Good Morning

 Greetings- 

1) for March 3 - Being accountable to the gods of March Personal Challenge. I already have not blogged EVERY DAY quite a bit. Argh. Brains can be not-our-friends in this meeting one's own challenges thing. Some get zipped through. Others refuse to happen. (Sips the 1/4 Caribou Decaf grounds-3/4 Teeccino French Roast chicory grounds stuff. Because it makes me kinda think I'm drinking real coffee. Caffeine is no longer my close personal friend.... I miss it.) On to pecking at the keyboard. High school typing class does not bring many good memories. A few - but not many. As with life - I'm ok with the alphabet - it's the numbers that muck stuff up.

Just putting "Mr. Mustard" here to remind me to get back to work at making art. Today holds part of a shift at American Gothic Antiques in Stillwater, Minnesota. We have had booth space upstairs there since September 1, 1993. The same day that we moved into this house on the top of the hill. I drew the first bear in October 1997 upstairs in the shop - at the same nondescript brown wooden desk that I will sit at today. You might never know when a little change in habit will change your life for the next twenty years.

2) for March 4 - Pretending that is another blog post - this may become the pattern. Ye olde thing about starting is hard - keeping going is easy. Many of us know this to be true. The laptop is frozen shut in huge block of ice (not really) so cannot be accessed so how can I blog? I can't - because the the laptop is encased in a huge block of imagined ice. So - whew! A "reason" - not an excuse! Except - there IS NO ICE. There is only excuse. Yesterday's "reasons" that the writing did not happen is because there was other writing that got done, clothes got folded, Facebook got attended to, some sketching got done, and a three hour chat over coffee with a friend - yes, we were masked when we weren't sipping). Oh, and I made delicious gluten-free pancakes (Pamela brand) for dinner. With real maple syrup from family syrup-making. Soooo... there must have been "no" time to blog yesterday. The lies we tell ourselves. I could have blogged about pancakes. Many people blog about pancakes. On to  "Day Next" - 

3) for March 5 - Soft guitar and piano jazz is coming out of the laptop while classical stuff from Minnesota Public Radio is mixing with that. Keep "loud" tinnitus brain almost sane. Distractify! Otherwise the "loud" chiming buzz (only one variety of "sound" the head hears constantly) keeps me company every waking hour. I cannot speak of living with constant pain or the oddness of one's body attacking itself through other afflictions, but I can speak of the weariness of "hearing" "loud" vibrating not-sound for almost ten years. Millions deal with this affliction in various degrees - the idea of tinnitus used to interest me - everything interests me... - so the universe said "Study THIS, mofo." No school holidays, either. Haha. Gotta "laugh." I learn much from friends, family, and others dealing with far worse. Still not quite at Zen acceptance - though with change in diet and other practices  - well, I haven't cried about this in many years. On to the chiming roaring day - hooray!

4) March 6 - Now I'm just typing for typing's sake. May dig a real machine out of the basement treasures - just to see what happens. It seems that different thoughts and words happen with the use of different writing implements. Pens spill different words than pencils scribble. Almost-soundless laptop squares tick different thoughts than pounded typewriter keys. That's OK. We need them all.

And so - ta da - counting the above blither as four blogging posts. Why? Because I can. On to checking off a few more boxes in the Week of Life.

Fare-thee-well,

Sue

Gentleness

Today's word for Jen Morris' Deliberate December is Gentleness.

Sometimes I think many of us have forgotten what "gentleness" means. No, I do not have the ambition to look up some definitions tonight. 
My head hurts and there is too much to do and it's dark outside at quarter after eight. I have forgotten Summer. 

Bitch  bitch. Moan moan. Not from innermost core. But from shallow surface, and just below.

Time for a bit of Gentleness...
If only we had cats?
 Hahaha.

We DO have wool bankets. And soft pillows.
I could pour a bit of bourbon into a cup of hot cocoa. And add a dollop of whip cream. (Tinnitus is yowling that this might not be a good idea in my case - but it might be a Wonderful Idea for you.)

Gentle music is pouring lightly from laptop through headphones into ears. Breathing is regular and calm. Too bad I blew out the candle that had been burning all day. I sure would like to sleep. Not yet. There are sentences to type.

A little about daring to be gentle:
I learned many years ago that roughing oneself up never helps, and just adds to the inner bruises one might already have from outside sources.

So - a good solid practice is to be gentle with oneself. To appreciate the parts of us that still work. To try actually liking the person we have grown up to be. Much flawed or nearing perfection. Whoever the person is we are. Now. 

And to move gently toward the person we may still want to become. Stretching... stretching... With effort, but not strain.

Like those sometimes-gentle-but-not-always-gentle magical creatures some call cats? Stretch. Relax. Stretch. Relax.
"R-e-l-a-x" - Aaron Rodgers. (Oh, yes, Aaron Rodgers is cleared to play for the Green Bay Packers against the Charlotte Panthers this Sunday, but I digress.)

Now - back to the bruins for a little while; then gently on to whatever the rest of the evening brings.

Tomorrow's word: Expand (I have NO idea... Though I am glad that there are a variety of meanings for "expand" - other than the one this word brings to mind during this season of often-mindless eating.

