Every Now and Then You Need To Overhaul Your Life

Ever fall into a massive rut and have absolutely no clue where to start digging yourself back out? Yeah, that about sums me up these days. I can pinpoint exactly when it started, which while helpful to know, doesn't really do much to get oneself OUT of the mess.

So, I'm making a couple of changes.

On Friday I signed up for Sparkpeople.com to help me deal with the fact that I put 37 pounds on since the knee gave out last September. (Happily, I'm not that far out of whack on my caloric intake, it's mainly the intake vs. activity ratio that's off, so getting rid of that shouldn't be too hard, providing that the knees hold out.) Yay for that!

Also on the list of things that fell off the map when the knee gave out was housework. Time was I made my bed every morning, did the laundry when the basket was full ("doing the laundry" in my world includes both washing/drying AND folding/putting away, not just one or the other), made sure the dishes were washed every night, scrubbed the bathroom every Saturday, etc...

Yeah, this stuff tends to fall behind when you can barely stand up, let alone carry laundry baskets up and down stairs, kneel on the floor to wash the tub, you get the point.

As a result, the place is what I consider a complete disaster. (Okay, it's a little cluttered, but mainly it's desperately dusty and in dire need of a good sweep/mopping. Except the bedroom which, as my father would say, looks like a bomb went off.) It's also at the point of "Dear gods, where do I even start?" which is horrendously overwhelming.

I was talking to my friend, Susie (of myfinancematters), at a BBQ at our friend Kacy's yesterday, and she mentioned something about "shining her sink", which of course made me curious. Turns out there's this website, FlyLady, that is essentially that. After reading through a bit of the site last night, I signed myself up. I need some sort of accountability, direction, and really someone to tell me that “no really, you don’t have to do everything all at once and it doesn't have to be perfect”.

It helps that it’s not only endorsed by, but is being done by at the same time as two of my oldest and dearest friends. Even though I’m twelve billion miles from everyone, there’s some sort of connection to my sisters, which helps a whole hell of a lot. Even if it is just “hey, we’re all shining our sinks today”.

Wish me luck!

*drool*

Neil Gaiman tweeted the link to this site earlier today. Oh, the delicious urban decay! I suspect I'm going to be lost in there for a while, now. :)

A good day of readings

I love the it when I have really good reading days, with positive things. :D Thank you to everyone who requested readings and donated. All very much appreciated.

I will try and remember from now on to either set them later in the day, or have the window open later, for the folks who either don't have internet access at work or whatnot. I may even, on occasion, try and do an announcement ahead of time, so folks have some kind of warning.

Anywho, before I start rambling, thank you again! :D

Reading Day!

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the trees are being very green...

I think I feel like doing Ogham readings* today. One card draw**, donations appreciated, email me at podroznystudio@gmail.com. (You're welcome to ask in the comments, however Blogger doesn't allow tiered replies, so the answers could get a little wonky. It's the one thing that makes me sad about this site.) As usual, all answers will be given within 24 hours, window is between now and 6 PM tonight.

Ask away and feel free to tell friends you think might be interested. :)

* Ogham, for the unfamiliar, are a divination system based on early Irish tradition similar to the Norse runes. They are "the language of the trees", as it were. (For example: Beithe, or birch, is the tree of new beginnings or renewal and Duir, or Oak, is the tree of strength and stability, a good solid grounded approach.)

**I'm legally obligated to make the note that readings are for entertainment purposes only, not to be taken as serious legal, medical, etc. advice, instruction, substitute for professional consultation, I'm not responsible for what you do with it, etc. etc., you all know the drill I'm sure.

The Trees Are Calling...

Ever notice that your best ideas happen in the shower? I love that, though I do admit to a small hate for a lack of waterproof paper. I should do what a friend does, and keep a kid's bath marker in there for those moments of "Ah-HAH!" (Only mine would more likely be pictograms, whereas his are complex mathematical equations. I'm not kidding. I love my friends.)

What was this epiphany, you ask? Well, you see, I've been puzzling over how to get myself out of this little rut and start doing something productive and possibly lucrative at the same time So there I was, shaving my legs, when my brain, out of the blue, made a pronouncement.

"Why not do a ten for ten thing?"

"A what?"

"Ten for ten. Ten trees for $10."

"Huh. Ya know? Not a bad idea."

"I know." (My brain, it is terribly humble.)

My brain sometimes being smarter than me, I think I'll listen to it and do just that.

