e.beck.artist

dirty paintbrushes and mistakes .....

2012-01-27T08:38:00.000-05:00

yesterday was a fabulous day for an artist ...
by the time i got home after a morning of obligations, it was after nine and i went right to my studio .... where i then painted for five hours .... i haven't had that many uninterupted hours in a long time ....

the picture above is of maps i painted .... those are the colors of the poppies on one of the paintings i completed .. i did a yellow map ... then added orange so got a yellowy orange map ... then added red and got an orangey red map ... and then did just red .... all because i don't really wash my brush .. i tried to just use up the paint... the next map, had i done one would have had to be pink or purple ....or back around to an orangey red ....

after my five hours of painting, a decorator came to see my paintings (all the ones i had to show, and four new ones) ... and she took four of them off show a client .... so the giant poppies got finished and then immediately left .... she also took a brand new nest ... and a bingo flower and a monopoly flower that i didn't do yesterday ....

interestingly, whichever of these she buys, if she buys them, need to be redone, because they are all on my inventory for the show i'm doing next week ... and i turned in the inventory already .... it is easier to do a painting though when you know the size and subject already .... when you don't have to bounce around inside your head and see what you feel like painting .... it is less angsy to paint what you are "supposed to paint" versus trying to feel what you want to paint .... it is also not as fulfilling/joyful/creative ... but that's ok...

yesterday i started ZERO paintings ... i worked on ones that were already begun ... i finished four .... and i destroyed a fifth ... it used to have a luscious turquoise background but i wrecked it ... it took me along time to realize i had wrecked it ... and to decide to quit trying to fix it .... and then i painted the whole thing green just to get the mess covered .... so next time i paint, i'll go in with white or buff or yellow to lighten it up ... cause right now it is too dark .. but at least the too dark bit is hiding the disaster! many years from now someone will look at it and say, she really built the canvas up with paint ... it's so thick .... we won't tell them it wasn't on purpose .......

darn birds

2012-01-26T16:00:00.000-05:00

a bird doesn't sing because it has an answer .. it sings because it has a song .... and i credited it to lou holtz .. because that is what it said where i found it ... but the more i looked at it, the more i wondered ... i thought it was maya angelou ... and sure enough ... i did a little research ... it is credited to each of them in most of the quotey websites ... but, maya said it in 69ish i think .. and holtz (a football coach) said it in the early 70s .... did he steal it? he was a motivational speaker ... and maybe when he said it (a lot) he attributed it ... but then people heard him say it and quoted him .. instead of maya .... oh dear ... i'm thinking that the person who buys this painting will wish it said maya angelou cause she's way more recognized and inspiring that an old coach to most people .... sigh ... back to the drawing board ... or paint ...

dum dum

2012-01-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

on my new favorite website, pinterest, i saw dum dum topiary ... a big ball full of dum dums .... and i LOVED it ... super cute and cool and candyliscious ...

and then .... a series of sendipity events ....

i took little.e.beck.artist and some girls to a pottery painting place ... and i chose to paint a pot in a valentine sort of way ... for the sole purpose of putting a dum dum topiary atop it ...

that same day, little.e.beck.artist got a michael's gift card ....

the next day we went to michael's and (among other things) i bought a big round styrofoam ball ...

and, we found a 1000 dum dum bag and bought it ...

and, i couldn't wait to make it ...

so i did....

alas, i have yet to go back to the pottery spot and pick up the valentine pot that i mean to put the styro-dum-dum-ball on ... so i put it on a candlestick ...

and there you go ... dum dum joy ....

all you have, is all you need ....

2012-01-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

this is 24 inches square .... big, bright, happy .... it says: be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have, is all you need ... sarah ban breathnach ... she wrote simple abundance ... i think she'd appreciate the simplicity and joy of the collage ....

color color color color color color

2012-01-23T21:39:00.000-05:00

i went to lowe's...

hi, i need some paint chips for an art project...

is that ok?

ok with me....

thanks .... um.... is there a limit to how many i can have?

nope...

thanks ...

i don't usually work here, but i'm sure it's fine ....

thanks....

oh, wait!

(that's where i thought uh oh)

yes?

just don't leave any spaces with none in them, ok?

ok, thanks

major score on all sorts of color joy for me.... with permission no less ...

when my kids were little every time they went to a hardware store they got to pick a few colors ...

we'd take them home and use them in art projects ....

guess what i used them for?

did you guess?

if you guessed, you can look at the next pic ....

it has a hint ...

yay for color

spots and dots and circles ....

2012-01-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

do you remember these?

i showed them to you last week ... they are recycled wood and plywood that i've covered in old papers and glazed in pretty colors ....

now they look like this?

i used some circle stencils on them ... i used some titan buff mixed with raw umber .... then i glazed them all with more umber to tone down the brightness of the original paint ... i was so happy with how they turned out ... i had that stutter stall moment of "oh no i like them like this, how can i possibly put anything else on them and cover up their lusciousness?" .... i wish they were a quilt ... or an installation ... or pieces on a canvas ... but they are not ... they are individual pieces that i plan to put in a show coming up ... so i better get on with it ... i better get brave ... i better do the next step ...

what makes you happy ....

2012-01-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

i have seen colorful keyboards on the web for years ... and i always think OH how i love it ... but then never ordered it ... i am not sure why ... i just liked it but certainly didn't need it ... didn't want to spend the ten dollars or so ... didn't want to pull out the credit card ... liked the idea of liking it from afar ... if i had seen it in the grocery store or target or lowe's, i probably would have thrown it in the cart just for the ease of it ... but no ... didn't buy it until this year ... when little.e.beck.artist told me she wanted to buy me a cling/sticker/skin for my computer .... and could she order one and me help her without knowing what she ordered me ... she ordered me this ...

do you know the story of the giving tree? so that's how my computer looks now ... i love it ... love it ... so i thought, ya know, e .... i'm going to get those rainbow stickers for my computer .. and then i'll have the cutest computer ever ... the giving tree and rainbow keys ... yes ....

so i ordered the rainbow stickers ....

and then, i gave the rainbow keyboard stickers to little.e.beck.artist for her birthday .... she had my old mac ... it is a sloooooow hand me down that she was slow to embrace as her own computer ... but once we got those rainbow stickers on the keyboard? all hers .... she is very, very happy ... and has the coolest computer in the house ....

not so good and pretty good ...

2012-01-20T16:00:00.000-05:00

here are two large canvases that i've been working on .... i don't love the top one and think i'll white wash it .... it won't be white, it will just tone down the garishness of the yellow .... the yellow somehow got too saturated on top of the blue ... or the green of it in combo is too sharp ... so white washing might make it all pale yellow green ... or i think it will ....

and the bottom one i do like .... i think i'll do some stamps and stencils on it next ... and a few collage elements ...

i have at least 15 started paintings in my basement ... time to get finishing some, right?

cupcake happiness

2012-01-19T04:00:00.000-05:00

little.e.beck.artist had a birthday last week ... our sweet neighbor gave her two GORGEOUS fancy cupcakes ... are cupcakes all the rage near you too? i think cupcakeness is everywhere now, right? we watch cupcake wars on tv ... i think it is the food channel ... i watch for the artsiness ... mr.e.beck.artist likes cooking shows and doesn't love cupcake wars as much as little.e and myself do ... not enought cooking/baking ... too much fussing over frou frou ... i like the fussing over frou frou bits the best ... look at the cupcakes in the pic .... the frosting is piled mile high .. and it was delicious! .... i am not, among other things, a cook, a chef or a baker .... i cook dinner for my family every night and have gotten MUCH better at it in the last few years, but it is still not something that is very me ... so i can really admire someone who can make a cupcake look as gorgeous as these were ....

here's another peep into my pinterest world .... my fun and fab food bulletin board .... kind of a pipe dream .... i won't even ever attempt any of those things probably ... but they are nice dreams ... yummy dreams ....

are you a foodie? lots of people find an artistry in food ... do you?

miracles

2012-01-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

there are no miracles for those who do not have faith in them ... this is a piece i did last year ... maybe six months ago? and i didn't love how the words looked .. so i repainted that bit, redid the words, and donated it to my kid's school auction .... after yesterday's garden post, or lack of garden post, or lack of green thumb post, maybe you can see why i'm so drawn to flowers in my art ... unrealistic paintings at that .... it's so much simpler when you don't have to worry about watering them .... and there too you can understand why i'd put a miracle quote with some flowers ....

how does your garden grow ...

2012-01-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

do i keep going on about pinterest ???... i just LOVE it ... love, love, love ... it's kind of like hoarding without the mess .... electronic hoarding of images ....here's an example of how nice it is .... how dreamy it is ...

above, you have my version of gardening ... i have two avocado pits that we are trying to root .. mine is starting to split, little.e.beck.artist's is not .... so, competitively speaking, my avocado pit is winning ...then to the left of those, you see a tiny smidge of christmas cactus that has been rooting since little.e.beck.artist was in third grade ... now she's in fifth ... it has two more joints and leaves than it did two years ago ... sloooooooow going that one .... going clockwise, past the christmas cactus, you can see scallions in a small white pitcher ... i love cooking with these easy green onions and love the notion that i sorta grow my own ...you see, i buy them in the grocery store, use them by cutting off the tops with my kitchen shears ... then i pop them in some water and grow some more .... after the third or fourth cutting the bottom end in the water gets limp and the new growth is less green and super spindly, so i toss them and buy more at the grocery ... next along the path is a large red pot ... it has paper whites in it ... my sweet sister in law gave them to me at thanksgiving ... they bloomed just before christmas and lasted well past christmas .... and now i have them still growing.. tall green leaves ... i'm going for height ... at first they tipped over and i tied them with a big bow ... then they fell over again because they are so very tall ... my solution, (don't tell mr.e.beck.artist) i got out the longest grill tool we have ... a large forky poker ... and jammed it in the pot ... and tied (with a white satin bow) the stalks to the bbq tool ... only one person in my family has remarked on my ingenious use of the tool ... and she did indeed say, does daddy know you're using his stuff? ... my paper whites are yardstick height now .... the longest green onion is about 18 inches .... the two year old cactus sprout remains at less than two inches ... i'm thinking those avocados could grow to be taller than a yard ....

and that's how i garden ... i have a yard ... i grow grass ... i have other stuff .. crepe myrtles, hydrangeas, knock out roses, irises, random bushes, pachysandra (are you impressed with my vocabulary ... except for the random bush crack) .... but they all just come and go year after year without me worrying about them ....

but .... if you look on my pinterest, i have a garden bulletin board ... full of extraordinary, artsy, fab-o garden stuff .... cause i'm dreaming about dreamy gardens ....

do you garden?
do you pinterest?
do you sprout avocados?

"a little bit of not knowing is good for you" e.beck

2012-01-16T12:28:00.001-05:00

so, my plan is to be art busy, busy, busy ... so i'll have plenty to blog about in the next few weeks .... and maybe take sundays off from blogging .... so to get six posts out a week for the next three or four weeks ....

so ... these two pics are 24 inch canvases ... textured with gesso ... ready for some collage ....

the texture is newer for me ... new as in i've done a dozen paintings like this rather than hundreds ... so i'm still trying to figure it out a bit .... that makes it fun ... just a little bit of not knowing is good for you .... that'll be my first quote once i'm considered quotable .......better get cracking on being famous if i want to be quotable ...

nine starts ...

2012-01-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

here are nine small boards ... plywood and two by fours ... that i have covered with dictionary papers and glaze .... i am thick into making the beginnings of paintings ... and not so much into finishing them ... i have about 20 paintings that are begun ... most further along than these at least ... not sure what it is about finishing .... i'll have to finish a lot of them soon because i have the trinity art show coming up soon ....

do you start things and not finish ... do you get lots of things going at once ... do you like dipping into lots of diffrent things .. or do you hunker down and start and finish all in one fell swoop?

fridays rock .....

2012-01-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

pottery season has begun again .... it is the first day of my winter quarter class at spruill .... i love pottery class ... i love the excitement of not being exactly what sure what something is going to turn out like .... and then picking it up from the kiln room and being wowed ... yay for the mystery that is ceramics ....

this pot was made last semester ... and then the holidays started and my pal picked it up for me ... and told me it was great ... and then kept it in her car til we saw each other again .... finally she was tired of it being in her car and she came by my house and dropped it off ... she might have just been clearing out her car to make room for her costco purchases, but i was still SO happy to get it .... do you know there is a costco about a block from my house? that's crazy right? and a wee bit dangerous for the budget .... five pounds of animal crackers? 96 rolls of toilet paper? 18 bananas?

so this piece was made from chocolate clay, which just makes you love it more, right? and i used mexico point green .. which is turquoisey .... and i rubbed some glaze away to make the brown chocolate goodness show up ....

and here's a good peep at the letters that i always love to put onto my most textured pieces ....

hope someone at the auction needs a giant bowl from chocolate clay with turquoise goodness ....

love

2012-01-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

today's painting is a donation to the school's auction ... redux ... it's a similar painting to one i've done .... but the other i think i sold before i even snapped a pic of it ... or, my photo filing system on my computer is so weak/disorganized/discombobulated that i can't find it .... so .. here ...

it is a 24 inch square canvas that i textured with gesso .... i piled on the gesso thickly than put a plastic bag across it (target bag, not that it makes a difference) .... pulling the plastic away leaves hills and valleys and textures ... i then used brown paints to highlight that texture .... and a little more plastic bag action to pick up some of the paint ... i was left with a rich brown monochromatic canvas that i hated to cover up .... so i just told a little story in the corner ... the rest of the world and life is going on, but look, there's a bit of a love story down here .... the people in a love story think they are all that's going on, right? but there's always so much more ... and the story is ambiguous, as love stories often are ....

what's going on in your world? are you keeping an eye on the big picture? are you focused on just a bit?

a succession of art posts ...

2012-01-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

i am going to do a series of art posts as i paint every day to get all my backlogged work ticked off my to do list ....

... i am hopeful that this is day two of many art posts in a row .... i spent hours and hours in my studio today ... i ignored the mess and just painted .... i won't be able to do that too much longer cause the mess is a mess ... a big ole crazy mess ... crazy crazy mess .... like dig down to last summer mess ..... but i just stayed at the surface ... and painted ..... i think i worked on five or six very large canvases ... about ten small boards ... and one cross ....

the cross was a request ... i have two girlfriends running the auction at little.e.beck.artist's school .... and they are auctioning off a home blessing ... they have the priest but needed a little somethin'somethin' to go with it ... and knew i had made crosses in the past .... so, i just happened to have this one in my studio (and i found it in spite of the mess, just had to dig) .... i painted it with some turquoise thick acrylic, leaving the white clay showing ... and then i muddied it up ... er, aged it a bit, with some fluid acrylic brown .... so it wasn't so bright .... then i added some fluff, which just happened to be out on the counter behind my painting spot .... after i cut off some bits, i actually put the yarn box away in the cupboard where it belongs ... i know, right? i said i wasn't going to clean up, yet i did ....

so when you do projects, do you clean up as you go? do you do one activity and then clean up? do you just keep going and imagine that one day fairies will come and do the tidy for you? my kids believe in those fairies... and judging by my studio, i do too ..... once i get it cleaned to less horrifying, i'll take a before picture ... and then i'll really clean it and do the after picture ....

tomorrow, no studio pics ... but more art pics ....

800

2012-01-10T21:04:00.002-05:00

today is my 800th post of this blog .... that seems like a lot, huh? i bet in this calendar year i'll get to my thousandth post .... i like that ... big round number that it is .... 1000 .....

i am full up on deadlines ... and falling behind ... and really doing everything but the deadliney things .... which will have to stop soon because ... well ... because deadlines are deadlines ....

so ... this friday ... (OH yay, my first pottery class of the year is this friday ... how dare i sully it by having a deadline on that day ... darn ... ) so ... this friday, my auction art is due to be turned in .... my school has a big auction that i'm donating stuff to:
a. a metal embossed picture frame that i lovingly (ha, more like hurriedly) helped fifth graders create .... oops ... 20% done (at least the kid part is done)
b. a giant ceramic bowl ... yay, pottery pal cw brought it by ... don't you just LOVE her for picking it up at the ceramic studio for me? i certainly do .... 100% done (whew)
c. lollypop flowers on blue ... i have words on this painting and one of the words looks blotchy to me ... so i need to paint over it and then redo the word ... 95% done
d. "love found" ... 10% done ... a good idea and a gessoed canvas ... eek ....
e. a ceramic cross to put in a house blessing package .... i have the bisque cross ... but need to paint and embelish it ... 50% done

so i am going to finish them ALL tomorrow ... ALL ... truly ... ALL ... please hold me to it .... oh ... and i'm going to finish them all tomorrow before three o'clock because it is little.e.beck.artist's birthday ... and i'll want to give her my undivided attention after school .....

then ... next week on the 18th, i have an inventory list due to an art show .... so really, it would be good to knock out a few more paintings for that show .... so, between now and then how many can i do? that's a big question .... and actually, the inventory list (i believe) is due the 20th .. but i'm giving myself an early deadline to minimize the stress of last minuteness ....

i haven't had loads of art on this art blog lately ... it's been more of e's life ... the november nablopomo ... the december joy posts ... so for now, back to art .... january is art month ... actually, can we make it arts and crafts month? cause since i've joined pinterest i've wanted to get all DIY and crafty .... have some things in my head i want to make ... so ... let's call january artsy crafty month, ok?

come back tomorrow for some art ....
do you have any artsy plans in your future? how about some craftiness?
if not, quick go to pinterest! you'll find something awesome for sure ...

hello, january ...

