Thursday, December 18, 2008

Christmas Wishes

May your holidays be blessed...


with interesting visitors...

...lots of sweetness...

...and faithful old
friends.


Wishing you a little fun...

(Bennie's cousins long ago, Michigan.)

Wishing you a little adventure...


...but PLEASE no mishaps...
...no, that's not Tiny Tim's crutch...

...it's mine.
(My parents' house, Christmas 2000,
the Christmas of the broken toe.
)


Wishing you
your own kind of miracles...

time to chill...

...to kick back.


Wishing you lots of
snow...

...well maybe not
this much.


May there be a snowman on your tree...

...and one clearing a path for you.

May your eyes be open...

...WIDE open to wonder.


Wishing you bear hugs....


...little gifts that fit you...

...some surprises of course.


May you experience childlike joy...

...no matter your age...

and I really mean that.


Wishing you peace in your world...

and in your heart.

LOVE FROM SANTA FE,
San

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Feel-Good Friday (on Thursday): A Sleighful of Awards!

(Photo "courtesy of" aka "stolen from" How Stuff Works.)

So shoot me. I'm a slacker. Several have bestowed lavish awards at my feet. And I've just kicked back and basked in their radiance, never acknowledging them, let alone passing them on to worthy recipients. I am going to try to remember which awards came from whom and if I falter, please assume the generous spirit of this season and forgive my forgetful heart--it's in the right place--I just can't remember where I put it.

Sandi of Holding Patterns passed this lovely thing to me on August 29. I had to go to her blog and do a search for awards to find it. There she was, apologizing for being behind in acknowledging her own awards. Thanks, Sandi. That made me feel even better than the award:

Since this is such a shimmering photograph, I will now pass it along to some shimmering photographers:

Anna of A. Bananna (Great shots of the desert and her own photogenic brood.)
Randy of
Santa Fe Daily Photo (You might say I'm rather close to his subject.)
Anna of
My Only Photo (In her own words, "photography spiced with stories, essays, opionions, and snippets of knowledge.)
David of authorblog (Needs no introduction. If by chance, you've been hiding under your mousepad, then climb out and click over to his place. Not just dazzling photos but tips on making them.)
Hilary of
The Smitten Image (Yes, I'm smitten.)
Celine of Indica-in-Q8 (Interpretations in word and image of the mysterious landscape of Kuwait.)
Lori of Skoog Farm Journal (If this one doesn't make you want to move to the country and take up farming and the slow pace, well then, at least slow down long enough to linger in this peaceful space.)
Daryl of Out and About in New York City (If this one doesn't make you want to move to a huge, exciting city and hop on a bus, then at least hop over here and take Daryl's tour.)

Then along came Spark of
No More Casual Nonchalance and gifted me with this bit of whimsy. I was contemplating whom I might pass it on to, thinking Fe of Coyote Road would be a great recipient. While I was dragging my feet, Fe up and gave it to me. Thanks, Spark! Thanks, Fe!

I pass the I
HEART Your Blog award to:

Todd of Peace through Pottery. (A blog with lots of heart, plus he's thinking about buying a house in my neighborhood--I HEART that idea!)
Diane of Forks off the Moment. (Diane lives her life with passion and gets us all fired up too.)
Moody of Life in the Land of the Rising Sun (As lived to the hilt by a contemporary American Renaissance man relocated to Japan.)
Bruno of Morning Java with Bruno LoGreco (Generous, inspiring tips from a life coach. Don't miss his series on weathering this daunting economic cycle.)
Maggie May of Nuts in May (The oh-so-identifiable-with ups and downs in the life of a wife, mother, and grandmother.)
Lee of Chrysalis Dreams (Expressions of faith in God, friends, and her own lovely self.)
JS of Influx Transposer (Expressions of faith in God and family, with the occasional rant to the Almighty.)
Cath of Cath's Cradle (A gently tilted look at life.)
Jeanne of Life or Something Like It (A head-on look at life--or something like it.)



Recently Suki of Paint, Poems, and Ponderings posted the lemonade stand to her blog and said it was offered to anyone who felt like making lemonade. I grabbed it. And I pass it on to the following bloggers, who have the extraordinary gift for turning those life lemons into magical elixir. (The secret's in the saucy attitude):

Meg of Becoming Whole
Jo of
Celebration of Life
Whim of
The Babblings of a Whimsical Brainpan
Indi of
The World According to Indigo
Casdok of
Mother of Shrek
Mima of
Mima's Doings
Aims of Big Blue Barn West
Peg of Angel Voices.

