By Sign & Design: My Charmed Life

inspiration every day

A few tidbits to share with you, sites and people I literally check out every day: 

Working towards "No Homeless Pets", starting with their sanctuary of over 1400 animals of all types, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah:   

http://www.bestfriends.org/

Sharing a new adorable and sometimes socially relevant painting every day Marisa Haedike:

www.creativethursday.com

Delivering spiritual tidbits in freakishly timely manner, DailyOM:

www.dailyom.com

 

Waking up from a long winters’ nap

Creative Hibernation

I have been in an energy rut for a while now. It’s been a long winter and – as usual – I hibernated almost literally. While most people I know feel more productive with their creative projects as the weather cools, I felt, well, PTtthhhT. This winter, I read a fair bit and completed a frightening amount of Sudoku puzzles. All things I can do cozily from a relaxed position and so I did, which also led me deeper into my “nap habit”. My imagination was only on semi-vacation, though. I dreamt up plenty of creative projects to tackle, and I continued to take “artist dates” to Michael’s on Saturday mornings.

I dabbled with some knitting. My talented friend Tanya taught me how on a work trip back from Rhode Island in Nov. It had been about 25 yrs since my Nanna taught me the first time and so rather than Barbie clothes; I knitted a couple of what Pete calls “Neck Tubes”. They turned out ok, but nothing like my teacher and inspiration Tanya’s work. Tanya is an amazing craftsperson. This is not your Grandma’s knitting. Her work is beautiful, funky, and she is able to combine every part of the process from dying and spinning her own wool to the final beautiful piece! (PS you should really check out her work on her blog http://bytanya.blogspot.com/ .

I have planned some photo / paper projects… several scrapbooks I want to get started on: A gardening theme, a gourmet food and wine theme, a dog theme, pics from Greece, and now pics from NYC with Kate. I beefed up my digital setup a bit with a new Dell in the Fall, a new photo printer and a fun Wacom tablet. Since it also an activity requiring more stamina than energy J, I spent many hours beefing up my Photoshop skills.

I also completed two baby quilts that were in the works for a while - the two O’Hara cousins Olivia and Peighton received these on their first birthdays J I always mean to get photos of the babies and their quilts and never get around to it.

Looking back on the summary, it wasn’t a totally inactive winter, I guess. I am feeling much more motivated now that Spring has arrived, finally. I have decided to try to include some sort of “artist date” activity every day, even if it is only surfing web sites of my crafty friends. It’s something and it will get me moving eventually.

What Are You Daydreaming About?

I don't know if it is because we are at day number 65 of 2008 (thank you, CNN, for counting down) and have yet to have a truly warm sunny day ... OR because I haven't been drinking coffee but I can't seem to focus on one thing to start and complete. Instead I am more often engaging in my truly favorite activity: DAYDREAMING.

The internet is a daydreamer's best friend. This week, the theme is WHIMSY, The handmade wooden Teaser Puzzle below is called "If the Shoe Fits"  - Artist Dee Rogers (C) Stave Puzzles.Inc

Stave Puzzles

 

Snow Dogs

Starting where I am

A few things to get this blog back on track... I tried to post a list of noteworthy events of 2007, only to lose the post in cyber-land with one fatal mis-type. At least the photos posted correctly :) Check out my general photos from 2007 below. It is impossible to convey how magical a trip Greece was for us, but the pics might give you a hint.

Four Days until Greece!!!

Giddiness is the feeling of the day for it is only 96 hours until we leave for Greece. I actually couldn't sleep last night for excitement, so I stayed up reading guidebooks and the Berlitz. I have learned several greek words but I am not entirely confident I could pull out the right one at the drop of a hat. Especially once the 40 degree weather fries my brain into happy fuzziness (or will that be the ouzo??). What if I am ordering a coffee (to kafes) and want to say "medium sweet" (metrios) but instead pull out a lame "kokkino" which means "red". As you can tell, it is important to me to at least get some of the beverages straight.

Random thoughts: One of the many things I am looking forward to is the custom of the afternoon "break" when everyone closes up at around 2:00 for a few hours to rest or at least escape the sun. I love the Europeans' concept of flex time.

