Pocketful

For  Documented Life this week, the prompt was to "Create a pocket-fill it with treasures from your week."  Here's what I came up with:

Ta da!

I happened to have a flap on this week's spread, so I turned that into my pocket:

With the help of a piece of scrapbook paper from Jackie, My Honey...

On Saturday, when I read the prompt for the week, I had no clue where I wanted to go with it.  I've been having some trying times recently, and last Thursday and Friday were the worst days I've had for a long time.  Friday was so bad that I think I may have had a mild heart attack or something.  I try not to let things stress me out, especially things I have no control over, but sometimes you just can't help it.  It seems like bad things just pile up and pile up until you reach a breaking point.  It was all I could do to slap down the background colors on the page...and then I was done for the day.

But Sunday was a special day, and I was determined to forget my stress and worries and have a good time.  My family...my mom and two of my sisters and their two sons...had invited me to go to Gatlinburg with them, to the aquarium and wherever else the wind would take us.  If it weren't for their generosity, I wouldn't have been able to go, as I am currently having some money troubles...I won't go any further right now describing that, because I know everybody has money troubles, to the point where I often question why we have to have money at all, especially since it (or the lack of it) causes so many headaches for so many people...but I wanted to mention that they were kind enough to pay my way, because good things deserve to be taken notice of.  I know I wouldn't be in the good mood I'm in right now if it weren't for getting to go enjoy the day with them, so I thank them wholeheartedly.

My mom's very specific monster apple...with chocolate and pecans and drizzled with white chocolate
...no other kind will do!

And so Sunday was a very good day.  Being with my family...or my original family (at least part of it), the before-I-got-married family, who are still my family, though I don't get to be with them as much as I wish I did...was just the ticket to make me remember, yet again, that even when things are really bad, they will turn around and be better soon enough.  

"Amy at the aquarium 072714"...another Mindy Lacefield inspired girl
Can you tell my favorite animal is the turtle?
That's why she got to have a fancy shell!

I don't know why it seems to be so easy to forget the things that are important when we face trying times.  I think the reason that bad things like to pile up on us is so that we start to believe they are bigger than what they are.  In a pile, they can come across as the scary monsters that live under our beds as children, frightening us into believing that we will one day be completely gobbled up by them.  Being with my family was like someone turned on the light, and I saw that what I thought were monsters were only dust bunnies.  And those dust bunnies will be swept away soon enough.

"In dark places, I have found the most beautiful things."

When, in my state of funk on Saturday, I painted my flap with the dark purple paint you see at the top of the above picture, I had no idea that Sunday I would flip though my stash and find a paper that matched the purple almost exactly.  And that the matching paper would have such a nice sentiment on it...one that I could use for remembering the good when the dust bunnies try to choke me out...

"A book of happy thoughts for the week."

I made a little book for the inside of my pocket.  I put my ticket for the aquarium and a card from the place where my mom got her monster apple.  And, most importantly, I wrote down a few small pieces of the day, good things that I was scared I might forget because they are details of a larger picture.  But being small things doesn't make them any less special.

"We outran everything that is bad."

I got the quote from this song, "Peach and Yellow" by Peggy Honeywell:




Yesterday, in a good way, I was thrown for a furious curve.  I got an answer to a question I have had for quite some time, one that I had long given up on receiving.  You might remember from THIS post that "answers" were one of the things I wished for.  I don't quite know how to take it.  I know that it's a good thing, but one that I never expected to get...it's given me a feeling of quiet contemplation...with thankfulness that I don't exactly know how to express.  Perhaps it is just a coincidence.  Or perhaps the universe is throwing me a bone, knowing that I was barely holding on to the end of my rope with my fingertips.  Who knows?  But I am happy to have this knowledge at last.  It's given me hope and seems to have, at least in this moment, made my world right itself to some extent.  I am always amazed when, at the exact moment you feel like letting go, you are given a reason to hold on a little longer.  I find I am tightening my grip yet again, if only to see what's around the bend.

