En Garde, Your Majesty

Three spreads today.

The first one is in my DLP journal for the prompt MARK MAKING AS A FOCAL POINT/COMING INTO FOCUS.  Here's what I did:

"En garde."

For me, what this prompt brought into focus was the thought to guard my heart.  I've worked really hard to let myself be open and vulnerable, but there comes a point when one might go too far.  Too much of a good thing and all that.  I've realized I need to put a few walls back up.  It's important when one follows one's heart to take your brain as well.

Love those triangles.

Sometimes people are just not what you need them to be...they're just not good people when it comes to you.  They take advantage of kindness...they use you...

Like this spread, another for DOCUMENTED LIFE, says:

"Suddenly...it hit me."
My custom element for this spread are sticky labels that I've used to wipe my left-over paints on since I've been here at moms...they are pretty nifty and an easy way to get some color on the page.

It suddenly hit me that being my friend is a privilege, not a right.  I don't have to stand for someone taking advantage of me or doing me wrong...I don't have to deal with that crap!

This spread for JOURNAL 52 sums it up nicely, I think:

"You rule your own life."

You rule your own life.  I rule mine.  You rule yours.  What an epiphany!

This was for the 'Cards' prompt, and I used a queen card as the base for this...the queen of hearts actually...hence the no arms.  But Queenie McArmless here reminds me that I have power over my heart and my life...I'm not lost to the whims of either.

It's up to each of us individually to decide what we are willing to deal with and what we are not...what we find acceptable and what we take exception to.  I don't get to tell you.  You don't get to tell me.  ...I mean, you can try, but I'll stick my fingers in my ears and start humming and ignore you, so there! :)

Sometimes I am both amazed and frustrated by how long it takes me to really 'get' things.

I mean, I would never think of telling another person how they should live their life...and yet, it's taken me all this time to realize that they shouldn't be doing it to me either.  I would never intentionally take advantage of another person, and yet, it's only now that I see it's not fair for someone to do it to me...

At least I've finally learned it I suppose...I just hope that, if there are any more blazing epiphanies to be had, I'll be a quicker study in the future.

Connecting

The prompt for JOURNAL 52 this week was to "Doodle In Your Journal" and here's what I did:

Connecting with my inner child this week, I guess...

To me, doodling is absentmindedly sketching, and this little ballerina is what came out when I turned off my brain. I think the prompt was supposed to be doodling like zentangles, but this little girl wanted out into the world instead...and who am I to tell her no?

The prompt for REVERB14 today is:

How have you created and/or sustained connections in your life this year?

I like to think that 2014 has been a year of connecting to myself in a deeper, more meaningful way.  Since starting the blog, which is coming up on year two, I've been developing my sense of self...realizing I have an inner voice and then trying to listen to what it's saying in terms of what I want from life.

It's not that I haven't always had an inner voice, but it's just sort of been a dreamy one, I suppose, making comments I paid very little attention to.  It didn't matter what I wanted, I felt obliged to do things other people's way.  My own thoughts were put on the back burner to snip and snark and bemoan the fact that they were mostly ignored.

For the past two years blogging, I've had my own personal soap box to stand up on and let myself be heard.  It's been interesting, and quite often surprising.  There were times I didn't know that I felt a certain way until I sat down and started typing...Which seems like pure craziness to say out loud, but is entirely true!

This year I think, especially in the last six months or so, I've been coming to terms with the fact that my inner voice doesn't have to be a narrator only.  It can and should be a decision maker.  What an epiphany!

I've always let my inner voice be silenced by the thoughts and opinions of others, and I feel like it's far past time to make amends with it.  I've been letting that voice speak up more and more, but we all know words are nothing unless action follows.  

This month has been a start of acting at the discretion of my own inner voice...and it's scary and wonderful in the same breath!

Even though I've spent a lot of time in the past trying to cut the rope that binds it to me, I feel like I finally understand that the connection to self is one that can never be severed.  More to the point, I'm ready to strengthen that connection and not take it for granted ever again.

I think my inner voice just breathed a sigh of relief...

Maps And Charting Courses

For DOCUMENTED LIFE (DLP) this week, the prompt was to "Add A Map" and here's what I did:

I do love a nifty post card...saving my lazy butt from having to draw a map just gives it bonus points...

