Robin Thomas: A Nest With A View

Magpie Still

2012-01-23T16:16:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted any flea market finds. Since my husband is collecting so much old stuff, I have found that I have been more interested in other things (i.e. make-up) but...

In September 2011 I did find this basket, book, dictionary...

And my husband brought these home to me.

They are enormous ledgers and yes you can covet them and wish me ill.

Well, please don't, come to think of it. I have to take care of this boy...

This month Sparkle and I went out to our little shop for a date.

I have not known how to announce this but Sparkle's sweet husband died rather quickly just before Christmas. She is left to deal with her own world turned upside down while watching this grief tear through their nine year old daughter's life...She is very brave and wrote a beautiful post about her fresh grief. It would be special if you gave her some love. I feel wrong to slide this information in on this very seemingly happy post, but that is exactly how his death struck.

Here is a sunset for him.

On a lighter note which I have been so eager to seek, here is a video of cosmetic favorites that is long and will be the longest video I make. I learned a lesson.

But that's what we are here for. Some are not so hard. Others, well, other lessons take the support of many for decades on end...

Reverb 2011 Post 3

2012-01-17T10:35:00.001-06:00

My December Daily journal was from Hope Wallace Karney's Reverb11 prompts.

Day 10(above left): ten things I was thankful for in 2011.

Day 11(right): a strengthened relationship,

was certainly with my (Larry's) daughter for which I am very grateful.

Day 12: something you planned to do but didn't was certainly the year of Amy Butler bags. Arg.

Day 13: biggest indulgence was time. Although I decided since "indulgence" has negative connotations to me I may use "nurture" instead...as in the sentence "i can indulge others but I nurture myself."

Day 14(above right): best meal was my new recipe for short ribs which I had never cooked with before. But will again. Tonight...

Day 15: Favorite photos from 2011. Of myself a self portrait from the summer seen on left. By me this peek-a-boo moment between my daughter and grandson.

Day 16 (above left): a memorable moment is tucked inside the envelope.

Day 17: bravest moment was with mother as she died was was dead.

That beautiful mother and child postcard is from Audrey Eclectic.

Day 18: memorable trip for me was all the college tours with my daughter.

Day 19 (right): most surprising revelation and here I channel Hope's work the most I think...

Day 20: I changed my mind about eReaders. Thought I would never give up books. While I won't, it is so easy to read in bed with my iPad.

Day 21(right): remembering goals from 2010. My word was "shine."

Day 22: a place visited which holds special meaning...the lake.

Day 23 (left): saddest moment...

Thank you for indulging me by viewing my journal.

I will nurture myself with short ribs.

Also my husband's hobby has become pretty serious...

Oklahoma Barn Market

30 Day Photo Challenge: Gratitude II

2012-01-13T10:02:00.004-06:00

In an effort to keep the winter blues at bay, I have chosen to do the PositivelyPresent 30 Day Photo Challenge with specific prompts for pictures of things for which you are grateful. I used my iPhone 4 camera phone and edited with BeFunky Pro app, my favorite for editing. I am printing wallet size photos. I made my own journal signatures in kraft paper and will bind in a cover at the end of the project.

Day 2: Smile. My daughter's. That was easy...

Day 3: Happiness

Day 4: Leaves. I love this moody edit on a leafless tree.

Day 5: Morning Sky. I have since corrected the number once I had my coffee!

Day 6: Books. So grateful for books.

Day 7: Something Funny. That leaf. It's been staring at me for months...

Day 8: Favorite color. Of course...

Really enjoying the prompts for this challenge. More to come...

I want to thank you for positive feedback on my little beauty video. Low tech baby. I did another. Still not sure what my point is. Make up is my latest toy I guess. I haven't been buying art tools so much but I have been shopping for cosmetics.

So here's another little video about some items I bought from Ulta and Beauty Brands.

Ha, nice face!

Book Shelf: Best of 2011

2012-01-10T08:58:00.002-06:00

My favorite five books from the last two years actually.

Five: The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obamascik. This book has been made into a movie starring Steve Martin. I already had it in my library when the movie was released.Although I didn't see the movie, it prompt me to read this true, well-written story. A girl named Robin naturally has curiosity about birds and ever since Ornithology class in college I have been a bird watcher. Not a birder who records every siting and works on a life list. I simply utter the prayer "thank you" when I see a beautiful bird. Enjoyed this book.

Four: Jessica by Bryce Courtenay. I love this author, a big deal in Australia, his book aren't released in the US. I found him many years ago through my book club and he's so good. This is the story of a young Australian in the 1800s who shames her family and is put out in the woods to pioneer her life. The outback is so similar to the land settlement days here in Oklahoma that this foreign setting felt familiar. And I do love me some settlers. So, so good...

Three: The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. A lovely life story of a young writer who works for Freda Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Well imagined it creates an epic travel through Mexican and American history. Loved it. Art, writing, history, love, it's all in there.

Two: Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund. Another novel set in historical truth, Naslund writes a fully realized creation of the life of Marie Antoinette with facts woven through this tapestry of royal abundance and the harsh fall from grace. I like just to touch the spine of this book to return to the lush imagination of this brilliant author.

One: One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. A gift from my dear friend Beka, it was a grappling hook in my early days of grief over mother's death. A song, a poem, a lovely reality, this breathed gratitude into those long foggy days.

Also during those sad days, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a puffy, ashen face that needed a change. I would go to CVS and look at pretty make-up. I bought all new cosmetics and started playing again with brushes and colors. Shortly Jessi Nagy started her video series Jessi Girls Beauty World. I have watched them all and am like a puppy waiting for her return with each video. It is such a lucky world I live where I can care about make-up. It adds something pretty and positive to each day. I have tried many of the products Jessi recommends. It has really been a great diversion from myself and has actually brought me lovingly back to myself.

To that end I thought I would just sit down and talk about the make-up I was wearing, record it with my phone and upload it to You Tube, none of which I had ever done before. I am not sure why I did this, or why I am sharing with you but I with embarrassment and truth am...

Reverb 2011 Post 2

2012-01-05T12:33:00.001-06:00

I finished something! I finished something in a timely fashion. Just for me. That's a nice start to the year. I loved doing this December Daily as prompted by Hope Wallace.

The journal was a purchase from Jackie Peters at the Glitter Market in November.
Looky, I bought and then USED something!
Using the good stuff is one of my areas of focus lately. And yet, I still haul in more...

Hope's prompts were reflections back on the year creating a nice way to review
and close that chapter.

Day 4 (left above): discovery of a favorite artist.

The Civil Wars. Just go listen to them now.

You are so welcome.

Day 5 (right above): five things you don't want to forget. Allie's ponytail and the simple act of getting to watch her make another one.

I added several mini books in order to include lots of pictures.

Day 6 (above left) is unfinished as I look for a couple of things I put in a very special place...

so I wouldn't lose them. Yeah...

And yet I carried on. I didn't let this stall me, which would be common for me to do.

Looky, progress!

Day 8 (above left): quote or saying that resonated.

"When the bridge is gone, the narrowest plank become precious."

Hungarian Proverb

Day 9 (above right): feeling nostalgic for...My Allie, then, now, always, still.

More of this journal to come.

30 Day Photo Challenge: Gratitude I

2012-01-02T10:51:00.000-06:00

The first month of the new year. Inhale...

I really enjoyed the daily challenge provided by Hope's journaling prompts for December 2011. I am finishing that up now. I used pictures very often to express myself as I have done since I got my first camera, an Instamatic in the 1970s. When I saw this challenge by PositivelyPresent on Pinterest I hoped it would be a great way to start the year and fend off the cold January dark thoughts...

One-One-One Two: Favorite Food

Yep, its peanut butter. It is the first food I remember crawling on the old Formica counter top to reach. It got me through grade school, college, PA school, rotations, years of work and now, days at home, stretches of ennui. I am always seeking protein, and here it is. I prefer Peter Pan just soes you know...

2011 In Review

2011-12-29T11:48:00.002-06:00

Thank you God for my hands. they brought peace, joy and Your Voice to everyday.

January: Soul Restoration Workshop.

It takes time and effort, but all good work does, right?

February: All the Ladies Fabric Journal from a Ruth Rae class.

March: Bead Woven Bracelets, a new skill...

April: After burying mother I turned my attention

to the tedium of stitches and beads

on this wool crazy quilt project.

May: Made several covers for Moleskine journals to give as little love gifts

during the Art of Spring Event.

June: Remains of the Day journal. A new love...

July: She Art Workshop.

August: Started using Project Life to journal my Year in Photos.

September: KC Willis Fabric Journal class...

October: Bees Wax Collage Class at My Heart's Fancy.

November: Completed many journals,

jewelry,

and knits for Glitter Market.