I've Got Mean Things On My Mind

The prompt for this week's DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) was to "add labels, receipts and business cards -smash book style"

I chose to ignore the first part...the part about labels, etc.  Mostly because I didn't have any of that stuff hanging about...  Ok, maybe a receipt from Walmart...but just because it's a part of my life, doesn't mean I want to immortalize it in my DLP book...because frankly, I avoid Walmart at all costs...and in a perfect world, I would NEVER have to go there...

So instead, I just chose to focus on the "smash book style" part.  Here's what I came up with:

This is so busy...it hurts my eyes...but in all honesty, if you could see how my brain works, it would look something akin to this...

I have a hard time with collage...  I was getting better when I was working on the Alternate Amy stuff, but I took a little break from doing that (I will go back to it at some point), and it seems like the collage skills just flew right out the window...

"Tell me what I don't want to hear..."
"I've got mean things on my mind."
"My tolerance for your appalling stupidity is at an all-time low."

Can you tell I was in a crap-tacular mood?

I got the line about mean things from this song:

The original song is by Robert Johnson, and here's his version:

I don't know that it's everybody's cup of tea, but I have been on a roll with this bluesy kind of music for the past couple weeks...

"It can't all be sweet."
"Art is more than a product of your efforts-it should be about feeling, life, attitude, soul."
-Sergei Bongart

This is not one of the best things I've done...I don't really like it that much...

But I am taking comfort in that quote above...about art being about feeling as well as effort...

This collage is not pretty...but neither were the thoughts behind it...

I'm sure I've written about this before at some point, but of all the emotions I possess, anger is consistently the hardest one to deal with.  It's the one feeling that I still believe I have no right to feel.  And that's kinda stupid, really..

It takes a lot to get me really and truly angry.  It takes a lot of constant provoking to get me to the point where I want to yell...and once I get to that point, I start to cry.  Which is infuriating in itself...  And it's not crying because I'm sad that I'm yelling...oh no.  Crying just seems to be my body's natural reaction to the angry...like I'm allergic to anger or something.  And there's nothing more irritating than that.  Because when you're so mad you want to yell, you want to feel powerful.  You want to stand up and make your point and (if need be) poke someone in the eye with that point!

But instead of that angry adrenalin surge filling me with the appropriate amount of power to make my point, it makes me cry.  ...and then I feel weak.  

And I'm not saying that crying is weak...I've learned that it's very much the opposite of weak...when you're sad.  But when I'm angry and I cry, I think it takes away from my anger...  Like instead of being mad and arguing, the other person has to pity you.  I don't want to be pitied in that instance...I want to be feared!  Or at least respected.  But preferably feared...

I don't like to be angry, but sometimes I have the right to be angry.

I like my weird brain, but sometimes I don't like the way it reacts.  

I like the way I think,but sometimes I hate it too.

I've heard about this lady that doesn't have the ability to forget...everything she's seen, heard, felt or thought is stuck in her brain...it's called hyperthymestic syndrome.  

Sometimes I think I must have a similar disease, except for instead of never forgetting, I can't stop thinking...maybe extreme over-analyzing is the right way to explain it.  It's kind of like there are these videos in my head of all the things that might happen, and they all play constantly, right on top of one another.  It makes it tough to make a decision...  

And the really bad part about it is that I see these ripple effects of my actions for things that don't really matter.  For instance, if I go eat the last Little Debbie right now, my husband will inevitably die in a car crash tomorrow, not having eaten a final oatmeal cream pie...and it will haunt me forever.  I know that's crazy (trust me, I KNOW) but you will be hard pressed to ever find me eating the last of anything...seriously.  And you would think that I could rationalize that in reverse and think I might also die tomorrow and it would be my last chance at an oatmeal cream pie...but no.  In that case, it's just a dumb oatmeal cream pie... 

*sigh*  

Why does my brain work that way?  It makes me feel really abnormal and, while I know I there's no such thing as "normal", there is such a thing as "insane"...and I honestly wonder whether anyone would notice if I ever did go completely off my rocker...especially since my grip on it is pretty questionable to begin with...

What about you?  What's the hardest emotion for you to deal with?  What do you do when you get mad?  Do you eat the last oatmeal cream pie (like a normal person) or leave it for the next guy?  Do you over-analyze things?  Do you ever question your own sanity?

Fashion Makes Me Feel Old

I'm getting old.

Allow me to explain...