I have probably mentioned before that I find myself occasionally experiencing periods of what I call “E-Synchronicity”. I think of it as a way to define events and information arriving to me just as I "need it" by electronic means – newsletters, emails, surfing the net, etc. I love when it’s happening as it usually coincides with periods of time when I am seeking out something I have not really defined or spoken aloud. The tingle of excitement reminds me of something I believe – everything’s connected in some way that we don’t see and can’t prove. When synchronicity happens, we are “in the flow” and it adds an element of magic. (This is in fact, the “by sign” part of my weblog title). Anyway, last week was one of these times of being in “the flow”. I started out as I do with a lot of things – GOOGLING the phrase “lateral thinking” which brought me to concepts that I think about but didn’t know there were names for: Etheric Energy , Autodidactism and Edward DeBono’s concept of Provocative Operations. If you are interested, check these out – ok, yes, I am a geek, but I love this stuff!

Guitar Lesson # 2

The header is self-explanatory. I came home from work in a funk with a capitol F- feeling apathetic about the week (is it really only monday??!). Pete brilliantly offered to get take out and teach me lesson # 2 on guitar (thanks again for that, XO). By the end I felt much better having sated my comfort food craving and having learned and even applied some very rudimentary musical skill:

Chords I know how to form, kinda:
E, A, D, C, G, E minor and F

Chords I do NOT know how to form:
B (yikes!!) and, well, the rest of them.

Chords I can switch between without looking SLOWLY:
E and A.

Chords required to play "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by U2:
A, D, G, E minor  - In  that order.
Pete and I played this over and over and I even managed by the end to switch consistently (and again, slowly).

Here's what goes on inside your head when someone is teaching you a song on guiter:

Eighth note, eighth note, eighth note, eighth note, oh no.. change is coming... where does that finger go again... Eighth note (off this time) Eighth note, oh oh what was the next note.. argh there it was, uhhhh THERE ... (and repeat).

*******************************************************************************************************************

I - quite literally - have made a career out of being a professional listener. What fun to realize that for about 10 seconds that it FELT like I was actaully PLAYING the instrument, not just executing the chords in a technically correct manner (and I mean that loosely).

Nothing breeds success like sucess, they say.  I am feeling just a little proud of myself, I must say  :)

Jumping (back) in with both feet...

For over a year now, I have been reduced to “lurker” at my own site – cringing every time I see the date on the last post. How can it have been that long ago? You know how it happens: I got a little busy… then a million things happened of big and small consequence, I’d have flashes of inspiration to write and sometimes felt exhausted and overwhelmed just thinking about putting words to “page” to bring it up to date. Well I’ve figured out that with a blog - it doesn’t have to be done that way. As a Shediac lobster fisherman once said when explaining to me how fast lobsters can swim (travel?) backwards – and it is astonishing – “sometimes it just more important that you GO than know where you are GOING”. So, with respect to catching up on writing here, I guess I’ll start where I am today and just GO.

What I’m into right now (In no particular order):

                                             

• HOUSE M.D. - Can't get enough!

• John Mayer – The John Mayer Trio CD is amazing, I have new respect for him (with exception of the whole Jessica Simpson thing). By the way his BLOG is HILARIOUS – Among other things, he has a great product idea for JIF peanut Butter packaging.

• Stave Puzzles   – The artwork images on these are so fun and whimsical, I was compelled to get out my art color pencils and play! One of my favorites is a “teaser” puzzle called Turtle Soup.

• Alice in Wonderland – Still on the whimsical kick, I must re-read this! I’d love to find a really inspiring version!

• Fabrics by Amy Butler -  I just made a tablecloth I LOVE out of this:

• The Police reunion! Watch the Grammys' intro this coming Sunday night!
• Sudoku
• Yoga
• Training my pups!!!
• Eating healthier - Can anyone please tell me how you break the nighttime munchies habit?!
• Learning electric guitar!!!
• Learning Greek - Ok, some Greek words, at least. "Kalimera" means Good Morning.

OK, that is a start at least. I promise it won't be another year  before I post again ;)

Chelsea

PS Sorry for the poor formatting in this post, I'm a little rusty.

Bright Shiny Vegas!

We're back from the 11-day Vegas extravanganza. What a trip! I will write a lot more about it in the next few days - there is so much to say about the adventures in work-land, taxi mishaps, the Jet concert, The awesome Hard Rock Hotel, too much food, etc... Until then, this picture from my camera phone describes the color of Vegas better than I can. It's the Venetian glass flowers on the ceiling of the Bellagio Lobby.

PS, I miss everyone - looking forward to getting in touch in person!