paintedpinkmountains

It's extremely difficult to focus on work when the boss comes in with his puppy, tells you to keep an eye on her, and walks out the door.  So then this happens.  This little girl is quickly becoming my best friend. Even though she wants to chew my hair, and my shirt, and lick my jeans (she smells my doggie). On another note, I was able to get out for a hike over the weekend.  It was a little on the chillier side and I noted the possibility of snow in the forecast, but I went out anyway.  Met a friend there and the trail was much busier than I expected it to be.  Found a group hanging out when we got to the top of the rocks and passed at least three more groups of hikers on our way down.  It started snowing before we started our descent, and it added such a peaceful air around us.  I'm ready to get out again, but it's looking like we'll be snowed in this weekend.  Good thing I have plenty of yarn.

Todays distraction is brought to you in honor of the following: David Bowie, who I've loved and have been listening to since I was old enough to recognize truly good music. Movement, my word of the year, combined with the first video below, so that everyone can pay respects to Mr. Bowie and dance!!!! My dad, who would have celebrated his 69th birthday on the day David Bowie left the earth.  I like to think that where ever they are, David sang Happy Birthday to my dad :). So, if you haven't already (because obviously social media has already covered millions of shares), or if you have and would like to again (me! me!) here's some David Bowie for your enjoyment, nostalgia, and distraction. My favorite! A version I remember seeing when I was very young, but have forgotten about. 6:08 I would totally have bought an audio book of David Bowie does Nursery Rhymes and played it for my kids every night! I've heard him refer in this way to his process numerous tim...

I'm going to go through some creative experimentation this month and work on finding some routines that work for me.  For example, Tuesdays Distraction may turn into an every Tuesday list of things that I find which make me feel good and spark encouragement to create and move.  On the other hand, I might decide that I want to call it something else and do it on another day of the week.  Or maybe I'll do it today and then not ever want to do it again. We shall see. The point is, with my word for 2016 being "Movement" I'm just going with it when it hits me.  Rather than sitting and thinking on things, wondering if it's precisely the way I want to do it and then never really following through. Yay for movement!  For now, please enjoy the things that have been distracting me, but in a good way. The photo above is a pair of jeans I'm mending using a Japanese hand mending method. I can see this being my new obsession (because I do occasionally need a break ...

From the moment I began to think about my  guiding word  for 2016, I knew exactly where I would end up.  I still went through the process  Susannah  provides each year, knowing that there is always the possibility another word might speak to me more.  Besides, I love digging, analyzing and ensuring that I'm going from my soul.   2015 began with the word "Thrive" but quickly turned into "Presence".  That word was perfect for the year as I worked very deeply with being where ever I happened to be at any given moment.  It forced me to notice both inside and outside of myself.  It brought me a sense of calm. But as the last quarter of the year has come, I felt the unsettledness that I always begin to feel as autumn peels away the layers grown throughout the year to expose its depths.  Still keeping my presence, I truly saw my own naked branches for the first time.  My truths and my fears are uncovered and before winter e...

Tomorrow we welcome another December, and with it  Susannah Conway  brings her  December Reflections  back again!  I participated last year on instagram, and also in her  August Break  which brought my soul a much needed creative boost.  I often go through the motions of my day, from one job to the next, and forget to take time to stop and breathe in the beauty around me.  To be honest, it's not usually that I forget, but more that I just don't. 2015 has been centered around presence, and I'm looking forward to cultivating much more of it through this and other projects I continue to fill my days with.

Someone once told me one of the things that bothered them so much about me was how much I changed.  Not that I changed from who I once was to who I turned out to be at whatever given time, but that I was never consistent in my views.  One day I was vegetarian (actually that lasted for 3 years), the next I was eating a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit from a place that I always would complain about his choice to eat there.  One day I was trying to stop using paper towels, the next I had a package of them in the cupboard.  This always bothered me, because at the same time I was told how "rigid" I was in my ways, and occasionally I would put those "ways" aside and try to be accommodating.  Mostly I wanted to see if my being accommodating would, in turn, make him be more accommodating to me on occasion.  It didn't. We're much, much better as friends. In fact, we're pretty good friends, and great co-parents.  But we are totally different persons. And t...

So there's a full moon tonight.  And accompanying it is a side of PMS, topped with a night filled with a handful of five-minute intervals of sleep.  Needless to say, my insides are not a bursting ray of sunshine at the moment. Oh, and then there's the chocolate I've consumed today.  Not organic chocolate either.  And damn does it ever taste good, even if it is contributing negatively to my current internal swirling of emotions.  I can honestly feel it all.  And it is a bit of a struggle to keep from bursting at the seams today, but I'm managing to contain myself. There are many words inside of me begging to come out.  I've recently been tested, and I've found someone inside of me that has been begging for years to come out.  A part of me that I've spent my entire life suffocating under a blanket of emotion.  Yet, when she finally came out, I was happy to let her.  She is who I am, and who I've wanted to be for so long.  And I wo...