2012-01-04T10:48:00.000-05:00

i blogged every day in november ...
i blogged a long series of joy posts in december ...
and i'm getting a slow start to january ....

unlike calvin up there, i LOVE new years resolution ... they get me going .... they get me to change behaviors that aren't great, or, more usually, they add something to my life that i was missing ...

2011, my resolution was to chronicle the books i read .... and to menu plan before each week started ....
and i did both ... just by luck, i read 100 books EXACTLY in 2011... the resolution made me keep track, helped me plan better so i always had a couple books in the queu, and i like looking back and knowing what i read ... and i have a dayplanner 2011 that you could look through and know what my family ate every night for dinner, i usually planned sunday nights with family input ... or on monday mornings before i groceried ... i know it made us eat healthier, and out less often .. i think it also saved us money, partly for not going out so much, but also smarter grocery shopping....so ... both of those things are habits now.... and i shall continue on with both for 2012 ......but i haven't quite hit on what i want 2012's new resolution to be ...

i should have one about art ... because that's been kind of languishing lately ... i'm painting and selling work, but there's no unbridled enthusiasm with it ... and i've been writing, and editing a floundering novel, but there's no grand gumption there either ....

and really, the two resolutions that i'm drawn to are SUPER dull .... i want to catch up on photo books (i say it, but don't feel it) and i want to organize and purge the junk out of the house ... every drawer, cupboard, closet, room, basement (oh no, not the basement), garage .... (i feel it, but pretty sure i'll run out of steam before i accomplish it) .... neither of those are blog worthy .. they are hardly blog mentionable ... boring .... so ... maybe i'll recycle an old one ... like 100 paintings in a year .... or 15 art blogs a month .... or maybe just make my art studio user friendly again ..... in the meanwhile, i'm clearing out drawers and donating all the extra that has accumulated in my life ...

how 'bout you .... what's your resolution? what should mine be?

happy new years ....

christmas was merry .... and spooky ...

2011-12-26T22:53:00.002-05:00

little.e.beck.artist, on christmas eve, asked... mom, can i wear my witch skirt tonight to church ....

so how do you answer that?

i wasn't sure what the witch skirt was? was it orange and black striped? she had been a witch a few years ago for halloween ... hmmmmmm ... i just remember stripediness ....

honey, i don't know what your witch skirt looks like ... is it appropriate for church? ... i've never really had a problem with her being appropriate for church ....

yes, it's very appropriate, it's much dressier than we usually are for church so it's really perfect for christmas church ....

ok then ...

mom, can i wear my green and white striped tshirt with the witch skirt?

well, that's kind of a ratty tshirt ... and isn't green and white kinda .. well ... witchy? .....it would help if i knew what a witch skirt was .... don't you have a better shirt? or a sweater? can you wear a sweater with a witch skirt? do witches wear sweaters? remind me again why you're dressing up like a witch?

i'm not dressing up like a witch ... i'm just wearing the witch skirt ... TRUST ME ....

trust me from a ten year old .... ok then .... worst case scenario: i have to talk her out of the witch clothes once she's already in them ....

so this is my little.e.beck.artist on christmas eve ....

the witch skirt is sparkly ... and looked perfect for chrismtas .... she didn't wear the orange and black stripey tights though ......

our christmas was joyful ... hope yours was too ...

friday ... hooray for fridays ....

2011-12-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

mr.e.beck.artist's office is closed today ... that's a grand thing, right? and little.e.beck.artist made waffles for everyone this morning .... making it feel absolutely like a holiday .... that's a grand thing, right? ..... and tonight we took the grands out to dinner .... that's a grand thing, right?

JOY post 23

today's joy: errands with mr.e.beck.artist .... wrapping gifts with the kids ... wrapping my best gift for mr.e.beck.artist, i can't wait for him to open it ....

preparation: wrapping ... and a big kitchen cleaning so our big dinner tomorrow starts on the right foot ....

serenity: well ... this whole joy month thing has been quite successful ... i've not stressed over anything ... most everything is getting done ... maybe not on schedule, but at least on time ... i have a present or two to deliver to pals tomorrow .. and besides that, it's all free and easy til church at 6 ....

we did have a glitch today ... but it was the kind of glitch that just makes you laugh .... i got this email today: "Okay girl – I just had a laugh – I just opened what I thought was your Christmas card – lo and behold, it was an empty envelope – reminded me of an empty stocking –" ....

uh oh! i wonder how many empty envelopes we sent ... and i wonder how many people won't even tell me that they got an empty envelope? maybe the mail man stole it .... alas ... just one more nice christmas story ..... the year we sent envelopes ....

happy shot of the day:

i love getting christmas cards ... when we get them, they go in this santa box ....

editorial update: oh my, we have gotten confirmation that someone HAS in fact received a christmas card from us .. apparently some of the envelopes did have contents ...

bowling pin jesus ....

2011-12-22T23:03:00.001-05:00

happy winter solstice .... today is the day with the shortest amount of daylight, tomorrow, we will have four more seconds of daylight than today .... and the next day, nine more seconds than that .... by the end of january, the day will have almost an hour more sunlight that today .... we are in the bleakest of days, but it is our tipping point towards .. towards what? less bleakness? flip flops and fourth of july picnics? this is almost to extraordinary to believe .... as it was nearly 70 degrees here today .... balmy ... and a bit disconcerting to be doing christmas chores and sweating .....

JOY post 22 ... christmas is SO very close ....

today's joy: happy children as grandparents arrive, delivering christmas gifts, christmas cookies ..

preparation: 95% of my christmas cards were mailed today .. maybe even 99% ....

serenity: i took a nap ... doesn't get more serene than that ... i had nothing so pressing to do that i couldn't grab my book and curl up in bed and read half a page before zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

happy shot of the day: i have a small collection of nativities ... i especially like this one ...

don't they all look like bowling pins? bowling pin jesus, bowling pin kings ... and look at those bowling pin animals ... i love them SO much .... i think the angel looks a bit maniacal... but i love mary in green .... if you were going to make a manger, what would you have mary wear? green works for me .... i wouldn't put any wise men in gray though .... i do love christmas time .... such a time of joy.... no gray, please!

moustache day .....

2011-12-21T23:11:00.002-05:00

my little.e.beck.artist is maturing so .... i'm considering giving her a razor for christmas this year .... the best bit of all is that she helped me address some of our christmas cards ... her handwriting is so earnest and dear and sweet and fifth gradey, that everyone should hope that their address is written by her ... alas, it isn't so ... i write much faster than she does ... but it sure was lovely to have someone to share the job with .... she just delights me ...

JOY post 21

today's joy: stick on moustaches (you too can have them if your dollar store is as good as ours)

preparation: we went shopping for a family that our church told us about, that needs some life help ... that happens to be at christmas time ....

serenity: knowing that my kids understand helping others who are less fortunate ....

happy shot of the day: see my moustached baby above ....

... the calm ....

2011-12-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

so .. i've been doing this serene thing ... really, really, really trying to stay calm and happy and sweet and serene and kind ... and watch what i think and say and feel ... and when i don't like how i feel to work on changing it ... to watch for overwhelmed ... to take care of myself this holiday so that i can make my family happy, because here in this house, like in many, as is the mother, so goes the family .... i didn't actually know that little nugget of wisdom a few months ago when i was in a good snit... a not fleeting snit ... a full blown mired down in blah snit .... and my sweet husband basically said, buck up .... buck up, cause the four of us need you! we love you adore and need you to help us live our lives .... and when you are happy you make all of us happy .... figure out why you are out of sorts, fix it or move on .... he told me i was the house cheerleader, clown, chief and barometer .... and could he do something to help me get back on track ... well ... apparently the pep talk was enough ... and i gave myself a bit of an attitude adjustment .... and worked on joy and calm ....

so now ... i'm in this full blown calm and serene state .... but ya know what? calm and serene doesn't get a lot done .... taking the happy path doesn't necessarily accomplish much besides happy! .... like today? i've played multiple games of mario carts on wii with my kids ... taken both girls shopping separately (again ... i did the same thing yesterday ) ... but my shopping has been done for a while now .... and i went and ate frozen yogurt cause the kids wanted to ... and ... well ... i've not wrapped my gifts ... or done my christmas letter or cards .... or cleaned up for company coming .... but i am happy and calm and serene and enjoying my family and our break from school .... i did do a few responsible things ... three dentist appointments (no cavities) ... three loads of laundry .... made dinner .....

so .... happily ... i give you my standard joy post ....

JOY post 20

today's joy: frozen eggnog yogurt , singing our advent song as we lit our advent candles at dinner tonight ... and right now, my family is all sitting in the dark with just the lights of the orange christmas tree, the glow of my computer, and harry potter 7.2 on the tv ....

preparation: little.e.beck.artist wrapped loads of gifts today ... and after dinner tonight the family chatted and we figured out our menus for four important meals leading up to christmas :

thursday night: the inlaws arrive ... salmon, asparagus, new potatoes, fruit salad

friday night: take the grands out to dinner

saturday night (we usually have tenderloin christmas eve): italian night .... chicken parm, angel hair pasta, green beans, good bread

sunday xmas morning: cinnamon rolls, sausage rolls, grapefruit, canteloupe

sunday christmas dinner (we usually have turkey, stuffing, dressing, gravy, mash taters) : ... beef tenderloin, potato casserole, yeast rolls, spinach, corn casserole

we are trying to mix up our dinners to better suit the kids .... none of them like the things that go with turkey ... i don't like gravy much, even though i make it quite well .. i guess i never encouraged them to like it ....

serenity: well ... i'm blogging and watching a movie instead of doing my christmas card ... and it is december 20th ... yikes .... but i'll get to them ... i hope ... and if i don't, it's ok .... or, ok with me ...

happy shot of the day:

here is little.e.beck.artist .... did you know that my family doesn't use paper napkins or paper towels .... it's our best green thing .... when i got married 20something years ago i made the decision to only use cloth napkins and towels ... and so it has been ever since ...

during the year the five of us each have a different napkin ring so that we can reuse napkins for a couple meals .... i've been a duck lately .... now i'm a jaunty snowman .... we have sets of rings, but think it is more fun to all have different ....

and the dog got her christmas bath ... and her bangs trimmed too .... everyone needs to spiffy up a bit, for christmas, right? so, in my serene and calm and slacker state, i was going to skip the dog washing ... even though there were multitudes of family comments about her ... um ... scent .... her unpleasant scent .... happily, sometimes when one person doesn't want to something, someone else picks up the slack ....

so, who's going to do my christmas cards? hmmmmm ....

joy post and apples

2011-12-19T22:53:00.002-05:00

i got this weird thing from a pal ... it was a hostess gift and when i opened it she said, do you know what it is ... well ... no .... so then i read what it is ... and is still wasn't quite sure ....

do you know what to do with it? why would you carve a candle?

well ... now i have it all figured out ... you use it to do an easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy job of making fab votive candle holders .... it's not actually carving a candle .. it is carving out a spot in produce to put a candle ....

today, i changed up my usual advent candles to apple advent ....

each sunday in advent you light the next candle ... purple hope, purple peace, pink for JOY, purple love and then the white one of christmas for baby jesus's birthday .... and we have a song we sing for each candle .... but now we have apple candles .. pretty spiffy, right?

i had a grand joyful day today ... took mini me, i mean little.e.beck.artist , out for some christmas shopping .... she's now done with her shopping and wrapping ... then came home for three guitar lessons and some produce carving for candles .... then took girl.beck.artist out for some shopping ... i can't say enough about the happiness of one on one time with the kids ....

and then we had dinner out as a family ... with two other families ... both old friends ... one in town pals ... one out of town pals .... and it was really great ... and happy .... and sweet .... and it felt like christmas time happiness ....

i was looking for pics of my advent candles from previous years, but instead ran across this post and especially like rereading it .... it's nice and christmas happy .....

joy to you!!

18

2011-12-18T23:00:00.003-05:00

today is joy day 18 .... and i'm having trouble keeping up with my month of blogging that is meant to be regaling you with my joyful moments, my search for holiday serenity, and the blow by blow recounting of my count down to christmas .... so .... i taught sunday school this morning and the class decorated glass christmas ornaments with sharpies ... then my family hosted a guitar recital .... then my family just hung out ... and did not much .... and it was lovely .. but every once in a while i'd have a little pang of WOW i should wrap some gifts/finish shopping/make a christmas menu/consider starting my christmas cards .... but no ... i watched my kids' favorite tv shows instead ...

so, instead of the usual ... i'll show you the last painting i finished ... a commission ... delivered just in time to be given as a christmas gift .... so, joy for someone ....

red letter day ....

2011-12-17T19:23:00.000-05:00

JOY post 17

today's joy: today's joy is that i've kept myself so busy (doing absolutely nothing of importance) that i have frittered away my moments than i could have blogged in ... and now, i have donned my red boots and am heading out for the evening .....

festive feet is just the way to go .....

2011-12-17T09:57:00.001-05:00

JOY post 16

yesterday was the 16th ... so this joy post is late ... luckily it is late because of joy ... yesterday i had a full and busy day with little.e.beck.artist out of school and helping me get ready for a party ... and then picking up girl.beck.artist after her last exam ... and then all of us going to boy.beck.artist's basketball game (losing at half, won the game though, very exciting) .... and then home in time to shower and open my house to friends ... i have some awesome friends ....

yesterday's joy is todays dishwasher to unload!

hope your day is merry ....

jingle bells ...

2011-12-15T20:58:00.002-05:00

JOY post 15

this month i've been doing posts of the day's joy, preparations for christmas, serenity, and happy shot of the day .... but today ... all that can be encompassed in one photo ....

the joy: little.e.beck.aritst in her sock monkey christmas jammies playing jingle bells by the christmas tree......

preparation: she's preparing for her recital, which is friday ... my prep is making sure she's ready .....

serenity: pretty peaceful in here with happy her .....

happy shot of the day: the photo kind of cracks me up ... it is such visual overstimulation .... it doesn't feel that way sitting here, but the pic makes the room seem crazy .... the wall of bookshelves , three wreaths, the framed christmas tree that my grandma mormor made out of broken glass, snow globes on the counter beneath the shelves, gifts on the piano and under the tree, tree so full and big and blurry, candy canes in the fore ground on a ceramic platter that girl.beck.artist made this semester in her pottery class ... sounds so simple ... looks like chaos .... makes me happy

tis the season for hot chocolate .....

2011-12-14T16:34:00.001-05:00

JOY post 14

today's joy: ihop might be my favorite restaurant ... it's just always a happy place to go ....and what more can we ask of a restaurant ....

i had hot chocolate ... i'm not a coffee or a tea sorta gal, but i LOVE hot chocolate .... this one was exceptional ...... no point of reference in that photo, but that cup is HUMONGOUS ....my best pal had a matching cup for herself ....

preparation: YES, i got two big gifts bought today ... metaphorically weighing me down big, not big in stature or price .... but i'd been planning on them ..... and had been putting it off .... so it was a nice relief to get them ... and even better, i came RIGHT home and wrapped them ... so now i have girl.beck.artist, boy.beck.artist, and little.e.beck.artist wrapped good gifts under the tree .... by "good" i mean not pajamas ... but something that will make each one happy ..... and maybe surprised .... i hope surprised .... i love christmas .... and wrapped packages ....

serenity: hmmm ... i'm blogging much earlier than usual .... and i've not had any focused serenity ... so right after this i will go sit by the christmas tree with my book ... by the green tree in the quiet room, not by the orange tree in the room where everyone is busy doing stuff .... so, you'll just have to take my word on eventual serenity today .....

happy shot of the day:

these are the presents i wrapped ... three big boxes ... each with a smaller gifty on top .... with green ribbon to tie it up tight ..... shaking allowed .....

so, you're reading my month of joy .... where i'm working on being calm and easy going and happy ..... and it does make me more mindful of the joys of the season (even though it is exam week in my house)... how's your season going? do you have a gigantic list of things to do? or are you just taking things as they come? i've made (and lost) a couple lists ... but that's ok, right? and i want to send out a christmas card and letter .... but haven't started working on it yet .... but i will .... no worries ....

joy to you!

10 days til chrismtas eve ....

yay!

... so i almost didn't blog tonight ....

