By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions....

Proud to be American

 ...one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.  Christopher Columbus

Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.   Saul Bellow


I guess I haven't had the same focus as that of good ole Chris, as my attempts at creating art --or doing anything for that matter-- have been hit or miss.  I still haven't  found a way to get my old task-oriented, success-driven life back that I had before the death of my husband. When that life left, it also took my confidence and  motivation with it, leaving me with inertia, insecurities and (gasp) procrastination.  I seem to have lost the ability to study, and to pray and I have lost the joy of reading--which has been with me since a little girl.   I have filled the gap with social networking both face to face and on the internet--good things but insufficient.


However, I am convinced, that I won't be able to live in the old life again as it is impossible to return to yesterday and we only have today; I am in the process in building a new life--some days I participate in that better than others.  While I am not pleased with the procrastination and I miss the motivation, it is all a part of the transition.  I have learned a lot in the last 16 months about myself, God and about other people.  The dust is still settling, and we will see where Maxie will be when it does.  Meanwhile I am getting a hip replaced. My first hope was that this would help me to get part of my old life, but I realize that this hip has been has been impeding my ability to move freely for some time, even before I noticed the pain, so in that respect I want my new life to be better than the old.  I do want reading part of my new life so I am ordering books by my favorite authors to read while I am laid up. All I can say is: hide and watch and see what kind of Maxie emerges....


The drawing is titled Proud to be American.  I found a website that provides a gallery for my art and where I can create a gallery of works of other artists.  I am enjoying it very much. http://artofmaxielee.deviantart.com/ 

Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.

Kayla on Sun

Once you choose hope, anything's possible.  ~Christopher Reeve

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.  ~Emily Dickinson

All of sudden I feel hopeful.  I don't know where it comes from, why it comes or why it leaves, but I am going to cherish it tonight.

Maybe it is because I sat down and drew a picture.  I have had such an artist block, just getting to the drawing table has been difficult.  I say I will do it and then get distracted.  This week I just did.  I may do it again tomorrow.

Maybe it because someone looked at the house.  The housing market is practically dead here so the showing was a surprise.  And the family is interested.  And if it sells I have a wonderful home to buy since the owners, my friends, insist that they want me to have it.


Maybe it is because I am finally thinking positively about getting my hip fixed, believing that by spring I will be free of the pain and immobility.  I think that up til now I couldn't see the possibilities.


Maybe it is because I am getting a little of my old life back--being task oriented, and taking care of chores, taking care of business and helping others.


Maybe it is simply because God loves me and He wants His children to live in hope.


The drawing is a study for a painting I plan to do.  It is titled Kayla on Sun, a picture of my grand daughter.  I am pleased with it even though I am not an expert on horses and tack (even though a son and grandchildren are cowboys/girls :o).  I just drew what I saw in the photograph, I am hopeful that I will be able to do the same for the painting.

 

Redecorating, Comic Relief

It has been almost a month since I have posted here.  I have been too busy being stressed. :o0

My real estate agent asked if we could have the downstairs painted before an agent showing, and I said, "Oh, sure!" Not clear thinking.  Then I told my daughter I would drive her across the state to Seattle for a doctor's appointment--being gone 4 days.  I also promise to participate in a recovery event.  I did not take into account my room mate Mary Rose would be gone 5 days when we needed to be painting and she was the number one worker downstairs.  I did not take into account that we'd have to leave 2 days before the showing to get my daughter to her appointment, and would get back just in time for the special event.  But we got er done.  I started painting walls during Mary Rose's vacation-When Mary Rose returned--using one of her days off, she took over the painting, I concentrated on making chair covers and curtains and cleaning the rest of the house.  A grandson spiffed up the yard. So things were under control when we left for our trip.  The trip was long coming and going because of road construction.

I was able to spend some time with my sister and to meet up with a couple of friends I went to high school with.  I have not seen them since graduation day, we had so much fun as we always do in Face Book.

I got back just in time to attend the Recovery event which was great fun.  I had promised that I would be part of Saturday evening's entertainment.  I would have loved to been able to sing, but I doubt that would have been entertaining so I just did a comedy routine.  And I got laughed at!! Imagine that.  People said I didn't know you could do that.  I told them I didn't know either until I did it. The trick is to not be afraid to laugh at yourself and not be afraid of what others think.  I just talked about some of my adventures living for 25 in West Texas.  I even beefed up my Southern accent. I related about my job at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and how I served delicacies like Rocky Mountain Oysters and rattlesnake.  It was all too funny and I loved doing it and I am apt to do that again.  I certainly have lots more weird stories to tell and I believe I will keep the Southern accent--I kinda like it.  It was like I let out part of my personality that I have been suppressing-- as my friend said, it was Maxie Unleashed!

So this week I have been very lazy--decompressing.  I am sad about the change of the season-- I am not ready to let go of summer.  But it is part of the stream of life.  I am feeling very blessed with the friends and loved ones I have.

Housework is something you do...

White Rabbit

...that nobody notices until you don't do it.
 My second favorite household chore is ironing.  My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.  ~Erma Bombeck

   


August cranked up to be a pretty busy month. Since the house is on the market, I have been having to tend to household duties, like making the bed and making sure there are no dirty dishes in the sink--it's like housekeeping boot camp --or retraining.  I have also been doing some thorough cleaning, sorting and packing and I am pleased to say that I have been able to stay on task.  I even cleaned the oven--which was pretty scary, but while I was polishing the stove, I imagined how nice it would be for the new family to have a sparkling clean stove to cook on in the first day in their new home.  Maybe I was being a little too idealistic, but it helped me to push on with a thoroughly boring chore.


