern times, they reflect ancient traditions. Ancient worlds. Places I will never experience except in my mind.

But Ho! I’ve learned something too — who knew they had the same swear words in Ancient China as they do today?

Moments of Reflection

July 9, 2016July 10, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

There’s a lot going on these days…a lot of bad things, sad things. So many of my fellow bloggers have covered this topic much better than I could. I am sad, because as of late I’ve seen the American flag flown at half mast more than at full. What does this say about the state of the country? Of the neighborhood?

I’d like to share two different blogs sharing the same world. Two different styles, one same idea.

If you get a chance follow the links and take a look at the world in two different ways. After all…it’s all the same in the end.

First is by my friend David Kanigan.

Running. With Blood.

………My Goal: Exceed the 5.38 mile distance in March or run to the Sunrise, whichever comes first.

It’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to run. Right. A nerve in the upper left shoulder blade pinches. And this slides down to the lower right back achieving beautiful pain symmetry. Sedentary Suit on the move. Jesus.

Both groins groan. The pads of the feet cry No! with each footfall. I’m breathing heavy, and this is downhill 0.2 miles in. Jesus Saves.

Running in twilight. Red shoes. Red shorts. Red Shirt. Blood Man. Heart over-pumping, lungs heaving but at least I’m lookin’ fine.

1 mile mark.

Cemetery.

Then, Darien City Police Station.

Baton Rouge. I’m on my back. The bone of his knee is crushing my rib cage. His pistol is in my face. I need air. I can’t breathe…

1.5 mile mark.

Church.

Charleston. My eyes pan across the wafer thin page of the Bible – I’m lip synching the reading of the prayer. I hear gunfire. In a split second, the full weight of the explosion lands, shrapnel shreds my chest. Astonished, I fall forward in the pew looking up at Jesus on the cross……

And then another from my friend Austin Hodgens.

Peace and Love, My Fellow Earthlings

My Fellow Earthlings,

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the state of our planet, and remind you of one simple thing…

No matter where you’re from, the color of your skin, your religious beliefs, your sexual orientation, your political affiliation, or your financial situation, you will always be an Earthling.

I’ve never understood why we don’t think of ourselves as such. After all, calling this planet home is the one thing that unites us.

My name is Austin, and I’m an Earthling.

Try it. Listen to how it rolls off your tongue……

Tuesday-Not-Sunday-Evening Art-Gallery-Humor-Blog

July 5, 2016July 22, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure you’ve seen these posts on Facebook that show a wonderfully huge mansion in the woods/on the water/at the edge of the mountains, and the post says, “If you could live without WiFi and a phone and TV, etc., would you live here?”

Having spent the last five days up Nort’ , I think I can answer a solid “No.”

It wasn’t a mansion; it was a little house we call “The Cabin.” No TV, no Dish/Direct TV, no WiFi, just a DVD/8 Track Player and a radio. For getaway purposes it was ideal. But the times I tried to go online to do some Art Gallering, the signal from my phone was 烂摊子. A mess. So my wildly popular (I love adding my own adjectives) Sunday Evening Art Gallery had to take a Sunday night break.

I also wanted to spend some free time looking for unique artists, following a few leads from friends and followers (I’m always open for suggestions!). Grandkids were out playing, men fishing, cool breeze in the window, quiet except for the sounds of nature, it was a perfect Art Moment.

Yet I could not load any page other than the main one I landed on. No pictures, no links. And I felt like those people who can’t go to the bathroom without their cell phone. I felt helpless. And more than that — pathetic.

During this contemplation time I had a few revelations, too. I think we all get messages from the beyond…all get an idea which direction we should go. But we don’t listen. We — our ego — knows better. So we butt our heads against the wall and keep trying to recast the same pot.

What works for you? What feels right? What feels out-of-sorts? Are you happy with your blog? Are you happy with your craft? Would you sometimes rather do B than A? K rather than E?

I have found a new love affair with Unique Art. There are so many wonderful, unique, unusual artists sharing their work with the world that I’ve never heard of, never seen, never imagined until these past few years. And the thrill I get out of sharing them with you is the same thrill I get when I’ve written something good.

I can feel that same energy when I talk with people who are hooked into some sort of creativity. Their eyes glow, their breath shortens, and their dreams spill out through their words.

I want you to have that glow, too. I want you to sparkle like the fireworks on the 4th of July every time you think of your craft. You will crash and burn and agonize and think and dance and fly. But you will grow and learn and sparkle, too.

I suppose I will wait to introduce a new artist to the Sunday Evening Art Gallery. No need to rush amazement, is there? But because I can’t go long without sharing some kind of art, I will publish a new Gallery.

Don’t go too long without doing your creative thing, too!

Happy Social Media Day!

June 30, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Today is one of the most important, fun, overwhelming, nonsensical days around — Social Media Day!

Who doesn’t use social media these days? I mean, even my hubby uses texts and email (the rest take too much time to learn).

Mashable launched Social Media Day in 2010 as a way to recognize and celebrate social media’s impact on global communication. While every day is essentially Social Media Day, June 30th, 2016 marks the seventh-annual official global celebration.

Social media is our adversary and our savior.

At a glance we can see what’s going on with our friends and neighbors and Kanye. We can chat in places we can’t talk (bathroom, anyone?), sign documents and send them without touching paper, give and take advice for free, and learn the latest dance moves and how to make quinoa, all without leaving the confines of our comfy chair.

Of course, the B side of all this is TMI. We can find out what starlet is not wearing underwear, our friend’s political slant, and who got busted and/or jailed and/or wound up in the hospital.

It’s an ugly world sometimes, and social media can make it better or worse.

There’s nothing better than an inspirational ditty that shows up on your Facebook or Twitter account. They kinda catch you off guard and hook ya into believing in the world and yourself. But there’s also a dark side to instant messages. Bullying, suicides, rants, nude pics, dope deals, all can make a bad situation worse. Sometimes it’s hard to filter out the bad to sift out the good.

So you’ve got to take a stand and clean your mind and the clutter that comes your way. There will always be some one — or some thing — you don’t agree with. Big deal. Let it pass. Tweet your tweet, post your post, Pinterest your Interest and move on.

Be nice on Social Media Day. And Every Day your words are dancing across the air. There are a lot more important things in the world than number of tweets and pings and stats and all that goes with the monster called Social Media. Like reading my blog! Like writing YOUR blog! Like tweeting “I love you” to a family member. Like sending a joke to someone who can’t get around.

