zero blogging, lots of running around

Keep thinking about how I am not blogging.
Gary has been back in hospital to have a metastases removed from his lung. We got results back from a scan he had before he went to the States, and he went into hospital the next week.(two weeks ago)
 Just about drove into the harbour yesterday as I drove back from town. Took Mackenzie in late..was a bit tired and distracted..lucky those wee white concrete blocks are at the side of the road..all I got was a punctured tyre.
I find the car a sad place..its one of those places when I am driving that I have my best ideas and process,but at the moment my mind goes to places of grief.
Its boxing day today and out my window Hana  and her friend are perched on my lawn amongst summer daisies and surrounded by my potato patch talking.They just picnicked. Gary is on the Veranda with his book. Our holiday plans have changed somewhat,we were going to nelson for a camping holiday but not now. I picked up a explore dunedin book and we are going to go to all the places we have been meaning to go to around here.Lots of cockling, glow worms, gardens.The weather is behaving for dunedin and is hot as hot..so we are sucking it up.
Have just posted pictures of my sock monkeys on my art journalling page check them out.Photos coming and  a promise to blog more regularly.

possum

Walking the high road today with my dog

A small dog, the same colour

 as a mountain tussock

I saw a possum on the road

Its jaw hanging open

Incisors jutting forward

Very dead

I picked him up by his bushy tail

And laid him gently to the side

I shall collect him tomorrow

 Dig a hole and bury him under 

 the liquid amber, it has leaves

 that change from yellow to red to purple

I told my son this and he said

‘ you’re not doing that with me in the car’.

I cant remember whether I have posted this before..but I like it so here it is.

Dick Lyne at Brett Mcdowell

Dick Lyne was born in December 1927 in Frankton Junction, Waikato.

Dick worked many jobs such as a storeman, a fitter's mate, a dye hand and an apprentice printer before settling in to a life as a Bushman in the King Country district. Upon his retirement at the age of 65 Dick took to painting. Entirely self-taught, his first painting was of his boat the 'Dora Alice',  he now concentrates on paintings of the native bush, in particular the Kauri and Rimu.

This exhibition is fantastic. If you are in Dunedin please go and see. The love of the craft..both bush work and painting pours out of this work.
I bought this one.:-D

Brett Mcdowell http://www.brettmcdowellgallery.com/current.html

AND a quote from Grandma Moses whose book Brett has out with this exhibition.
"If I hadn't started painting, I would have raised chickens.

Grandma Moses" 

Grandma Moses http://gardenofpraise.com/art43.htm 

YUM YUM dressing from Nigella

I thought this is good as summer approaches and I sit here considering how much butter I am eating.
So;
Juice of half an orange
1/2 teaspoon of Miso ( I used white)
1/2 teaspoon of mustard
1/4 teaspoon light honey (Otematata honey of course)
whisk up and dress some fresh garden greens
I just made it and it is Yum!

Pearls

I had a lovely phone call with My friend Ruth today.She lives in Oxford- England. Too far.
We talk regularly but I miss her. We were talking today about how it is in this post-traumatic time, our lives in the last couple of years have been very dynamic. Acute trauma has it own peculiarities and ways of response..but the recovery stage is so much broader and higildy pigildy (I had so much trouble trying to spell this; - 0).
We both share the experience of grief and sadness and change..but our circumstances are entirely different.
I was thinking afterwards that hers was so much harder and I don't know how I would have reacted with what she has gone through.(A divorce). I know I would not have been as dignified.
My set of circumstances were held and dictated by a medical  model and had prescriptive elements.
But it is in this recovery period that we are yoyoing...there are no defined edges.
I read a psalm two days ago..I think it was 119..and it was praising Gods law..It was very uplifting and I thought of times where as a person I can be rudderless and a bit dangerous really. Reading this Psalm was a good reminder of Gods care and attention to detail and how helpful it can be when 'things' start to fall away and deteriorate.
I also decided that God was making a pearl inside Ruth and I ..or maybe a pearl out of each of us. The trauma feels like it is getting wrapping in functioning layers and is healing..still very accessible though and the layers are yet thin...talking through this reminded me of the effort that goes into making a Pearl and the time and what causes it in the first place..an irritant of some sort - a foreign body. How exciting to open an encrusted gnarly shell and to find one in the wild. The rarity of it.
http://www.bluepearls.com/index.php

Lemon Curd and a cat painting

The lemon curd I made on Sunday and it is now tuesday, you can see how much I like it!

This Painting is by John Oxborough. http://www.johnoxborough.co.nz/current.html
Its called 'cat on a table' and has been a good dinner party discussion painting for may many years
(actually 25 next year). It is the very first painting that Gary and I bought together and it absolutely our most favourite. We have never gotten sick of it. The only conflict associated with it was early in married life and who would get it if we ever split.We now know that, that is never going to happen.

Portobello snowflakes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake

A selection of photographs taken by Wilson Bentley (1865–1931):

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Think I might make some stamps

Cats eye snails

 I attended an Art/Faith Conference on Friday which was very good at Knox college.

