Monday, May 31, 2010

travels

so excited!! on thursday my cousin amanda and i are embarking on an east-coast adventure. we are going to be spending 13 days in prince edward island at my oma's house. (my mom's mom) she is 88 years old and full of life. quite frankly, she's probably one of the most hilarious women i know. i can't wait to see her. she lives in a mother-in-law suite at my aunt's house so amanda and i will be sleeping in my oma's camping trailer out in the yard. oma's already had the trailer cleaned and the linens prepared for a month or two now. she's so sweet.

i haven't been back to pei for 13 years, so i'm wondering how much of it will be familiar. i'm looking forward to going back and rediscovering my roots. also i'm just really looking forward to having a holiday. i'm hoping for sunny, fresh-smelling spring days. i've been looking at tourist websites to see what there is to do, and it seems like it will be a quaint holiday. there's a lot of fishing, walks, gardening, folk craft-making, and other such delightful things to do. we were really hoping to go see the anne of green gables musical, but sadly that only plays during the summer months. but i'm hoping that going in june will allow us to still have some nice weather but to be able to avoid the tourist season.





i'm hoping to do a lot of journaling while i'm there, so perhaps i'll post some entries from it later on so you can see what i've been up to :)

Friday, May 14, 2010

timelife

http://sarahlambersky.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/tea-cup-vase-735962.jpg


i wait in the crack, in the crevice of life
until the light comes and makes me move

i wait in the shadow, in the cave, in the dark
until the light pulls me through

where in this life can we go from time

i'll tell you.. it's in the light

and

there's a place called hope, called rest:
you can go there in a good book by the fire
or the riverside for a walk
for tea with an old friend

you can go there in your sleep, in your dreams
to a place far away with beaches and no clocks

what is time

how are we defined?



Wednesday, April 21, 2010

sunshine

I'm so thankful for the spring. Winter can be so long and dark, I feel like it will never end. But spring is so wonderful that you can't help but see the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels so amazing to have the sun warm your skin, to smell nature emerging once again.

This blog was supposed to be about starting a new business venture but has sort of rabbit-trailed all over the place. So anyways, in business news.. I have sold probably 15 items, which isn't bad considering I sort of went hard for a week with making and posting items, and have been slacking ever since. I guess I'm not really banking on internet sales but am looking forward to Farmer's Market season. I think that would be a little more interesting anyways, you get to interact with your customers and get first hand experience on what people like and don't like. I guess both have their perks, because online you don't have to do much.. just post and wait, and you don't have to pay for a table. I really need to get back into painting and start posting some more photography. I'm hoping to get my job back here at the library this summer, but with a few less hours so that I will have time to do some of these things I've been meaning to do.

As for the rest of life, it's been busy, but wonderful.


picture: http://lydonthejar.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/spring.jpg


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

change

so it's been a while. and my fan base is beginning to become agitated with my lack of written brilliance as of late. i apologize. so i'm here to make it up to you.

life is full of changes. little changes and big ones. we can resist with all our might, but all around us life is still in a constant state of alteration. trees lose leaves. flowers bud. lightning strikes. the earth rumbles. man scurries as an ant or slumbers as a bear. all involves change. your state of consciousness, your state of mind. the path you choose to take. change can be terrifying, but mostly it is great. how else will you learn or grow or become what you are meant to be? who you are meant to be..

here are some definitions of change: (who knew there were so many?)

Change
*--To alter; to make different; to cause to pass from one state to another; as, to change the position, character, or appearance of a thing; to change the countenance.
*--To alter by substituting something else for, or by giving up for something else; as, to change the clothes; to change one's occupation; to change one's intention.
--To give and take reciprocally; to exchange; -- followed by with; as, to change place, or hats, or money, with another.
--Specifically: To give, or receive, smaller denominations of money (technically called change) for; as, to change a gold coin or a bank bill.
*--To be altered; to undergo variation; as, men sometimes change for the better.
*--To pass from one phase to another; as, the moon changes to-morrow night.
*--Any variation or alteration; a passing from one state or form to another; as, a change of countenance; a change of habits or principles.
*--A succesion or substitution of one thing in the place of another; a difference; novelty; variety; as, a change of seasons.
*--A passing from one phase to another; as, a change of the moon.
--Alteration in the order of a series; permutation.
--That which makes a variety, or may be substituted for another.
--Small money; the money by means of which the larger coins and bank bills are made available in small dealings; hence, the balance returned when payment is tendered by a coin or note exceeding the sum due.
--A place where merchants and others meet to transact business; a building appropriated for mercantile transactions.
--A public house; an alehouse
--Any order in which a number of bells are struck, other than that of the diatonic scale.

