standing still
23 May 2012 3 Comments
in Creativity Tags: best day, blessed, confident, keep trying, kites, saying YES
So grown up!
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins. ~Bob Moawad
The weather was suitably windy yesterday, Journi and I were home by ourselves, and she asked if we could maybe go fly a kite. At first, i was phrasing the suitable “no, Journi, not today” response in my head. It was in my mouth and almost out there, and I thought, “why not!? Its a gorgeous day for it and really why not?!” So we retrieved the kite, got in the car and voyaged to the soccer field. I was a bit concerned about how it would go, because our last kite flying day was a group effort, with her mom and her grampa. But you know, are you just going to wait for everyone else to make your day!? So we braved it alone.
Look at that perfect kite holding technique!! What a pro!
After getting the kite all unwound, and strung out, attaching the tail (key requirement we learned last year), Grama ran up and down the soccer field, with Journi running along side. It probably looked a bit ridiculous…just couldn’t figure out how to get the wind to take off with the kite. Finally i stopped running, took a breath, figured out which way the wind was blowing and stood still, with just a bit of string fed out for the kite. (Journi liked the running better.) Sure enough, the wind blew up behind us in a gust and lifted the kite up a bit. We fed string out bit by bit until it was high in the sky.
Journi was so tickled feeling the tug of the kite, as the wind played with it, swooping and diving. I discovered that we needed to work on ‘holding technique’ after I raced across the field after the string spool a few times. Holding both ends of the spool, with her thumbs touching her chest seemed to work best.
I felt a bit smug as cars drove by and stopped to watch us flying our kite. “yes, look at us- outside enjoying the day, making a memory” 
standing still
Almost exactly a year ago, i wrote a post (read it here) on the first time flying a kite with Journi, beginning with the same quote above. It seemed only fitting that I start with that quote again. I re-read that post this morning and I am stunned at how far we have come! Journi is so much bigger, and more able in all that she does. My own children were in different life places a year ago and have grown wiser. And I too, took this past year to stand still, listen to the wind, to my own heart, and claim the best day of my life.
Journaling magic
17 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Creativity Tags: answer, creativity, journal, subconscious, writing
We are all used to operating in the conscious realm…even when we feel semi-conscious, like before that first cup of coffee, or when we are on overload because of a particularly difficult day, we still operate in the conscious realm…we ask and answer questions that are related to the world around us, we deal with issues that present themselves, we talk to the people in our path. And as a general rule, most of us are fairly convinced that whatever answers we need to life’s changing situations will be found, if we just slow down and think it thru.
In the Artist’s Way, one of my all time favorite books, Julia Cameron requires that the artist/writer/reader do “morning pages”. Each morning she asks that you write 3 pages. Three pages of whatever you want to write. It can be the same word over and over (write, write, write, write, write…), it can be a string of unrelated thoughts (my cat doesn’t like her dry food, lots of TV channels have only music, hope it doesn’t snow, why is there dog hair in my cereal?…), it can be your grocery list, or your daily to-do list, it can be the next chapter of your upcoming novel. She says the important thing is not content, but the act of writing. The writing unhinges something beneath your conscious thought that allows creativity to come to the surface.
Just the other morning, I was wrestling with a difficult issue, had been wrestling with this issue…for months. Could not seem to come up with the answer that filled the void in my soul, yet i knew that the status quo was not going to work. I had been thinking it thru, making lists, doing all sorts of cognitive things seeking an answer. That morning I had woken up outrageously early, too early, and knowing i couldn’t go back to sleep – i’m like that, once i wake up in the night, no matter the time, i’m up- i decided to journal.
