Dusting The Shadows...

In lieu of making New Year's resolutions...I took the easy way out, and treated the end of the year like every other day...only with more going out to parties and drinking champagne.

I decided I would not start the New Year out with the thought of depriving myself of anything during 2008. I would, instead, try to improve on what I already have, and take a good long look at the parts of me that may need improvement, so that I may finally bring to me the things I truly want in life. The things that I have been secretly thinking of and wishing for...my entire life. Stopping to examine the shadow parts, the painful things that I have so long buried deep within, hiding them from myself and the rest of life (although, in my experience...those around us often shed light on those shadows, and help us see what we've been missing) I'm wanting to take time to pause, and try to see who I am, and what I am doing to stand in the way of having what I want...and then trying not to sabotage my chances, thus turning into my own worst enemy. I'm just having a hard time slowing down enough to see...

Maybe I don't want to. Perhaps I'm scared? But, I'm tired of being scared.

It's hard to change what you can't or won't see...and sometimes it's hard to change it once you face it. So, I decided to do what any red-blooded American girl in therapy would do...I decided to go on an organizing and cleaning binge in my Kitchen...

The kitchen has been sorely neglected...things getting all covered in flour from all the baking...things and stuffs piling up in the corners and in all the spare places...almost every blank space piled with something...and things spilling out of the cupboards and drawers (Which is terribly sad, as I painted the cupboard under my sink to match the rest of the kitchen cupboards at one point, and you couldn't even see it...what with all the things in there.)

I started under the sink, clearing out all the cleaning agents, taking some to the shop, dividing others between the bathroom and the laundry...placing the rest in their places under the sink...a few in the nifty new chrome slide-out basket I got at the Hardware (I'm saving up for the trash can) after scrubbing it all out down there...including the insides of the doors...

It is sparkly clean...and I discovered that I have a lot of dish washing liquid (who knew?) and silver polish...Lot's of it. I have no idea why. I don't use silver polish all that often, yet I have 2 bottles of it...perhaps I will take in silver to polish in the new year...you know, more ways to distract myself from change?

And, I certainly couldn't stop there...why I don't know, but I just couldn't (honestly, I did not have organize on any resolution list...that's never on any list) I tackled the dinette space in the far end of the kitchen...otherwise known as the ultimate catch all. I have never actually eaten a meal at my kitchen table, there was too much crap stored under it (and no place for your feet...which means I had to try to make the tablecloth long in the front so that that wasn't so noticeable) I've used it for a buffet, a storage area, and a place to display my collection of vintage table cloths...and even though there is a vintage cake/pie carrier on one of the chairs...I am confident that I can move it on short notice in case I want to have dinner on the fly...

Not to be confused with a fly in my dinner.

Or eating dinner with a fly.

I felt so great after clearing out this space (vacuumed and scrubbed) I proceeded to clean, clear off and polish the counter tops...wash all the dishes, do 4 loads of laundry (including the kitchen rugs) and fold and put all of that away (including the 2 from last week) washing and changing the sheets on the bed...dusted and polished some wood furniture...and fed and watered the plants (and the cat...but, that's a given)

The kitchen feels and looks so different...so very good. It was easier than I thought, which makes me wonder why I haven't done it sooner? I want to cook, bake and create in there...I actually smiled when I walked in to pour my morning juice and coffee...I find excuses to go in there now.

I'm wondering if it will feel like this in my life, in my mind and body when I face my personal shadows...all the dust and clutter? Now that I've been brave enough to face those parts of the kitchen, maybe I can be brave enough to face those parts of myself.

I wonder what the before and after pictures will look like of that?

Saturday Night...

...was an impromptu-ish craft night at Arthur's sister's house.

It had been rainy and cold all day, and I had been out dashing around here and there, to deliver some liquids to a housebound Puffs Plus user, lunch with a friend, an afternoon movie (in the house) and a little run by the local hardware for a special gift for my kitchen (as it was sorely neglected during the holiday rush) then a dash and grab to collect Arthur and a drive out to countryside for some heavy duty creating...

Well, after a good dinner of course.

Of course.

