quiet creative sunday

In which Shawn and Annabel began writing their "novels" and Sky spent all day editing videos and recording music.  I got to poke around with my writing.

sometimes it's important...

...to just hang out with your friends and do something creative and quiet.
Especially after a make-your-own-pizza dinner, while your dad sits nearby with the other grownups and sings sweetly while playing his guitar.

I love my friends.  When I get the time to see them.
I am suddenly busy (as if I wasn't before) with a new project, editing a book I helped write. 

My kids' acting coach arrives in town in six days and my co-editor leaves town in seven days and I am trying to get through the 200 page text this week.
My husband rocks, he is giving me chunks of time this weekend to get to this.
Toodles my friends.  I'll see you in a bit.

reflections on connection

evening sky near my parents' home

Today I came home after rushing around shopping and getting gas with a bit of a headache and I saw that I had 6 comments on my last post.  For me lately, that's a lot.

It made me smile.

I haven't been blogging as much, I have been busier with my new job responsibilities and honestly using - gasp - facebook for connecting with people - old friends and acquaintances, and people all over the world through a humanitarian organization I am part of.  I know, I know.  Facebook!  

Consequently I haven't had time to visit all of your awesome blogs, and I have felt out of the loop.

What is it that makes blogging touch my heart so much?  To have connections with people all over the world, mostly women, mostly mothers, mostly artistic people who like to communicate.  To read about Nienie's daily life with her four kids, knowing she once had a beautiful young face, and now she is happy to be alive, her body and face covered by scar tissue from severe burns.  To know how much pain she is in everyday, but she still has such a good sense of humor, and deep faith.  To pray for her, even though we have never met, and I don't even leave comments on her blog - you can't.  But to pray that she gets her wish -- to have another child.  This touches my heart, to be let into her life.  And to have this image of all of my European blog gals hanging with their kids, milking their goats, growing their gardens.  This somehow makes me feel connected to the entire world.  And this summer in Los Angeles I got to meet fellow blogger Elizabeth, it was so cool!

I suppose it is similar for many of you.  Having a blog somehow makes me feel complete.

Only a few years ago my kids were little and we were 3000 miles from our families and there weren't blogs.  I was isolated and often very lonely.  I longed for community and dreamed of living close to other families with young children, so we could help one another.  I dreamed of finding an old lady who needed a friend, I would visit her and we would tell each other our life stories, and I would bring her homemade muffins, and she would be like a grandmother to my children.  Gary and I even looked at an intentional community called Ecovillage - in Virginia of all places (funny we were just there). Those midday walks down a long driveway to the mailbox a few years ago after not talking to any adult all morning or leaving the house all day with an infant asleep in the house and a two year old about to wake from her nap could bring tears to my eyes.  Don't get me wrong, I loved being an at home mother, and we had a ton of fun.  But it was still lonely sometimes.  Now I am so busy and it isn't so lonely, because the kids are older, more independent, and my life isn't so much about playgroup and cloth diapers and parks and hanging with other moms and kids.  Now we are a busy, bustly family, and with five of us I am never lonely.  Our mailbox is closer, and often the kids get the mail for me.  My kids are all such interesting people, we have full on conversations, and they are becoming more grown up every day.

Everything changes.

But the blog world is my new world pod of people I find I have things in common with - after all I am a mom, a writer, an artist, a photographer, a blabber...

Maybe I am making up for all of those years of loneliness.  I never found the old lady friend...Maybe I didn't look hard enough.  And I am glad for all of the young moms who now use blogging as a means of support and connection. 

Just today I was walking on the beach with my husband, telling him about how I felt that facebook has kind of replaced blogging for me, I am posting photos, writing things, getting comments.  Similar, but not the same.  It's far less personal.  And on purpose.  Facebook is for marketing Gary's music.  (So if you are on facebook, and interested in checking out Gary's music page, let me know...)

But blogging is for me, my creative outlet, my connection, my new friendships. I told Gary today that I felt bad that I had lost touch with so many great blogging friends.

So although I have been quasi lame and a bit out of touch, I wanted you all to know how much it meant to me, to come home to 6 comments, like a confirmation from the universe to keep blogging.  When something makes us feel that good, it's something worth paying attention to.

Thank you friends.  I'll be back.

looking back on 2009

I always love it when a new year is upon us.  I like the anticipation of new experiences, opportunities, and seeing the growth of the kids.  I also just love it when the numbers of the years change.  So with this attitude I welcome 2010.  Here are some of the highlights of the past year:   

In January, we began a new lifestyle, of home schooling our daughters.  This continues.

I continued writing projects.

I attended several retreats, including a trip by myself to California.

And I prayed a lot.
I took lots of photos, and continued my blogs.
We made some new friends.
I expanded my vegetable garden.

I designed the cover of my daughter's cd.

I expanded my tulsi garden and began to sell tulsi plants.
We traveled to see family in New York in the summer.

We vacationed in Italy...

 ...and France.

We road tripped to Washington, DC to see old friends.
We spent a month in northern California.

In the fall, we enrolled our son in public school, first grade.  We found a great new teacher for the girls.
Two months later I began a part time job teaching first graders at our home on their days off of school.