2011-12-13T22:48:00.003-05:00

... i almost didn't blog tonight because i am SO caught up in pinterest ... and then i found this ... and i would like it ... but i knew i couldn't have it cause it cost 19.500 yen ... oh ... well... come to find out that is only 250.08$ US .... so, much more affordable than i presumed .... so, if you buy it as art ... a whole wall of art, 250 seems affordable ....

so ... pinterest... do you do it? i was invited to do it a number of times but didn't get it .... then finally my sweet sister in law convinced me i'd like it .... and i do ... don't know what it is ... well here is the explanation i gave allison ... remember when you started on flickr .. and didn't get it .. and then loved it? and remember when you started blogging and didn't get it ... and then loved it? and remember when you started facebook and you didn't get it and then you loved it? ... well ... same thing ...it's just the next social media ... but it is pictures of joy and happiness from all over the web ... if you go look at my bulletin boards, if you are a regular reader, you won't be surprised by my bulletin board topics or by the things i have pinned up ....

so quick ... it's bed time ...

JOY post 13

today's joy: made dinner at 9am ... love that crock pot ... it makes me feel all with it ... and today was gorgeous .. sunshine beautiful ... i rolled in the grass with the dog in the backyard .... and a bedtime chat with little.e.beck.artist where we ooohed and aaaahed how soft her earlobes are .....

preparation: i think i have finished up on my ornament making ... and, more noteworthy, i've wrapped them ALL ... yes! that felt like an accomplishment ... i also made some lists to get me on track ... oh, and this is probably not really appropriate for MY prep, but i emailed mr.e.beck.artist some links to groovy things that i've found online ... it's hard to shop for other people and not find stuff you want yourself .... so i was being NICE and sharing my good ideas ......

serenity: i might have skipped serenity today ... particularly when i went grocery shopping for bananas (they are always number one priority on my list) and the first grocery stop had only grody squashy nanas .... blech ... but ... serenity .... i was never mad at anyone, was never anything but sweet and kind, patient with my kids ... actually ... i didn't have to exercise patience, so does that mean i wasn't patient? my kids were easy ... even the ones with exams this week ... so i just lived my normal happy day ...

happy shots of the day:

wrapped gifts .... hooray for cute boxes ....

box of sharpies ... finally will move it back to the art room and off the coffee table .....

do you see those cute gingerbread scissors?? love those!

happiness to you .... see you on pinterest, i hope ....

ornies

2011-12-12T21:26:00.000-05:00

JOY post 12

today's joy: a happy dog in her christmas cape .... taking girl.beck.artist and a pal out to lunch .... the relief for the kids to be done with their first exam (science! a hard one) .....

preparation: made more ornies .... seven loads of laundry ... oh wait, that's not christmas prep, that's just real life .... lots of ecommerce mail .... feels like christmas getting the boxes of gifts i ordered ....

serenity: i really loved making christmas ornaments today ... i have kind of learned what i like and what i don't like ... i was making these hard (well not really hard) candy canes on the glass balls ... they just weren't easy ... or, they were too easy to mess up .... not so fun ... so i switched to writing ... i have cute handwriting (if i do say so myself) ... it is perfect for cute ornies ... it's not good handwriting to be doctor or a secretary or , um, who else has to handwrite these days? anyway ... i have cute, girlie handwriting so why don't i just make the most of that? so i made these .... while i pondered my handwriting .....

so more handwriting, less drawing .... friends with shorter names are easier than friends with long names ... i guess we can't all be beck, smith, hall, ray .... and it feels good to have them done ... i have a few more to go tomorrow, but i've already glued on the fuzz ... the ones above are fuzzless but are now fuzzed ....

happy shot of the day: so ... along the lines of homemade ornaments ... this pink darling was mine as a child .... she was my very favorite ornament ... she was always at the bottom of the box because i'd undecorate her first for fear one of my brothers would touch her ....

and when i got her out and ooooohed and aaaahed her, my mom would say, hang it low in the back ... because there was kind of an order to her tree ... smaller goes higher ... bigger goes lower .....pretty towards the front door .... garish towards the back .... when my kids were decorating our tree, i told them about this ballerina and how i loved her and would adjust her arms and legs into a grand jete and have to hang her in the back (which wasn't so bad, you'd see her when you were coming from the kitchen rather than when you were at the front door) .... so, girl.beck.artist promptly hung her in the back .. and i said no ... our back is book shelves ... i need to see her ... and now she's in the front ... quite low ... but the front nonetheless .... currently, my tree has no order ... after this story, i told my kids that my decorating theory is that if it is your favorite, hang it at your eye level ... otherwise, anywhere is fine ... if it is a sentimental eyesore, hang it in the back, but really, if you don't love it, don't feel obligated to hang it .... so on the tree, you can see clusters of favorite ornies .... all the sock monkeys are in a gaggle ... lots of baby ornaments are clustered together ... you can almost tell who hung them by where they are ...

do you have a tree? decorated? fancy? hodge podge? have you ever had a themed tree ... like all the ornaments are white or silver? are your ornaments sentimental or random? what's your favorite?

fear not ....

2011-12-11T22:10:00.001-05:00

JOY post 11 ...

today's joy: sunday school this morning was super .. my favorite kind of sunday in fact: one of the teenaged teachers did the teaching ... i had no responsibility ... well, i did actually, i passed out snack .... the story was the annunciation ... when mary was told by an angel that she was having a baby ... after reading the bible, we always go around and everyone says what part stuck with them, or made them think, or was intriguing ... one boy said, it just cracks me up that angels show up and say FEAR NOT ... and you know whoever is looking at that angel is like, no (and the boy fell off his chair being fearful) i'm fearing, how can you see an angel and not freak out? .... so, the discussion got around to, if you think you see an angel, and it doesn't start the conversation with FEAR NOT, then it probably isn't an angel ...

preparation: i made some more christmas ornaments today .... i wrapped a few gifts .. my sweet mr.e.beck.artist cleaned the basement and found a hidden gift!! so i had to rehide ....

serenity: sundays have more serenity than other days .... my sunday school class of fifth graders are so awesome .... it kind of blows my mind how grown up they can be .... and how sweet and dear ...

happy shot of the day:

here's a christmas decoration i've had for 8 or 9 years ... girl.beck.artist made it when she was little ... it is one of my favorties for its simplicity ....

2011-12-10T22:03:00.001-05:00

JOY post 10 ... for saturday the 10th of december ... two weeks til chrismtas eve!

today's joy: little.e.beck.artist had a happy play date with lots of squealing and giggling.... baking for a bake sale .... (must mention the anti-joy .... twins studying for exams ... sigh)

this photo is the box of bake sale i've made .... the left side has pretzel kisses ... so easy and a fan favorite ... the only thing hard about it is unwrapping all those kisses .... and on the right are ginger spice cookies ... some are crunchier than i like, but the little girl here this morning prefers them crunchy ... still soft on the inside though .... i think she thought they were meant to be ginger snaps ... but they are more ginger chews.... i choose chews ....ha ....

preparation: my christmas tree has been up a week and it is still SUCKING down the water ... i'm really astonished ... i've never had a tree that kept taking in so much water ..... i fill it up with an entire pitcher every 18 or so hours ....

serenity: finished a cute book ... spent time curled on one end of the couch sharing a blanket with girl.beck.artist who was reading at the other end of the couch ....

happy shot of the day:

i see this photo and it makes me fall in love with that yellow paint all over again ... this is very true color on my computer ... and hope it is on yours ... it's called sunshine yellow ... but i'm meant to be showing you the three elves sitting on a picture frame ... they are pretty hight up .... when my kid were wee, they'd always put these in spots where they could rearrange them ....

i worked a bit on a painting today .... this week sometime i'll show it to you .... have to get it to where it is worth looking at, right?

orange joy

2011-12-09T20:06:00.001-05:00

JOY post 9 ... cause it's the ninth .....

‎"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are." -Marianne Williamson

today's joys: ... gorgeous sunshine weather, christmas shopping without crowds, boy.beck.artist's basketball game (win, 50ish to 25ish) , dinner out with mr.e.beck.artist and the twin.beck.artists ....

preparation: wow, did i get some shopping done today! darest i say, i'm close to done? a bit on the internet, a bit out in the real world .... i've not got a single good idea for mr.e.beck.artist , but besides that i'm worry free now ....

serenity: no reading today which has been my chosen method of serenity lately .... but i did spend time in the car listening to christmas carols on a new radio station (all christmas out of new york) ..... and i did go on an extra long dog walk today since the weather was so gorgeous ... i guess, though i didn't have any grand serenity moments, it is worth mentioning that i didn't have unserene moments .... i had a casual, laid back happy kind of day .... never got around to emptying the dishwasher, but so it goes ....

happy shot of the day:

if you're a long time follower of my blog, you know about the orange christmas tree already .... if you are just happening by, now you know that my favorite color is orange (actually orange is tied with green ... but green is boring at christmas time, eh?) .... i took this photo, then moved two laundry baskets, then snapped it again .... it's actually a good shot of what my house is to me ... bright and cheery and happy .... you can peek into my dining room too ... that's the green shade that is my favorite ...

tomorrow i am going to make some christmas ornaments, learn some geometry (exam week... active studying can include teaching someone else the concepts), read at a basketball practice .... and maybe take a child christmas shopping .... oh ... and maybe some baking .... that's too much ... i wonder what i'll leave out ....

here's wishing you a weekend as happy as an orange christmas tree ....

walnut surprise...

2011-12-08T19:28:00.001-05:00

JOY post 8

today's joy: the dog in a sweater .... blankets .... heaters .... fluffy socks .... (ahem, the unjoy would be the frigid weather .... is it bad to mention the unjoys in the joy paragraph? would it be bad to have a whiny paragraph in addition to the joy paragraph?)

preparation: i finally mailed a package to the farthest flung brother .... and i did a small bit of shopping ... at some point i need to do some serious thinking about christmas gifts for my family .....

serenity: i finished a book today .... the death cure ... by james dashner .... certainly not a holly jolly book ... the death cure ... come to find out there is no cure for death ... duh! so i guess the serenity was taking the time to do some reading ... not such a serene book though ... it was the third of the maze runner trilogy ...

happy shot of the day:

when i was a kid, i had two favorite ornaments ... one of them was a walnut, and it opened on a wee hinge and had a nativity ... a teeeeeeeny tiny nativity, on the insided .... i have a walnut ornament on my tree now ... i have no idea where it came from .... but it is girl.beck.artist's favorite ornament (she actually had loads of favorite ornaments, but for this story we'll say it is her most favorite) .... everytime we decorate the tree she oooohs and aaaaahs when she spies the walnut ... the nut! the nut! and she opens it and hangs it ... and i peek at it ... and every time i am surprised that it is santa and a little kid in there ....i just assume it is the nativity walnut from my childhood and i forget EVERY year that this is a different walnut .... how can i forget every year? maybe i won't forget next year because now i have written it down here ... maybe that will store it away into long term memory .... how many types of walnut ornaments do you suppose there are in the world? do you have any hinged walnuts on your tree?

oops

2011-12-07T13:05:00.001-05:00

day six ... well ... i was rocking the joy and having a busy, fab day .... all the way up until i was brushing my teeth at bedtime and realized i'd never blogged .... it had never crossed my mind once to do it .... i didn't procrastinate it or ditch it or anything negative .... i just flat out busied myself without doing it ....

so ... JOY post 7

today's joy: yesterday's joy was all about party prep and painting with allison .... i got my house ready for a party before allison came ... then i painted with allison .... and then made ornies for party favors ....

today, i had the party (joyjoyjoy) and handed out the ornies at the end ....

preparation: i have a table behind my orange couch .... and on it i have an old battered drawer that i use as a box ... i put our christmas books in it on the table ... it's one of my favorite christmasy spots in the house ... cause i can just grab a book and know it will make me happy ... little.e.beck.artist has outgrown little kid books sort of, but she still likes them and has read a number of them to me already ... i suspect she'll read them all to me before the end of the year .....

serenity: you can find serenity in the oddest places ... mine was at the gym ... i took little.e.beck.artist to basketball and i took my kindle .... an hour of uninterrupted reading was well worth the bleacher seating .... christmas time makes life busy so it is nice to have enforced stillness .....

this is the table i set for my party ... the napkins and silverware and glasses and plates are all elsewhere since we did buffet style .... i like how it looks clean and fresh and simple ...

happy shot of the day:

i have lots and lots of glass balls ... back from when i didn't have many decorations, i'd buy glass balls at the grocery store, a box or two each week ... now i have loads and they all look antiqued and weathered and aged and cool ....even though they are only vintage early 90s .....

what were the first decorations you bought for yourself? have you gotten them out yet? have you finished decorating? been to any parties?

and the next and the next and the next .... pass the mnms ....

2011-12-05T20:39:00.001-05:00

JOY post 5 ... cause it's the fifth of december, ya know .....

today's joys: pottery class, lunch with pals, little.e.beck.artist explaining the fine art of hot chocolate and marshmallow goop .. and making me some , it is SO easy to make girl.beck.artist happy,

preparation: my fave christmas prep of the day was restocking our candy jars (in real life, this is probably not xmas prep, but it made me happy, so it is WAY elevated in importance) .... when i groceried i picked up candies .... tossed the end of the candy corns and washed all our assorted jars .... and made way for the red and green ....

so ... we have mint mnms, red hots, jelly bells (cherry and lime), pretzel mnms, traditional mnms, and dog treats ... well ... the dog treats are always there, the other five are new today .... you would think i'd given girl.beck.artist a handful of money the way she was all giddy and gleeful over the sweets ....

serenity: i have a girlfriend at pottery.... cw ... and today i said to cw, in the context of a conversation about something or other, "yup, i've been working on serenity" ... and she did not even laugh at me ... she nodded wisely (she's way wise) and said that IS such a good idea ... and we talked about how even thinking about being calm can make you calmer without even trying hard ... like, a couple of deep breaths and thinking about those breaths just shakes everything out .... or shake might be the wrong metaphor ... it eases all the extraneous stuff out .... all of this conversation was while i was using a sponge to clean off my jeans and shoes ... apparently i was a bit dramatic and enthusiastic in my glazing techniques today .... so it was an active serene ... is that possible?

happy shot of the day: these are the glazes in the studio where cw and i worked today ... ha ... who are we kidding? not work!

so the glaze at the bottom in the orange bucket is clear ... and then 2 is white ... 3 is bone ....if you count up to 8, that's where i was, at mexico point green ... or maybe that's celadon and mexico is 11 .... anyway, about halfway up on the continuum to black glaze at the far end ...

here's my thought of the day .... first you date someone ... and everyone says when are you getting married ... get married ... when are you buying a house .... get a house ... when are you having a baby .... have a baby ... when are you having another baby .... and then your family is all settled and your just here ... and no one ever asks about the next thing anymore .... it's like for a while there life is all set out and most people follow a particular path in some manner or other .... but then when you get HERE ... things are less clear ....since people don't know the next thing, they don't say when are you doing that particular thing... so ... i guess you're just supposed to be serene while you figure out the next thing ....and if you can't be serene, eat some mnms .... i'll share ...

oh! christmas tree!

