The Days of Day

2011 is off to a running start in my very zippetydodah studio. InSpiration nabbed me without asking for a ransom over the Christmas holidays.  I saw a woman's very tidy creation of a stationery caddy and it got my brain whirling with the possibilities.  I've been doodling and reading and jotting down notes ever since. The whirlwind of the holidays -- the beautiful company, the bitter sweet passing of a well-loved and good-at-loving dog, the meals, the gift-wrap, the bags and bags of packaging to recycle -- has me thinking of tidy and tiny art that captures the joy of giving generously without the mall runs and amazon hunts.  I'm dreaming of gifts that keep on giving, blessings that keep on blessing... you know... it only takes a spark... So, the groovy angel friends that hang on walls have  downsized, minimized, flattenized (yep, new word). And then, they are getting colorized and stickified and stamped. Art with a capital A?  Maybe not so much.  Bu...

One of my new favorite blogs is called The Improvised Life and today's posting offered as a spiritual gift a benediction from a man named Neil Gaiman.  Here's part of it: "I hope that you make something that didn't exist before you made it." I love that. Yesterday I had a wonderful day teaching, a day where everything I believe to be true about myself as a teacher was affirmed and appreciated. I was ON.  I moved around the room pointing at kids who enthusiastically shared their thoughts.  We all laughed together and got serious together.  Brains opened up.  The days aren't all like that.  But this one was a sacred day of tapping into potential and energy all at the same time. And I came home jazzed.  I played.  I helped with homework.  I made a delicious dinner. And then, after being up and on for fourteen hours, I collapsed in a frazzled heap of depleted muscle fibers. Ordinarily, that feeling would call for a long lounge on...

Well, the Winter break has plummeted to a close.  I finally gave my Dad his Henry (see photos) and so now I can introduce him to the world.  Henry, World.  World, Henry. This morning the kids went back to school and Tom went back to work.  I go back tomorrow.  In the meantime, there are pound cake crumbs on the floor, tired Christmas decorations on nearly every surface, sploobs of dried mud on the floor, and a mommy who wants nothing more than to go downstairs and play video games for a while.  Again, Good Girl Day urges me to put on the yellow plastic gloves and tackle the cakey, sticky blue toothpaste on the side of the bathroom sink.  Good Girl Day urgently points out that tomorrow I go back to work and tonight is wrestling practice.  That vegetable soup isn't going to make itself.  Company comes on Friday afternoon!  The curtain rods need hanging in our bedroom since the old ones ripped holes out of the wall on Christmas morning! ...