From a distance

On our Thanksgiving walk Asa and Bella went out ahead.  Asa was learning to walk Bella with a "loose lead" and she has a nice fast gait.  I could hear him talking to her as they moved away from us and realized that his strides are much longer than a year ago.  Oh, they have grown!

Look at my Carabella Mia!  She is still a puppy in her heart, but I can already see the maturity in her eyes.  She thinks more and figures out things - how to take a treat from a ball, how to find the toy we just put up, how to walk with us so that she gets longer walks.  Her legs are longer and she is much much stronger.  She is turning into a beautiful girl!

And look at this tall young man, my grandson!  He was easily 3 or 4 inches shorter a year ago, still with a sweet little boy voice and a very wide open heart.  He is taller, and smarter, and more thoughtful, and more interesting in this last year.  He has opinions that are fun to explore, and interests that range far and wide.

He and Bella are waiting on us, looking forward to see what's coming down the road.  I see him walking into the future, a fantastic young man.  Grounded in the love of his family, certain of his own growing strength, confident in his ability to handle what he sees coming - but still making sure we are nearby, tracking with him, just in case.

He makes me very proud.

Finding my Personal New Year

Here I am again, like I've been so many days before. January. Filled with lots of positive determination to make the New Year everything that it can be. Ready to make lists and check things off. Ready to balance the budget, lose weight, get fit, tackle clutter, be effective and efficient, be balanced at home and work, create, write, publish, and give thanks. Ready to GO!

Reading that paragraph again, I am exhausted. My own enthusiasm tires me out. I know I need to be careful, reflective. I think about how hard it is to kill old unhealthy habits, and how easy it is to make goals blithely that I don't have any REAL intention of meeting.

In the immortal words of Mr. Bryant, "People Do What They Really Want To Do," and that includes me.

So what do I Really Want To Do in 2012?

Well, I know I Don't Want To Be Exhausted all year. And I also know that I DO like to have a solid framework along with goals to stretch towards.

Over the last three years I identified a single word to frame my focus for the year. In 2011 it was Creativity. That lasted about 6 months, as we know. In 2010 it was Clarity. In 2009 it was Serenity. I am filled with words as I try to sort through What I Really Want To Do in 2012.

I thought I had my resolutions all figured out, that I was in good shape because there were "only five." Looking at them though, I wonder if I am being honest with myself. There is no doubt that this is a good list and that doing all these things would enhance my life. The real question is - do I have the energy and commitment, really?

1. Budget
2. Health
3. Publish
4. Learn a Second Language
5. Create

Or should my list look like this:

1. Family
2. Sufficient Rest
3. Diet
4. Positive Attitude

Again, a good list, yes?  More realistic?  Probably.  But it also sounds basic, too "everyday."  I want to push myself.  I want to have a personally inspired reason to REACH.  I want to strive to be better, to make more of a contribution, to be inspiring.

So there it is.  All that thinking, and here is My New Year.

In 2012, I will Be Inspiring.

This is a pretty challenging reach, but I am up for it.

Wordless Wednesday - January 4, 2012

Welcome 2012!

Happy happy New Year to each and every one of you!!

My six month break from blogging was the start of a six month break from "me" stuff.  I stopped blogging, writing, working in the sketchbook, spinning, knitting, scrapbooking, and crocheting.  I didn't stop reading books, but every other thing went by the wayside except the very much needed focus on other priorities. We even stopped our Sunday grandson / grandmother trips to the game store for role-playing games.

Sounds like things were pretty quiet, yes?  Well, during that time we:

• had our annual family vacation at the beach which was wonderful as always. We took the puppies, and they both loved the ocean. After three days, though, Jack Junior got very very ill. He cried out in pain, was unable to walk, had urinary problems, and slept rolled up in a tiny ball. Mr. Bryant took him home the very next morning to get pain medication from the vet, while I stayed and took pictures and loved the time with the fam.

  

• said goodbye to Ama as she went off to Portland. Mr. Bryant laid out her driving trip across the country, and we even found a cabin in Yellowstone for one of the nights of the trip. The drive took her to the Arch in St. Louis, Colorado to see friends, Yellowstone, Coeur d'Alene, and the Columbia River Gorge. 
• said Goodbye to Shannon and John and family as they went off to new adventures in Virginia.
• put all the puppies on a new diet. 
• watched the puppies grow like weeds!

• took Jack Junior to six vets and finally to NC State Veterinary School, where they diagnosed the infection that was crippling and killing him.  We got him started on a three to six month course of antibiotics and noticed immediate improvement in his condition.
• continued to take the puppies to Obedience Training. 

 

• flew the cats across the country to greet Ama in Portland.
• learned the incredible blessings of being members of the Leonberger Community. 

 

• had a fabulous family Thanksgiving in the mountains hosted by Mr. and Mrs. McFadden.

 

• had another wonderful Christmas hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Hanson.
• went to an amazing New Years dinner with our very dear friends.

In addition to all this, I interviewed for a new job or two, adjusted to a restructure at work, and did my best to support Mr. Bryant while HE adjusted to a restructure at work.

During all this time off from "me," I thought I was doing the right things, doing the things that needed to be done, paying primary attention to the other people in my life in the best way. But as I look back at the last half of the year, I can see that I was less centered, less thoughtful, and frankly, less confident.

I am grateful to have learned this lesson, which I think I really knew but allowed myself to conveniently forget.  Taking care of "me" is important, and changes how I interact with the world at every level.

