Day 8~ Sun

February Photo-a-Day ~ Day 7 BUTTON

 

 

As these photo buttons of my son show, the years have really ZIPPED by!

 

Day 5 came and went. Here’s Day 6.

Well, I was driving at 10 a.m. yesterday. I’m sure the fellow travelers appreciate that I was not fumbling with my camera while barreling down the highway!

So, here’s my cheat shot.

This is from 10 a.m. this morning. I’m actually thinning my little row of lettuce and will use what I pick for a baby-lettuce salad to go with our DINNER. I’ll post my dinner photo later, since that is really today’s theme.

By the way, I just discovered that picking fresh lettuce from the garden makes your hands smell really good!

UPDATE: DINNER ~ Trout Almondine, Baby lettuce With Vinaigrette, Organic Red Potatoes with garlic and Rosemary

Photo a day ~ Day 4 ~ A Stranger

 

There has been a stranger hiding in my closet for a long time now. Actually, we were very close back in the day. But, as time went by, we grew apart. We became like strangers …to the point that I completely forgot about how we were once inseparable. Gone are the days that we spent every waking moment in a comforting embrace.

 

Gone are the days that I could fit into this pair of my “skinny” jeans. 

 

 

So Many Words and Such Idle Hands.

Words are good. I like words…most of them, anyway. Sometimes the words pile up in my head. Then, they might spill out in a mad rush to release the pressure on my brain.

Beware: the floodgates may open at any moment….or not. I’m just going with the flow.

So, this February photo a day challenge I started two days ago…well, I feel like a failure already. I missed the SECOND day! Really.

But, I am getting caught up today. The DAY 2 theme was WORDS. I thought about all of my books, dusty on the shelves. I realized that I spend so much time online that I forgot about many of the books I tucked away to read someday or the many I would love to revisit. It’s quite an assortment….mostly non-fiction. I know it seems strange, but I really prefer non-fiction. I do, however, ADORE children’s books…especially the pop-up kind! I really need to make time to explore my bookshelves again!

This is just a teensy, random assortment of my favorites.

Now, with all of these words in my head and dreams on the back-burner I seem to have become rather overwhelmed. Do any of you ever feel simply paralyzed by the many things you want to do, to the point where NONE of them get done effectively?

This brings me to the next photo of the day…DAY THREE ~ hands.

As I sat and pondered my hand…pondering the paintbrush I held to identify myself…I realized I have not created art in far too long. But, I have so many excuses. Then my mind wanders to thoughts of all that I should be doing. I begin to wonder if I should set aside my dreams of selling art for a while. It seems to be going nowhere at the moment..mostly because of my questioning my ability, my goals, all of that. I feel as though I have tied my own hands. Then again, maybe it’s just one of those days.

Now, these hands had better get off of the keyboard and into some dish soap! Go with the flow!

My Dormant Dreams

I don’t quite know how it happened, but I know I used to have so many dreams for the future. I had cockamamie dreams. But, slowly I began to deny myself those fantasies.

In the beginning, I imagined that my garden would feed my family…even the landscaping would include pretty, yet edible organic plants.

For hours on end, I would scour books, catalogues, and magazines, learning all I could about xeriscaping and chemical free pest management.

I dreamed of a chicken tractor and a pet duck. I dreamed of a fish pond and a separate tank to raise crawdads in the backyard.

Over the years, some of those dreams did come true.

We dug a little water garden with a barrel fountain and koi.

The tangerine tree and grape vines feed us for a short, lovely while.

AND, I got my pet duck, Serendipity, eight years ago.

However, I gave up on the moveable chicken coop and green eggs. No longer did the gears in my head spin over thoughts of mini-lobsters out back.

Weeds choked out my garden and hopelessness choked out my imagination.

But WAIT, there’s more! Maybe it’s this crazy California weather, but I think I see a sprout of a wacky goal….a glimmer of crazy hope peeking out from my cold, dreary yesterday and reaching toward the sun!

So, once again I dream. In fact, I planted peas and lettuces and green onions, too. I’m scheming on how to turn an old trampoline into a chicken run. And, watch out, Hubby…we’re goin’ crawdad’n’ one of these days!

(Plus, I’m getting excited about some art related ideas these days. So, stay tuned!)

(P.S. My friend Kim, at Gerushia's New World, told me about this blog and the photo challenge which inspired my post today: Fat Mum Slim .)

SOPA and PIPA

I oppose SOPA and PIPA. As an artist, I am sensitive to issues of copyright infringement, but SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they would fatally damage the free and open Internet.