2011-12-04T20:37:00.001-05:00

JOY post 4... hooray ...

today's joy: decorated our christmas tree ..... girl.beck.artist and little.e.beck.artist ooooohing and aaaaahing their favorite ornaments as they came out of the box....

preparation: wow! looks like the christmas monster came and threw up .... there are boxes and tissues and half done holiday all over the place .... so much for slow and steady .... everyone kinda opened all the christmas boxes and did their favorite (or in some cases assigned) bits ..... and, well ... we'll clean up tomorrow ... or the next day!

serenity: i have a bunch of christmas books and have them all together for easy holiday reading .... santa mouse? night before christmas? miracle on 34th? multitudes of versions of the baby jesus' birth? got 'em all .... ready to read ....

happy shots of the day:

boy.beck.artist and mr.e.beck.artist used saws and power tools and got the tree in the stand ...

then mr.e.beck.artist and little.e.beck.artist put on the lights ....

it takes a long time to put on a lot of lights ....

but then you get the joy of pulling all those decorations out of the box and putting them on the tree ....

the extent of my artsiness today was hot gluing some ornaments that needed mending!

tomorrow, i hope to work on some ornaments .... and tuesday i plan to do some painting .... and wednesday i plan to have a big brunch .... so maybe i'll have all the christmas storage boxes put away by then!

i love saturdays

2011-12-03T20:16:00.001-05:00

JOY post 3
today's joy: a green christmas tree ... an orange christmas tree .... a kind husband .... everyone at home (extra thankfulness for saturdays, right?)

preparation: hooray, hooray! we have started our christmas prep in ernest .... mr.e.beck.artist picked up our christmas tree today ... i had ordered it through our school as a habitat for humanity fundraiser .... prepaid, he just drove up and they tied a seven footer to his car .... if you're one of those persnickity tree folks, this would NOT be the thing for you ..... but we've never been that .... of course, we more often than not have a wonky tree because of our haphazard methods of choosing ... pretty much, we are choosing wonky each year ... i'll letcha know tomorrow if it's mildly or wildly wonky ... at the moment the tree is still tied up on the front porch (lest it escape?) ....

extra prep: being saturday and all we had time for extra xmas prep and pulled a bunch of orny boxes out of the basement .... and have been off and on decorating throughout the day ....

serenity: ... i've a bit of a cold and am medicated and drowsy ... and have spent a large portion of my day toes up on the couch .... i've also read a lot ... and finished ender's game ... by orson scott card .. i had read it 20 years or so ago ... and had sort of forgotten it .... but girl.beck.artist had bought it for her kindle and happily that makes it appear on mine as well!

happy shot of the day:

does the tree look tiny up there? maybe it is .... the joy to me is that mr.e.beck.artist did the chore for me ... went and got it .... if you ask me how big i want a tree, i'll hold my hand over my head and say THIS tall ... no taller than i can reach so that i can put the star on and decorate the tip top in case i don't have helpers .... i always have helpers, but i like the notion of not having to stand on a chair or ladder or whatnot .... sometimes our tree is taller than that (when i'm not in charge at all) ... i think we're putting up the tree tomorrow ... hooray ....

december 2

2011-12-02T20:02:00.001-05:00

JOY post 2
today's joy: tennis in the sunshine with a great friend .... little.e.beck.artist being over the top funny tonight .... little.e.beck.artist being scared and cuddly for harry potter 4 .... family dinner with 5.beck.artists and the dog stalking crumbs at our feet ....

preparation ....
it is the second day of december and i am supposed to be documenting my christmas preparation ... and yet again, i did nothing ... i went into a super cute shop and thought about buying christmas gifts ... alas, i did not ... tomorrow FOR REAL i will start ... i at least have an appointment to go pick up the christmas tree in the morning ....

serenity ...
i had multiple quality time moments with little.e.beck.artist ... just being with her today made me happy ... if i had the option of keeping her forever at this exact age and outlook, i'd have a hard time letting her grow up .... i would let her grow up, but it would definitely give me pause ....

happy shot of the day ....

this is my little one a few days ago doing her homework ... working on her core and her long division .... i went to shop for a balance ball a while back .. kind of just to price them .... but when i saw the biggest most fabulous one was orange, i had to get it ... i do believe i do more crunches and pushups because with it than i would if it weren't orange .....

see the two paintings on the far right? the top one that you see just a bit of is sold ... i'm holding it til closer to christmas ... and the bottom blue one, i'm donating to an auction .... it says "there are no miracles for those who do not have faith in them ...."

december 1

2011-12-01T21:01:00.001-05:00

JOY post 1
today's joys: girl.beck.artist scored the first 8 points in her basketball .... mr.e.beck.artist is back home .... i spent the morning with girlfriends ....

Preparation:
I did absolutely nothing today to get ready for christmas ... so much for doing a little every day .... i did tell a pal on the phone my plan for a serene december, and she said isn't the women's group christmas party at your house next week? ... well .. yes .... and i have some candy canes on my dining room table ... need to get on that, but somehow feel no pressure ... we'll discuss this again next tuesday and see if i'm singing the same mellow tune ...

Serenity:
I spent 30 minutes today toes up on the couch reading the ender's game .... i had some ditched responsibilities but decided it was ok since i knew that by the time bed time rolled around i'd be too tired to read ....

Happy shot of the day:

this is not even a flower ... it's a shrub ... the biggest purplest plant i've ever seen ... pretty extraordinary ....

did you notice your joys today?

... a red boot kind of day ...

2011-11-30T22:35:00.001-05:00

this morning i woke up happy and ready ... yes, i will wear my red cowboy boots to celebrate the first day of december ... moments after that red boot decision, i was checking my email and realized it was NOT in fact december yet ... my red boot celebration of december lasted all of ten minutes .... that celebratory red booted tooth brushing and hair brushing was just a fine fest .... that ended abruptly in front of the laptop .... darn.... isn't that just like me to be discombobulated?

red boots are a funny thing ... people really, really notice them .. i got comments all day long (luckily i did not change out of them when i discovered the sad factness of it still being november) ... it made me laugh that it was such a big deal to wear red shoes and for so many to comment ... why don't people all always wear colored shoes? why are all men's dress shoes black or brown? (i know, i know, i'm making vast generalizations) why do most women mostly wear black and brown and boring shoes? (next time you are in a boring meeting, look at all the shoes).... it just doesn't make sense to me that bland shoes are the norm.... but i am SO off track ...

so, i am celebrating today, i spent the month of november working on the NaBloPoMo challenge ... national blog post month ... write every day .....and i did it ... never skipped a day ... had some great writing days ... had some just say anything to get it done posts ... but in all felt like it was a worthwhile experience ... it got me writing ... not just the blog, but other stuff too ... and that's good ... i like it ....

the main thing i learned is that it is easier to write when you have been writing ... just like it is easier to paint when you have been painting ... it is easier to cook when you've been cooking ...or, well, when you have at least gone to the grocery store .... starting something after a big break is like starting from square one, brand new, beginner ... get doing something and it feels like you have momentum and can absolutely keep doing it .... maybe i need to get some red shoe momentum ... wear happy shoes every day .... maybe you shouldn't wear your red boots on the days you wake up happy .. but on the days you wake up crabby too .... maybe if all world leaders had to wear red shoes every day, they'd be happier, freer, smarter, easier going, kinder, gentler .... people in red shoes certainly don't start wars or shoot guns at people or cut in line at the grocery store ....

so, the moral of my month of writing is get doing whatever you want to be doing and do it every day cause it gets easier ... and .... color up your shoe wardrobe, please ....

doc, happy, sleepy, grumpy, dopey, bashful, sneezy and slobby ...

2011-11-29T21:20:00.001-05:00

why is there not an 8th dwarf named slobby? clearly there was a slobby in that house if snow white had to show up and do all that tidying and dusting and bed making, right? slobby probably just didn't want to be in the show and wouldn't sign the reality tv contract so he wasn't on there ... just like one of ozzy osbournes kids who was never seen on that show .... yup ... slobby was a mess, but he had the good sense to stay hidden ...

not so much me ... i'm a mess and i'm going to show it to you on my blog ... perhaps to shame myself into cleaning up my studio ... but maybe just because it is nine o'clock and i am ever so very tired and trying to be a pal and stay up with my studying high schoolers .... so i'm quietly blogging the pictures i took today ...

here's the first ....

can you even see the dog in that mess? she's posing ... such a good girl .... but between her turquoise jacket and her evil photo eyeballs, she's barely recognizable ... let's call her waldo .... so this is looking into my studio space from the garage .... or the hall ... by the stairs .... now, i'm claiming that some of that mess isn't mine ... i asked little.e.beck.artist to wrap some christmas and she did ... and where the remnants landed, is where the remnants, the tape, the scissors remain .... on the floor .... don't trip when you come in ....

so if you were brave enough to enter my studio, and turn right you'll find ... allison! ... i wonder how long she's been trapped in that back corner!? .... my table is about 9 feet by six feet ... and we each scraped off a tiny section to work on ... the good news is, some of the mess she left there three weeks ago was still right there where she left it ... some of it had another layer of mess over it, but her birdies and feet and cut up bits were still there .... and on my side, there had been interlopers (girl.beck.artist and two of her pals had spent an afternoon painting a while ago) ... so i scraped away their mess .....
just enough room to paint ... so we painted the day away ... and then i dug out allison so she could escape on home to her own family ....

we could do a betting pool and you can guess when i'll actually get the seven dwarfs to clean up with me .....

monday grumpy gloomy and doom ...

2011-11-28T21:40:00.001-05:00

so, my monday started out not quite right .... mr.e.beck.artist was not in my bed ... instead little.e.beck.artist had decided to sleep in his spot since he is out o' town .... that's ok with me, but somehow it started me out all disoriented when my alarm trilled (generously kind description of the heinous noise) at 5.55 ....
... and it was cold ...
... and it was rainy ....
... and the last of my beloved (no kidding, awesome holiday company) house guests were leaving me ....
so my monday was starting grumpy .... mix in a soggy dog and you have the multi sensory notion of what my morning was like ...

and then i went to pottery .... and left the rest of the world behind ... i picked out a bag o chocolate clay .... even though i'm not done with the white ... i was just feeling off the white .... and i made an extra large , really extraextra large textured bowl ...

and i picked up four pieces that i had glazed last week ... they actually work great as a set .. can't you imagine having all four pieces and setting the perfect spread of apps at a big party? if in fact, you are the big party throwing type?

these pics look funny to me ... the platters are fairly modern looking ... sleek, shiny, dark ... and they are a grandma looking background ... not criticizing any grandmas or the background, for that is in fact what my christmas time dining room table has on it .... but it's not a great background to showcase pottery ... those three go well together ... you could put a long row of perfectly placed crackers on the long one ... and then special cheeses on the square one and maybe a pile of grapes and apple slices on the other .. or maybe you do fancier appetizers than i can think of .....

here's a detail of one of the pieces .... can you see the lettering .... when i see that, it seems like that's what makes it me ...

so my monday got better ...
even though my sole intention for today was to do some tidying in my basement studio and i did NONE ... so .. tomorrow ...
and tomorrow will start better too ... if for no other reason than it won't be monday .... tuesdays are usually good days, right?

2011-11-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

i was browsing the internet ... and was at my newest happy place, pinterest, when i found a piece of art i liked, clicked it, and ended up on this VERY lovely artsy crafty happy blog, summerstead... at the bottom of each post there are links to other posts you might like (how do i get that on my blog, anyone?) ... and i clicked on this ... 31 days to finding harmony ... that sounds like a me thing, right? so i looked ... and read loads of posts ... and thought i could follow her harmony example ...

so, big idea here, once my november nablopomo post every day for a month challenge, i thought i might try posting every day in december .... harmony isn't such a me word ... but peace and joy? happy days? and i'd write about my joy for the day ... maybe i could even do a ranking system ... and mindfully not get all wiggy during the holidays ... i don't actually get wiggy during the holidays, but i know it's a thing, so if i feel it coming on, i avoid it ... so how 'bout it? are you a zen holiday type? or do you get wiggy and try to do too much?

any suggestions? if you are a regular reader and blogger, wanna do it with me? help me figure out what we want to do? hmmmmm ....
if you are a regular reader and not a blogger, what do you like to read about? 30 days of joy... or wait, i think december is 31 days .... i'm still thinking about it ... i have a few days to firm up my plans, right?

saturday holiday

2011-11-26T19:46:00.001-05:00

today still feels like a holiday to me ....

except i cleaned up the pumpkins and pilgrims and indians from the dining room ....

i went bowling with my family ... including the out of town contingent .... i bowled a 99 ... that's really good for me ....

and then mom-o'-e.beck.artist and little.e.beck.artist and i made these candy cane candle sticks ....

we just used candy canes, rubberbands, ribbon and candles ....

i'm nearing the end of nablopomo ... the blog every day for the month of november challenge ... and it hasn't been hard ... maybe i could keep it up in december ... and do one tiny bit of arts and crafts decorating a day until christmas ....

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple friday .. no black ....

2011-11-25T21:51:00.001-05:00

no black friday shopping in this house .... we played games, ate leftovers and did christmas crafts ... i got started on my gift giving ..... i always try to make something for pals and neighbors ....

here's a peek at christmas ornies from 2010 ....
and xmas ornies 2009 ....
what did you do today?

today is thanksgiving .... what are you thankful for?

2011-11-24T20:20:00.001-05:00

‎'We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.' Thornton Wilder

i am thankful for cousins who love each other ...
i am thankful for family ...
i am thankful for friends ...
i am thankful to live in a place where groceries, grocery stores, and feasts are plentiful and easy ....
i am thankful for a family that helps with all the cooking and cleaning ...
i am thankful for afternoon naps ...
i am thankful for the joy and love that surrounds in my life every day ...
i am thankful for a day set aside to be mindful of thankfulness ...
i am thankful for pie ....

“I believe all joy is an extension of gratitude. If we can find something to be thankful for, no matter what’s going on, no matter how small, we can grasp the coattails of joy.”—Xian Horn

wednesday of thanksgiving week ...

2011-11-23T22:16:00.001-05:00

today i did prep for thanksgiving ...

that's me carving a turkey .... it's like being a chef with power tools having a carving knife .... at one point little.e.beck.artist said "are you TRYING to saw the glass pan?" ... well no .... it doesn't cut .... might not be good for the knife though, huh?

i got a fried turkey from church ... will roast another tomorrow .... can't have too much turkey, right?

and then i set the table for 11 .... i put the centerpiece from the month back there on the buffet ... it was too much to actually eat around ... so i just did simple low flowers .... since this pic, leaves have been added ....

adn here's a close up of the buffet .....

i love the indians more than the pilgirms ... they seem so much cuter .... i think it's the braids ....

slot machines ....

2011-11-22T21:09:00.001-05:00

i'm not even sure i believe in luck ... the prompt assumes that luck is a notion you buy into .... so ...
some lucky stuff ...
lucky that i went to emory, moved to atlanta, met mr.e.beck.artist, liked him, dated him 5 years, married him, had babies with him, had twins, could afford a house .... but that might be more blessed ... or charmed ... or serendipitous good fortune ...

oh ... here's a lucky story .... gambling ... you need luck for gambling, right?

i went on a cruise with my parents and three brothers when i was 18 ... i was graduated freshly from high school ... the oldest brother was fresh from college graduation .... there was a number 2 brother between and a number three brother, younger than i am ... got that? so all pretty grown up ....

the cruise ship casino opened once it was a certain number of miles off shore ... and there was no legal limit to gambling on the high seas ... one brother or another said, let's go to the casino .... we all said YEAH UH HUH YES ... let's gamble ...

my mom said, no, you can't gamble ..that's ridiculous ... our family doesn't gamble ...
my dad said, oh, let them gamble their spare change, they'll learn the "no good can come from gambling lesson" before we've even been at sea a day ....

now, that's not my dad's normal modus operandi ... he is SO not a gambling kind of guy .... he's more of a depression baby: count your pennies, guard your hard earned dollars, waste not want not .... but my brothers and i merrily dashed off to the casino .... come to find out we were only old enough for the slots ... no one under 21 at the tables ... i guess brother 1 could have done the tables .... but instead we cshed in a ten for quarters ... time for the quarter slots ...

here's the lucky bit.

my FIRST quarter into that slot machine won 100 dollars. truly. 400 quarters. my brothers hadn't even put in a quarter ... we were laughing and giddy like we had won a million dollars ... OH MY ... we HAVE to go show mom and dad ... who were sitting on deck somewhere ... we gathered all those quarters in little paper cups and in our hands and in one outstretched shirt ... and tromped off gleefully to see my parents ...

we walked up raising a ruckus .. MOM! DAD! ... one HUNDRED dollars in quarters ...
my mother turns to my dad .... what was the lesson you thought they'd learn ... we laughed and promised not to become gambling addicts and to save some of it and back to the casino we dashed ...

and brother 2 put in HIS FIRST quarter .... and got 100 dollars in quarters .... WHAT??? no way ....more quarter stashing in cups and hands and outstretched tshirts and back to our parent on deck ...

we were loud and happy and LOOK mom, LOOK dad ... 100 MORE dollars ... yes!

and mom looked at dad ... about that lesson? have they learned it yet?

yup ... that was some luck, right?

this was a long, long, long, long time ago ... i need to check with my brothers and parents and see how different my recollection of it is from theirs .....

zzzz

2011-11-21T21:17:00.001-05:00

nope ... no passion project for me .... right now the only thing i'm passionate about is sleep ... i just can't get enough ... i'm the queen of the second wind at 10 o'clock ....

i've had passion projects .... house renovating (success), novel writing (completion:success, succesfulness: fail), 100 paintings in a year (success), dream galapagos vacation (success), clean my basement (fail) ... oh wait ... cleaning my basement was never a passion project ... it was just a pipe dream! ...

i did pick up two pottery pieces yesterday and glazed four more ... maybe i'm passionate about pottery occasionally ... but if its occasional then how passionate can it be?

sometimes reading is a passion ... and i go full tilt reading book after book after book ... i'm going to do that now ... and then i'm pursuing some sleep ....

gifts ....

2011-11-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

a while back, i posted this blog bit ..... read this now, then come right back ..... that was three weeks ago ... my pal got married in january .... so i painted him and his new wife a painting (... and they all lived happily ever after ...) ... and then i sorta accidentally sold the painting ... fine ... it wasn't accidental ... but i sold it ... and then i forgot .... and then i remembered ... and then it was suddenly fall and i couldn't even remember when the wedding had been ... oh no, was it in the fall ? is my one year of leeway over? .... and i started a pottery class quarter and decided to make a late wedding gift .... and i did ... and then the happy couple got pregnant ... and bought a new house .... and then, hurrah! i got my act together ... and this is the note i attached to their gift ....

dear sweet friends ...

hooray you're married! ... yes, i know i'm late with a wedding gift, but i believe i'm still within emily post's statute of limitations on gift giving .... but i'm now ahead on gift giving too, because this box also includes a house warming gift AND a baby gift .... i was considering getting really ahead and getting a gift for the second baby... but decided that might be pushy .... much, much love for all your happiness: marriage, home, family .....

love, e.beck.artist and mr.e.beck.artist

p.s.i looked it up online. miss manners says when wrapping a wedding/house/baby gift in combo, to split the difference and put it all in a christmas box. uh huh, she wrote that.

