DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

The ALMOST end of the
flu, sinus infections, earache, and conjunctivitis.......
Thank God.

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

ONE DAY AT A TIME

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

sun

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

feeling better

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

a cancellation at the doctor's office

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

Needs met and connections made

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

Sun and a heat wave up to 30 degrees today.......

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

family visits!!!!!!!!!!

WAITING

I am NOT a patient "waiter". Today was "furnace check" day and we were told it would be in the "late AM". So I stayed home from the gym and errands to wait. And wait. And WAIT. At 2 minutes past noon, I called.







Well, no, it would be "sometime today". "Could you be a little more specific?", I asked. "No", she said. "We have no idea how long each call will take." Now I can actually understand that....BUT....."Could you possibly estimate by the number of calls if it might be earlier or later?"

Well....suffice it to say, I waited most of the afternoon too. Now, you will be relieved to know that I did not take it out on the nice young man who is on his hands and knees examining my furnace. But really, why is it always like this?

I worked in health care.....eons ago when nurses actually bathed patients and made beds. Sometimes I had to estimate when I might be back to rub Mr. Jones' back. If I had 6 patients, I could estimate that it would be at the beginning, middle or end of my work. Why is this so hard to do on service calls?

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

There is a calmness.....no need for drama.


Thank God.

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

listening


even when you want to talk

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

There are the many daily challenges and then there is the acceptance of surrender.


Feels good.

Worst news

My beautiful, clever, fun kitty, Fookie has been diagnosed with kidney disease/renal failure........

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

Another gorgeous Summer Day in Paradise

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

Words from wise people who care about you:


especially if you listen with your heart and Spirit

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

ANOTHER YEAR

Died and Gone to heaven

I have always used a PC....large monitor (artist after all) and a huge laser printer in the studio. Therefore I am pretty limited in mobility. SO this year for my birthday, I got a LAPTOP.

Holey Moley. For the most part, I had no idea how technologically behind I was. Last time I set up a computer it was a PITA. Now it does all the work itself. WOOT! PLUG n PLAY rules.


Why did I wait so long?

DAILY GRATITIDE LIST

THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

Fairy Tales Can Come True

COLLAGE JOURNAL

9/15/09

Any comparison of fairy tales quickly discovers that many fairy tales have features in common with each other.

DAILY GRATITUDE LIST

Daily Gratitude List

1000298










Where I live

Montana

SEE WITHOUT LOOKING art card

See without looking
Hear without listening
Breathe without asking

COLLAGE JOURNAL

Beginnings

Responsibility

Using the treadmill at the gym is always interesting. I am not much of a TV watcher but each treadmill has it's own TV and there are three up hanging from the ceiling.





ON a really perfect day, one is tuned to FOX NEWS, one to CNN, one to MSNBC and I can tune mine to the FOOD NETWORK or WIFE SWAP. The greatest part is comparing similar stories form the different slants of our media. (I prefer BBC myself)

So today, as I am walking 3.9 MPH on a 2.2% incline, they are discussing, YOU GUESSED IT, Health Care reform.

So:

Should obese children be sent to "Fat Camps" to keep health care costs down? Apparently they are looking at this in the UK.

It brought tears to the eye of the FOX news girl.



I have to tell you. As a nurse and health care professional for 35 years, I have watched this issue with interest and sadness. It is about responsibility. It is also about EDUCATION. It is NOT economic as such (since lettuce and black beans actually cost a lot less than a Big Mac). WE are each responsible for our health or lack of it within the confines of availability to health care and education.

But it is about PREVENTION and familial habits. 30 years ago, we tried to educate parents and kids about Nuitrition and no one was very interested. Now we have the results. It has to start somewhere.

There are people who receive bariatric surgery and/or stomach stapling for being grossly obese and it is paid for by insurance. I pay for that. WE all pay for that. That is not the responsibility I choose. Seems unfair somehow.

Bunnies

Collage Journal
September 11, 2009

where the wild things grow

We have been battling wasps/hornets for over a month. Trap setting and baiting has become a full time job and there have been thousands of suicides/murders on our deck.

I usually have issues with killing animals but these guys won't let us eat or have happy hour on our deck.....and Summer is very short here. We have to enjoy every second.


*sigh*

Can you be a mystic today?

Without
going
out the door
one can know
the whole world

Without glancing
out the window
one can see
the ways of Heaven

The further one goes
the less one knows

Thus the Sage
does not go
yet he knows
he does not look
yet he sees
he does not do
yet all is done.


Lao Te Ching

Why do people read blogs?

Do I ever have anything worthwhile to say....or is it merely "share"?

Do people really read these things?