December: My daughter's 18 Cakes Journal, December Daily journal, my first banner,

and this Nap mat for which I believe I will post a tutorial in January.

You still here? Damn. Thank you, thank you, thank you for getting me through this year.

Here's to 2012 bringing many more good things...

Christmas In My Nest

2011-12-22T10:27:00.000-06:00

Not a lot.

Just enough.

Christmas 2011.

Hope yours is easy.

Hope mine isn't blue.

Merry Christmas to you.

In Celebration of a Birthday

2011-12-19T11:16:00.000-06:00

Because my daughter loves details, because it was her 18th birthday and because I had the time and inclination, I started dipping things in chocolate.

Oreos. Spoons.

Pretzels.

Marshmallows.

I then packaged those things.

Sparkly, girly...

Made a banner.

My daughter went to eat with some of her best girlfriends and returned to this surprise.

A table to celebrate and delight her.

Candies and cookies to send home with her friends.

I am not sure who it pleased more, her or me.

Pretty sure it was me...

18 Cakes

2011-12-13T15:06:00.001-06:00

It took 18 years for me to make this album.

It is my daughter's story of birthday cakes over the years until this one, her 18th birthday.

I will share a few pages here.

I used all the invitations that I found in a box I moved out of mother's house.

I also found a note mother left me. She knew I would be the last person to go through her things.

I have cried, smiled, laughed, cried...

That's what it's like to raise a healthy child that lives to celebrate all these birthdays.

I realize I am lucky.

Yet, there are clouds that pass over and tell me she is leaving.

And I grieve that.

And everything is going like it's supposed to.

And I celebrate that.

Suz said she has room in her heart for sadness, its the depression that she doesn't want to fall into to. I get that.

And, so, there is happiness and there is sadness, like most beautiful stories...

Reverb11

2011-12-05T14:23:00.001-06:00

I bought the cutest journals from Jackie Peters at Glitter Market. Everything I make I also buy and that's how I have more! of everything! Even though more never simplifies I do try to use (not just hoard) what I have these days. Ergo Reverb11. It is a December daily journal prompt from Hope Wallace over at Besottment. Her journals are hand lettered and Victorian and fresh all at the same time.

I am joining in using one of my new Jackie journals.

And I am too busy and I have no time and blah, blah blah, but I love the idea of wrapping up the year with this kind of journal. Hope's prompts are reflections over this year, not just about the Holiday season. Especially this year when I lost mother, and Allie is on her way out the door, I really want to record the view from here.

And just in case you are a school supply nerd like me...the pen I am using is the Uni-ball Signo Premier 207. It's a gel roller ball pen that I LOVE using on paper. I never have loved gel pens but this one is somehow just so good on these cardstocks and such. I prefer the Uni-ball Premier Jetstream which is a hybrid ink that is quick drying and waterproof over a painted page. I use it in my art journal I started as part of the Brave Girls Soul Restoration workshop.

And in case you are an atomic nerd for pens, the reviews on Amazon.com are very serious. I read them and roll my eyes at "these" people and then I keep reading...

Many Good Things

2011-11-29T21:18:00.001-06:00

Hmmmmm. Tired. Wrung out. Had been feeling good but kinda tanked after Thanksgiving. Feeling sad and neglected. I had to finalize a banking situation with my mothers account. Do you have any idea how long it takes to bury someone? They are gone but so much stuff remains. I could donate all her clothes, but that closet still smells like her. I can go in there and just smell deeply. Sometimes it nauseates me because she is gone. Mostly it smells good. Good and sad.

So...I left the last entry just before Glitter Market. I was feeling great, boards behind me, the best people in front of me...

Charlotte Perez

Charlotte Perez Originals

What a joy to be with my friends, inspired by their talent.

Heather Ales of Soldering Fame

Holly Abston

Donna Layton

It just was beyond a dream.

Premier Paper Artist Jackie Peters

I appreciate the support so much.

Jemellia Hilfiger

Jemellia's off-spring who made me cry she is so cute

Thanksgiving was so good. I knew I had to get out of town. I spent forty seven thanksgivings with me mother and I knew I would mope around the house without her. We went to my daughter's (my husband's daughter) near Dallas and had a great day. She has two little boys, 3 and 1 and everything is better with little boys in it.Everything.

The following weekend my daughter and I decorated the Christmas tree. Opening up those same old ornaments always brings melancholy. With mother gone, I struggled, struggled to be present and realize this time next year, my daughter will have moved to college. Oh my dear friends, such a lovely thing to raise this child. She is everything to me and is sweet, and smart and funny. Another girl who is going to go. I realize I have been in a hammock suspended between two lives, my mother on one side, her life, prolonged illness and death, which goes on and on.

Spencer whom always waits...

On the other side I have my adorable girl, awaiting college acceptances, wondering where she will land. I have been swinging between these two, happily so, sadly so, emerged in them and all that implies.All this means I will have my own life once again. My future is out there. Thank god I can keep busy with my hands. I can teach again and go back to the medical world.There is some good news to share. I passed my recertification boards required to maintain my national licensure.

Things are really good in my abundant life.

It's just that it doesn't always feel so great.

Thank you my friends. I feel such connection here with you. You save me a little everyday. I hope you feel some of that back. Because what would be the point otherwise?

Back to My Hands

2011-11-16T08:34:00.001-06:00

After much sitting, studying (to include napping) and weeks, months of not making anything, I took my PA Recertification Boards and got right back to my hands.

I had knitted while visiting mother and had a pile of knitted bits to complete. It has felt so good to be productive. Like medicine, like therapy!

Started these journals earlier this year and now they're finished.

Sewing, paper, medicine! Therapy!

I am feeling so good. Its weird. I like it.

Also sleeping. Its weird. I like it.

And the bead weaving again.

And again...

Ready for Glitter Market.

Saturday 19 November, 2011

10-5

Paper Crown at Casady Square

Oklahoma City

Eleven Eleven Eleven

2011-11-11T08:02:00.001-06:00

My big brother was a Marine in Vietnam.

He returned but he never came home.

I loved him so much.

Admission

2011-11-07T07:55:00.000-06:00

I have not created anything in weeks, except for a few earrings, its been months. Instead I have been focusing on my little world. My tiny little world. Healing has been happening. Also senior pictures and graduation announcements, senior night...

I hesitate to tell you what I have been doing but decided that uncertainty is the evil twin of letting go. I have been studying for my boards. As a Physician Assistant we are required to recertify in all subject areas every six years. If I pass these boards I maintain my national certification and can go ahead with a practice opportunity that seems right.

So there. I am letting it go. If I fail I will admit it. If I pass I will celebrate it.

Team Trish

2011-10-25T09:09:00.002-05:00

The Oklahoma City Race for the Cure happened on a beautiful, sunny, windless day. There were lots of us in our Team Trish gear in Bricktown. Trish, just coming off her last chemo before her surgery, walked the entire 5K with her husband, two young sons, mother, siblings, friends and coworkers. It was moving.

She has done the deal. Kept her head down and took it like a girl, the chemo, the illness and kept working, kept being a mother. She told me cancer was just not going to become who she is, but an illness she has for a year. At the end of the walk, the survivors gathered on the ball field. She held back waiting for the line to clear. Her mother offered to walk over with her. She reached the end of the long line. It was a few seconds later that the ladies turned around to see her sweet peach fuzz and say "I was there a year ago," "five years ago," "ten," and "you can walk with us." Trish was enveloped by a sea of pink. She was one of them. It was too much for her mother. For all of us. So comforting. Such hope.

She has had her big surgery and of course texted pictures of herself in that hospital bed beaming that it was over.

I want to thank the wonderful friends who supported Trish with their words of comfort, cheering her on. I want to thank those who donated to my fundraising effort for the Cure which got me to $325! Thank you Marla, Alisa, Maija, Penny, Linda, Stefanie, Charlene and Julie. A thousand thank yous.

I didn't really hear from Jemellia all that weekend until she asked to bring this by. She made this quilt for Trish. I really don't have words for this. I delivered it to Trish in her hospital room. We didn't have words either. Trish read the center block, whispering "fight like a girl." We shed tears and ran our hands across this labor of a love, this symbol for what women can do...

What we do.

Thank you Jemellia. I am so moved by what we as women do for one another.

2011-10-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

I have healthy breast tissue. The women in my family have healthy breast tissue. Trish does not. Trish is my husband's other department member and they spend more time with each other than they spend with anyone else. He loves her and is loyal and protective of her.

But...

he couldn't stop breast cancer. Trish is a young woman, wife and mother. She found a massive tumor a couple of months ago and has been through chemotherapy. Trish has a big surgery scheduled the Monday following the Race for the Cure event in Oklahoma City. Her family, company, and friends are rallying to support The Cure and we are Team Trish.

Trish shaved her head before the chemo could take it away. She promised her little boys to have some fun with it and sported this mohawk on her way to bare. She has never looked more beautiful. GI Jane.

