Bits and pieces

I'm still working on my Irish travel journal and am gradually finishing some pages. Here's one page that was simply fun -- drawing some meals from the last few days. For about two weeks afterwards I faithfully kept my food journal that way once I got home but now it's sort of hit or miss.

Northern California is quite warm these days, in the 90s, and it isn't even summer yet. Steve and I finally made it out to the bike path to get all the vacation growth wacked back down so our section looks great. It was like mowing straw in the dust, but it had rained while we were away and needed taming. This is fire season in California and it's really important to keep grasses cut short.

I am just finishing a wonderful art journaling class from Cre8it.com. I took nine weeks of classes and would have loved to have posted my work but it was against copyright law so I'll just have to use all those ideas and techniques as jumping off places for pages of my own invention. Keeping a visual journal has definitely become one of my great loves.

Visual journaling fun

ADHD and church are a bad mix. I can't focus for beans unless I ground myself in something. For the past year I've been dragging in my pens to keep me occupied during the service and it helps tremendously. With some of the edginess siphoned off I can be totally engaged in the service, as I was yesterday when I drew Beulie at my feet and added a couple parishioners. I added most of the color later.

After church I scrambled all over to find my keys. They were so very gone! But the strangest thing happened when I went to my car to see if I'd left them there. Steve and I were looking in the windows when a guy walked up to us and jangled the keys. He said they were over the fence in his yard. Trying to piece it together I can only guess that I must have dropped them and whoever found them threw them in the closest yard. So bizarre, but it all turned out OK in the end!

The truth be told

I don't have a single visual to post today but I have EIGHT new pages in my journal! I've been participating in an online art journaling class from Cre8it! which offers 21 consecutive days of instruction in how to keep a personal visual journal. I'm all caught up, have been faithfully making each page each day, but one of the agreements of this class is that we NOT post our assignments anywhere except in the classroom's dedicated group. So.... trust me, I've been making new pages but not drawing as much, and will keep posting something visual here more days than not, just like always.

Bowling - Special Olympics style

Today was the long awaited bowling tournament for the Special Olympics groups in Northern California. Our youngest daughter participated and won the gold medal in her group. I tried to capture a few of the poses as the team played and then went on to set up my December calendar. I've gotten to the point where my little journal book goes everywhere with me so I can add a page or two while I'm waiting for something or observing a bit of life I don't want to forget.

Just drink tea

Here in "sunny California" the fog is sitting on the ground. The mountain behind my house has disappeared and most of the neighborhood went with it. What a great day to blog! After not blogging, not journaling, not drawing for an entire week, I'm back. I'm recommitting to daily everything because it keeps me sane and keeps me learning.

This week I tried to introduce visual journaling to girls at Juvenile Hall. My belief is that feelings and beliefs and events that are set out in front of us are both diluted and enhanced. They are diluted in the sense that they become less frightening; they are enhanced in that they become more understood. The girls were not impressed -- that was the impetus to the squirrel collage I posted yesterday. It was a quick demonstration of one journal method -- to respond to a visual image. Yesterday, for myself, I collaged a simple belief that I hold -- Tea is the antidote to most things negative! And then I decided I better DRAW something because I missed an entire week. This serves the Everyday Matters challenge #139 - "Draw something with a handle."

Why I cut and paste

When I was about four years old I was visiting my grandmother, a treat since we lived miles apart and I didn't see her often. To entertain me she handed me a scrapbook that she had made. It was full of images -- mostly angels cut from Christmas cards and pasted on the black pages. I remember spending "hours" turning the pages, contemplating the pictures, wondering and thinking. This was probably my first memorable spiritual experience. Years later I asked my grandmother for that old scrapbook and was sorry to learn that it had been pitched years ago. She seemed shocked that I even recalled it and surprised that I would want it. As a friend recently said, "And you've been cutting and pasting ever since."

This collage -- ModPodge, tissue wrapping paper and a magazine image -- shows how cozy and safe I feel sometimes, like a baby squirrel hidden in its nest. (Click to enlarge.)