So should I start every post with "yikes! It's been a while" and just be done with it?  So much and so little going on.  Have been getting commissions for reliquaries, and hope to have permission to show one or two.  They are just so personal and sacred...little bits and favorite toys and plaster circles with precious pawprints...a collar...maybe some curls of fur...all entrusted to me to enshrine in an assemblage worthy of the well-loved life that once cuddled up and chased a ball and stole a heart or two.  I am honored, truly, to do this work.
I was up most of last night with a screaming hip and aching hands, so I will leave you with a promise to fill you in on some great good news ... Tomorrow.  But know that a goodness and kindness has returned to me and sunk into the place formerly occupied by a crusty & unkind swirl within me.  Just a thin ribbon, but enough to poison.
And Henry is doing just fine, despite cleaning out the catbox for me - clumping litter stuck in his teeth created quite a night's work for me.  No ill effects to report.
See you in the morning...sleep well.

checklist

* wake up way too early…check
* take car to mechanic….check
* clear all the furniture - ALL of it 0 from livingroom…check (and OY)
* romp with Henry in Big Open Area formerly known as livingroom…check
* vacuum carpets twice and shampoo them….check
* forget where I put my coffee (again) and pour a third cup, hoping to actually drink this one…check
* call for sponsor for Combat Paper Project (I only need $1500.00)….check
* mechanic called to say car ready 6 hours early (!!!) ….check

Today is a super deluxe lucky day!  yesterday was crap, so this one makes up for it.  and it isn't even 11am!  Plans to make cabbage rolls with spicy rice and red bean & sauerkraut salad.  to quote Dana Carvey….Exxxxcellent!

yes. 3 today

sometimes, it's a smell…or a song…or a deja vu…or the sound of a favorite cousin's voice on the phone that reminds you of who you are.
and then, there are those Super 8's of you toddling about like Princess Diaperpants.

oh by the way

yeah.  that kinda love.

This morning, i woke very very early, with a warm cuddly ball curled tight against me.  we both went for a potty break, then decided it was an excellent day to go back to bed.  so we did.  despite Henry's urging to stay put, we finally got out of bed around 7:30, and i had a steaming mug of coffee on the new patio.  i'd forgotten how much i missed sitting outside in the quiet coolness, before the world wakes up.  such a perfect way to start the day.  today, i think some new patio furniture is on the agenda.     I think some nice, big Adirondack chairs with comfy cushions in Teal and Orange.  And a small table for coffee and a book.  I've been reading cookbooks to beat the band, and want to cook it all!  Am planning a Williams Sonoma trip this week, just to drool.  Being the only one around makes it a shorter trip, though, because i hate to leave Hen alone too long.  he gets sad.  so i'm off to work on a commission for a reliquary.  I'm so loving these.  feel honored to create these sacred remembrances.
i saw the word "shenpa" here, and followed the daisy trail of links to this:

Shenpa is a Tibetan word meaning “attachment” (and we know what the Second Noble Truth has to say about that!) but PemaChodron often describes shenpa as “being hooked.”

What normally accompanies shenpa is a desperate urge to alleviate the shaky feeling that’s arisen by engaging in a particular behavior we hope will bring about some relief. So we scramble to produce something pleasurable that can counteract the extreme sense of unease and discomfort that makes us want to bolt away or disappear.

It tends to happen very suddenly and without warning, and when it’s happening it’s as if we’re being visited once again by one of our least favorite people in the world, someone we’ve been acquainted with for a long, long time. Too long in fact.

You know you’re experiencing shenpa when you have an almost uncontrollable urge to run away from what’s going on right now. The wanting-to-run feeling is an instinctual reaction to an otherwise innocuous sense of groundlessness and unease. This uneasiness arises whenever something takes place that makes us feel as if one of our buttons has been pushed and we’ve been exposed somehow.  And while this wide-openness and vulnerability is in fact nothing to be afraid of, it feels so unnerving when we resist it that our brains search desperately for ways to quench the flames that arise from our fearful and doubtful minds.

Which rings clear and true.

occasionally i rise to the occasion

…and post two a day, as a make-good for the recent long, dry spells.

so an amazing thing has been happening and just sort of came to a wild in-my-face get-through-this-shit ah-ha moment.  (enough with the hyphens, let's move on to the dot dot dots I'm so fond of).