... i think they liked the two ceramic pieces i gave them ... and the baby soft teddy bear .... and if they ever wondered about my dorkiness, now it's been confirmed ..... but, i am ahead on gift giving and that success should keep me going for a good long while ....

have you started thinking about christmas shopping?

.... weekend work without a prompt ....

2011-11-19T21:55:00.001-05:00

i was asked to make an advent calendar for my church ..... and there it is ... is it too tiny to read in this scanned jpg? the real miracle is that i even managed to jpg it and get it posted here .... the other miracle is that my poor printer was able to print it out after i had a wee fit at it .... oh ... and if we're talking miracles ... my deadline is tomorrow morning delivery at church and i'm not even going to have to work on it sunday morning! yes!

my month of blog writing is going well ... it does bug me that they don't have weekend prompts .... and i did no art today to blog about ... i don't usually do art on saturdays, too much family stuff going on ... so instead of an art recap, you can have e.beck.not.artist recap: i stayed out late last night, slept late today, went to a basketball game (he won!), did some christmas shopping, out to dinner, advent calendar fishing touches, and now blogging ... an easy day .... i believe from here on out it's a steep downhill fast run to new years day ... take a deep breath ... on your mark, get set, go ....

happy ... or not .... it'll be ok ...

2011-11-18T08:23:00.001-05:00

i have two kids that started high school in august ......
i wasn't ready for it ....
i'd go so far as to say i don't like it ....
last year they were at the sweet little school across the street ....
now i'm driving them across town ( i'm taking some whiny literary license here, it's not that far ) to high school where they are not babied or tended or hand held ... they are treated like adults ... and i'm not ready for them to be treated as adults ... let alone for them to be acting like adults .... i want to mother them .....
i'm good at being a mom ... i love being a mom ... i have a good mix of firm and strict and high expectations intermingled with kind and patient and loving and sweet and goofy and fun as all get out ....

i really don't want them to be grown up .... 12 forever would be ok .... but they are already 14 .... what happens when they are 24? who will i be then when i don't have them to cement my identity as mom every day, every moment ...

things that come to mind ...
if they were twelve forever, would we just be doing algebra1 year after year after year .... not sure i can manage that repetition .....

if they were twelve forever, would they ... gosh, why'd i pick twelve? that's like the worst ever age for hormones boinging around and volatile personalities and acting like they are four when you want them to act fourteen ....

if they were twelve forever, i'd never find out what could be .... and isn't that really and truly what life is all about? finding out what can be ... what's next .... what can be achieved .... even if your achievement is being able to wake up at 5.45, wake up two 14 year olds at 5.47 and be out the door by 6.00 for the 6.15am basketball practice? so if that feels like an achievement, think about all the other things ... what can they accomplish in their lives beyond today? who can they be? who can they love? whose heart can they touch? who can they help? what deeds can be done ... great or small?

interestingly to me, i have been getting bogged down in not loving that they are growing up so fast .... it has made me wistful for the little things they used to be ... but i do love who they are .. what they are becoming ... those little hints of what they'll be like as adults ....

and really, that was just the long way round to the point of this post .... what has been the happiest moment of your life thus far? .... and i will be so bold as to say, i think i'm just genetically happy ... i can get bogged down in not so happy stuff like anyone .... but then sometimes i forget the real life stuff and i'm just happy ... yesterday afternoon i was in the backyard with my dog and the wind was blowing .. gusting really .... whooshing around me ... and orange and yellow leaves were coming down off the trees .... and my tiny dog was sprinting in tight circles around my feet and i just felt joy .... i felt joy and i twirled in the the leaves ... i alternated between chasing the dog and chasing leaves .... then i wondered if neighbors were looking out their windows and seeing me twirl in the leaves and the wind with the dog ... and it didn't matter .... nothing wrong with a little joyful twirling ....

last night i had a meeting at the kids' high school ... mr.e.beck.artist went with boy.beck.artist to his peer leadership group, and i went with girl.beck.artist .... we sat in a circle and were asked to share our answers to a series of questions .... one of them (oh my what serendipity) was the same as this blog post prompt: what was the happiest moment of your life .... and i would argue that there is no happiest moment ... there might be a happiest memory, the moment you were blissfully aware of your happiness, the moment you love to relive in your memory, the moment that springs to mind when you think of "your happiest moment" .... i, however, would argue there is no HAPPIEST moment .... can't you have that supreme happiness more than once .... even a lot .... whether it is the first day at home with newborn twins .... or swimming in the galapagos with your four favorite people and penguins .... or marveling at a herd of buffalo with your six favorite people ...... or twirling in the backyard with fall leaves and a tiny white dog .... or walking the youngest to school holding hands .... i don't want to quantify happiness (nor do i want you to ... i'm bossy like that) .... let's just be happy with what we have when we have it ...to know it when you have it....to be intentional about looking for joy .... to be aware of it when it's there ... and when we don't have it, just muddle on til you find it again .... or to even work hard to find it again .....

i find it much easier to be happy than to be not happy ... not happy is such a drain for me ... but some people find happiness harder, i think ... it's easier(or maybe i mean more natural) to be cynical or flat or sullen for some people ... does it depend on how you're wired? is it a nature vs. nurture question? is it some of each ?

that was my long answer ...
the short answer:
my happiest momentS are the ones when i am aware of how happy i am and how lovely it is to find the joy in small things ...

yesterday, i played about ten games of mexican train dominos with little.e.beck.artist ... i was not trying, but i won 8 out of the ten games ... those two games that she won? those were happiest for me ... making me a grownup, huh? but i do not believe those two were happiest for her ... i think her happiest were the ones where she remembered to push the button that makes the choo choo train noises ...

here's to joy ...
here's to happy stuff ...
what's your happy stuff?

i have a crush on you ..... or not ...

2011-11-17T14:39:00.001-05:00

a list of everyone i've ever had a crush on? are you kidding? i'm 42 years old so that's probably 142 crushes ... oh wait ... i'm not 42 ... i'm older than that ... to really know how old i am i have to do the math ... every time .... my age is never in short term memory .... so if i answer too quickly it's probably just reflex ... or a lie ..... but i digress ... probably cause i don't want to talk about crushes, huh?

so let's do some research:

verb (used with object)

to press or squeeze with a force that destroys or deforms.

to squeeze or pound into small fragments or particles, asore, stone, etc.

to force out by pressing or squeezing; extract: to crushcottonseeds in order to produce oil.

to rumple; wrinkle; crease.

to smooth or flatten by pressure: to crush leather.

to hug or embrace forcibly or strongly: He crushed her in hisarms.

to destroy, subdue, or suppress utterly: to crush a revolt.

to overwhelm with confusion, chagrin, or humiliation, as byargumentation or a slighting action or remark; squelch.

to oppress grievously.

10. Archaic . to finish drinking (wine, ale, etc.).

verb (used without object)

11.

to become crushed.

12.

to advance with crushing; press or crowd forcibly.

noun

13.

the act of crushing; state of being crushed.

14.

a great crowd: a crush of shoppers.

15.

Informal .

an intense but usually short-lived infatuation.

the object of such an infatuation: Who is your latest crush?

ok then ... that is a lot of definitions ... we are meant to discuss 15a ... in definition 8, i love the word squelch ... it sounds like what it is ... like you should be squeezing jello as you say it .... i'm partial to six as well ... nine sounds horrible ...

in lieu of a crush list, i'll go with a history lesson .. i met mr.e.beck.artist in 1983 ... that wasn't his name then though .... we started dating in 1985 ... we got married in 1990 .... we had our first children in 1997 .... and now it is 2011 and my math abilities are failing me, but luckily he's a math genius and always knows how old i am, which anniversary it is, and what important dates we should remember ....

all that said, i'm currently partial to adam levine (maroon five), johnny depp, george clooney (if i were much older) and zac ephron (if i were much younger) ....

so ... ahem ... art ... i just got a commission today ... i wasn't inclined to take it since it is so close to the holdiays, but the lady was so dear on the phone, buying it for her son in law cause she'd seen my work and it's JUST PERFECT ... who can resist JUST PERFECT ... what i complement ...

and i still have a few more weeks of pottery before the holidays ... not sure i'll gift a puzzle pod, but i'm still working on them ... none done ... but the idea is evolving .... that new one on the left will fire to white .... and it doesn't need a string to keep it together ... well , i don't think it will ...

so there you go ... don't tell me who you have had crushes on ... instead, tell me about your thanksgiving plans ... i'm going to have visitors ... not just visitors, but some of my favorite people in the world ..

adulthood and god's blue oldsmobile

2011-11-16T21:20:00.001-05:00

can there possibly be a single defining moment of moving from childhood to adulthood? is it your bar mitzvah at 13? is it your 16th birthday and getting your drivers license? is it graduation from high school? college? grad school? getting married? having a baby? voting? i think it is probably a gradual thing that you slip in and out of ... i certainly thought i was adult at 16 when i started driving ... i certainly didn't act like an adult my freshman year in college when i stayed up late late late every night cause no one told me to go to sleep .... the girls on my hall played a whole lot of late night cards ... and midnight four square outside near the library .... not so adult .... i think my 14 year old freshmen are awfully grown up ... but i still remind them to brush their teeth and hang up their towels ....

this photo is from the 1924 nursing school graduation for ingeborg marie lokensgard ... she was most surely an adult....she was in her 20s in this pic .... she was my paternal grandmother ... i called her ga ... all her grandchildren did ... i remember in first grade, i went to a church school, the teacher was doing a religion lesson ... and she asked us what our image of ga was .... who ga was to us ... and i said she drove a blue oldsmobile down from minnesota every winter, stayed with us at christmas, then spent the rest of the winter in miami with grampa miltion .... i was MORTIFIED when i found out i was supposed to be talking about god not ga .... ya know the sistine chapel of god with white wavy hair? that's the hair ga had when i was little ... so there is some resemblance, i suppose ....

yellow feather boas ....

2011-11-15T17:26:00.001-05:00

i toy with the idea of being a writer ... a REAL writer ... a serious writer ... but mostly i'm a blogger ... and an artist ...and a storyteller .... the other day i was standing outside telling my pal dana something and little.e.beck.artist was waiting not quite patiently.... and dana said to her, hold on honey, your mom is in storytelling mode, watch her hands ..... and i carried on with the minute story that i made large and loud .... so when my prompt is to write about the five senses, my eyes glaze over .... sorry ...

so instead i'll tell you a story ... about leaves ... here's a wee japanese maple that's in my back yard ... it is red orange and yellow .... it is just lovely ... mr.e.beck.artist was out of town and when he got home i went out to the car and greet him ... and the first thing i did? i made him admire the tree ....

yup ... that's just the kind of girl i am ... look honey, our little tree is gorgeous ... it's perfect ... look how orange it is ... i love it .... did you notice it? don't you love it ? did you notice how orange it is ? he played along but just did not have the enthusiam i did ....

so i have another favorite tree too ... i never noticed it ONCE when it was green, or not that i recall ... but now, it is bright lemon yellow ... and the branches look like feather boas ... so, it's basically a bright yellow feather boa tree .... for the last,oh, two weeks or so, each time i see it, i say WOW or LOOK or OH MY ... and i exclaim about it's yellow featherness to my captive audience children (it's on the way to school ) .. i make them look and appreciate .... i ooooh .... i aaaaaah .... once, we saw the car in front of us stop, a passenger jumped out, and she started snapping pics of my feather boa yellow tree .... i'd gotten so i looked forward to that redlight on habersham turning onto northside .....

so ....mr.e.beck.artist and i were driving this weekend to see julia's play .... and he stopped at the light ... and he said WOW .... look at that tree... it is SO yellow ... and all feathery .... and i squealed! wheeeeeeee! we love the same tree ... i love that you noticed that tree and see the feathers .... wheeeeee! ... and he said, i do like that tree, but girl.beck.artist told me that you LOVE it and talk about it every single day ..... darn ... he just likes it ... no yellow feather boa tree love from him .... but he and girl.beck.artist talk about me and my yellow feather boa tree love even when i'm not with them ....

how are your leaves? got any favorite trees these days?

nope ... no fear ....

2011-11-14T20:24:00.001-05:00

ricki: have you faced fears and overcome them?
e: nope
ricki: why don't you face your fears and maybe you can overcome them
e: cause i can't think of any fears to overcome
ricki: you have to have fears
e: like?
ricki: like heights
e: nope
ricki: like public speaking
e: nope
ricki: the dark?
e: nope, i kind of like the dark ....
ricki: dancing in public
e: nope, i've been known to dance at target with my children ... sadly, they are all outgrowing that joy ...
ricki: enclosed spaces
e: sometimes in enclosed airless spaces i get nauseous ... like a poorly ventilated car ... but i just turn on the ac and i'm ok ....or open a window ....

ricki: bugs

e: not exactly, that's more of a learned helplessness ... i don't like killing them so i pretend to be scared of them so that someone else can "protect" me .... but by that example, i'm also scared of burned out lightbulbs, cause i always get someone else to take care of those too .... and taking out the trash ....

ricki: spiders

e: aren't those bugs?

ricki: nope, arachnids ... i sense your fear ....

e: when i was pregnant with twins i used to wake my husband in the middle of the night and tell him there were spiders in the bed

ricki: FEAR!

e: no, sleep talking ... there were no spiders in the bed, and i didn't usually remember having woken him up .... sometimes i scare him when i talk in my sleep ... i am more frightening that frightened, i suppose ....

ricki: i still sense a fear of spiders ...

e: nope, i actually try to catch spiders that are inside so that i can let them go outside ... they eat mosquitos, you know ...

ricki: snakes?

e: i actually like snakes ... we had a garter snake named rowdy when i was a kid ... it was striped .... we fed it frozen fish ... i've held lots of snakes .. that's actually odd to me .... but it's the truth ....

ricki: are you fearless?

e: nope, i don't suppose i'm that either .... but the fears i have had aren't things i planned ... like when mr.e.beck.artist had appendicitis i was ok with it ... until WELL past when the surgery was supposed to be done i was told he wasn't out yet because it had ruptured ... so i had fear for a while then .... and then when boy.beck.artist seemed to have appendicitis i had a titch of fear ... but we took him to the ER so fast that there was not chance of a rupture ... but i don't think that was fear ... it was worry ....

ricki: fear of failure? fear of success? fear of the unknown?

e: i am a planner so that whole unknown thing can bug me sometime ... but on the other hand, i like spontaneous ... so no, none of those ...

ricki: how about one of these letter a fears:

Ablutophobia- Fear of washing or bathing.
Acarophobia- Fear of itching or of the insects that cause itching.
Acerophobia- Fear of sourness.
Achluophobia- Fear of darkness.
Acousticophobia- Fear of noise.
Acrophobia- Fear of heights.
Aerophobia- Fear of drafts, air swallowing, or airbourne noxious substances.
Aeroacrophobia- Fear of open high places.
Aeronausiphobia- Fear of vomiting secondary to airsickness.
Agateophobia- Fear of insanity.
Agliophobia- Fear of pain.
Agoraphobia- Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places like markets. Fear of leaving a safe place.
Agraphobia- Fear of sexual abuse.
Agrizoophobia- Fear of wild animals.
Agyrophobia- Fear of streets or crossing the street.
Aichmophobia- Fear of needles or pointed objects.
Ailurophobia- Fear of cats.
Albuminurophobia- Fear of kidney disease.
Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens.
Algophobia- Fear of pain.
Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic.
Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.
Altophobia- Fear of heights.
Amathophobia- Fear of dust.
Amaxophobia- Fear of riding in a car.
Ambulophobia- Fear of walking.
Amnesiphobia- Fear of amnesia.
Amychophobia- Fear of scratches or being scratched.
Anablephobia- Fear of looking up.
Ancraophobia- Fear of wind. (Anemophobia)
Androphobia- Fear of men.
Anemophobia- Fear of air drafts or wind.(Ancraophobia)
Anginophobia- Fear of angina, choking or narrowness.
Anglophobia- Fear of England or English culture, etc.
Angrophobia - Fear of anger or of becoming angry.
Ankylophobia- Fear of immobility of a joint.
Anthrophobia or Anthophobia- Fear of flowers.
Anthropophobia- Fear of people or society.
Antlophobia- Fear of floods.
Anuptaphobia- Fear of staying single.
Apeirophobia- Fear of infinity.
Aphenphosmphobia- Fear of being touched. (Haphephobia)
Apiphobia- Fear of bees.
Apotemnophobia- Fear of persons with amputations.
Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
Arachnephobia or Arachnophobia- Fear of spiders.
Arithmophobia- Fear of numbers.
Arrhenphobia- Fear of men.
Arsonphobia- Fear of fire.
Asthenophobia- Fear of fainting or weakness.
Astraphobia or Astrapophobia- Fear of thunder and lightning.(Ceraunophobia, Keraunophobia)
Astrophobia- Fear of stars or celestial space.
Asymmetriphobia- Fear of asymmetrical things.
Ataxiophobia- Fear of ataxia. (muscular incoordination)
Ataxophobia- Fear of disorder or untidiness.
Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection.
Atephobia- Fear of ruin or ruins.
Athazagoraphobia- Fear of being forgotton or ignored or forgetting.
Atomosophobia- Fear of atomic explosions.
Atychiphobia- Fear of failure.
Aulophobia- Fear of flutes.
Aurophobia- Fear of gold.
Auroraphobia- Fear of Northern lights.
Autodysomophobia- Fear of one that has a vile odor.
Automatonophobia- Fear of ventriloquist's dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues - anything that falsly represents a sentient being.
Automysophobia- Fear of being dirty.
Autophobia- Fear of being alone or of oneself.
Aviophobia or Aviatophobia- Fear of flying.

e: i LOVE the notion of auroraphobia ... the northern lights are on my bucket list ... so maybe they'll scare me .... i hear they are totally cool though ... i also LOVE the notion of asymmetriphobia ... fear of asymmetrical things .... i love asymmetry .... i must be an asymmetriphile ...and i wish my family had just a modicum of ataxophobia .... that'd beat the six pairs of shoes that are currently under the coffee table ....

ricki: ok ... let's move on to the letter B fears ...

e: pass .... but if my lovely readers want to see the rest of the list, they can go here, to phobia list dot com ....

so ... what are you afraid of?

the 13th blog post in november.... curtains ....

