Wild passion!
Sunday 21 May, 2006
Artist and blog-star Keri Smith often makes art from stuff she finds on the street. Inspired by her, I always walk around with my eyes peeled. I've found some cool stuff on the ground, like a old fold-out copy of the Lord's Prayer, illustrated in bright 1950s style...a kid's drawing of a zebra that had an elaborate and very funny code message on it....once I even found a little knitted Steiner doll!
Anyway, I found this lolly wrapper on the weekend. Wild Passion - how lovely! Don't the very words make you feel like bursting out and doing something fabulous?
I also read this quotation in a magazine - a woman in her 50s offering advice to young people:
"With the benefit of age and hindsight you realise that it's only you running your race and it's really no-one else's business. Don't worry about what people think about you. Do things to please yourself, not to please some idea that you have about what you "should' be. You don't have to justify your-self to other people."
Hell yeah! Here's to wild passion and heartfelt, authentic lives! I don't think I'm there yet, but I'm continuing to strive towards it...what more can you do?
Posted on 21 May, 2006 | 10:32am | 4 comments
the habit of the hermit
Friday 19 May, 2006
After a long few weeks of kids with chickenpox, and Magnus teething and then all of us having those early winter colds, I emerge feeling like I've been a bit of a hermit. If I didn't have one day a week where I have a standing lunch date with my friend Rachael after she watches Magnus for me while I'm at yoga...I could go a whole week without seeing anyone or going anywhere except walking Willoughby to school and back . This might sound nutso to those of you without small kids, but when you don't have a whole lot of money and not a huge circle of friends...where is there to go except for the library and the park?
I went and had coffee with a couple of friends yesterday and found it hard to make conversation - not because my friends aren't fabulous and interesting, I hasten to add - but I just spend so much time in the company of a one-year old boy...I'm losing my social skills, it seems!
Being an at-home Mama can be an isolating business. Especially if you're a bit of a freak. Especially if traditional "mother's coffee groups" make your blood run cold and your knees turn to jelly. Especially if the bulk of your best friends live in Welllington. PAH.
This week I resolve to try to "get out more"! It's going to be a looooonnng winter and getting out of the house and visiting real live people (instead of the cyber-people who make up most of my social contact at the moment) is good for me AND Magnus!
Postscript :: Coming back to this post, I realise it makes me sound like a bit of a loser. Ah well, I'm just telling it as it looks from this computer chair. Heh! (I'm very tempted to edit and change the above entry, but I'm gritting my teeth and doggedly sticking to my "no-editing, no censoring worst of self" rule!)
Posted on 19 May, 2006 | 7:24am | 7 comments
making stuff is good for you
Wednesday 17 May, 2006
(Not the best photo, today, too dark!)
I used to always always make my own greeting cards from the time I was a kid until...hmmm...probably once Willoughby came along. My stash of cards was getting low, so I resolved to not buy cards again and to get into making my own.
Last night I wanted to listen to a play on National Radio, so I sat with a pile of card and paper scraps and made 15 greeting cards! It was fun - there is a challenge in getting such a tiny space to look like a cohesive 'design'.
It is such a little thing, to sit for an hour with some card and paper...but it is the little projects like this that make me go off to bed with a smile on my face - I made something! I love that feeling.
Posted on 17 May, 2006 | 10:58am | 6 comments
it feels like winter is here
Tuesday 16 May, 2006
Cold hands at the computer, fogged up windows, yearning for comfort food like casseroles and hot fruit, wearing at least six layers on top when I venture outside...
winter is here! (I know it's still officially autumn, but it feels pretty wintery to me!)
Luckily for me - I have some exciting snail mail on the way - me and Melissa of Tiny Happy decided back in mid-summer that we would post each other a 'care-package' with the theme of "cold weather pick-me-up" in late May! Wheee! So yesterday I spent a bit of the morning wrapping up little random bits of goodness to be mailed to Nelson. Mail swaps are the best - it's like you can make anyday your birthday and get a present in the mail. :) I'm hyped because Melissa does a good care-package!
Anyway, hope those of you on this side of the world are keeping warm, chugging vitamin C, wearing a layer of wool next to your skin, and having good cold weather fun! xxxx
Posted on 16 May, 2006 | 8:17am | 3 comments
I am 100% geek (and proud!)
Monday 15 May, 2006
**warning** this entry is ludicrously trivial! :)
Both friends who stayed over at my place recently left their glasses! What are the odds? (I'll get them in the mail to you both, pronto!) So this morning I amused myself whilst waiting for the washing to do it's final spin by taking photos of myself in their glasses.
Maria's are vintage 1960s ones and I've always loved them on her. On me, well...I looked at the photo and it just looked so normal. They are a lot like the specs Morrissey used to wear in the 80s. I like how sort of brainy and fierce they look.
Then I tried on Lisa's very trendy sunglasses with my fake-fur jacket! Tee hee! I can't wear sunglasses because I'm so so short-sighted so it was weird to see myself in sunnies. This photo makes me feel really dorky - I just can't do the "cool" thing.
I surmise from this little experiment, that I am therefore 100% geek. It was fun - I wanna do dress-ups more often.
Posted on 15 May, 2006 | 10:30am | 2 comments
step right up!
Sunday 14 May, 2006
We took W and M to the circus on Saturday. (I hasten to add that there were no exotic or caged animals and the only animal act was some dogs.)
It was just like I remembered from my own childhood, the smell of pee, sawdust and musty canvas. The clowns and trapeze artists wearing tracksuits over their costumes peddling candy floss and popcorn out the front before the show. The loud music and the dry ice.
The 'traditional' circus acts, like the trapeze, the contortionists and the tightrope walkers were amazing! I love the glitzy costumes and the dramatic lighting!
I hate hate hate clowns - the totally give me the creeps! And dogs playing rugby and the naff story-telling in a desperate attempt to link the acts and give the show a sense of cohesion were cringy.
Circuses fascinate me - they are 30% glamour and 70% quiet desperation. The performers all looked very cold and slightly shabby and a bit sad.
Don't get me wrong, I love that kinda thing. 'Dishevelled glamour' is my middle name. I had a ball with my camera trying to get photos of all the sparkle and daring.
Oh yeah, and the boys liked it, too. Hah!
Posted on 14 May, 2006 | 11:41am | 6 comments
bowl
Thursday 11 May, 2006
This week I'm in love with the poem 'Bowl' by NZ poet Bernadette Hall, from the book 'The Merino Princess'.
The whole poem is about an artist making a bowl from wood, and it is also about love and chance and fate (in that wonderful way that poetry can be about so much with just a few carefully chosen words.) I especially love the idea that "grace is a routine" which kinda encompasses yesterdays post about positivity and gratitude having to be something that is worked at. Anyway, it is a long poem and I know attention spans on the internet are very brief, so I'll just offer you the lovely final stanza here:
iii.
Miracles are a matter
of timing, grace is a routine.
Run your fingers on the lip
of the bowl, round & round
without end.
Gradually
you will come to the place
where you know what you are doing.
Posted on 11 May, 2006 | 10:40am | 4 comments
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