sick days

So I've been flat on my back the past couple of days. 

And last Wednesday as well.

The funny thing is that I felt pretty great in between.

"And why the cactus," you ask?

Good question. 

Was that correctly punctuated?

Or is it: "And why the cactus?", you ask.

No, that doesn't look right.

My husband was adamant about getting me to the doctor yesterday,

even though I was quite sure I'd recover on my own.

I'm glad I went, though, because even with the Z-pack I'm having a 

hard time moving today. Very achy. I intend to be well tomorrow,

so if we have plans, don't assume they're canceled!

Oh -- another thing. While I've been lying here thinking about the 

past and my many plans for the future, I have decided to start 

sketching again. I'm not sure why I stopped. I think I started thinking

too much. I wanted to create something more symbolically meaningful.

But now I'm not creating anything at all. 

So back to the drawing board, as they say.

Back to the drawing board.

help for the restless brain

As I mentioned recently, I am a horrible multi-tasker.

Well, it turns out that I'm not so great at single-tasking either.

If I multi-task, I turn into a lousy cook with empty tubs

of soapy water running through the wash and scattered

projects taking over the house. But when I try to focus

on just one task at a time, I drive myself crazy considering

what else I could be doing instead of the item at hand: "What

will I do next?" "How will I do it?" "Is this the highest priority,

or should I skip what I'm doing and move on?" "If I moved

to Valladolid, who would teach me to make poc chuc?" etc.

Now, in Leo Bautista's world, I would enjoy the sudsy water

on my hands while washing pots and pans, find great pleasure in

the aroma of (slowly... arrgh! so slowly) rising bread, and delight in the

colors and textures of the laundry I am folding. However, my brain

may just not be that disciplined yet. Or ever. So in the meantime, I have this

thing that helps me not obsessively think about what's coming

next. And this is it: scripture memory.

Last year, my friend Hannah and I led a study on a section of the Bible

called Ephesians. At the end, we decided to put it to memory. We

would work together on this by checking in with each other's progress

and helping each other review on a semi-regular basis. It seemed like a

reasonable thing to do, as we had just finished learning a bunch

that we didn't want to lose.

I'll post soon on some helpful techniques I've picked up this time around,

and other reasons that memorizing the Bible is a great idea.

But in the meanwhile suffice it to say that this is the handiest crutch 

I've found for focusing my mind in a way that allows sustained mundane

activity. And isn't there plenty of that to be had on any given day?

summer reading

My latest reading has been The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta.
Time management is one of my major weaknesses, so I found
it very interesting. I especially like his ideas about single-tasking
instead of multi-tasking. After all, I'm a notoriously lousy
multi-tasker; but I have yet to become a super-effective single-
tasker! I also think his ways of dealing with home paperwork
have some good potential, as well as his fluid but prioritized
way of attacking the daily schedule. Now to try it out!

road kindness

A couple of days ago, I was sitting in the turn lane at a red light with my little family in the car, and the guy in front of me got out of his car and started signaling to me. I didn't understand him, so he walked back toward us and said, "Your rear door is ajar. Would you like me to close it for you?" Then he opened my daughter's door and shut it firmly. I hollered a "thank you" as he hopped back in his car and drove away.
My husband and I looked at each other in surprise, and I said, "I think that was the opposite of road rage!"
It seems like our society should have a word to describe that kind of thing and should practice it more frequently.

blog adjustments

Hiya, peeps! You may have noticed that I've been having trouble
with my bloggy background. I'm attempting some adjustments
and hope to eventually develop a really snazzy background of
my own with a super nifty banner across the top.
In the meantime, I'm going with the basic "minima stretch." Sounds

exciting, doesn't it? Now if I can just learn everything about computers,

html, and photoshop that I've been putting off all this time....

sick... again

I've been floored again by the sickness I started two weeks ago. It turned into a nasty headcold and yesterday dropped into my chest. Thanksgiving was fun and relaxing, though, and I'm glad to be sick while everybody's home on vacation. I discovered Teesha Moore's videos on art journaling and have been enjoying them while lying around the past couple of days. [To see the videos, click on the link and and scroll down to the November 1 and November 10 entries.]

my new favorite book

When I was sick last month, I got a bee in my bonnet about

growing my own produce and reserved a bunch of books from the library.