And here it is with the post card flipped over:

She's a little wonky looking, so the postcard covers up the wonky bits...plus it reminds me of a blindfold...the girl can't see where she's going...yeah, metaphors for life and stuff...

I like to think of my girl's wonky eye as a twitch...

Good old twitchy eye...she's tired of the curve balls.

...because I feel like I've got my own eyeball twitch going on right about now.  

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know how much time and effort I've put into getting myself to a place I'm happy with.  And I kinda thought that I was close to being done with that...you know, the home stretch...

But after the unexpected epiphany I talked about in the last post, I realized that the finish line is no where in sight.  *Sigh.*  All that work and I'm still not even close to done.  Maybe this is the point where I hit "the wall" and it seems like I'm not gonna reach my goal.  Then comes the second wind, right?  Yeah, I'm ready for the second wind now...

"Where do I go from here?"

I don't know if I've ever been much of a planner...  I think I've always been a bit of a jumper and then a figure-it-outer...  But now I'm older and I've gotten used to the relative stability that slowly crept into my life.  I guess I got these expectations that things would continue in a certain way...and now I see that's not the way it needs to be.  

I know it will be ok.  I will be ok.  I will figure it out and move forward.  I've done it before.  I can do it now.  But it won't be the headlong dive into the unknown that I'm somewhat used to.  Instead, it will have to be slow, calculated steps...and I don't like that; it makes me feel sneaky.  And I don't like or want to be sneaky...it just doesn't seem like I have much of a choice this time.

I've always been good at imagining the life that I want, but never at figuring out how to make it happen.  Now I've got to learn how to make a plan and stick to it.  I've changed a lot over the years, especially the last few...so maybe it won't be as hard as I think.  It's just a matter of looking at the map and charting the course.  And then, at some point, taking the first step in a new direction.

I Love You For What You Can Do

The prompt for this week's Journal 52 page was to incorporate hands into your page.  You can read more about the prompt HERE.  

I will admit that I was a little reluctant about this prompt...and that I had a momentary lapse of sanity in regards to it...  Because hands are hard to draw...at least for me...and that's my go to answer to all prompts...I will draw my way out of this.  But that answer just wasn't jiving with this prompt.  I didn't want to do a collage, because fancy cutting gives me the hives, and all the magazines I have are comprised of tiny people with even tinier hands...it was a scissor-phobe's worst nightmare.  At one point, I even thought about doing a hand print turkey like a kindergartner...I was getting desperate.

Suddenly, I realized that, if I did trace my hand, I didn't have to use my whole hand.  I thought maybe I could make mountains by tracing my fingertips and then draw a person standing on them.  I felt like a genius.  But once I started tracing my fingers, I liked how they looked, so I just kept tracing.  Fingertips up the sides of the page.  And then I felt like less of a genius.  I had traced myself into a corner.

But I persevered.  I painted them green.  I liked the color, but still had no clue where to go from there. Then, I decided it couldn't get much worse, so maybe I'd just draw doodles in the fingertips.  I am not a natural doodler, so I was taking another chance.  But, as I have learned, if it gets too bad, a coat of gesso fixes everything...I could always start over.

But as luck would have it, I didn't have to gesso the page out of existence.  I actually thought it looked pretty groovy.  And that's when I decided to get REALLY bold...and traced my whole hand in the middle of the page.  And here's what I ended up with:

I ♥ U 4 what you can do

The thing about my hands is that I am very mean to them.  I call them my "actual man hands"...as in they are beefy and thick-fingered.  The rest of me is pretty thick and beefy as well, so at least we match.

But, as I looked at my chubby hand outline surrounded by those green tangled fingers, I thought to myself, "Wow, hands, look what you can do!"  My little sausage fingers will probably never play the piano, or send text messages without hitting forty letters I didn't mean to hit, but they do enable me to make some really cool art!  They are my fat little translators, taking what my brain says and passing it onto the page with ever-growing skill!  

I was suddenly very proud of my actual man hands...and so I decided to write the journaling: "I love you for what you can do."  I finished up my spread and gave my hands a treat in the form of some cobalt blue fingernail polish.  Which I promptly got gesso on...  But the thought was there, and that's what counts.  

Another thing my hands finished up recently was this spread:

"Who I am comes in waves."