At first, the words were dull, and forced…and they had no connection to what was realistic, only what seemed important at 3am…whether cornflakes were a good option for breakfast, if it would be warm out today, my t0-do list for work…Of course, it wasn’t long before my wrestling partner surfaced in my journal. I ranted, and I raved…i cussed and I speculated…i bemoaned and I belittled…and about 3 pages in, like the gold of a sunrise that wasn’t there, and then it was…so glaringly obvious, i almost cried.
my answer had surfaced…
reaching through time
27 Apr 2012 5 Comments
in Creativity Tags: census, family, family tree, genealogy, time
When Justina was born with beautiful red hair, both sides of the family tried to claim origin of the trait. My family explained that my mother’s mother had red hair and that it showed up every other generation. Noonie (Her real name was Amy, but Noonie was her ‘grama name), Loren’s mother, claimed that she and her mother had had red hair, and showed me a braid of her mother’s hair that she had received as a child. I never knew much about Noonie’s childhood, except that her mother had died in a fire when she was a young child. Apparently some well meaning relative had thought to save the braid for her, and Noonie treasured it, but I always had an imagined picture in my head of this motherless child clutching a braid of hair.
A few years ago, after Noonie passed away, Justina took an interest in genealogy, with the goal of finding where Amy had been born and how she had ended up on an eastern North Dakota farm, married to a farmer. Ancestry.com has specials once in a while where you can get a free 2 week membership to search all their records, so we both signed up. Searching backward from her marriage, we spent hours on the phone, discussing back and forth where she might have been born, did countless searches for relative names, knowing only the woman’s name who had raised her. And all at once, we found a census record from Nebraska, and there she was…I believe she was four years old when we found her, her name looking out of place, listed among a family in a handwritten census register. For some reason, it choked me up to see her name there…we had searched and searched for her, and finding her was like finding a lost child. It still brings tears to my eyes.
Nebraska!? How did she get to North Dakota?! We tracked her from Nebraska to central North Dakota, as the family she lived with moved there. From there we watched census rolls, and lo and behold, she showed up as a “girl of labor” in the 40s, working for farm families. I assume this is like a nanny, and farm helper rolled into one, because she was only about 14, when we started seeing that title. We tracked her forward in census records for a few years, watching her move to different families, as her work changed. Census takers in those days would travel from farm to farm, walking or using a vehicle, staying with families, bringing news, one family after another, often staying in the same area for weeks. One day, Justina and I were talking on the phone as we deciphered the handwriting of a particularly messy census taker. We were discussing where Amy might be, and as i glanced down the line of names in the ledger, absently looking for her name, my finger stopped dead before I found it. The name there beside my finger gave me a brief start. I continued moving down the list, and a few lines lower was Edwin Zundel, Amy’s future husband. As we moved back up the list, and down once more, we found Amy’s name a few lines above with the Zimmerman family, listed as “Ad.Daughter…and the last question was answered. Noonie was the ‘girl next door.’ In 1930, she was 11, and Edwin was 6.
The name that had stopped me earlier was Justina’s name! there in a 1930′s census was- “Zundel, Justina”, my Justina’s great grandmother, her namesake…a story all by itself. It was so peculiar to see her name there. An eerie feeling of reaching thru time…and a feeling of coming full circle…
I like the pink ones…
16 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Creativity Tags: butter, cooking, garlic, grocery, shrimp
What EVER made me think that buying raw frozen shrimp would be a good idea? I will tell you what…i was motoring thru the grocery store, and there was a former student of mine, Shelby, with her cart piled high and in it were a couple packages of raw frozen shrimp. I have never bought the raw ones. But I thought, “what does she know, that I don’t know?” I think of myself as a pretty good cook. I like to cook, like to try new recipes, like to figure out new ways to make veggies. And yet I always bought the little pink ones, the ones that were cooked and ready to throw into scampi.
“Well, I should just try those.” I thought to myself. “I can do raw shrimp, they must be better, or she would have bought the little pink ones that I buy.” I felt smug as I shoveled 2 packages into my cart.
When it came time to cook them, I defrosted them in my colander, like I usually do with the pink ones. They were each covered with a little jacket of ice, and as they thawed it became evident that they had their little feet on them yet. Awesome. I painstakingly peeled the soft shell-like material off of each one, and pinched their little feet off. Excellent. Could this get any better?