Have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly knew you were no longer part of the current generation?  An example of this is when I was a kid and I have a first memory of my mom saying "Cool".  That wasn't a thing for her to say...that's what young people say.  Yeah, well, now I'm my mom and I'm feeling the urge to start saying this generation's version of "cool".

And, I'm just saying, it's all the fault of this week's JOURNAL 52 (J52) prompt, "Fashion"...now I'm only 31, is this an appropriate age to start feeling like I'm in the later generation?  Isn't it a little early for all that?  Shouldn't I have a few more years...or is that what all the old people say?

Let me tell you how J52 ruined my life this week:

I was going along in my life, unaware that I am now passe...and then I go do a Pinterest search for Fashion...and all hell breaks loose.  

Because here's a few examples of what shows up when you do that search:

A onesie?  When did we start stealing toddler's clothes for our own purposes?
 This girl is so rightly ashamed she doesn't even want her face in the picture...

Yet another look stolen from babies...this time, the "really soggy diaper weighing down my britches" look.
I don't know why you'd want the illusion that your private parts were so close to your knees...I'm pretty sure that's a medical condition...

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have these...former mom jeans, that died, came back as shorts so short that they basically are underpants that you wear over your underpants, and then the shorts died and are slowly migrating towards heaven...just let them go...they deserve to be at peace...

At this point, I gave up on my "Fashion" search, and just tried searching "cute clothes instead...

Which yielded the following:

My initial reaction when I saw this was that the girl had some sort of horrible burns on the top of her legs, necessitating gauze pads...but no, those are just the pockets...

I'm not sure whether to be grateful to the sequins for distracting me from the skirt made from the stoner blanket or vise versa...Also, if your skirt is so tight that there is a permanent wrinkle at your body's natural fold lines, perhaps you should go up a size?

Now, please don't get mad at me if you like these clothes and here I am insulting them...different strokes for different folks and all that...  You're perfectly welcome to insult the clothes I found that I think are nice if you would want to.  

I'm just pointing out these clothes are the reason I feel old now.  Because I should be sitting on a park bench somewhere scolding passers by on their newfangled young people clothing...I'm just a crotchety old woman!

Now, in a perfect world...one where I had a smoking hot bod...here's the clothes I would be rocking:

Look at this girl...adorable.  I might not be a fan of her purse...or nude shoes in general... but I feel like the dress is a good start.

The appropriate way to wear tights...as tights. NOT as pants.  Also, I like that even though nothing 'matches' it all goes together...she'd be a really good paint scheme...

It's so FLUFFY!!!  ...and this is one of the very few instances where I would approve of me wearing sparkly things...

I found that I apparently like this shape/style of dress quite a bit...
What if I wore this dress...

...with this colorful tutu thingy underneath?
How much crazy fun is that?!?

But it's not all cutesy frilly dresses in my dream fashion world, oh no!

There's also THIS:

Picture it: Sicily, 2014...A young woman strolls down the street, turning the heads of all the men, leading to arguments with their wives later that night...

How about a Va-va-voom pencil skirt?

And it's not all skirts and dresses in my dream world:

This looks comfortable and artistic to me.
I like loose pants...especially as they pertain to me not having the inevitable muffin top...
just my natural fat rolls...

And this lady...she looks cool...and it's not just the cigarette! (haha...don't get mad, it's a joke)
I don't know about the weird seams on the jeans, but I really like the look of a tailored shirt with jeans...

And if you make that shirt plaid flannel, you just made my day!
Look how happy she is...she looks like she'd be a nice lady...

I guess what I'm saying is that in my perfect fashion world, you could be cutesy, vampy, or lumberjack chic...  

In my current state of being, I think I'd feel comfortable wearing the last three outfits.

I tend to be a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, I guess...

That thought led me to my actual page for the J52 "Fashion" prompt:

"I want to wear cute dresses...without feeling awkward."
Also, I just realized I used 'where' not 'wear' when I wrote the journaling...
Darn tricky homonyms!