I want to say a big THANK YOU to my friend, Boo, for the fish napkin that inspired this page.  She sent me a plethora of different napkins, which I keep on my desk and pet when I need a pick-me-up.  But I realized I can't just keep petting them forever...I need to use them!  So I picked the one with those colorful fishes and went to town in my gigantic Dylusions journal.

This picture is more true to color than the other...plus, look at me, with my fancy art shot!
It made me feel fancy anyway...

Those colorful fishes totally needed a mermaid to go with them.  I don't know what it is about mermaids, but that's two in close succession...I just did an adorable chubby mermaid for last week's Journal 52 spread (which you can see HERE)!  Apparently mermaids are currently rocking my world...

One last thing my glorious man hands do (in conjunction with my weird brain) is write this blog.  As of this post, my busy little fingers have written 200 posts!  I have 49 followers in total (still makes me feel like a cult leader to say "followers").  

And, thanks to you and your amazing hands, I have 14,865 page views.  That's completely insane to me!  I just want to say a big, humongous THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! to all of you who made that happen.  Your support and encouragement give me so much happiness that I can't even express it in words.  All I can do is say thank you again (and again and again) for coming to see me, taking the time to leave comments, and for subscribing to my blog.  You all make me feel so proud and excited and extremely lucky and grateful to be a part of the online art community.  Thank you. ♥♥♥

Late in Posting, Not in Doing

This is my page from week 12 of Documented Life (you can read more about DL HERE), where the prompt was to cut up a magazine and add it to your page.  I actually had this spread finished on time...I just haven't had any time to post it.  Ugh.  I even have this week's spread done too...I hate feeling behind when I'm not actually behind!

This was one of my less favorite prompts...I love how other people can do collage work...especially with magazines...I just don't think it's my forte...know what I mean?

But in the spirit of 'tough crap, just do it', I made this spread:

"Now and Then"

I have a limited supply of magazine choices to work with...Better Homes and Gardens and Southern Living...my options were pretty much flowers and ads...so here you have what I could do with flowers and ads...

The left page represents how I feel currently:

"I'm scared.  I don't know if I can.  I don't know if I can do this."

I went with a yellow background color...you know, because if you're a chicken, then you're yellow...but it was really bland looking...so I added the grey...still bland...so I used that bright orange marker.  Good gravy...it is BRIGHT!  I think this page is so LOUD.  I think that it matches what I'm feeling right now...the timid yellow and grey are feeling puny and wimpy...the bright orange of my fears yelling at me that I won't be able to do the things I want...yeah...there you go...color metaphor...

The right page is about the future:

The magazine prompt part of the spread...

There's such a huge difference between the two pages of this spread...they hardly go together at all.  But to me they do...  This page is my after...after I face my fears and make a move...after all the discomfort and trying times are done...then I get to this point...eventually.

"But we did do it, didn't we?"
"Yes dear...we did it.  We made a good life for ourself."
On a side note, the girl on the porch looks like she's from a tampon ad...I don't know what kind of ad she actually came from, but she totally looks like she's from a feminine hygiene sort of ad, doesn't she?

Those ladies are me at various stages.  On the left page, it's me now...scared and unsure of what to do/what will happen.  On this page, on the porch, that's me immediately after all the sucky stuff is over and life is getting to be what I choose it to be...where I am standing in the light at the end of the tunnel.  And then in the window, that's me looking back over my life...being happy, knowing I made the best choices I could, knowing that everything really did turn out ok and for the best.

Right now, that left page seems so far away.  I feel so mired in indecision...guilt for thinking of some of the things I think about...fearful of the unknown.  

Do you ever get that feeling like something is about to happen?  Like some secret shoe is about to drop on you and turn your world upside down?  I feel like that right now.  I don't know why.  Nothing's happened to give that feeling any merit...and yet I feel it.  It's like everything has been calm and I suddenly realized it's the calm before the storm...and I've only got a few minutes to batten down the hatches.  Who knows...

I've been telling myself nothing will come of it...that it's just a random feeling I've got from being too tired and working too much and not having enough play time...making me a very dull girl indeed.  But I find myself discreetly preparing for the upheaval anyway.  In small ways, I've been bolstering myself for something...I don't even know what...just something.  

I find myself feeling agitated and aggressive...like I want to strike the first blow on an enemy that hasn't even made himself known yet.  And that's not like me.  I hate conflict.  I hate confrontation.  I'm passive.  I let things happen and then decide from there what to do.  I don't act...I react.  But here I am, ready to take a swing at the first thing that pops it's head up.  It's like all my life my fuse has been slowly burning and now it's getting towards the end...shorter and shorter and soon something explosive is going to happen.