Good Luck and Fare-thee-well,
from under the gentle, warm, comforting Hudson's Bay blanket - 
Sue

Again -

Again this place has been ignored.
Not really.
If there is a photo or five taken
I think - 
These will be great for the blog.

Yesterday I wrote down three quotes.
These will be great for the blog.

Just now I came in from putting out
sunflower seeds and cracked corn
for the traveling circus that keeps 
showing up in our patio.

The blog!
The squirrels and chickadees and nuthatch
and crows and bluejays
would be GREAT for the blog.

The fresh cold green crunchy kale
that I just picked from the upper
garden
would be great for the blog.

Ginger tea
drying basil
more kale
munch munch munch munch
would be great for the blog.

Sunshine on pine bark.
Hostas in shadow.
SQUIRREL!! at the back door.
Great for the blog.

No lack of subjects.
Lack of "time."
Lack of ambition.
Lack of habit.

SQUIRREL!!
Again.
Great for the blog.

*********************************

We'll be in Red Wing, Minnesota this weekend, October 14 -15. for the lovely art festival there. This, hard to believe, will be our last outdoor art fair for 2017.
Already thinking of the application process to all the events we'd like to do in 2018. It will be the 20th anniversary year of our doing those first two art fairs in 1998. The few sales made, and the encouraging words and laughter heard, eventually changed the course of my life.
Hmm.... Perhaps this could be a blog post?

*********************************

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Backstretch - But Reversed

This is where it gets "hard." Not in hard labor. Just in O.K., Brain, put some words into your friends the Fingers. Fingers would happily go it alone, but results might be be readable. you know how independent fingers can be. poking in to places they shouldn't be. Pointing at things not to be pointed out. Grabbing stuff that isn't theirs. We have to keep our eyes on our fingers.

A guy and I were just showing our long-ago injured bent fingers to each other - haha!


It is quarter to eleven in the morning. You  know - that quaint concept. Quarter past, half past, quarter to. Round clocks with numbers in a circle. Grandmas taught Time differently.

Oops - now it is 10:52 A.M. Digital time. Central Daylight Time.
I no longer wear a watch. I used to wear a watch ALL the Time. Except when dealing with deep water. I hearted knowing the time.
Now time both excites and haunts me. I live for the few hours and days when "flow" is achieved, and Time means nothing. A whole day when time is measured by occasional glance at sun and shadows is a marvelous, rare, and wonderful day.

Most of my days are tethered to twenty minutes blocks of time. My iPhone timer is my pal. It makes me enjoy focusing. And twenty minutes is a nice bunch of minutes - not too many. Just enough. And often I just click the timer to another twenty. Today "time" is not being a factor. The doing of the blog posts is the focus. Getting there. Getting there. Feeling a tad guilty about taking up coffee shop space, but also not guilty. The sitting here is getting deeds done.

What do you do to get the deeds done?

Two to go! I am almost shallowly excited.
(Insert Inspirational Quote of your choice here.)
(Can you tell that I have had a half-inch of Real Coffee?)

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Typing

yes

typing
 just to type
to stay
 on track
for 
blogging 
goal

otherwise
i feel like
i am standing
in
a dry-grassed ditch
watching
the train
roll
by

and am O.K.
with this

not good

real me is
not
a train 
watcher

i am
at least 
a
train
conductor

(hmm

that thing
where one 
realizes 
a thing

only when
marks
go on 
a page)

a conductor, hey?

i can
be 
O.K.
with 
that

it's time 
to 
find ways
to offer
better
service 

now

but first
a cup
of tea

for
before day's shift
conductor
me

Forgetting

I try to remember and live by this. However, I most often forget as soon as I remember.

------------

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.

- Chuang-Tzu

from "The Little Zen Companion"

------------

Wishing I could stay staring at Yoda and water and sky and sun, with Mr. Mozart's piano music  continues in the foreground, but tasks are the order of the day.

This is not all-together a bad thing. But placing priority and giving the right amount of time to each thing "needing" doing can wear a person out WAY too early in a lovely morning. In fact the greens and eggs, and once-hot tea, are cooling as this is typed. The curse of the accidental multi-tasker.

(Excuse me while I partake of this tasty and "good-for-you" breakfast.)

And, because of a few posts on the Facebook  we may have accidentally made today Happy Shiny Pony Day. Make of this what you will.

On to shipping orders, picking orders, matting and framing a "Hudson," working on two or three new original pieces, working at American Gothic Antiques, and a bunch of etcs. A sort of normal day.

Wishing the powers of Samantha on "Bewitched" were mine - a twiggle of the nose and CLEAN ORGANIZED HOME and STUDIO.  "It is to laugh...."

But BLOG can now be crossed off yesterdays list - huzzah!

And on to preparing for Green Bay's Artstreet this coming weekend. We did not get juried in last year, so am looking forward to being in Lambeau Land again. With good weather and cheerful crowds.

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone." - Lin Yutang

Decisions.... decisions...... Let the Listings begin!

Oh, and the bears and I are a feature story in "Stillwater Living" this month. If I can make it into a glossy lifestyle magazine ANYBODY can! It is a nice article, but, if you read the article please note that I spelled "bridle" correctly (not "bridal", and that Todd has been a local since forever.

Fare-thee-well, and it's the mixed emotions of State Fair Time!
-Sue

www.suerowe.com