Spinning wheels and frog funerals

This weekend, no longer, the last few weeks have been nutty. I have been in a state of frenzied activity that I have not experienced in years!!

We returned from New York last week and I have only occasionally touched my laptop or telephone. I feel behind and out of touch with most of my friends, family and the bloggers I love! I am sorry and love everyone I have been shamelessly neglecting. Sometimes it is necessary to be rather ruthless with your time in order to meet deadlines.

I have been spending as much time as possible in my studio painting away. I head out there directly after I droop my son off at school and right after I put him to bed. I have a show coming in August and I am feeling less that ready. Although August is a way off yet, we are leaving tomorrow for three weeks. Which means I will only have about four weeks when I return to finish up. GULP! That is not a long time, at least not for me. The way I paint is very time consuming…perhaps it is time to consider a change of style ☺
This weekend was full of unexpected family duties. The most dramatic was the accidental death of my son’s frog. He and his grandfather collected frog eggs from a pond and have been caring for them through their life cycles. It has been a great learning experience for my son. Unfortunately, he also had his first lesson about loss and guilt. He was dusting his shelf and accidentally knocked a statue of a Chinese luck dragon into their tank, crushing a tadpole. He was just devastated! He knew it was his fault and that was really hard for him to deal with. Guilt and grief, tough for grown-ups to process, really tough for 5 year olds. He drew a picture of his departed friend so he “would never forget him” and wrote a little poem, “Golden dragons can be bad luck. Dead tadpole!”

We leave tomorrow morning, EARLY, for London and Paris! I am very excited to get back to Europe; I love it there so much. I am thrilled to be meeting two lovely bloggie sisters and connect with some other friends as well. It will be wonderful to meet up with friends, wander the streets, eat in cafes, people watch, see art, and visit my favorite bits of London. I hope it will be a great trip.

So, having too much work and too many trips is a VERY high quality problem to have I realize. I know I am lucky and I am so grateful!! I am sorry I have been a bad blogger, friend, sister and daughter. I will be better at keeping in touch when I return.

This picture is of ground zero from 9/11. Our hotel room in New York looked right out over the site. It was very surreal to see it from the perspective daily while we were there. I keep thinking about it so I thought I'd share the photos. Loss seems to be a reoccuring theme amoung so many of us this last year or more. Parents, grandparents, lovers, friends and dreams. I am sending all of you love and wishes for a peaceful heart.

Have a great few weeks!

Sunday Scribblings- Mysteries

This Sunday Scribbling topic of “Mysteries” is apropos to my current mind set. I am pondering the mysteries in my life and about life these days with increasing frequency. Mysteries both great and small. I feel as though I have been circling myself in my head, chasing my imaginary tail so to speak.

Here are just a few that I have been pondering:

I would love to know with certainty what happens when we die. Where do we go and what type of awareness is there? I would like to know if the beliefs that I always thought I had and totally accepted are true. Is there peace? Do we receive answers? Can we meet those we love and admire there? I have seesawed with this one a lot this last year.

I want to understand my reason for being here. Am I on the right path? Am I contributing what I am supposed to? How can I really make a difference?

Will my career take off and will I be successful by my own definition? Will others respond to and appreciate my paintings and boutique?

Will we be moving to Africa? Can I handle all that that brings with it?

How can I better manage my time and my endless to-do list?

Where DO the missing socks go? I have been doing a lot of laundry this weekend getting ready for our trip and we have so many missing! How does this happen??

Will my show be well received?


It has been pretty exhausting being in my head this week. I have been alone in my studio, painting like crazy, not interacting with many people and pondering my own personal mysteries and life’s greater ones. I have not been having much success in finding resolutions. It is a great time for a vacation, to get out of my head and away from my chores. I hope so at any rate as we leave Tuesday!

Poetry Thursday

This poem was written by a woman I went to art school with named Bobbie Saunders. She had a book of poems published while in school, not too shabby! I hope you enjoy this lesser know, or should I say emergine poetess!

Transcendence

She lived
for the
evenings
of ecstasy,
the cascade
of emotions
flowing
like a
sparkling
waterfall
amidst
the hidden
secrets
of the
forest,

the ferns
all-knowing,
the bark
of the
trees
solid
and caring,
the moss
a love
cushion
for souls
whose
whispers
could be
heard
in eternity

Self portrait Tuesday- Pop art

As pop art is about reflecting our culture back to us in a different and often comical context, I feel like I should be playing with this in a more unusual way. Perhaps next week I will have more time to explore this new theme. For now, here is a more traditional pop art homage to how it was done.

At the moment if my portrait were to be reflective of me it would be of a modern woman with too much to do and not enough time to do it. :)

Sunday Scribblings- My earliest memory

I have a terrible memory. When my husband and I were looking up baby names and their meanings we discovered that my name actually means “forgetful one or oblivion”. My husband looked at me and said, “that explains a lot.” My name has cursed me, not only with schoolyard chants of “lethal weapon” and “laser letha” but it also doomed me to a bad memory.

My earliest memories are flashes, colors, feelings and I have no idea what age they come from. It is embarrassing for me and endlessly frustrating to my mother. I used to wonder if there was wrong with me, and then I met someone just like me. My mother-in-law. When picking out a DVD to watch we will swear to our husbands we haven’t seen a movie and halfway through have to admit that we are beginning to remember it.

I have a few memories of childhood.
I remember a wonderful doll stroller that I got for Christmas one year my father made the wooden stroller and my mom the bedding.

I remember falling asleep in front of the glass door to the backyard cuddled up in the sun with my cat.

I remember hiking and fishing in the mountains with my grandfather and him teaching me to clean the fish I caught.

I remember my dad telling me my grandfather passed away.

I remember moving and changing schools in 5th grade and being terrified of the new girls. I came from the next town over but it could have been from another planet for how different everything seemed. I didn’t know the complex social rules.


I wish there were more, longer and clearer memories but I will hold these and many other flashes close to my heart.