It's so strange, because I remember feeling extremely and uncharacteristically optimistic about this year just a few months ago.  In December and January, I was so happy-go-lucky, with a similarly illogical feeling about this year being a good one.  And that feeling is still there, waiting in the wings...but now I have this odd feeling of unrest...of something in the air.  Change is coming.  I don't know how or why or what...but it's coming.  And I know change is always happening...but whatever this is, it's big...it's major...and it's looming just on the horizon.  It feels exciting and menacing at the same time...FREAKY, I know...

To be honest, the whole thing is a little unnerving.  And that's what this spread is about, I guess.  Because whatever happens, it will be ok.  I can deal with it.  I can get through it.  I can thrive.  I can get handed lemons and make lemonade and all that good stuff.  I know I can.  But right now...in my moments of weak impatience...in the dark days before this possible impending gigantic s*** storm that's about to happen (Tom Petty was right...the waiting IS the hardest part), I feel scared...and I suppose I just needed a visual reminder that whatever happens, I'm going to be able to make myself a good life.  No matter how I feel right now, I know I'm not really weak...I'm not helpless or powerless.  Quite the contrary.  

I know I can work through a lot of things, because I already have.  It's one good thing about not always having had an easy life...you know from experience that you can get through it and get past it.  I've been through the ringer before, and I'll go through again, I'm sure.  It isn't pleasant during, but you come out fresh and clean on the other side...  And maybe that's why this ominous feeling I'm having is accompanied by optimism...because I know how good a fresh start can feel.

Regrets

When I was a little girl, I used to get told quite often...especially by kids in school...that I looked like Wednesday Addams.

Basically me as a child...besides the movie money...

Looking back, it was probably true.  I had a big forehead, and a similarly turned up nose, and large dark eyes...and unrelated to Wednesday, I wore my hair in pigtails pretty often...I had LONG hair...I was always sitting on it otherwise.  If I could find a picture of me as a kid, you'd see what I mean.  Not identical, but close enough for others to notice the similarity.

Possibly because of this, I developed a (not so) secret (anymore) love of Christina Ricci, the actress who played Wednesday in the Addams family movies.  I like that I have embraced something that was kind of scarring as a child.  

Sadly, I no longer look like Christina Ricci.  Although if she'd gain like a hundred pounds, maybe I would...come on, Christina, help a sister out!

Even though Christina and I have gone our separate ways looks-wise, my mild obsession with her hasn't changed.  

The picture above was the face inspiration for the spread I have to show you today:

Ta-da!  I considered leaving it like this, but it was just not right...it bothered me.

"One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people." - Jarod Kintz
I really liked the quote (and feel like it related to how I've been feeling recently) and I thought it fit the expression on the girl's face, but it was so plain looking...

And I think the same was true of the face...it was ok, but just needed a little more...oomph...

So here's what I did to the quote side. At first, I just tried to color in the spaces of the letters with my Inktense pencils, but that wasn't enough.  Then I doodled over that with a black fine tip marker...the black stuck out too much... So, I went over the letter part with a lime poster paint Sharpie, which was better, but it didn't show up that well, so I went over that in black Sharpie...and that was good enough to make me stop working on the lettering part.  I also added some doodles in the corners in Inktense pencil and red poster paint Sharpie...and went squiggly around the edges with that same red Sharpie.

I didn't do much to the girl, but the changes I did make made a big difference in my eyes. I used white paint pen to give her eyes some highlights...that's a little thing that makes a HUGE impact...I am willing myself to never forget eyeball highlights again...  I also used the same red poster paint Sharpie from the quote side and added it to her lips, which made her look much less pale and much more dimensional (I think so anyway...).  And I used the red sharpie in her hair and on the outline of her shirt sleeves...  Just those few little changes made me much happier with the end result.  

Oh, and on a side note, I totally swiped a broken date stamp from the trash at work...you can see it in the bottom left corner of the girl's shoulder.  It actually said "Received" with the date underneath, but Regrets girl will probably be the only piece that gets the "Received" stamped on her, because it was too hard to hold it together...the date part is held together within the stamp, but the "received" kept falling off.  So sadly, it is sitting there all alone on my desk...waiting for me to accidentally knock it to the floor and lose it forever...  Ooh...unless I go right now and find something to glue it to...oh, yay!  Hooray for you brain, you figured it out!  OK...I'm off to rummage...  (maniacal laugh, MANIACAL LAUGH!!!)