Our first project, while waiting for dinner to bake up, was a fleece blanket for Arthur to take home...I've seen these made, and haven't done them myself, so I was interested in trying it. Super easy...and really cute in the end (of course, the dark brown fleece with embroidered dandelions against a wonderful turquoise was a great color combo...Arthur knows how to pick them)



Then onto his own design and creation: Hazelnut balls. We first wrapped styrofoam balls in aluminum foil (this is so if you want to spray paint them later, the styrofoam doesn't melt from the spray paint...I mean, you could use styrofoam that you could spray paint to begin with, but we couldn't find any...) And then, we hot glued the hazelnuts to the balls, starting in the center and then working around the center in a circle until the entire ball was covered.

I have a few small gaps in mine...it's not as easy as it looks, I mean, there was several times I had to stop and look for a certain sized nut, so as not to have a huge gap...

I also did not spray paint mine, as we didn't have any spray paint, and I kind of like the natural look. Arthur says they look really great in metallic colors...I can imagine they would.

They are quite heavy when you get done...and apparently when the nuts dry out a bit, they make great rattles.

Ah...nut ball rattles.

Mine also has a few strings of hot glue that I still need to pick off. I also hot glued my fingers to various things, including themselves a couple of times...and then burned them. So that was fun.

If only we were using super glue...

I could have a hazelnut ball hand.

(and yes, I am chuckling to myself everytime I use the phrase hazelnut balls...)

(because I'm 12)


Then onto glitter tinsel holiday trees...which Arthur had never made personally but apparently ran a craft class at one point and exclaimed, "if 12 year old girls can do it...so can we!!" (I mean, seeing as the two of us were already giggling about the phrase hazelnut balls, I for one felt pretty confident)




For this project, you start with a styrofoam cone, and then some garland. We happened to score on all this garland after Christmas at Target for 75% off...and paid something like .75 cents for it. Arthur said they look great in maribu as well...

So, you start by hot gluing the end of your garland to the bottom of the cone, and to your finger... (oh, wait...that was just me...plus, the addition of one or more of your fingers tends to make this project a little bulky) and then wind the garland up the cone, stopping to glue it ever so often...and the trick here is to hold the garland in place (or it will come loose and rip the green off your cone, and also giving you yet another opportunity to glue something to your fingers) ...Of course, it's really up to you...for instance, with all of the nuts that I glued to my hand during the hazelnut ball craft, the tinsel did lend a bit more festive air (and to be fair, it covered up the burn marks)


I used silver and red...and it kind of goes with the Valentine-ish theme I got going on the mantle, although, I think it will soon find it's place to the Christmas box, as I have never heard of a Traditional Festive Valentine's Day Tree (notice the attractive strings of hot glue on this also...There's something you've got to be able to use those for right? A festive Holiday spiderweb of some sort perhaps?)

Hey...I figure I just got a jump on next year's handmade holiday decorating!!

(yay me.)





At the end of the night, we finished by making little fleece throws for our cats. We're all owned by cats...and with that comes the problem of fur on the furniture, not to mention the perfect place for the cats to snuggle up during the cold winter months, and they all seem to like a fleecy place to lay their weary heads (cause they do so much during the day)

Meena loved hers, I put it in the bed on top of the covers and she curled up on it all night...all happy. At least I won't get too much fur on the bed, and these being washable are really a great idea for chairs and the backs of couches and whatnot...I think anyway.

Arthur's sister is quite an accomplished crafter and quilter (which I did not know) and she runs a craft class for her church...Arthur is a landscape architect, so he is mucho creative with plants and organic materials, and is always working on some fabulous display for work...I'm not sure how I fit in there, but I'm pretty creative in my own right. It was a good last night with Arthur for sure.

Arthur left early this morning. I am sad. We're not in constant contact during our times apart, and it's always hard for me when he goes, because I realize how much I miss not having him close and how very lucky I am to have him in my life. We said good-bye on the phone. It was a 2 minute conversation at best...I had to get off before I started sobbing (I did that alone instead) and I'm not sure how he felt...but, the last time we said good-bye in person, we were both a little weepy. Of course, I know we both have our own lives we've carved out for ourselves, and I know I'll see him again soon, as our 20 year high school reunion is coming up this year...but, it's just filling up those hours in between.