I can't say that I am sorry to see 2011 go.  Although it wasn't the worst year it also wasn't the best.  And sometimes, that's exactly the inspiration needed to go forth and know this New Year better, man! (with a nod here to our friends, the Muppets!)

Here is to the most wonderful year yet.  Welcome 2012!

Garden Gift

After all these years I finally have a hydrangea in bloom!

 The garden is looking amazing with all of ADR's focused work.  He has pulled poison ivey (the birds just love the danged stuff) and grapevines, and planted and mulched.  Flowers are blooming on both sides of the front walk and also in the side garden, and it is so wonderful!  It still has a rambling, wild, dense look that I love so much - random and full of energy.  But everything looks super healthy - better than it has in the last seven years - which is when I stopped gardening to travel for work.  Bah!

* * * *
I have been focusing on cleaning up inside, taking care of the absolute disaster that my art / craft space had become.  With work demanding time, I find that I so desperately want to make time for art that I just sit down and do it, and then never have the opportunity to clean up the resulting mess. And I am in the middle of a very cool art project right now, doing some work for a friend, so I really need the space.  So, I have been spending time digging through everything on the desk and floor, organizing like items into containers, labeling, filing.  It has been several weeks of this effort, and about two weeks ago I finally had a cleaner desk - enough that I could actually make space on top to work.  I found lots of cool things during this process - art supplies I didn't remember I had, little pieces of ephemera that I can use to make more art, interesting colors and stamps and brushes.  Buried treasure!  

Even now with the desk clean, there are things that sit all over the top of the desk - containers filled with paint brushes, big glass containers willed with tubes of acrylic paints, ceramic rectangular dishes to the brim with chalks.  I need all these things in easy reach when I am working (playing!) and I like the way they bring color to the desk.  I also have a super cool piece of bamboo that ADR gave me, filled with markers that I use for my envelope art.

ADR found this bamboo growing wild near his in-laws house.  No one wanted it, so he spent days with a machete out in the heat, cutting down long poles of bamboo.  Then he researched how to treat it so that it dried appropriately and cured the way it is supposed to, to make it strong.  He has used the bamboo to make a table and a really cool garden gate.  The piece that he gave me is about 4 and a half inches in diameter, and as tall as a coffee cup.  It is a beautiful subtle brown, and stronger than you might imagine.  I think that it is such a cool container - such a cool natural gift!  When I found the bamboo on my desk I was tickled and immediately made use of it for the markers. 

In passing the next day or so, I mentioned to ADR how cool my bamboo was that he had given me.

About a week later everyone came up for family dinner.  They were late in arriving and Mr. Bryant and I were out on the porch when they pulled up.  The kids hopped out of the car and came running for hugs and hellos, and SRR had a big smile and hug for us too.  ADR was carrying something and he said - I have a surprise for you mom.  Now, I am not usually much for surprises - but look at what this creative man brought to me.

Bamboo Garden Sculpture

 A one of a kind, hand made just for me, bamboo garden sculpture!  Made of six or seven pieces of bamboo and thick gauge copper wire, it is just so very good.  I am sure that it is excellent feng shui!  ADR installed it in the garden on Monday last, as you see it above.  He has big plans for mulch and flowers that will be planted all around to make it even more fabulous and more an integral part of the garden.

I feel very lucky and blessed to have creativity and beauty all around.  No wonder why I would rather be home than anywhere else!

Thank you dearest son.  I love my garden, and I love my sculpture.

Mary Oliver reads Mornings at Blackwater

What do you know about Mary Oliver, the poet quoted at the top of my blog?  I must admit, I love her question to us all, about our one wild and precious life, but I truly didn't know much about the woman who asked.  And in all honesty, I didn't take the time to go learn.  I just enjoyed the words and moved on, asking myself the question each time I came to my home page.  Allowing the wildness and preciousness of life to hold me for a moment.

I spent some time last weekend browsing around the internet, following links to friends pages, following links they shared.  And in the process came across the most amazing link, where Mary Oliver did a reading of her brief poem "Mornings at Blackwater."  The poem - and the reading of the poem - just rolled over me, making me think of all those who can not gain leave of the past - the distant or the near.  So many of us need to let go of so many things and find the way to be here now - and find the way to live our lives.

I started doing some research about Mary Oliver, and I find that this New England poet, writing of life and nature, speaks to me in many ways.  Maybe it is because I grew up spending summers in New England with my grandparents.  Maybe it is because I grew up in the NorthEast and somehow have some of that old Yankee sensibility.  Maybe it is because Mary Oliver can paint better with words than I can even imagine painting with a brush.

For me, finding a poet is like finding a complete delicious surprise right in the very middle of "usual" and "normal" where you didn't expect to find anything but more.

And so now I know where my quote is from.  And I love it even more.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

A mid-week tale about last Sunday morning

Hooray for morning coffee!

I woke up early and let the puppies out last Sunday morning.  And then, because I was so ready for coffee, I got the grinder out and readied the beans and started the water.

These days, coffee is simply wonderful to me in the mornings.

I went upstairs and prepared the pet food and fed everyone, and after they all ate and the puppies were playing outside in the yard I finally got my coffee ready.  It had to steep for four minutes in the french press, so I let the puppies in and they scooted to the bedroom to lay down for another little nap.  Mr. Bryant wasn't up yet, so I got my coffee cup ready and took my book into the bedroom, planning to sit in bed and read a bit.

This is what I found when I got there.

Mr. Bryant, Bella, and Jack (Oh My!)

So I took my book and sat in the kitchen at the table in the sunshine, and smiled a bit while I read and sipped.