In the works...

Despite the continuation of ridiculous overtime at work, I've been staying creative in small bursts.

I mentioned in the last post that I had a plan regarding my awesome typewriter, and I've started working on making that plan happen.  The typewriter plan just happens to coincide with my goal of less pessimism that I also mentioned in the last post.  It also helps me with my efforts to do something artistic as often as I can.  

So, here's the beginning of what I hope will be a series which I think I will call Happy Thoughts.  

"Something wonderful is about to happen."

"I'm not wearing any pants."
 (This one may seem a little weird...but what's more comfortable than being pants-less?  Seriously...)

"Creativity takes courage. (-Matisse)"

"All the answers to the mysteries of the universe are held within your heart."

As you can see, my Happy Thoughts are all simple and small (post card-ish size).  They can be done pretty quickly, they use my typewriter (in all it's vintage glory) and they encase my efforts at positive thinking. Originally I had intended for them all to have white backgrounds, but I messed up the first attempt at the card with the green guy on it and so I painted over it and started again.  I didn't want to waste the watercolor paper!  I am cheap thrifty!  So, if you see any colored backgrounds in the future...you'll probably know what happened...  I am so excited about the Happy Thoughts!  

I've also been working on a little crochet.  Crochet was the first creative thing I really got into, and I still enjoy doing it...when I get the notion.  It's something that I can do pretty quickly (and still have decent results), so it fits into the plan of doing something creative everyday. 

I've been working on this for a while now.  I put it down for a long time and I just picked it back up again the other day after work.  I have a hard time with big projects (they just get boring to me after a while...I am much more a hat/scarf/toy crocheter), but I was asked to make this by a good friend, so I started.  I may even finish it...eventually...  

Since this blanket is getting ever larger as I continue to add to it, I was thinking about doing something intermission-ish so that I could have a finished something each time I picked up my hook: 

Granny Triangle using Lucy at Attic 24's pattern (which you can find HERE)

 

Since making this lone triangle, I realized it might not be the best idea to start making these triangles in the same colors as the blanket because then I'd almost assuredly run out of the colors to finish the blanket and I'd have to buy more yarn to finish the blanket.  Which doesn't seem like it should be a problem, until you consider the fact that I've got about three or four big Rubbermaid totes full of other yarn...  So (at least for today...my mind is subject to sporadic changes) this shall remain the lone triangle in these colors until the blanket is done.

I'm off now, to spend more time with my Happy Thoughts.  If you would like to share your Happy Thoughts, please do so!  I would like to hear them! <3

ICAD and Organ Donor

I've been playing around with lettering in my art journal.  It's one of the things I really want to work on so that I can get better.  I have no natural talent when it comes to handwriting, so I know I will have to make up for that with hard work and perseverance.  Practice makes perfect, so if I keep trying, eventually I'll get it, right?

"I could be an organ donor The way I give up my heart."  I saw that quote on Pinterest (of course).  The background is Dylusions sprayed through some plastic mesh stuff I found on the floor of my house...I have no idea where it actually came from, because I have been wanting the mesh from a bag of oranges since I first saw someone else use it as a mask/stencil.  Apparently the universe has provided for me...now if it would just get on that whole millions of dollars thing I've been asking about...  I also used acrylic paint (the rust color is metallic..it's shiny in real life, I don't know if that comes across...) and some red glitter glue.  There was an incident with smearing of glitter glue that you can see in the left heart at the bottom of the page...

I've also done two more ICAD cards.  Today's theme is 'candyland'.

Here's the 3x5:

She & Him lyrics again...actually I got it wrong, the lyric is "In the light it faded to white, in the light the colors turn to white", so I got it backwards a little...oh well.  This is acrylic paint over gelatos.  The acrylic wanted to peel a little in places...I don't know if it's because it wasn't all the way dry, or because the acrylic didn't want to stick to the gelatos.  The gelatos are meant to look like (abstractly, I guess) skittles...at least I think I got the classic skittles colors right...

