Back by popular demand: hot pink & her buddies, lime green & purple

fresh clean bedding

When I was a kid, the extra supercool colors were hot pink & lime green, or hot pink & purple. We (girls anyway) wanted everything to be one of those 2 color combinations. You can see by this twirly shot of my laundry that my inner teenager is alive & well.

The electrician has been banging away--we're converting a former tool storage room into an art studio/meditation space/hang-out. It's a fun process & involves a cute little glass block window.

Somehow, in the last couple of days, it has turned into fall. How does that happen? In a few days, my children will be a quarter of a century old. How does that happen? I wonder what their equivalent of hot pink & purple/lime green will be.

After my class this afternoon (Journey Dance) I had another visit with some interesting people who came here from Minnesota. Last week I met the man, doing sudoku while I was reading a magazine article on the rise of women in just about everything. I told him I was from Montana & he asked if I'd ever heard of the Stillwater River. I told him I grew up spitting distance from it (a slight exaggeration, perhaps, but I could see it from the kitchen window) & he said a few years ago he was buying groceries in the one store in some town that started with A... (Milligan's IGA in Absarokee, where I went to high school.) How does that happen?

Blog alternative:

189. Think about some favorite things from your past. How are they showing up now, if they are?

Flirting with the most adorable little backhoe

Hold the handrail...

This resolution to put one photo per blog may cause my brain to explode. I've take nearly 6000 pictures since I got my camera. A bunch of those are deleted before the camera & the computer hook up, but still...

The decisions! A shadow picture? One of the cool bench pictures? More flowers? Bicycles? (Parked bicycles make particularly wonderful twirly photos, as you will see in a future post, I'm sure.) Heavy equipment? (Since my daddy was (& still is, although not as primary occupation anymore) a heavy equipment operator, I have a fond place in my heart for the big machines. Also for the little machines that look like the big machines. I was driving along Chestnut Street a few weeks ago & a couple guys were blocking the road for a while--backhoe issues. Some of the people behind me turned around & went on a different street, but I waited, not just patiently but deliciously. When they'd finally done what they needed to do & got out of the way, I pulled up beside them & rolled down my window. They probably expected a pissed-off-motorist-diatribe, instead I said, "That is the most adorable little backhoe!" They laughed & laughed & off I drove.)

Blog alternative:

188. While you are waiting--a red light, someone slowly crossing a street, a left-turner ahead of you--find something to enjoy. Appreciate the opportunity.

At the hub of the universe, I got out my tools

hand at the hub of the universe

Rain is falling, gently.

I have learned about creating natural gas in a 55-gallon drum & various other energy things. I have learned some mixed media collaging techniques & created 2 collages. I have walked & taken photographs & tidied up my personal universe a bit. Oh, & done laundry & written poetry & planned a syllabus for a future class & studied expressive arts & acting & journey dance. Sudoku & conversation & grocery shopping. A busy week with plenty of quiet & contemplative mixed in. Played cards. Watched a movie or two. Office-y stuff. Dishes. Refrigerator rearranging.

Blog alternative:

187. Lie down on the floor & close your eyes & imagine your heart expanding past the confines of your body.

Chaos invited the trees to the poker game

Elizabeth greeted the tree

I greet you with the same delight.

This photo (& several thousand siblings) was taken in the North Carolina Landscape Arboretum, which was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. I lived in Olmsted County in Minnesota for 24 years, named for the aforesaid Fred & my initials are LAW, so I'm pleased at all the little connections.

Tomorrow I begin 2 new classes at the Reuter Center. (Supposedly the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, but I like to think of the last 2 words as "Continual ReCreation.") One is called Creativity, Chaos & Consciousness (the necessary supplies are oil pastels & a big blank sketchbook) & the other is Acting Up & Acting Out, which is (surprise) theatric in nature. I am looking forward to them a great deal.

