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Well, a weird thing happened right before Thanksgiving. We had one of those prepared dinners, didn't check carefully enough and one of its ingredients was red bell pepper. Nightshade intolerance has it on its list. The next day, I was sick. Still not feeling well as I write this. So not many words but wanted to show something we did for our Arizona home.
We stopped cutting Christmas trees some years back when nobody was coming to our home to see the decorations. It made no economic sense. But we had resisted the artificial ones. Then one year, we bought some artificial garlands, liked them. Last year, down here, we put them around with fairy lights. Fun
Maybe a new direction emerging where I will put Paint down on canvas, study it until I see a subject and then pull the image to make it visible.
Just loving how many different nooks I have arranged where company can paint here in what was a traditionsl living room, kitchen area, covered patio or garage! And in the future the shop will be made comfortable for painters.
Happy to say all the estate stuff is done except for a few loose ends on their way to being resolved. Thank you, thank you dear Fisherman Hubby for putting affairs together to mke my transition go smoothly. A very good ending to 55 years of marriage. Every day is like Thanksgiving inwhich I can thank him for something.
With gusto I started painting which puts me into a new mental place - where necessary tasks are forgotten too long.. Dangerously distracting me from paying bills and purchasing food suplements among many other things like contacting apple to complain that I am blocked from paying for more storage on the cloud.
The balance between doing art and carrying on the needed tasks of life is a familiar on going balance almost as a widow as it was as a wife. The difference is only fine tuning this balance to new demands of taking on the tasks that Fisherman Hubby used to perform. I have less laundry and less food prep and clean up. Now a laundry every three days instead of every day! The dishwasher filled every other day.
To keep a vehicle or not is my most difficult decision. I need more space for my art that the car takes up in the garage. No car would mean more money to spend on travel and less stress keeping the car running safely. I could do without the stress of driving. Besides I do not use the car often.
On the other hand I remember the stresses my mother had when she did not drive and rushed around in a freenzie to get to the bus on time. And those waits for a taxi! So as a result some of my dreams these nights are about waiting for the bus or being on the wrong bus. So the decision to not have a car will be a brave one inwhich I will remind myself that I can side step those fears.
'Tis the season for holidays. A good time of the year, if you can forget about politics and just concentrate on your own life. It though also can be dicey if family and friends are a long way away or in a time of plague. Some families are broken apart and even before politics got into the mix. When things aren't all as one would wish, the need is to go deeper into making our own little piece of earth better.
Bird watching is always good when the weather cooperates. I can spend several hours just watching them as they interact. We have a fence between us; so that our cats can also be outside but not bird hunting. The fence makes photos trickier but takes away none of the joy of hearing and watching. I love having the cats with us but safe from bobcats and coyotes as well as being caught up in cacti barbs.
In my new larger studio there is space to spread and print onto paper and canvas off of a Formica surface. I allowed a happy accident with the baby wipe torn to become a resist so the underlying paint would not register. Then the underlying acrylic paint dried. Spritzing helped make a few more prints. Then the uninticipated surprised me. the baby wipes absorbed the acrylic and printed with interesting effect. Then I pasted the paint saturated baby wipes in front. A story developed. with some accidental straight lines in contrast to the organic bold ones. Nature is strong and our architecture is weak. Nature wins. And all this when my springboard to an intuitive journey was the subject of clouds. Actually the first print I did was cloud like.
The living room/ studio looked really neat and inviting last week and because it is the first thing seen entering the front door, it needed to be looking orderly. Or is my creative process better if a little cluttered? I will let your imagination be the image of my studio once orderly now actually being used.
I declare a new chapter: Finding meaning for a new painting series.
What a week. We thought or rather hoped that the upset would begin to disappear after the election. The blame game has just grown and it's coming from both sides and from high up the political chain.It is intended to upset those of us who have no real power to change anything. The answer to it is to move away from those pushing agendas and make our own lives good-- as much as we can.
So when I feel sad the feeling pasts quickly. I have been busy.
I just have to look around at the rooms as they appear more and more orderly to feel that everything is under control. His clothes were donated to the Red Cross for fire victims of wild fires. The family who received the suitcases full sent a nice thank you note.
His stuff mostly gone: He wouldn't recognize the house. With all that is left inside the house, I've made a shrine with his high school graduation picture, his iconic wool fishing hat and four lens fishing glasses that gave him the look of an insect, the red tee with Poloneisian style representations of sharks, a leaded fishing lure tied to a hook, his 1961 high school anual, and other personal momentoes. These special, sentimental things are in an office cabinet he built 40 years or more ago. The candle holder on top of the cabinet is from a magnolia tree that he helped a neighbor salvage the blonde colored wood. The flame snuffer was his creation. The stoneware plate under the candle was one he made. His bright warmth continues in his room although it is now being made comfortable for overnight guests. What was our living room is now a room for just my living, The stout workbench that he made,was moved from the small bedroom to the left of the front door. In the "living" room I can paint, read, eat, watch TV, do Tai Chi, and do office work. In the garage his fishing Almar Aluminum boat remains prepared for going fishing as he wished. The kokanee count he did for ODFW from his last trip on Green Peter, March 23, is still on the stern. Year of his last solo boat trip 2020 ?