I thought you might like to hear the song for yourself.  (I like what the person did with this video, it looks really neat, I think):

And here's the 4x6:

"You used to be sweet."  Except with my bad handwriting, it kind of looks like "You used to be sweat.", which is kinda gross...  I had fun playing with the gelatos on this one.  I am loving how creamy and smeary they are... it makes for a neat effect.  I did the lollipop first, and so it looks a little wonky, but I figured it out a little more by the time I got to the face.  I can't wait to play with them some more!

I love the way you love me!

Woo!  Sorry I'm late on the posting!  I was so ready to blog on Sunday and share all the goodness that I received, but came home to find my internet wouldn't work!  It finally came back up this morning...otherwise I would be typing all this from my phone...which would take FOREVER as I have very poor phone typing skills...so hooray for working internet!

I'm so lucky to have met such amazing and creative ladies online, ones who I am proud to call my friends.  If it weren't for the internet, I would be a sad panda indeed.  

For example, my friend Boo.  Boo is one of the most insightful people I have had the privilege to get to know.  She always gives me something to think about, and what she says resonates with me in a special way.  When I talk about how I want to learn who I am and what I want, she always has the most helpful words!  I think that Boo and I are a similar path, she's just gotten farther than I have.  But I know she's ahead of me, encouraging me to keep going!  Her words of wisdom and understanding are just a small part of what makes her so very special to me.

Made for me by my friend Boo (who has a lovely blog you can find HERE)  I wish my phone would pick up the colors better, it is so bright and cheerful!  I just love it, especially the "b" and the "d"!  Thanks Boo for my beautiful card!  I love it very, very much!

And then there's my friend Pam.  Pam is funny and very kind.  I do believe she was my very first Facebook friend, and was also the one who introduced me to a whole new group of creative people.  She is so encouraging and always reminds me that, no matter what point I'm on in my life's journey, that there are people who care for me, just the way I am.  I love Pam because, despite my flaws, she makes me feel perfect.

The inside says: "NOBODY LOOKS THAT OLD!!!"  It made me laugh so hard!  And the look on the cow's face is just hilarious!  

Pam sent me a very unexpected care package!  The delicious looking paper on the right is an envelope that contained the seeds and the ATCs below.  I can't wait to use that glittery glue!

Four beautiful ATCs from Pam!  You may not know, but Amy is my alter-ego...you know, like Superman has Clark Kent (and Kal-El...yes, I am a dork, I know!)  Sweet Red Clover has Amy...it's just what the humans call me...

She also sent this beautiful handmade art journal!  I love it so much that I don't know if I can even use it!  It is so  very pretty!  I love the paper she used for the covers!  It is right up my alley.

There are a few quotes on the covers...this one is my favorite!  It sounds just like something Pam would say!  And check out that beaded flower!  Amazing!

Some of the pages have pockets, and there are bookmarks to use too!  Such a neat touch!  Don't you just love that bug paper?

Oh, the  ruffly lace!

A beaded bookmark that's attached to the journal and a sweet heart doily on one of the pages!  Pam even sent me a  cake and candle...a Pam-cake, which is her famous banana bread, which lived up to the hype and beyond!  Thank you Pam for my lovely surprise care package!

And then there's Rose.  Rose is a very talented lady from the mail art group I am a part of.  I love Rose's creativity!  She is very skilled at putting things together in ways I would never think of, and the end result is always so beautiful!  Rose might not know it, but I am sneakily learning from her fabulousness!  I am so happy to get to know Rose, in part, because her beautiful work inspires me to think outside the box.

The beautiful card that Rose sent me, along with an origami heart bookmark!  Isn't it super neat?  I love those colorful globes on the bookmark paper!  

My fabulous Rose original!  This ATC is so cool, it even has it's own ATC holder!  I love that image of the with the birds and the ladder!  The ATC is called "Curiosity" and it reminds me of a saying one of my teachers in grade school used to say: "Curiosity killed the cat, but super thinking brought it back!"  Thank you Rose for my awesome art!

I can't say enough good things about all the sweet, kind, encouraging people that I have gotten to know.  These ladies have made my life infinitely more fulfilling!  I just want to say a big thank you to all the ladies for letting me know they care.  I am over-whelmed with happiness!

April showers...the second...

This is my second attempt at the "April Showers Bring May Flowers" theme that's happening this week on one of the Facebook groups I'm in:

"It's always raining in my head."

