Creative Sisterhood

Tonight was Creative Sisterhood and it was an amazing evening. It was our fourth anniversary celebration. Technically, that was Monday the 3rd, but tonight was our gathering. It was incredible - truly incredible - the kind of evening I long for.

Sometimes we talk about what we're doing or thinking and although it's always pleasant, it's not always deep. Tonight was very deep, moving and personal. It was an honor merely to witness it, much less to participate in it. I'm sorry that Diana and Julie missed it because it was an exceptional evening and something that can't be recreated.

That is always the problem with missing any gathering of any sort - the synergy that exists can never be recreated. People can tell you what you missed, but it's never the same as experiencing it yourself. I just hate it when I have to miss something that's important to me. But, sometimes it just can't be helped.

In honor of our anniversary, I gave everyone a copy of the photo we took last year after cleansing Martha's office in Wichita.



I had gotten them printed in January, but had forgotten about them and ran across the prints recently and knew they were the perfect gift for our anniversary. I had planned to buy little frames for them but when I was in the store, with frames in hand, I was led to get plexi-glass coverings with magnets on them instead. I already have mine on my fridge. Martha is planning to put hers on her filing cabinet. For whatever reason, it seemed the right thing for them to be magnets.

I am so thankful to have this group in my life. When I'm considering good things I've done in my life, starting this group will be one of them. Of course, initiating the group is only a small part of the equation - the true test comes in if people are willing to commit and share themselves within it. Tonight was an exceptional example of how amazing that can be.

I made a new recipe tonight. I found it on allrecipes.com - it's called Earthquake cake. I'd heard of that, but never had it. It was pretty tasty, but very rich.

Earthquake Cake

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix with pudding


• 1 cup flaked coconut


• 1 cup chopped pecans


• 8 ounces cream cheese


• 1 pound confectioners' sugar


• 1/2 cup butter


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Spray 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray.


2. Spread coconut and pecans over bottom of pan.


3. Mix cake mix according to package directions. Pour over the pecans and coconut.


4. Melt butter, add with cream cheese, vanilla, and confectioners' sugar to a medium-sized bowl and mix well. Spoon with a teaspoon over the cake.


5. Bake cake at 325 degrees F for 50-55 minutes or until done.

Square Footage

Today I read a phrase I never thought I would see - "compact 2,028 square foot home..." in O at Home magazine. Just to set the record straight - 2000 plus square feet is NOT compact - particularly not for a home for one person. People have raised large families in less than half that space.

In the interest of full disclosure, my old house is about 2600 square feet and I live alone in it with my stuff. I'm certain in its 100 plus year history it has housed larger numbers of people than it currently does. It has four bedrooms, two baths and two sunporches - this is not "compact." Admittedly, it's not one of those 8,000 square foot homes so popular these days, but it is not compact.

I don't think it's wise to give people the idea that 2000 plus square feet is compact. That's foolish.The last thing the world needs is for everyone in the US to start thinking we need to build and heat/cool homes that have more than 2000 square feet per person, as if we're not using enough resources already.

Well, I think I need to go write a letter to the editor.

Change and Not

My days seem so very much the same lately that I'm hesitant to write about them for fear of boring you to tears. Or, to mouse clicks. I work. I paint. I prepare for the show. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But there's a lot going on in my mind. I guess I'm just not ready to premiere it yet, because I'm not sure what "it" is. The short story is that I am in a serious transition phase. I can feel it. It's palpable. I'm just not sure what it means or where it's going yet. But, I'd guess that my life will be very different a year from now than it is today.

I always assume my life will be better in the future. I remember saying that in a small group of people a couple of years ago, and being chastized for being so foolish.But, it still seems logical to me - and, frankly, essential - to believe that. Otherwise,  it seems like you'd be setting yourself up to fail in a way.

I'm searching. I'm just not sure for what. So, it's hard to know if I've found it yet.

Art Show Booth Setup

This is one of my latest journals I've made. I've been doing collage on some of them and painting on others. I've got more than 30 done and ready for the show.

I decided that this weekend was my dividing line - that I had to start finishing everything I had in process instead of continuing to paint. I like to paint. I hate to finish. But, you know, it's the oddest thing - people expect to be able to actually hang something on the wall and not have to put their own hangers on it. So, I've been doing a lot of that sort of thing.

I have a grant I have to finish writing this week so I'll be pretty brain dead by the end of the work day. But I can still do things like put tags on items, which I still need to do. Obviously, I could keep working on this nonstop until the day of the show, but that's just not logical. I want to actually get things done in advance so I'm not frantic right before the show. I'm hoping putting that in print will make it actually happen.