They've been coming in, and most of them were boring and totally over

my head. My gardening experience is nearly zilch, so all those charts and

graphs about soil pH and soil drainage just wouldn't stick to any brain cells.

Then along came Movable Harvests, which is all about container gardening.

It's absolutely fabulous! It includes specific, thorough instructions for growing all sorts

of fruits & vegetables, including how to make your own soil mixes and

simple directions for when & how to fertilize. Best of all, it has lots of pictures.

I can actually imagine being able to grow some veggies now.

My favorite part is not having to deal with a bunch of digging in the hard,

clay-bound Tucson soil. Also, the book has a section on indoor gardening

and addresses considerations for various climates, including the hot southwest

and the icy northern regions. Don't you just want to go start a container garden now?

33. draw your sister.

See #36 (coming Wednesday).

what it is

I just got the book What It Is, by Lynda Barry. It looks to be loads of fun -- it's written as something of a full color graphic collage novel meditation on the creative process. I'm looking forward to soaking it in.

.

21. hang around after you've met a friend and draw something else.

Okay, I'm claiming this as my last sick day. I switched from amoxicillin to the good 'ol Z-pack (my new best friend) yesterday, and I'm hoping for the best! I'm feeling better in bits and pieces but still fighting off the gargantuan headache of yore.

20. when meeting a friend, get there 10 minutes early and draw something.

What a lovely idea! But how 'bout I just lie down and think about meeting a friend....

17. go somewhere specifically to draw.

Sigh. This just isn't going to happen today, my friends. Maybe when I have enough energy to move my eyeballs again...

7. take a class.

The drawing class I took a few years back will have to suffice, although I went looking today and couldn't find any evidence of it. All those drawings must have either been stored or discarded. The class was really helpful, though, and I discovered that if I worked on something long enough (sometimes up to 16 hours!) it could turn out like I wanted! Until that point, I always quit way before things came together, and just thought, "Oh well, I can't draw."

the summer as i see it

Thanks for hanging in there with me as I circle in my pre-summer holding pattern. I'll be getting the visuals up and running again soon! In fact, I've come up with a plan for that as well. I found this little booklet (you can download it too!) by Michael Nobbs on Drawn.ca. Seeing as there are 75 days of summer (not counting Sundays, since I only attempt 6 posts a week), I've decided to work my way through his 75 ideas (which include simple instructions like "draw your breakfast") in ink & gray marker. My reasons for this: a) coming up with a variety of artistic ideas & inspirations requires time, energy, and a brain; b) once the temperature reaches 95 degrees, I go through complete mental meltdown; c) whatever energy & wherewithall I have left will need to go toward the survival of my children; d) I find this little booklet fun & inspiring. So thanks, Michael Nobbs, for a summer's worth of guidance for my artistic preservation. If any of you would like to join me on this sketchy journey, it looks like he has a flickr group running for people who are doing the same. You can post a note here, and we'll head over to your blog or check out your work on flickr!

