I used to Fly...maybe I need to remember how.

Yes, I said Fly...with a capital 'F'. Some of you may know what I'm talking about and are getting excited just thinking about it. Some of you may know and are rolling your eyes. Most of you probably don't have a clue, so I'm going to divulge this wonderful information to you:

www.flylady.net

This lady is the cleaning and organizing guru...kind of like how I used to be. I followed her system, tweaked to my schedule, for years. I'm not really sure what happened, other than quitting my full-time job and having more free-time than I know what to do with. And having a 5 year old. And starting my own business. And a million other excuses I can come up with that aren't really valid. I think more free time has equaled less organization and cleanliness because I think 'Heyyy, I can do that tomorrow!'.

I seriously suggest you check her out. Warning: Her theories and ideas may startle you at first. For example, her first lesson is (or was...I don't know if it still is) to shine your sink. By shine, I mean serious business...involving soaking and scrubbing like you've never scrubbed a sink before. Why would you scrub something you put dirty dishes in? Well, because 1) If it's clean, you won't want to put dishes in it. You'll clean them, or put them in the dishwasher...and that's one less chore piling up! 2) If your sink area is clean, you'll keep the rest of the kitchen that way. You know what? It works. Even my ex kept the sink clean, and he didn't clean anything!

Another thing I love about FlyLady is that the system doesn't give you too much at once. You break down your weekly chores - for instance, I had set laundry days, and I always washed my sheets on Sunday. It was in my system, so I knew when I was going to do it and didn't worry about it on other days. Not only that, but the 'tougher stuff' like that closet in the hallway, those are broken down into 'zones'. You hit one 'zone' a week, in small 15-20 minute chunks per day. Seriously, you can keep a whole house organized and clean this way! And, you know, us procrastinators tend to handle things a little better when they're broken down into chunks. In theory, anyway.

Why am I talking about this? Because it relates to art. Art is no longer built into my schedule. Art is taking a back seat to all the other things that I 'will' do, but don't. It's at the end of my ever growing 'to-do' list.

FlyLady...I need a new pair of wings!

Unsuccessful Day, By Far.

When I woke up this morning my intentions were to do the following:
*Go to the bank
*Go to class until mid-afternoon
*Come home and clean
*Spend time with the kiddo
*Paint

My day actually went like this:
*Went to the bank
*Didn't go to class - found out later class was canceled anyway. Talk about luck.
*Went to my mom's until noonish
*Courthouse/Tag office visit...not for my car.
*Goodwill trip
*Grocery Shopping for fifteen hundred hours
*Came home, and the kiddo decided to watch wrestling, of all things.

So now, it's 12:35 in the morning and I have accomplished zilch today with the exception of filling my entire kitchen with 2 extremely overfull shopping carts of food for just under $250.

Lets try this again tomorrow.

I Miss Him.

I promise I'm not in a parent-bashing mood this evening, as I do have a somewhat decent relationship with all of them at this point in my life. I'm more...reflecting.

In the past 6 years, I've gone from being a minimum-wage, part-time worker and SAHM in a miserable marriage to putting myself through college, raising my daughter, running my own business, and doing it all with a gigantic smile on my face. One family member, other than my fiance, has said that they were proud of me: my aunt. I love my aunt dearly (and got to see her today, actually), and it meant so much that I cried when she said it. I can't help but be baffled that my friends and even people I've never met in person will send me emails and call me to tell me how awesome they think I am, but when it comes to my parents/family I feel very much like the black sheep that made all the bad choices. I did make bad choices. So did they (insert my untimely existence here) . I'm doing something about mine. It shouldn't matter if they like my fiance, have a problem with my schedule, or are frustrated with my lack of time due to my crazy schedule. I'm happy. My fiance absolutely adores both me and my daughter, and I'm busy because I'm working on my first of three degrees and have a successful business. When my aunt and I talked about how she was the first and only person to really even acknowledge what I'm doing, she said that maybe they didn't know how to tell me. I'm more apt to believe that they haven't really even noticed.