In my dream world, I'd wear all those adorable skirts and dresses and be confident and fabulous...  However, in the real world, I feel really awkward wearing anything other than pants...In my head, it's like I'm trying to be fancy but I'm not and anyone who sees me knows I'm wearing a lie.  I feel the same way about makeup...it looks good on other people...but on me, I feel like I did it wrong and am something akin to Ronald McDonald...  I can occasionally muster mascara and lipstick, but any time I'm tempted to try using anything more than that, I immediately get the Bozo the clown feeling about myself...

I'd love to be able to wear whatever I wanted and not care about how I feel other people might view me...I'd just wear my cute dresses and be happy...but that's not reality for me at all.

Maybe I need to look at it like this: those first five outfits are (according to someone at Pinterest anyway) current fashion.  The young people are going for stuff like that...and they are comfortable in it...they are confident enough to go out of the house (on purpose) looking that way...

But I feel like those are hideous, horrible outfits and my eyeballs hurt from looking at them...

So, why can't I confidently wear the clothing I find visually stimulating with the same confidence as those girls in the ugly (in my eyes) clothes?  What's up with that?

Perhaps the hideous outfits of the new generation can serve a purpose for an old lady like me after all...  To remind me that I should dress for me...it doesn't matter about someone else's opinion...as long as all the scandalous bits are covered, what does it matter?

What do you think?  Are you a fashionista or do you just manage to cover the bits with whatever's available?  Do you have a go-to outfit/style?  Are you confident and comfortable no matter what you wear?  Or do you need your normal to be ok?

Wishy Washy

Two days is a lot better than two weeks, am I right?  Make time for more of the good stuff!

I've got my DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) and JOURNAL 52 (J52) pieces to share with you today.

For DLP, the prompt was "Wish List", and here's what I did:

"I wish for: time, answers, understanding, enough."

I thought about putting a lot of different things on my wish list...because, honestly, there are a lot of things that would be really awesome to have (aka every art supply I wanted)...but when I thought about it a little harder, I realized that at some point, if I saved my pennies, I could just buy the art supply I desired...and I don't want to waste wishes on something I could easily do for myself!

No, no, no.  These wishes had to be things which I have a very small chance of getting...or at least things where effort on my behalf wouldn't change the outcome.  That's a much better use of my wishes!

I liked the girl blowing the dandelion fuzz away...and luckily enough, my mom had given me a page of cute dandelion wall decals, so, in addition to the hand drawn dandelion, they came to live on the spread too.

I thought about things like a never ending supply of chocolate milk or to have legs that were skinny enough to fit perfectly into cute boots.  (Seriously, even when the rest of me was skinny, my calves are the calves a steroid-using body builder wishes he had!)

You're all I've ever wanted.

...but even that seemed like not enough.  I mean, if I'm getting wishes, I'm not wasting them...not even on awesome footwear.

Pretty happy with my lettering!
I went really, really slow...it turned out...not too shabby!

My favorite wish...the most important one for me...is "Enough".  I'm not greedy...I don't want a lot...I just want enough of things (time, answers...money) not to have to stress!  That's the best wish I came up with I think!

For J52, the prompt was "Technology", and here's what I came up with:

Oh, the irony...

I was trying to decide whether I was a fan of technology or not...

Interestingly enough, I was just having a conversation with my husband about fear, and he said one of his worst fears is that "they" drop an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse).  If that happened, it would basically be like they broke electricity and nothing electronic would work.  He got mad at me because I said I'd basically be ok with that.  But it's true!

On one hand, I enjoy technology VERY much...I like being able to talk to my family on the phone...or to hop in the car and go see them whenever I want.  I  like to have information right at my fingertips whenever I happen to be curious about something.  I love being able to know people from all over the world who share the same interests I do...especially because I don't know anyone in my day-to-day life that does!  I love getting to see people's amazing art and I love all the inspiration and ideas that are exchanged!  And I love having access to interesting music...the internet is my sole source of good music.  I really like electricity and having access to clean and (if I choose) hot water in an instant!  I totally understand how limited my life would be if it weren't for technology...and how much more time consuming daily activities, such as bathing and cooking, would be if it weren't for technology.

