crayons

 a new school year with a NEW box of crayons
there is something about the feel and smell of crayons that immediately takes me to my happy place

i saw a piece on Pineterest and had to re-pin it to my board - it was one of those AH-HA moments

a while back i wrote about a doodle  i had done
this doodle came about because of my daughter Kelsey - she is on the autistic spectrum and doesn't get the world the same way many other people do
we had many moments filled with all sorts of emotions and usually all in very loud voices
some of my art students got to experience Kelsey in all her "glory" after she stormed out of the studio one very sensitive and astute young man said very softly-

crayons melt- people shouldn't

i wanted to hug him because i knew exactly what he was thinking

 so when i saw the melted crayons on Pinterest i knew they belonged together like peanut butter and jelly

this is going on the studio wall

for Kelsey - because some days for her are like melted crayons - and even though she's melted down on me i can still see her beauty

DREAM BIG!

Why not? I mean what do you have to lose beside a little bit of time?
So that's what I did. I am competing with small businesses across America for a $50,000 grant from Intuit

You can help me win by voting for me. That red heart on my blog will help you do that.

What would I do with $50,000? oh my......

I would give my art room a total makeover. Currently I am teaching 90 private students in the studio. I love my art room but it could use some professional organizing instead of the hand-me-down make it work storage system I have now.

 The drop ceiling would disappear and it would be painted white with a loft and a skylight that would OPEN for fresh air.





And then there would be organized storage all on one wall in one place! Everything would be labeled so each one of my students could find what they need!


I would have this professionally designed and done by my very dear NEW architect friend Kristen Greteman.

Dreams can come true can't they?
If you vote for me you can help it happen.

Spread the word.

Thank you.

what is happening to us?

a group of well intentioned intelligent people in my community tried to get a bond issue passed to relocate our library- which is very small- to a new site. i became part of this group because i liked the fact that they were going to take a 'brownfield site"  and reclaim it for the library. this would clean up an area of our city that needs it plus it would keep our library located close to the center of town. this did not happen over night. a committee was formed over 5 years ago to look into a larger library. lots of time, effort and volunteer hours were spent on the project with two years spent on planning for the final chosen site. everything was OK until one man - just one- decided he didn't like this idea at all and he started a one man campaign against the project. he took out quarter page ads in the local newspaper. and when he was asked to have a sit down discussion and debate his views with the people who had been working on this project he refused. yet he continued to bully the community with propaganda and fear. did i mention that money was no object in his campaign- he personally funded his bully campaign.

 those of us who wanted to see this new library happen were able to generate over 1Million dollars in pledges and grants towards the project.

the bond issue was resoundingly defeated. the next day this bully had the audacity to call the president of the library board of trustees to ask if she wanted to work with him on his plan for the library- and it was OK to say no- she said no.

he then took about another quarter page ad in the newspaper and basically said we were poor sports about the vote so we  "took our ball and went home".

now, i don't know about you but when i was a kid i avoided  bullies. they didn't play fair and someone- usually me or my friends- got hurt. so we would pack up our things and leave. it wasn't easy to confront a bully.  and it still isn't.

i keep shaking my head and asking myself what is going on?


 i really would like to know.

why do we put up with this kind of behavior?

be·nign–adjective

1. having a kindly disposition; gracious: a benign king.
2. showing or expressive of gentleness or kindness: a benign smile.
3. favorable; propitious: a series of benign omens and configurations in the heavens.


twice in my life i have had the word cancer directed at me. the first was about 6 years ago in the form of a lump in my left breast. in the two weeks it took from discovery to biopsy results i experienced a gamut of emotions from worse case to everything is fine....to how could anyone ever accept me as whole if my breast was missing...

the relief was overwhelming when the results came back benign. the gods were indeed smiling on me.

four weeks ago i heard that word again mentioned in reference to me and my body. this one was even more frightening because i really didn't know much about uterine cancer. i was scared and angry. why does cancer want to invade my reproductive organs? i realize i am no longer using them for their intended purposes because i made the decision 16 years ago that 4 kids were enough. even so- i am rather attached to all my organs and i am pretty sure they are all in careful balance with each other.  in other words i might not be using them but my body NEEDS them.

i have several friends who have had hysterectomies and they have said:

"best thing I ever did"
" I don't know why I waited so long"
" if I had it to do over I would have done it sooner"

and i'm thinking- wait a minute- i know i complain a lot about being a girl and dealing with cramps and periods and pms all that wonderful girl stuff

but  - maybe i am odd in my thinking - but i nurtured four new human beings in my uterus. whatever i ate or was exposed to directly affected what was going on in my uterus. i took this job seriously in order to give them the best chance i could to develop into healthy babies. i continued that very important job by nourishing them through breastfeeding until i felt they were ready for other foods....

don't get me wrong- i am not a granola eating, forever breastfeeding all natural earth mother.
i am just a woman. and a huge part of being a woman - for me- has to do with  the reproductive organs- all of them.

so when my surgeon - with his charming smile and pretty blue eyes says so sweetly to me that we'll just remove your uterus and ovaries laparoscopically and you'll be a little uncomfortable for a few days but recovery will be quick and easy unless your results come back positive in which case you have major surgery and we remove everything  and recovery is longer....but still you'll be back to normal....blah,blah,blah....

normal?
i'll be damaged goods.
a broken object with parts of me missing.

it's not like i am perfect to begin with. my body is a road map of my life so far-scars from my appendectomy, c-section, and breast biopsy. i'm a few pounds over weight and i have stretch marks from pregnancies and breastfeeding...all a part of who i am.

and he wants to just remove them like they are nothing.

results: benign

once again the gods have smiled on me.



When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.

They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~Barbara Bloom

please return as soon as possible

too young

it's father's day again. it seems like it was just father's day but then i am getting old enough where the years seem to merge into each other. i haven't celebrated father's day since 1989. you see my dad died at age 56 in January of 1990. i was only 29 years old. too young. he died too young and i was too young to lose my dad.

my dad was 'kookie' (yes it's a real word)

Adj.

1.

kookie - informal or slang terms for mentally irregular

yep- that was my dad. crooked glasses, goofy grin and all.

he fathered 10 kids- 3 sons and 7 daughters. i am in the middle of the daughters. dad worked hard and put in a lot of hours to make sure there was food on the table and a roof over our heads. i remember the first time dad took all of us girls fishing at the lagoon. last thing mom said to us was "KEEP YOUR SHOES ON!"
 the shoes came off as soon as we got to the waters edge - we were like a herd of cats going off in 6 different directions. Melanie, Cecelia and i were more interested in the tadpoles and catching a frog than fishing, Susan, Jackie and Rosemarie actually put their bamboo poles in the water to fish. at about the same time two shouts went out- Melanie cut her foot and Rosemarie caught a fish.

 fishing trip over....

and then there was the time Melanie and i went golfing with dad- i am not much of a golfer- all i remember about that outing was dad telling me to keep my head down with some exasperation as i hit the 5th ball into the pond....

...and there were the family picnics and the long card rides to see grandma and grandpa after we moved away from Des Moines and trips to see our brother Timmy and moving me to college and the next thing i know he's walking me down the aisle and then he's holding my first born- a daughter and then he was gone....miss you dad. a lot.

coloring outside the lines? YES!

so, officially it's only the second day of summer. the weekend doesn't count. already i have a To-Do list that is pretty long. sometimes i think i should make a "To Don't" list because it would be easier and faster to check the items off.

coloring outside the lines is what i do. it's why i am here in this place at this time. i think we all need a little more outside the lines time in our lives.