So, on that note, The Deal. I'm offering to do 10 one-of-a-kind Foxentrees for $10 a piece. (Normally originals are a bit more.) These ones are standard pen and ink, unmatted. (I will do color and/or matting on request, but each will cost an extra $5 per.) Shipping is $3.

Broken down:

1 5x7, pen & ink Foxentrees, unmatted: $10,
Matted: $15
Color: $15
Color and matted $20.
Shipping: $3

Interested? Comment below or email me at podroznystudio@gmail.com (Payment will be through PayPal, as usual.)

Oh TD Banknorth, How I Love Thee...

Have I mentioned that I love my bank? No really, I adore them.

So, the other day while purchasing a paid Skype account, there were a few issues getting my credit card through, in that it was rejected several times before finally accepting. While annoying, eh, shit happens and it's me and technology trying to interface. Then, last night, I tried to acquire a copy of a book I sort of need for some of the adjustments I'm making to my Reiki practice (I'm still working to get it back closer to it's Buddhist/Japanese medicine roots) through Amazon. I got an email informing me that "We're writing to let you know that we are having difficulty processing payment for the above transaction".

Hmm. Something's not right. Today, we went to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movie (which is FANTASTIC, btw), and it was declined. Fortunately, this possibility had been planned for, and so wasn't a big deal. It did, however, mean I placed a call to my bank as soon as we got home.

I will reiterate that I love my bank. Seems they got a notice that a business they couldn't inform me of (legalese blah blah blah) had had their security compromised, and so the course of action taken to insure that all card holders in the range would NOT have their information stolen, was to automatically freeze the cards. While vaguely annoyed that a notice wasn't sent out, I'd rather be annoyed at finding out my card was frozen while trying to purchase something than find out by having the mothballs in my account stolen. I'm very happy that they swiftly dealt with it to ensure this wouldn't happen.

I'm also happy that I do not have to wait a week for a new card, I just have to pop in to one of the branches and they can issue me a new one on the premises, and that the phone call to deal with this took me approximately 6 minutes of speaking with a very pleasant and polite woman.

Yup. <3 Banknorth...

In Which Our Heroine Realizes She's Backing Herself Into A Corner Again

One of the difficult things about writing a blog is that it's often difficult to know what to write about.  There are tons of folks offering advice and giving "rules" and what "should" be written and how and why.  Some say that your blog should have a specific topic that you write about and that you should only ever write about that.  Some say it's okay to include some other things, but just a little, as your blog is supposed to be about that one topic.  Others say you should write about whatever it is that you want to write about, the others be damned, so long as you're not boring.  Some say blah blah blah...

Now, we all know how well I follow rules (ie. not very well).  However, sometimes it would be nice to have good, straightforward answers.  On the one hand, I did sort of start this as an art blog (of sorts), but on the other I've been having a really hard time writing lately, as I don't ALWAYS do something artsy.  It's becoming another sort of box, and man, I really hate those.  I've been feeling very one-dimensional, and that's not a very good feeling.  I am more than my art, as the diversity of my explorations should give a hint to.  I have other things that I do:  I'm an avid reader, a Reiki Master, fortune-teller (I end up using the Tarot more often than not, as that's what people are familiar with, but my real love is the Ogham), and sci-fi geek.  I'm also unemployed (self-employed implies I actually make money ;) ), a trained, licensed, and insured massage therapist who isn't able to work in her field.  That cane leaned against the Beech King's trunk last fall?  Yup, still need to take that with me whenever I go for walks longer than a mile on good days.  Bad days I need it to move around the house (fortunately, those are few and far between for the most part, now).  I'm a LARPer chick and I play D&D....  Yet I never really talk about any of that.  Alright, I write about them a lot, but then I delete them before I hit "Publish Post".

Well, I'm sick of it.  From now on, I'm going to write about other stuff.  I'm going to talk about how I spent several hours pulling up tiny maple trees from the labyrinth in the side yard, because the maples around here are...enthusiastic...about procreation and the yard looks like I should find Wild Kingdom being filmed out there.  I'm going to occasionally offer card or Ogham readings (and yes, sometimes I'm going to use only the Ogham, because I love them and they're obscure and I'd love to share this alternative form of divination with people, simply because it is so lovely to me).  I'm going to tell stories about my adventures in LARPing (and if it was a particularly good event, I may even share pictures of the spectacular bruise I got while fighting horrible monsters in the woods and defending mankind with plumbing supplies and birdseed).  Some days I may talk about the difficulties of being 34 and disabled enough to not be able to work in my field, but not disabled enough to qualify for assistance.  I may talk about life with an "invisible illness", and how people only see a young, seemingly healthy body, so clearly you must be faking needing that cane or exaggerating not being able to stand for more than an hour or two without being in great pain for the rest of the day.  I'm going to talk about what book I'm reading right now (currently reading both "In the Cities of Coin and Spice" by newly titled NY Times Bestselling Author Catherynne M. Valente and "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul" by Douglas Adams).