On the opposite side, I am very completely a person who could live on the side of a mountain somewhere without electricity or indoor plumbing or internet access!  I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog before, but for the first 11 or 12 years of my life, I lived in a house with no running water.  We had an outhouse...we had a well with a hand pump...  And this was in the 80's and 90's in Ohio, not a third world nation or way back when...  I don't know if I recognized it as a kid so much, but it was an odd way to be raised for someone in my generation...  Because of my non-conventional childhood, I know that if electricity suddenly did disappear, I'd be ok with it!  I'd be inconvenienced, but I wouldn't be unable to survive or anything!

To be completely honest, I actually think I would enjoy that life very much!  There'd be a lot of hard work involved, but it would be honest work...there'd be a sense of accomplishment that went along with it.

Sometimes I think about all the things I have and ask myself if it was really worth exchanging my time for these things.  Because that's what it all boils down to for me...  It's so easy to get caught up in the 'wanties'...I want a new phone because mine is 6 months old and out of date...  I want a bigger TV because that's 'better' than the one I have.  I want....  I want...  I want...

Don't get me wrong, I like my things.  I appreciate having all my basic needs handled to the extent that I can sit here and ponder over the things I want...because there are a lot of people in the world who don't have that luxury.  But if it weren't for all those extras...if I was sitting in my mountain shack, doing just enough to ensure my survival...how much more enjoyable would my life be?  Or, how much more time would I have to enjoy life?  How much more would I appreciate the simple things?  Because I can google pictures of flowers all day long, but it will never be the same as seeing one right in front of me, smelling its fragrance, feeling the softness of the petals with my own hands...

I guess where technology is concerned, I'm kind of like what would happen if Big Foot married a robot and they had a child...  I'm Robofoot...  (or Bigbot...)  I like technology well enough, but I like the absence of it just as much.

What about you?  What's on your wish list?  Are you a technophobe, or do you enjoy the gadgets and gizmos?  Do you want to come live with me in my mountain retreat or is your idea of roughing it staying at a Motel 6 for the weekend?

Unintentional Hiatus and The Current State of Things

Well...it's been two weeks since I posted, and that's just too dang long!

I didn't intend to have this temporary hiatus at all...life just throws craziness at you sometimes, you know?  Or sometimes my personal craziness throws itself center stage in my life...maybe that's a better way to say it...

I was so excited for the long weekend for July 4th...and then when it happened, I found myself in a blue funk.  I don't know why, I don't know where it came from...things had been going so well...but then...BLAMO!  Horrible melancholy.

And you can see the funk in my art.  Here are my Documented Life Project spreads for the last two weeks and Journal 52 piece for last week (the J52 spread for two weeks ago is in the last post):

"How much time have I spent looking for something that I seem to know I'll never find?"

The prompt for this one was to use a crossword, sudoku, or word search in your art, and you can see in the picture that I used a word search as the background (of all the surfaces) in this spread.

I call him a Pega-corn (cross between a Pegasus and a Unicorn)...because Uni-sus doesn't sound very cool.
I think my Pega-corn has a nice butt...I strongly admire the butt...

I couldn't think of anything at all to do for this prompt, because of the blue funk, so I just started smearing paint with a credit card.  

Poor, sad little dude...

When the paint dried, I saw the basic shape for the sad little dude above, so he was where I started...after that, I saw the Pega-corn...and then the rest...

"I suppose I love this world in spite of my clenched fists."
I think the guy on the right looks like he's going to punch the flame-y dancer in the face...I don't know what the flame-y dancer did to deserve it, but here we are...

And the journaling popped into my head, in part because of the word search, and in part because of finding the shapes in the paint, and in part because of the idea of looking for things that are make believe, but mostly because I was in a blue funk and couldn't think of any thing happy to write...

I am a fan of this mermaid, because she is chunky and has saggy boobs like me...we get sick of all those famous mermaids and their perky boobs!  Plus, I think her tail looks sassy...like she's walking the plus size mermaid catwalk...

The blue funk continued for the Journal 52 prompt of Nostalgia:

"I always thought I would look back at my tears and laugh,
but I never thought I would look back at my laughter and cry."
-Cat Stevens

The color scheme is nostalgic/retro to me: red and robin egg blue.  And the quote...I think Nostalgia should be good thoughts...but my blue funk had other ideas, and I saw that quote on Pinterest and went with it...

