Saturday afternoon.
A walk on the beach.
We left home under mist and drip and damp.
As walked along the wide low-tide beach, the sun came out.

There is a lesson here.

Moving forward even when things seem dark.
It is in the action that light shines.

Or something.

‘Twas a lovely day. Rainy, blustery, begging to be spent by the warm fire. The scent of curry simmering on the stove. Sweets being concocted. New books to peruse. A love letter to warm the cockles of my heart. A perfect day. A perfect send off to “52″. An optimistic start to tomorrow.

As time passes, I am less enamoured with the whole Christmas vibe and am turning slowly to Solstice. For me, increasing sunlight is something to celebrate. We had a small …but significant… ritual on Wednesday at dusk. I think it might become a tradition. Tom readied a firepit, lit the fire at the “official” sunset (4:45pm!). We watched the flames lick and take. We each had written a list of regrets or things we wished to acknowledge but let go of for 2011 and threw into the fire. I had made a bouquet for each of us …my daughter also took part… of pine, juniper, bayberry, oregano and thyme, chosen more for scent than any meaning. Then we all threw our bundles in, wishing Peace, Prosperity and Love to the New Year.

I like it.
I like it a lot.

Happy Solstice … Christmas… Kwanzaa… Holiday to each and every one of you.
I think 2012 is going to be a very good year.

We spent last weekend being city mice combining obligation with pleasure. Kinda like that ol’ spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down. Eating out. Stopping frequently for coffee, preferably in a window-side cushy chair all the better to people watch … and if lucky … eavesdrop. We hit pay dirt one time with Mr. Loud Voice regaling all within earshot of his romance turned sour in China. So. Entertaining.

But I digress.

One of our perennial anticipated pleasures of  visiting the sitay, is a stop at either Atlantic News or at the very least Chapters. Did I mention we live in the middle of nowhere? Magazine stores just don’t exist when the population is 2500 or less. So having a dedicated store is pretty exciting stuff!

Mentally rubbing my hands together with thoughts of  impending newly discovered treasures, imagine my disappointment as mag after mag was like a giant lunch bag letdown. What? How could this be?!? My first stop was the home decor/design aisle and as I flipped through, I realized that I’d seen better photos and more of them, from my feeds. Every day.

Hoping this was just a blip, my next stop was the DIY section … I’ve long grown disenchanted with the Somerset pubs… but Cloth, Paper, Scissors was a pretty large disappointment too. Adornment, Art Jewelry, Altered Couture, and all those specialty one-of’s put out by “Quilts By You” and “Make it Yourself “? Well let’s just say most of the stuff therein I’d seen online before.

I left the store without making one purchase.

Ack!  What. Is. Going. ON?!?

Oh. I mean I totally get that print media has a tough ol’ slog what with that whole time delay thang  not to mention space constraints. But. I never …ever… thought I’d be uninspired by the content. Surely there has to be SOMETHING the publishing business has over their online counterparts?! I mean. I much prefer curling up with a mag than my computer. But if you can’t show me “new” and “inspired”. If all you’ve got is 3 teeny tiny photos of each interior or a project that I could access online? 3 months ago? Well. I’m sorry but my money will stay in my pocket.

Unhappily I might add.

Very, very unhappily.

stop.

start.

stop.

start.

stop.

… where I am.

This …

… reminds me of this …

I THINK I’m just about UNstuffed. oy!

Thanksgiving horn of plenty indeed. The savory menu consisted of the starring Roast Turkey with traditional British Forcemeat (read: sausage stuffing), Bread stuffing, Orange Butternut Squash, Mashed Potatoes, Roast Root Vegetables, Carrots & Parsnips, Cranberry Sauce and Gravy. *burp*

But. BUT. This year Tom asked all our guests to bring a dessert. Which, ya know, resulted in them ALL. BRINGING. DESSERT.  His sweet tooth was in ecstasy. Let’s see … Cranberry Orange Cheesecake, Judy’s famous Cranberry Coffeecake, Apple Cake w/Cream Cheese Frosting, Sour Cream Apple Pie, Cranberry Apple Pie, Lemon Bread and yes, I made some fruit salad but didn’t even put it out.