Have fun! For what better way to announce the good things in your life than on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, WordPress, Google, yadda yadda yadda….?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Trees Risk it All

June 29, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

A lovely metaphor for all the beauty in the world … everything we want to be…Enjoy…

Friendly Fairy Tales

How do trees feel
in the moment
they flower?

View original post 90 more words

Last Cave on the Left

June 28, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Now that the kids and grandkids have moved out and into their own beautiful house, the hubby and I have decided it’s time to remodel/redecorate. Two different words, two different meanings, two different opinions.

We now have two empty bedrooms upstairs where my boys used to live. Actually one lived upstairs, one downstairs. But I drift. I turned the second upstairs bedroom into a library. It was sweet. Large window that looked out over the yard and towards the woods, oak shelves, books galore, art, kids artwork, pictures in antique frames. Stenciling on the upper wall, closet doors removed and closet tured into a computer nook.

It was awesome.

The library was turned into my grandkids’ room while they lived here. Now the room is available again. Yet hubby says this time, no library. The rooms are going to become bedrooms for our wonderful, energetic, perfect grandkids when they come to visit. I can still have a library, but it will be downstairs in the far corner bedroom.

I might as well be arranging my library in Siberia.

I took a picture this evening of my messed up downstairs, which is in the process of being rearranged, decluttered, and we-don’t-know-yet. And way in the corner is the library-to-be. The window is actually a window well, the fuse box is behind the closet door, we don’t have a real ceiling (although I’ve been promised that I will get one), and it’s the farthest point in the house from the bathroom. Ever see Last House on the Left?

I suppose in some ways it’s an ideal writing arena. Far away from confusion and noise, a haven for privacy, an off-the-way place to get absorbed in my books and writing. I can fill the room with my shelves, books, art, kids art, a writing table and/or comfy sofa and/or oversized chair, some great indirect lighting, and maybe a faux bearskin rug on the floor.

The problem is that I’m an unconventional writer. Predictable, but unconventional.

Most time I’m sitting on my sofa with my laptop, looking out the window, listening to music, sometimes a boring movie in the background, often in silence, the frig, bathroom, and food pantry within a few steps. From this vantage point I can keep an eye on the dogs (one who dives into the cat food dish for a quick snack, the other who knows how to twirl the corner kitchen cabinet and eat the bread), change the laundry, water the plants, make chocolate milk, and stack my research books on the other end of the sofa along with my phone, TV flipper, and two cats.

You might think that sounds like I’m not a serious writer.

Au contraire.

No one loves writing more than me. No one wants to touch the minds and souls and funny bone of others more than me. And no one wants to succeed more than me.

I think it’s just that my adult-onset A.D.D. doesn’t allow for sitting still for too long a period of time. My job during the day is hard enough, because I work on a computer all day. So at night, multi-tasking is the only way I get anything done.

The truth of the matter is I didn’t use the fancy schmancy library like a library should have been used. Sometimes I’d just go and sit in there, run my fingers along the books, polish the glass and the photos and the little doodads my kids made for me. I’d sit on the floor and go through my high school year books or pictures in albums or coffee table sized books on faeries or dragons. The soft light from the big window turned the room into a slightly peach fuzz, along with my dreams.

But it was never a writer’s room.

I know I will be able to add my magic to the dungeon downstairs — a couple of great lamps, a comfy settee, lots of bookshelves and some new art I’ll have to paint and an old area rug that’s seen better days. I will still sit down there and go through my high school year books and pictures of the B&B I used to own and read the books my kids wrote when they were in 1st grade and the library will come alive again.

But I will still sit on my sofa and do my most favorite thing.

Write.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Stained Glass

June 26, 2016August 3, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

“…I’m innocent still — inside me are stained glass windows that have never been broken — and when I see your light it stains my soul with color …”

John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

Reflections on the Beach

June 24, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Perspective. It’s what makes all the difference in life, doesn’t it?

Looking up through the trees at the sky looks different than looking across the trees at the sky. Glasses half empty or half full. All that falderal.

Like life at the beach.

This afternoon I was sitting at a picnic table at a small beach at a small lake in a small town. I’d finished my part of the water ballet, letting my grandson and his grandpa finish the ballet water-splash style.

The world went on as it always has…it’s just that this time I was sitting on the other side of the table. Watching the world as an observer instead of a participant.

It’s pretty busy for a small beach. Little kids manage to hit the excited scream level a lot of the time – whether it was laughing, fighting with siblings, or crying. I wonder if the sound bounces off the water a lot harder these days.

Women chat while their kids jump off the pier. Cathy was still going out with the louse from the next town, Handy’s had the best fish fry this side of the Mississippi. Jim was always working overtime and spending his spare hours at the golf course, and Neighbor Grocery’s produce had gone down in quality the last few years. I myself have always loved the ebb and flow of people talking when they don’t think others are listening. Voices always float through the air, bits and pieces getting caught in the sack chair or wrapped around the picnic bench so that all you catch is a sentence’s jagged inference. Maybe the louse from the next town is a dentist, maybe he’s a mechanic. All that could be grasped was the audacity of the woman sharing her thoughts.

Love games still abound at the beach, too. The cute little high schooler, long legs, short shorts, long dark hair wrapping around her shoulders; and the tall, lanky guy, not really a jock but not bad looking. She sways back and forth, hands behind her back, playing the coy card. He leans forward, saying something a little risque, and they both laugh, she turning slightly away. He threatens to throw her in the water; she squeals “no no!” in her loveliest girly voice. He grabs her towel (or hat or sunscreen), hides it behind his back, and she giggles, trying to get it back from him.

A lovely Lolita-ish girl walks down the pier, her tanned body barely covered by her flowered bikini. A young thing, maybe late high school, maybe a tad older, walking down to the end of the pier, blonde hair blazing in the sun, where she stops, and I imagine, sighs dramatically. There’s no sunset to dream upon yet; no cat calls from the audience, no college scholarship with her name on it. But there’s something sexy and dramatic about the sad, curvy side of youth.

Kids are always kids. One skinny 5-year-old desperately tries to gain the attention of two older 8-year-old girls, his arms flaying in the air, his swim goggles making him look like Rocky the Flying Squirrel. My insecurities make me uncomfortable. He doesn’t feel anything of the kind. He drifts off to look for fish in the shallow water, the girls never knowing he was there.

Three boys, all but four years old, compete with each other as Superman jumping off the deck into the shallow water. Bigger boys come by and laugh, some jump in and splash the little ones aside, making waves, being even cooler than the little kids. The little kids are too young to care; the middle schoolers get an ego boost by bullying those half their age.