summer preparations

This year I have felt the need to prepare well for the summer.
It's a very challenging chunk of time for me, what with the heat
and the total switch in lifestyle. We go from our little routine with
one child off to school every day and the other happily following me
around to two of them arguing and asking for things all day, and trips
to the pool and other kids flowing in and out of the house.
I really want to enjoy the summer this year, however, and I especially
want to enjoy my children. I mean, what a great opportunity to do so
since they will be around all day every day. I think that most of the blocks
to me enjoying the presence of my children on a daily and long-term
basis are related to me and my parenting. So I've been praying
and reading. I appreciate many things about Jo Frost's approach to
children, so I am in the process of reading Ask Supernanny. I've
already found some helpful ideas, and I've also been led into more
prayer through this. Because I realize that some of what I want to
offer my kids seems impossible: I have the hardest time focusing
on the things they're interested in for an extended period of time.
I'm also pretty distracted from the training process of teaching them
positive things and counteracting bad behavior.
And some of that's normal, and some of it can be propped up with
techniques for a time, but some of it is old sin patterns and the
fact that I'm a broken person. So I expect that a two-fold approach will
be the most helpful: a) arm myself with some creative parenting
strategies and b) fall on the mercies of God and fervently ask him to
transform me so that I would become capable of consistently
engaging my children, loving them well, and enjoying them like he does.

checking in

Hello, my dear bloggie friends. I've been highly unmotivated this week, so I have no pictures for you today. I seem to still be recovering from last week's late night sign painting sessions and whatever energy went into the open house on Sunday. Also, though this may be in the too-much-information category, I spent the earlier part of the week struggling with unexpected hormonally-induced angst. Unexpected, because it was a time on the calendar when I thought I'd be feeling super duper. Hormonal, because my husband reminded me that I felt surprisingly low at exactly this point 4- and 8- weeks ago. The benefit of this kind of woe is that it disappears as quickly as it shows up, so yesterday I was feeling fine.
How are you all doing these days? I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

retro dress form manual

Isn't this adorable? My mom cleaned out her shed last week, including loads of stuff from my childhood, so I'm gradually unloading boxes from my car into nooks and crannies around the house. She also gave me her dress form from the sixties, which I plan to pass on to a friend who's starting to design her own clothes. Anyway, I love old things that work, and having the actual instruction manual to go with it is just icing on the cake!

guitar lessons

I start guitar lessons today, and I must confess, I'm feeling a bit nervous. I'm not sure why "nervous" -- I've been playing for over 10 years (that's my guitar up there), and most of that has been in front of people. I guess it's that at this point I have to be able to communicate what it is I want to learn next. That and maybe I also have some social anxiety about meeting someone new and asking them to participate in my musical life, which is actually something I experience as fairly intimate and exposing of my core self. I'll tell you tomorrow how it went!

i heart ace

There's a little Ace Hardware store down the street from my house that I just love. It feels like one of those little general stores you'd go to in a tiny mountain town to buy worms before going fishin'. In fact, it has a big bell hanging from the handle that jingles each person on their way. Eric and I went to this Ace a few days ago, and he went in a few minutes before me. When the "helpful hardware man" (whom I hadn't met before, although I know some of the employees from having been there so often) came over to ask me what I was looking for, I told him, "my husband." And he said, "He's over here in aisle 1."
And that's why I heart Ace Hardware.

thoughts on the drive

I've been thinking lately about the creative process. I feel this crazy drive to create things, and I've lived with it ever since I can remember. If you read books by artists, they talk about this drive as some burden that only artist's bear, which I find to be incredibly snooty. I think we all have the drive, and it just get aimed in various directions. Some of us point it at art, some of us at food, some at relationships or specific people, some at sex or drugs or rock 'n' roll. Ultimately, I think it's the consequence of having been created in the image of God, which is perhaps more than we can bear now that sin has introduced depravity into the mix of all that glory. We are left with a gnawing emptiness to address. I think that true religion invites us into worshiping God in the midst of this emptiness; it doesn't eradicate (although it may sometimes alleviate) the thirst.
Rather, it gives hope for a future where all these things will find a fruitful resolve while maybe helping us into a present where we can love other people in a way that points to this good future.

In the meantime, I keep drawing and painting. I hope I can do so in a way that's not oppressive to the people around me, especially my husband and kids. And it would be nice if it was also mystically helpful to the journey of the people around me, by illustrating their true identities or their experiences or the Truth or something. But it always feels like a strange and difficult tension.

What do you think about all this? What has been your experience of it?