positive thinking

My sister, Cathy, starts back to school next week, her second year at GVSU; she hopes to become a radiation therapist. This term she has to take a cadaver lab, needless to say, she is a bit (?!*@!!) freaked. We are planning to go out for hamburgers before tuesday as she thinks this may be the last time in her life she will want to eat meat. I give her all the credit in the world for going back to college in her 40's, I know it has been stressful. I'm going to further toot her horn and reveal she passed her anatomy exam in June with the highest mark in her class, and this a pre-med course that is failed often the first time around, and to do so when it is taken as at an accelerated pace during a summer session - wowza!! As I've watched and listened to her over the last year I have pretty much come to the conclusion I don't believe I'd be able to do it, some of the old brain cells have just evaporated by this time in my life. I made her a little something this afternoon to hang in her car to remind her that, yes, she can do this! The power of positive thinking!

puppy love

While driving past our veterinarian/boarding kennel I noticed their sign today read, "whoever said money can't buy love forgot about puppies". Made me grin, how very true! And speaking of dogs, Letterman last night and the 80-something year old woman who made wigs for dogs?!! Too, too funny.

new book

Hey art friends, found a new work of fiction today at B&N on the 'new releases' table that looks to be alot of fun, right up our alley. It is titled, Journal, and written by Kristine & Joyce Atkinson, sisters from Texas. Here is the blurb on the back cover: "In Journal, Kristine Atkinson and Joyce Atkinson conjure the voyeuristic appeal of finding a stranger's diary, then becoming transfixed by the secrets contained within. These pages belong to artist, wife, and mother Amy Zoe Mason, whose riveting storytelling relies equally on visual and verbal clues. Using an old book as her canvas, Amy layers words, collages, newspaper clippings, and emails into a personal narrative that at first feels familiar, until a sense of alarm begins to build. Readers will find themselves scouring the pages for missing hints and important evidence, compelled to interpret the signs." The authors have done some wonderful artwork within the pages of this book, very believably an art journal, and I look forward to the intrigue of the story they've written to go along with it.

just watching the grass grow

I talked to my son, Luke, this afternoon who is out in Washington working for the summer. After relaying all his news he asked me what's been going on. I told him the lawn had its first cut yesterday and he told me that didn't sound exciting, that I really need to get out more! Reminded him when I talked to him saturday afternoon I'd just been to the button show. That didn't give him alot of confidence I'm having a rolicking good time this summer as he replied, "exactly". Well, it sounds maybe worse than it is?!

reason to smile

Look who came to my house today! She is made by my very talented friend, Katie Kendrick. Check her blog for a link to her ETSY store where she sells them and other pieces of her art. This doll is so wonderful, really makes me smile, and now takes pride of place on my bed. ((hugs to you Katie))
I also have one of DJ Pettitt's pieces which is above my nightstand (the smaller framed piece pictured). I purchased this from her when I first got divorced and moved to North Carolina, it is titled Hope.

These are two very talented women, I get so much inspiration from them both.

button show

It takes alot to get me overwhelmed when shopping, yet I don't think I have ever been more so than this afternoon. My sister, Peggy, called around 11am and asked if I had read the morning paper (we do get two "mornings", saturday and sunday) as there was an article in it about the National Button Society Convention being held here in GR which was culminating in a sale being held today, from 10am to 3pm. (Being she and Cathy were to have saved my mom's button box for me and didn't, I believe they have made a pledge to somehow, someway try to make this up to me yet in this lifetime!). So, having a few free hours I was out the door and downtown by noon. There were more than 50 vendors (including one from England and another from Italy), amazingly alot of men. Anyway I have to say - I didn't even know where to look first. There were boxes and bins of buttons to pick through ranging in price from twenty-five cents to ten dollars a "pick". And buttons assembled on cards into quite specific categories and from what I saw priced anywhere from $3 apiece to one which was $2000! There was a booth which had an ingenious necklace you could put a button on to wear which could be changed out very easily, and a few with bracelets. I purchased a bracelet made from small gold metal buttons (and mine which I made last winter from mother of pearl buttons, that I was wearing, admired by the woman I bought from which was nice), and a few more expensive (for me - as I certainly did not purchase anything over $20) buttons to use on the necklace I also bought. Then I could just do no more, there was just too much and I knew too little, so I perused the hundreds upon hundreds which had been judged and had to leave - even before the 3pm deadline!