i starred* my favourites.
so, happy change to you.
 
http://www.sawse.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/14.jpg

Monday, April 5, 2010

easter





And when they came to the place which is called The Skull [Latin: Calvary; Hebrew: Golgotha], there they crucified Him, and [along with] the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And they divided His garments and distributed them by casting lots for them...


But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had made ready. And they found the stone rolled back from the tomb, but when they went inside, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus... He is not here, but has risen! Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee. ~ Luke 23:33-34; Luke 24:1-3, 6(AMP)


Lead Me to Calvary



King of my life I crown You now;
Yours shall the glory be.
Lest I forget Your thorncrowned brow,
Lead me to Calvary.

Refrain:

Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget Your agony,
Lest I forget Your love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.

High on the cross I see You there,
Anguish across Your face.
How great the pain and grief You bear!
How great the price of grace!

Jesus, I bow and take the cross
Gladly You bore for me.
Daily, my Lord, in gain or loss,
Lead me to Calvary.

Words by Jenny E. Hussey and Ken Bible
Music by William J. Kirkpatrick


Happy Easter everyone! I decided I needed to have an Easter spotlight on my blog, because I feel like it just came and went this year and I didn't even give it a lot of consideration, yet it's one of the most important holidays. It's funny how we make such a big deal out of Christmas, and yet Easter can go by without a passing glance. I think this must be the result of consumerism and its effects on religious holidays. This isn't new information, but the fact that I could have easily missed Easter makes me realize the importance of having one's own traditions or traditions within your family that can become symbolic and help you to refocus during busy holiday times. I think we should even do more within our churches to commemorate, for this day is the foundation of what the church is built on. We also need to teach our children how to celebrate the important things in our lives.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

God and the Arts

by: Bernard Bell
Within the evangelical world we are frequently told that we must be busily about God’s service. There are so many needs in the world and we must give God a helping hand to ensure that these needs are met. “If you don’t respond,” we are told, “who will?” Thus we are driven either by guilt or by genuine enthusiasm to a lifestyle of ceaseless activity in the service of God, spurred on by regular motivational speeches and books, and by assurances that God is using us mightily. Our God, it seems, is a utilitarian God—one who needs us, one who has redeemed us in order to help him, one who can’t get by without us.

But if we turn to God’s self-revelation in Creation, we find a remarkably non-utilitarian God. He places flowers on a thousand hills where no human will ever see them. He oversees the life cycle of myriad stunningly beautiful insects, unobserved by any human eye. He has placed millions of galaxies far beyond the limit of human eyesight, beyond even the range of the Hubble Telescope. A look at the Bird of Paradise flower or at the peacock should suggest to us that God is extravagant in his creation of beauty and wonder. What good do such birds and flowers play in the grand scheme of things, in the urgent task of evangelism and mission?

Turning to the Scriptures we find a similar delight in beauty on the part of God. Those urgent about the task of evangelism and mission would prefer a clear outline of the four spiritual laws or of the plan of salvation. The nearest we get in Paul’s “Repent and be baptized.” Instead, we find a great number of stories, which modern literary critics acknowledge are marvelous models of literary creation. Such stories cannot be quickly read and put into practice. They must be read slowly, audibly, preferably in community. They must be chewed over, reflected upon, tossed around and around in the inner recesses of the brain. They are distinctly unpractical, though we are ever ready to force the process in our search for quick application. But if we mull over these stories long enough we will find them to be immensely practical, not because they will make us go out and do things, but because they will transform us. All good stories, and the biblical narratives are no exception, have the capacity to be subversive. If they work long enough in our mind, they will perform a radical work on us, changing us. This is the transforming power of art of which Dorothy Sayers wrote.