And Kim of
Creating Space as well as Suki of Paint, Poems, and Ponderings honored me with this award, which I find rather elegant (and flattering):

The PREMIO DARDOS award is "given for recognition of
cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing." Thank you, Kim! Thank you, Suki! I now pass this award to:

Fe of Coyote Road
Michelle of
House of Lime
Katherine of
Views from Raven's Nest
Paschal of
murat 11
Doris of
Poetic License
Carol of Carol for Peace
Jeff of A Word in Edgewise
David of authorblog
Sandi of
Holding Patterns
Akelamalu of
Everything and Nothing
Spark of No More Casual Nonchalance
The Elementary of
Crumbs from the Corner.

And now an award I am tempted to re-name the In the Nick of Time Award, since it's time-dated:
When Ora Lea at One American Dreamer graciously awarded it to me, she warned me I'd better post it soon. And I believe that was a couple of months ago!

Then, the ever-generous Fe of Coyote Road sent this joyous little butterfly winging its way to me:


Since I keep thinking of fabulous bloggers whom I've left out of this awarding binge, especially the many visual artists who visit so often and are an enormous source of support and encouragement, and since I now have a checkbook to balance, I am going to leave the Butterfly Award up for grabs. It's here for the catching. So grab your butterfly nets and make a comment if you want this one. It's yours. (Don't forget to pass it on.)

Monday, December 1, 2008

Everything About Me but the Kitchen Sink (That Too)

A Wall with a Past, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24"
private collection, Mercer Island, Washington


This tag is courtesy Kim of Creating Space. She's requested I divulge seven "unusual" things about me. Here the problem is not coming up with seven offbeat traits/events. It's deciding which to leave out. Oh well, here's a sampling of my quirks:

1. As I've mentioned (numerous times), I was born breech, entering this world ass-backwards and I've been doing things in a roundabout way ever since. Example:

2.

I once dislocated my toe while helping my son learn his spelling words. Don't ask.

3. My eyes are afflicted with a corneal disorder which affects 1 out of 2000 Americans. My uncorrected eyes see something (beyond a certain distance) like this:


Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase


I only wish I could paint what I see.

4. On the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, I am a INFJ, which purportedly occurs in 1% of the population. Kindred spirits include Geoffrey Chaucer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Eleanor Roosevelt, Carl Jung, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. (As best as I can surmise, these findings were gleaned from the online test-taking results in the hard drives of these folks' discarded i-Books.) Wow, I guess I'm the underachiever in the group. That makes me even more unusual.

Then again, I've not lived a life completely devoid of attainment. Examples:

5. I was the valedictorian of my high school class, graduating with a grade point average of 97.425. I was also one of the Top Ten Magazine Salesmen in our senior class's primary fundraiser. For this I received a goldtone trophy in the form of a comely young woman. (Yes, I still have it. It resides in a place of honor in a cardboard box along with my Proficiency in Two Foreign Languages Award, My Best All Round Girl Award, my aforementioned Valedictorian Award, and an assortment of letters from various dignitaries, among them a state senator and the President of the company my dad worked for, congratulating me on a job well done.) For the record, I honed my art sales skills selling little prints in white plastic frames door-to-door in the fourth grade. I sold the hell out of stuff like this:

6. A small photograph of my own painting Heart's Destiny appears in the current issue of The Santa Fean. The feature is called "Fall Art Openings." And no, the photo wasn't taken at an opening. Get this: the photographer wandered into our gallery one afternoon just after Bennie had sold Heart's Destiny. A mood of festivity prevailed, so the photographer snapped a picture of Bennie, the buyer (the woman on the far left), a friend of the buyer, and yes, the painting. How's that for uncanny timing?

Where was I? In the studio painting of course.

7. AND my kitchen sink was immortalized on the cover of a literary magazine called...what else? The Kitchen Sink.
Oakley took the photograph.

I now tag 7 highly unusual (in the very best of ways) people:

1. The Moody Minstrel (who resides in The Land of the Rising Sun)
2. Ron (who Vents)
3. Lee (who dreams Chrysalis Dreams)
4. Jo (who Celebrates Life)
5. Peg (who hears Angel Voices)
6. Todd (who makes Pottery for Peace)
7. Paschal (aka murat11).

Your turn to confess.