From Chaos Comes Happiness

  Phil is out of town. Has been all week. We have a few more days until he returns . . . and I can't wait. My brain is full. This happens from time to time. I sit in silence, but the thoughts keep coming at me full force. I can't work them all out. Usually, when he is in town, I can bounce them off him. He listens (or maybe sometimes doesn't), but he is physically there receiving them. Right now, not so much.  So I am sitting in my living room this very minute, windows open with a gentle breeze coming in and out, the sounds of cars driving by, birds singing, neighbors talking, and my own two girls playing Barbie's all taking place in the background.  And me . . . the mind is just going.  So I thought I would capture these thoughts . . . as many as I could . . . in no particular order. Thoughts like . . .  I am so grateful for that dishwasher. I wonder how many times other people run theirs? I wonder how often people have to get new machines. What is the going a...

              A cardinal has been hanging around my house lately.  Last week he visited for three mornings in a row, usually around 7am. I heard him chirping away, calling out for his friends, as I sat at the kitchen table taking my first few sips of coffee.  Each day I tried to take a photo of him. The one above was the best I could take - because each time I pulled out the 'real' camera (with the awesome zoom lense), he'd fly away. Almost as if he was saying, "Nope, I am not here for that. I am here just for you ."   I got smart, and started to leave the camera on a little end table in my living room - with camera out of bag and lense already on, I was ready for his close-up.  He didn't come by the two days following. Darn Bird.   So me, my Cardinal, and my little iPhone camera meet up.  I love when he comes by. Because I feel like he is my Dad, checking on me. Just letting me know that he is around.  I still ...

            There are not enough hours in the day.  No where near enough hours in the day.  And certainly not enough hours in my day . . . to make art .  Today, I felt it. This ache in the pit of my stomach. It happened around 6:10pm, after I arrived home from work and before I walked out the door to Ella's Brownie meeting. It was somewhere between stuffing Goldfish crackers in plastic sandwich baggies for their snack, or preparing for their Brownies art project by cutting plastic flowers off of stems. But somewhere around that time, I caught a glimpse of a mixed media piece hanging on my kitchen wall, and I felt this ache start inside of me.  I miss my art.  I've been in a creative black hole since the holidays. Once everything was done with the holiday fairs and vendor shows, I packed up one plastic bin of remaining art work and product, and closed the lid on the 2014 season. Since then, I have focused on the new job and home li...