2011-11-13T13:13:00.001-05:00

this is girl.beck.artist ... in the green room... snacking ... dressed as a show girl in her street clothes in the 50s ... she has three outfits ..... these street clothes, for chatting in the play and for rehearsing for the play that is in the play ... and a fancy formal dress that is for the opening/ closing party of the show within the show ... and western wear, her costume for the musical that is in the musical ... and the whole thing is murder mystery in a musical ... girl.beck.artist is not a killer or killed ... she is in the ensemble and just dances and sings her little heart out ... makes a mama proud .... so two of the four shows i've worked backstage with props (i take the bullets out of the gun ... if the bullets stay in the gun, like they did in the tech rehearsal, the bad guy would kill the star ... and then who knows how the story would end ... but, no bullets, the bad guy gets the gun, click click, no bullets, and the good guy captures the bad ... whew...but actually, it was HYSTERICAL when the bullets were in the gun and the detective was killed inadvertently.... ) ....

have you heard of curtains? it was on broadway .. and is very funny ....

12th day ...

2011-11-12T11:22:00.001-05:00

today is the 12th day of national blog post month ...so i'm posting every day in november ... i find it a bit odd that the organizers give prompts five days a week but not on the weekend ... we're meant to be blogging these days, but they don't prompt us? weak effort! they could have preplanned them and made scheduled posts so it wouldn't be actual weekend work for them ... so that bugs me ... mostly because last weekend i searched high an low on the website for the prompt that didn't exist ... oh well .... instead of reading more focused writing, you get my usual artsy talk meanderings .....

here is photo of my dining room table ... it is only ready for thanksgiving because this is how it looked for the month of october .. those gourds came out with our plastic pumpkins ... and the indians and pilgrims were tucked away in the side cabinet and easy to add on november 1 ... or 2 or 3 .... i have the thanksgiving decor on my grandmother's haviland china ... it is so crisp and brittle that i hardly feel like i can use it for meals .... there are dozens of saucers but only four or five remaining coffee cups ... there are dozens of finger bowls? or low berry bowls? and tiny dessert plates .... in all i have 60 dishes or so that are all five inches or less across .... makes for some easy fanciness ..... in front of that, i have the newest pottery pick up ... i got it from the kiln yesterday ... it is 21 by 5 inches .... loooooong and thin .... perfect for a row of votives ... or petit fours .... or cheese chunks .... it is chocolate clay with mexico point green glaze ... and then i brushed cream breaking read over the texture to highlight it .... this one will definitely be a gift this year ... instead of getting my christmas shopping done ... i'm doing my christmas potting .... har ...

i can't believe thanksgiving is so soon ... i need to get onto thinking about it at least ... like, which rooms to clean for which relatives ... and which pies to have ... and that's all that's important to plan... family and pie ... beyond that, it'll all just fall into place, i hope ....

veterans, beam me up scotty, and happiness ....

2011-11-11T17:04:00.001-05:00

three wishes is a lovely prompt for some writing today ...

my first wish, today, on veteran's day, is that we had no need of more veterans ... that we could figure out how to end wars all together so that we didn't need soldiers ... maybe they could all go into other areas of civil serivice ... police, fire fighters, teachers .... and the money that we use to make war could go into other parts of life too ... as long as we do have wars, i'm grateful for those that are brave enough to fight in them ... but it would be nice to erase the need all together .... is that too big a wish? maybe, huh? i decided that this was my first wish when i read this article on veterans ....

my second wish today, since apparently i'm wishing for big, big, big .... is that scotty could beam me up ... that my kids could be at school and go to the transporter room and just get beamed home .... that mr.e.beck.artist didn't have a commute, that he could just beam home and appear in my kitchen.... that would certainly help the whole fossil fuel problem and nuclear energy issues and such .... are dilithium crystals an easily renewable energy source? .... and if the whole molecular mix up of beaming someone to another spot is just to big a wish, i'll go for some harry pottery flew powder and we can all zip through the fireplaces from spot to spot ... or even a port key .... grab that geometry book, honey, it'll take you straight away to school ....

and finally, i wish that all moms could feel certain in their happiness and their children's happiness ... and that they didn't have to worry about feeding them ... let alone feeding them well ... i fixate on fruit and if my children are eating enough of a healthy diet ... and how lucky is that ... i have no worries about actually getting food in them like so many do .... i was thinking about mother theresa and her untouchables in india today as i threw away halloween candy (please, don't tell my children ... i didn't throw it all away ... just the bits i thought i could throw away without them being missed) ... some of the brutally poor in india (or countless other places, like even atlanta) don't worry about the quality of their meals but the fact of where their meal will come from at all .... they don't have the luxury of wondering if their kid will eat apples instead of junk for the afternoon snack .... afternoon snack. such an under appreciated luxury .....

this last wish came from pottery class today .... it was the last class of the quarter and it was an especially happy time ..... and we all brought snacks to share ... i took chicken salad with grapes and some wheat thins to spread it on ... there were all manner of fancy and delicious snacks ... our culture thinks very little about how easy food is to come by .... the photo above is of a plate i've made ... i imagine i'll gift it to someone who will use it for cheese and crackers .... it is a cream breaking red glaze on chocolate clay ... even my pottery materials have food words ... cream and chocolate ....

so ... i wish no wars, sci fi or fantasy transportation, and no hunger just happiness to all ....

ok ... when do my wishes come true?

... passion ...

2011-11-10T16:00:00.000-05:00

secret passions?

is that the same as favorite things?

i'm not sure about passions that seems to be bigger than what i feel about most things .... i am awfully enthusiastic though .... unbridled enthusiasm comes to mind ....

here's a short list of things i'm enthusiastic about ...

tennis .... i started playing tennis well into my forties ... and i'm making up for those forty years that i didn't play it by playing a LOT now .... in the last two weeks i've had three clinics/practices and four matches ... all the matches were with the same doubles partner ... we won three times ... this morning we were stomped on ... huge loss ... no matter ... it was super fun playing on a sunny windy cold morning amongst tall turning trees .... on monday i had three tennis events on my calendar ... a match in the morning, a lesson in the afternoon, and a round robin party in the evening ... that was a first, once a day is generally plenty ... three times a week is the norm ... i'm not even very good .... i just like it ...

family dinners ... i don't even like to cook, but i will move heaven and earth to get my family sitting around the table together for a home cooked meal .... it is my favorite thing my family does .... and since realizing this a couple years ago, i do think my cooking has improved ...

vacations ... i love going on trips with my family .... i love exotic fabulous vacations and i love the daytrip or weekend trip doing something simple vacations ... i like going going going .... i'm given this passion to my youngest who now wants to visit every continent .... so i went ahead and added antarctica to my bucket list for her .....

artsiness ... not just art, but artsiness .... i like color and whimsy and goofiness ..... like painting my own shoes .... or decorating my house with my own home mades ....

museums ... really not all museums .. but art museums ... and especially art museums with surprises ... like, when we went to yellowstone there was a museum in jackson, the national museum of wildlife art, with picasso prints, dozens of them, of animals... they were astonishing ... and a huge surprise .... and it made me feel artsier and happier for having seem them ... and of course i just looked online for a pic for you and couldn't find one ... darn ...

children ... i am passionate about children ... i am a teacher by trade ... my favorite volunteering things are all kid related ... sunday school, camps for inner city kids ... any discretionary donation type money i have goes to kid related stuff .... either through my kids' schools, my church, or other kid philanthropic organizations ...

can i say i'm passionate about not getting your groceries in those stupid flimsy bags and that you should bring your own sacks EVERY time ... i'm quirky anal about that passion ...

can i say i'm passionate about cookies? really mr.e.beck.artist is but it rubs off, ya know? this household ADORES cookies ...

can i say i'm passionate about reality tv? survivor... american idol ... amazing race .... what ever happened to the mole? i loved that ..

i think yesterdays post indicated my passion for color ... orange green and yellow especially ... this makes me think i should tell you about some of the trees right now .... today has been perfect tree color day .... if you've been with me today at all, i've pointed out beautiful trees to you ....

reading ... those last few were aberrations ... this one is real ... i am very passionate about reading ... i love, love, love books ... i'm always angling for ways to make more time to read more books .. my favorite right now is to read young adult fiction that my kids' like so we can be passionate together ...

in the comments, tell me some of your passions ... do any of yours match mine?

... classic .... traditional ....

2011-11-09T20:32:00.000-05:00

what a great question .... i love the assumption that no one's home is like everyone else's .... is there no typical? i guess from the outside, all those other homes look similar, typical, the same ... but since you have insider information on your own house, you know the oddball ... my friend maryann, who i asked to do nablopomo with me, blogged about this prompt and she did not EVEN mention the goats that she had in her yard for yardwork reasons ... she hired a herd of goats for yardwork ... and she didn't even mention it .... so sometimes you can tell from afar that a house is unique ... like 20ish years ago when i was new to homeownership and individuality and such, a pal loved purple and had an awesome purple front door .. totally cool .. that's not the usual house, right? you can just tell ...

so my house ... pretty normal ... we have two parents, 2.6 kids (that we rounded up to three), a dog, lots of dirty laundry, a junky garage, a well used kitchen table, a family room that could be called the tv room, shoes under the coffee table, lots of books, an ebb and flow of full and empty fridge ... all (i think) pretty typical stuff ...

but we have some not typicalness to our home ... some stuff that seems just us ... like, my house is a little bit like a crayon box explosion .... crayon box both in color and target audience .... our house isn't mature ... i like bright and happy and whimsical .. my favorite piece of art is a fish on wheels .... my favorite furniture is a bright orange couch .... my favorite light fixtures are colored retro bubbles ... i have orange yellow green and turquoise walls ... and that's just the main floor .... my garage is painted green ..... my kitchen chairs are all different colors ... my at the moment favorite decorating item is candy .... how beautiful is a big glass jar of red hots ? ... i have an orange christmas tree (that i'll show you a photo of in less than a month ... or you can archive back to last december) .... i have a flying pig in the front yard ... and giant metal birds .... i have four welcome mats at the back door (kind of like a path of welcomeness) ...

when we took down our halloween decorations, the mantel was empty so we decorated with potato heads .... they are kind of our go to decoration for november .... between the orange joy of halloween and the (orange, ) red and green of christmas we go potato ....

the santa suit mr. potato head is upstairs still, waiting for christmas .... but the easter bunny is front and center ... right next to yoda tater and the iron man .... can you see darth tater? he's standing on the books on the right (just beneath mona lisa's orange shoes) .... one november the potato heads didn't get put away ... those with hands were just given candy canes to dress them up for christmas ....

in many ways, i think our home is exactly like lots of other homes... typical, traditional ... in some ways, this colorful, bright, happy, quirky spot is like no other ... not quite typical, not exactly traditional ... but you do have to admit mr. potato head is a classic ... making my decorating style quite classic as well, right?

trauma vs. no trauma

2011-11-08T22:36:00.002-05:00

i am participating in nablopomo ... national blog post month ... personally chosen as an alternative to nanowrimo (national novel writing month) because i just don't have a novel in my right now ... and to help with blogging frequency ......not to mention, i just like to write, and feel like i'm trying to find my voice/my style/ma raison d'etre un auteur .... so the day's prompt, above, is about trauma .... and i'm not about trauma or drama ... i'm a matter of fact kind o' gal ... well, a matter o' fact gal with a story telling streak .... so .... i pass ...

instead, we'll go with my blog's original purpose of "here, let me show you what i painted today so you can tell me you like it, mom and allison and roberta" ... but now, more than mom and allison and roberta read my blog .... so here, everyone else, look what i painted!

these are two wee collages that were commissioned by a pal for some new babies .... that's a nice new baby gift, right? every girl should grow up with a reminder of her greatness right there hanging on the wall of her room .... no trauma ... just a happy reminder of inherent goodness ....

happy landing

2011-11-07T15:11:00.002-05:00

i recently read an article on studio moms called to balance or not to balance .... and basically the author says striving for balance isn't worth the effort cause we can't do it ... go read it ...

ok ... did you read it? i get it ... but i don't agree with it ... because sometimes i do feel balanced ... like i have all the right amounts of the different parts of my life ... no part is boxed out ... no part is taking more time and attention than i want ... that though it might not be fifty fifty balance ... or 20 20 20 20 20 truthfully, it is balanced because i am living intentionally and accomplishing what i choose to accomplish when i choose ...

and i do know that i have balance sometimes because of the startling lack of balance at the moment ... my twins have started high school and the demands on my time are extreme in comparison to last year ... so that put me off balance in that i'm driving more, parenting more, helping more, worrying more ... and that last one? worry? i never used to even have that show up much ... so now to have it really messes things up balance-tifically speaking ....

basically, i feel like i'm back to newborn twins ... sleep deprived and wondering if i'm doing this parenting thing right ... and once the sleep deprivation appears things fall like the way side ... like the menu planning that i'd just started getting good at ... but if three out of five aren't home for dinner, what's the point? and if you don't have a menu plan, the whole grocery store thing seems to be harder .... and the next thing you know, you're out of toilet paper and have to go get that instead of finishing the painting that you've been trying to finish for eons ... or what seems like eons ...

but the good news is, it's not the end of the world if the laundry is taking over the upstairs hallway ... it's not the end of the world if you have another sandwich night ... it is what it is ... and you work on figuring it out ... and you work back to feeling balanced ... which really just means liking how your life is feeling/going/playing out .... making intentional choices ... not letting the most important things fall by the wayside and dropping the things that aren't doing it for you ....

for my kids, when things are hard, i say just make it to next week .. next week this hard thing/test/paper/tryout/audition will be over ... do your best and make it throught ... so ... unbalanced, you have the coping skill to just tell yourself to do your best and you'll make it through ... when you're balanced, you've made it through and are happy with where you've landed ....

happy landing ...

day light savings ...

2011-11-06T20:56:00.002-05:00

are we now standard time or day light savings time? i don't know the difference .... i think we are saving light by changing the hours so i don't have to do morning carpool in the pitch black ... but it just means instead i'll be driving home from basketball practices in the dark .... either way? i was a time change failure today ...

last night when i went to bed i changed my clock ... it's a new clock that i got because i needed a reliable alarm for the new school year .... i was ok with unreliable a scant three months ago ... so it's new ... and i'm dumb ... because then at 2 am (i presume) the clock turned itself back an hour .. which means i was actually central time ... which is bad ... cause i'm eastern time zone ...

so ... i woke up and my clock said 6.02 ... and my mind went ... ah ... it could be 7.02, but instead, i'm going back to sleep ... well ... it was 7.02... and should have felt like 8.02 ... but i haven't slept that late in eons ... so i never could have guessed that ...

i went back to sleep ... and woke up at 7 ... which was really 8 ... and should have felt like nine ... and i thought i had ALL the time in the world before i had to get ready for church .... so, i grabbed my book and went and got in sophie's bed to read .... cause i knew she'd be awake and reading .... and we read and chatted and i asked her what time her clock said and she said 10.30... and i said THAT"S CRAZY ... so is it 9.30? even that's crazy ... it must be 8.30 and you changed your clock the wrong way .... so now we're running late for church let's get moving ... and i did ... and not long after she came running into my room ... i was shampoooooooing ... MOOOOOOOM it is almost ten and you have to get out ... and ... i didn't believe her ... and continued to shower at my leisure .. and then andy came in and explained how four different clocks had four different times and no one knew what time it was ... oh dear .... so i'll just put the conditioner in while you two run around like lunatics who don't know how to tell time ....

cell phones change times without help .. all the cell phones say it is ten o'clock ... and you, MOMMY, are supposed to be at sunday school at 10 ...

ok then .... good thing church is a one minute speed walk from my closet where i was quickly grabbing church clothes ....

so ... instead on an extra hour of sleep, i accidentally tried to get two ... and ended up with none, and late, late, late .. just like i am every spring when we change the clocks ....

so why do we change the clocks? it really bugs me ...