Maybe peeling the hot glue strands from my projects...

and from my fingers...

That's a start.

It's Like Hillbilly Goth...

That's what Arthur described to me in rather hushed tones after we left The Raven Cafe' after enjoying a bit of coffee type beverages sometime last week...

OK, who am I kidding...he exclaimed rather loudly as we stepped onto the busy small town street of Prescott,

"Gawd...did you see that?!?! "

I looked up at him confusedly...

"Everyone in there was wearing black! Everyone...it was weird...like...like...Hillbilly Goth"

Which almost made me collapse onto the sidewalk with mirth...as it was, I had to stop and lean against a building for support...well, until I looked down and realized that I was wearing black corduroys, a black sweater (with gray and white in it) topped off with a long black wool jacket.

Damn.


This gave me pause...have I given up in the winters in a small Northern town in Arizona? Have I become what I always loathed? A Goth Red Neck? 2 seconds I paused about this before breaking into a gale of hysteria...that usually lasts as long as Arthur visits home. And Arthur hasn't been home for 4 years (at least)...

Usually when I see him, I squeal and launch myself across Snap Snap to hug him (because he visits every day when he's home) and I never know just when he's going to show up. We've been friends for more than 20 years...and I never realize how much I miss having him in my life until he pops back in for a few weeks. It's odd because we're so similar and do have so much fun together...yet, we hardly keep in touch when he's not visiting...a phone call here and there, a package, and email...but it never seems to hinder our relationship, because every time I think about him, I smile. We also dated briefly in our college years...but, we don't hold that against each other either, and I'm relieved that we can put everything aside and get down to the nitty-gritty...

Our friendship.

We're so similar, we laugh at the same things, like the same music and movies and have similar attitudes about life. He called for an early morning chat the other day and I was remarking that we're both so cynical..."Oh no Sadie, we're both very hopeful and passionate people that so desperately want everything to work out...So much so, that we mask our vulnerability with humor." Oh. Yes Arthur, that hits the nail on the head...and brings a few tears to my eyes with it's accuracy and sheer poetry. He quickly followed the serious with the quip, "You and I? We see the glass as half full...but, there's a pubic hair floating in it."

Ah. Well...

But, I digress. We went out for sushi last night...and ate our weight in raw fish and seaweed, discussing the finer points of food (his partner is a quite the gourmet cook, reminding me that I should go visit sometime in the future...and don't you just love talking about good food when you're eating good food? Oh, and the similar chopstick photos are one of Arthur and then one of his self-proposed "good side") And he had to slyly tell me about another saying he'd made up...(you see, Arthur and I have always dreamed about starting a bumper sticker company...and we're forever saying, "oh...here's a good bumper sticker" and I wish that I had written down all of our ideas over the years...and he generously let me write a post about him with the only agreement being, "everything I've said is copyrighted" OK...done!) This saying he's come up with has been tweaked to match a book written about our fair city, uh town...called, "Prescott...rhymes with Biscuit" (because you don't pronounce Prescott like it looks...You pronounce it "Pres-kitt" which is very annoying to me because it sounds lazy...but then again, it does have a nice ring to it when you use a western drawl...Preeeeees-kit) His new saying:

Prescott...Rhymes with Suck-It!

Which elicited yet another round of hysterics...We've already designed an entire t-shirt line. It doesn't totally suck up here (as much as it did when we were all growing up) and I figure he has the right to say it...as not only was he born here, but subjected to all things Prescott as well (thank goodness for all the great friends and family we all had) Plus, I think it's totally out of love he makes fun of Prescott so...

because secretly?

I think he would love to move back home...

(OK...and thank you for all the bang love you guys!! Good heavens, I've been needing a pick-me-up...you guys are the best! And 16? Heavens...how lovely indeed. I won't tell you my exact age [calculators ready] but I will tell you that I was born in 1970...which yes, does make me a year and a half older than Rich...)

The Bang Report...

I know you've all been living on the edge of your seats about the bang thing...