I met a couple very nice women from the GR chapter of the Michigan Button Society who urged me to come to one of their meetings. And in talking to a few vendors and a sponsor of the show and telling them how overwhelmed I was told me if I'd never been to a button show before, this was the mother of all shows and that they even get overwhelmed - and they are serious collectors. I would like to learn more, read up on types and value and all as I think I would enjoy collecting (selectively). They are so beautiful and some of the antiques just so very exquisite and intricate. When I look at the treasures I did bring home I see they are all metals (I thought each one would be interesting to use on the necklace, and so pretty) - guess that's as good a place to start as any!

I do have thousands of buttons, most of which I hoard to use in my art which have been picked up at flea markets, yard sales, and junk shops, given to me by friends - I love them all! But today I witnessed a whole other level and it was pretty darn amazing.

being in the {nothing} zone

Being in the nothing zone, how satisfying, how decadent, how lucky, how perfectly summer.

~Days that blend into the next and you don't know where they went.
~Not alot gets accomplished but there are clean towels and clothes, what more can ya want.
~I do take time to smell - and water, and prune - the flowers.
~Walking the dog each evening.
~Delighting in him chasing butterflies.
~A good book read cover to cover with no interruptions.
~Grilling fresh corn on the grill.
~Strawberries, and blueberries, and watermelon, oh my!
~Shh, and ice cream.
~A new shelf on the wall to fill with forgotten stuff coming out of boxes packed eons ago.
~Flea markets, art fairs, and antique shows.
~The beach, ahhhh, the beach.
~SWIMMING in the lake, diving in the waves, sand in every crevice and crack. Perfection on a hot afternoon.
~The smell of sun tan lotion, the sound of flip flops.
~The windows down in the car, the breeze blowing my hair, music blasting on the cd player.
~A summer birthday party - the grill, the pool, the family.
~Filling a birdbath.
~Watching a real honest to god paper boy ride his wagon, zigzagging, down the street, legs spread, big grin.
~Daydreaming on a chaise lounge under a canopy of rustling leaves.
~Swinging on a porch swing.
~Vibrant sunsets.
~Windows thrown open wide to the sound of crickets on a full moon evening.
~Sleeping in.

Life, although much yet to sort out and accomplish, still with anxiety that creeps in due to the unknown, is, for the moment, satisfying. The dog days of August? These feel as if puppy days, filled with squirming delight and slobbering kisses. And if indeed the calm before another storm, savored all the more in the knowing. Truly feeling, truly experiencing, summer. Love it.

summer time memory

How is it time passes so quickly, this snap shot taken in 1985 and I can remember it as if it were yesterday afternoon. So precious are the memories.

from the flower shop

what day is it?!

I've suffered excrutiating headaches this week, therefore been lying low - very, very low. We've had astonishingly hot temperatures and humidity, rain a couple of times, my air conditioning was out for a -mercifully- short period of time, all playing havoc with my very temperamental and sensitive sinuses. Years and years and years ago I went the rounds of tests trying to determine what exactly was causing my headaches. For a few years it was thought they were migraines and I had medication for that malady. Then with the frequency of them it was thought, no, they were cluster headaches and medication was adjusted. End result is that they are sinus headaches and doctors told me even most people think that is what they have it is most usually something else. So I guess I am in a smaller select group of people who suffer the true blue thing and they are no different in pain than those other types but they last longer - wonderful, huh?! I take a daily antihistamine/decongestant to ward them off and have for years. Apparently, however, something in the air in Michigan really triggers them, and I can only hope as I get more used to being in this climate again I will adjust. For now I am slowly, slowly returning to the land of the living today.