75th Post - TA-DA!

I began blogging solely to participate in an online book club, The Next Chapter, that was beginning a book on creativity in women - a subject I was especially ravenous for. When I started into blogging I really had no idea what I might discover. Years ago when I first accessed the internet I had gotten into some quilting Yahoo Groups only to be disappointed and even hurt surprisingly. I had tried MySpace much to my disappointment and frustration and I had started YAHOO 360 which disappeared and then Multiply and finally Facebook seeking somewhere I could interact and communicate in an online community.

THIS is my 75th blogger post (counting the OTHER blog I'm not quite sure what to do with - digital/computer/electronic details are NOT my forte or I'd figure out how to import the posts there over here to the Studio). TA-DA! If I'm pretty consistent I MAY be able to log 100 for my 1 yr. 'blog-iversary' (is that what it's called?) December 26th. :> Pressure! Feeling a little here...just a tad. Usually totally laid back - I really want to hit that #100 for the year. Somebody 'blog-slap' me if you notice me putting up posts lacking quality and value just to add a click on the counter, K? I don't want to sacrifice quality for quantity under any circumstances.

What do they call that in the business world? Hmmmm...I've got it! (SNAP!) It's a foundational component of MY personal corporeal 'culture'. Perhaps it's time I have a Blog Culture.

Studio Lakeside Culture Statement

Authenticity, truth & honesty are priority: NO BS!

Quality over quantity: Value is not inherently attached to numbers . Rich is more than a monetary assessment. Sometimes less IS more.

Faith trumps fear: EVERYTIME!

Serenity: Accept what can't be changed.

Courage: Change what can be when the time is right.

Wisdom: Know the difference between what must be accepted and what & when to do something different.

Respect diversity: Variety IS the spice of life.

Generosity: Aggressively encourage stomping out stinginess.

Abundance in mercy and joy.

That's a fairly accurate summary. I reserve the right to make additions and changes to the above, tweaking when necessary. Does your blog presence have a 'culture'?

Welcome TA-DA! Tuesday #12

I'm a little bit late,
An almost perpetual state...
Mid-day, plenty of daylight left in it,
Not quite last minute.
It really is Tuesday still
And I'm hoping readers will
Share with me a TA-DA!
And beg a deserving HURRAH!

I sometimes amuse myself considering the irony of things I surround myself with in my 'home', like this little guy at the juncture of the foyer, hallway and the family room. Isn't he just adorable? And just in case a guest or visitor doesn't feel embraced with his happy greeting, around the corner to the left on top of an old credenza are these guys -
And that's not all. I must have 7 or 8 (maybe more) little signs that say 'Welcome' sitting about under my roof, not to mention the 'yard art'. What does that REALLY say??? Don't YOU think that's kind of overkill?

This is not new for me, or even just recent. Recently a box of 'stuff' that had been being held on my behalf since separating from my ex by my oldest daughter came back to me and in that 'stuff' were brass, porcelain and wooden pineapples - door plates, salt/peppers, bowls and other containers - from back in the day having discovered the pineapple was once upon a time symbolic amongst colonial and mariner's families as a sign of welcome and hospitality.

And yet, I don't have near the 'open house' readiness these signs and symbols would seem indicative of. Even for my Dearest Darlin's too few and far between returns to home I'm always scrambling to transform the evidence of my negligent housekeeping into a gleaming sparkle. THIS past weekend when he arrived I was still behind on the transformation but his first words to me were - and this is the TA-DA! of today's post - I'd obviously been doing some heavy cleaning. I think what prompted his remark more than anything he saw, was the scent of bleach water having just drained from the washing machine and some standing in the kitchen sink to sanitize some 'questionable for ever using again' dishware. UGH! Maybe I ought to bathe in CLOROX, ya think?

Anyway, it was good to hear that verbal approval despite the fact that I was still WAY, WAY shy of MY image of 'welcome home, darling'.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to welcome in a friend, one of the members of my beloved book club, for an afternoon of one on one quilting class. I'm not near ready either as teacher or hostess and my private fantasy that this first session as a presursor to a group evening Friday with some of the other gals might open my door for many future afternoons/evenings spent fostering and sharing the pursuit of creativity is splintering. I wonder what makes you feel truly welcome?

