TANGIBLE

Herpes, Cold Sores, Fever Blisters.

Its all the same to me. It's just one big fat lip.

I blame my mother.

She gets them and I am sure passes it all down to me.

Now when ever I get the least bit run down.......

........ Boom!

Migraine alert and then 48 hours later I am the poster child for Herpes Simplex.

Did someone miss the part about being a meeter and greeter for our clinic. My winning personality does not have a chance in hell if after taking one glance at my face ....the patient starts backing out the door. What about when you stop the doctor in his tracks because he thinks your face may have collided with a semi.

The message here is clear. It is not pretty.

Nice While It Lasted

To recap. Morgan is 14 and a card carrying member of the Edmonton work force. He manages to somehow work 3 days a week, belong to 3 school bands, ski every Friday without fail and maintains a whopping 94% GPA. Even after being dropped on his head as an infant.

None of this really is all that astonishing.

What I find really mind blowing is that in the month of December he sent over 13 000 text messages. Each  and every month I look at his cell phone bill and have to pick my jaw off the floor. Now I get that most of these messages are poorly spelled texts made up of only one or two words. Of course they are. The kid is exhausted. How can I expect him to pick up his bedroom AND text a complete sentence with all he has to do in a week?

So imagine my glee when he lost his phone.

Never mind. If you have spoken to me at all in the last month and a half you already know. At least 3/4 of all my conversations over the last 50 days have been how astonished I am to see how much he has grown, how blue his eyes are and that I think his voice has changed. Daily I was the recipient of  hugs where he used both arms! There was even a conversation about chemical engineering, that I totally did not understand...but it lasted 15 whole minutes!

Unfortunately as I stated, The kid works, belongs to 3 bands and throws himself off of ski hills. There have been days I have been forced to actually get out of my car to look for him. Wildly inconvenient. Hello..I have coffee to drink and a life to plan.

So...

This weekend he got a new phone. It took 3 days, Dwayne's upgrade, Nadia's patience on the phone (we belong to a family plan) and my driving to and fro to 3 different Rogers outlets.  This was just the tip of the ice berg of our contact with Rogers this weekend. Every visit, or call to the customer service line brought about a new set of problems made by the last person we had spoken to. In the end... after 3 long days...Morgan got his new phone.

I miss him already.

Take Us To the Bridge.

So I haven't been able to do my final post about the One Little Word Workshop I hosted as ...ummm...mine didn't get finished until about 20 minutes ago.

I would like to say for the record that when half the room has never touched paint before..your need to finish your own project comes second to thiers. I didn't want to overwhelm them with a 6 hour day of painting so really tried to simplify the project and whip them through.

We each started with my traditional blank 12x12 gallery canvas.

Then I had each person pick from my vast collection of scrapbook papers. One sheet to use as their background. This we glued down using our tried and true PVA glue and then journalled our intentions for 2010 right on top of that. My instructions were that I just wanted them to write.

Some journalling prompts were:

• A secret goal for the year
• List of things you wanted to accomplish that related to their word.
• A Quote.
• How they were feeling right now.
• or- if they were really stuck. Just write their word over and over.

I tried not to get really Oprah on them so we did very little talking.

After journalling for about 30 minutes we then did a color wash over our writing obscuring about 90% of it.

 

(my canvas)

(Robyn's canvas)

We kept this up -adding layers of color and then even some images.

Then we even sanded some of it all off!

The last step was to figure out how to place our word on the canvas.

(Anam and Laura working away.)

All in all I hope every one got something out of the afternoon. I confess I did not get final pics of everyone's canvas. Crap.

Here is Diane's though...

And a pretty smile from Robyn.

Now before I show my just finished, still tacky canvas..one more confession.

I re-did it. I sanded everything I could off. Repainted parts of it. and it went a completely different direction.

My journalling is still all under there. My original images can still be seen up close but I will admit it has had a make over.

Please meet my 2010 word.

 

I LOVE IT!!

This year my focus is on my family and friends and people who "get me" It will be about strengthening my "Tribe" and building on it. It is about feeling less alone in the world and making sure I am putting myself out there enough to allow others to get to know me.

and mom...you were soooo close!

Free Weekend Art Activity

I've never heard of this before and stumbled across it earlier this week. It is an outdoor 1km story walk, happening this weekend along Whitemud Trail near the River Valley Ski Hill, that integrates theatre, natural surroundings, lights and art to tell the Folk Tale Baba Yaga. Go here for more info.

Right Now!