She is fighting like a girl.

I will be part of Team Trish in Race for the Cure on October 16th. Please throw a little money into my bucket for the cause if you feel moved to do so. I have a little surprise handmade by me for my donors.

Now please don't think I am a good person for doing this. I have to do a little good to offset the the rest of my life.

Just wanted to be clear...

Dear Daddy...

2011-10-03T09:16:00.000-05:00

October 3rd is my dad's Deathday. October is full of anniversaries, his death, my dead brother's birthday, my own. I was thinking how I could easily get drawn down into at least melancholy, at worst depression. Its been 13 years but I've feeling so close to dad as I finish up mother's things following her death in April. I have been so quiet. Living slowly and with purpose. There has been loneliness too.

Its pretty easy to live a life of gratitude when there are good days. It is easy to be grateful for beauty but what about pain? Ugliness? Death? It is far more challenging to, say, look at the beaten, bloody body on the cross and feel grateful. Its easier to feel shame. Recently, God told me pretty clearly 'gratitude transforms pain into joy.'

Looking directly at today I am thinking about my father's influence in my life and wanted to say a few things about daddy and feel grateful...

He adored me. I was his beloved. I knew it, everyone knew it and I loved it. Everyone should be adored by someone and he was mine. The last day I saw him, 2 days before he died, he patted me sweetly on the shoulder, cooed to me and called me "sisto." God how grateful I am for that.

He was a feminist. He taught me I could do anything. He worked for the city of Oklahoma City in the 1960s as department head over Personnel Services under Mayor Patience Latting. He loved Patience Latting. She was the first female American mayor of a city greater than 250,000. Dad spoke so highly of her, always calling her by her full name. I grew up with Patience Latting as an icon in our home. I am deeply grateful for that. Turns out she was at the same facility mother lived. I was too intimidated to introduce myself to her.

I grew up going to flea markets with dad. The old school grungy, dusty kind. He had a booth of mostly military related items. I spent Saturdays roaming trash and treasures while he maned his stall. One day I saw this book in his booth, I was about 14, I guess, The Influence of Women and Its Cure from 1936 by John Erskine. Its filled with suggestions about how to keep women and their ideas from spreading around. Dad said he figured a feminist would come by and get all over that book. I told him "one just did," snatching it up.

I am so grateful my father was a feminist. Some of you may have to look that word up. Let me tell you, it changed everything.

He told me I had a good brain. There were no limits on my brain. He told me to look around in class and know I would make the A if anybody could. I do believe in my ability to think and learn. I had such crappy self esteem otherwise but my belief in my brain was the great grappling hook that kept me alive and kept me going.

I am so grateful he gave in confidence in my intelligence. That is a profound thing as the younger sibling of a brother with such severe disabily from retardation.

I am a Sooner. I was raised on Sooner football. There was Jesus and Barry Switzer and some days not in that order. I am a second generation Sooner, we have 5 OU degrees between the two of us.

Thank you for OU, dad. I still love college. And the Sooners...

Daddy gave me my first Nikon when I turned 16. It was a very expensive Nikon F2 SB he bought second hand from a local family owned camera shop. I remember my photography teacher being miffed about this great camera in my hands. I don't know how dad knew but he made sure I had the tool that became a life long passion. The Nikon I use now came from the same shop, the same Epperson's from which I bought my daughters first Nikon last Christmas.

I am so grateful dad helped me find photography early in life.

It may have been the dead birds I collected, but he knew I needed to study science. He started early on telling me to major in a hard (not soft) science and to complete my terminal degree before I got married. I did get my BS in Zoology and MS in Microbiology and another from the Physician Assistant program. Part of the failure of my first marriage is quitting my PhD program ABD (all but dissertation). Shoulda' listened.

Thank you dad for recognizing the biologist in me. I have such a passion for it.

Dad left work for the city and became a college professor which was his profession the majority of the time I grew up. When I became an adjunct professor of biology he sent me a card that said Bravo! and Congratulations! and he wrote inside "on the occasion of your first faculty position."

Thank you for paving the way to academia and teaching. It is one of the constants in my life.

Dad knew me so well. He pointed my in my own direction. Thank you daddy, I am so grateful for that. I miss you so much.

September Snapshot: Husband

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Ted West

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Finials

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Boxes 7

2011-09-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

September Snaphot: Boxes 6

2011-09-26T08:03:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Boxes 5

2011-09-25T08:01:00.000-05:00

September Snaphot: Boxes 4

2011-09-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

September Snaphot: Boxes 3

2011-09-23T07:59:00.000-05:00

September Snaphot: Boxes 2

2011-09-22T07:58:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Boxes

2011-09-21T07:57:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Hardware 4

2011-09-20T07:54:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Hardware 3

2011-09-19T08:17:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Hardware 2

2011-09-18T09:27:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Hardware

2011-09-17T09:04:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: A Place to Sit 4

2011-09-16T08:02:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: A Place to Sit 3

2011-09-15T15:01:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: A Place to Sit 2

2011-09-14T08:03:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: A Place to Sit

2011-09-13T08:29:00.001-05:00

September Snapshot: The Storyteller

2011-09-12T08:41:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of my then three year old daughter during early morning play. I took this same image over and over again through the years. We used film then. A single shot, results days if not weeks later. When I saw this one, I remember calling it "the storyteller." There she was, little sleepy-fine-curly-girl hair and pink rosebud thermal pajamas, snuggled up in my unmade bed, she lined up her babies and read them a story. She knew her books by heart so it didn't even matter if the book was turned upside down.She would tell that story with voices, inflections and sounds.

I thought then that she would be a teacher or somehow part of whatever she would eventually chose. I was afraid to tell her that for fear of influencing her. It is so easy for a child to uptake a truth and follow it, without it being the truth. Turns out, the story in that picture does seem to be her truth. My husband has two grown daughters and says that he can look at them today and see the same toddler they once were. It seems it may be true for my daughter as well.

Allie was always such a mother hen. She would come in from first grade and tell me with great concern and dismay that so and so's mother needs to send her to school in a coat. Some might call that maternal, others may see that as a leadership quality. Frankly she might be bossy, but she always looks for improvement that allows the best environment for learning, play or spirit to occur.

I suppose if I could go back and get a few minutes with my daughter as a little girl, it might just be this particular morning she was reading to her "kids." I would take her up, put my nose right into the back of her neck and squeeze those little fleshy thighs right through the waffle weave of those rosebud PJ's. I would swing her around and hold her tight. She would throw her mouth open, her head back and laugh. Except for much more mature straightened hair and a floral skirt, she still is that same spirit, surrounding herself with little kids at her after school job, reading to them, telling them a story, no doubt checking their work. Maybe even sending a note home to a mother about the chill in the air and the need for a good jacket. Running, throwing her head back, mouth open, laughing.

September Snapshot: Signs 5

2011-09-11T08:01:00.001-05:00

September Snapshot: Signs 4

2011-09-10T08:01:00.002-05:00

September Snapshot: Signs 3

2011-09-09T08:01:00.001-05:00

September Snapshot: Signs 2

2011-09-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

September Snapshot: Signs

2011-09-07T08:08:00.000-05:00

New Obessesion and Earring Recipient

2011-08-30T09:14:00.001-05:00

I do have a winner for the earrings from my last post. Just wanted to let you know I never use the word "give-away" in a give-away title because I really want to thank you for reading the post. So, thank you for reading the post and commenting. But first...

I have a new obsession. Pretty much everyday I have a new obsession without giving up the old obsessions and so it takes all day to make my rounds. I am sure you understand. In fact I know you understand...

I have always put 4 x 6 photo prints in albums. Always. I had a little cute white one from the 70s that started it all. I will have to blow the dust off that and show you. Although I always wanted to scrapbook and certainly hoarded supplies, I never really liked the look, the time, the goofy...you know what I mean. I made one for my daughter's wedding and even though it was only 6 years ago, I actually stamped "sugar and spice and everything nice" across two 12 x 12 pages. Gag. So I forgot about that and just continued putting prints in albums chronologically. I did keep hoarding scrapbook supplies mind you...

Plain old albums had been working for me until I could no longer get this same album from Target (why, why does everything I love get discontinued???). I decided to give the Becky Higgins Project Life system a chance. The kit comes with album pages, journalling cards and coordinated papers. It didn't really thrill me. But here it is August and I do not have one picture in an album for 2011. I pulled out the kit and started, then got going and now it is all I can think about. I added papers that go with everything but are more muted and less modern.

Now I love it. I do have to edit the number photos I use which is good for me.

Editing...good.

I just wanted you to know about this system if you don't have the desire to scrapbook from scratch but want a nice cohesive system. In case you are considering it, realize the products are to be released in October and they will sell out.