I thought I was ready to cook them, but then I noticed a dark line running down the back of each one. I googled it and Google told me that i needed to ‘devein’ each one…that the vein was actually their digestive tract, and if I was careful, I could pull the whole vein out in one piece. Wow. The fun never stops.
After deveining them all, I put them in my saute pan, added some butter, and garlic. They turned pink in no time, just like the ones I usually buy. They were a big hit at supper, Journi loved them. Personally, I couldn’t bring myself to eat them…just kept picturing their little crawly feet…the pink ones don’t have feet…i like the pink ones.
wise woman in a storm…
23 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Creativity Tags: batten down the hatches, birds, feline companion, mother, Nine Inch Nails, positive, selfless, wise woman
As my hands automatically tore old bread into pieces for the birds, I remembered my mother’s hands going through these motions hundreds, thousands of times.
“for the birds” was an unwritten edict in our house. Any stale bread, crackers, old popcorn was always shoveled into an aluminum pan for the birds, to be sprinkled in the yard or put into one of several bird feeders available.
My mom is like that. She will always use what she has, for others that have less. This might be magazines and catalogs for a neighbor, a coat for a friend, paying someone’s electric bill, spending time with an older person, and bread for the birds. Whatever she has, if you need it, you will not leave her house without it…she will press it into your hands and refuse to take it back.
Never fails to amaze me how I see parts of her in my children…how Nina carries an entire over-the-counter pharmacy in her bag-which must be within her reach at all times, so does my mom and will hand you 3 varieties of cold drugs, depending on your maladies. How Tasha can read anything and remember the finer points months later, as they pertain to your question to her…so does my mom, and she will tell you that she thought of you when she read that particular article…heck, she will probably send it to you, with underlining on the pertinent parts. How Michaela’s hand gestures, posture, and ways of expressing herself mirror my mother’s mannerisms, down to a specific glance that she gives me when she thinks I am full of it…
I shake my head at her positive outlook, even when things aren’t positively looking up…but lest you get me wrong, she isn’t a saint. She can cuss a blue streak or write a scathing nasty letter when she is fed up with something, and will not trust someone twice, if they disappoint her. A wise woman in a storm…one to batten down the hatches, and listen to a little AC/DC or Nine Inch Nails while the rain pounds on the windows, petting Sam, her feline companion (she rescued him from his stray lifestyle).
Colorful, genuine, brilliant and selfless…that’s Judy.
hippie heaven
21 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in Creativity Tags: basket, butter lettuce, forget, helping, italian olive oil, learning new things, sweet corn, veggies, volunteer, wheat bread, woman leader
i was part of something awesome today…
I have a friend who knows things…you know those people who seem like they know everything? Like they just don’t act like they know everything and really don’t- they really do know just about everything. Anyway, she, in passing, said “Bountiful Baskets” to me, and then said over her shoulder, “look it up online”. So i did. I couldn’t seem to get my mind around it, and visited the website several times…each time I figured out a bit more. It seemed that one could buy a “basket” of fresh produce for a nominal price, and that “baskets” were delivered all over…there were several states represented, and I could pick it up here in town. But you had to order and pay for the basket ahead of time, at a very specific time, and pick it up at a specific time. So I followed the directions and ordered- plus some other stuff that sounded good, like an Asian Veggie Pack, Wheat Bread, and Italian Olive Oil Bread.
My pick up time was at 12:30 on Saturday. All week I was worried I would forget…I forget things. Like totally forget and then whatever it was, is over. So I had reminders all over, and told people to remind me. Finally I decided to go early and volunteer to put together baskets, so i wouldn’t be late.
When I got there, I was greeted by very nice people and rows and rows of white laundry baskets on the floor- there was probably 80-100 baskets. The wonderful woman leader, I think her name was Sarah, explained what to do. When the truck came, we would help unload and fill all the baskets with the produce. Simple enough. There were perhaps 20 people volunteering and I thought it was a bit of overkill on the volunteering. Not so! When the truck came, the produce just kept piling out of there! We had sweet corn, broccoli, cauliflower, pomegranates, apples, oranges, pears, kiwis, butter lettuce, brussel sprouts, bananas and more! I was stunned! I was expecting maybe a few apples, bananas, lettuce…it was amazing, beautiful fresh produce. And all of the volunteers just pitched in together. I helped put broccoli in baskets, and sweet corn.
