Nature's To-Do List for Central Illinois

Generate blistering heat. Check.
Apply blankets of humidity. Check.
Pour buckets of rain. Check.
Repeat.

[Someone please make it stop!!]

Good Omen?

I was relaxing this evening after a great dinner with friends and a very rainy day in C-U and happened to look outside. What I saw was this beautiful rainbow. It was actually a double rainbow but my phone didn't catch the second one! Beautiful...I hope it's a good omen for things to come. 

 

5 Things We Cannot Change

• Everything changes and ends
• Things do not always go according to plan
• Life is not always fair
• Pain is part of life
• People are not loving and loyal all of the time

from The five things we cannot change...and the happiness we find by embracing them by David Richo.

A Little Dab of This a Little Dab of That

Painting tonight. Lovin' it. Here's the palette I used to figure out what colors I wanted. I'll show the final products when they're all done!

Bye Maddy

Had breakfast with Maddy before she takes off on the train to go west. She'll meet Rosie at the Grand Canyon, they'll camp for a few days and then will drive back to California. Maddy's friend Claire joined us for breakfast. Aren't these just lovely young women -- inside and out! Stay safe, Mad...

 

Scattered Thoughts Past My Bed Time

Here's one more pic of my visit to DC. Sarah gave Nathan this hat and he was nice enough to let me take one last picture...Thanks, Nate!

As promised several posts ago, I've started the "Full Catastrophe Living" process. Every day, I do a 45 minute mindfulness meditation. Have you ever tried to sit for 45 minutes and focus on your big toe? That's an exaggeration but the body scan tape they recommend you use goes through each part of your body and has you focus on it so slowly. I kind of like the process because the idea is to just let whatever's there be there. At the end of the cd this evening, I was so pissed at the guy on the tape. I wanted to yell at him "Enough already! I'm ready to get up and do something!! Shut up!!!" I just let that feeling be there, though, and observed it rather than acting on it. Even after doing this for just three or four times, I can see a difference in how I'm able to focus and how centered and clear I feel.

Before I did the meditation, I worked on the art I'm going to put up in the living room. I loved getting back to painting. I'm using a beautiful, beautiful red color -- it was supposed to be Venetian red (left) but I couldn't find it anywhere here so I'm settling for something called red oxide (below).

I think I like the substitute better! I love working with color.

On another artistic note, I've decided to go up to the Hamilton Woodtype Museum for a workshop as a birthday celebration for myself. The workshop is on Saturday the 19th but it's a 6 hour drive so I'll leave Friday and come back Sunday. I'm nervous but am really looking forward to it. I'm trying not to feel sorry for myself any more about doing things like this alone. I'm remembering that I used to enjoy my own company so it will be a good opportunity to spend some time alone doing something fun.
I'm feeling really grateful right now. I have so many things to look forward to - trip to Hamilton Wood Type Museum, trip to Cape May - and so many great people in my life - getting together with various friends & family for breakfast, lunch, dinner or coffee, having a job that is relatively low stress (even though it is low paying), going to a beautiful office every day and working with someone I love working with, having great sisters (biological and otherwise), maintaining a healthy, loving relationship with Geoff, having Maddy and Toby in my life. Feeling healthy and active. Being able to do art and graphic design and knitting. I could go on and on. It's great to be able to feel good again and see these things again.   

Restless in Champaign

I haven't written in a while. Not necessarily because there hasn't been a lot going on but because there has been a lot going on -- mostly internally. I'm hitting another snag or phase of this whole process and I don't know how to read it yet. I'm either getting ready to make a good step forward or I'm getting ready to take a few steps back. That seems to be how things go. So far, the trend has ultimately been in a positive direction but when I'm in the middle of these shifts, it feels like I imagine earthquake survivors would feel. Like you never know when another tremor might hit. The worst might be over. Then again...

We had our huge garage sale last weekend. I loved it and hated it. It was so interesting to see the people and interact with them. One guy had a HUGE tattoo all over the back of his shaved head and tattoos in lots of other places with a leather Harley vest on. He was quite nice and pleasant. I told him I really liked his tattoo. And I did! One mother and daughter had the cutest white fluffy baby puppy with them and let me hold her while they shopped. I didn't want to let her go. Some people haggled the price down ridiculously and others obligingly paid the price as marked. 

I can't say that I was seriously attached to most of the stuff we sold. It was just stuff. You would be surprised at how popular ice cube trays are at garage sales. Since our fridge didn't have an ice maker, I was always in search of the perfect ice cube tray -- one that didn't spill when I carried it to the freezer and that popped out easily. So I'm a weirdo about some things. I never really found one that I loved. 

I sold a bunch of my art supplies and that made me kind of sad. More because I hadn't done more with them than anything. All replaceable. Mostly, it felt good to know that things would be re-used at a price that was affordable for most people. One woman bought all the polymer clay and clay tools I had for her elementary school classroom. I know teachers often have to buy many of their own supplies and she said that since the art programs have been cut so much she tries to provide some art in her classes. I felt really happy that some little kids somewhere would be having fun with clay that they might not otherwise have gotten. 

I was surprised about how many books people bought. I liked that especially. We still have a lot left and have to decide whether to donate them to books for prisoners or to the public library. For some reason, I really like donating books. I hope people enjoy them and get something from them. One woman bought a bunch of the spiritual books I've collected over the years and said "You must be a very calm, centered person." I said, "Yes, my child." :-) No, actually, I said, "If I were so calm and centered, I wouldn't have needed the books!" I hope she finds some peace in them. Another man must have spent an hour looking through all our books and picked out a whole huge box of them. He was into history. If anyone wants me to send a surprise set of books I think you might like, just let me know!

Since the sale, I've been sad and in a funk. There's a lot to do to get ready to move all the stuff out of the house to Geoff's new house and then I'm moving again in mid-July. The house closing is on June 18th and Geoff's on a business trip in Canada so I'm helping him arrange for movers. I remember the day we closed on the house. We got Italian food and went to eat it sitting on the floor in our new empty house. I just never would have expected to be moving out of it this way almost 10 years later. Surreal. I wonder if I'll be saying the same thing about whatever's happening 10 years from now. You never know what's gonna happen...