TA DA! Tuesday #11

TA-DA! I'm sitting at my desk and I WILL post SOMETHING this morning and cross my fingers and HOPE someone else comes by and has a comment to share that is more significant and more triumphant than I can manage today.

I'm grumpy and discouraged. I started about 3 additional blog posts since last Tuesday's TA-DA!, but do you see them here???? NO!

I tried to get into Wishcasting Wednesday - what do you wish to say Yes to, I think it was - but even after reading some really fine wishes and casting an affirmative agreement with the wisher, I just couldn't get into the spirit of it. One of those little voices, you know the ones that get portrayed on TV commercials and in old movies sitting on opposite shoulders speaking directly in one's ear, anyway - one of those, kept telling me wishing was a trick writers use in fairy tales and involve genies and bottles or fairy godmothers and unless you believe in all that malarkey if you desire something you might consider wishing you just have to make the concentrated effort necessary. So, all my efforts at wishing rose like little soap bubbles and then one by one got POPPED as if they;d collided with prickly cactus.

On Thursday I began a post amid stalled progress and the paralyzing effect of perfectionism driven procrastination on getting my family room drapery done and realized as I was writing that I could and ought to be just sewing and steaming and hanging the durn things instead of writing about it. So I deleted what I'd begun and started a new post intended to motivate myself with an invitation to a virtual visit, welcoming you inside. And then I had to laugh at myself over that one! Me, the self confessed decor magazine addict. HA! I was no sooner going to finish and hang that drapery than I was going to have to jar the entire image by putting an eyesore piece of furniture into the MOST PROMINANT spot in that room in order to make space in the OTHER room to begin moving my 'studio' to its new location in order to accomodate Darlin's kin when they come here to live.

Then, Sunday, I was going to blog about ironic stumbling blocks. I was reduced to tears and mumbling swear words because I couldn't manage with my arthritic fingers to switch my vacuum cleaner from floor pickup to the hose attachment for upholstery and clearing cobwebs from the ceiling corners. During the prior week I had moved a loveseat - not heavy but bulky - without any assistance from the front room into the bedroom after much struggle. Getting it through the narrow bedroom door was like birthing a breech baby - it had to be stood up on one arm in a hallway, guided 'round a corner and then carefully slipped through an opening that no amount of laboring was going to make any bigger. I had also moved our MONSTER weight - comparable to a Volkswagon, okay, I exaggerate a little but it is about the size and weight of my ex's old Harley Lowrider - antique clamshell sleeper sofa, back and forth across the family room 3-4 times (like pushing that ol' Harley UPHILL out of gas) before finally admitting defeat and recognizing I could not have it, a hexagonal 60 inch mahogany 'game table' w/chairs AND the eyesore sofa necessary to incorporate into the room AND the recliner and two occasional chairs thus having to then remove the table top and its pedestal base. I'd done all that shuffling about - moved the big eyesore sofa from the front room to the family room - and I CLEARLY recall when the eyesore got put into the front room it had taken two hefty 20-something year old guys to get it there - all by myself. Plus unloaded, moved and re-loaded and over full 6 foot tall book case and now I couldn't slide a FLIPPIN' SWITCH on the vacuum without the assistance of a screw driver or pliers?!?!

Then yesterday I called 'home' to check on my sister and then intended after getting a report to call Mom at the nursing home and whaddya know but Mom answered the phone at the house! She'd come home from the nursing home last Wednesday and NOBODY had told me! I felt like the kid skipped over while on a bathroom break when birthday treats got passed out in grade school.

So...it may sound like a stretch but it really, really is a TA-DA! just to post a blog for me today. What's yours?

TA-DA! Tuesday #10

Another Tuesday...what's your TA-DA! today? Today my biggest TA-DA! is: my bed is made!

(chuckling to myself how insignificant that MUST sound) Really, that is absolutely a TA-DA! for me. Living alone 90% of the time I hardly EVER 'make' the bed except after laundering and laying on fresh linens. Otherwise it seems a total waste of energy and time to me. I've found though since having rearranged my bedroom furniture to put my desk/office in the room it's become more of a 'living space' than before. Not to mention the bed is now in the center of the room instead of against the farthest wall from the door and now I SEE it when I pass the door. And it's ever so much lovelier made than not.

