NOT Just Another Friday...

DO YOU ever notice yourself slipping into taking lovely things for granted?! 

Are YOU ever suddenly woken up in the middle of assuming things would always BE one way and Now they are NOT?!

I have to admit, this has been the case for me lately...

Probably the biggest piece of this was when I fell on my head a few weeks ago. I was so glad I could get up, that Gracie wasn't hurt, and just to get home was more than enough.

Then, little by slowly, day by week, things started to shift slightly. And I started adapting to them.

Or that's what I am thinking.

For instance, I have lived long enough in my daily celebration of Gratitude that I just seem to BE grateful all.the.time. Without even breaking a sweat.

And I've just been DOing the weekly art challenges I DO as though they are as common as carrots.

Yet in the past few weeks I've struggled to find my Gratitude, been writing more disjointedly than ever I can recall, and both of my weekly "regular" celebrations of art-making and art-sharing have stepped away for a time...

It makes me wonder, all this Change.

Oh, and the gig I had teaching Kickin' Arts and Art FUNdamentals at the Delray Beach Center for the Arts since 2010 has decided NOT to have me DO it any longer, for financial reasons.

And then of course there are my own "financial reasons" which brings me back round to the lack of normal constancy in my Life. 

To this NOT BEing Just Another Friday...

Now my weeks are punctuated with dependence upon a paratransit ride service which is consistently inconsistent to go for cervical traction twice a week. 

My walks to the market or even with Gracie are dizzy and discombobulating and I've grown impatient and intolerant of things which, I suppose, taking Life for granted as I was, I was able to see past or simply NOT EVEN focus upon BEfore.

I am NOT saying I don't like, even LOVE the fact that Life is Change. 

[at least I don't think that is what I am saying...]

I'm really saying I feel adrift. Apart. Unhinged. Disconnected.

How about YOU?! Does this make sense?! 

How is it that YOU cope with Change and things you "take for granted" going all hob-gobbled just when you've found your rhythm and flow?!

I am challenging myself to write out loud for the 91 days, 1 April through 30 June 2013. I'm pulling questions out of hats and giving them some room to romp. If you have a question to share, please email me... 

silver dot currie at gmail dot com

Somedays Are Like That, Mom

About 32 years ago, my son said a wise thing to me. And to this very day I hear his little boy voice saying it. Especially on certain sorts of days.

Somedays are like that, Mom!!

Today has been one.

NOT especially "bad" and certainly far from awful, it's just been a day that has brought me face-to-face with a Currie I'm none too fond of. 

She is impatient, she goes off over tiny things that mostly she wouldn't even register, and she has this attitude that is, well, let's say "entitled." 

NOT a pretty or pleasant thing...

I've pretty much kept her like the Jack... In. The. Box.

I even took the words right out of her mouth once.

That made me smile.

It's just a day. 

And Now it's at its end.

Almost...

Thinking I'll count my blessings and remind myself Who & How I REALLY Am.

I am challenging myself to write out loud for the 91 days, 1 April through 30 June 2013. I'm pulling questions out of hats and giving them some room to romp. If you have a question to share, please email me... 

silver dot currie at gmail dot com

Photo Art Friday 12 April 2013 ~ Shadows & Light

As best I can I am limiting my computer time for the next while. It helps, actually it helps a lot, but I really DO enJOY my digital fiddling time, so I am trying to get in at least a couple of fiddling times each day.

The two photos I've settled on for Photo Art Friday this week are much more composites, a funny realisation I had as I was fiddling away.

The first I played with a LOT in Picasa and then in Pixlr Express. I've been shying away a bit from textures the last while, at least in the one [and so far only] way I've learnt to use them.

Yet others here have talked about textures and layers and I thought, HEY, I know how that would work!! So I did it. I used a bunch of PDPA textures, Age It, Scratched Lens, and Vintage Vellum, and ah-HAH!! I even knew how to find them AFTER in my Recent Items List!!

Isn't this amazing the things we learn going blind into the digital fiddlish frontier!!!

The next one is actually part of a larger piece that I cropped and fiddled with. In this one I like the way the shadows play off the windows onto the fire escapes and then about the bricks.

I also used the Antique Me texture in this one along with Age It. Really very interesting to fiddle effects with textures and overlays. I think this may BE why I need to limit my computer times...