I had a Christmas party and sang carols.
And for the most part, we slowed down the pace of our day-to-day life.
All in all, a pretty good year.

corner view~books

Is there anything better than a great book?

At the ripe age of eighteen I met a woman named Mimi Mills, she was the widow of a famous author, she was close to ninety then.  What I remember most about her was her books.  Every room in her house had books, piles of them -- even in the bathroom.  The first time I was in her home I was struck by the fact that I was in a place where books were sacred, they were loved, they each had a world within them, and likely, many memories associated with them.  Mimi used to write to me while I was away at college, notes on scrap pieces of paper, napkins, anything she could find, usually just a few lines.  

I love books.  In my dream house there is an entire room dedicated for reading, a library with floor to ceiling built-in shelves, comfortable chairs, fluffy pillows, a coffee table for tea, a working fireplace, plenty of windows for natural light, a Tiffany floor lamp.

I read books to inspire myself, I read to get lost, I read to laugh, I read to think and learn, and sometimes I read to stop thinking.

I have kept journals since I was a child.  I am teaching my children the same, for sometimes the stories we tell, the books we write, are most important for our growth.

I am very proud that my husband is a published author, and he continues to write more and more novels daily.  I hope to publish my writing someday.  I am also proud that all of our children write stories - 30, 40, 50 pages long.  Because everyone has a story to tell.

To see more views about books from around the world go to the sidebar here at Jane's blog.  Top photo by my daughter, Skylar.

corner view~my dream

My "big picture" dream is to make a difference in the world. 

We all need to dream.  Everything that manifests starts out as an idea.  Someone's idea. 

My worldy dreams are to live in the country on several acres of land, to help start a school, to grow my own food, and to teach children gardening.  I also want to publish my writing.

My spiritual dream is to know God within me.

And my dream for mankind is taken from a great humanitarian named Amma.

"Everyone in the world should be able to sleep without fear, at least for one night. Everyone should be able to eat to his fill, at least for one day. There should be at least one day when hospitals see no one admitted due to violence. By doing selfless service for at least one day, everyone should help the poor and needy. It is Amma's prayer that at least this small dream be realized." —Mata Amritanandamayi Devi

http://embracingtheworld.org/

Click on here for more corner views, from people around the world.  "Corner view" is a project started by Jane.

ten things i'm loving

1. Creative ideas, making stuff with the kids...often from nature - driftwood, dried flowers, dried vines.

2. The weather is cooling. We don't need to run the air conditioning much anymore. It sort of feels like fall!

3. My little garden, with my first crop -- the cutest jalapeno pepper.

4. But this is by no means cuter than my cutest husband. He is Mr. novel writer, songwriter, dad extraordinaire, especially when I had the flu this weekend and he did everything!

5. All of my girlfriends, which actually include my mom and sister. I never tire of the specialness of female connection.

6. My daughters, and often my son as well, helping in the kitchen. We have been doing a lot of baking lately. Recently we had folks for dinner and the girls jumped in to help with cooking, cleaning setting the table, carrying chairs up the stairs, arranging the desert tray.

7. Five-year-old-ness. Boy-ness. (Elastic strap to hold helmet in place made by older sister.) Today I was on the phone and he snuck behind some furniture and began launching sponge rockets at me, spying on me with his mini plastic binoculars, throwing small bouncy balls in my direction.

8. Twelve days til we leave for California. Oh my, I need to begin packing! I can't wait.

9. This gift from Skylar. A ceramic lotus flower that she made just for me in her pottery class.

10. This gift from my friend Barbara. Prayer flags. Every time the wind blows prayers are released into the universe. I love this thought. Wanna say a few? Why not?

a happy moment

Monday June 2, 1:08 am

I just finished my book and will take it to the printer tomorrow to print it for final editing - spelling, typos etc...before I turn it in. I wanted to get it done by June 6, the day before we leave, and I think I might just do it.

I was asked to keep it to 200 pages. That was hard, as I had over 220 worth of text. I am down to 203 pages, as of now. I think that is okay, close enough. This includes an intro, the text with several photos, an appendix, a glossary, and author's notes. I am the second author in fact.

I feel so very good about this book. It is beautiful. The words, the images, what it evokes in me, and hopefully in others.

What an honor. And I get to turn it in about five days. I am not sure what will happen from here. I don't even know if it is good enough to publish. But I think it's great. And I have loved every step of the process. I began work on this in August of 2006. Wow.

Anyway it is a very happy feeling. Thank you for your support.

news

In 2006 I had work published in a book written by 2 extraordinary women. Carol was a graduate school art therapy professor, who is a great artist, and Peggy was a colleague, a wonderful poet and poetry therapist that I worked with in my earlier days as an art therapist.  The book is a series of essays, poetry, and artwork by artist/poets.  It was quite an honor to be chosen.  Most of the people in the book were far more established professionals than I.  My contribution includes poems I wrote about Shawn as a baby and a colorful abstract painting that I did that I love.  Note: The painting was done after waking up one morning a few years ago and realizing I had let 10 years pass since I had done a painting!  To date it is one of my favorite paintings.  Below is the Amazon link:

Portrait of the Artist as Poet by Carol Thayer Cox & Peggy Osna Heller (Paperback - Feb 1, 2006)