We had the sweet corn for lunch, and I made stir fry with my Asian veggies tonight- there was bok choy, green onions, garlic, Thai basil, celery, pea pods, and fresh water chestnuts! There was a piece of some type of root, that I suspect was ginger, and I grated some into the stir fry as well. It was stupendous! The veggies were so fresh, like they were picked today!
It was truly hippie heaven…amazing produce with people working together to create something that helped other people…
I was part of something awesome today.
Owning the energy…
14 Jan 2012 5 Comments
in Creativity Tags: art, artists, cost, fiber, money, spinning, wool
Having worked my way thru countless art fairs, craft fairs, harvest festivals, farmers markets, gallery openings and gift shops, I have watched varied reactions to the price of fine art, and hand crafted items. Too many times i have seen someone pick up one of my favorite pieces from a recent firing, one that shouted to me from the back of the kiln with its fire touched glaze, saying “look at me!! I’m here! I survived!”— and watched them glance at the price and quickly put it down, even saying to a shopping partner, “ooof, toooo expensive!”
A spinner friend of mine, Sarah, recently put a beeee-autiful piece on etsy. Its a cowl (pictured to the left) that she knit from wool that she not only spun, but dyed previously to that. She has taken workshops and worked for years on her own to perfect some gorgeous spinning technique. When I asked her how she had made this piece- what kind of knit stitch and dying/spinning questions, she replied:
“This was the second half of the 8 oz roving I dyed in fiber form. I spun a singles in thick and thin, then coil plied it with three different colors of cotton/poly thread held together. It’s knit into a moebius – three rows of knit, three rows of purl – alternated.”
Wow…she did everything short of go out to the pasture and shear the sheep! Sarah probably wouldn’t view any of what she did as a ‘big deal’… but not everyone can do that… and that is why hand crafted things cost more. They are not made by some machine in a foreign country, from a machine made polyester fiber that was made from recycled water bottles.
Items like this are made by real people, with lives and kids…pets and spouses…people that are trying to figure out how to fit in some ‘art time’, some spinning time, some potting time, in between their jobs, their obligations, their kids’ soccer games. Real people that had a vision for 
the piece before it was birthed…a vision that they mulled in their mind how to make tangible, a vision that they wrestled thru with the fiber, the dye, the paint, the clay, the wire, the beads, the glass, the paper…real people that then created and breathed thru that process…and offered it to the public…
When you pick up a piece of art, a hand crafted item, you are picking up the experience of the making, you are picking up the energy of the artist, the process and birth of the piece. You are being given the opportunity to own the evolution of the piece from birth…the story…
how do you put a price on that?
Make each day.
01 Jan 2012 1 Comment
in Creativity Tags: believe, create, learning new things, light, make, mornings, quiet
When i meet a new person, i note variousities about them, but one thing i do notice rather quickly is whether they are a “maker”, a “meeter”, a “helper” or a “muller”… these are my own terms, and they are not all inclusive, but there are people whose mission seems to be meeting people, and those who are just born helpers. Some are thinkers, and spend countless hours figuring things out, and of course there is us- the ‘makers’…we make things. We bake, we sew, we knit, we fix, we create, we photograph, we build, we are makers.
This morning, i was considering the New Year, yes, trite, I know…a New Year post…but I was. Its a new year, a new start…and i was thinking about what i need to do this year, to make it a more worthwhile, more satisfying year. And the phrase “make every day” wandered thru my mind, and it resonated with me…in both forms of its meaning…to create something of value each day, but also to create the day- to unwrap it each morning, as a package of wealth, something to be treasured and used…not one of those gifts we get and re-gift to someone else because it is trivial to us- but to consider it, to turn it over and examine it and to decide how we will make use of it. Whether its to make a list, or a trip, to meet a friend or walk a mile…don’t let a day pass without making it, that is my goal.