It’s a cornucopia at this little beach on this little lake in this little town. I fancy nothing has changed in all the years moms have been bringing their kids to swim and high schoolers have come to make out and flirt and make plans for Saturday night. Not even me.

I still think of the time I never spent at the beach, never flirting with the kinda cute guy on the pier, never dreaming dreams only cute girls can dream.

Finding Dorothy’s Shoes

June 20, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

I absolutely love when comments on one blog flow into thoughts and inspiration on another. That’s why I love following the writers I do.

In her blog, A Journey Called Life, (https://architar.wordpress.com), my friend Archita wrote a story called “A note from the evening” (https://architar.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/a-note-from-the-evening/). It is a first-person narrative to someone — a friend, it seems — to that friend’s ego. To that friend’s mind. It has to be to their unconscious mind, for the conscious mind was not listening.

Her short tale explains all the motions and routines the narrator will do for the friend who never stops complaining. For the complaining is nothing new. The friend cannot see past her stubbornness to change her direction in life; the friend who insists the narrator has the banquet and the friend barely the leftovers.

It made me think and then think again. First I wondered if the friend was (figuartively) me…me in other situations. We all have the tendency to whine — life is never the bed of roses we dream of. But I hoped — still hope — that I have found a way out of that tedious state of blaming the world for some of my own bad decisions.

The more I thought, the more I realized that I have friends like that, too. I think we all do. People who just can’t get out of the whirlpool. People who don’t really want to get out of the whirlpool. That it’s easier to complain and point fingers than to do something about the situation.

Many situations are hard. There is no denying this. Life is hard. But life is also good. There is proof of that all around us.

You will continue your story- about children, about how busy you really are, about how you never had any help, about how only death can bring you your peace. Then you will ask me if I watched your favorite show on TV.

I often wonder how people get out of the whirlpools they swim in. It takes determination. It takes work. My dad and father-in-law both gave up smoking after 50 years of two packs a day. That wasn’t a walk through the roses, believe me. My friend is going back to school to get her childhood education degree, and she is in her mid-50s. Another friend has had multiple operations on knees and shoulders and had cancer in his pancreas and still manages to go camping with us a couple times a year.

Who is to decide what is too heavy a burden to bear? Who is to decide what is enough help?

Let me tell you, death looks terrible on poems. Death looks more terrible when it’s just news. Death never gives peace. Life is peace. In living, in grief, in celebrating, in friendships- you find what death lacks- a life.

Archita and I bantered back and forth in the comment section about when it’s time to listen, when it’s time to intervene, when it’s time to walk away. It’s not easy to know the difference between being a friend, a sounding board, and an enabler. From drinking to being unemployed to being divorced, the path out of the darkness isn’t an easy one to find. But I believe we all have that inner knowledge that lets us know where to draw the line between all of the above.

I suggested she suggest the magic release of Creativity to her friend. I know so many who have turned to the Arts to save their souls, to release their souls, to find their souls. That’s why I encourage it so much. It doesn’t matter if you crochet or make scrapbooks or write poetry. Your love for artistic freedom makes you better and better. A better artist, a better person, a better friend. Archita found her own soul again through creativity — she only hoped her friend could, too.

But that’s another story.

Do go and read Archita’s blog if you find time. You might find yourself in her shoes. Which, in the end, just might be Dorothy’s shoes.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Sue Benner

June 19, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

While pursuing a degree in molecular biology and masters in biomedical illustration, Sue Benner created her vision of the microscopic universe in painted and quilted textile constructions.

She creates her richly layered quilt canvases by collaging her dye-painted and printed silks with recycled textiles to form wonderful works of art.

Sue is a recognized innovator in her field, having developed new techniques in fused quilt construction to further the expression of her ideas.

According to Benner, “My love affair with fabric began with my first memories of the clothes my mother made me, recalling exact hue, fiber content, and weave. In the ensuing years, my mother taught me to sew, carefully and creatively. “

“I see a direct connection between the concept of quilt and the assembly of units to make a larger whole.”

“I revel in the simple act of placing one fabric next to another.”

More of Sue Benner’s fantastic creations can be found on her website http://www.suebenner.com/

Been Gif’n Again

June 14, 2016January 12, 2024 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

This is becoming a favorite part of my humorous, spirally blog.

Been shopping for gifs again.

What I’m going to do with all of them I still don’t know. But I have picked out some for your entertainment. Feel free to copy them, borrow them, share them, send them, write a story about them, talk about them, research them.

Or……just watch…

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Bořek Šípek

June 12, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Bořek Šípek (June 14, 1949 – February 13, 2016) was a Czech architect and designer.

After studying furniture design at the Art School in Prague, architecture at the Art School in Hamburg, and philosophy in Stuttgart, Šípek finished his doctorate in architecture.

He taught industrial design and architecture, then started his own studio for design and architecture in Amsterdam and Prague.

Bořek Šípek has always felt like an architect more than a designer.

Šípek explains, “I try to interpret new contexts in a new way. It is much closer to me to newly explain something that has roots than to experiment.”

His fantastic works can be found in important museums in Europe, Japan and America, among others.

Bořek Šípek is a master of glass, chandeliers, lamps, carafes, wall hangings, all manners of creative art.

But for this round, I treat you with his tables.

More of Bořek Šípek‘s beautiful work can be found at http://www.sipek.com and http://www.borek-sipek-design.com.

Slugs Gather Here

June 8, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

This evening I should have been editing my novel, tweeted about my latest Art Gallery post, done a little research, read some great blogs, and writtten a poem.

Instead, I spent this evening laying around like a slug, watching TV, washing a dish here or there, watering a wilty plant, and giving my dog an extra cookie or three.

Does this mean I’m not dedicated to my craft?

I know several people who signed up — and finished — the National Novel Writing Month challenge (NaNoWriMo) where they write a novel in one month. Others have done the National Poetry Writers Month (NaPoWriMo) where you write a poem a day for one month. I just saw someone on Twitter say they were digging in and writing 800 words — I don’t know if that was per day or per session. Another friend devotes at least an hour a day painting. Yet another schedules scrapbooking dates with daughters and friends. I know fellow bloggers that find time to sculpt and do wire works and probably take ballet lessons, too.

I am a failure.

Every morning I have the honor and pleasure to drive the back roads to work, my mind allowed to wander and plan all the fun writing and art gallery adventures that will take place once I get home. After packed days doing data on a computer, most of us come home with headaches and carpel tunnel, not inspiration. Add a dog yakking on the floor or a sink full of dishes, and all those dreams come crashing to the ground pretty darn fast.

