Everything I needed to know about life ....

I learned while weedwacking the yard :

1) Keep your mouth shut (VERY, VERY important).
2) Keep focused on your objective, life is full of diversions.
3) Watch what you are doing and where you are going, always.
4) When shit is flying, 90% of it is sure to land on you.
5) Be mindful of the little things, tread softly but surely.
6) Take time to smell the flowers, and to plant some... (instead of dreaming of having a nice garden "someday"). Even a single flower adds color to your life, and if you plant one every week, your "someday" garden will be here before you know it and you can move on to other dreams...
7) Making the 5YO the boss, keeps him out of trouble & your blood pressure down... & let the dog supervise so they do not get underfoot.
8) No one will ever appreciate the effort you put out as much as your dog.
9) Do not swipe away blindly at the weeds in your yard (or life)... they will take over if you let them. Rip them out leaving no roots if you want to be free of them. Weeds are a pest that will not go away on their own and one that will return if you are not deliberate in their removal.
10)Not everything that stinks or that looks ugly is bad, and not everything that looks pretty or seems sweet is good.
11)Strange noises coming from the darkness under the deck is NEVER happy noise
12) Always, and I do mean ALWAYS run FAR away from a fast moving snake in the grass (leaping is also permitted and encouraged)


I need a drink....
Oh, and the neighbors are no longer napping in front of their TVs, the screaming that went along with #12 pretty much insured that.

This is so annoying....

I reworked the template 3 times , reloaded and still my links to other blogs are not appearing.... Live journal is not this difficult to use, (one click and you can follow other journals , no muss no fuss). I may need to just drop this journal. If I disappear from here all together that is where you will find me, as user dejablu503.
Edit: Finally they appeared! WHEW!!!!!!! I'm still annoyed though

How I became this version of "me"

My life seems to revolve around overcoming clutter & chaos, I guess that's why being drawn to the kind of art I do was a natural outcome. I'm a self imposed, semi-reformed packrat. I keep things long after most people would throw them away, every item in the pile is a cherished fragment of memories I have trouble letting go of. Each one is tied to my past, to things I care about... so in my mind it seems disrespectful to toss any of these fragments into the trash. This "keeping" practice alone creates chaos , but it's a comforting chaos....at least to me. My children hate it, I should mention that.

When the world goes mad I sort through and rearrange these memories and fragments, & as if by magic I am transported from the current madness that fills my life into a different time, when things were not so insane or overwhleming. Simplier times, when having almost no money meant vacations were simply creative but not non-existient. Times when getting away meant putting my finger on a map, filling the car with gas, loading the kids and camping gear in, packing a cooler and going off on an adventure... to discover the thrill of experiencing new places....only to return with memories and treasures you cannot buy at places like Disneyland. We discovered each other as well on these trips, to this day we are closer than most families, we have not drifted apart even though the kids are adults now, living their own lives, spreading their wings... they know home is always there, a safe place filled with love.

In my artistic endeavors I specialize in putting fragments together, I quilt, I make multimedia sculpture and usable things out of discarded fragments, I alter books into art journals and life journals, I use textiles and fibers to 'paint' pictures of the fragments of memories that hold a place in my heart or mind, I reclaim furniture that someone else has tossed as having no value and give it new value in either my heart or the heart of someone else. I take old clothes, and remake them, I reinvent them... into something else entirely. All of this has been a very natural path for a packrat like me to take.

This blog is going to be about my artistic adventures, my piecing of fragments into whole visions. It's going to start slow, as I pick through the chaos, as I clear a space to work in, as I clear my mind of clutter and search for a defined direction for each new piece. One by one they will apear here, take them for what they are.... fragments of one woman's mind/life given a public voice. You can listen or cover your ears.....