Why does God delight so much in placing his artwork in Creation and in the Scriptures? I can think of several reasons. Firstly, God delights in making things that are good and beautiful. Beauty is an integral part of his created order. Secondly, God does not need our help. Just as man is gratuitous in his activity, so is God gratuitous in all his activity. He makes flowers bloom on a thousand hills not because he needs to but because he wants to. He surely made the peacock with a smile on his face. One can sense this delight on God’s part as he brought the animals to Adam to name. God does not need us: he was perfectly fulfilled within the Trinity but freely chose to bring mankind into being. He does not need to save us, but freely chooses to do so. He does not even need us for the work of mission and evangelism. The world is full of needs, the sum total of which is beyond the capacity of humans to meet. If we are driven by a sense of need, we will burn ourselves out, for this is not the way God has designed.

God even uses artistic imagery in describing our participation in his work. We are to be a fragrant aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ wherever we go, mediating his beauty to all around us. We have the perfect model in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was constantly surrounded by people in need, yet frequently turned his back on them and sought out solitary places. He drew people’s attention to his Father’s artistic beauty in creation, reminding them of the lilies of the field and of the sparrow. Through the way in which he lived he was a fragrant aroma of life to some, and an aroma of death to others. Yes, he was about his father’s business, but that business included much that we would define as distractions from the urgent task at hand. He told stories of great artistic merit, which defied translation into immediate action, for their meaning was deliberately concealed. If God chose to so act through his Son, should we not hesitate in our haste to rush into action?

Perhaps the greatest argument for the arts is that put forward by God himself in his questioning of Job (Job 37-41). From a utilitarian perspective, God’s answer was useless: he answered none of Job’s questions. But it was deeply subversive, for it subverted Job’s whole being. In a dazzling round of questions, God showed that he is completely non-contingent, that he delights in the bizarre things he has made. Is not this also the sense of Lady Wisdom skipping as a child at Creation (Proverbs 8)?

In fine, God is an artist who delights to make things for sheer pleasure. He does remarkably little to address the immediate task at hand, but through his constant subversive artistic activity he is bringing about an entirely new creation. Should we not follow suit in delighting in the glorious impractical activity of artistic creation, of telling our stories, of smelling God’s flowers, of mulling over Biblical narrative, and so find ourselves profoundly subverted, and find also that we are a fragrant aroma of the Lord Jesus Christ?


I'm interested in the intention of creation as an act unto itself. I feel that we are inspired, even compelled to create, because God is a creative being and He designed our beings after Himself. I find it almost magical, then, to put into action something that was birthed in me by the Master Himself. Of course not everything made by human hands is beautiful and/or reflects their original intent, but the simple act of pouring your heart into something that is a part of you but exists on its own brings a kind of satisfaction that nothing else does. I think there is almost more value in the act of creation than in the final product itself. That is why art is often more about the process. I think one of the best challenges we can give ourselves as artists is the one-a-day concept. I know that I'm not diligent at this at all, but I would love to one day be. To just pick something, and make one of them every single day for a set period of time. You would learn so much about process, time, ability, art as a changing phenomenon and even human nature. I think the longer you do this, the more you will begin to see yourself both in the artworks themselves, and as part of a Created network.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See


http://www.artistsnetwork.com/upload/images/articleart_large/tam_aug08_pas1.jpg


We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each springimpassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole
One grand great life throbs through earth's giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
From nerveless germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some freshblossoming wood
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedalfashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature's heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?

Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!.



Oscar Wilde

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_b1x3maF9jv4/SufK0RJc_UI/AAAAAAAAA_8/L7vw__p_KCQ/s640/7221birch_forest.jpg

Sunday, March 21, 2010

food for thought.

The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God. Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt.

::: Bono :::


Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

::: Rumi :::


The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.

::: Michelangelo :::


Man can't do without God. Just like you're thirsty, you have to drink water. You just can't go without God.

::: Bob Marley :::


It seems that all of the good things in life are connected. And connected to God. I can't imagine life without the urge to create; this blessing coming from the heart of the Creator Himself.



Mark Rothko, Ochre and Red on Red


"here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart


i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

[from i carry your heart with me, by E.E. Cummings]

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

'bout ye? Happy St. Patrick's!

May those who love us, love us.

And for those who don't love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he can not turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we may know them by their limping.
May you live as long as you want, and never want as long as you live.

(now that's just lovely, so it is! ha.. gotta love the irish!)


