Here is the lovely beaded/embroidered/cloth bound journal with lovely yellow creme pages (no lines) – paper mean for art….just waiting for me!  From the wonderfully talented SuzieQ by way of Create a Connection’s Monday Swap for April.  These swaps are addicting!  It’s really fun to track down just the right thing for your partner and then send it on.  And just as fun to receive your own.  See the card?  That’s one of SuzieQ’s creations too.  With a hand-written note and doodle inside just especially for me.  It makes me smile even now as I type.

I’m feeling quiet this morning.  I think all those days of straight morning pages emptied me out a bit.  Or maybe it’s just the stress of rearranging my life for the new part-time job (you will see me continue to type "part-time" as a way to remind myself that it is up to me to keep it that way). 

Yesterday I had acupuncture and she left little "sleep point" thingies on.  Last night although I woke twice I went right back to sleep and that is a good thing.  I am working on putting the A Student, along with some annoying real people, over in the corner with the hamster so that I can get back to art on my art days.  Today is one such day.  Alice/Alyson/Alicia who is now Hope (more changes possible) is cooling in the kiln.  My plan for her:  some collage, metallic paint, and bird’s nest and broken egg in her chest cavity – I know, it’s hard to see without pictures.  I’ll have them, hopefully tomorrow.  Because she is my project today.  That and finish the fun 36"x24" painting I started last night and then do a "real" one.  All this in preparation for a show next weekend at Annmarie Garden with the Calvert Artists’ Guild.  Always small shows but it’s close to home, easy and I get to visit with artists I only see at these shows.

Outside there is fog caught in the trees and it is raining all over the clothes husband asked me to hang out for him last night so they wouldn’t mildew in the washer.  Nothing like a good 2nd rinse.  The world is a riot of color – in my yard alone:  whit Dogwood blossoms, deep purple tulips with white throats (they’ll stay closed up today), pale purple wisteria, bright pink and pure white azaleas – a lot of them.  The purple orchid azaleas are just starting.  I have several – some very large.  They are my mother’s.  From the plant she brought from her first house with my dad to the house I grew up in.  When we sold his house in 1994, we brought a lot of pieces of it with us and planted them and the are HAPPY.  And they make me happy because I always think of my Mom when I look at them.  The daffodils are mostly finished.  We have frogs on the side of the pond now and 17 goldfish.  At night the peepers are calling in the trees.  It’s very peaceful.  And for that I have a great deal of gratitude.

thought for the day:  Doubt is a signal of the creative process.  It is a signal that you are doing something right – not that you are doing something wrong or crazy or stupid.  ..What we don’t talk about often is the fact that artists, too, are spiritual seekers, and we frequently suffer the dark night of the soul regarding our creative calling.  Even worse, we often suffer it publicly…One of the reasons artists need to talk to and hear from other artists is that the press is not a trustworthy mechanism for relaying information about the creative life…When doubt attacks, we must be vigilantly self-loving.  Julia Cameron, Walking in This World:  The Practical Art of Creativity.