However, more meaningful to me today than a TA-DA! is an AHA! moment I had while chatting with a dear friend last night online. We were talking a bit about the struggle it sometimes is to get to be your true self amongst all the 'editors' in our lives - husbands, parents, siblings, children, teachers, church people, etc. all have an image of us tied to THEIR image of their selves that we're expected and often DEMANDED to reflect to properly reflect and enhance their own. Consequently, should we fail to perfectly fulfill those expectations we become inadequate in the eyes of others and often our own as well. They want to cut and paste and delete and insert so much of 'us' that we end up feeling like an accident casualty. We spend so much time exposed to cuts and abrasions in the exposed skin of our souls we end up feeling like I remember my younger sister looking after a motorcycle accident several years ago - raw with road rash and chunky with gravel and stone embedded in the skin on the entire backside of her legs and butt...or even worse, road kill. As I was chatting with my friend, attempting to be encouraging, it hit me - often when we feel that way we are not just so much 'road kill' but rather like the creations of a 1st class gourmet chef...rack of lamb, prime rib or filet mignon and those at the table are vegetarians. There's a salad bar for them...personally, I prefer the full menu.

TA-DA! Tuesday #8

Another Tuesday and I wish my TA-DA! were having gotten Mom's house in sufficient order to satisfy the home evaluation necessary to allow her to go home from the nursing home but my efforts were inadequate and the job was WAY too big for my nearly 3 week prescence - 6 weeks wouldn't have been enough what with time spent negotiating and debating with my other 3 siblings who I felt overpowered by since they reside so near and my life is so far away.

What's YOUR TA-DA! from the past week? I know Connie and Christine had their Creative Dig Workshop happen in Cleveland this past Saturday and Heather got to go...(color me green with envy). Did you start anything new? Finish something that challenged you? Get inspired or amused by something unexpected?

My big TA-DA! is I'm back home again! I'm SO delightedly happy to be back to: MY chair, MY bed, MY super starry night sky, MY kitchen, MY bathroom, MY desk and computer. MY wildly untamed back yard with it's scrubby oak framed view of perfect sunrises & MY studio space. But change is on the horizon I found out...Dearest Darlin's son has asked him to allow he and his wife of just over a year and her two young sons and a baby on the way to move in here, probably just after the first of the year. I have 'power of veto' but can't imagine using it so am starting to think of how to live with a young family in the house - moving my desk to the bedroom and what to do with my 'studio' space if it's to become a bedroom again. Darlin' suggested moving it into the front room but I fear (there's that ugly word of challenge) having it exposed to 'terrorist pre-school boys' who could quite possibly not only wreck things but would make it necessary to be concerned about child proofing and protecting them from my scissors, rotary cutters, chemicals, etc.

And so...while I didn't get to bring home my newly acquired easel and have to wait for it to be sent, I'm finding myself with the fresh perspective that my home is in its way my easel with each room a fresh canvas. Unfortunately - some of the canvasses are spec work and I can't be totally original and ME in them. But, oh boy, will I pour my heart into the ones I can!

TA-DA! Anyway!