• I'm into eating things with chop sticks. In the quest to slow down and let my stomach and brain catch up to each other.
• The new pyjama rule is 3pm.
• Have a small addiction to the new frozen yogurt place Morgan and I discovered in Sherwood Park called Twisted Yogurt Creations.
• Am wondering what Roger's Wireless has done to screw up our plan this week.
• I'm wishing for a pile of big fluffy snow flakes.
• Hating the courtesy car I am lucky to be driving.
• Wondering if people will make fun of me if I start wearing hats.
• Watching Morgan play Spore Hero.
• Love the the "take an additional 50% off" sales that are everywhere!
• I am going to go have a bath.

Goal Setting - aka 2010 Deep Thinking.

The scent of banana bread wafts through the house....waft..weird word. I will probably totally over use it today as that is the kind of mood I am in. Coffee # 6 is sitting next to me and I am waiting for my day to get rolling.

Spent about 4 hours in the studio yesterday. More time than I have spent in about 6 months. Sad really. Makes me think about goal setting and what I want to get out of that room. Last year I got a little side tracked by anaemia induced fatigue. I think I have more of a handle on that now and have set really small art goals like:

• do one lay out a month
• do one art journal page a month
• Take a photo walk once a month

That's it.  You would think this would be easy to achieve. Not in this house!

I loved Lisa's personal goals that she wants to keep in mind for her year 2010 (she's a deep thinker). In particular her REACT less. In the last year I have realized that there is nothing I can do about the choices people make, or how they choose to treat me. I can however control how I react to them on an emotional level. So hard to put in practice but I think I'm getting there.

Personally I've decided to put myself out there more. Getting a job this past year was part of that and I think just the start. Skiing for the first time in 20 years kinda added to the "do something that scares you" focus. Contacting and then meeting "new to us" relatives a couple weeks ago- more scary but fulfilling stuff. Committing to things and then committing to the follow through is a big part of this. Hell..this is what makes painting my house so hard or even putting a picture on my wall.

Get over it Laurie. 

and last but not least...I really REALLY want to put white water rafting on my 2010 bucket list! This may involve camping but I am game!

Anticipation

So far so good. 2010 is off and running! New blog banner is up, house is reasonably clean and the children are fed. All is good. Tomorrow will be test of sorts. 5 lovely ladies and their words will be in the studio with me. Paint is out and ready to go. I hope they are. Most are complete newbies to this art therapy thing and I am hoping they will get bitten by the bug.

No worries. It will all be better than good.

Still cannot reveal my word and for good reason. I thought I had it. Turns out I didn't. Now I have a new word that I like even better. Wow~ and to think it didn't even make the short list...to be unveiled early next week!

Ladies, if you are reading this. please don't forget that we will be working with paint. Clothe yourselves accordingly. I have a history of flinging the stuff around with great abandon!

Onward!

Christmas 2009 Recap!

 

Finally time to tie 2009 all up with a neat tidy bow! A couple weeks delayed but here we go with the Christmas report!

After spending a kajillion dollars on last minute car repairs, plumbers and even a speeding ticket..we managed to finally make our way out of Alberta , through a blizzard, into British Columbia to my parents in Kelowna.

We spent the first couple days opening presents, playing cards and eating...always eating!

Morgan, Sarah and I hit our first mountain. A newer ski development in West Kelowna called Crystal Mountain. 15 min from my parents house and one where we hoped we would find both Sarah and my ski legs... Less than 30 runs. Not as intimidating as Big White but scary non- the- less. Morgan was amazing. I managed to be "ok" and Sarah...well Sarah and her knees packed it in after a couple hours.  Lessons learned on Crystal Mountain would serve us well later on. Most important lesson learned....how not to become hypothermic. I was beyond cold. New gear was purchased the next day at a boxing day ski sale all agreed it was completely necessary as my black/blue lips were too scary to look at. Go figure.

 

2 days later we made the trek to the other side of Kelowna to the infamous Big White Resort. Beautiful resort. I could live there year round.

Morgan had high hopes...and I mean HIGH hopes. No T bar for me today. We went straight to the express chairs and up up and away we went.

115 runs. All Open.

 

And then I had to buy ADVIL. Sorry Morgan. I lasted as long as I could for you!

Notice my bright Fuschia jacket. A calculated purchase in case Ski Patrol needed to find me.

Back at the golf course we spent more time in the hot tub. Sigh...I loved the hot tub...I needed the hot tub!

 

 

We took hikes around the golf course. The dogs chased the geese. Morgan and Dwayne ate some more.

It was nice. The weather was nice. The light was even nicer!

Thank you mom. You worked so hard, cooked so much and made us feel so loved.