And for you my friends, for this coming year, I wish you breath…that you will find breath in your lungs to bless others, to sing, to race, to laugh, to dance, to learn, to enjoy, to be thankful, to make change, to spend time in the light…and to make.
Much love,
Pat
as i am.
19 Dec 2011 1 Comment
in Creativity Tags: body, confident, creative spirit, fat, fear of obesity, having a wonderful time, image, learning new things, weight
Several years ago, while in a store helping one of the girls shop for a prom dress, i spied a woman with an armload of clothes. She was about my size, tall and robust (that’s code for a fuller build). Entering and exiting the dressing room several times, i watched her go from clothes rack to clothes rack, selecting this shirt and those pants. Clearly she was having a wonderful time, and admiring her figure in the tri-fold mirror every so often. She was trying on nice clothes, fun clothes in bright colors. I have thought of her many times, and even now, she is so fresh in my memory.
Like many women, i have always felt ‘too big’. There are various factors that enter into this feeling, but regardless, its been in me for so long, i considered it a truth. Looking back at earlier pictures, I realize i have never really been too big…at times, i have been painfully thin. Yet, if you asked me at that time, i would have told you that obesity was just around the corner.
If I consider reality, just for a moment…and accept myself as I am, I would have to admit that i have worn the some of the same clothes for over 10 years(because i don’t like buying clothes unless i feel ‘thin’)…that tho my weight has fluctuated ten pounds up or down…even 20 here and there, I am still the same. That the dieting, the weird food combinations, the ‘eating what i want’, the junkfood, the fear of obesity…none of it has changed my weight much…and i have to wonder, if looking back at pictures from this time, will i regret all the time wasted on worrying about being “too big”?
This body, which houses me, my creative spirit, my humor, my energy, my ability to let others shed pain…this body is enough, and perfect for its purpose, which is to love.
And its time to accept, just as I am.
What about you…just as you are?
much love,
Pat
Hear me roar!
10 Dec 2011 4 Comments
in Creativity Tags: computer, DIY, fixing, keyboard, roar, writing, Youtube
One of a grouch’s greatest joys is rackety, clattering, jangly noise! ~ Oscar the Grouch
So over a month ago, Journi and I had a collision and i spilled coffee on the edge of my laptop. It was only a tiny bit, hardly any at all…but within an hour my “a” and my “s” were gone…and then my “q”…and my “z”…oh, and let’s not forget about my “1”, and my shift key on the left, my tab key and my caps lock…my escape key… and the little cute “~” mark .
One has no idea how many words you use the “a” and the “s” for…i got along pretty well without the “q” and the “z”, but a couple of my passwords have those letters. So I bought an external keyboard for $10…it got me by, but I HATED it. The external keyboard is rattly, clattering, rackety and just plain clumsy…and it took the ease out of writing and made it feel external. My mind spoke more quickly than that keyboard could clatter out the words. It was like going thru an interpreter. I couldn’t afford the $200 it was going to cost to take it in to be fixed.
And so i quit writing.
A coworker suggested that I could save money if I bought a keyboard online and replaced it myself. This idea terrified me. Its a laptop, for goodness sake! What if I get it apart and i can’t get it all back in there again!? But I was desperate to have my mac back in working order, so I ordered one.
When the keyboard arrived, i looked it with suspicion. However, after watching numerous youtube videos (of a very nice lady from Smalldog Electronics)…assembling my tools and setting aside some time, I was ready. You could almost hear the Dragnet-type music in the background when I began. With the youtube video playing on the iPad, the nice lady and I worked thru the whole process- removing all the screws (all 17 of the external ones), releasing the clips, disconnecting the logic board cable, the backlight cable, the trackpad cable, the 10 internal screws, removing the keyboard, reconnecting everything and putting together everything again.
When i was finished, i just stared at it…afraid to see if it worked.
it does.
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