Really I'm just bored with being in a box.  My life isn't circumnavigated by my art, and I am more than an art blog.  I know myself well enough that when I reach this point of tedium and frustration, I turn into a whiny, petulant toddler, stamping her feet and yelling "I don't wanna!" at the mere thought of doing what I'm "supposed" to be doing, and that's about where I am.  Since I don't want to take it out on the Foxenwood, which I love, or my camera (that needs new batteries), the solution is to change the scenery a little.

So, that's just what I'm going to do.  So there.  ;p

Sometimes I really am still 5 years old, playing with lions...

Ever Wanted a Vintage Makeover?

"I'm tempting you with fine gifts until your girlish ideals are quite worn away."

Hell's Belles Makeup Artisty (aka, Erica Hellier; aka my step-sister) is teaming up with Concetta's Closet for a vintage makeover contest.  She does a truly fantastic job, and I think people should totally enter to win.  Feel free to spread the word!

Concetta's Closet

Hell's Belles Makeup Artistry

Ugh. Rain...

This charming shade of grey has been my world for the last three days:

According to the weather people, this is pretty much what we get to look forward to for the rest of the week.  Even the trees are depressed about this, and it takes a lot to convince a maple tree that rain is bad.  See?  It's wilting:

Me, I'm chewing on vitamin D gummies, have more or less hooked up a caffeine IV, and have every light in what passes for my living room turned on in a desperate bid to maintain a semi-tolerable mood.  (Somewhere along the line I became solar-powered and am rather adversely affected by a lack of sunlight, in that horribly depressed and bad-tempered sort of way.  Yay.  This is why, despite my love of the Pacific Northwest, I do not live out in Washington State.  Really, if it wasn't for the fact that the boy will never consent to leaving Massachusetts, I'd be perfectly content to move to, say, Hawaii.  Sunny and warm year-round... How can this possibly be bad?  Plus, ocean nearby. Win!)  That I can't go for my daily walks isn't helping much, either. Especially since I know I'm likely to pay for it in increased knee issues.  *sigh* 

All of this leads to a terrible case of malaise and complete lack of motivation to do anything productive.  The dampness keeping things chilly doesn't exactly help my desire to hold cold plastic pens and play with water.  It does, however, make me consider the relative merits of wrapping myself in polar fleece blankets and curling up on the couch with books and cats.  Cozy, but not very useful.  I did make the corrections on the Foxentree last night, though, and got started on the next one.  If I can get my butt in gear I'll try to convince Wotan to get a decent scan in today.

Someday it will be sunny again?  And summer?  I like sunny and warm.  It makes me happy.

Color Comes to the Foxenwood

"Where are you going?"

So, aside from needing to fix the fox's eye (brush slipped...grr) and get a better scan (Wotan and I were in a fight yesterday, it seems, and it did NOT want to scan for me), Foxentree the First is more or less done.  Yay!

Today, eyeball break and catching up on Doctor Who.  A friend just told us that you can get current episodes through iTunes, so we (the boy and I) don't have to wait until the season is done to get it from Netflix.  I think this is a perfect use for one of the iTunes gift cards that we got for Christmas.  With the torrential downpours that is today's weather, I think this is a good day for curling up on the couch and watching good TV.  Later, I'll get started on the next Foxentree and it's twelve thousand tiny leaves.

Follow-up On The Mill

Remember a while back I mentioned about the paper mill across the river from me?  Well, I've got some follow-up on that.

Last week I got up Monday morning to the dulcet tones of bending steel and breaking concrete.  At first I though it was from the next in the series of bridges to be rebuilt (Pepperell seems to be fond of bridgework.  That, and the sound of construction.  I've been in cities where there is less construction going on, and this town is probably about the same size as, if not smaller, than the town I grew up in!), but soon realized that it was too close and coming from the wrong direction.

It was the mill.