Maybe I shouldn’t want a writing career so bad. Maybe I shouldn’t obsess about new twists to my blog or new artists for the Gallery or art fairs I’d like to wander through or jewelry I’d love to make or the tree branches I want to paint on three canvases for my bathroom or the beads I want to sew on the new top I got from Good Will.

Maybe I’m not a failure.

Maybe I’ve just got too much want.

Do you feel that way? You should. Are you a member of the 10/5 Sack Club? You know — trying to shove 10 pounds of stuff into a 5 lb. bag? Are you a lets-change-our-days-to-34-hours-instead-of-24-hours member?

How do you get it all done? Are you ever really satisfied with how much personal time you have?

Damn, it’s frustrating, isn’t it? All the stuff you want to do, all the stuff you plan on doing, dream of doing, and all you can muster is a slug on the rug routine.

I know it all will get done sooner than later. Between the grandkids, the maddening work load, between mowing the lawn and brushing my teeth.

I know my characters will wait — they’ve waited this long, fooling around in a parallel Etruscan time zone or in 1885 Clairmont or at a writer’s gathering on the shores of Lake Michigan. They know their stories are good, their purpose clear. The morals have already been written, the points made. The artists continue their unusual creations until I get them in the Sunday Evening Art Gallery, and the fairs and fests await my arrival.

Until then, there’s nothing wrong with a good ‘ol SlugFest now and then.

What Should I Wear?

June 6, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

First I wrote about it — Fashion Faux Pas (http://wp.me/p1pIBL-1kO) for those over 50. I was generous with age. This includes velvety purple leggings, pigtails, and chugga boots with short skirts.

Then someone else (obviously not far from 30) wrote 24 Things Women Should Stop Wearing After Age 30 (http://www.rantchic.com/2014/10/24/20-things-women-should-stop-wearing-after-age-30/). This one was a little hard on us middle-aged fashion statements. While I agreed with a few (sparkly pants, short dresses, booty shorts), I took offense at a few others (hoop earrings, cheap bras, old sneakers, scrungies), as that is still part of my wardrobe.

Then my great friend Jilly posted the latest take on middle-age dressing on Facebook: 24 Things Women Over 30 Should Wear https://warningcurvesahead.com/2016/06/04/24-things-women-over-30-should-wear/#comment-2898) and boy, does the blogger have it right. The pics say it all (along with a feisty refrain). Women of all ages should be able to wear whatever the $#&+ they want.

My wondering is — do you really wear what you want?

I enjoy fashion. I also like comfort. I figure somewhere there is a meeting of the two. Runway model I’m not. Curvy middle-aged babe — closer. But really I’m more like a pudgy granny with a love for bling. My heart says long skirts, wraps, hats, lots of bracelets…and my wardrobe says prints, black and navy pants, and plain shoes. I honestly think I’m afraid of being laughed at if I came to work with some of the outfits I deem cool. That at this point in my life everyone will think I’m one foot into dementia should I step out of dull.

Why do we let others dictate our sense of fashion? Our sense of art?

Some of my friends have been fashion freebirds forever. They wear whatever and look good in whatever. They have that fashion sense I seem to lack. You can dress up and dress wild and dress classy all at one time. Not me. It was only a few years ago I got that the navy in my shirt didn’t have to exactly match the navy in my pants.

I don’t think free flow fashion means letting go and looking like a clown. I know people who wear too-short tops with too-tight pants and their body is too-endowed to get away with either. But I’m not talking about bad choices. I’m talking about good choices that aren’t always in-the-box choices. Which, listening to myself, is probably true for most of us in most situations.

Peer pressure is hell. I would guess that a lot of my readers were made fun of some time in their life…from snickers to cooties, it hits us all. It is within these over-blown memories of days past that our sense of self arises. And often times who we want to be is never who we become.

I think it’s not so much dressing/being conservative vs. liberal. I think it’s more a reflection of how you feel about yourself deep down inside. If you’ve ever liked that person that hides in the closet. If you’ve ever given that person a chance.

I encourage all of you to take a peek at afore-mentioned 24 blog. Look into the eyes of the women who are dressed just how they want to be dressed. Ladies of all sizes. In all sorts of fashions. Feeling, being, who they are. Then find a way to be your own self. They are not, nor ever will be, you. Don’t let other people tell you what to wear and how to live.

Except for velvety purple leggings. Please — don’t wear velvety purple leggings.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Ear Jewelry

June 5, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

Spring Bling

Summer Fling

Need a New

Earring

Have some fun

With just one

Or a pair

Earrings

Show your ear

To those who hear

The song that says

I’m here

Spring Bling

Summer Fling

Need a New

Earring

Your Responses To How Much Is Your Writing Worth

June 3, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Happy Friday All!

This is the kind of blog that is reaffirming to creative people everywhere. Just replace “writing” with “painting” or “sculpting” or “quilting” and you know what this passion is. What it means.

Thank you Carol!
https://carolbalawyder.com/2016/06/03/your-responses-to-how-much-is-your-writing-worth/

Carol Balawyder

A few weeks ago in response to a post on my blogmany of you commented on whether you would still write even if you won the lottery. The overwhelming response was

YES! YES! YES!

If you’re like me (and I’m guessing you are…most of the time) you rarely go back to read posts from fellow bloggers and if you’re one of the first readers of the post you’ve missed a lot of the comments posted there.

Here’s a summary of your comments left on the post How Much Is Your Writing Worth, not only as my way of responding to you but also because your comments illustrate how we all are in the same boat and share the same aspirations about our writing. Although our writing may be different in genre, style and voice we all seem to have this passion for writing.

We write to move others…

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Lost in the Matrix

May 31, 2016June 21, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Philosophical Tuesday.

Now…bear with me one minute. Quick techy babble coming.

Am watching “The Matrix”, which in itself is a complicated psycho babble movie, full of innuendoes and intentions and thoughts in the 5th dimension. It is one of those times that I don’t mind everything being over my head.

According to The Matrix for Dummies, Neo learns that the matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to make us feel like we are living a normal life, when in fact it is nothing more than an energy factory for AIs.

Us poor humans. We have to be good for something.

In these movies are blue pills and red pills and humans in pods grown in fields and the dude Morpheus whose words and appearances are marked by thunder and often orchestra crescendos. There are computer aliens and walking, talking computer viruses and a whole lot more going on.

