In my garden

I will admit I have been drooling over the gardens so prominently displayed over at The Havens.  Husband always notes that those kinds of gardens take time and, um, just when am I going to have the time for that?  So I poke and prod at the edges of my environment and have little splots of green and color that grow because after you’ve dug in clay and made it better (not great, but better), it’s easier to dig around the edges than to start in some place new.  And I’ve also learned to use containers.  At least the poor flowers have a half way chance that way – as long as I remember to water when it gets hot and dry.

The weather this year has been absolutely amazing.  Yes we’ve had some broilers but mostly the humidity which is the bane of this area has been blessedly absent.  And the past two days have been unendingly lovely.  So much so I’ve just had to relax and enjoy them.

Yesterday morning I got up in the cool and worked through the garage studio, moving screens and wedi board up to the shed.  I brought the photo albums down from the shed where they were put to clean up the house for sale, but no body came to look.  So here we are (not that I care, I love this house, but Husband is still driving 1.5 hours each way for work and if I could wave a magic wand and get us closer, I would.  But moving is definitely a pain).  The albums are sitting in the basement waiting for me to come put them away in the new bookcases we bought when we decided not to sell and that we would need a place for all this stuff that had been on planks and cinderblocks.  Something that looked nice.  I also keep thinking it would be nice to rehang all my art – mostly because as long as it’s not hung, I feel like I have space to buy more (see yesterday’s post on Leah Piken’s Subway Stories and a previous post on  Ol’ Blue Eyes, a print by Ascender Rises Above).

I spent most of the day finishing Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin which I thoroughly enjoyed.  What a voice she created for that book.  And the artist in me notes the dark adjectives.  All the things you expect to be beautiful are described with a jaundiced eye.  But it isn’t depressing because the writing is so wonderful.

Then I made banana bread for the annual Washington Sculptor’s group picnic which by some twist of fate happens to be here in Southern Maryland this year – I joined through ArtOMatic contacts.  Must mean I’m meant to attend.  That’s Sunday.  Today, I get another pug.  Another rescue – this from a friend who did the actual rescue but who’s first pug is aggressive and this little pug, Gracie, needs something more restful.  I figure our pug, Sueno (means dream in Spanish – she came with it), is the perfect match.  She’s about the least aggressive dog I’ve ever met in my life.  She adopted Husband (despite the fact that she was supposed to be mine), so, armed with many doggie treats (and yes Sueno will also get them even though the probability of winning her over to me is nil), I am determined that Gracie shall bond with me.  But that’s sort of like saying your children will listen to everything you say. (The picture is husband with Sueno on the Ferry on vacation last summer meeting another ferry-going dog.  Don’t the dogs look thrilled?)

thought for the day: Our thoughts, our attitudes, our emotion are all forms of energy, constantly influencing the world around us.  Physicists no loner consider themselves detached observers.  They know their very presence influences the properties of the particle/waves they study.  Our attitudes affect the cycles within and around us.  Aware of this Tao people live consciously, respectfully, knowing they exert a powerful influence on their world.

Not only do we influence people around us; we’re continuously affected by the actions and attitudes of others.  Spending time with other people means breathing the same air, sharing the same energy field.  Some interactions are energizing.  Others deplete us….Do you know someone who drags you down?  If you’re always exhausted after being together, this person is an energy drain.  Imbalanced, uncentered, out of touch with the source of chi in their lives, such people subsist on energy transfusions from others…to transcend…: 1)centering, 2) nonrisistance, and 3)taking positive action.  Diane Dreher, The Tao of Inner Peace