Yesterday evening I went for a walk around the block (which takes me along one side of the mill), and saw one of the gates open and a demo crew still working.  So, I walked over to the gate and waited patiently outside of it until one of the guys, a foreman, I think, came over to see what I wanted.  I asked if they were taking the whole thing down (yup, they are), and inquired about my chances of getting a couple pictures.  He pointed at the guy just coming out of one of the buildings in full haz-mat gear and looking like something out of Session 9, which really sort of summed up the answer.  Those suits + age of building = one thing:  Asbestos.  Do not want mesothelioma, thanks.  He also said the buildings were so structurally unsound that there was no way in hell I'd be allowed inside the fence, let alone the buildings themselves.  Insurance, and all that.

So it is with great sadness that I release my hopes of getting in for some photography.  *sniffs sadly*

Edit:  A friend just sent me a link to a news article about it in the local newspaper.

Tiny Leaves Haunt My Dreams...

Hey look!  Not dead!  

My weekend hobby tends to be a bit brain/time/body intensive in the week leading up to and after, so I didn't get really anything done last week.  Finally got my brain back online last night, though, and have at long last begun the process of redoing the Foxentrees onto the watercolor paper.  Probably about halfway done with with the original Tree, though OH GODS THE TINY LEAVES!!!  (For some reason I feel compelled to redo them in the same order I started, though seeing how far the Trees have come in technical skill is amusing me...damn the original draft was AWFUL.)

Apparently my tendencies toward details lend themselves to painting very many individual leaves, which is bad enough on it's own, but oh dear gods, this one is in Fall so there are not only tiny green leaves, they must also have the reds and yellows, too!  

I'm pretty sure I'm a little nuts.  Thankfully I'm almost done with the detail portion and after that is the pale color wash.  Then I can continue on to the next five trees.  (At least...those are just the ones I've already done, not however many more there will end up being, which even I have no clue.)

Yup.  Nuts.  At least I'm cute?  Or something.

Right.  Back to the leaves...

Today Was A Purple Day

As much as I hate the infestation, I have to admit, they are rather pretty...

Violet and friend

Yellow Violets?

Grape Hyacinths 

On Libraries and Temples To Old Gods...

It's a reasonably well-known fact that I am a librarian's daughter, and that I spent much of my childhood in and around the town library in some fashion of another.  Hell, in addition to generally being around, I substituted there on occasion before I was technically legal; when we switched from the "sign your name on the line" to "Here's a number", my number was 4, and even served as the secretary of the Junior Friends of the Library committee.  I spent hours after school entering books into the new-fangled computer filing system.  I remember being terribly excited about this new program called Inter-Library Loan, that meant I could request books from *gasp* other libraries (which, when your library is so small it only has a few thousand books, including the children's section, this is a HUGE THING).  My mother started the Sunday morning Story Hour in our library.  As I write this the original Story Bear, Pookie, who was purchased from a small toy shop that was only open in town for about a year and who was named by suggestion box drawing, sits on the back of the couch, watching me.  (I keep thinking I should donate him to the library, but I just can't part with him.  The library now is not the library I knew, and I can't be sure he will be given the proper respect he is due.)

Why the reminiscing about my childhood library?

Local Artist Find!

A little while ago, I wandered my way up the road to the Rite-Aid.  On my way back I noticed an "Open Studio" sign propped outside one of the doors on the little brick business building here in downtown Pepperell.  Being me, curiosity got the better of me and I made my way up to the top floor where I was greeted by a collection of lovely Impressionist style paintings.  After a moment, a small, slender man came out and introduced himself as the artist, Matthew Gray.  He works in the old school style of painting en plein air, and has been making a rough living for the last 8 years or so almost exclusively off of his paintings and the occasional teaching gig around northern New England.  He paints scenes from around the area, up on the coast in Maine, and other locations, and in all kinds of weather.  Sadly, he doesn't have a computer or website, but I was able to find this  from the town library, which does showings occasionally.  (Look up the definition of starving artist, and you may find his picture there.  There might also have been an offer of painting lessons in exchange for a hot meal, which I may take up if I can budget an extra mouth to feed.)

In the "Doing What I Can To Help Local Artists Feed Themselves" category, he'll be doing another Open Studio the weekend after Mother's Day (I believe that's May 14-15) if anyone would be interested in checking it out.  Same location as today, upstairs of the building which houses the Pepperell Spa restaurant and the Auto Parts store.  He does nice work and seems like an okay guy from the all of 45 minutes I talked with him.

There you have it, my adventures for today.  :)  Now, lunch.