August 2007

Summer Evening

ArtEzan Poetry Challenge II, "If On This Summer Evening"

If on this summer evening
I should forget
to remember you
Moths will meet under the street light
A dog will bark just to hear a reply
A mother will call her children to bed
A screen door will slam shut far away
If on this dark summer evening
I should forget
to remember you.

The Secret

I love vintage illustrated children's books.

What would you do if you weren't afraid? -- Spencer Johnson.

I am so inspired this morning! Last night I watched the movie The Secret. Has anyone else seen it? Or read the book? I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. It's based on a principle called "The Law of Attraction." I'm waiting for Audrey and David to arrive and I need more time to absorb it, so I can't explain it here just now. But let me give you an example from my own experience that convinces me there is something very powerful to this idea of knowing what you want.

In 2000, I had just gone through a romantic disappointment. I had a wonderful man who wanted to marry me, but for many reasons it wasn't the right relationship for me. It got me to thinking about what I really did want from a relationship. As I went around in my daily life people would ask me about him and I would tell them the sad story how I had to send him back home, 6000 miles away, because I just couldn't marry him. Then I would add this bit,

What I really need is a man who lives down the street. He would have his place and I would have mine. We would have a standing Friday and Saturday date, but see each or talk to each other occasionally through the week. He would be kind and helpful to me with all these things around here that always need to be done and I could do little things for him, too, things that also made his life better. I wouldn't care what he did for a living -- he could be a truck driver -- nor would I care what he looked like -- he could be old with missing teeth -- just as long as we had an affectionate and loving relationship.

Then in Spring 2001, I was working in my yard, minding my own business, pulling weeds and planting a vegetable garden. I wasn't trying to meet anyone, was only working on improving my place. Then this man in a pickup began driving by, waving and smiling at me. It turns out it was Jorge, who lived down the street and who drove a garbage truck for a living.

Our relationship quickly became affectionate, loving, and helpful to one another. We had a standing Friday and Saturday date. We helped each other in countless ways -- he helped me repair things around my house, and I helped him with a much appreciated woman's touch. I helped him cope with an unexpected divorce and he healed my old long-standing wounds.

He was older than me by 14 years. And, as it turns out, he had dentures.

At some point, I realized, my God, it was like Go Fish, I got exactly what I wanted! It still amazes me to this day that it happened exactly as I wished it. There was not one thing that I asked for out loud that I didn't get.

And that's the point of The Law of Attraction. There's much more that could be said, but in its essence it's about me -- and you -- clearly asking for what you want. According to this law, you don't need to know the steps how to make it a reality (remember, I was simply working in my yard), you just must know the what.

Any one else have a similar experience? An answered prayer? A bit of serendipity that gave you exactly what you had wished for? I would love to hear about it, either here in a comment, or perhaps an email to me. Maybe we could even start our own phenomenon, an experiment, by stating on our blogs what it is we really dream of and see what happens.

Such hope. Such dreams. Such possibilities. Let's Go Fish...ing!

Look a bird

Oh look, an emu

(Just a quick post today and am cheating too because I'm using an old photo.)

MBTI personality type prayers:

INFJ - Lord help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)
INFP - God help me to finish everything I sta
INTJ - Lord keep me open to others' ideas, WRONG though they may be.
INTP - Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.
ISFJ - Lord help me to be more laid back and help me to do it EXACTLY right.
ISFP - Lord help me to stand up for my rights (if You don't mind my asking).
ISTJ - Lord help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 11:41.23 am e.s.t.
ISTP - God help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them ARE hypersensitive.
ENFJ - God help me to do only what I can and trust you for the rest. Do you mind putting that in writing?
ENFP - God help me to keep my mind on one th-Look a bird- ing at a time.
ENTP - Lord help me follow established procedures today. On second thought, I'll settle for a few minutes.
ENTJ - Lord help me slow downandnotrushthroughwhatIdo
ESFJ - God give me patience, and I mean right NOW
ESFP - God help me to take things more seriously, especially parties and dancing.
ESTP - God help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they're usually NOT my fault.
ESTJ - God help me to not try to RUN everything. But, if You need some help, just ask.