I drink to your health when I'm with you,

I drink to your health when I'm alone,
I drink to your health so often,
I'm starting to worry about my own

(haha.. i couldn't resist including this one)



Sunday, March 14, 2010

i read this for my birthday.. what a great passage!

Psalm 139, New Living Translation

  O LORD, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
  You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I'm far away.
  You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
  You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, LORD.
  You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!

  I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
  If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
  If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
  even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
  I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
  but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.

  You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother's womb.
  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
  You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
  You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

 
  How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
  I can't even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!


  O God, if only you would destroy the wicked!
Get out of my life, you murderers!
  They blaspheme you;
your enemies misuse your name.
  O LORD, shouldn't I hate those who hate you?
Shouldn't I despise those who oppose you?
  Yes, I hate them with total hatred,
for your enemies are my enemies.




  Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
  Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It's amazing to think that we are completely known by God. It's a hard concept to fathom when we have a hard time getting to completely know ourselves. But the really great part is that God is gracious and merciful and has patience for us in our times of ignorance and not knowing, and even our times of not wanting to know and to just try things on our own. In a sense we need to know God first because that's the only way we will truly know ourselves. He made us, afterall.
 

Thursday, March 11, 2010

ok a few more words from annie dillard and then i'm returning the book to the library. it was so good. i highly recommend it.

from the end of 'the writing life'

"Rahm did everything his plane could do: tailspins, four-point rolls, flat spins, figure 8's, snap rolls, and hammerheads. He did pirouettes on the plane's tail. The other pilots could do these stunts, too, skillfully, one at a time. But Rahm used the plane inexhaustibly, like a brush marking thin air.

His was pure energy and naked spirit. I have thought about it for years. Rahm's line unrolled in time. Like music, it split the bulging rim of the future along its seam. It pried out the present. We watchers waited for the split-second curve of beauty in the present to reveal itself. The human pilot, Dave Rahm, worked in the cockpit right at the plane's nose; his very body tore into the future for us and reeled it down upon us like a curling peel.

Like any fine artist, he controlled the tension of the audience's longing. You desired, unwittingly, a certain kind of roll or climb, or a return to a certain portion of the air, and he fulfilled your hope slantingly, like a poet, or evaded it until you thought you would burst, and then fulfilled it surprisingly, so you gasped and cried out.

The oddest, most exhilarating and exhausting thing was this: he never quit. The music had no periods, no rests or endings; the poetry's beautiful sentence never ended; the line had no finish; the sculptured forms piled overhead, one into another without surcease. Who could breathe, in a world where rhythm itself had no periods?

It had taken me several minutes to understand what an extraordinary thing I was seeing. Rahm kept all that embellished space in mind at once. For another twenty minutes I watched the beauty unroll and grow more fantastic and unlikely before my eyes. Now Rahm brought the plane down slidingly, and just in time, for I thought I would snap from the effort to compass and remember the line's long intelligence; I could not add another curve. He brought the plane down on a far runway. After a pause, I saw him step out, an ordinary man, and make his way back to the terminal."
--pg 96-97

new site

www.artbreak.com/prairiedust

there's not much there yet, but it's a start..

Etsy Alberta Street Team..check it out!

http://etsyalberta.blogspot.com/

Sunday, March 7, 2010

lit

eventually i'll finish "the writing life" and stop quoting dillard...but for now:

"There was no continental shelf; the island beach dropped to the deep and sandless ocean floor. The water was so cold throughout the year that a man overboard died in ten minutes. Once I saw two twenty-four-man war canoes race across a passage. Forty-eight bare-chested Lummi Indians paddled them, singing. Once I saw phosphorescent seas in a winter storm in front of the cabin; in the black night black seas broke in wild lines to the horizon and spilled green foam that glowed when the wind's pitch rose, so I wept on the shore in fear.
I lived on the beach with one foot in fatal salt water and one foot on a billion grains of sand. The brink of the infinite there was too like writing's solitude. Each sentence hung over an abyssal ocean or sky which held all possibilities, as well as the possibility of nothing. In June and July, the twilight lingered till dawn. Our latitude was north of Nova Scotia; the sun never dropped low enough below the horizon to achieve what is called astronomical night. The wide days split life open like an ax. When I sketched or painted the island shore, even with the most literal intentions, the work twined into the infinite again and dissolved, or the infinite assaulted the page again and required me to represent it. My pen piled the page with changing clouds, multiple suns, circles, spirals, and rays. I used the pages at night to light fires.
'I have been doing some skying,' Constable wrote a friend. I have been doing some scrolling, here and elsewhere, scrolling up and down beaches and blank monitor screens scrying for signs: dipping papers into vats of color, dipping paddles into seas, and bearing God knows where. The green line of photons forms words at the shore of darkness. Darkness empties behind the screen in an illimitable cone. Shall we go rowing again, we who believe we may indeed row off the edge and fall? Shall we launch again into the deep and row up the skies?"
The Writing Life, Dillard [pg. 89-90]