Pen sketch of Jason G. Hope he doesnt mind...he was very absorbed.

I liked this Quote from a book by Bo Caldwell..

'We often wait for God with hope. Sometimes we must wait for hope and if we wait hope comes'.

I am going to write that down and pin it up.
My friend Jo spoke very eloquently about Allie Eagles work and ethos. http://www.allieeagleandme.com/eduResource/AEbio.html

Poetry was at the forefront of most other speakers. I enjoyed thinking about other things and I love the Romantic poets so all in all it was quite juicy..GOOD speakers..lots of very big words..lol :-).Very entertaining.
I went to Wellington to stay with my sister and her family and completed the IDT foundation course, which was fantastic. I loved it..it makes so much sense.

Very simple drawings are the thing - lines, squiggles, shapes and soft retsol crayons.

I caught up with my friend Caro and her gorgeous kids and man.They were staying in a farm house in Palmerston with more lovely people..so gary and I had a extra-lovely afternoon with energetic children and wonderful parents..very refreshing.
The Garden thinks it spring..photos coming and I been mulching and my chickens have been digging..hmmmm time to lock them up for a while I think.
My middle daughter Mackenzie left home and I cried a small river. I am pleased for her and proud of how well she is doing and her decisions..I know this is good..but my heart is sore.
I have posted my forms for Nursing school..CAP
This week is PLANNING AND PREP for..paintings to start ..canvas and board to prepare.
Some stitch work and some glitter oohhh eeerr looking forward to that.
IDT writing up and practice. Art Journalling..thinking about starting portraits.
and getting onto girls patchwork pieces

I just want to DRAW all the time at the moment. I am carrying my journal everywhere..any opportunity I am sitting down..out comes a pen or pencils.

This is a page out of a board book I am altering inspired by 21 Secrets Art Journalling..Teacher Gretchen Miller.
I realize its all backwards..BUT Photobooth is so good and quick!!! and it is now my new favourite thing.
The title of the blog post is how I feel at the moment I was wondering what my picture was for myself yesterday (and yes I did this before the IDT course) and I came up with one of those snails you find with the lovely blue catseye shell that sticks over the entrance to their home.I feel a bit like one of those snails.A big eye looking out at the world protecting the soft inner squashiness from hungry gulls


I swiped this off google..couldn't find a credit for it..sorry folks. Apparently it is a Turban snail.
There you go..have a great week y'all.

sewing and reaping

Today I


Sewed trousers orange and green for Irish night at the Ohau Lodge

orange tarten with a green stripy leg warmer..ooohhh eeerr

Cooked Barley and lentils for a salad dressed with lemon garlic and parsley ecetera ecetera for tea
Washed clothes..4 loads worth
Read into Corinthians
Watered Planted and picked in my garden
and thought about my favourite poem which I may have posted before


By Eileen Duggan


The Tides Run Up The Wairau

The tides run up the Wairau
That fights against their flow.
My heart and it together
Are running salt and snow.
For though I cannot love you,
Yet, heavy, deep, and far,
Your tide of love comes swinging,
Too swift for me to bar.
Some thought of you must linger,
A salt of pain in me,
For oh what running river
Can stand against the sea?






I love salt and snow together

Things that imply taste and smell and New Zealand

I like the how the rivers and mountains and sea are so close here and are so much in our hearts.

Last night the moon
was a fat quarter and lit up

the macrocarpas 

fringing them against the dark
a spanish shawl splayed
along the seams of our land

Not going there

I havnt written too much this year. My blog has been filled with things that 'fill' me and 'lift me' , and I have wondered about exposing too much of where my head is at because when I take time to examine my thinkings..they feel like the wild lands of Narnia..mythical animals and all.
But I do think things and then I wonder how it would be to quickly go my computer and write about it. Actually get a chance to catch those random wonderings, pin them down and unpick them later.
What prompted this; is the fact that I am having a small group of people for a potluck to celebrate my birthday. It feels an enormous step after the focus of the year and sometimes when I practice normality it frightens me..this year has been so intense.
I do normal things like dishes and walking and I am feeling content, peaceful, 'anticipatory about happy' and then a fearful thought sneaks up and reminds me of the last year and statistics and numbers. My response is ..NOT GOING THERE..and I push it away.
Its good to practice calm and o.k ness..and I actually do feel that. Everything is fine now and ok, but there is piece of me that associates flippancy with that sort of thinking and tries to remind me that I should be more serious...

And this potluck is about 'me'. Feels strange..the face of it I don't recognize.

Things getting completed

Gary dancing to ACDC-Thunder- in his new Table Tennis space.
He's looking for opponents.

Setting up Stereo

Possum with Moon eyes

My night animal wall.
Made by Mackenzie

Owl

Setting up my Studio.trying to think of a name ..

Suggestions welcome

So far I am thinking..name it for what it is  Old shed studio...as you can see my creativity is going into setting it up

Sparrow feet

Dried Camellias

Baby seal skull