Pretty and ugly

Saw-leaf daisy, Prionopsis ciliata

Doesn't this color of yellow just make you happy? I had to put something up nice because in contrast, look what I'm dealing with these past few days. This is what happened when I was painting and took a misstep off the ladder. I crashed into my bathroom sink. The old drywall cracked under the pressure. Thankfully, except for some pretty ugly bruising, I'm ok.

So, my "little" paint job has turned into a discouraging mess. But with the help of a dear friend, we have re-enforced the wall with two-by-fours, put new drywall up, re-textured (patches never match though, sigh), and today I'm repainting that wall, after first, of course, having to go buy more paint.

Surely this time tomorrow all will be well again. Does anyone remember the fabric skirts women in the 40s and 50s used to put around their sinks to hide the ugly pipes? I think I'll do that. Wonder how they attached it?

Reward

Rima's Digital Art Workshop #3, "Moonlight Swim"

As a reward for working so hard this afternoon, I gave myself a treat to work out another idea that came to me. (This image really inspires me for some reason...the human touch?)

What I did: oh lordy, lots of things. Let's see, more cutting and pasting, some brush work, some smearing, some rubber-stamping, some hue saturations, some dodging, and some burning. I also applied various effects like lighting (flashlight), distort (ocean ripple), pixelate (pointilize), and artistic filters (watercolor & dry brush).

Must...work...not....play

Rima's Digital Art Workshop #3, "Sudden Urge"

OK, that's out of my system. Now must work.

What I did: various cut and paste, a little brush work, smearing, and added the scissors.

Datura

Curled Datura flower before fading

Wasn't there some discussion recently about the sacred datura? Well, imagine my surprise yesterday morning while going to get a newspaper when I spied that a near neighbor had, not one, but two big specimens growing in their yard. I need to buddy up to that neighbor sometime between now and when that seed pod below ripens.

Anyone have any experience growing daturas?

P.S. No pictures of Audrey today. She is spending time with her Dad's side of the family right now. She'll be staying with me the second half of the week.

Digital Art Workshop # 3

Rima's Digital Art Workshop #3, "51 Percent Water"

When Rima posts these assignments, I promise to schedule some free time for them. Instead, I frequently do as I did tonight: I think I'll work for "just a little while" before bed and then end up staying up until midnight because I get an idea that I just have to see through to the end.

Rima, the bags under my eyes tomorrow are all yours. ;)

What I did:

• Used magic wand to select the woman from the original image, refining my selections by using the shift (+) or the alt (-) keys.
• Opened a new canvas and moved the selection (not the image, just the selection) to it.
• Used rectangle to select and copy the water from the original image.
• Pasted that into the new image, using paste into, and used free transform to size it like I wanted.
• Created a new layer for the words.
• Then flattened image.
  
• Selected the white space on the new image (now I'm in reverse of the woman and words)
• Copied some more water from the original image
• Pasted it into the new image so it now surrounds the woman and words, and again used free transform to stretch it to fit.
  
• Somewhere in there I tweaked the colors of the two waters in order to fade the woman water and saturate the sea water.
• I also think I changed the layer intensity on the words so that where they overlapped the woman they were more intense, but where they overlapped the white canvas (at that time), they were lighter.
• Oh yeah, I also googled the percentage of water in humans. Surprisingly, woman have less than men.
  

I'm loving paste into.

Mothers and their Babies

David and his mom, Elodia
Audrey and her mom, Debi

Audrey and David arrived safe and sound late yesterday afternoon, after a very long day of travel, beginning at 2:30 in the morning. The first place they wanted to go was to their favorite Mexican restaurant here, Rosa's. I laughed when I heard Audrey coo at her plate.

Audrey is my baby. David es el bebé de sus Mamá. We are two very happy Mamas. Can you tell?