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*