pondering

- is it time to re-visit spiritual direction?
- can I do a 48-hour silent retreat without coming out of my skin, and have something of value come from it? is it worth it (right now)?
- what if I really followed my heart, and didn't work in a white-collar sweat shop?
- what could that look like?
- if I really followed my heart, what the hell would that even mean?
- why am I not picking up my camera?
- what do I need to be writing?
- why does writing anything feeling so daunting these days?
- courage, o where art thou?
- how can I balance more writing and creative projects with my current job?
- continuing to watch idols of certainty and compentency crumble...

word of the year... a few more possibilities

- heart
- soul
- awakening
- beauty
- joy

word of the year

Pondering what my word of the year will be for 2010.

Possibilities:
- rejuvenate
- rest
- heal
- restore
- story

Still thinking...may land somewhere completely different.

the list

Tripped across this in my email today. A list of goals/dreams I had put together a little over a year ago at the urging of a friend. Not really any closer to any of them than I was then, which makes me feel kinda lame, but I think they are all still on 'the list'.

- have a gallery show my photography

- leave the insurance world behind because my photography and writing have become so lucrative

- find Mr. Right

- have a family of my own (this one is starting to smolder a bit - not sure I want to be raising kids into my 60s)

- write a book of essays and have them published

- lose 40 pounds

- f*ck fear

- paint the bathroom

- work less

- write more

- waste less time

- road trip around the country

- dream bigger

- live more authentically

potpourri

- Work has been quite demanding this week in a lot of ways, so not much coming out on the creative front.

- I'll get back to posting Holy Week stuff this weekend. Still have photos from Easter Vigil to clean up, as well as some thoughts about my experience with Lent and Holy Week.

- Feeling sad tonight at the loss of a dear childhood/college friend, Gregg Fulkerson. Gregg was among the most talented people to come out of my hometown. He was an amazing, extremely talented singer-songwriter/musician who will be missed by many. My heart goes out to his entire family, especially his son, Carter. He was one of those people that I've known my entire life. While I love living in Colorado, it's times like these I wish I was back in The South.

- Chances are as great as not that I'll begin my day shoveling show tomorrow. Wet, heavy snow.

- Off to bed in hopes of starving a cold that is lurking.

- Weekend, come quickly.

looking ahead

with 2008 in the books, here’s what I’m shooting for in 2009, creatively:

reading. goal of 50 books. averages out to approximately one per week. ambitious? yes. achievable? i think so.

writing. I’m not going to set a goal of a specific number of days this year. i have some ideas about what I want to write about and will focus on that.

photography. increase my photoshop skills. take another class or two at working with artists. take pictures consistently. and do something with them. get a macro lens, duaflex camera, and build a contraption so I can take thru the viewfinder shots. work on the plastic jesus series.

learn the mac. 2008 saw me move from being a pc girl to being a mac girl. great move. still have a lot to learn about the mac and all i can do with it. i’m signing up for apple’s one-to-one program so i can get the most from it. how can you go wrong with the option for an hour’s worth of one-on-one instruction for $99 for a whole year?

more knitting, collaging, random hand-crafting and d-i-y projects.

looking behind

2008 was a challenging year in a lot of ways. lost my dad in march. spent the first part of the year growing into my new (at the time) job. people insisted on playing emmylou harris’ orphan girl at every live music venue I frequented. moved on from a church I had tried to make fit for me for quite a while to one where i am finding real community. had my faith stripped of a lot of certainty along the way. still being forced to reckon with uncertainty. had to get reading glasses.

looking back at my first blog entry of 2008, here’s what I hoped to accomplish:

Read 40 books. the year-end tally was 41.