Congratulations to Debe Leone!!!!!!!! Email me at Rpaulklthomas at aol.com with your address and I will get those right out to you. I will do another earring give-away in September.

As always, my deepest thanks for coming here!!!

Here...

2011-08-25T10:52:00.002-05:00

I haven't knitted in well over two months. This is the longest stretch of not knitting in years, six years? Long time. I can only describe my state as ennui. Not depressed, not actively grieving, although there are clouds that pass over, sometimes they hunker down and sit there, tears rain down. I am not blue either. Not exactly happy although I am joyful.

This transition of my daughter back to school, her senior year, has left me listless, wondering around, not working this semester. Who am I? Who will I be without my mother or my daughter here?

I had a burst of creative activity thank gawd. I made lots of earrings with Glitter Market in Oklahoma City this November in mind.

Then I got to thinking about you and how grateful I am that you have kept showing up here with me though all my...stuff.

I want to send this pair of earrings in a wee pouch to you. Leave a single comment on this post to enter. Give-away ends Monday, August 28, 2011.

Thank you amigo.

How about that?

2011-08-14T09:36:00.000-05:00

Just pretty things.

No grief or sadness.

How about that?

My Charlotte Perez originals....

She Was...

2011-07-27T11:00:00.001-05:00

Two weekends ago the annual high school girls weekend coincided with our 30 year high school reunion. I saw the girls but did not attend the reunion because high school days are a black hole of despair for me. My brother committed suicide as I started a new high school. Blech. I still ended up sad and off course, returned to the stress and sadness of those years, When we get together, it brings up all my old shameful memories of hating myself and being self destructive. By the time the weekend ended I had spent the last evening alone crying. I decided I couldn't put myself through another weekend with the pull of yuck that always comes up. They have so much fun. It makes me feel abnormal.

The next week I turned to my hands and spent an afternoon working on my She Art Workshop project. Before I knew it I was writing this phrase for her because that is where I am. Again and again...

The next weekend we hosted a lake weekend for my daughter and three of her girlfriends who will be high school seniors. I remained in that space of my own past. I watched them and realized there is no reason why all four of them still have to be best friends in more than 30 years. But on the other hand if the relationships continue to evolve and bring joy then okay, bring on the epic friendships.

I am sorting through some painful memories and decisions. I try to use gratitude to transform suffering and in order to love that lost girl I am saying prayers of thanks for some things I know I did well during the dark lost years...

Joined drill team. Nothing was like Friday night football and the sound of the drum line echoing off the bleachers, that Doppler effect of horns.

I wrote. A bunch. Articles for the newspaper. Journal pages, poetry. Letters to babe.

I took pictures. Learned photography. Received my beloved Nikon from my dad who believed in my passion and gave me the path to a life long purpose.

I made good grades. Bad choices but good grades.

I worked hard and put myself through college.

I survived when I didn't care if I did.

Mainly, importantly, thankfully I chose great girlfriends. The love was real then. It's better now.

Another thing I know is during yucky dark feelings the colors of my She Art canvas are pretty, soft yet rich. Joy came out of my hands.

And this IS the best I can do.

I need to say...

2011-07-13T08:48:00.002-05:00

That I want to call my mother and talk about this heat. I want to talk to her about the drought. I want to talk to her about how we are 12 inches below where we should be. That the earth feels scorched. That it rained today.

Why did I not learn to make her potato salad?

Why was she sitting like a statue on my couch last week?

I ironed a blue pin-striped oxford for my daughter's senior pictures today. I flashed to to an outfit Penny gave her that I ironed for her six-month photo 3 years ago. Six? Ten. Not seventeen years ago.

When listening critically to The Who this weekend, sober, in the daylight and turned to a medium volume, I realized, they suck.

Where has Radiohead been all my life?

I love Jemellia Hilfiger. She is one of the funniest, wittiest, sweetest people I have ever known. I want to draw her close to me like a rag doll. Then slap her away.

I love my body. I am 47 years old. It has looked better but I have never loved it more.

I am almost over my nose.

I do not think it sucks to grow older. Once you have no parents you feel odd, young and vulnerable. I will never say that it sucks getting old.

I want to live and feel joy. Gratitude is the key. Guiltless is the way.

Did I actually fall for a Beck song? When did I start to love Beck?

I say "Yes" to tears and sadness. It somehow brings comforts. It's what lies under agitation and anger.

I will see my Shelley since the first time since mother's funeral. I texted her that I will probably break down when I see her. She said "Good! I won't be the only one!" That is what epic friendship looks like.

Oh! K.C.

2011-07-07T10:57:00.000-05:00

I am thrilled renowned American textile artist K.C. Willis is coming to OKC to teach her Collage Camp class at Paper Crown 24 September 2011. Well done Cindy on bringing this artist to us!

K.C. Willis has collaged Americana and Women of the West for many years, really pioneering this form of art. As she works, these saddle gals speak to her. She often incorporates their whispers into the collage. Her work is full of wit and grit.

She usually teaches out of her studio but as taken her show on the road this year with plans to remain closer to her Colorado home in the upcoming year. This is a wonderful and rare opportunity to work with this special artist.

On Joy

2011-06-23T12:02:00.001-05:00

Of course I was apprehensive signing up for an art retreat with mother sick. I have signed up before and cancelled, enjoyed or had sick anxiety. So why would I take a chance? Because of the possibility of joy... I decided to attend the Gilded Life Art of Spring Event in June, 2011. Large group. 35 people. Shiver. By the time it started, that number swelled to 55. Gulp.

There are three reasons I spend time alone and recoil from groups. First, I am an introvert. Not to be confused with shy, I enjoy quiet and solitude. I gain energy from it. I process, think and grow relationships in the space alone.

Secondly, I am sensitive. I cannot make small talk and often don't like what I hear during it. I want to connect or would rather beahome, alone, with all that yarn and Bravo tv.

Lesa Dailey's Bird sample for our class.

Lastly, when I am with people and connect, I do enjoy it, laugh and have fun. However, later and for DAYS I go back over every single thing I said, and did and punish myself. The Great Critic takes the joy retroactively out of the event, which is brilliant because I (a) lose any good stuff that came from the previous occasion and (b) am prevented from wanting to do that again.

Charlotte Perez pieces on display for vendor night.

Jo said when I criticize myself remember that is what I am thinking and not what is in other people's heads. I will have to remember that. And when I don't I can be miserable with my own thoughts and give myself a bad time for forgetting stuff and not using all that expensive therapy...Yes, The Great Critic is that good.

During the Art of Spring, I saw many women, all with stories, often sad, scars (I am drawn to scars, I seek scars), and I saw them living anyway.

Delicious Lulu Kellogg

Lulu, Heather, Jackie and Charlotte then became my teachers that weekend and today. Each with their own transformations from tragedy, what worse thing could happen to anyone than Charlotte? She describes herself as a grieving mother. And yet, vibrant, vivacious and vital, she throws that red-lipped mouth open and laughs. She lives her life, she lives her grief...Any. Way. I need to get alive like that.

The ever-shining Charlotte Perez

All of us were there, drawn together to get busy with our hands surrounded by beauty, cheering each other on, creating like women do. Special. Funny. Raw.

Shea and Debbie took very good care of us. Fed us. Surprised us. Played mama to us mamas who know how to appreciate some tender care.

Shea Fragoso with Madam Charlotte

I had such fun. But I did punish myself.

I can only try to do more of one and less of the other...

Heather Ales and I

Mainly, I realize my own story is rich, the landscape of my life, but, like LuLu, Heather, Jackie and Charlotte, it need not be an obstacle, just the vehicle to here. And if my pain is acknowledged, if I am validated, valued and loved, I can have great joy, not just alone but in the company of others.

Shea's blingy bracelet we learned in class. And yes, that is one big effin' diamond Lady Shea...

So, here's to us, we tired givers, we funny lovers, we powdered and accessorized women, we Gilded Girls who carry on and on.

I can shine too.

I know you will let me.

I just have to let me.

On Suffering

2011-06-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

The first thing I said her was that I am tired of thinking about my story. I am tired of analyzing. I think it is important but understanding doesn't change my reaction. Understanding makes me do better because I know better but it doesn't make my feel better in an old conflict. I told her "I want to access joy." I thought she would say I was in denial and needed to continue a contemplative look at the past and all it implies. Instead she said, "I agree, you should enjoy your life and have joy. You need tools."

And tools she gave me. Still it takes many seasons of crop rotation to improve the soil. It takes lots of weeding and watering. Lots of practice. Jo always said "practice, practice, practice, it's all practice."

And there I was nearly 17 years later sitting on her couch, that same couch where so many tears and revelations, tools and wisdom came, there I was once again in Jo's office, coming home to mama to help me through the struggle with my mother's chronic illness and my reluctant, guilt-filled, anger-fueled care-giving. It occurred to me that I have always wanted joy and have gotten so much better at having it, really having it. But the vine of guilt grows faster and chokes out beautiful blooms, some buds to appear then never open.