It always pays to read instructions...although the weekly challenge is just a suggestion, I want to 'do it right'!  And if I would have read the instructions...in my defense I did read them...at about two in the morning...(so, let's just say if I would have read them while I was coherent...), I would have noticed that they said "include flower and umbrella"...  The first page I did had a flower...and rain...but sadly, not an umbrella...so I just had to do another page!

This time, the flower is the umbrella, as suggested by one of my FB friends, who said in my first page the flower was an umbrella for all the little bugs hiding in the grass!  Genius, I thought, and wanted to make a page that showcased that brilliant idea!  So my little fairy has herself a flower umbrella, and that's that!

The quote is from a song by Staind.  "It's always raining in my head" is just written over and over again.  I have always heard (though I don't know if it's true) that if a person's favorite color is grey, it is a sign of possible mental illness, so I did the grey background and the quote repetition to signify depression and when I look at it, that's what I see.  I like the contrast between the bright, happy fairy colors and the bleakness of the background.  In my mind, it has the message that what we show on the outside is not always congruent with what's happening inside of us.  

It's been on my mind a lot lately that I wish people would just say what they mean.  I am THE WORST person in the world for not always having a 'filter', some kind of alarm that goes off in a normal brain that tells the mouth what's ok to say and what's better left unsaid.  Instead, my thoughts tend to shoot out of my mouth without that warning bell going off.  And it tends to lead to awkward situations, because for the most part people are not used to hearing things this way, and I've always thought of this tendency as a bad thing.  But recently, I'm starting to wish that more people were like me in this regard.  It could save a lot of time and energy.  

Not that people should say every thought that comes into their brain...dear goodness, how exhausting that would be!  But think how nice it would be if people were just honest with each other.  I'm not saying forget manners and give me brutal honesty; there's a kind way to do it.  But really, at this point, I'd take rude truth over sweet lies.  I've been lucky enough in my life to know a few people who I could trust to always tell me the truth, even if it's not what I wanted to hear.  But it's not a trait you come across every day, and I don't know why.  

And the why is what always gets me.

Today, I was having a conversation with one of my work friends about the whole 'why' question.  We were observing that another co-worker (whom I love ardently) either likes people or doesn't like people with no apparent rhyme or reason.  She meets you, and makes up her mind in that instant whether she is going to like you or not, and there is pretty well nothing you can do to change her mind about it.  I mentioned that I was so happy that she decided she liked me, for the simple reason that it would drive me crazy to know I was disliked but not know why.  And the friend I was talking to said to me "Sometimes there is no why."  And my brain stopped.  Because I can't imagine that...in my head, there's always a reason.  We might not get to know what it is, but it HAS to be there.  And my friend couldn't understand how that one little phrase bothered me so much.  But the truth is (to me anyway) the why is a resolution.  If a person gives you a reason, in this instance as to why they don't like you, you have two options.  You can decide if the person has a valid point and work to change your perceived flaw.  Or you can decide that person's reason is stupid and either work to change their mind about said reason or let it go and move on.  Whatever you decide, whatever way you go, that one little 'why' is the solution.

And I say that to say this:  I've recently lost a good friend of mine over a stupid and inconsequential spat.  I've done everything I can do to reconcile, but to no avail.  Not only will this person not talk to me, but they even refuse to look at me or be in the same room with me if they can help it.  Though I don't feel like I was in the wrong, I sincerely apologized, because this friendship was more important to me than being right.  I was told to 'let it alone'.  

And I therefore conclude two things:  that whatever this is about, it's not about this little tiff (I won't say what it actually was, but let's say it was as stupid as someone being mad at you for saying the sky is blue or saying that you don't like to wear hats...just something as stupid as that)...and that's where the why comes in.  I think I could let it go, I could have a little closure at least, if the person would just tell me why they're so mad.  What did I do that's so bad they can't even look at me?  Because I honestly don't know.  And in not knowing the problem, I will never be able to find a solution, or know if I even want to find a solution.  