I know I said I would be on hiatus but I JUST CAN'T RESIST! It is Tuesday and I've been holding this little gem captive in my heart since Saturday when all I really wanted to do was do a little dance and sing-song my little treasure to anyone at all who would share my little portion of joy and unfortunately those who surround me at the present time both have no appreciation for it and have been highly critical. :( Saturday morning I got to get out in the fresh air and sunshine and under the wide open skies of middle Ohio. Foolishly I left my camera in my carry on bag next to the bed I've been enjoying in my brother and sis-in-law's guestroom so I don't have actual pics of the sweet rural barns and fields with big rolls of hay/straw or the maples beginning to be torched with their brilliant reds and oranges rising out of the green, but I'm savoring the images in my heart. My brother drove the rural roads and I was able to just soak up the scenery Saturday morning. We arrived in the village I'd always adored visiting and thought I might one day happily inhabit in my youth and after being pelted on all sides for days with WAY TOO MUCH stress, anxiety and frustration I found myself smiling and smiling and smiling just to BE in that place. We stopped at a few yard/garage sales and I picked up a handful of books to take home, replacing the ones I'd brought with me and passed on to my little sis and THEN...at the end of a driveway in front of a sweet little white frame cottage on a corner I saw AN EASEL!! My heart began to race with excitement! Two precious older women within the garage attached to that driveway were still busily laying out items on tables and I inquired as to which 'artist' was giving up her easel to be told a dear friend of theirs who had to downsize to take up residence in a rest home sadly had to let it go. But happily for me - TA DA! - it means I'll be taking home an easel that I got for just pennies more than the price of a pack of chewing gum! (After spending a good deal of time figuring out how the pieces went together that afternoon, I hope when I disassemble it they'll fit in my suitcase!)

TA-DA! Tuesday on forced hiatus...

to be resumed September 29th.

I am bummed! I DID load my TA-DA! Tuesday little banner on a thumb drive to take with me on this trip and I'm sure if I asked my brother would show me where to plug it in on his laptop or I could figure it out, but honestly - I'm sooooooooooooooooo overwhelmed here in OH it's hard to feel a sense of TA-DA! about ANYTHING at all. Getting a cup of coffee in the morning without the phone ringing to DEMAND I JUMP would be a TA-DA!...maybe this morning, but I doubt it.

I'm so worn out - barely time to post this much, let alone visit all the places I love to read and I so miss the community I've come to have such deep regard for. Please leave comments though. If YOU have a TA-DA! to share it would lift my spirit so much to hear.

TA-DA! Tuesday #5

It's another TA-DA! Tuesday in Studio Lakeside. Seems sometimes I really hafta dig deep to pull out a TA-DA! of significance. I REALLY did feel like it was a TA-DA! when I found the sketch pad I KNEW I had bought at the beginning of the year and really hadn't seen since. Well, in fact, when I moved it aside yesterday on the shelf over my desk to place the NEW one I'd recently bought after giving up on finding it I actually said outloud to myself - "Welllllllll, LA DI DA!!! You were right here ALLLLL this time!" Now I have two, guess I'm 'invested' in actually practicing some drawing, huh? Some whimsical and wonderful faces for some soft sculpture figures, my self-portrait mermaid I've been fantasizing of - think the world's ready for a plus-size mermaid?

Sunday, after wrestling with my dial up internet access and then waiting not-so-patiently for it to FINALLY allow me live access to blog talk radio, I listened to the better part of the last half of Connie's conversation with Christine and Andrea - the other 2/3 of the leadership for Creative Dig Workshop coming up Sept. 26 in Cleveland, OH. TA-DA! I knew they'd likely talk primarily about the workshop, which I would dearly love to be attending but will instead be in flight the 'day of' enroute BACK to CA from OH. I also knew there would be cheerful chat about just being your creative self every day and I hungered for that affirmation enough to be persistent when Internet Explorer kept telling me I was NOT connected to the internet and therefore could not access the website. AAAAARGH! I was not disappointed, except that it took so long to gain access that I only got to listen to part of the show.

You see, I was never much of a fairy-tale believer as a child and never engaged in 'princess' or 'queen' role play and dress-up. I didn't care much for Disney or cartoons or any of the other fantasy child play either. A good friend once asked me if I was EVER allowed to BE a child because there just didn't seem to be any child in me ---- I'd have to dig MIGHTY deep to find my 'inner child'! So it strikes me as kind of amusing that now as I'm actively involved in 'perfectionist recovery' and developing my creative self, my mental picture of 'the process' is building or restoring my 'creative castle'. I think we all must have a mental image of our own 'creative castle' - maybe not as elaborate or ornate as the one in the world recognizable famous Disney logo:

But it's there - our personal vision of where we fantasize going with our individual creative pursuits, our soul's eyes picture of the 'creative castle' we want to inhabit. Maybe you're envisioning publishing a novel or non-fiction work, garnering a blue ribbon/big money prize at International Quilt Festival, being recognized as up and coming amongst painters of your genre or medium or choice or being in demand to speak at gatherings of peers - or any thing else on a wide spectrum of accolades or accomplishment. Or maybe your dream is to teach others to follow theirs or guide an expedition to somewhere adventurous or I dunno...my thinking here is limited, I know. People I know in everyday life don't talk much about their dreams and the ones that do do it with hesitation and reservation. That's one of the reasons I so LOVE the blog world and the creative community I've found within it! Creative bloggers are mostly wide open - like children frolicking in piles of colorful autumn leaves, gleefully heaving huge armfulls of them up in the air and laughing delightedly as the breeze scatters them farther than the velocity and force with which they tossed would have alone.

Hopefully, every day in some way, you find yourself making progress in building your own creative castle. In recent months I participated in a book blogging group going through Keri Smith's "Wreck This Journal" which was such an excercise in stirring up so much in me that had been sunk within - like all the fruit and nuts that separate and sink to the bottom in an unstirred batter left sitting too long while one gets distracted in the middle of a recipe. One of the prompts in the journal was simply to doodle over the title page and not being a doodler and having seen some AMAZING drawings and such from other bloggers journal pages, I pulled out my colored pencils and began to draw a picture like a child in elementary school might. I was craving some sea air and salt water on my skin and so let myself draw a representation of the shore with a cheery sun shining down on it. I remember thinking if I had the talent, it would be pretty to draw scattered sea shells on the sand but what I did instead was put a sand castle on my shore.


Like the sand sculptors on popular beaches, I'm slowly but surely working with bucket after bucket and detailing like crazy my 'creative castle' of my life. Seems I'm about to get caught by the tide rolling in lately...but I'm not giving up. My mission this week - in time for next Tuesday to share here, I hope - is to finish getting the actual studio across the hall from my bedroon into working shape. Just in time to walk away from it for nearly a month. But I look forward to being able to walk back in and be queen of my 'creative castle' then. In fact, it just occurs to me, my first full day back to it will be my 'half birthday'. Think I'm gonna hafta have a party and a giveaway for that - don't let me forget!

What's your TA-DA! in your creative life this past week?

TA-DA! Tuesday #4

It's Tuesday again and that means TA-DA! Tuesday here in Studio Lakeside - a place to celebrate big and small steps in creative activity and expression in the past week.

Me? I'm pretty dry this week, honestly, unless you count ideas and inspirations being entertained amid and through distractions. I'm really looking forward to celebrating YOU and your progress and accomplishments today.

I have meditated and pondered spent my Monday attempting to rearrange furniture in my studio space and longingly wishing it were already done and I could just sit down and work - have fabrics and threads in hand, manipulating them with my fingers to find the combinations of color and shape that would SING. That in itself was a TA-DA of sorts because I hadn't felt that genuine desire in some time - where I could see colors and patterns rotating on the screen inside my head like colored glass falling kaleidoscopically into images of brilliance almost hypnotically. Like getting my mojo back. It was sobering to see dust thick on my fabric storage units, tools and books as I moved them about and wiped them off with a white terry cloth rag. I uncovered works in progress I'm ashamed to say I forgot and were abandoned for nearly two years. Simple projects with little to be done to have finished them...glad to have found them but debating with myself whether to finish or pursue the new inspirations bubbling up now.

How do you decide when you SHOULD abandon a project or are you so disciplined you keep at it 'til it's done?

A Spring Wallhanging

A Log Cabin Table Topper

A Fall Table Runner

...and a little touch of patriotism.

TA-DA! Tuesday #3

It's another TA-DA! Tuesday and I hope there's alot to Thumbs UP about this week for you.

I, myself have had more disappointments and challenges than TA-DAs this week to be honest.

The sculpture intended to be a focal point for the 'stage' adjoining the dance floor for my friend's 40th Bday party had too many technical difficulties to be placed as planned for the party. I was bummed.