Here’s the psycho babble part. According to Spark Notes:

Many precedents exist for the idea that the real world is an illusion, and the Matrix trilogy is riddled with specific references to philosophers who have entertained this idea. Although the films are meant to stand on their own and create their own set of philosophical questions, the Wachowskis pay homage to these precedents through….. Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates’ Visit to the Oracle of Delphi, and the work of Descartes.

Okay. The point of this blog this evening is: Who are these guys?

Let’s take a mini philo tour. And I do mean mini.

Baudrillard believes that our current society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that human experience is of a simulation of reality. Plato‘s major philosophical assumption is that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually. The Oracle of Delphi is that Socrates truly was the wisest because all others were under the false impression that they knew more than they actually knew, that true wisdom lies in recognizing one’s own ignorance. And Descartes poses the question of how he can know with certainty that the world he experiences is not an illusion, that since he believes in what he sees and feels while dreaming, he cannot trust his senses to tell him that he is not still dreaming. I think, therefore I am (and all that stuff).

They all sound like Morpheusisms to me. Which bring me to the point of this evening’s blog.

What kind of minds think up these things?

Do people with minds like these eat cheeseburgers and swear when they hit their finger with a hammer and throw up when they get the flu and play cards with kids? I mean — what do brilliant minds do for fun?

These kinds of thoughts exist on a plane somewhere between the clouds and the stars and around the corner from the speed of light. These thoughts are so deep that deep sea oil rigs dance on their heads. I am fascinated by the train of these philosophies, yet I don’t really understand them. Do these philosophers have a day job like you and me? When they’re not discussing the differences between reality and illusion, do they go to baseball games? Eat pizza with anchovies? Sing in the shower?

I’m sure they were all fun guys with just weird hobbies. Like us writers and painters and all. And in the end, it doesn’t matter if you understand things like this or not. In worlds like yours and mine, it’s much more fun pretending you know something than wandering around, sad because you just don’t “get it.”

Like those horizontally challenged numbers.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Wolf Kahn

May 29, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

The unique blend of Realism and the formal discipline of Color Field painting sets the work of Wolf Kahn (1927-) apart.

His convergence of light and color has been described as combining pictorial landscapes and painterly abstraction.

It is precisely Kahn’s fusion of color, spontaneity and representation that has produced such a rich and expressive body of work.

Splitting his time between his studios in New York and Vermont, Kahn renders his pastoral surroundings with a mixture of abstraction and representation and with a keen attentiveness to light and color.

These lush, vibrant, oil-on-canvas paintings read as studies of form and color as much as meditations on the landscapes he has come to understand so well—and has helped others to know, too.

Kahn offers some advice that, perhaps, might be of value to a younger generation of painters. “In order to make a living as an artist, you’ve got to be one of two things: A very nice guy, or a bad egg.”

From the deft touch of his paintings, Wolf Kahn is definitely the first.

Wolf Kahn’s amazing art can be found at http://www.wolfkahn.com/

My Obligatory Kids and Kittens Blog

May 23, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

They say posts with kids and kittens get the most responses.

That’s because it’s easier to smile at laugh and kids and kittens when you’re not directly responsible for them.

I adore my grandkids. What grandparent doesn’t feel the same towards theirs? Yet mine exhaust me to the point of see-ya-later-maybe-much-later. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, yet it does create a guilt trip in this bubble mind of mine.

I have been blessed in ways others have not. My GKs have always lived within an hour’s drive. I still talk to my son (although I sometimes think he think’s I AM the bubble head queen), and I love my daughter-in-law. It’s a win/win thing.

Yet when I get the kids overnight it’s like I’ve never moved or babysat in my life.

One is almost 6, and wants to run around outside, which is the best thing in the world for him. But he wants to cut vegetables, saw wood, drive the tractor, dig with the shovel — things way above his talent (and height). My husband encourages Mr. Little Farmer (it’s not a farm but we all call it that) in other directions (often with adult supervision), yet lets him sit on his lap in the tractor driver’s seat and drive down our long country driveway.

Yikes.

The baby, 8 months old, can’t tell me if he prefers cereal or puffs or spaghetti or a bottle. So I give them all to him between his crawling adventures. He’s no longer in the “hold me on your lap” phase — he’s more into the “put me on the floor!” state of demand. Off he goes, crawling over the dog, the cat, picking up weird things that hide under the chairs…crabbing one minute, laughing the next.

Somehow I don’t remember my kids being this pumped up.

Of course, that was 30 years ago. I was 30 years younger. (Ack!! Don’t say that!) My view of the world and my place in it, was much different. Back then I thought I could make a difference. That I could have it all — great job, great kids, a house out of Architectural Digest — all the things that motivate young people to work hard and study hard.

Now, at the age of 60+, I’m in the job I’m going to be in for the long run, and Wall Street it isn’t. Nor is my house the ones dreams are made of. Nor is my beat up 2005 Sable or 2004 KIA van. I have succeeded with the great kid part, but I am still learning to let them live their own lives, too.

My energy level has wandered away down some long forgotten path, too. I’m working on finding that path again — I figured if I want to live long enough to see my GKs get married, I’d better start walking those paths again soon.

Babysitting the kids fits that bill of exercise, too. Not wanting to look like the old, falling apart granny, I do my best to climb the hills, dig the holes, and ride the bikes. That, too, I believe, keeps the Reaper away.

But dang, kids — my pace and yours is not nor ever will be the same.

Maybe that’s a good thing — after all, if I had all that energy, what would be left for my own kids have to do?

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Szymon Klimek

May 22, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Szymon Klimek was born in Poznań, Poland in 1954 of a family blessed with artistic abilities.

Szymon’s creations are fully functional machines, not bits and pieces tossed together to look like machines.

Made from 0.1 millimeter sheets of brass and bronze, Klimek’s miniature machines dance effortlessly in wine glass enclosures than measure little more than 4 inches across.

A typical miniature requires two or three months of work from starting the drawings to finishing the device.

But the most difficult step, according to Klimek, is installation of the miniature into a glass goblet.

From the start, the miniatures are designed to fit within a spherical glass goblet having an inside diameter of 112 mm (4.4 in), a height of 142 mm (5.6 in), and a mouth opening of 86 mm (3.4 in).

He manually forms the shapes (no fancy machine tools) and glues them together before applying a clear lacquer finish.

More of Szymon Klimek‘s fantastic machine work can be found at http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Klimek.htm and at his website http://edrobiazg.com.pl/.

