HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILLARY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! 

My Sophia - who is SO much like Hillary - is here this week while her mommy and daddy are in Cancun for 9 days.

Pedro went to present one of his Dr. PhD papers to a group meeting there and Hillary got to go with him. 

Her birthday is tomorrow! 

My little girl is turning 30!!! 

And she gets to celebrate it in - what is for her -  a new part of the world.

And I'm sure...with all the enthusiasm that she was born with.

How did that happen? 

The 30 year old part?!?

Oh my goodness, I sure could use a hug right about now.

I love you Hillary. 

Hope you're having fun and that your birthday is PerFECT!
 

Cry Baby Cry or GET UP AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

Make your mother sigh. 

You're old enough to know better...so cry, baby cry.

I had a bit of a crying session a couple hours ago.

Which brought me to a decision I've thought about making for a couple days. If you want to skip to the end you'll see what I'm talking about.

OMGoodness...

Poor me.

The wind blows so hard here in Barranquilla that it blew one of my pictures off a shelf and took out a few knick-knacks with it.

Shattered.

This is a picture of the shelf taken a few months ago - which I've since cleaned and moved things around on...

but you get the picture.

The little ducky picture way up there came crashing down on stuff below and broke...

Three of my precious items!!!

OH NO!!!


My sweet, happy muchacha comes once a week to help clean

and when I heard the crash...

I'm ashamed to say...

I thought she'd broken something (else). 

She tends to break stuff every now and then but I try to shake it off.

Although...


I do have thoughts like...

I hope she doesn't knock that down...


Or I wonder what will get broken today.

WELL...


talk about attracting stuff. 

(I believe in the Law of Attraction).


I broke a vintage skunk earlier while cleaning it (we clean along with Alva while she's here)...

and then the WIND broke those items pictured above.

And I STARTED CRYING.


Like a baby.

The bicentennial plate was given to me by my sister who has since gone to heaven...so maybe I had a reason to be sad over that breaking.

But those other items...

yard sale.


And I don't really remember but I'll bet I didn't pay more than $1 for them...if that.


And I live where there is SUCH poverty...

But wait...they have that beautiful ocean behind them.

And these people must be pretty happy living in such colorful houses...

And this group has a whole neighborhood of friends and family to help them along...

And these two may not have much, but at least they have each other...

And these folks have Flowers and blooming Trees right in their front yard!

AND - oh my God!

Look what I have!!!

Not to mention her parents, my son and his wife and my grandson!!!

And a great extended family and friends. 

So many people I love.

And materially...

 I have SO MUCH STUFF...I've put some of it outside.

then there's my playroom...(and you're just seeing half of it here)

Which is stuffed with SO MUCH STUFF (stuffing) that I'll never be able to use it all up AND lots more overflows into 2 of the 5 bedrooms we have in this house).


I got really upset with myself for crying over something so trivial. 

And cried harder.

And harder.

I thought about all those people in Japan who are left with NOTHING.


NOTHING.

Less than NOTHING.


And it made me really start crying.

Sobbing.

Alva must have been amazed - Gringo loco - because she doesn't understand much English and I don't speak much Spanish.

BTW - when I started to throw away the pieces (except for the plate my sister gave me), she asked me for them and took them home with her.

I don't know about you, but I've been grieving along with the Japanese people to the point that I just have to do something about it. 

When I watched this video the other day...

I was so moved that I knew it was up to me. 

We don't have expendable money - yet...

But I do make art. 


And I have a piece that hung in Florida Craftsmen for the two months before I moved out of the States (you have to be a resident to sell there) that Elizabeth (the director) suggested I put a $750 price tag on.

It's my favorite, best work to date and I want to auction it off with the winning bid going entirely to help someone in Japan.

I've been asked to donate and have - to auctions in the past and my work brought good money!


So...I'm working - as of right now - on getting the word out that THE KISS is up for auction.

More details coming soon...If I'll put a reserve on it...How to bid, where to pay, who exactly the money will go to. Etc.


You may not want to bid on The Kiss but as the song says...

There's a choice we're making.

We're saving our own lives.

And we will make a better day for you and me.

Who Woulda Thunk It?!?

I'm new this year to the art journaling world and I'm LoViN it!
 

I've been seeing art journaling posts, pictures, etc. for a few years now and knew I was going to get involved one of these days...

and Hallelujia...

 
the day has arrived.

And I'm LOVin it!

I began the year with a committment to the Sketchbook Challenge (click the button on the sidebar for more info) 

which has gotten me on an Art Journaling 'kick".

I'm still very unsure of myself when it comes to sketching...

although I'm often pleasantly surprised when I draw something from a photo...

Or pictures in a book...

 Or calendars...

Or start out practicing drawing people and end up with a city scene out of my head...

Or draw really fast while watching cartoons with Sophia...

With art journaling...there are no little voices in my head telling me I can't draw, or, or, or...

I sketched this while sitting on the beach in Santa Marta last weekend - influenced by the palm trees - because I'm still a little too shy to try sketching something real with onlookers nearby...

I found that I'd pressed so hard, that the image came thru on the next page, so I colored over it lightly with pencil and zentangled around the tree (instead of inside it) on this one...

So it's with freedom and abandonment that I've been playing with paper and...stuff.

Stuff that's unfamiliar to me.

Like water color pencils.

I GreatlY admire the work of a lady I found on FLICKR who goes by the screen name...Journal Artista. Her real name is Paula Phillips and you can find her here.

She has free tutorials - and I've watched a few of them recently - and decided last night that, rather than put it off for another day...I was going to play with the technique she taught.

So I did!

You can see the results above! (The flowers and the 'blobby' pix too).


I used Staedtler and Prismacolor watercolor pencils which I had on hand - purchased at yard sales and got happy.


So...I'm off to the playroom because I have LOTS of supplies that I collected before moving here to Colombia...

that I gotta use up!


Yeee Haaaaww... 


~CREATE YOUR LIFE~