BUT,
1) I DID LEARN from the failure to launch that when I need structural/engineering assistance to call it in earlier and not to knock my head against the wall repeatedly in vain attempts to demonstrate finesse I don't possess. My technical advisor said it could have been done with some slight adaptations in components and a couple days' more time. Even our mistakes and miscalculations do end up adding bricks to the structure of a creative castle as long as we learn from them for better results next time. (pssssssst - remember this is the voice of a recovering perfectionist you're hearing)

AND

2) the table centerpieces came off without a hitch and the tables looked lovely. No two were identical and here's a sampling of the two color ways used:





What kind of TA-DAs do you have from this past week?

TA-DA! Tuesday #2

Welcome to #2 of TA-DA! Tuesdays, here in Studio Lakeside. You're invited and encouraged to please take a moment and share a thing or two, or three from the past week in your creative living that has made you beam with pride and know in your soul that another brick was laid in the structure of your creative castle.

Around and about in blogland I've been reading of accomplishment and creative sparks fanned into flame and it's so inspiring to see building progress for so many. Makes me smile and tremendously encourages me because it assures me SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH IS POSSIBLE!

1) I have a perfectionist friend celebrating a big birthday this week and she and her husband are throwing a BIG shindig for the event, for which I've been asked to create centerpieces and a focal point decoration for the stage overlooking the dance floor. I was delighted when she stopped by with additional supplies and was generous with praise and approval for the in-progress work in my work room. (not fully 'there' quite yet - finishing touches yet to go but will post pics by Friday and then more next Tuesday after Saturday's party when the whole picture comes together)

2) I did a 2nd page for my mixed media creative journal and wasn't concerned it's less than perfect or discouraged because I haven't made it a daily effort. At one/week, if I have 52 pages next August I'll be quite satisfied. I'm having FUN with it!


Some of the supplies for my birthday party centerpieces came in a Michaels bag and as I looked at it I realized the letters on the bag would spell my name shuffled a bit and dropping the M and C. (grin)

3) The other day I remembered to 'write it down' before I lose it and wrote about deer play in my back yard and regretting not having my camera. I posted it to my blog here and also on a social site I sometimes post at. A gentleman who lives downstate and who I 'friended' because I admired his writing and photography left the following compliment: "and all this wonderful painting brushed in wordcolor would have been lost. great imagery! the camera would create a pretty image but you did art a service, thanks." MADE MY DAY! I may not be a painter like so many I admire so tremendously but someone who does a fine job himself thinks I produced a 'painting brushed in wordcolor'! THUMBS UP!

What are you celebrating from the past week?

TA-DA! Tuesday #1

Each Tuesday here in Studio Lakeside shall henceforth be known as TA-DA! Tuesday, noting some of the little things to celebrate doing in the prior week.

This previous week:

1) I remembered one morning to put my camera 'round my neck like jewelry before I stepped outside and was rewarded with the opportunity at this shot of a doe I'd awakened from her 'bed' the other side of the grill outside the garage door. NOT the greatest quality but(i was going to say practice makes perfect, instead) I have faith I'll remember more frequently (maybe next time I can get her to pose. GRINS)and with frequency I will improve my skill as a photographer. Hoping, in fact, to catch a shot of the older doe with her fawns before their spots are gone.



2. I had the idea for TA-DA! TUESDAY and didn't allow fear to knock it down, learned how to get a Mr. Linky and invited some bloggers I admire to help kick it off.

3. I began to re-possess the spare bedroom intended to be rented earlier in the year for my 'studio'. Resuming active quilting and other creative expression is faith opening a door long closed for me.

Have you taken 2 or 3 steps in what Connie at Dirty Footprints Studio would call your CREATIVE JUICY! LIFE?

TA -DA Tuesday

Thumb's Up,
It's TA -DA! Tuesday

I think 'list' is a dirty word (it IS one of the 4-letter variety). It long ago became forever ensconced in MY brain as it's obvious acronym:
Limit Imposed Scheduled Task
(I tend to rebel limits, impositions, scheduling & tedious tasks) Therefore, I don't make lists, nor do I EVER encourage another to do so. They get lost & then, whaddya do? EXCEPT I learned from Jamie Ridler of Jamie Ridler Studios the incredible value of CELEBRATION so, each Tuesday I'll list here 2-3 accomplishments from the prior week. I invite you to share yours as well.