August is fair time and I normally enter a lot of items from my garden. This year my garden suffered from neglect and I had fewer things to enter.  I felt guilty, like I had abused my own little family.  However, I am happy to have entered some art.


I have also been looking at homes to buy which can be an emotional experience, but I am trying to just have fun with it and trust that when the time comes to make a decision, God will help me make it.  My normal mode is to lock in on scenarios like a heat-seeking missile and decide how these situations should come out, so I get flustered when things don't work according to plan or if I am offered a whole new set of options; I have trouble making a plan "B". 


The painting, White Rabbit, is one I finished 3 years ago, but it never got photographed.  There were some things about it I wasn't happy with but I solved the problems by adding the foliage, which I did in one painting session. Voile!  A new painting to show in my blog and at the fair.

Home...

Victorian II

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right.  ~Maya Angelou

Home is where you can say anything you like cause nobody listens to you anyway.  ~Author Unknown


I have been too busy to write, or more likely too scattered.  I launched into a new phase of having my home ready to show for sale after months of inertia and letting things go and that has been a tough transition, but I am getting the hang of it.  I am keeping the house up pretty well by tidying up, making the bed and stuffing clutter out of sight.  The real estate agent has not place any high expectations on me--it is me who wants it to show well.  I am slowed down by the bum hip but I have been getting it done.  Mary Rose, my daughter-in-law, and part time room mate, has been working on the downstairs where she stays and it is looking nice.  Helpers have also worked in the yard.  The agent, a friend of mine, and another friend have been working on the house--a couple of things have to be brought up to code to please the lenders--and they rock.  They won't accept any pay for their work; this is what they do-- helping others.  I am touched by their generosity.

I did get approved for a loan but not in time to make an offer on the house we have been looking at--a small disappointment.

The weekend was fun; I did a lot of socializing.  It was Rendezvous  Days-- an annual celebration in the city park.  Friday and Saturday nights concerts were held in the Pavilion and the music was awesome, and the crowd was happy, dancing on the lawn or in front of the bandstand.  I even danced--rock and roll, with a cane.  I used to go line dancing with my brother and there was a lady who danced with a cane which seemed a little odd, but I tried dancing at the Native American Pow wow, and it actually works.  The cane helps me keep my balance allowing me to relax, and it shifts some of my weight so that I can move more freely.  I had fun.


A son and his wife came to visit Saturday, and it had been awhile since we have seen them.  Sunday was church in the park, and that afternoon I painted Memory Boxes with my artist friends. The boxes we paint are sent to hospitals to give to mothers who lose their babies to keep their mementos in.  That evening I went to another event with other friends.


Today, I looked at another house which is even nicer than the last one and put in an offer on it.  I am feeling oh so bold!  The truth is that the whole thing is in God's hands.


I am tired so I am going to ring off without checking for errors.   More later.

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it.

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness.  ~Richard Carlson
Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency.  ~Natalie Goldberg

The last week has been intense, and maybe a little too exciting.  My goal was to get out of that paralyzed state of inertia caused by grief and move on with my life, but, phew, what a ride!  The week included my car breaking down, but my son fixing it, putting a house on the market then frantically cleaning it and calling on family to help, attending a weekend Pow Wow with Native Americans, disappointment in a relationship, having strangers walking though the house, finding a house I can see myself living in, dealing with banks, having friends help weed my garden, pain, a couple of emotional meltdowns, typing for the church, designing a mug for an upcoming event, completing the first painting in a year, flowers, sunshine, music, hugs, laughter, friends and family.  Life is good because God is in control.  We will see where my new life will take me.  Relax Max.


The painting is Goldfinch on a Cone Flower.  Oil on canvas panel. 8 x 10.

Bad news then the good.

Dahlias Oil on Masonite 8 x 10

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem.  Everything else is inconvenience.  ~Robert Fulghum

If you're going through hell, keep going.  ~Winston Churchill



It has been an interesting week.  Filled with frustrations to say the least.  Bad New... I got into trouble with a "Christian" website with their free trial to join.  They only asked for $1.99, which I paid for with my check card.  Immediately I received an email from the bank saying my account was overdrawn.  This site had charged me for 3 months membership.  I called the bank and was told to call the company--all I got was an answering machine, and believe me I left messages.  I did some research (which I should have done to begin with) and found out that the site was powered by a secular group and a lot of people were unhappy with it. Good news: they withdrew the charges. 

Bad news: my computer got a vicious virus.  The internet provider switched to Norton and I downloaded it.  It seems that the Norton program that came with the computer, which I didn't resubscribed to when it ran out, was so firmly entrenched in the P C, that it became territorial and wouldn't allow another version be installed properly, so I had no protection. The computer has been slowly dying for weeks.  Good news:  A person starting out in the computer business fixed it cheaply for me.  And he managed to save my files.  Bad news: I have to start over in reinstalling my programs, photos, files and I had a lot of links in favorites which are gone now.  Good news:  I have all my art in Face book, so I just have to copy it back into the computer--easier than getting it off of disk.

Bad news:  It is getting hot out.  Good news:  My daughter-in-law put the AC in the studio window, and the hot air is drying out the weeds and grasses which a friend is mowing down and they probably won't grow back this year.


Phew!!  I have learned some valuable lessons, but I am glad to say that I spent a lot of time with friends this week.  That is always good news.