I had been thinking about my disabled brother Kerry. I had not even realized the impact living with him had because it was too deep and too dark to see. I was realizing the guilt I had that he wasn't "okay." I started reading about siblings of autistic, mentally ill, and addicted children (having had all three) and came to recognize the words to describe them in myself, responsible, sensitive and guilty. Not all bad to be sure. I remembered mother would shame me from bad behavior pointing out that my pitiful brother was in the shape he was and how could I "act like that?" She did it the wrong way from the right place of reminding me to be empathetic but because she was so hurt and sorrowful it came out as a guilty dart, stabbing my value, deflating it.

It occurred to me I believe fully that I cannot have joy while there is suffering. How could I enjoy my life while my poor mother was suffering so? And I told Jo. It hit me in a childlike revelation that someone will always be suffering. Mother would die and I would feel bad about living without her, laughing and enjoying my life while her little body lies in a dark box, hot, cold, indifferent to storms. Then there would be Kerry. So simple. I would recognize the behavior in anyone else but couldn't see my own truth shrouding and informing my choices and feelings. You know what? I am not responsible for mother's illness. I am not responsible for Kerry's severe dysfunction. I am only responsible to celebrate my blessed life because what good does more suffering do? Why do I have to be punished?

Mother died 4 days later. I am grateful for this life-giving realization prior to her death for now I can grieve, I can integrate the enormous loss but I can also live fully.

And then more teachers came to me...

100 Pink Roses

2011-05-27T07:58:00.002-05:00

April 15, 2011 was the day mother went. I was happy for her, excited even. Then she drew her last breath and I went into shock. I had a very difficult time letting her little body go.

Grief is so much different than depression. It is a sharp knife. It is dominated by loss. It is fresh and raw. It is disorienting.

I am clear that the degree to which I grieve and suffer her death says nothing about how much I loved her or miss her. I am trying to be alive and find what joy I can.

This is harder than I thought. I thought I would feel relieved. I am processing the fact that out of my family of 6 there is only me and my disabled brother. I am committed to loving and enjoying my family.

It's a new normal.

I am so often drawn to the juxtaposition of extremes. In the room with mother in her casket I was moved by the beauty of her casket piece. I was so proud of it. I couldn't wait to call her and see what she thought. 100 pink roses. So comforting to have selected beautiful things for her burial. These rare the last things I can do for her. And there her little body was surrounded by flowers. The beauty and the horror. A place I am suspended trying to integrate the loss into my life.

Extremes

2011-04-10T08:48:00.000-05:00

Took a little drive this weekend to a lake in north Texas.

I loved the rocks, cacti and the deep blue water...

I respect the struggle.

The Details are in the Beads

2011-04-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

My latest obsession.

Its small. Its beautiful.

Keeps my over-active thoughts focused.

And that is such a good thing.

Dear Amy Butler

2011-03-31T17:29:00.000-05:00

Hello Amy Butler.

I saw you speak in September 2010 at The Creative Connection Event. You were darling and made a very good presentation. Your textiles are beautiful and you clearly have made a successful and long career that has impacted design in this country.

I bought your Style Stitches book so that I could participate in Jemellia's Style Stitches Monthly Bag Challenge. And it has been challenging as I have never followed a pattern before, having only quilted and made primitive dolls. During month 3 we were to make the 6 Origami Zipper Bags, my first attempt at sewing a zipper. I got all my zippers in and up to step 5. I then finished one bag, turned in right side out and your directions side to "smooth the sides." I had ghastly gaps with no fabric left to smooth, tuck or close. I saw on the Flickr group that people were hand stitching these gaps, or using alternative zipper techniques to finish these bags. It simply didn't work as directed.

I had no intentions of finishing these or any other "designer" patterns. After all, Vera Bradley sells a huge variety of well-priced, high quality bags that cause me no frustration whatsoever. I am not saying I am intelligent but I have sequenced DNA and can follow a complex set of directions yet I could not understand what I was supposed to do with these instructions. But...I hated to let Jemellia down.

For three weeks that stack of unfinished bags caused me grief. Now look, I do not want to feel negatively toward you Amy Butler, certainly not toward sewing. My machine is a kind of altar where I go to find peace. Life has lots of frustrations and drudgery, confusion and problems, I certainly don't need my time for creativity to be unpleasant. Not perfect, not without challenge, but these things could certainly be explained better, so that a novice who can follow reasonable directions can get a decent result.

After whining to another member of our group, trying to keep my issues from Jemellia, I researched and grinched through until I found a completely easy solution that closes the bag beautifully and is only a minor adjustment to your instructions.

I have to say, these difficult directions actually made me learn more. It, however, was not particularly enjoyable.

They are complete. I was challenged. I kept my word to Jemellia to participate. I just don't know how drunk I will have to get before I am willing to start month 4 which is designated "intermediate" level of difficulty.

Yours,

Robin Thomas
Barely Bitter

All the Ladies

2011-03-27T10:09:00.000-05:00

I am really loving us. You and I. You have been so giving. I really have been thinking about you. About us.

I was feeling guilty, of course, about my last post and all the whining, negative posts before it in the last year...the year of reckoning, the year my daughter starting driving and looking at colleges, the year my body is deconstructing its reproductive ability. I was feeling bad for you. For reading about my darkness and sadness and how it elicits such love and support from you, you whom has no time for me.

I don't still feel guilty today. I turned my thinking into something like this...we all will face all these same things I am facing. Either you have already buried your parents, or you will. Maybe you never had parents and had to grieve that already. It is a certain and natural thing that we will all bury our parents.

We all will say goodbye to our children. Maybe you never had any and you had to let that choice happen, maybe you have raised your kids and already saw them leave the nest, maybe you have babies and it seems like a million miles away, maybe you are just hopeful to have or get a baby. But we all have to deal with the decison or the experience in someway. Maybe you have a disabled child that will never get to make the choices my dear lucky daughter can. Maybe you buried your child, the worst imaginable of all scenarios. But it is a certain and natural thing that we all face the issue of children and reproduction itself.

We all deal with the hormonal tides. Maybe you had a hysterectomy, or cancer and had surgical removal and early menopuase. Maybe it came and went without fanfare, but still its gone. Maybe you are facing menopause yet to come, periods yet to start, horrific pain and PMS and can't wait for it to go. But it is cetain and natural that the function of our reproductive system will take up huge amounts of our lives.

We all will face my same life issues, its all just timing, when, and how many at once. So of course I need not feel guilty for you reading my thoughts nor should I feel bad about you loving me. You know you will be here or you have been here, my timing is now, all these things. I will lose my mother and my daughter and my periods about the same time. Interesting that these are all such female issues. Female rights of passage.

And yet, you, you who gives and gives can come here and give some more. You who should take instead of give because you are tired, depleted, often forcing yourself to the grocery store yet another time, folding that towel for the 176th time, emptying the dishwasher again, deciding on a menu again, figuring out what to wear again, smiling again, buying another gift, mailing another card, reminding, listing, driving, circling, you come here and give some more.

I love us. I love us women who give until there is nothing else. Of course we plummet through depressions. Of course we share anxieties. Of course we come here for a community who understands each other.

I feel very moved by us. I am so proud of us. I think I will remember that in 10 minutes when I am guilty for not giving someone I love enough attention. We do so much.

I would never speak to someone the way I speak to myself. Critical. Judgemental. I would never let someone talk to you the way I talk to myself. And that insidious hating voice once identified and kept pretty quiet waited, opportunist that she is, until I became more exhausted and weakened and she started whispering, so quiet, so in rhythm with my own better thoughts that I didn't hear her at all. I just became more guilty and depleted. She worked on me like a seductive abuser until she was yelling at me that I am worthless and cannot manage anything. Yelling and screaming and I was cowering in the corner hating and loving and believing her.

And then I remembered us. You and me. Strong, loving, take a bullet for our people women who have this horrible, hating, self loathing voice.

You want me to keep mine quiet. I want you to keep yours quiet.

And we bolster each other. And we keep talking to each other. You lift me up out of that corner, so I can hear the ridiculousness of my own thoughts. I hope I can remind you who you really are as well.

Strong, loving, soft, hard, beautiful. Woman.

The Abyss

2011-03-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately I have slipped into the abyss. I have had to reel in my circle of concern to include myself, my daughter, and my job. My poor husband still circles the fort. I even had to exclude mother for a whole week. The first time since sometime in '09. She did not like it either. I got a an ass-chewin' with what little strength she has. That depleted me pretty badly. The guilt. The guilt. It would be nice not to have it. If you are enmeshed with your mother, no matter what therapy and prayers you have tried, nothing will mess with your head and challenge your strength like her extended illness for years.