By the time the next DLP prompt, to use a tiny picture, came up, I was getting pretty darn sick of being sad:

"I am tired of being so very sad."

But the fact that I was tired of it did not stop the funk from existing.

So I started doing the Summer of Color challenges that I agreed to partake in, but ended up being severely behind:

"You can't add apples and oranges."
Sorry for the blurry photo...
Week 1 colors: Aqua, Yellow, and a smidgen of Hot Pink

The apples and oranges page is probably the most boring page I've made (at least in my eyes) in a long time...but the thought behind it was a reminder that some things just don't work together, no matter how much you try to force it.  ...like my plan to get out of the funk, which has been unsuccessful thus far (at the time of the page, that is...)

"Lost in space"
Week 2, Coral, Teal, and a pop of Bright White
The coral isn't coming across so coral-y in this picture, but I assure you, it's very coral-y indeed.

I don't know why it is, that when I feel depressed, the tendency is to isolate myself...when what I really need is to be around people.  Even though I know that to be true, my blue funk was telling me to stay at home and be a sad, lonely wiener...even to the point of neglecting the blog and my online art friends, which/whom I love very much!  At the point of the above art journal page, I was feeling very cut-off from everything.  I think it's easy to forget when you are in a blue funk, that other people have blue funks too, and so you are not alone in your struggle against the funk.

"Kiss me so I remember how." -Gregory Alan Isakov "Astronaut
Week 3, Lavender, Gray, and a smudge of Plum
I couldn't find a Lavender paint, so I used a color called "Orchid" which is like a grayed out Lavender...I think it added to the sadness of the page...

The journaling on the above page was taken from this song:

That bald gal looks so sad to me...she is having a blue funk too, I guess.  I really like that song (and Gregory Alan Isakov's music in general) and I've been wanting to use that line for a really long time...but the page had to be right, and that bald gal appeared and she turned out to be just right...because to me she looks sad, but also like she's questioning something...like she's looking for comfort...and to me, that's what the lyrics suggest too...

"There is a fine line between genius and crazy...I like to use that line as a jump rope!"
Week 4, Pink, Apple Green, and a splash of Dark Green
I saw that girl on Pinterest, but the link only goes to a picture, not a site (See the original here).  I loved her so much that I pretty much blatantly copied her as well as I could.  I wish I knew who the artist is, so that I could see more of their work, because I do love the girl!

So, as you can might guess from the journal page above, the blue funk cloud did eventually lift.  Thanks to a ground hog...

Over the weekend, I was walking to the house from my car, saw 'something' move, and yelled "HOLY CRAP!" because it startled me.  My husband (who is, shall we say, not a fan of wild life) heard me and came to the door to see why I hollered.  I pointed and said "Look, it's a ground hog.'  At which point my husband sees the ground hog and shuts the screen door, holding the handle securely, effectively locking me out of the house, and says: "GET RID OF IT!  GET RID OF IT!  IT COULD HAVE RABIES!!!"  (I wish I was joking...but it gets better...)  So I go grab a hoe out of the shed, to shoo the ground hog with.  To which my husband shouts (through the screen door) "DON'T KILL IT!"...which I was not going to do...he just put it in my head that the ground hog might be rabid, and I wanted some way to defend myself against the theoretically rabid ground hog in case it turned on me while I was shooing it off the porch.  

So, ground hogs either have bad eye sight, are really stupid, or, in this case, genuinely rabid...because I had to gently bonk the ground hog in the nose with the hoe to get it to move off the porch...  It proceeds to run around the house and get on the other porch...the one my husband enters and exits the house by...so you know it couldn't stay there either...at least not according to my husband, who tells me to shoo it off that porch (still from the 'safety' of the indoors, of course).  So I successfully shoo it off that porch, at which point the ground hog runs under my husband's car.  

And my husband insists that I can't leave it there either, because it's rabid and he will come out of the house to go to work and the ground hog will bite his ankle when he goes to get in the car and he (the husband) will then die from rabies.  So I spend the next 30 minutes trying to shoo the ground hog out from under the car, by using the hoe to slowly scoot him.

At last I was successful at getting him out from under the car, and he started scurrying down the road, with me chasing him, hoe still in hand, hollering "Go!  Get out of here!  Get!"