I know one person that would have noticed...and said something, although it would have probably been a simple smile and a 'Well, good!'. This guy:

This is my grandfather. My grandmother ran across this picture of him today while going through a few things, and I came close to bursting into tears. Grandpa died of lung cancer when I was 15, and this is the first picture I have come across since where he looks just as I remember. The rest are either profile views, dark, blurry, or from before my time. This, though...this is Grandpa. When he died, I was sort of numb to it. I didn't cry when he died. I didn't cry during the funeral. I do remember that at one of the viewings, my aunt and I were alone in the room with him as the others left and the place was closing up, and I absolutely broke down. She left me there with him, and I just cried hysterically...me and my grandpa, and I had a chance to sort of say goodbye. Sort of. The grandpa in that casket looked nothing like the grandpa I knew, thanks to the cancer. For the longest time, that's what I remembered of him. Maybe that's why I stayed so 'unaffected'. Then, a few Christmas' ago, my step-mom gave me a DVD of my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. I came home and watched it repeatedly from midnight until 4am. I'm pretty sure I've never cried that hard in my life. It was him...just like in that picture. Not only was it him, it was his voice. He only talked a couple of times, and I would rewind and play it over, and over, and over. I watched that video and some sort of emotional dam broke. As my daughter gets older, I miss him. As I accomplish more, I miss him. Every day, something little reminds me of him, and I cry...and miss him. I'm pretty sure I'm hell bent on torturing myself where he's concerned, because I even make garlic salted popcorn with a glass of milk when I want a midnight snack simply because that's what he used to make me. When I do it...I miss him, and I cry. I'm not sure why it's harder for me ten years later than it has been the entire ride, but it is.

Grandpa wasn't the kind of guy to show his emotions (might explain my dad, actually). He did talk, though. When I was saved and Baptised around the age of eight, he told me he was proud of me and bought me dove earrings. He bought me a Red Rider bb gun for my birthday once because I asked for it. Then, he taught me how to shoot it, smiled and said I was a good shot. As a child, whenever I brought him drawings of whatever I had decided to scribble, he would talk to me about them and tell me how good they were. When I was an early teen and still spending Saturday nights with him and my grandmother for church the next day, I would stay up watching tv with him and study...and he would ask how I was doing in school, smile, and say 'That's good!'. Just little things...never big, but there were alot of them and they were always something I remembered.

So today, as I have yet another 'I really, really miss Grandpa' day combined with a 'Why can I never be good enough for them?' day, I remember all that I'm doing, his half-smirk half-smile, and a simple 'That's good!' ♥

Saltwater and an 'Aha!' moment.

I'm Buddhist. Most who know me know this, although some are still surprised when the subject comes up. I literally fell into this belief several years ago when I worked at a bookstore and knocked over a table of books called Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. My coworker, while laughing at yet another display of my clumsiness, asked if I had read the book. It was an 'Oprah' book, and I had strict personal rules against reading anything endorsed by Oprah. As an avid book reader and lover of the classics, I've always felt that Oprah's endorsement enhanced the sales and popularity of decently written books while leaving incredible work on the shelves to be remaindered - that, however, is a vent for another day. This coworker somehow talked me into reading the book, even though I promised not to enjoy it.
I lied. Not only did I enjoy it, but I laughed, cried, and cheered. The memoir has very little to do with actual Buddhism but it opened my eyes to a religion and spirituality which, I found, closely resembled my personal beliefs. I thought I was unique in my beliefs, especially considering the reactions I received from others when discussing them. The realization that an entire religion was based around the same beliefs that I held was invigorating - so I read. And, I read. And, I read. What else is there to do when one works at a bookstore? I devoured every book on Buddhism I could get my hands on and moved to the works of the Dalai Lama (who I've always admired, but knew very little about in terms of religion), and then to other memoirs.
I know - you want my point. I can't say that I have one this time. I'm currently reading a book my dad lent me, called Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis. I no longer work at a bookstore, so it takes awhile for me to get through a book, but this one has been pretty good so far. Jaimal is a surfer...or trying to be a surfer, as well as a Buddhist. My favorite parts of the book are when he pops off with something a Zen master has said and the quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I flipped through last night and reread some of the quotes and ran across this one by T.P. Sakulis: Studying about Zen should never be confused with practicing Zen, just as studying aesthetics should not be confused with being an artist. I've had more than one discussion about Buddhists and Buddhism, due to knowing so many 'Buddhists' who actually practice other religions or simply read about Buddhism without practicing anything at all. Reading Buddhist books does not a Buddhist make. Buddhism is a mindset - a reality all in it's own, and very few 'Buddhists' that I know are anything more than trend-jumpers or people who are interested in the theory of Buddhism. That's not what resounded in this quote, although it is what caught my eye originally. Did you catch that last part? - 'Just as studying aesthetics should not be confused with being an artist.'