I chose to put off my journal project class until I can be present for it and enjoy it.

I am just now starting to emerge, a little. I can see more than three feet in front of me this week. I can have more than 2 things per day on my list. But just three.

Some lessons about suffering are emerging. It has lots of Christian content. It is shame at the DNA level. So deep is this guilt no rational thought can touch it.

I am trying to tell myself to shut-up. I keep getting up and working on gratitude.

This shit is hard.

Betty's Story Book

2011-02-27T08:45:00.001-06:00

When I am down, when I am tired, when I am relaxed, or when I am happy I create. It's a lovely thing to do with my time and my feelings. A healing.

My mother made it to her 85th birthday. She and I are so shocked. She continues with pain and poor health but she continues. When our mothers turned 75, my husband and I had parties to celebrate. The new rule is you get a party when you turn 85. I turned my blues into creating for B.J.'s 85th.

I had everyone sign a photo mat for Mother's 75th seen above. We did this at our wedding also. It's really nice to see those signatures on display, so many little ones grown, people gone, people loyal. For my daughter's 16th I made a journal for everyone to sign and later added pictures and cards from the event. It turned out to be one the best things I have ever made.

I repeat anything good, or bad actually, but here is mother's Story Book for 85...

It went together very easily. Sometimes that actually happens. Sweet...

The front door announced the birthday girl...

Warning...my kind of porn...

And some old fashioned petit fours...

So much family came to celebrate. I had not realized just how much I needed to see them. I needed my family and it felt so good to have their embraces. There is something truly remarkable about some who knows your history before you were born holding you.

Big 'ol Reversible Shopper

2011-02-24T08:00:00.003-06:00

Time for my monthly installment for Jemellia's Style Stitches Monthly Bag Challenge. February's bag is the Reversible Everyday Shopper.

Kinda' love faux bois.

Right?

Lots of cute bags on the Flickr group.

Next month zippers. I'm scared.

Under Construction

2011-02-20T09:30:00.000-06:00

Last post I admitted to another depression. I have been feeling better and having more clarity about depression. I have been really thinking about seasons. I called my depression three years ago 'necessary' and a 'winter'. You know 'to every thing there is a season...' I took myself for a walk yesterday in unseasonably warm weather. My walks bring peace and introspection, one of the things I miss and need during winter, of both kinds. It occurred to me that I naturally slow down and feel blue during February. All kinds of triggers for that of course, but maybe rather than depression it really is a hibernation. I am not ashamed of the word depression but since it does have negative meanings, maybe hibernation is more appropriate. I can start expecting it and prepare for the restoration it is.

I know about seasonal affective disorder. I am not about preventing these times as I have said. I am still functional and that is the difference between feeling down and depressed and behaviourally ceasing to function as with a disorder.

In my last post I admitted to my mental addiction to suicide. The walls didn't come crashing down. I was not struck by lightening. I felt nervous about hitting "publish," wildly giddy even. But like all secrets they lose a little power when light is shone on them. People emailed with their own admissions. I guess my healing light sent a flicker out to others. I hope for that but was honored and a little surprised when it happened. Thank you for that. Let's not cower in a dark corner. Let's look to a little bit of light and start. Start toward it.

I also wrote in my post that my husband was working very hard to understand my depressions and leave me to them rather than trying to fix things, or becoming angry with his own confusion and abandonment. Last year I asked him to get a hobby while my focus was on mother. He did. It involved wood and salvaged items. He started to collect a lot and sell a little. This parlayed into the recent purchase of a small building near our home that was formerly a commercial garage.

He strapped on his tool belt and got using that reclaimed wood. He started life as a carpenter, then left wood for another industry but his true love remained.

He started building.

And he has made something beautiful and amazing. I am so very proud of him. This is what he generated with a his time while I have been working with mother and healing. We have both been under construction...

Roses and Thorns

2011-02-17T14:59:00.001-06:00

It was the two year anniversary of my blog this week. For it I decided not to post at all. But since I am feeling depressed again I thought I better air it out.

I am no longer ashamed of being depressed. I am not afraid to admit it. I don't like being it however. I look for reasons that is back, reasons why I am all crazy and entitled to being depressed.

I desperately want to live alone when I am depressed. Part of it is about indulging the depression which is so comfortable and well known to me. When my husband comes in I feel bad about being depressed for him. I wish I had color in my face and a smile. I do not. I am angry he is here reminding how abnormal I am simply because he functions so much better than I do. I wish my daughter didn't have a depressed mother.

My depression, as true for depression generally, manifests in two forms. One is a low energy depression, inertia, sleepy, no motivation. The other is an agitated depression with anxiety, nervousness, poor sleep and for me, anger, of course.

Part of my depression, and I am admitting this openly for the first time, is the addiction to suicidal thoughts. I am absolutely shocked when people say they have never felt like that. I have always thought of killing myself. Always. As I grew up, my sister would often call the house threatening suicide or she would take a bunch of pills and call a friend who would then call my parents. I was just a little kid. My parents would not want to leave me alone while they went to see what was up so I would get in the car in my pajamas while they went to an apartment and knocked on the door which was rarely answered or she would be there in a state of unconsciousness. She never committed suicide. My brother who never threatened it did it decisively when I was 15.

So I guess exposure mixed with depression made suicide my 'go to' for negative feelings. It really was an escape strategy. An effective albeit unhealthy one. I think I thought of it most days until sometime last fall when several days went by that I didn't think "oh well, I can always kill myself." I thought, mmmmmh, this is when I would feel suicidal, but I don't. Maybe this is how healthy people feel. Maybe they just solve problems and resolve feelings rather than bury, escape, repeat. I like it!

If you have ever had an addiction, like smoking for example, you know that the impulse to smoke is there. Through impulse control you do not heed the desire. I used to smoke and sometimes, decades later will think, "if I smoked, this is when I would have a cigarette." I am sure recovering drug addicts and alcoholics feel the same way. My suicidal ideation is like that. I think about dying like smoking a cigarette. I am addicted to it and it satisfies feelings I do not otherwise know what to do with.

From last fall I had several months free of suicidal thoughts I told myself they would return like those impulses to smoke always have. This last week I was wild with suicidal thoughts. That is really depressing. Following these thoughts are the guilty feelings for having such a great life and wanting to leave it. Having a daughter. Wonderful fodder for the wild flowers of shame.

Depression is a recurrent illness for me. That is why I am not ashamed of it. It is still very hard for me to live with other people while depressed. I know that my depressions will lift. I know they will teach. I need to give over to them. It is a hibernation and is not really unhealthy. If I had osteoarthritis no matter what I did my joints would flare up, hurt, I would have to slow down and take it easy and better function would return. If I had diabetes I would have to be vigilant to keep my blood sugar even and still there would be flares and concomitant symptoms and comorbidities.

So depressions come and go. I cannot prevent it. The suicidal thoughts are the painful joints of depression. I can be having a completely fine day and have a suicidal thought. It is a mental addiction. I try to be objective about it and treat it with a certain sterility to remove shame from it.

But deep in it, sometimes I can taste gun powder so vivid and hungry am I to die.

The rest of the time I eat well, exercise, sleep when I am tired, learn, create, post, grow. I do not mind aging. I do not think it sucks getting old or hate having another birthday or try to hold on to 30. I am just now getting happier, why would I want to hold on to my bullshit youth? I was a mess then. I am so much more authentic and aware now. After nearly 6 months, the longest suicide free stretch in my life, it comes as a sad blow to my beautiful life to feel like that.

It is a relapse. An impulse I will not move on. But so draining.

I found the feelings did not last too long. I didn't do much damage to my marriage with this depression. My husband is starting to understand this pattern of depression and how no matter how I act or what I say it has very little to do with him. Thank God.

But it is all about my desire to escape. About feeling trapped. An illusion. But perception becomes reality. The closer I get to more truth and authenticity of course the negative puppet master in my head will work her magic. Bring me down, make me want to die.

A very wise and loving counselor of mine, Jo, would say "honey, you can feel as crazy as you want, you just don't get to act on it." Such good advice.

I think I am just still working my suicide addiction out. I guess it will never go away. I guess February is a big trigger for it. Also moving. I just think shining light on it will help.

And because when I am depressed I tend to see what isn't said rather than what is said, I am turning comments off for this post.

I don't want to hear cheery sayings. I don't want to hear suggestions for antidepressants. Look, people with diabetes and osteoarthritis and recurrent depression know full well what to do with it.

My body aches, I have been ill, I am blue and yesterday I wanted to die so bad I could taste it.

It is just a reality that is ugly. It belongs to me. It is supposed to teach me something and I am in no hurry to pretend it isn't there. I don't think being happy that will break my addiction to suicide. I think it is being depressed that will. A hibernation. A winter. An experience and confrontation of those feelings that keep returning.