As I am chasing the ground hog down the road, (slowly, for I am a chunky gal) he stops every 10-15 feet and looks back at me, as though he can't believe what he's seeing.  Three times!  Finally, I'm so frustrated I just yell "GO IN THE WOODS!!!"  I kid you not, the ground hog then runs into the woods.  I couldn't make this crap up!

I thought of a few things in that moment:

1.   I'm really happy I don't have close neighbors...because I wouldn't want anyone else to have witnessed  this little adventure with their own eyes...
2.  My husband is willing to sacrifice me to save himself. (This time it was a ground hog...what if it's a bear next time?!?)
3. Ground hogs don't run very fast, and apparently, neither do I.  Which is why I'm glad there were no neighbors to see me losing the race against the ground hog...
4.  I am pretty sure that, to the groundhog, I looked like a tribe of cannibals in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon, that when Bugs escaped, stood at the edge of their island angrily shaking their spears above their heads and yelling cannibal gibberish...the only difference is that I was holding a hoe, not a spear and yelling Hillbilly gibberish...
5. What would have happened if I would have just yelled "GO INTO THE WOODS" at the ground hog in the first place?

The positive thing about that whole experience is that it was so comical that the haze of blue funk lifted...and I made the pink and green page, commemorating the fact that I am probably a genius and/or insane...but in a battle of wits with a ground hog, I will eventually come out victorious.

"On bad days, when you want to hide yourself from the world, remember that there's always someone out there longing to see your glorious face.  Try to never waste the love in their eyes."
Week 5, Red, Royal Blue, and a pop of Light Blue
My take on Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf...my Wolf loves Red...

The Red and Wolf spread is to remind me that instead of isolating myself when I feel sad, I need to remember that people care about me...and that being around others will help me to flee the funk.  Even if those "others" end up being a ground hog that let me bonk it on the nose and have a comedic adventure just to get me to feel better!  How could I be sad after that?!?

I'm going into this week feeling better than I have been, and working to keep that up!  No more blue funks allowed for a while...life's too short for too many blue funks!

Under The Sea

I'm so excited for the long weekend that I can hardly stand it!  I have an idea of how I'm hoping to spend it...a secret idea...one that I am SO ready to put into action!  I will give you one hint: it involves my art...that's all you get...  OK, two hints: you'll NEVER guess what it is...that's the second hint...  Maniacal laugh!  Maniacal laugh!

Something I am ready to share with you is my Journal 52 page for this week.  The prompt is "Under the Sea"  and you can read more about it HERE.

When I first read the prompt, I thought about doing a mermaid...but there have been several mermaids happening in my art journals recently, and so I decided to go a different route...a VERY different route:

"Bring your own light to the darkness."

I love this page.

I can't even tell you how much.

It's so far from my initial idea of a mermaid...but I love it.  LOVE IT!

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos recently, and the anglerfish and it's bioluminescence  was the topic of one of the videos I happened to watch.  And then I was scrolling through Pinterest and saw the quote "We must bring our own light to the darkness." (You can read the entire poem HERE.)  And the two things clicked together in my head and the idea for the page was born...

In looking for a decent and less scary picture to paint from (because these are some creepy looking fish in real life!), I ended up reading some interesting facts about the anglerfish.  The most interesting thing was the relationship between the male and female.

You see, the big, scary version is actually the female.  The male anglerfish is this pathetic, wimpy dude that can barely feed himself.  His life is dependent on finding a lady anglerfish.  Which is mildly ironic, because when he does find her, he latches onto her with his wimpy fish teeth...and over time, he begins to fuse with the girl fish...until the only thing left of him is his testes.  The female will have multiple males attached.  I kid you not.  (Here's the link in case you don't believe me...)  

Thank goodness that's not what happens with humans!  Could you imagine? 

"What ever happened with you and Jimmy?"

"Worked out pretty good...see these lumps on my side?  ...yeah, now I can impregnate myself whenever I want..."

And then me and my friend would high five over our victory.

The only downfall would be that there wouldn't be anyone to open up pickle jars...but then again, perhaps we would just package them in a different way and everything would be fine.  

I think the real issue is that we'd know the ending to every romance movie...they'd all just end in new lumps...