A new feature. You may join in the adventures.
Here is the first one.
A new feature. You may join in the adventures.
Here is the first one.
Here they are in reverse order:
I've developed some habits that I engage in first thing in the morning that I don't like because they bring little value to my life and they don't remain in the morning. They suck up hours of my day.
1. My morning routine starts with coffee. While I often think I want to give it up entirely, that's not the truth.
I have reduced how much I drink, though. I used to have four cups of coffee before noon. My cups of coffee means 16 oz each times four. That's a whopping 64 oz. I'm down to two 8 oz. cups. That's reasonable. Less than that, and I feel like a zombie or a sleepwalker.
I do drink my coffee black like a true sociopath. Cream and sugar make it dessert.
2. I inherited my mother's joints (not the good kind, puff puff.) I have a bad left knee that will eventually need some doctoring. I get a sharp stabbing pain in my right hip. The joints in my shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, etc, feel hot when I touch them and ache when a storm's on the horizon. Have done for ages and not just because I aged.
When I moved to Florida, I started adding collagen powder to my coffee. I did it for 6 months. Not everything went away, so I went off it for a month. Yeah, I'm back on the powder.
Feeling like a knife is being wedged into your hip joint makes sleeping difficult. A knee tight with fluid makes walking unpleasant.
I'll let you know if it improves my skin. I didn't pay attention to that before.
EMails, News, Facebook, oh, my.
3. There's never anything important, urgent, or desperately interesting in my Inbox, so why oh why am I compelled to open the damn thing up? Does it make me think I'm starting work? It is the first step on that path to Wasted Time, a destination I no longer wish to visit.
4. I admit it. I am addicted to the "What horrible thing is happening now?' syndrome. Knowing it, especially first thing in the morning (or late at night when I can't sleep), is in no way helpful or healthy. I'm striking this activity off my ToDo list
5. Facebook sucks up hours of my time. I have to figure out a reasonable solution for this behavior. I like it, so I think I'll make it some sort of limited reward. Details to follow.
These last three things will be activities I engage in only AFTER I finish writing for the day. That sounds like a good place to start.
I did finally delete the blue bird. I consider that a win.
“What am I in the eyes of most people —
a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person —
somebody who has no position in society and will never have;
in short, the lowest of the low.
All right, then —
even if that were absolutely true,
then I should one day like to show
by my work what such an eccentric,
such a nobody, has in his heart."
Look at me with the QR Code skills.
The challenge was to write 5 new stories in 5 days on 5 themes as Creative Nonfiction/Memoir. The five themes were Origin Stories, The Emergent Self, The Body, Where the Heart Is, Nature + Spirit. She provided explanations, examples, guidance, and writing exercises to focus images and sensations into the condensed format. If you are interested in checking out the videos for the challenge, you can find the Day 1 Video HERE.
I had one sheet of wood pulp watercolor paper left so I gave myself permission to go crazy with color and this certainly has a look of chaotic pigment which makes me uncomfortable. I suppose I should explore why that is. I suspect it has something to do with my penchant for hiding. I prefer working in black and white.
I used Prang OVL-16H watercolors. They are really pretty for a $10 set of paints. If you want to play, you can't beat these for a starter set.
Enough psyco-babble.
Things learned:
Background is too busy for letter illumination.
Use a smooth paper if you want smooth inked lines.
Use 100% cotton paper because you use a lot of water.
Patience, Grasshopper. Patience. Lots of waiting for the paint to dry.
Here's the poem I wrote that is featured in the bands on the painting.
Februa's Festival
as long as February frightens away feelings forlorn, fragmented, and faithless, this faery song fades like failure on failure.
fancy me a fool, fate defied upon Fortune’s Wheel, turning, fumbling, frustrated from all that is found and forfeit as first love.
Friendship, Freedom, Forgotten Books, and Forget-Me-Nots, florets flourishing on flood-tides where father and child fish, fishing, fished all flushed and fevered finds, forced fervor feeding the falcons and doves flying amongst fireflies in Fairyland.
foreshadowed in fresh flesh frozen in fifty shades of faint fuschia, fallen petals, fallen fame, fingers in the belly.
Fly, just not yet, fickle Fortuna.
Februa fire fans the footsteps of angels, a funeral pyre of false prophets fleeing the phantom’s finale.