The Box

May 19, 2016May 22, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Something different this late Thursday evening. A short story — really a flash fiction piece — I wrote a while ago. I didn’t realize when I wrote it what it really meant. I think I do now.

The Box

“Let me out of this box.”

The voice was a squeal, an octave higher than human ears were used to hearing. A handful of faces looked down at the rosewood box sitting in the middle of the coffee table. It was no larger than a man’s fist, really. Simple. Unadorned. But those around the table knew better.

“Sorry, dear. But we are safer with you in the box,” said the ancient woman with the silver chignon.

“Yes,” agreed the ebony-skinned man in a shirt and tie. “Safer.”

“That’s not true,” the box replied.

A few moments passed, then the voice returned. This time it was musical. Soft and sing-songy. Like a child’s.

“Let me out! Let me play! We can do it every day!”

“No,” said the old woman. “Not today.”

“No,” said the old man. “Not any day.”

“I’ll die in here,” came the retort.

“You cannot die,” said the young girl in pigtails. “The others said so.”

“You are one of those eternal things,” said the matron. “And we cannot have your kind in our world.”

“I am inspiration.”

“You are disappointment.”

“I am tranquility.”

“You are chaos.”

“You are trouble,” said the black man. “I have seen your kind before.”

The three shook their heads.

“We are sorry.”

A moment or two more of silence. Did the box actually sigh?

“I am light.”

“You are dark.”

“I am hope.”

“You are despair.”

“I am life.”

“You are death.”

“This argument is going nowhere,” said the black man.

“I can make sure you get going somewhere.”

The box was quiet for a bit. The gold clasp seemed to glow from the energy within. The box tried again.

“Since you know all what I am, you don’t need to be afraid.”

“Since we know all what you are, we have a right to be afraid.”

They were at a standstill, then. A dead end.

At least that is what the trio thought.

After a long silence, the voice in the box echoed through the room, through their heads.

“You cannot keep me in here forever, you know.”

“We know,” the group said in unison.

“And when I am free it will be the beginning, not the end. You will see.”

“We know,” the group said in unison.

“It all has to start somewhere, you know.”

“We know,” the group said in unison.

“Then let me out of the box, and let creativity begin.”

A Friend’s Trip Through Alternate Reality

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Reflections of altered states, altered lives, is what writing — and life — is all about. It’s how I feel when I read, how I feel when I write. And there are times when I wish I could stay in those altered states a bit longer…

Enjoy this post from fellow blogger Tom Rains..

We long for altered states in life. Is this a bad thing? Is sobriety, the unaltered state, more virtuous? Is it more rational? Is it more real? Or should we aim to exist in altered states as much as possible? It seems like everything we love in life is similar to a drug-induced experience. Sometimes, […]

via Magic in Mundanity — A Blog for Humans

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Sandcastles

May 15, 2016July 22, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atomies infinity.~~ Eric Knight

Saturday Morning Reflections on Creativity

May 14, 2016December 1, 2022 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

Lazy Saturday mornings always bring out the philisopher in me. Especially when I listen to Martini Music from the 60s in the background.

Ever take one of those online tests — What is your favorite (fill-in-the-blank)?

Sometimes they’re easy. Favorite Food: Spaghetti. Favorite drink: Milk. (I know..boring…) Other times it’s a little catchy. Favorite Music? Ah…in what category? Favorite Book? Again, I need a genre. Favorite Dessert? Now, you really need to specify…

So it is with picking out an artist’s work for my Sunday Evening Art Gallery blog.

Sometimes it’s easy. Judit Czinkné Poór specializes in incredible cookie designs. Craig L. Haupt does whimsical abstract images. Jackson Pollock does…well, does Jackson Pollock things. The biggest problem with these artists are which 6 or 7 (or in the case of the larger Gallery, 12-15) images showcase their artistic range.

I come up with fantastic artists that span several techniques. Selecting which style or gallery to highlight is often an arduous task. Louise Bourgeois not only sculpted giant spiders but was actually best known for her representations of the female form and dreamlike imagery through paintings, prints, and installations. The Universe not only holds the glory of galaxies, but planets, stars, nebulas, gamma ray bursts, and galaxy clusters. I have had artists that are not only great sculptors but painters and sketchers, too.

How do you decide which side of their diamond to polish?

I have learned that sometimes an artist’s fame is not the same as an artist’s flame. Often what strikes an audience as unique is not necessarily what made them famous. I highlighted Luke Jerram‘s extraordinary microbiology glass works, but if you read his website, he also designed a sculpture based on the Tōhoku Japanese Earthquake and subsequent tsunami of 2011, and solar-powered kinetic chandeliers that consist of dozens of glass radiometers, which shimmer and flicker as they turn in the sunlight. Who knew?

Artists are such an eclectic lot. Writers, sculptors, painters, graphic designers, all have their favorite form of expression, their main obsession. But I imagine you can be 150% into oil painting and 150% into charcoal sketching and 150% into pen and ink and still find 150% to spend on computer graphics.

It’s all relative.

When I find an artist that I think my followers would enjoy, I research all their work. Often that’s a daunting task, for those who are truly creative, truly gifted, spread out in a hundred different directions at one time. One branch of their creativity is just as amazing as the next.

It’s not much easier when I pick a subject to highlight. In digging around, I often find 35-40 great representations under the headings of things like ice sculptures or paperweights. Each picture is more fascinating than the next. I try to include my favorites and others not in my top 10, just so I can show a fair representation of what the artist/subject is all about. After all, my favorite color may be blue, but yours may be red. And who am I to confront the difference?

That, to me, is the essence of an art director. Of a museum curator. Exploring the creative mind, the unique palate, and choosing just the right combination of awe and familiarity to showcase. We all do this in our own way — look at the pictures hanging on your walls. The crystal pieces on your mantlepieces. The books on your shelves. The flowers in your garden. The colors you pick for your outfits. The way you arrange your bookshelves.

You have created your own atmosphere with the gifts from the creative world. You are abstract, you are conservative, you are orange-reds and country blue. You are Amish and Renaissance and Science Fiction and Chick Lit. You are poetry in motion, an art critic in your own right.

And that is a beautiful way to spend your life, isn’t it?

<a href="http://feedshark.brainbliss.com">Feed Shark</a>

If It Breaks, We Cover It…Kinda…Maybe

May 11, 2016May 11, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Scare tactics. Do they work?

Most of the time, I would say yes. Especially in the insurance department.