It seems to me that they are merely advertising in the new millenium. I mean, I used to have a website and that was enough. Then I had ICQ (is that still around?), MS messenger, chat rooms. Now I add FACEBOOK, networked blogs and I have "FANS".

I feel like Andy Rooney when I ask, "Does anyone think they are really fans or all we doing a huge circle jerk for each other?" Friends with food blogs, art blogs, political blogs, gardening blogs, literature blogs, knitting blogs, book review blogs.....and on.

I mean it's fun and all, but what do you really think?


Some of my favorite blogs:

LOSTPURL (knitting and life)

BookSlut (ah, BOOKS)

TEESHA MOORE (Teesha rules)

Jim Wallis (realistic look)

Labor Day

Collage Journal entry for yesterday.

My local news interviewed folks in Missoula who were celebrating about the origin and meaning of LABOR DAY. Most of them had no idea why we have this holiday.

From WIKI:

The holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes ("Nine-Hour Movement") first in Hamilton, then in Toronto, Canada in the 1870s, which resulted in a Trade Union Act which legalized and protected union activity in 1872 in Canada. The parades held in support of the Nine-Hour Movement and the printers' strike led to an annual celebration in Canada. In 1882, American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired from Canadian events in Toronto, he returned to New York and organized the first American "labor day" on September 5 of the same year.^{[citation needed]}

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City.^[1] In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike.^[2] Cleveland was also concerned that aligning a US labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair.^[3] All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

MY LESSONS ABOUT GOLF AS SPRITUAL JOURNEY

A parable told in symbols and metaphor

• Even in a twosome, you play your game alone
• When you hold the club too tightly, your ball doesn’t go very far.
• When your ball is in the sand, it is best to take some sand with it when it leaves
• If your ball goes in the water, you can take time to fish it out or take the penalty stroke and move on
• If your ball goes into the woods, you can spend valuable time looking for it, or move on
• The game is totally influenced by your beliefs about yourself, your mental state and your emotions.
• Throwing a club is NEVER okay.
• At the end of 18 holes, you finally get to sit in the sun with friends and share stories and memories over drinks.

my neighborhood

Things to do.

I am thinking of doing a small book for a friend recovering from multiple surgeries and needing months of rehab. I am inspired by Teesha Moore, Linda Barry, and Maira Kalman, especially.

I would like it to be humorous and whimsical and something he could look at over and over.



What's not to love in something so clever as these:

Follow through

All dreams, ideas, and plans are worthless without follow-through.


One of the hardest lessons for me. I love to plan, organize, arrange, sort, outline, identify, route, stack, structure, systematize, develop, propose, configure, formulate, design, configure, layout, think, orchestrate something.


BUT, boy do I hate the tedium of seeing it through.

Looking for something?

Too much looking for something, an "answer", a "vision", "something other". This breeds illusion that there is something else.

The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.

~~Thomas Merton (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton)

Cute as can be

Went walking in a shop in town today with my buddy and lo and behold these.


*she bought one*

From Paradise to Paradise

I am back from a week-long silent retreat at the Monastery of St Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho.

Looking out my windows at the gorgeous woods on my mountain, processing the week.

It was a challenge and a joy.











One wonders why I would leave my mountain beauty. A friend asked, "well, can't you pray and meditate at home?"

An intense week

Just back from a week long silent retreat......no words

RETREAT

COLLAGE JOURNAL:

Preparation

Leaving in the morning for a week-long retreat at a monastery in Idaho. Thoughts of what to take....AS IF it were a trip to Europe. What I think I will do is no make-up, no jewelry, painting supplies (small travel size), spiritual reading and myself.....

COLLAGE JOURNAL

FAITH

From Ruth Gendler's "The BOOK OF QUALITIES"

Faith lives in the same building as doubt.
Faith is comfortable with Doubt because she grew up with Him.
Their mothers are cousins.
Her friends fear that Faith is a bit stupid.
They whisper she is naive and she depends on Doubt to protect her from the meanness of life. In fact, it is the other way around.
It is Faith who protects Doubt from cynicism.

Dreary and cold here again. The hummingbirds seem to be leaving already!!

It is JUST Wrong

Gay men across Iraq are being rounded up, tortured, and killed by the country’s militias, including the feared Mahdi Army—while the government stands by. The Daily Beast’s Parvez Sharma gets an early look at a report documenting the brutality.

Collage Journal

"What did I do?"

How often we think that might have to do with guilt, shame, or how much we had to drink the night before.


I guess the best answer would be:

"The best I could"

A very long break

The Measure of a Man

FATIGUE

I have been away from the studio for a LONG time and am finally taking some small steps.

These are collages in my DAILY COLLAGE JOURNAL from the past week. It feels good.

Spring is almost here!