For the past however long, I have been in this You Are Invisible, Unimportant, Unmissed frame of mind.  I have been feeling downright dejected, and like nothing will never ever be the way i want them to be in my life.  i have helped many get their art careers going, and going strong sometimes.  but can't seem to promote myself.  not out of feeling less-than, just feeling tired every time i thought about doing it…posting that fantastic post on Facebook or here in this blog, or pushing for a show somewhere.  i just can't seem to follow through and have let some cool opportunities slip by.  and yet - have felt a hot jealousy when the very people i help - get shows and opportunities.  not wishing them less, but wishing myself more.  and feeling like my magic touch had turned sour on myself and felt old and fat and unneeded and obsolete.  oh big old sigh poor me.  and some addictive behaviors started rearing their heads in the whiff of an opportunistic sniff of a maybe chance to roar.  but the dragon remains asleep.  save for 7 or 8 sets of china.  and i knew full well that maybe that wasn't my path, so things were actually working out pretty well.  but still i wanted wanted wanted. pout foot stomp hot tears swearing much wine drinking. but there was a teeny spark of magic still holed up in my heart that refused, absolutely refused, to be smothered. and that glint of a spark held tight and sure, and slowly reignited all the broken bitter bits that had fallen from the heart that had squeezed itself so tight that it was numb and felt like an old leather glove…brittle bits of that ugly heart reignited like a Phoenix and began to warm this heart and shine brighter and brought life and laughter with it (and s'mores, of course).  and on the day when there was just the slightest flicker of the flame, an unimaginable gift arrived, and attached was a note "YOU WERE MISSED."  I was missed.  out of 200 people milling about at the most fantastic spot in the universe…I was missed.  I swear to you, my heart burst.  full out. in the middle of the day, in front of The One who believes less in me than I even did…it burst.  and i pointed to the gift, and the note, and watched a curious expression on the face facing me.  then i came up here to tell you about it.
I was missed.  hot damn and don'tcha know.

Live your dreams now to any degree that you can. With every purchase. Every decision. Every hello and goodbye. Every assignment. Every conversation. Every meal. Every morning, afternoon, and evening. And never, ever, ever look back. Reframe every thought, word, and deed from the perspective of the person you've always dreamed you'd be, as if your life was already as you've always dreamed it would be. Die to yesterday's illusions and be reborn to the truth of your vision.

-TUT

so true.  such good advice.  a theme, the past week.  wasting energy wanting what i see coming to others…yet still being grateful for the things percolating for me…the tick and the tock.  needing to own the knowledge that i need not live up to anyone else's perception of what i should be doing…(or would that being living down to their expectation of what they want?)

loving the options that are whizzing to me - bringing Combat Paper Project here…working on reliquaries for sweet, beloved fur babies gone on before their people…feeling little clicks of tumblers falling into place…grateful grateful grateful
* for friends
* for Henry
* for the ability to provide balm
* for art and intuition
* for being where I am right now
* for asiago toasted cheese sandwiches.  sorry - I am just loving on them too much.

discerning the difference between wishing for something, feeling jealous, and knowing when the pull is really a call to action.  knowing what's my journey, and what will never be my path to follow.  and being so very okay with that.  and not getting caught up in the fame and fortune of it all.  When are all the lessons learned??

love this label…reminds me of Phil Parsons' work...

last week's table…nothing this week - big daddy has a date with his boattheboattheboattheboat

making Beet Ravioli for a special person tonight…...stay tuned…….

Reliquary for Groucho

I never met Groucho, but he was a much beloved cat...

      And Sonny was, and remains, in our hearts….my Perfect Stepdaughter's best friend…her horse….

such an honor to be chosen to craft these reliquaries, these sacred housings for precious mementos.

“Either we have hope within us or we don’t, it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation... Hope in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed... Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.  It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense no matter how it turns out.”

- Václav Havel


and with that being said, I have stepped aside from some things that did not resonate - despite the difficulty others had in understanding. ..and leapt full on swan dive, into  what may well become the Best Ever adventure…stay cool and stay tuned...