Shall we?

Evocative. I have never encountered a writer who can stimulate the senses and stir up such wordless emotions all in one breath-taking passage.

And to spice things up; a poem from a Canadian Christian magazine, WindsorReview:

The Saddening Green, by John. B. Lee
~inspired by a U.E.L McQueen graveyard in Port Dover

Sometimes in the earth
there exists
such a saddening green
on a grave in the rain
with a sorrowful sun
gone grey as a shadow on stone
in the drab of the land
with the name on the stone
worn away [are we meant to be remembered beyond the grave?]*
as it leans in the fading of moss
and is blackened
by lichening life
and the withering weather of spring

see how
they've sunk in the yard
these heroes of time
these tablets of yesterday's love
this oldening loss
this reverent vanish of bones
like the burning of branches to ash
a streak on the marl
or a mark on the sand
where the hand
holds death to its breath
or a face
wore the dust as a mask
as it slept in the language of prayer

who went on this journey
of souls
with the nesting of roots
through the mind
once kissed
with the fever of touch
once held
to the warming of dark
once dreamed
and remembered in youth
such a fathering mothering blue
from the promise of dawn
to the dimming of dusk
to the startling brilliance of stars
how the mystery comes
to us all [it truly is a mystery, death... who can explain lack of existence? is that why we fight so hard to be remembered? because we are afraid of the unknown? of being unknown..]*
when we carry the light
like the lake, like the moon
like the well
too deep for the cup

*my words.


I was actually thinking about death lately. I guess being human forces us to face our mortality at least on occasion. I was more specifically thinking about cremation. My mom wanted to be cremated, for a few reasons. But one of them was that she wanted her funeral to be less hard on us; without a casket and pall bearers and a grave-side service. However in some ways, I think having someone cremated, as much as it seems like the logical thing to do (ashes to ashes, dust to dust), is a lot harder to cope with. When I think of a loved one who has been buried in a casket; I can picture them lying there as an entire body. But with mom we took hand-fulls of what used to be her, and spread them into the wind. So it's strangely final. Her human life being over. I know that when you're dead you're not going to be whole on earth ever again; but I guess there's a small comfort in one being still intact when they're dead. I don't think I would have thought much about this if I hadn't faced it myself.  I don't know why it ends up being so hard coming to terms with death and loss, but I guess it's because it's the opposite of what we fight so hard to do and be all our lives. Alive. Vibrant. Thoughts?

Friday, March 5, 2010

more from dillard

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impluse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes." (The Writing Life, pg.78-9)

I think this could quite-well be very insightful advice for living. It carries over to other dimensions of life: Spiritually, relationally, (probably not the best idea with actual finances..), etc. Score one more for Annie. Why not put our hearts into what we do? It only makes sense. We're really only here for a short while.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

hump day. whata glamorous name for this middle of the week day.

i arrived at work this morning to be greeted by the evacuation alarm. so i put my coat back on and headed outside. i can handle a work day like this.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

the writing life

i've been reading the writing life by annie dillard lately, and as much as she dispels the romantic notion we sometimes have about being a writer, she has still managed to inspire me. inspired me to be a more consistent, more interesting, more powerful and meaningful blog writer. inspired me to move to a small hut somewhere on the beach and finally, seriously undertake writing a novel.

some favourite quotes from her book thus far..

oh and just saying... i love the smell of old books, nothing better. and new books, depending on where you get them. it's those in between books you have to look out for! ha.

ok quotes...