Four Little Ladies

2011-02-08T09:00:00.002-06:00

And now for Colette Copeland. This was my last Silver Bella project to finish. I have mentioned many times that I did not finish one project during the event. Look, I am a college Zoology professor. We have labs. I have taken lots of labs. You get busy, put your head down and finish the project in lab. This makes sense to me. It seems to not wotk that way with art projects and thus my Incomplete Projects List has grown until I feel I cannot enroll in anything else. It adds buzz to the bee hive that is my brain. Completing a project is so satisfying as is marking all of Silver Bella off my list.

Colette Copeland is the sweetest most precious thing. I wish I had been more aware of her during class but the rush to work and listen and complain was all too much. Her A Bird in the Hand posts are just little sweet kisses. This project is three wee dresses hanging on a line. I used a picture of my mother circa 1933, me, very 70s and my little sweetie in the 90s. Mother was embellished with lace, a treasured button and these little celluloid bangles from the Tinsel Trading booth at Creative Connection.

On my picture I opened the beloved Mrs. Bird bottle for the first time and used some buttons from Miss Colette to surround my picture. I thought that was so appropriate. I love this bowhead picture of myself in the yard.

My little girlie in front of her white and yellow playhouse. I hand stitched a fresh green vine encircling her. Boy how I try to be that vine to enclose, but not encase her. She is a teenager and will leave for college in under two years. I can't take my eyes off of little girls right now. I find such sweet sadness so often these days.

I put my dresses on a linen background and made tabs for hanging. And then I thought it would be great to have some kind of commercial drapery hanger for it. Went to eBay and found one. Look how perfectly it fits. I love this about being alive right now.

Three little girls at the start of different lives with profound impact on each other. I really love all the symbolism here.

The Colette pages in my Junque Journal...

Capturing Colette...

Little Colette Copeland is so sweet and my Project Runway quilt channels her spirit.

Love Birds and Post 200 Winner

2011-02-04T09:50:00.001-06:00

We had snow, thunder snow. Yes thunder, sleet and snow. Blizzard winds at 58 mph here in Oklahoma City. Yes the wind does come sweeping down the snowy plain. I used our snow days as an opportunity to work from the Incomplete Projects List and accomplished this Love Birds Wreath by Heidi Wallingford. I received it one year ago. It is nearly vintage now. I rarely work with hot glue. No matter how much I know it is hot I always burn my fingers and yell "this glue is so HOT!" I don't like it. But it works so well...

Heidi does a really nice kit.

Looky! It only took one year...

The view as I walk in from the garage.

Thanks so much for all the love in celebration of my 200th post. You are my love birds, yes?

I will be sending this ephemera package to Alisa!!! Please contact me. How cool, you were number 24 by the number generator! Alisa has one of my very favorite blogs! Congratulations girl!

I will be doing more give-aways this year! Thank you guys so much.

My Cosmo Ya'll and Post 200 Giveaway

2011-01-30T10:48:00.000-06:00

My girl Jemellia is quite the seamstress and fabric is really her thing. She is hosting a Monthly Bag Challenge using the Amy Butler book Style Stitches.

Having never sewn a bag or used a pattern before, I took a class at the local quilt shop, Quiltworks, with my buddy Leslie using the Amy Butler Birdie Bag pattern on Friday. I chose to use a French General fabric with a bird on it for my first ever sewing project of this kind.

It went so well! I was thrilled with the outcome.

I thought "Oh my gosh, I am good at this!"

And then...

The Cosmo bag... I chose this Dena Fishbein blue with birds, of course, from Hawthorne Threads. Love their website.

Just so you know, Amy lists this as the first bag and calls it easy. I could gouge her eyes out for that. Thank God Leslie had shown me how to do the Birdie bag or I could never have figured out much of this pattern.

That last step was horrible, ridiculous and the wonkiest stitching of all is right there in the handle of the finished product. I am still reeling from the beastly ghastliness of it. Other members of the bag challenge produced some lovely bags and they can be seen in the Flikr group. Not everyone is as surly as me about it!

That's why its called a challenge and thus I am more determined than ever to complete all 12 bags this year but only because Birdie is so cute! And by Birdie I do mean Jemellia.

Giveaway!

This is my 200th post. I would like to celebrate. I feel like shipping out that Cosmo bag but I have as much time in it as it takes to get a Master's Degree, so no. I will however put together a little surprise package of ephemera to one of you, something like what you see above. Please leave a comment here to enter. Entry will close at midnight Thursday, 3 February, 2011. I will announce a winner by random drawing on Friday.

Thank you for coming here!

Little Angry Fairy

2011-01-26T10:09:00.000-06:00

This month I completed all my projects from Silver Bella in November. I was not able to finish one thing while there. User error. Class times too short for unknown reasons. And me saying "this class time isn't long enough" didn't help anyone. Not anyone. I see that now...

This is the Caged Fairy class sample by Kerry Lynn Yeary.

My version. I thought I would be a genius at folding wire. Seriously. I thought I would. I was wrong...

The angry little fairy is my daughter. First day of preschool. She was so mad that I wanted a stop and take a picture. So big and bad with her little rabbit and grimace. That rabbit is like 4 inches long. She was so tiny. And angry. Lawdy, I love her so much.

The Junque Journal entry for the class.

Next and final installment is CoCo's class...

2010 In Review

2011-01-23T09:51:00.000-06:00

Twenty-Ten was a significant year of struggle and growth for me. In the midst of all the pain and miracles I made a lot of things. I furiously worked it out with my hands. Here, I have selected an item made each month that represents new techniques for my arsenal of art.

In January I completed the Hodge Podge Journal from my Silver Bella 2009 class with Rebecca Sower. It began my love affair with journals.

I made this journal for Holly Abston in February.

This is a collage made in March for Shelley Overholt who had a heart attack in her early 30s. I was moved to make this.

I knitted all year but this was new in April.

These journals were thank you gifts in May to our bankers who brought in dinner for us when we were so beat up from life. They happen to be all ladies and so smart and loving and lovely.

Heather Ales taught me to solder and this is my favorite piece from the year, made in June.

I made so many of these necklaces as gifts throughout the year, this is one from July.

Valances in August from vintage western barkcloth.

In September I made this case for my journal. I made a lot of these cases for gifts last year. Yet another love affair, an amalgam of many techniques.

This upcycled necklace in October was a first at this kind of jewelry collage.

I haven't shown you this I made in November to wear during vendor night at Silver Bella.

I had not made a quilt in years until this one for my husband's grandson. It felt so good just to cut fabric and sew and sew. I appreciate you guys showing so much love to me for this project.

I failed to include any of the things I made for Jemellia in 2010. She received almost one of each of the things above.

Now on to 2011. I start with out with a wonderful win from Jackie's blog Good Grief Girdie. She made this lovely calendar which I will look at and enjoy each day in 2011. Thank you,, Jackie, I admire you so very much.

Thank you for being with me here in 2010. It was a tough year. I made it through because of you, people who have loved me and held me up.

Thank you.

Natural History Art Journal

2011-01-20T08:01:00.001-06:00

Here it is, my first ever art journal. I learned the basic structure and got a start in my class with Donna Layton. I worked on this during the Care and Keeping of Betty Jean last spring, finishing the final two-page spread recently. It is my story as a little girl. Going through my childhood home and memories really sparked this. It was lovely to go to these pages and work.

It will make no sense to you. It isn't supposed to.

It is about being born, coming home, God and church (not even remotely the same thing as it turned out) and growth.

I now am absolutely wild about journals.

I feel so happy to have learned these skills...

to have employed the techniques...

and finally proud to say...

"looky what I did!"

Tinkered Treasures

2011-01-16T08:53:00.000-06:00

Where Women Create had a Twelve Days of Christmas Giveaway with 3 guests and gifts per day. I entered nearly everyday and was so fortunate to be the winner of this little set of Tinkered Treasures from Elyse Major.

Thank you so much to Jo and Elyse!

Nest time, my first art journal...

Have You Seen My Whipples?

2011-01-13T08:37:00.000-06:00

Well, let me tell you all about them! Artist Lynn Whipple came to Silver Bella 5 and, other than Kaari Meng and the attendees themselves, I signed up because of Ms. Whipple.

She is the most delightful, energetic, positive person. But not annoying. Seriously how does she do that? It's because she is sincere in her joy to share. She was so very generous with her techniques and her praise. Lynn's work above and below.

Recently Heather Ales announced she would take on the challenge of not buying any new supplies for the year of 2011. I really love the idea of this challenge. She does allow buying products she will use within two weeks for a specific project. I have been thinking about this quite a lot. I find I am able to say 'no' to new things by never entering the shop in the first place. I have definitely walked around Michaels with my coupon just looking for something to buy. I mean, I have a Crop-a-dile for god's sake. I don't even really know what to do with it, but I have one. While I am not going to stop buying supplies, it has made me think about organizing and using what I have to accomplish these unfinished projects.

