Memorial Day

This weekend I felt the turning of the Great Wheel.

The Moon was ablaze with messages and blessings.  I remembered that it's been a full year since we lost Karma. Today I went in the pool for the first time this year, but no lifeguard stood watch .

We all noted that this is the first Memorial Day without Pop, who was a WW2 vet who served in the Navy in the Pacific aboard the destroyer escort USS Braine. We all still struggle with the loss but I've realized how strongly his  influence will remain with all of us. More than just memories persist. Poppy is there in the decisions that we make, in the way we face the world and how we all make the best of each situation with an abundance of caution.

My two best friends have both been waiting a long time for important things - a place of her own for one, and a job for the other. They both got what they needed! And my son Colin has finished an important creative project.

It has NOT been business as usual in my life these past few days.

notfails

I named the image "fails" but I should take it back. Just because they didn't hold the intensity of color seen here, in the wet, doesn't mean they didn't turn out to be beautiful in a delicate way.

Thinking though a solution and have a few new pieces stewing right now and will see what tomorrow brings.

like I need another diversion....

Hate me later.

While I was looking for something else (ain't it always that way on the web?) I found this in the Chrome Apps store. I'm not sure if it works from within other browsers.  These very quick sketches were made (with a mouse) and Mr. doob's Harmony..

(and if you know of a free web app that makes something that looks like index cards laid out on a table top, let me know)

taken under

I'm writing again and seem to get my best work done while I'm sleeping. Of course, there's no scribe taking notes for me. Dreams can be sketchy at best.
Pictures linger longer than words or ideas.

There is a setting with water everywhere. A town eaten by a reservoir and a brook with a bridge where there are only rumors of trolls.

This series will follow the text as it uncoils across the paper. If I never finish the book, or get it published, I'll have these.



I just saw this post networked on FB and feel like I just announced that next Monday  I'm going to rob a bank while naked (but face painted), armed with a squirt gun full of gin and assisted by my Barbary ape, Ace, who is an excellent driver but not yet housebroken.

dye days continued

I started a new piece on the design wall this morning and found myself actually rooting through my stash for a specific color....and not finding it! (If you could imagine)

The weather is spectacular and the dye deck was waiting so I put up about 20 pieces but plan to let them brew overnight. I'm really hopeful that the tasty looking chocolate in the bottom right corner holds true!

storm stitching

After we got home from a trivia victory at Italian Pie, I stayed up to catch the season finale of Chicago Fire. Earlier, the weather dude and the online map promised that the swarm of thunderstorms sweeping across the state would miss us.
They goofed - a boom of distant thunder got me up out of the stitching chair to check windows.

I went down to the dyedeck to check on what might need to be brought inside and wondered if they were wrong...the almost full moon was brilliant and the sky clear.

 There was another distant boom of thunder and, while I watched,  the moon was obscured by a lace curtain of clouds and an opening volley of heavy drops spattered across the tent top. I quickly turned out all the containers onto the deck boards and let everything take the blessing..big laundry session coming up.

a day away from the chair

The mailbox garden is at its peak.
The peonies burst open and disintegrate within days in the Georgia heat. This year I'll be digging cuttings and sharing them around. The fringy paler mutant below will be cut to come inside..the rains made them top heavy.

Meanwhile, out on the burning dyedeck, many cloths came under the spell while I listened to a day game on the radio and gave m'self some minor heat stroke. The pool is still too cold to be a remedy or relief.

Some errands, a nap and then out for dinner at the trivia joint which has become a regular, fun thing.

a rondo of consequences

....and an overflowing cast of characters.

This story is unfolding but the other one is broken, boxed in, and has no anchor. I'll have to dwell on that from a cave I think.

While I was out on the deck trying to read a lady cardinal flew down and tried to pull a shiny one off my ankle beads  and the blue tailed lizards were looking at me making those naughty moves with their heads. Lizard lust.

new work space

The top six inches of the water is entirely hospitable...dip any deeper and numbness overtakes you. Still the plan is to get in on Wednesday, do the annual perimeter scrub and then enjoy the ballgame on the radio.

I'm not one for basking but I hauled this family heirloom down onto the deck with the intention of making it my outdoor office. It needs some patching and the binding replaces..not high on my list of gottas. The embroidery you can see used to be along the bottom of a pair of bell bottoms. This is vintage denim sewn over a heavy king sized blanket and backed with a tacky printed sheet. It's seen many a picnic and party.

I got some reading done out there today and put pen to paper for the first time in months and fell into the reverie almost immediately. Better than drugs.

Speaking of drugs..how did you like Madmen last night? I always knew that was how it got done.

further good intentions

I had to grow the base of this piece since the story seems to have legs. No planning here, just plucking bits from the scrap basket and working them into the parade. It's Back in the Saddle Monday. Time for some reading and maybe some writing. At least we won't be cooking anything today...too many tasty leftovers.

storm driven

"Good Intentions will bite you on the butt if you don't keep moving"

Saturday night the thunder and lightning were so fierce I was finally impressed. 

The house thrummed with sub aural vibrations and the room strobed with blue light like all of five-O was parked in the driveway. My phone kept shrieking some kind of weather alert. NO SHIT!  We did not get a lick of sleep until dawn but got up and forged ahead with a grossly complicated recipe for chicken/eggplant Parmesan. It turned out delicious and I am bone bone weary.