"Every morning you climb several flights of stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air. The desk and chair float thirty feet from the ground, between the crowns of maple trees. The furniture is in place; you go back for your thermos of coffee. Then, wincing, you step out again through the French doors and sit down on the chair and look over the desktop. You can see clear to the river from here in the winter. Your pour yourself a cup of coffee.
Birds fly under your chair. In spring, when the leaves open in the maples' crowns, your view stops in the treetops just beyond the desk; yellow warblers hiss and whisper on the high twigs, and catch flies. Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking that flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair."

I love that. I wish my desk at work was in midair. Sadly it is painfully grounded.

"I have been looking into schedules. Even when we read physics, we inquire of each least particle, What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order--willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern."

Interesting.

marketing...

Friday, February 26, 2010

in business!

prairiedustinc.etsy.com

Thursday, February 18, 2010

end of a reading era.

soooooooooooooooooo, i FINALLY finished reading twilight. the last book i had to slog through a bit at the end there. i can't say i'm the biggest fan of how it ended, but i won't say more.. don't want to spoil the ending. it was entertaining. and now that i'm done i won't have anymore vampire/werewolf nightmares. phew. i'm tiring of waking up sweaty every morning.

in business news.. i ordered business cards today! yay! but they'll come in 3 weeks because that was cheapest, so that's kind of anti-climactic. it gives me time to get my stuff together though. not that there's much to get together. i'm kind of nervous, i don't know why. i feel like i should get a business license and all that.. but perhaps that can wait until i see if the stuff sells or not. clearly i'm not all that business-minded. wow, i just said business approximately a million times in this paragraph. that should count for something.

in other news.. not much going on. still in an insane, painful fitness routine. i love how every time you work your abs a lot you feel like you're constantly going to vomit for the next few days.

and.... SUNSHINE. glorious sunshine. how i wish i was outside right now.. oh wait, only 6 minutes of work left....

Thursday, February 11, 2010

book four... breaking dawn.

so i've been obsessively reading the twilight books despite my best intentions to not be a pop-culture groupie. but you know.. the first book i thought was terrible, and i couldn't stand bella.. but i slogged through, and you know, the books just keep getting better and better.
the only thing i really don't like about the books is that they have this way of taking over your whole life and it becomes hard to focus on anything else. that coupled with the relative "dark" nature of the books.. and life can get a bit overwhelming and depressing while you're reading them.. but somehow you can't stop.
and sad to say, but having these books to read gives me a reason to look forward to going to work because on my 4 closing shifts, life is pretty quiet in the school. only 754 pages to go..
i'm still struggling to find time and motivation to work on my art. i've been so tired lately. but it probably has to do with the sore throat and allergies i was dealing with this week. i took some benadryl the other night, and normally drowsiness-inducing medication has little affect on me.. not this time. i went to bed at 10 and woke up at 11:30, still feeling like i could sleep for a few more hours. alas, work had to be done.
i'm also still wondering what to do with my life. do i buy a car? a house? start an actual business? or just keep doing what i'm doing, save up some money and go traveling again. i realize that settling down is inevitable at some point in life.. but i still feel like i have a lot of ground to cover before i'm ready to do that. i don't know. perhaps i need to stop thinking about it so much, and just take each day as it comes. much easier said than done. and i welcome suggestions.. :)

http://www.watchmojo.com/blogs/images/twilight_2.jpg

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

allergies

i think i'm allergic to everything. i was hardly allergic to anything growing up and now i'm one big walking allergy. i woke up this morning sneezing, and my eyes were itchy, red, and puffed right out. i could hardly see anything. and my throat was itchy and felt like it was constricting. excellent. so as a result of my limited vision, i did not have a great morning. i spent most of my time lying on the couch with ice on my eyes. lovely.
when i got to work my co-worker told me i looked like had been doing some heavy drugs, i wish.. haha. and now i think i might be allergic to gluten because nothing i eat seems to agree with my stomach. i think i need to go on a week long water diet or something.

Monday, February 8, 2010

bonus post.

two in one day, i know.. the madness never ceases. i was reading an andy goldsworthy book on my break and i really identified with his intro about time, change, and place.