My new life style is stabalizing at home thanks to the help of family and friends. Fisherman Hubby would be happy that the furniture he crafted and the ranch style home he modified, with sky lights, is continuing to make me happy.
With an election that seems to have stretched as long as the campaign, this has not been a fun week for much of anybody. Yes, we are finally in November, but it's looking kind of dire at least politically. However someone wanted the election to turn out, it would not have been like this, but it is what it is-- as they say. To govern with such a divided nation and such a weak victory will be a challenge at the least. I am going to stay away from politics here as the election is finally over. What I will be caring about are cultural issues and hopefully writing fiction as I let go of the upset and move ahead with my own life-- something I wish for all of you.
My Facebook has those who claim that this is the End Times and the Rapture is about to happen to take them away from this planet to avoid the apocalypse that they believe is coming. They point to signs. I mostly snooze them as I don't need a month of that kind of thinking. Maybe they know that many generations, since the beginning, have claimed it's the End Times and hence those who came before also hoped they would not have to fix what had gone wrong but just have to wait-- sometimes on a hilltop-- to be saved.
Here's my thinking on that kind of prophecy. It is currently pushed by those who see a mandated vaccine might lead to no ability to buy or sell without the magic marker. There is a Biblical prophecy that speaks of that, but it could have been done any time by many governments. It doesn't take a magic vaccine requirement.
Plus, if you follow those prophecies in the Bible, Old and New Testament, the Antichrist has to come first along with the Beast. Do you see anybody in a position to rule the known world as it stands, who is seen as a hero, and can then dictate laws at a whim? Some believed that was Hitler, Caesar, or many others before this. It was not and today there is no such figure; so back to the drawing boards to fix what is going wrong around the world as no easy escape-- yet anyway.
Religion offers so many answers but usually they don't turn out to be permanent for what happens on earth. Try fixing what we can for our culture without looking for a magic out. Too difficult? Well, waiting on a hilltop (figuratively today) isn't fixing anything.
I am not saying people should not find comfort from a spiritual belief or a religion, just don't use it as a cop-out-- is my personal opinion.
It seems all I have for good photos are sunsets and they don't come every night. The ones here show a sky looking like it's on fire along with rain falling that never hits the earth. Kind of symbolic, dontchathink? *s* I only recently learned that that kind of rain is called Virga.
For our personal mental health, we have been able to sit out on the patio and watch the birds as the heat is getting to manageable levels. Wednesday, we watched a roadrunner, head back and forth under the feeders but not have any interest in the seed. He (or she) would once in a while leap into the air but as mere humans, we had no idea at the purpose of that. Fun to watch as all birdwatching is in times of human stress.
I didn't write in last Saturday's blog about Ronni Bennett dying as I didn't know she had chosen last Friday for her day to let go. She wrote Time Goes By and was someone many of us regularly read for ideas on aging, as she experienced it, and then about her getting a death sentence disease as she fought it and finally her experience with the process of dying. Fortunately for Ronni, Oregon has MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) and she knew she had that to release herself from suffering. It's a good law and well thought out. She wrote about it in her blog; so I know more about it than I ever would have until my own time had come.
She had arranged for someone to be with her at the end as well as to take over her blog. That won't be easy but she had many fans, who will appreciate having a place to continue to share if it works out. Besides the notice of Ronni's passing, her friend left these words:
"I will leave you with knowing that she was ready. Just before she died,
she said, 'When you get here, it is really nice. I am not afraid.'" – Autumn
Comforting words and how I am sure we all hope it will be when it's our turn-- as it inevitably will be sooner or later.
Once in a while, I do a video chat type thing. I don't have a word for it but it's me talking about what's going on. I wish I was better at them as I enjoy seeing others talk as it makes this internet world seem more real. This one, I did about what i was planning-- not that there is much of a plan. If you enjoy such, it lasts 6 minutes (zero politics) and really discusses nothing important. With us being in more or less isolation, not a lot happens that is exciting-- and that's a good thing given the alternatives :)
Oddly I find I did not need an art escape when I was making creative choices like moving furniture, rolling up a carpet and arranging my brushes like flowers in vases and displaying them on the fireplace mantel. Then on Tuesday the ashes and the death certificates were ready. Fearing I would be too emotional to drive safely, a wonderful neighbor took me to Corvallis and kept me company. Since then there have been many estate changes. So Friday I was ready to take the whole day off to paint for three hours with a friend I have not seen in years. It was nice to start at 10:30 but soon the rain showers came. Under the patio cover we were fine.
The triptych has little intention. It could be a study of clouds in transition. The thrill of working widely mindful always every mark lined up with the energy flowing through the whole - that is a goal.