I’m glad we have well over 2months before the onslaught of Christmas “joy”!

Inspired by a photo I saw on pinterest, I created my own “Welcome!” wheelbarrow.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to you all!

This morning I got an email from technorati asking that I participate in a survey on “The State of the Blogosphere“.  Who am I to say no?

It was eye-opening. To say the least.

After the initial “Hi! How are ya’s?” I was forced very quickly down a very narrow path lined with pointed questions about whether I would sell my soul (read: blog) to review …sponsor …get in bed with … specific “brands”, how I made my money (you can make MONEY at this?!?), who I made my money WITH, if I was paid per post (where the fuck have *I* been?) and if I was monogamous or polyamorous (read: would entertain multiple buyers of my soul).

Now to frame this with a bit of backstory I’ve been “blogging” since the late ’90s. Only it wasn’t (and in my world still isn’t!) called blogging back then. They were “personal web sites”. It was a way for disparate characters to find like-minded individuals. Okay. There was definitely a “Geeks Unite!” vibe going on.

In those days, you could … literally… read each new site as it came online. Ha! Dare ya to try that today. Annnnndddd I’m starting to sound like that cranky old Uncle that walked to school in barefeet through 10 feet of snow uphill both ways.

My point …and yes there IS one… is that it was a kinder, gentler time where optimism ruled the ether. We were here for the greater good. To connect. Figuratively. Literally. Money …commerce… (ptui!) was THE furthest thing from our collectively rosy minds. We were creating a better world. Maybe a safer world. And certainly a smaller world. And for a time …it was.

And then “first person narrative” became a verb.

And pretty much everyone had high-speed.
And it was just as easy to access information online as it was in Real Life.
And someone realized that your eyeballs were worth money.
And that we were more interested in reading what the “common man” thought than high paid pundits.
And brand names could exploit those opinions expressed. Product placement anyone?

And now you can make a living regurgitating other people’s blog posts. By gathering all those posts under one “roof”, becoming the resident expert on [fill in the blank] and shoving advertisements in your face for the privilege of your reading pleasure.

Okay. So that sounds a bit bitter.

What I’m trying to get to is … convergence. See, back at the dawn of the World Wide Web, the key to figuring out, as a web marketing guru, if you’d dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s was to head out and see if you could close the circle. Meaning that by jumping from the site you were designing to the next and the next and the next you would eventually get back to your site. Convergence.

After filling in technorati’s survey (remember the survey?) and feeling very cranky I might add, I was visiting my usual sites, then did a bit of tumblr’ing  (do you tumblr? visit me!) I found a really cool photo that had been posted on decor8. I used to have it on my feeds but in a purge was deleted. Hey! These things happen. ANYway. I re-visited just to see if it was worth adding back to my list and lo! and behold! this:

Blogging Your Way takes a creative, personal approach to blogging. This e-course will help you to get in touch with why you’re blogging, or want to blog, in the first place and shows you how to use your blog as a catalyst to create your best life. Packed with hundreds of helpful tips, feedback, visuals, inspiration and ideas that will guide you on your blogging journey, this self-paced password protected e-course site and forum definitely goes beyond basic blogging 101. You will learn in a supportive environment among friends with plenty of opportunity to meet and network without feeling overwhelmed or overlooked.[http://decor8blog.com/byw/course-outline/]

I’m thinking this has nothing to do with photos of your cat.
And it just. pissed. me. off.
Because see, I’ve been thinking lately of how I’ve neglected this site. How I miss the interaction between me and my “audience”, a rather ostentatious way of saying YOU. How I enjoyed those weekly challenges  and all the creativity that came out of them. For you AND for me.

And now … well NOW … it feels kinda dirty to try and reconnect. Like I want to profit off your eyeballs. And that’s just not right.

State of the Blogosphere. Indeed.