'Time and change are connected to place. Real change is best understood by staying in one place. When I travel, I see differences rather than change. I resent travelling south in early spring in case I am away from home when I see my first tree coming into leaf. If this happens, I see the leaves, but not the growth or change. I feel similarly about the first frost or ice or snow, and the first warm day after winter. I thrive on the disruption forced by seasonal changes - a hard freeze, heavy snow, a sudden thaw, leaf fall, strong winds - which can change dramatically any working patterns that have become established within a particular season.'
--Andy Goldsworthy, Time

Some of his work:




art and nature. perfect.


life in general

i went to edmonton this weekend for a job interview. it was at abercrombie and fitch which sort of feels like going against what i believe in, with regards to consumerism and brand names, etc. but i was asked to come in for an interview, so i thought what the heck, i'll keep my options open, considering there's not much else going on right now and my current contract is up at the end of april. the silver lining to this job is that after 6 or 7 months you can be promoted to manager and after you're a manager you're up for a transfer if you choose, so i could work in paris. ahhhh, a girl can dream.

on the business side of things i've been acquiring more and more supplies, now i need to acquire a bit of spare time and motivation. i'm not sure which is more difficult to come by. but getting out of red deer this weekend was really good for me, even though it was a bit of a chaotic and exhausting trip (i nearly lost the tire off my car.. it was a crazy day). i find being in a new place always stimulates creativity and expands your mind, you just have to hang on to it before it dissipates again.

oh and i bought a fish. i had a dream a few weeks ago about my wedding day. but i couldn't work out having a groom there for the big day, so i got all dressed up for nothing. so my friends took me to sea world to cheer me up and bought me some gold fish. ever since then i wanted a fish. odd, i know. does a fish make a good replacement boyfriend? that is the question.. haha.. at least he's quiet. i'm kidding! but he is.

http://rlv.zcache.com/orange_betta_1_betta_splendens_postage-p172378889882554046anrdy_210.jpghttp://rlv.zcache.com/orange_betta_1_betta_splendens_postage-p172378889882554046anrdy_210.jpg

Thursday, February 4, 2010

day two.

i've been thinking about death lately. i guess it started this weekend when i began having really vivid dreams again. i have vivid dreams quite often but they sort of come in spurts. the last few dreams have had mom in them, which i wish could be nice, but usually i wake up feeling depressed. i can't believe how hard it still is having lost her. not that i ever want to feel numb about it, but i guess the thing is that i do. i become complacent as a coping method, a way to move on. but then the moving on feels so hollow and empty. it's so hard to feel alive without her here. i know none of this is really related to my thoughts on the start of a new venture, but my mental state affects how i feel about life in general, and in turn, productivity, etc. people always say that you don't really know what you have until it's gone. but i did know what i had, that's probably why it still hurts so much. i'm sort of all over the place with this, i'm really still trying to process.

anyways, i have been reading the news lately about the two boys who died in their home. it's really hit me hard. i guess it makes you realize how fragile we really are. and that life never makes sense. it's hard knowing that you love someone so much, but you can't protect them. life happens all around us, constantly. but we pray, and keep believing that one day we won't have to worry about what doesn't make sense. at least God never changes, as hard as that is to grasp.

i made some more jewellry last night. i was feeling sick and kind of depressed (i always seem to when i'm really busy and then finally have a break from everything). so i read eclipse for a few hours (not sure if that helps with the depression.. the whole conflict of soul vs. no soul for love is pretty depressing.. and a bit ludicrous.. but that's bella for you.. i can't say i'm her biggest fan). anyways, yes, made some jewellry while watching my new favourite show modern family. hilarious. and heart-warming in its own odd sort of way.

ok enough for now. until next time...

and a picture, because colour is the spice of life.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

the start of something

i'm writing this to myself for now. mostly as a reminder of things to come. hope mainly. i hope to start my own business, something arty. i've chosen the name 'prairie dust' for my business because i thought it was somewhat whimisical in its reference to fairy dust, but also earthy and a reminder of my roots. i think choosing a name is half the battle.. so let's just say we're off and running.. for now. so far in my collection of prairie dust merchandise we have 2 8x10" paintings and a coil bracelet, and a necklace that i made for myself which i'm not particularly fond of. that seems somewhat wrong to say, but just because i don't like it doesn't mean someone else won't. it's up for discussion anyways.

so let's have some notes for our first meeting:
1. business name selected while doodling on an envelope during photography class last semester (i think that was it's birth..)
2. have started making jewellry in very limited spare time..
3. debating business cards. premature?

http://www.billcasselman.com/prairie%20grasses.jpg