It has, blissfully, cooled off. Summer is officially over and other than missing the fresh vegetables and herbs from the garden, I'm not sorry to see it go. I like having the changing seasons. I'm always ready for the next one - whatever it is. The Kansas State Fair starts on Friday and that's always the dividing point for us regarding weather. The week of the fair generally offers some heat, some cold and some wet. I'm hoping the wet doesn't come the weekend of the show. I'm pretty sure it won't be too miserably hot. I'm hoping it's not miserably cold or wet - particularly wet - I don't want to spend nine hours in wet.

Our tentative plan is to go over very early and set up before the majority of people start doing that and the whole town becomes a traffic jam. We'll see how that works out in reality, but it's a good plan.

I talked to Jocelyn today and she was doing the same thing I was - getting ready for the show. Pretty much every flat surface in my house has something show related on it - the coffee table, the dining room table, the writing desk, etc. And there is glitter all over my house. You could do worse, I suppose, but it's everywhere - even on me - even after a shower. Needless to say, I'm doing some Christmas ornaments.

I've had some folks ask where our booth is going to be and we are SM1 - 33 - that translates to South Main 1, booth 33. We are in the middle of Main Street, with Grand Avenue to the north of us and A Street to the south of us. We are very close to A - the next to the first/last booth in that block. They put booths back to back down the middle of the street and we're on the west side, one booth between us and A street. If you mapquest 1 South Main Street in Hillsboro, Kansas, you'll get a good idea. I'm looking forward to seeing some blog readers there. It should be fun.

We did a dry run on setup this weekend and that was really helpful for me. I have a lot of detail things to take care of yet. Jocelyn tells me this is normal - that you keep doing this refining process, even if you do shows all the time.

Well, it's almost 1:30 a.m. and I have an early day so I need to get to bed. I think I've done all the show prep for today that I can do. I needed this extra day of weekend. I could use one more. But, alas, grants don't write themselves so tomorrow I will devote myself to that and hopefully get most of what's left to do done, then I can work on it a bit more throughout the week to improve it. I'm weary just thinking about it. I'd much rather be spending all my time thinking about art shows.

Quote of the Day

And it came to me all in a feeling how everything fitted together, the place and ourselves and the animals and the tools, and how the sky held us. I saw how sweetly we were enabled by the land and the animals and our few simple tools.
                                             Wendell Berry - from A Place on Earth

Quechup Warning

Over the last 48 hours I have been bombarded with invitations to join Quechup, a new social networking site. DO NOT DO IT. I was fortunate that the first "invitation" I got was followed about 10 minutes later by an email from that person (someone I didn't even know) saying ignore it, that they spammed his entire address book. He was not happy, needless to say. He is a writer, and had a ton of professional contacts in his address book, so they all got hit along with the rest of us.

His invitation and follow up email was followed by numerous others, including some to my podcasting groups. The way this site works, apparently, is to ask if you want to see if any of the people in your address book are on the site yet. But, unlike the scrupulous sites like Facebook, this one just automatically spams everyone who's email address it can latch onto, telling you that this person has invited you.

So, if you get an invite from Quechup, just ignore it. And realize the person who appears to be sending it may have no idea it has gone out under their name.

The Random Button on blog sites

Hitting the Random Button on blog sites can send you into dark alleys of the information superhighway disguised as Mommy Blogs, where you find more talk about pee and poop - and sometimes photos of children on potty chairs - than you would think possible.

Frankly, I'm not that interested in the toilet habits of toddlers, so I read very few mommy blogs. I always wonder who is so interested in looking at small children on potty chairs, and why anyone would indulge that interest by posting such things on the world wide web. I find the whole thing more than a little creepy - from taking such a photo to posting it online to looking at it. Just because digital cameras make it possible to capture every moment, doesn't mean you should.

Of course, for reasons that escape me, parents have been doing this for years. And, those of us who have dated the grown up men who's personal moments were documented by their parents are put in the difficult position of figuring out what to say when confronted with the photographic evidence that the man we're dating wasn't always potty trained. "You freaks, why would you take a photo like this of your baby?" is not appropriate. Just in case you were wondering.

It's not like we thought he was so perfect that he came out of the womb potty trained, but we don't need to see it. Some things are things we know intellectually, and that's all the experience we need with it. We know he clips his toenails, too, but we don't want to see it. Eeeewww... (I'm particularly disgusted by toenails, for reasons I don't understand. Hey, we all have our hangups.)

And why do the parents always want to show you the photo of their little darling on the potty chair decades later? Why? I don't need to see that. Some things are meant to be private. As of yet, I've not had a single man pleased to share the photo with me, but his twisted parents get some joy out of it. Obviously.

With the advent of blogs, now they can spread this joy world wide. It's creepy. And I won't make the mistake of hitting the random button again anytime soon.