No one wants to be hit with a big bill on top of the big bill they’ve already accumulated. If you are like my family, lightning will miss the 1,001 people standing around you in order to hit just you.

So is the way with insurance. These days you can buy insurance for almost anything — from life, to cars, to cell phones to alien abductions (it’s true!) any device made by God or Man can be replaced — for a fee.

In some cases you need to buy this kind of extra protection. Health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, all protect you from being that guy, and provide you with a safe financial haven. Insurance companies play the odds; they take in more than they have to pay out. So for all the people who pay buco bucks to insure their homes from tornadoes and cars from crashes, insurance companies compensate very few. That’s how they make money. I get it.

Then comes the secondary market; appliances. The whole gamut from dishwashers to lawn mowers offer some sort of extra insurance policy. Afraid you’ll take your brand new appliance home and it will clunk out in two days? Well, for just $$ you can buy insurance for the first 1-3 years. It’s that fear of clunking that encourages some of us to shell out an extra $$ for safety’s sake.

Then there’s insurance for my cell phone. Granted, it’s not a $700 iPhone, but it’s a Samsung Galaxy X6, a pretty fine little machine. I’ve insured my phones (and my husband and son’s) for years now. $8.99 per month times 3. And yet, when my phone started acting up, the fine print said I had to meet a $150 deductible before they would take a look at it. So all those years of $8.99 per month times 3 meant nothing when it came to fixing my phone. It was cheaper to sign a new deal and slip the payments into the phone bill.

So for the past 2 years my phone company has made $9 x 12 months x 2 years x 3 phones, all tax free.

Yes, I often imagined myself bending over the toilet, phone in pocket becoming phone in toilet. Or dropping it out of a fishing boat. Or left in a pocket to be washed and spun dried. But that never happened. Even when I was fed up with my phone and tempted to run it over with my car, the thought of $150 deductible put a halt to my dastardly deed.

I know, $150 is better than $650. Yet something irks me about being guided by fear of the unknown dollar. For the insurance fee you pay never really makes up for the balance of your debt. Your hospital bill of $30,000 now is $5,000, which you still cannot afford. The tooth you had to have replaced at $2700 is not covered because the dental insurance that you pay for every paycheck considers it cosmetic surgery.

And even if I outlive my current life insurance policy, I’ll have to pick up another one at a higher premium just so my husband can cover my final arrangements. And all those payments for the last 20 years will have gone straight into the pocket of the insurance company.

I don’t have a solution for the lopsidedness of insurance coverage. All I know is that it’s just another business trying to make money off of people who have none to begin with. That’s why we buy insurance.

But I do know that if some little dude assures me that I can make silk out of a sow’s ear, and if I buy insurance and can’t make any silk I can have my premiums back, I’m gonna take it.

Cuz I really don’t know how silk is made…

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Judit Czinkné Poór

May 8, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

When is a cookie not a cookie?

When it is an amazing creation by Judit Czinkné Poór.

Chef Judit Czinkné Poór is the mastermind behind Hungarian cake decorating shop Mézesmanna, a small studio with a giant social media presence because of the incredible photos and videos they share of their decorative confections.

Each cookie is hand painted, the patterns often traditional patterns from folk costumes and embroideries from her native Hungary.

Judit’s deft touch makes edible creations that are almost too beautiful to eat.

Her embroidery style touches on portraiture, animals, intricate lacework, winter holidays, and floral patterns.

In addition to the folk art-inspired cookies, Poór also decorates cookies with portraits and 3D images.

A true artist, Judit Czinkné Poór and her magic can be found on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Mezesmanna/, and one of many feature interviews, http://aplus.com/a/judit-czinkne-poor-decorated-cookies.

You’re Never Too Old To Get Going

May 5, 2016May 5, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

I have finally done it.

Big talker, little dooer, did it!

I booked a flight to North Carolina for the beginning of August to meet my bestest buddy for a girl’s weekend.

I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal to a lot of you. But I’m 63, and it’s the first time I’ve actually disappeared with anyone other than my hubby and family except for an overnighter.

I have friends and family who travel all the time. Some is for business, some to visit family. I myself have travelled through my life too: Disneyworld, Cancun, San Francisco. But it’s always been with someone or a lot of someones. There’s always been a husband or kids or in-laws in tow. Which was/is wonderful and the way to see the world.

But there’s also the dilemma of “me”.

There always have been reasons to stay close to home. Jobs. No jobs. Kids. Illness. Family plans. Friends. Like everyone else, my life has had its share of ups and downs, and not one of the ups included running away except maybe to Kohl’s. Timings change, too — when I have time and/or money, they don’t have time and/or money. I don’t have vacation when they do. And so on.

My best friends have changed through the years, too. I love all the people who have filled my life. Each stage has been a support group for me as we all weathered the same storms. But you move, they move, people change jobs, get new husbands/wives, and the distance creeps in between you.

One of my best friends just made the big move to the East Coast almost a year ago. We text and talk, but it’s just not the same. So one day she said we should meet half way for the weekend. The stars aligned. And I thought — if not now, when?

So I made the plane reservations last night.

Why is this such a big deal?

Only because it’s the first thing in a long time that I’ve done for me. And only me.

I don’t have to do what everybody else wants. I don’t have to babysit the dogs, sit in a boat all day (and not a pontoon either), eat Chuck e Cheese, ride the rides only the kids want to ride, watch football, or any other thing that others tell me to do. Sometimes my friends and I, my family and I, are like chocolate and onions. Both great, but not on the same plate.

I get to go to North Carolina and do the sort of things my husband rolls his eyes at. I plan on strolling the Art Galleries, hitting up a big art fair, and spending a day touring the Biltmore Estate. I get to drink wine, eat little bits of whatever inspires me, and sleep in a bed that someone else has to make.

Plus I get to do girl stuff. Giggle, cry, plan, lament. I get to play with my future dreams, cry at the ones that never really made it, googaw over my grandkids, talk excitedly about redecorating my house, share secrets from my youth, poopoo my job — along with paint my toenails and go sit in a hot tub somewhere.

These are the things that you can only share with someone who gets you. Husbands do their best, but they just don’t have the girly touch.

You’ll never have enough money, time, or vacation. Big deal. Don’t be on your deathbed, lamenting that you should have gone to the Mall of America with your besties 5 or 10 or 20 years ago. Take your bff. Your cousin. Your daughter-in-law…just go and do it YOUR way!

Wait till I hit Vegas next year…

Flowery Language is Okay — Repetition Is Not

May 2, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

All writers are pillars of perfection. Aren’t we?

