Since moving to North Carolina from Ohio 19 months ago I have realized that being a life long packrat definitely has its' drawbacks. I had to pare down so much to go into a house half the size I had and one without a basement I might add. When I sold and immediately started the task of going through over twenty years worth of accumulation I asked Joe, then 17, no matter what he was doing on a given evening if he'd please stop back home and take the daily load to Goodwill. He has a van and I can't even tell you the number of full loads that he brought there in a month. The last day, as the moving van was nearly packed up I pointed one more small pitiful pile left for him to take over. His comment was "thank goodness, I bet they think I am Robin Hood"!! He is so astute.

I've had to be much more selective in what I bring into this house here and everywhere I've kept a lid on it except my art studio. Another memory - Luke was home from college on break when I packed up the other one, a very small room that was once used soley as our office and gradually where I began doing all my art work as well. I was astonished how much was in there and Luke, sitting at the computer while I worked at it told me, "Of course there's alot, I've only been home [x-amount of days] and there still has been stuff coming in this room and I see nothing going out". Well, mixed media art has a way of making you look at everything as a possibility for something. I remember when I was in an art-doll making phase I saw every single thing as a body part.

Earlier this summer I started the task of sorting and trying to get some semblance of order to my studio here in this new house which is at least twice as big - why do I seem to think that means four times the stuff can now be brought in?! This spring I got a beautiful old farmhouse table from a friend who had gotten herself a new table for her kitchen, a great new space to spread out and work on projects was my intention. As you can see from pictures posted earlier, work on it?! There isn't a square inch of space left to work on anything and I usually end up working on a 12" square pull-out surface on my computer desk - after I clear it off. SO, last night in a burst of energy I began again to clear and sort out what I'd begun a couple months ago and have continued today. Ernie's eaten a button (an obsession of mine - who needs 10,000 buttons - ME)! And the books. Two things I cannot live without, books and music. There are so many fabulous art books alone I've crammed on the shelves up here and a library full downstairs of all the others. This in turn spawns --

Another problem - I have so many ideas, so many great things I want to create I can't seem to get a single thing finished. I've got books in progress, journals half way completed, tins rusted and patinaed, assemblage pieces staring at me headless, collages in various stages of drying, ditto with painted canvasses, boxes distressed - I have got to FOCUS. But I just got Claudine's new book as well as Lesley Riley's and Karen Michel's is on the way.......

A couple years ago I bought a barbie, a Lucy Ricardo barbie. I've kept her on the shelf, with a tag on her which says - "Masquerading as a normal person day after day is exhausting". I should just drop the facade and go with the flow, it's inevitable, sigh!!