At my semi-regular poker game last Thursday I won 10 cents. Lost my initial $20 on trip nines vs. my pocket aces but built back up in the second half of the evening. I'm still the big winner so far, having taken home an extra $37 the first night & $11 the second. You can see we're a low-stakes, friendly game. But we still like to win. Grin.

Blog alternative:

186. Touch a tree. Deliberately. Lovingly. Wonderingly.

Re-inventing Geometry: One point at a time

Wood Rose

Two points!

I have a line.

Also a confession: I'm blogging because I wanted to post another photo. I'm allowing myself only one photo per blog, to help inspire me. This is the end of a wood pile. (Not all my photos are of flowers, real or created, as you will see in blogs yet to be.)

This will be a short entry because I am about to exchange some movies at the video store. It's a ways & I am going to walk out into the beautiful day & the beautiful world (even if it is a busy-ish road-ish portion of said world) & accomplish errands, exercise & enjoyment. I will let the moment wear many hats.

Blog alternative:

185. Walk somewhere you don't normally walk to accomplish something you want to accomplish. Fait accompli (with feet)

plus, today's quote from Peggy Tabor Millin's clarityworksonline.com

(which you can get 5 days a week by signing up for the writing prompts)

is a Nigerian proverb

"Someone else's legs do you no good in traveling."

Outside Forces vs. the Slacker Babe

Sunflower Flowing

A Blog at rest tends to stay at rest, unless acted on by an outside force.

A Blog in motion--well, we'll see. I don't know if one post qualifies as motion. It takes 2 points to make a line after all.

So, outside forces, I salute you.

First, Ken, for checking on me during a perfectly sunny week on a trumped up hurricane worry excuse just 'cuz I hadn't blogged since March. It's only--ahh--September--hmmm--oops.

Second, Cathy who accepted my challenge to blog by Monday. She also hasn't blogged since March, although her March ended in 2009. (She just did that to make me feel like less of a slacker babe.) If anyone wants to see if she ponied up, or pigeoned up, check out YayPigeons.

I have been having a great deal of fun with my new camera, a Nikon CoolPix that is very easy to use. Playing around with image manipulation just by moving the camera and then deleting A LOT of bad photos--because they weren't blurry enough. Grin. I suppose my "Sunflower Flowing" picture would be better if I rotated it so the stem blur was on the bottom, but I got a little lazy. Hey, you can't reform a blogger slacker babe in one fell swoop, can you? (Apparently not.)

Oh, but my room is looking so clean & organized & the parts that are not yet dealt with are set up so they'll be easier to deal with. Part of my new organizational system, which started with me writing everything I wanted in a system 0n a giant lime green sticky note. Then I posted it on the wall beside my bed & just read it every time I noticed the giant lime green sticky note. Then I realized that the system was already created & just waiting for me to utilize it. Then, suddenly, one day I began to move things around & recycle magazines & do more creative projects & VOILA!

In random order, here are my system desires:

success.full growing natural peaceful genius self.organizing virtuous* essential organic logical loving vital vibrant magic s elf.sustaining true easy reflective mutating cosmic intelligent gnosis based on me rational invisible independent healthy supported true intuitive still wholistic feels good instinctual self.directed simple apt transferable sensible self.centering appropriate energetic fueled intellectual succulent focused in.sourced dynamic fit

*before you get too excited--in a good way or a bad way--about this, consider that at the etymological level, virtue means sap, as in liquid life force. So I probably should have just said "sappy" but that would require the same sort of explanation.

I am really not claiming the title of slacker babe at all. So I haven't been blogging. Plenty of other things (inside & outside of my skin) have been & continue to be accomplished. (For example, exploration of the passive voice. Grin.)

I trust that you have all been doing many things other than reading the Ides of March version of my blog over & over again, yet I feel compelled to give the latest version of the Blog Alternative, so here it is, the long-awaited number

184. Think about the descriptive characteristics of your desired organizational system. Not the number of sticky notes required or the actual time it takes to operate in any given week, but some abstract, feeling-y things. See if your list is substantially different than mine.