Wow! 'Aha' moment something fierce, I would say. I'm not an artist, I study art! I study how to be an artist. Like the great de Vinvi said: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."

Inventing Creativity

Somehow, between being a mom and a college student, my creativity has packed it's bags and sailed to Tahiti. I imagine it's a nice place -a perfect home for creativity, actually- but the new locale is doing nothing spectacular for this non-existent portfolio of mine. Most of my creativity, I'm sure, came from the creative life I led for quite some time. Funny how, now that I'm an art student, I lead a busy and less creative life than I did when I was a stay-at-home-mom or a bookseller. I need to get out more. I'm sure even a trip to Kennesaw Mountain for a hike would spark up some creative juices. Mister and I took an incredibly awesome trip to Savannah in February, but we were so busy with 'stuff' (and, er, each other) that I didn't have time to produce like I had originally intended. My plans to sit in Forsyth Park and paint trees were trumped by Leopold's ice cream - not even Rocky Road ice cream, seeing as how I still haven't convinced them to carry it. Bitter? Probably a little. My plans to come home and become inspired by the hundreds of photographs I took in Bonaventure and the squares were mauled by school work and the aforementioned inability to access my studio. Because, you know, an artist has to have a studio. /s
Tonight I sat down, after running across a high school AP Art course description/summer assignment list, and made a list for myself. Not just any list, but a list of ideas. Whoooooa! I'm really moving now!! I wonder how long it will take for those ideas to move from notebook paper to watercolor paper? /curious/ Atleast I'm coming to terms with my amazing ability to procrastinate, I guess. Or, my amazing ability to procrastinate, still accomplish the things I need to, AND make the Dean's List at the same time. I'm blaming it on Buddha.

The Jungle...

...it's really the only way I can describe the current state of my 'studio'. In all it's multi-windowed fourth-floor glory, it has literally turned into a junk yard of sorts. The problem is a complex yet very simple one - complex because we can't figure out how to fix it, simple because it's a problem easy to pinpoint. The studio is full of 'stuff'...but it's all 'stuff' with nowhere else to go. /sigh/. I'm pretty sure it started the downhill slide to overgrowth with the purchase of an incredibly awesome full-sized drum set for my 5 year old daughter. Why a drum set? Well, because her daddy is a drummer and she wants to be just like him, of course. Why full-sized? It was $25 at a yard sale, in almost perfect condition. Since this purchase, I have accumulated more art supplies than I could possibly need, a very large filing cabinet for Slumber Parties folders, etc., 8 chairs that seem to have no home, and 6 (yes, SIX) luggage bags full of Slumber Parties products. How many other artists can honestly say that they can't fit their tiny 108lb body into their studio because there are too many vibrators in the way? I could probably paint or draw in either the coffee or dining room table but alas...back to that five year old daughter - sticky fingers make for sticky furniture. I swear I can clean the furniture five times a day and still wind up with grape kool-aid on the back of my half-finished portrait.