Write 5 days a week, or 20 days a month. it is almost laughable how short i fell of this goal. i did far more talk about writing than i did writing.

learn photoshop. off to a good start on this one, but there is so much to learn. doesn’t feel daunting any more, though.

take a jillion pictures and learn how to organize them. fell just short of a jillion pictures. figuring out the best way for me to organize them is an ongoing project.

develop the plastic jesus series. the plastic jesus series did not grow very much in 2008. definitely an on-going work.

take some creative risks. took a photography class at working with artists. went to the glen workshop in santa fe. collaborated on some creative worship experiences at a couple of different places.

drop a few pounds. dropped a few. more to go.

get my money’s worth out of my gym membership. used it more than in 2007.

simplify. ongoing. life does feel less chaotic.

be a little more free. let go of some stuff that was not life-giving. so, yeah, a little more free.

writing (or not)

Seems like I have nothing of significance to post these days. I have been writing on a pretty regular basis, just don't have anything I'm ready to stick out here. Lots of grief writing and such. Hard work, but nothing to share yet. I expect some stories and essays to come of it in the future. For now, mostly mindless stuff on here.

So go outside. Dig in the dirt. Keep fresh flowers in your house. Support your local farmers market. Go lay in a hammock and read a book. Sit on the porch and enjoy your morning coffee. Have a cigarette on the back deck. Build something with your hands. Read the Sunday New York Times. Check back later for words of substance.

hopeful happenings

Well, we're 1/24th of the way thru 2008, and I'm moving along half-way decently toward my creative intentions of the year.
- I've read 2.5 books so far. Will try to get them posted this weekend.
- I'm signed up for a PhotoShop crash course on Saturday.
- Have been somewhat sporadic on the writing. Seems like I may have overshot it by thinking I could write something of substance 5 days a week. 3 days seems like a better goal. (Actually, if I counted writing business plans for work, etc, I'd be at 5 or 6. But I'm not counting that stuff.)
- I'm off to a decent start of taking pictures, including a day at the Museum of Contemporary Art and some photos at an Off the Map community party.
Now to get my lazy ass to the gym...

what's up

- just back from a belated birthday beach trip. yeah, i milked this one for all it was worth. squeezed two more birthday celebrations out of the big 4-0.
- got to catch up with my birmingham buddies.
- played a lot of boggle.
- ate a lot of firecracker shrimp (this involves the best remoulade sauce in the world).
- slept a lot.
- sat on the beach a lot.
- watched the sun set and the moon rise.
- had some great conversations.
- did a lot of nothing.
- read Bless Your Heart, Tramp. and random magazines. deep, deep reading, in case you can't tell.
- did read a bit of Breath for the Bones, by Luci Shaw, so all was not mindless.
- enjoying the new foo fighters album - echos, silence, patience & grace. isn't that a great title?
- found the perfect music for the treadmill - florida state's marching band doing the best of college football fight songs.
- drove up to the mountains today so i could catch the aspens in all of their fall glory.
- just spruced up my porch with a pumpkin/mum display to officially welcome fall.
- trying to plan my week now so that i can ease back into work and maybe even a daily routine that doesn't feel like chaos.
- have a huge need for great amounts of creative energy to come bursting forth in the next week or so.

word in art

Join us...
creative artists showcase
at the refuge
sunday august 26 2007 at 5:30pm

we are excited to host a fall creative art evening at the refuge, coming up sunday august 26th. this will be a chance for all creative artists from any medium--music, art, photorgraphy, writing, drama, comedy--across ages & abilities to share their work as a form of worship.

invite your friends & neighbors to join us for this amazing evening together with music, multimedia, drama, art, photography, poetry, great food & more!

the evening will include 3 broad categories--sights, stage & statements.
* sights - visual arts, painting, photography, sculpture & other visual mediums
* stage - music, dance, theater, comedy, film, spoken word & multimedia
* statements - poetry, short stories, prose, fiction, non-fiction

Day 3

writing and editing some previous work. and editing some digital photos.

15 Days of Creativity

In an effort to give my waning creative juices a much needed boost, I am hereby commencing fifteen days of creativity. For each of the next fifteen days, I am going to try to intentionally do something creative, whatever it is. I have no idea what I will come up with. Hopefully I will become less lethargic and the right side of my brain will be jolted back into activity. Join me if you will. I'll blog about it here as I go along.