(rolling my eyes...I mean, surely 3 days into the New Year, the girl would have something to blog about...think again)

I know that they're really not that bad (and I have to admit that they do look a little kicky when I pull my hair back) it's just a bit shocking to look in the mirror and see my eyebrows. I think I use bangs to hide behind a little bit (much like glasses, only I don't need bangs to drive necessarily) In my esteemed opinion, I have a ridiculously high forehead of which I've not been too friendly in the past...although, there was a time when I decided I needed to make peace with it, and grew my bangs out.

I suppose I learned to live with seeing my forehead on a daily basis, but in retrospect I don't think it was necessarily the best look for me (and quite possibly punished those in my life that had to look at me) but, it was also at a point in my life where I'd about given up and needed to make a change...I of course, opted for the less painful changing of the hair (and later the changing of the marital status, although I'm not sure that hair was the eventual demise of my marriage...and the length of my bangs in the present do not have to do with change, it has to do with me forgetting to tell my hairdresser not to go too short...because he is an amazing and talented man who always listens to what I want and cuts my hair accordingly)











Oddly enough, I did have bangs cut quite soon after I separated...and have been much more comfortable since...

Mostly because I think bangs make me look younger...

Mostly.

Launching Myself Into...

The New Year...

With vigor and zest (that would be excitement, not the soap...wow, do they even make Zest anymore, or did I just date myself?) No matter...it was with cautious optimism I welcomed the new year in (yeah, I'm feeling real risky this year...)

By trying to sleep through the 30 minutes of fireworks happening outside my window...honestly? I had just come home from a New Year's Eve extravaganza of fun and mellow sitting back and eating...I um, mean...having fun, but an evening that left my eyes feeling a little heavy, so I went home and crawled into bed early. It's OK with me...the new year is really here for another 364 days or so...oh but wait, 2008 is a leap year isn't it?

I started the New Year off as I usually do...which is with the intention to un-decorate for Christmas...which is exactly what happened, and in record time...things were down and packed away for another year (except for the few things here and there that keep popping up that I totally forgot were in that particular place) Which kind of makes me feel a little sad that the house is so empty, yet relieved that there is a clean slate again from which to create...

After all of that excitement, I toodled over to Megan and Matt's house for an Indian Jones Marathon...where Megan had made black eyed peas and rice (totally yummy and certainly welcome for a bit of good luck in the coming year for sure) and Doritos (that someone had just happened upon, and none of us have eaten in a good while, so it was a bit of a weird and delicious unexpected treat) and Junior Mints...Good company (Matt, Megan, Dan, Jen and Ollie) and good food...what else could one ask for?

Lounging around under a quilt and wearing a pair of my new wool socks I got for Christmas makes for a lovely First Day of the New Year afternoon...

I left during the second IJ movie (which is my least favorite, but now all of a sudden, I want to see all the way through sometime) to run over to the Airstream for a viewing of The Big Lebowski...which Rich and I have never seen, but duly cracked up over for a couple of hours (The Coen Brothers are amazing movie makers...well, except for Blood Simple, that movie scared me) More relaxing with good company (I'm treating myself well...so, I'm already off to a good start, eh?)

Then Home again...for a quiet evening of reading. Which ended up as an evening on the phone instead with one call being from my sister...whom I totally forgot to wish a Happy Birthday on the blog (her birthday is Christmas, and while I didn't forget to send a gift, I totally spaced a good birthday wish...damn.) Happy Birthday Girl!!

I can't say that I have any resolutions for the upcoming year put in place, no words of wisdom to impart either...I'm kind of tapped out in the wisdom department at the moment. I would like to get walking around the neighborhood again (at least)

OH...and grow my bangs out.

2007...

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Thank you all for all the friendship, support and continuing inspiration throughout 2007. This seemed to be a year of meeting new people, making new connections, new beginnings and having totally different experiences. Looking back through all the pictures of all the life I was able to capture...the images of my corner of the world reminds me of all the things that I experienced this year...thank you for taking this journey with me, I am always so touched and excited when you've taken the time to stop by and say hello...

Cheers to 2008!