In other news, I made the Dean's list last semester. ♥ I'm pretty darn close to making it again this semester, if I can somehow convince myself to study instead of...well, blogging, for instance... or reading the same book to my daughter for the thirtieth time. Laundry...laundry seems to get in the way of everything. Then again, when you have a daughter who insists on changing clothes thirteen times a day and always manages to spill something on the 'new' outfit before you even realize she's wearing something different, laundry will pile up quickly. I'm taking Theater this semester. Yes, me - the queen of performance anxiety unless I have an adult product in my hand and am talking to a room full of half-lit women. So far, it's awesome. So far, I haven't had to go on stage. I am learning alot though, and I think my 'group' for the play we're doing may break me out of my 'performance' shell before it's all said and done, no matter how unwilling I am. I'm also in Philosophy this semeser - interesting, because we seem to talk about the same things in Theater that we do in Philosophy on the same day. My professors both rock - one is amazigly cooky and the other has a penchant for the phrase 'bullshit'. The first time he said this in relation to God, I though the entire class would fall over in a mass heart attack. If you've ever seen An Evening with Kevin Smith (Kevin Smith being Silent Bob from Mallrats/Clerk, etc.), Philosophy is very much like sitting in the audience. Same mannerisms, same language, same belly laughing - ratemyprofessor.com wins again this semster. ♥

Great Grief....

...it's been a month and I haven't posted yet! Why? Because I haven't completed anything art-related. What a way to jump on that portfolio, eh? I do have two portraits in the works, but not quite finished. I'll post those as soon as I'm done, which will hopefully be in the next week or so. I'm also getting ready to start a third portrait for a friend. ♥

In other news, I made an A in one of my classes and my final research paper on the health benefits of Sex for my second class is due next Monday. I've been so busy with these classes and Slumber Parties that I haven't had time to dive into my creativity and produce anything. On the bright side, that's two classes I'm finished with! I start Maymester in a week and a half - 16 weeks of class and 5 novels crammed into 2 weeks of 4 hour classes. o.O I just may have lost my mind on this one. After MayMester, Summer Semester starts and I will be going full-time on top of doing Slumber Parties.

Speaking of Slumber Parties, I took an awesome trip to New Orleans for our National Convention a couple of weeks ago. This was my first trip alone. Ever. I knew not a single girl there, with the exception of one girl that I've met at a few meetings and I didn't even realize she would be there. I have to say, it was one of the most fun, exhilarating, and confidence-boosting weekends of my life. It was a big jump for me, personally, to go from 'I've never been out of state without someone's parents' to 'I'm staying in a city where I know no one, and am walking Bourbon Street and the French Quarter by myself'. It was also interesting to be in charge of my own agenda while on vacation - I didn't have anybody to please but myself. On the Slumber Parties end of things, I met a ton of Slumber Sisters, made invaluable friendships, won some awesome stuff (like an iPod!), and learned a ton in training. I can't wait until National Training in August!

Here are some pictures from my trip:

Statue on River Walk

Sitting on the River ♥

Myself and Rockstar Rachel, my SP Idol ♥

The NOFD. ♥ Our hotel caught on fire, and
we had HOT firefighers running around.
Absolutely heaven. I stopped one for this pic.

Take Two.

Ten years ago, I daily walked into my high school Drawing II class with an enormous smile on my face. While I was always an intelligent child, making straight A's straight through school, I found drawing and painting to be satisfying in a way completely separate of scoring yet another high grade on an exam. In Mr. Padgett's art class, I could completely let go. Tests and essays came easily to me, but art provided a challenge - something I had to learn and build upon...something I had to actually work towards. By my senior year I was a top student in Advanced Watercolor and well on my way to Savannah College of Art and Design...with a scholarship.

So....what happened? I got married. ♥ What is it about 18 year olds that make them think they're invincible and know everything? I married. I had a little girl. I most definitely did not go to art school. I went to a local community college and received an Associates in Early Childhood Education, only to discover half-way through my first year as a Pre-K teacher that my sanity is easier maintained when children are either over the age of 10 or in groups of...well...anything other than 20 energetic four-year-old's all at once! I changed jobs and became an Financial Aid advisor at a nearby University.

Landing that job may very well have changed my life for the better. Being on campus every day helped me realize the absurdity of not going to college myself. After an extremely cordial divorce, I moved out on my own and took control of my life. I went from a house-wife, mommy, and office girl to being well into my college degree and owning my own business. I currently have six months to complete an entire portfolio before I can possibly be accepted to the Visual Arts department and finish the rest of my Art Education degree...and I'm absolutely horrified. This blog, dear readers, will follow my adventures in creating, failing, discovering, attempting, and learning through the course of the next interesting months.

Thought for the day: One can do anything he puts his mind to, if he only believes hard enough.