Lynn at work. Why is so so awesome?

One thing I need to do is stop enrolling in classes while I have so many incomplete projects. I made a list, a long list, of projects that still need to be done. I believe there were about 15 things on it! Last year, I bought three online courses I never did use. Because classes have offered so much growth and inspiration to me, it is hard to say no.

I did sign on for the Brave Girls Soul Restoration Workshop. Its a 6 week commitment and I intend to take it seriously. It started this week. I am a little scared about it. The Soul Restoration Workshop says you will print out over 100 pages. And just in time! My printer stops working. Since I also start teaching again, I sucked it up and replaced my dinosaur of a computer. That was a task. I still have to learn how to use everything. However, it feels so peaceful to start the year out feeling good, replacing broken things and getting organized.

So...all this about Heather and the Brave Girls project really is about my Whipples. I decided to just start working through that Incomplete Projects List. Whipple projects were first. I am very delighted with these ladies, 'found aunties' from old photos.

Mama always said pretty is as pretty does...

Just bloom...I cannot take my eyes off this gal.

Fly Girl...Soar...

Once I finished the projects I made a page in my Junque Journal being assembled from the Silver Bella swap of the same name.

This journal is to be a collection of things from Silver Bella and the Gilded Nest as well as other events from the year.

Below is my first art journal, from a Donna Layton class in my last post. In class we mostly talked about the making of a journal. She brought books full of inspiration as well as her own remarkable journal. I did these final pages in the Whipple style. 'Kindergarten,' my school photos from K through 5th. I will have to show you the rest of the journal sooooon.

When you can say yes to a class, how do you say no? I got so much inspiration from meeting Lynne Whipple. I could actually hear her encouraging voice in my head while working on these projects.

Oh sure, find a balance between learning, and creating. Sigh. I want to do it all. All the stuff, all the classes and all the time. My mother used to say 'keep chunkin' hard.' Just keep at it. I will keep working on balance. Saying yes. Saying no. The trick is to find the stillness to enjoy it.

My Art Journal Class

2011-01-09T09:23:00.003-06:00

Donna Layton is an artist. Also a vendor of vintage wallpaper. Also a biologist. Also just morbidly hilarious. She comes off like a waitress at a truck stop, that cigarette hanging off her lipstick, efficient, exhausted. I actually mean that in a loving way. I love that you have to try a little with her. The result is fabulous. Oh Donna, beloved Donna, taught a class last year on art journals. During class we made the basic structure from watercolor paper.

We talked quite a lot about art journals. She showed us many books and her own work for examples and inspiration. She also made us paint a page just so we could get over ourselves.

These are pictures from one of her art journals.

Donna's page below is covered with inch size squares of vintage wallpaper....

She uses old family images.

Such exuberant color in Donna's work.

So true.

Donna's journal is so inspiring. Thank you Donna for letting me photograph it.

I have finally completed mine. Ahhhh. It felt so good, not just finishing but the whole process.

Soon, my completed journal...

Birthright Received

2011-01-03T08:05:00.000-06:00

Where to start? I have been reflecting on this last year now that I really have firm footing, feel peaceful, rested. Yes. I spent the last week of the last year in San Antonio where my daughter was performing as part of the halftime show at the Alamo Bowl. The Alamo, where 200 soldiers and volunteers stared down a Mexican army of over 2000. Awaiting their fate. Hoping for rescue. Such a haunting place. A fit place for reflection.

The arc of last year was so beautiful and necessary. Last New Year's Eve we were homebound surrounded by several feet of rare Oklahoma snow. Mother so desperately ill. My daughter freshly 16, about to drive in this weather? I was a couple of weeks away from teaching a course I had not taught in a long time. I was facing the task of clearing out my mother's house. I was sure I would be burying her. I was sure I would never see my sister again after mother's death. I was unsure how I would do it all and be present for my daughter. I knew my husband would be on his own.

We all are born with a story. We are not born as blank slates, are we? Our families write on us who we're supposed to be and how we are to feel. When you hold a baby, you're profoundly aware all their potential. All the divinity in that soul. You know you started out that way. Hopefully you got loved and fed. Hopefully your upbringing let your own divine light continue to shine. Despite your parents best efforts when it doesn't, you, hopefully, find your way back to yourself, your true self. And hopefully that happens early enough in your life to enjoy it.

I knew since I was a very small child that I was the One. Out of my three siblings, I knew I would be the one to bring the trophy home for the team. I knew I would bury them all, and clean up all the bits. It is the birthright of everyone one of us to bury our parents. Not one of us escapes that. Unless the unthinkable happens and you die before them. Caring for mother this year and knowing her death was eminent was,after all a natural thing. Very natural as she was elderly and sick. I saw that coming.

I also knew I would be left to clear her house. While she was not a hoarder, she lived there nearly 50 years. I was brought home from the hospital to that house. There was lots of stuff in there. I cleared it all out and sold her house within four months. I also was working. I also was caring for my mother. I also was taking care of a daughter. I also had a husband to ignore. I also lost my sister.

I looked forward to never having to see my sister again after mother died. The best thing I ever did in that relationship was give up hope. I gave up hope that she would start acting right. I gave up hope that she would stop swallowing all that medication, inappropriate drugs at far too high doses. I had held on to the belief she would come to and shoulder the load with me. I gave up hope of that. How freeing that was. She could just then be who she was, always was. I could stop having expectations of more. I could (mostly) stop being mad at her.

I did not know that she would hang up on my mother last February and never contact her again. I did not know I would stop seeing her before mother died.

I watched my siblings cause deep pain to my parents as I grew up. My birthright was to do better. My birthright was to follow the rules. All my parents wanted for my brother and sister was to see them grow up, and be responsible. Well, I was going to do that! My birthright was to be funny, and smart and not move out until I got my first college degree. I did all that. My birthright was to be the last child standing. And I resisted that load of pressure every day of my life. Those expectations showed up as anger and anxiety.

That resentment came to its fullness while emptying mother's house. Most every item I picked up induced pain. Each move was full of scorching, acidic anger. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to be healthy. It was just so. I knew I would be left to do it. And then it was true. And then I was doing it. And I ranted, and raged through it. With no one there to help me. No one there to help me. Alone. Alone again. Alone always.

But I got it done. I got it done.

I knew growing up I would have to become my brother's keeper. I always knew it. And then I was doing and I was doing it alone. Alone. Me and my 53 year old severely afflicted brother.

But I did it. I got it done.

I knew I would never see my sister again at some point. I assumed it would be after mother died. But it wasn't. I had to grieve her loss as I knew I would. But I didn't do it alone. I had mother there with me. My poor sick, old mother, watching another child go. I wished I could have lost my sister alone.

I just knew my mother would not see her 84th birthday last year. Then February came and she was alive. I just knew she was going to die when at the end of May she was so weak and emaciated she had to be lifted for every move. She could not even shift her hips or her head as she lay in bed. I just knew she would going to die soon after she became a Hospice patient.

Her low weight was 84 pounds. Her hair gone, Her fingernails and toenails lost due to malnutrition. Increasing pain. Weakness. Loss, loss, loss.

But then, she began to swallow all the protein they were shoving at her. One day she lifted herself from a chair. Then the toilet. She could dress herself. She started to sprout hair and nails. I thought it was that rally before death. People even told me that. After all she was on Hospice.

They kicked her off Hospice at Thanksgiving. Rather than dying with a chronic disease, she is now living with a chronic disease.

Last year I chose the word "receive" as my new frontier. I had worked for years on 'forgiveness' so I was giving myself years to 'receive' what is given since I usually resist and resent, see above and all previous posts.

Receive. That sort of sums up the year for me. All these birthrights I had because of my siblings where bestowed fully on my shoulders as I knelt at the altar of Mother. I didn't exactly receive them. I mean I had no choice, they were there. But I did face them, confront these things hanging over my head since I was a little blond haired kid. I have been just dancing as fast as I can. Trying to capture joy in my life. Feeling like dying. Wading through a constant pervasive sense of dread most days. And here was the climax. A reckoning. This last year, I did receive my birthright.

I have played the hand my siblings dealt me. I did not quit. I did get ugly, crazy. I did. But now something weird has happened. I feel pretty good. I like it. I haven't felt really depressed or even my normal daily reluctance to put one foot in front of the other for a few weeks. Just feeling pretty good. Not like dying. Like living. Thankful that I have a whole future ahead of me.

Something divine is showing. So it comes to me. I claim my life, my future. Time to shine. But in my aged, tarnished kind of way. You got that, right?

Also time to plan an 85th birthday party. Who knew?