The second conclusion I've drawn from this is that clearly I valued our friendship much more than the other person did.  If they were truly my friend, they would at least give me some kind of reason for their sudden disdain.  But, sadly, not so much.  And that's brings us back around to my wish for people to just say what they mean.  If I don't like someone, I wouldn't be rude to them, but I also wouldn't choose to spend any significant amount of time with them either.  I wouldn't make conversation with them, and certainly wouldn't seek them out.  But maybe that's just me.  And that's why I'm wishing people were a little more like me right now.  If at the beginning I would have heard, "we're friends because it's convenient and that may or may not last", I'd probably be a lot less hurt and disappointed than I am right now.  Another of my friends told me that I should pretend that this all doesn't bother me.  And honestly, there's nothing more I can do, even if I wanted to.  I've said all I can say, and so now, anything other than apathy will come across as the desperation of a crazy person, and while crazy, I'm not desperate.  

In the end, unless the other person has a change of heart, I really do have to find a way to let this go.  That's what this page is really about for me.  On the outside, I'm going about my daily life with a smile on my face acting as 'normal' as my version of normal ever is.  On the inside, there's a constant hurricane blowing in my head, with "Why? Why? Why?" circling around in there and it's hard to find peace with all that noise.  Eventually, none of it will matter anymore.  There will either be a reconciliation or the death of what was, for me at least, a beautiful friendship, and it will get buried in the mental dirt that daily life provides and the only memory of it will be a small tombstone that reads "what might have been".

At least doing the above journal page and writing about it has proven mildly cathartic.  Mildly akin to flatulence, emotional turmoil like this is always better out than in.  Sorry you had to listen to my mental farts...

Stop looking for roses and 'April Showers...'

Just wanted to share a couple pages really quick.

This first one is all thanks to my friend Boo and her lovely comment on one of my recent posts.  I was contemplating my old lady-hood and feeling a little blue about my life, and her comment made me feel so much better.  Ok, first it made me cry, but then it made me feel so much better!  Boo, if ever we meet face to face, you must be prepared for the most gigantic squish you have ever been squished!

And so here is my Boo inspired page, to make me always remember the kind words she said:

Everybody should be lucky enough to have a friend like Boo to tell them just what they need to hear at just the right time!

My second page is for the prompt "April Showers Bring May Flowers" in one of the wonderful Facebook groups I am in:

My poor flower is a little droopy, but she's been rained on all day!  I think eventually I will add more to this page, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet...  Any suggestions?

Magenta Doodle Numbers

Hehehe...that post title sounds like I have some sort of Tourette Syndrome.  But no...it's the prompt for today's pages!  I may have some sort of Tourette's, I think people call it Verbal Diarrhea, but I don't think that's a diagnosable disease at this point.  And really, when they finally do make it an actual medical condition, they'll have a better name than Verbal Diarrhea...at least I hope so.  Because who would want to have to tell other people "It's not my fault...I have VD."  Yeah, that would be awkward.  But I digress...and offer you pretty pictures to make you forget about my VD. Hehehe...

Magenta, doodle, numbers prompt #1:

I really like the bottom...the top...meh, it's ok.

I wish I would have just continued the flowers all the way to the top, but the great thing about art is that you can have as many do-overs as you want...so that flowers to the top thing will happen soon!  Apart from that, I've been pondering my impending old lady-hood...the big 3-0...  

When I was a kid, I always thought there'd be some sort of turning point...something would click in my head, and suddenly I'd feel like I was an adult.  But that hasn't happened yet...maybe it never will...maybe that's a good thing, I don't know.  Sometimes I feel like I'm a plant that keeps growing and growing, but for some reason never blooms...I keep waiting...  And waiting...  And waiting...  I'm starting to wonder if I'm just some kind of dumb plant that will only ever have leaves and never flower!  

That sounds really depressing, but I don't mean it that way.  I'm still growing at least.  I've got some things figured out, or at least much more so than when I was younger.  I'm much more comfortable in my own skin...it's not perfect, but it's mine.  I press ever forward and all that jazz!  

I guess I'm not really a non-flowering dumb plant...I'm more like the tulips in my yard.  All this week I've been looking at them.  Every day I said to myself "I bet those are going to bloom this week."  And they didn't...and they didn't...and they didn't...and I started to have my doubts.  Then finally this morning, I walked out of the house to go to work, and was accosted by yellow and orange!  All at once, full on colorful fabulousness!  And maybe that's what I'm like.  I'll bloom out eventually, I just need a little more patience.

In the mean time, I'll keep doing my thing, as described in my other page for today:

There was a little girl ,who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, she was very, very good.  And when she was bad, she was horrid.