We love what we write, we hate what we write. We perfect what we write. We skip over what we don’t like. It’s the nature of the beast, then, to notice certain eccentricities in other writers, yet rarely our own.

When you write, you also read. And when you work with words, you have a habit of finding misspelled or inappropriate words. Or just junky words.

So with our cards out on the table, fellow creative sprites, are there writing faux paxs that you often make? What bothers you the most about other unpolished writers?

My own stumbles are uncomfortable. When in my writing furry, I tend to find colorful language, but more of the descriptive kind, not the direct quote kind. So I tend to use the words like “as if” to explain the unexplainable.

It seemed as if my psychic ability…

It did seem as if I were a victim…

Other times deep and drawn out, as if they were coming up from the bottom of the well…

As if it were yesterday…

As if it were the most natural gesture in the world…

And that was only the first 7 pages.

I honestly didn’t realize I was over-using that phrase until sometime later. Once I caught onto my fav “as ifs”, I ran the find across my document and found that I used that phrase ad nausum. So I cleansed my soul — and my manuscript — of almost all repetitive phrases.

Then came catch number 2. My second favorite overdone phrase. Or rather word.

Like.

One doesn’t think one uses that word nearly as much as they do. But if you use your handy “find” button, you will be amazed at how many times that monochromatic word pops up.

Like something from Lord of the Rings…

As much as I would like to say I have had a life just like everyone else….

I suppose it is like asking why you fell in love…

The likes of which…

It was like trying to tune in a far away radio station…

And that was only by page 5.

The creative flow got in the way of grammar. In my own defense, the character who utters these words has her own take on the English language. Her vocabulary is a bit more flowery and eccentric than others. So it was easy to take her style to the limit. I needed to sprinkle those words throughout the manuscript, not shovel them in.

I have cleaned everything up, and I love the way the story flows. But the scary thing is that it would have been a repetitive nightmare if I hadn’t caught my mistakes.

That’s why good writers make mistakes — and fix them. It’s good to have someone else read your writing. Or read it out loud. Or run spell check. Or search for words that are easy to repeat.

I used to be naïve enough to think that the first draft is the final draft. But having recently read A Moveable Feast by Hemmingway, seeing his hand-written manuscripts in the middle of the book, and how long it took him to hone each sentence, I can see why you never go with your first.

It’s like love. At first it’s all butterflies and sparklers, and it’s the most alive you will ever feel. As it matures, it mellows, deepens, and refines and redefines iself. And in order to keep it going, you have to polish, hone, and clip out the dead stuff.

And the likes. And the as ifs….

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Richard Stainthorp

May 1, 2016July 19, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

English artist Richard Stainthorp captures the beautiful energy and fluidity of the human body using wire.

Wire is not automatically what one would consider as a ‘material’ for creating solid, three dimensional sculptures.

But Stainthorp has been making wire sculptures since 1996.

The life-sized sculptures feature both figures in motion and at rest, expressed in the form of large-gauged strands that are densely wrapped around and through one another.

Stainthorp also allows the bent wires to shine by keeping their metallic appearance free from any obvious painting or additions.

The breathtaking spirals add a depth to these structures made of thick-gauged strands that are densely wrapped around and through one another.

More of Richard Stainthorp’s wonderful wire sculptures can be found at

http://www.stainthorp-sculpture.com/, and http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/richard-stainthorp-wire-sculptures

You Are (not) Getting Sleeeepy…

April 28, 2016June 6, 2018 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

Do you suffer from the modern-day dilemma called insomnia?

It’s just after midnight, and I’m still wide awake. Through time I have done all the things I’m supposed to do to fall asleep. I’ve taken a warm bath, sipped chamomile tea, listened to soft music. I’ve listened to no music at all. I have cut out caffeine during the day and take my meds in the morning instead of night. Except for right now, I am off the computer by 8; I’ve read books, tried meditation, boring movies, and total silence. I have picked up the pace of walking, both at work and after work. Tried carbs, no carbs; sugar, no sugar. Bedtime snacks. No snacks.

And yet here I am.

I’ve heard various statistics about those who suffer from insomnia. Without doing extensive research at 12:06 a.m., I believe about 60% of older people suffer from some sort of sleep interruption. Not too long ago I read an article that said that as you get older, your body rhythms change, throwing off your sleep patterns.

Surprise.

I have tried prescriptions, and even though I get a hard night’s sleep, I’m the Walking Dead the next day. So those are out. OTCs are more trips into Zombieland. There are dozens of articles on the Internet telling me why I can’t sleep, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t sleep.

Sooo…I prefer to think of this stage of my life as preparing for retirement.

I believe that somewhere in the cosmic timeline is a bend in the road; a crack in the sidewalk that says, enough is enough. The fifth dimension astro influence is saying: You’ve worked your a$$ off all your life, first getting up at all hours with your babies, then staying up all hours waiting for your teenagers to get home, husbands on second shifts getting home at 5 a.m., getting up for work at 6 a.m. for the past 45+ years — enough is enough. Us higher forms of consciousness are preparing you for the day you don’t have to get up to an alarm, don’t have to punch a time clock, don’t have to put data in a computer, or drive to and from work in blizzards and thunderstorms and fog.

Of course, the cosmos’ clock and my biological clock are two different things. The cosmos doesn’t get that I still have a few years left before I can sleep in and/or stay up all night. That I have bills to pay and obligations to meet before I can sleep till 10, have a cup of coffee on the deck, go for walks, play in the garden, and take naps whenever I want.

Did our parents have this problem? Our grandparents? Is it because we don’t work the fields for 10 hours a day that our bodies don’t work to their peak performance? Stress is always a factor. But our parents had stress, too. As did our grandparents. And so on.

It is true we are living in a whirlwind society. That technology moves faster than the speed of light, and if we don’t at least make an attempt to keep up with it, we become as rigid as the statues in our gardens. With TV and movies and music blaring in our faces and politics boiling our blood and self-centered people taking over our every day world, it’s hard to slow down enough to sleep, no less breathe.

I know my retirement won’t be much of a slowdown. But I will let my biological clock take over, and go wherever the wind blows.

Until then, I’ve found some really cool gemstones on the Gemtopia Shopping Network…

October is for Dreams

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October is for Dreams

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October is for Dreams

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October is for Dreams

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October is for Dreams

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Jellyfish

Face Off

Earrings

Natalya Sots

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Chit Chattin’ Cathy

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Art

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Atmosphere

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YES! YES! YES!

We write to move others…

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