So that's it and that's all from me and I surely will BE looking for you all over the next couple of months during our PAF hiatus. 

As I shared with Bonnie when I read of her taking a break, I think it may well BE a blessing in disguise for me. Still, I really especially love this part of my week and connecting with you all.

BE Well and Stay Well and EnJOY the little things in Life. See you in June and I thank you one and all AGAIN and AGAIN for your kind words of encouragement as I continue healing my banged-up brain. 

You've no idea how VERY MUCH your time to write has helped me. You are some amazing and wondrous human beans and I wish everyone were as blessed as I've been in this time of really needing to know I'm NOT just out here whistling in the wind.

Making Lemonade

Somedays ask for more patience than I can muster. 

I try to catch people DOing things "right" or "well."

I make room.

I practise breathing in and out, smiling, finding the JOY in waiting.

And in the end, I sometimes just have to surrender.

This was my afternoon.

Waiting for the Connection bus that never came...

Until I'd got on the regular bus... I am so tired of this process.

For almost a year my drivers were always on time, even early.

I could call and speak to someone, like that!!

Last week I let this all bend me out of shape.

[which is saying something, considering the "shape" I am in ;~D]

NOT today.

Sometimes you just have to make lemonade.

Even without lemons.

I am challenging myself to write out loud for the 91 days, 1 April through 30 June 2013. I'm pulling questions out of hats and giving them some room to romp. If you have a question to share, please email me... 

silver dot currie at gmail dot com

Artist's Play Room #52 ~ Fruit

I've kept it very simple this week; still resting my brain and spending smaller bits of time on the computer.

EnJOYed exploring Fruit.

Did some drawing. That's saying something.

Mostly, though, I digitally fiddled and here's what I came up with:

Fruit Patterns "Tossed" Together

Kim Klassen Texture, Refresh
fiddled with in Picasa and Pixlr
with Mahatma Gandhi quote

Ol' Man Simon by Shel Silverstein 
for National Poetry Month

We Know How To DO This Better...

I need quiet and simplicity today. 

Yesterday took me deep into the experience of pain. A long night's sleep, with Gracie right BEside me the entire time, reminded me that I know how to deal with or "DO" pain better so it is time I DO it better.

I've navigated Today more slowly, accepting my Present reach and what is BEyond my Present grasp. 

This causes me to wonder how often I DO what I know better than to DO, and How I DO what I Know How To DO Better. 

It's tempting to sweep it under the rug. To look away.

BUT...

Seeing is important.

Making mistakes, like the one I made yesterday, apparently essential.

This is NOT news, yet it seemed outside my experience yesterday.

When we know better we DO better. I've heard that all sorts of places, but for some reason Oprah's saying it is what I "hear" when I hear it.

When we KNOW better we DO better.

Simple.

Quietly simply.

Just what I need to remember today.

I am challenging myself to write out loud for the 91 days, 1 April through 30 June 2013. I'm pulling questions out of hats and giving them some room to romp. If you have a question to share, please email me... 

silver dot currie at gmail dot com

I Want To Know...

It happened again this morning. It was just BEfore 4 o'clock. 

I woke myself up talking. 

Out Loud.

Making Sense.

I want to know if this happens to YOU.

If YOU, too, are sometimes undone, awoken, and rather astonished by what your sleeping brain is DOing.

Without your instructions.

Without you even knowing it. [or suspecting]

I've learned to write these things down. As though I have uncovered buried treasure. 

And I have often seen the depth and reach of these captured treasures only after some time has passed.

This morning's little pearl was:

We are all broken and we are all remarkable.

Hmmmmmmm...

Perhaps I CAN see the seed in this little bloom.

Since my fall on my head I have felt "broken." 

My brain isn't acting like itself and I've a sense of BEing a stranger to myself.

Despite this change of circumstances, I am adapting a little more each day to my sense of brokenness. 

To my unsense of self.

I see myself as I was in ways I clearly took for granted.

I want to know if YOU have experienced this, too.

If you surprise yourself as I DO myself with what I don't know I know.

I Want To Know...

I am challenging myself to write out loud for the 91 days, 1 April through 30 June 2013. I'm pulling questions out of hats and giving them some room to romp. If you have a question to share, please email me... 

silver dot currie at gmail dot com