... oops ...

2011-11-05T21:55:00.002-05:00

i just got home from a party ... after a long day of being out ALL DAY ... i am tired .... boy.beck.artist asked me to watch a show with him ... i get an extra hour of sleep tonight (so do you) so i decided i should watch the show ... cause i like to say yes to him ... cause i say no a lot ... saying yes feels nicer ... he and i get along better when i find reasons to say yes ...... so, if i'm going to watch a show with him (chuck on dvr) i can check my email, which i've not checked ALL day ... and in that roundabout way that happens with a laptop i ended up browsing the internet and OOPS ... it is the fifth day of blog every day month and i haven't blogged .... but now i have ...

on the art front, today i worked in the theater arts ... backstage at a tech rehearsal ... show opens thursday ...

and the party i went to was an auction/dinner dance ... i had donated two pieces of pottery and three collages ... which is good, cause i fear i'll die at 102, a little old lady with no cats, but with thousands of paintings in her basement .... as fears go, it's a small one at least ....

squinting to see the good stuff ...

2011-11-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

i've been a bit discombobulated lately .... but i'm trying hard to get recombobulated ... to get my ducks in a row .. to see my glass as half full ... or squint and see it as more than half full .... and then? today was awesome ... there were bumps, but again, squint and you can avoid seeing the bumps ... why talk about the bumps when there's much more important good stuff ...

today, for a wide variety of reasons that weren't exactly out of my control, but were more just bad planning on my part (ducks not in a row) , i was late to pottery class ... i knew i wasn't going to be able to get there til noon ... and class started at 10 ... bummer!! ... i was just going to skip ... and told my pal that ... and she said she was going to miss me ... and i thought about it, and i only ever see this happy friend on fridays at pottery, and i decided i'd just go late ... ya know what, i'll come at 12 just to see you ... and she said, if you come at 12 just to see me, i'll bring you lunch ... oh! beat that! my friend is going to feed me .... yay ... all this was done by text when i realized that i was calendarly challenged ...

so at noon today i got to pottery and saw my pottery pal and we acted all gleeful like we hadn't seen each other in five years even though it had been exactly one week minus one hour ago .... and we did a little pottery work ... and chatted about our non pottery things ... and then she fed me ... she pulled out a bag o' picnic .... turkey sandwiches, fancy chips, tiny little clementines, cinnamon apples, chocolate covered coffee beans, butterfingers for dessert, and raspberry iced tea .... how lucky am i? everyone should be so lucky as to have a friend that takes care of you this well .... let's just talk about those cinnamon apples ... there's a new taste sensation for me ... she cut up an apple, put it in a baggie, sprinkled in cinnamon, and gave it a shake ... so, so , so , so delicious!

and then we did a little more pottery ... i glazed six pieces .. that's a picture of five of them .... how cool is that loooooong skinny one? if you put snacks in a long line on that they'd look like art, huh?
so there you go .... a happy pottery day for me even though it was way shortened by my poor calendar skills ... and saved by a dear friend with a picnic ... when's the last time you picnicked?

NAtional BLOg POst MOnth ... nablopomo wants to know about my writing preference ... short answer: when i am writing to be a grown up writer with a purpose, i adore my computer .. and can't imagine doing it long hand with a pen ... however, i LOVE to write ... i love pens .... i love colored felt tip markers ... i love fine sharpies ... i love fat sharpies .... i love colored pencils ... i love handwriting ... i love letters ... i love making elaborate beautiful lists ... i love goofy little grocery lists that never get to the grocery store with me ... i love to write notes to my family ... i love to write love notes to my family ... i love to write things on notes and hang them randomly around my house because no one sees a note and doesn't read it ... being a note makes it noteworthy ... around my computer spot on the kitchen bar i have care bear notes and angel notes and these thick brown recycled paper notes .... i love writing notes ... now, if i had read all those notes to myself, i wouldn't have had the calendar issue this morning .... but then i wouldn't have gotten to have a picnic ... nice how it all works out ....

... learning ...

2011-11-03T20:11:00.001-05:00

i think we all learn new things every day ... but we don't always know it since we aren't really paying attention ... we are not being intentional about learning our "one thing" so sometimes when we learn it, we forget to revel in the moment ....

for instance, and this is completely off topic to this blog post, but, for instance, today i learned that my little.e.beck.artist is much more of a ham and a performer than i ever would have suspected.... she is in a puppet show ... in a drama showcase ... and she is the princess .. THE princess as she told me ... and as they wrote the puppet show, the group named the princess gloria ... cue my daughter singing the 1982 (billboard #2 spot) disco anthem gloria, gloria by laura branigan ... and then, because the puppet princess has long locks she breaks into "i whip my hair back and forth, i whip my hair back and forth" ... a la willow smith, 2011 .... not sure if it's on top of any chart ..... i also just learned that disco branigan died in 2004 ...

so ... learn something every day ... at my last pottery class, my lovely teacher brought in a sculptural piece of ceramics ... it looked like this ... please go look at it ... i didn't want to steal the image from the smithsonian ... and here's another similar one .... the cermamicist was brad miller ... and carol had taken a class from him long ago ... and had bought a piece similar to the two in the smithsonian ... hers did not have as many pieces .. nor has she ever untied the string for fear of never getting it back together ....

I LOVE IT .. i loved it ... i badly wanted to untie the string and touch the separate pieces ... and put it back together just so ... and then she taught me to make it .... yes she did ... that was my something new that day ... learned about the artist brad miller .. and learned about using flour, yes flour, in my pottery ... to keep the pieces perfectly formed to each other but not stuck to each other ... it was totally cool ... i was so excited to learn about it that i was finishing her sentences trying to figure it out myself rather than just sitting politely and learning ....

i floured my clay and made my artsy little lump ... the one that i saw was so sensual and sleek and organic ... it looked so vegetable it was hard to believe it was mineral .... mine ... well ... it looked like a tall doughnut... or wheat bread ... or ginger snap dough ..... but, i'm just learning ...

so, usually, i make pottery in class and i leave it there to dry and it eventually goes to the bisque kiln .. but not this one ... i brought it home to babysit ... and put it in my studio and promptly forgot i'd brought it home .... so much for babying it ... but yesterday i happened upon it and my heart sang ... i had a clay lump with flour coating and it looked cool ... and i picked it up .. and it was a titch stuck together, but without much effort i got my bits separated ... yay .... and then i put them back together ... yay ... and then i separated them ... yay ... and then, yes, i put them back together ... once i was sure i could do that, i worked on smoothing it .. buffing it ... burnishing it .... the artist brad miller put his pieces in a softly lined rock tumbler ... a tiny cement mixer sorta thing .... i'm pretty sure i don't have the spare pocket money required for that investment! ... so burnishing it will be ...

anyway, i don't know if this one will turn out REALLY how i want it ... there are already things i would have done differently ... change the clay color, make it bigger, more pieces ..... but, for now, i think it's a groovy experiment ... it's been sitting on my kitchen counter now for 24 hours ... and my family has one by one marveled at it ... just 2 minutes ago, mr.e.beck.artist, just back from a trip (loudly)said WHAT's that? .... i smirked .... no really, what is it .. he said he thought it was clay but that it kinda looks like squashed together cinnamon sticks .... oh, it's just art, honey .... and he asked, is it supposed to be a pepper ... no, not exactly ....

and tomorrow i'll go to pottery ... and get it bisque fired ... and glaze some other pieces .... and maybe make a new one, right? bigger? more pieces? squashier? we'll see ...

i do not listen to music while i write .... but i do have gloria earworming me ... at least it isn't the whip my hair song ....

... food for thought ... well ... not really ... but it sounds good ....

2011-11-02T19:57:00.002-05:00

if i knew that whatever i ate next would be my last meal, i would want it to be ...
-at the kitchen table
-with my family
-cooked by someone other than me

that's what i strive for every night ... but generally, i get two out of three .... at the kitchen table, with my family, but, alas, i am the primary cook these days ....

i'm pretty sure the question is meant to get a food response, but i don't care much ... pizza if we want it to be boy.beck.artist's favorite ... tacos for girl.beck.artist .... pasta for mini me, little.e.beck.artist ... maybe salmon for mr.e.beck.artist ... but me? i'm not ever sure i have a favorite .... i'd pick bagels ... or raspberries ... or watermelon ... or ice cream .... those are my favorite foods ...

favorite meals?
-when mr.e.beck.artist makes scallops (i've never cooked scallops, if we have them, he does it)
-when little.e.beck.artist gets the waffle irons out and makes multiple shapes of waffles for all of us ....
-when boy.beck.artist does chicken or tilapia with potatoes ...
and then there's girl.beck.artist ... i don't think she has a go to meal .... she's more like me ... perfectly helpful and fine in the kitchen ... but wouldn't choose it ..... if i can't cook, she's the last one i ask to make dinner for the family ....

what's your favorite meal? do you like to cook? love to cook? prefer to be cooked for?

so ... the nablopomo is funny ... it makes me think about questions i wouldn't normally think about ... or normally write about on this blog ...

so let me update you on my artsy life ...
i just donated pottery and paintings to an auction at my church ...
i'm partially done with a commission piece ....
i have pottery waiting at the pottery studio to be glazed ....
and today i won my first tennis match in a long time .... it might not seem like that's artsy, but in general, when i don't get my daily art done, it's because i played too much tennis ... ha ...
tomorrow? no tennis ... definitely madly need to get some art done ... so i shall ...

trick or treat to ho,ho,ho

2011-11-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

halloween is over .... so it's either time to sneak all the snicker's out of the kid's halloween treats, or it is time to move on to the next thing .... my next thing is pottery ... and actually christmas too .... i have recently brought home eight ceramic pieces that i've made in the last few weeks .... varying sizes ... you can see the dime in each picture to give you some perspective ... the bigger the dime looks, the smaller the piece ... and i think each of these will be christmas gifts .... but, lest i misguide you into thinking i'm all organized girl, two of the pieces are not going to be christmas gifts, they are wedding gifts .... a very, very, very late wedding gift for very dear friends .. who have been married so long i'm pretty sure they don't expect any more wedding gifts .... oh well .. i hope to have it to them by christmas ....

uh oh .... something new to try .....

2011-11-01T15:26:00.003-05:00

why do all the cool things happen in november ....
like ... thanksgiving.... third thursday of november ....
like ... eat all the reese's out of your kids' treat bags ... nov. 1 ...
like ... eat all the snickers ... nov. 2 ....
like ... fine i'll eat the whoppers on nov. 12th ...
like nanowrimo ... do you remember nanowrimo? i thrilled you with my escapades ...
here's where i'm getting ready to write a novel in november 09 ...
here's where i am CLEARLY delusional about the writing adventure ....
and the half way point of nanowrimo ....
and the post where i declare i CAN do it ....
and my I DID IT post ....
and then... if you keep going to newer posts (because you are so anxious to catch up on what my december 2009 was like) you can see all the commenters asking when that book will be published (soon, right?) ... well ... hope you weren't holding your breath on that one ... the book , which was (is?) titled all i want, is still languishing on multiple computers (so as not to be lost) ... i go through editing frenzies ... i really love chapter 1,2,3 .. and maybe four ... but my ending is week ... my story ark is flat ... i love it ... and want it to be good and publishable ... but try as i might, you can wish something to fully edited ... you actually have to edit it ... and edit it ... and edit it ... and my sporadic stirred in with some crabbiness just isn't getting the job done ... last year for nanowrimo, i considered participating again cause i really truly DID enjoy it .... everyone should have one year of national novel writing month .... it's a pull yourself up by your boot straps kinda thing .... but this year, i got the email, oh november is almost here, and it never crossed my mind to do it ... i need to either fully commit to the last one getting edited and done ... or fully commit to ditching it ... quitting it ... leaving it ... and i'm not ready ... i still like those characters and i really want them to have a better story ark( ... arc ... i think ark fits better but i know it's arc ... ) ...
so ... no oddly syllabled frenzy for me this month ... until ... i catch word ON NOVEMBER FIRST about the existence of another writing todo ... a hooo ha ... a grand hoo ha ... a grand hoo ha of multi syllabic oddness ... yup .. nablopomo ... i spent a bit of time this afternoon looking at the website ... oddly intrigued ... and yep ... i can do that ... i had a big blog lull ... and i've just gotten back into it ... but (BIG.BIG.BIG.CONFESSION.here) i've been cheating ... i sit down and write five or six or TEN blog posts and schedule them forward .. so they post at lovely perfect intervals .... without me having to write every day .... is that cheating? maybe .... in fact, the other post today? i wrote it a week ago ... pretending that i knew what the day after halloween would feel like .... uh huh ... tomorrow's too ... all posted up ... and here goes nablopomo messing up the schedule ...

but i'm in ... all in ... cause i like to write .. and i like to have it so i have to write ... for instance, if i HAD to write every day and edit that last novel, i would be done ... but, don't have to, so i don't ... it's hard, so i don't ... no one's paying attention, so i don't ...

but this? hopefully my pal maryann is paying attention ... i think she's doing a post a day with me ...
less pressure than a novel ... and i'm not giving up on what i've already written .... she too has a novel in the works .. she nanowrimo'd with me ...

so ... just to be official ... what's my favorite thing about writing, day 1question ...
well ...
1.when i talk, someone talks back (except when i'm talking to the dog) ... writing is much more forgiving ... you can delete and rewrite and edit and get it just so .... so, in some ways, easier than talking ....
2. i have lots to say
3. i love how it feels to be sitting at my computer and thinking stuff up ... i don't think i'd be as good a writer if i were in the olden days with a pen ...
4. three was a lie ... i journal ... and write with a pen all the time ... but it's different writing ... more doodley and more private ....
5.so, if i don't really answer the question, do i get in trouble? i'm guessing not ...

welcome to november ... where once again i say, i think i want to be a writer when i grow up ....

.. yummmmm .....

2011-10-31T18:14:00.000-05:00

i think i like candy so much because the wrappers are all my favorite colors ... i've had this bowl of candies for ages to give away today ... i haven't eaten any .... i'm waiting for my spook to come home with some reese's ... they're wrapped in orange ... orange is my favorite , ya know ....

what's your favorite color ... what's your favorite candy?

boo ...

2011-10-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

little.e.beck.artist went to a halloween party ... she tried on the horse that she wore a few years ago when she was a cowgirl ... it didn't fit ... she grew, the horse did not .... so she's wearing a costume from out of the halloween box ...

i did not take this picture, but i love it dearly because boy.beck.artist looks so scared ... and dixie the dog does not ....

for years i wouldn't let my kids be creepy for halloween .... i hate creepy ... i hate gross even more .... but when the twins, boy.beck.artist and girl.beck.artist were in fifth grade, they ganged up on me ... enough of the baby costumes, mom ... they wanted to be a zombie and a ghoul ... complete with hoods and fright masks ... i relented ... they were creepy .... it was fine ... i was fine ... the world still sailed around the sun ....and now, there's my baby recycling one of the costumes ..... she would never have picked creepy on her own, but since it was in the halloween box and the horse didn't fit, the child that i could always count on to be a fariy or a princess or a ladybug or a good witch is all creepified .... they all grow up ... hopefully she'll still share her candy ....

halloween house 2

2011-10-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

i know that halloween is a popular holiday now a days ... particularly compared to when i was a kid .... didn't we just carve a pumpkin? i don't think we had a box of decorations for halloween like we did for christmas and easter ... life is so commercial and i bought right into it when i started my own home twenty plus years ago ... i have dedicated decoration boxes for valentine's, easter, 4th of july , halloween and christmas ... i have a tiny bit of thanksgiving/fall stuff that stays in the halloween box ....

see the four little pumpkins up there above my stove? that's how i like to decorate .... here's something you don't know about me ... i don 't love halloween ... i don't love the ghouliness of it ... i don't like witches and skeletons and zombies and scary stuff ... i love pumpkins though ... i love all things orange ... so the pumpkininess i'm good with ... in my house, no witches, no monsters, no creepy things ....

boy.beck.artist made that pumpkin pig on the left above .... about ten years ago ....

there's my dining room with the fall decorations ... i'll keep the table like that through thanksgiving probably ... oh ... the back right, on the buffet? big orange bowl... do you see that ... there's what i like about halloween ... the candy ... that's my trick or treat candy bowl ....

what do you like about halloween?
if we're going to be very specific, my favorite part of halloween is how happy the kids are dressed up ... and reese's peanut butter cups ....

halloween house ....