Yesterday my Lean Eating Lesson was to do a media fast … everything… from internet to radio to TV to newspapers. Even magazines though I drew the line there as I’m in decluttering mode and it seemed like a good evening activity to go through some mags I’d been holding onto.

It was a really interesting experience. Kind of like learning to drive a standard … lurch, stall, lurch, stall… all. day. long. I don’t have an issue with no radio. In fact, when I’m home alone, which I happened to be yesterday, I actually prefer silence. People who know me in Real Life will be SO surprised. (not!)

What I found most ..erm.. disconcerting? was the feeling of “now what?” when say, I had 15 or 20 minutes before lunch and where I’d usually pop on the computer or later in the day flick on the TV, I was at a loss. So what did I do? Well in the pre-lunch period, I sat on the patio with Stella on my lap just enjoying the muggy, steamy mid-September day.

And pre-supper I did a bit of a kitchen clean-up. My house would be MUCH cleaner without so much media intervention, that’s for sure!

As the day progressed I realized how much time I actually spend glued …well… in front of  a screen. And I wasn’t very happy with that realization. Y’know. I always have a stack of projects at the ready. A mutant To-Do list that fills the better part of a Moleskin. Finding BIG things to do is never an issue. I LIVE for “Big”. What I stumbled on was that I yearn for the small. The inconsequential.

Polishing a wood table so it gleams.
Editing my spice cupboard. (how long has that almost empty Tabasco sauce bottle been IN there?!?)
Writing an honest-to-goodness letter!
Making muffins “just cuz”.

Small pleasures that make up a fulfilling, happy, balanced life.
This may be my “Key to Life”.
Certainly I will be incorporating more media fasts into my everyday!

I was reading Steph’s latest post on “lessons learned” this morning. I nodded through much of it. Not because I knew the specifics of what she was talking about because I’ve had my own Summer of Epiphanies and I could relate to her realizations that we need to put our own needs ahead of others or perish.

It has taken me almost 51 years to get me to this point.

How much time has been wasted reacting to, and dealing with, people’s expectations of us? Rather than creating our own goals and rising to those? More than I care to log, I’m afraid.

But I’m getting better at it. After all, anything worth learning takes effort.

I was reminded of this effort yesterday when I sat down to work on my newly started canvas. Well. Actually wood panel but it is new. And started. I had applied heavy molding paste to 3 5×7″ panels many moons ago. So far back, in fact, I can’t remember what my original intent was for them.

So with a clean slate I started layering text pages on top …my reverse gel transfer technique… added some collage items and got a feel for where I wanted to go with it.

I decided I wanted to add another gel transfer over top and chose a rather large (full page 8 1/2×11″)  figure that I prepped and strategically placed over the work in progress.

Maybe you already know where I’m going with this.

Or maybe you haven’t had the joy that is Epic Fail as your initial vision goes  south when you remember (D’Oh!) that you CAN’T add gel transfers over paper. Well. Not the way I do them anyway. As I went ahead and started peeling the top gelcoat off the transfer, a little bell began dinging in my head, progressively getting louder as the ink wasn’t staying on the paper layers. And what’s more was lifting the paper along with the gel AND inked image. The inner voice saying, softly then more insistent, as I attempted to stop the carnage:  “You’ve done this before. It won’t work!”  And yet. I kept hoping that what I was experiencing would change. What’s that saying? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing while expecting different results? Yah. Insanity personified. Right there in front of me.

What I find infinitely interesting however, as I surveyed the damage, I was not intimidated. I did not think of myself as a “failure”. I did not berate myself for “fucking up yet again”. I could step outside myself and understood that yes, I had fallen down “that hole” once more. But there was no reason to throw in the towel. To stop doing what I knew would eventually lead me to success. I would just. move. forward.

And it dawned on me. These lessons learned from art … not listening to the inner critic, relying on experience, wiping the slate clean after a fall… all things I have learned about ME this year.

And so.

I will wipe the slate clean.

I will rely on past experience.

I will … just. move. forward.

And? I WILL be rewarded with success.