2011-10-28T08:35:00.000-05:00

one year, when i was working very hard at being an artist, my new year's resolution was to paint 100 paintings in a year ... i think i ended up painting 140ish ... and selling almost 100 .... in that era (as opposed to the economic recession AND older kids make you much busier era) i used to put each new painting on the mantle to try them out ... here's a flickr set of the mantle metamorphosis .... so i'd study them a while .... now i just have one up there permanently .. the stuff around it changes, but the pictures been there more than two years ....

now we are ready for halloween .....

we have more than our share of pumpkins ... most of those are from a dollar store run a dozen years ago ... got them for some game i was leading at the kids' school .... this year for the fifth grade party i've signed up to help with we are doing mummy relays ... the only party supply i'm in charge of is toilet paper ... that kinda cracks me up ....

here's a picture of my front door ....

this is the first year that we've dressed up our pumpkins ... pumpkin witch, pumpkin pirate, and pumpkin zombie in chains .... from three different costumes, three different years, three different kids ...

yes ...

2011-10-24T17:42:00.000-05:00

has anyone noticed that i have posted every day for the last 14 ... that's two weeks ... that makes up for the weeks and months of summer when my blog languished in inactivity ... and got all dusty .... maybe makes up for it? a little ?

no new art to show you today ... but, the show i had a week or so ago went great ... i sold my most recent painting ... this one:

and i sold lots of my smaller ones .... and one other bigger one ... that i'm not sure i've ever even taken a picture of ... i can't find it on flickr or in my iphoto cache .... i'm far behind in showing you my pottery ... so i'll try and snap some pics of that next .... and i'm due to finish a few things for various commitments, so once i get on them, i'll show you those too ... ok then .... happy day to you and yours ....

... kindness ...

2011-10-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

so .... apparently on my wood series , i have a kindness theme running through them .... and i didn't even know it til i started to blog them .... this is about 8 inches square ... vintage rural map on playwood ....

i think i need to research aesop ... was he really a guy ... or is he a bunch of stories and sayings attributed to a single name? and why only a single name ... is he like cher? prince? madonna? most people have more than one name ...

no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted .... aesop ...

that sounds like it could be a mother theresa quote too ... she was a one name kinda gal til she had the mother added on ...

... be ....

2011-10-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

this is about 4 inches wide and 14 inches tall .... there's a sawed out bit at the top .... it's a piece of plywood that jesse at lowe's cut up for me .... he didn't make the divot ... it was there when i brought it to him ...

be kind
be careful
be happy
be helpful
be honest

i've put these words on quite a few paintings and collages ... but never on a piece of wood before ... they usually sell quickly ... i think the words resonate with people .... hopefully even with imperfect reclaimed wood, someone will want it ....

... be kind ....

2011-10-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

i was talking to a friend about values ... really we were talking about the poor values taught on tv .. even on little kid shows there are just disaster people who are portrayed as funny .... whiney is funny ... mean is funny .... disobeying your parents is funny ... girls are supposed to be pretty ... boys are supposed to be tough ... all things that don't ring true at all ....

i said, just to cut through all the junk, i try to teach my kids to be nice ... nothing is as important to me as that ... be nice, kids ... be kind .... it will get you out of some jams ... someone comes up and is being confrontational? just be nice ... it should diffuse the not nice ... so .. be kind ... be kind to me, be kind to each other, be kind to your pals, be kind to people you don't know ... that kind of covers everyone then, right? be kind ...

number two on my list of expectations for my kids? be smart ... but i didn't make a collage, a sign or a painting of that .... work hard, learn stuff, be curious about stuff, read a lot ... be smart ...

i recently read an article ... it said the vast majority of japanese parents say they want their children to be successful .... the vast majority of american parents want their children to be happy ....

i want my children to be nice .... in the long run, i suppose it will make them happy too ....

what's most important to you?

... love deeply ....

2011-10-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

so jesse at lowe's runs the big ole saw contraption that can cut giant boards ... is that a band saw? a circular saw? a cabinet saw? i'll have to ask jesse when i go back ... anyway, i had this sheet of ply wood i needed cutting up so i just took it to him and said i'd like this cut into different sized bits .. can you do this ... i don't want regular sizes or really even any the same, so just zip zip zip and you''ll be done ... he couldn't do it ... he whipped out his tape measure and gave me multitudes of perfect squares .....only on the last row of his cutting did i say can i have some that aren't squares? so .. mostly squares ... alas, i try to go outside my box with the wood, and unknowingly he tucks me right back into my box of safe squareness ... i believe that the last 200 or so canvases that i have bought have ALL been square ... square i am ....

love deeply .. pretend it's not a square for me ....

hahahahahahahahahahaha....

2011-10-19T18:00:00.000-05:00

this is done on a smidge small piece of two by four... and it's probably almost four inches tall and a bit more than two inches wide ... a tiny little reminder to laugh .... at yourself ... at your kids ... at your dog ....at a book or tv show ... jolly frivolity laughter ... laugh more ...

... unlocked ....

2011-10-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

this is a 24 inch square canvas ... it is very textured ... with gesso ... what tool you ask? well ... to get all that texture i used the most fab tool ... a plastic bag ... a target bag to be more specific ...

i fell in love with the texture and then just wanted to keep it all rough and yummy like that .... so i just had it sit around in my studion for a while so i could watch it (it didn't do anything or change a bit) ... so after some admiring i decided to go simple ...

three little iconic bits to tell a story .... two of them all sleek and slick in contrast to my background .... one of them a pop of red ... big pop of color ....

let's call it a metaphor ... what's it mean to you?

... miracles ....

2011-10-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

there are no miracles for those who don't have faith in them .... that's a french proverb ....

i think it ties right in with optimism ... if you think something grand is going to happen, isn't there a better chance that it will than if you were a pessimist sad sack and thought it could never happen?

are you an optimist? do you believe in miracles?

masterpiece ....

2011-10-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

this is from ephesians ... you are god's masterpiece ....i try to keep that in my head ... well, not so much about me, but more about other people ... particularly other people that are bugging me ... to try and have a little grace ....

my kids go to a church school .. oh ... went ... two of them have moved on ... but, in a lower grade, it was back to school night and all the parents were sitting in the fourth grade desks ... listening to the teacher talk about the daily routine in her classroom and what they were going to learn ... then she asked if we had questions ... one mom said, what's your classroom management system or really, what do you do when my son is being badly behaved ... that sweet, sweet, sweet teacher said ... well, the first think i do when a child is being unruly is remember that he or she is created in god's image and one of god's masterpieces of creation .... that usually makes whatever they were doing not so bad .....

even if you don't have ephesians2.10 in your faith , cutting someone some slack seems like a good idea ....

... sunshine ....

2011-10-15T18:00:00.000-05:00

do you have people that are like sunshine to you? that you can count on to light you up? make you happy? fill you with joy just by seeing them?

i do ... i have lots actually .... my kids definitely ... and my husband ... and usually my dog ... but not when i get that why haven't you walked me in so long look ....

i also have some pals that maybe don't know ... or maybe they do ... that just seeing them makes me happy that they are like sunshine... some friends more than others ... some people just spread good karma and happy feelings ... do you have friends like that? the one you call when your skies are cloudy ... or the one that you see regularly ... or the one that you miss when you haven't seen her in too long?

this is a wee collage on wood .. i think it is about six inches tall and three inches wide ... are two by fours three inches? i don't think so? maybe this was a one by three and i just got a snip off the end ... i wonder what the rest of the board is going to be? a table, a fence, a shelf, a house wall? jesse at lowe's has been collecting srap bits for me ... love that ...

winnie the pooh ....

2011-10-14T18:00:00.000-05:00

christopher robin said to pooh bear: you are braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think ....

thank you a.a.milne .....

i called out to little.e.beck.artist in target today cause i didn't see her ... and she walked up to me kind of exasperated ... probably annoyed i'd lost track of her when she was just right there browsing and shopping .... she said WHAT do you need ... i really didn't need anything and i said, i just need you to love me forever .... and she said ok , no problem, i will love you forever ... and went back to her shopping ...

no problem, she'll love me forever ... i wish everyone remembered to say nice things more often ... like christopher robin ...

... perfect ....

2011-10-13T18:00:00.000-05:00

another collage in my series on reclaimed wood scraps .... rather than going to the landfill, here it is .... all arted up ....

the size is about 8 by 12 i'm guessing .... bigger than a dictionary page, anyway ....

you are perfect at being you .... don't we all wish we could hear that though? .. knowing it is one thing ... hearing it is another thing entirely ... and i suppose if we heard it more we might start knowing it and believing it ....

... surprise them ....

2011-10-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

this is another in my series on wood ... i think it is about 8 inches square ... the map is from a fat book of metro atlanta road maps .... the sentiment is just a wee bit of encouragement .... you can do it!

... keep looking

2011-10-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

... i've begun a series of collages on wood .... this one is about 8 inches square ... on a thin plywood that i got jesse at lowe's to slice up for me ... into manageable pieces ...

keep looking you will find it ... what are you looking for? at the moment i'm looking for time .... more moments to do things i want to do rather than the moments that are squashed together FULL of the things i have to do ...

... amazing ...

2011-10-10T21:09:00.000-05:00

.... ok .. i'm trying .... i've been squeezing in painting time ... but not yet squeezing in blogging time ....

but i'm trying ... and you are amazing for sticking with my sporadic blogging .. i dedicate this collage to you, faithful reader .... and if you aren't a faithful reader and have just stumbled upon this post, that's ok, i'm sure you have amazing qualities that i just don't know about yet ...

so ... i've been trying to work on wood lately ... reclaimed wood .. scraps .. recycled stuff ... so, though there is no wood showing in this pic, i promise it is there, behind these collage papers ....

birds ... and feelings ... and allusions .....

2011-09-06T08:02:00.001-05:00

this is a 12 inch square canvas .... dictionary pages in the back ground ... some letter stamping for extra texture and illusion of hidden secrets .... allusion of hidden secrets ... i believe i mean allusion ... but the allusion could be an illusion as well, huh?

this painting has a much different feeling to me than most of my paintings .... what feelings does it call up for you?

eleven

2011-08-31T19:11:00.001-05:00

summer in my life has ended even though labor day isn't here yet ... my kids have been in school for two weeks as of today ..... the twins started high school, little.e.beck.artist started fifth grade ..... life rushes ahead full tilt ... how did they get so grown up so quickly? i never stepped foot in a wading pool this summer ...played in no sprinklers .... blew no bubbles ...created no sidewalk chalk masterpieces ... we did do fabulous things ... but they are more grown up things .... alas ....

but .. with the summer closing out, my family is returning to routines ... i had set aside painting for the summer ... and now i've taken it back up ... now if only i can make it part of my routine again ... i'm hoping! ..... i have a shop expecting a fresh batch of paintings ... and i have a wee show in october that it would be nice to have some fresh work for .... for me it always help to paint with a purpose ..... now i just have to carve out some regular time for it ...

at the top of the this post is "eleven birds" ..... a 12 by 12 canvas with old decrepit dictionary pages made fresh and blue ..... i started it last week when painting with my best pal al ... and finished it yesterday when she was painting with me in my studio (or in my catastrophically messy basement that i call my studio ... but that's a different post ) ..... my intention is to move back to more blogging to mirror the more painting ..... let's just cross our fingers on that one ....

how did your summer go? were you artful ... or art full? will you start something anew with labor day upon us and ending our summer fun?

.... this and that ....

2011-08-21T09:42:00.000-05:00

i have updated my book list for 2011 ... i am well into the 60s .... i'll surely make 100 by the end of the year ...

i have actually been in my art room multiple times in the past few weeks ... in.the.art.room..... must mean summer is drawing to a close ... my big kids started having school obligations so my little.e.beck.artist and i spent some time on some crafts ... and some tidying ... now i really need to get organized if i'm going to get serious about some art time ....

i have a deadline, august 29th, for the fifth year anniversary of the deadline painting group on flickr ....

allison and i are painting together this week ....

i'm doing a tiny show in october ... so i need to get some pieces finished DESPERATELY ...

not to mention, the shop that's carrying my work locally, reinspiration, is moving from a good location (near forsyth fabric and ikea for y'all in the ATL) to a great location (virginia highlands area) .... so i need some fresh work for there as well ... and i have a pal opening a bakery and she want some cards ... like birthday cards to go with the cake or cupcake you are buying ....

summer time ....

2011-08-01T20:18:00.000-05:00

i've taken the summer off from art endeavors ... i've been hanging with my kids and traveling a bit ... i'm almost done with my galapagos blog .... and i've just updated my reading list for 2011 ....i think i'm on track to read 100 books this year.... and ... more importantly, my kids start school in two and a half weeks ... so my plan is to have art to show you in three and a half weeks ... so, before the end of august i'll be back to my painting self .....

e.beck.galapagos ...

2011-06-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

hello dear kind art blog readers ....
i am taking a small hiatus from this blog, to blog elsewhere ....
i have started a blog called e.beck.galapagos.... i'm thinking you can guess why ...
i'm trying to be all organized about it and have a new post drop in every morning at 8am for a month... 30 days ....
i'm not technologically savvy enough to know for sure that it'll happen quite like that .... and though i think i'll be writing it for 30 days, my trip is just a fraction of that time ... i just think it's gonna take about 30 posts to tell the story ....
so ...
if you miss me here,
see me there ....
happy trails ...
back in a flash .... as fast as a giant galapagos turtle can cram a rolly suitcase into the overhead bin on its air galapagos flight......

book blog

2011-06-07T11:46:00.004-05:00

hi ... i've just updated my blog page that lists the books i've read ... i've not done well keeping up on a book to book basis .. but i just updated a huge stack that's been sitting on my bedside table ..... so, we are up to the minute now on my book reading ... i've just read book 41 of the year ....

wrap it up....

2011-05-24T07:42:00.007-05:00

yesterday's post was about the happy path ....

right now, for me, my path is the gift giving path .... many gift giving occasions are cropping up ....a while back, i asked girl.beck.artist who at school we should be giving end of the year gifts to since the twins are graduating 8th grade after 12 years at the same school ... so she wrote a list .... with 22 names on it ... oh my!

sorry, boy.beck.artist, hope your people are on the list, cause that's more gift givingness that i can handle .... we ended up adding three more people to the list ... and ... when you have a list that long, you really have to make the gifts ...

so i set out to make pottery for them all .... it was actually very fun ... and funny .... all the peoople in my friday pottery class ... and at my monday pottery class where i was moonlighting to make sure i got it all done, knew that i was on a quest to make VAST amounts of similar pottery in one quarter ... with a deadline ... pottery and deadline don't generally go in the same sentence .... they all were keeping up ... how many are done? how many are bisqueware? how many need their first firing ? how many do you still need to make? .... multiple pottery pals were emotionally invested in my obsessive compulsive pottery making .... no lollygagging at pottery this quarter ... i was working hard ..... i got the 25th finished just last week ....

and really? wrapping 25 gifts was the most trying part .... then it took two shifts each for the twins to tote them to school and deliver them ... cause they aren't small gifts ... they aren't light either .... that pic above is the second round to be delivered ....

now i have some graduation gifts to finish making ... and then wrap them up ....

and then it is on to father's day ... hmmmmm... what should i make ....

.....what's your path? ....

2011-05-24T07:30:00.002-05:00

things have been presentful lately ....

presents for my birthday ...

presents for mothers day ....

lovely and fun and happy gift GETTING experiences ...

but really?

i prefer giving gifts ....

don't get me wrong ... i love getting gifts ... especially from mr.e.beck.artist and the kids ... they go all out in the picking of the perfect thing .... but for the most part, i prefer the giving ... i like the deciding what to give, the (usually) making of what to give, the wrapping, the giving, the happy surprise ....

yesterday i had lunch with two girlfriends ... one i see a lot ... one, not so much lately .... all three of us brought the other two gifts ... isn't that kind of funny .... no one needed a gift ... or needed to give a gift .... but we all walked in and out with two ...

i like that .... nice to have friends who think like you, huh?

so one, her birthday is coming up ... so i called it a birthday gift ... the other, got a birthday gift just cause i wanted to draw a cupcake on the card too... her birthday is in the fall (um, i think) .....

when i thought of the words to put on this painting i gave yesterday, i was a little miffed that i had never thought of them before ....
that should be my motto .... how have i never thought it up before?

choose the happy path ...

you are amazing ....

2011-05-18T19:41:00.003-05:00

sometimes it's nice to hear that someone thinks you are great ... or cool ... or fun .... or amazing ... you probably know exactly who in your life thinks you are amazing, but it's still nice to hear it, huh? ... maybe even nicer to hear it from someone that you don't know holds you in such high esteem ....

now, let's do the flipside ..... go tell someone that you think is great, that they are amazing to you .... they'll like hearing it, huh?