WORDLESS SONG

I've been helping Marcia Beckett with an awesome website - Artists In Blogland  - as a co-moderator.

If you haven't already...please come on over and see what we're all about.

We're a group of artists...of mixed media and more...who interact beautifully.

We have a monthly challenge which includes voting and a prize.

For January it's the SOUL Challenge.

This is my entry...which is part of the altered book I've been playing in, Evolution 2k12, which is an ongoing diary of sorts and has been...for me...a lovely experience.

Hope you'll join us!

annie!

GIVING THANKS

Please feel free to copy and use these vintage Valentines.

My online community ROCKS!

They are sublime. I wanted to mention three that have had special meaning in my life this week.

My newest batch of business cards

First of all, Dion Dior, an amazing artist that I first found on Flickr whose sketches always blew blow me away. She has been through some pretty challenging years and her life and art are only more beautiful as a result. She asked me to be a guest on her blog and posted it this past week. (Can you believe that)!!! What a thrill!!! Please DO go visit her if you haven't already. You're in for a special treat. And sign up for some of the many workshops she's been asked to teach. (No I'm not getting paid for this endorsement) (And it IS an endorsement).

bohemiannie! art business card

Then, I meant to link to Carol Weibe's website. I blogged about her influence in my life here on this very pink post...and even though I didn't say a lot about her...her art and words are thought provoking and gorgeous.

bohemiannie! art business card

And last, but not least, I'm thrilled that one of the ladies who won a copy of my pattern has made a bohemiannie! bag using said pattern and it's better than any that I've ever made. I LOVE it...and I love her enthusiastic, happy attitude! Please go visit Pamela!

bohemiannie! art business card

I'm linking to Pink Saturday today because it too...is an awesome internet tribe of very lovely people.  AND...I've been loving and using a lot of pink lately!

A peek at my next Altered Book page

Let the Magic in you come out!


annie!

LOVE VS FEAR

Looking down the street from in front of my house.

I get a little intense in this post - which is about my belief system - and it being shaken up a little lot, so you might not want to read further.

Just sayin. 

out front - from my upstairs (playroom) window

I just wrote a page about some safety issues we're having here in our barrio, Los Nogales, in Barranquilla... and decided it was too negative to put into print - so I deleted it. It was doing me harm to think about it enough to put it into writing. So I rewrote. Still pretty negative.

The wall which surrounds our neighbor's house...taken from my play room window. (2nd story).

You see, I'm not a scaredy cat but a few things happened last week that had me wanting to run back to the USA...PRONTO. 

The wall which surrounds our neighbor's house...taken from my play room window. (2nd story).

Let me just say that people here sometimes become desperate enough to steal in order to eat...or maybe in order to party. 

I don't know. 

The wall which surrounds our neighbor's house...taken from my play room window. (2nd story).

They like to use guns and knives to get what they want. 

This is one of the good guys.

Now, I believe, that we get what we focus on. 

Taken at my daughter's maid's house. The maid's name is Eneida.

So even though these things are happening here, usually I can shrug it off and remind myself that...
I AM protected. I AM safe. I am secure. 

And my family and home are, of course, included. 

The view from my second floor back window.

I don't usually dwell on negative. 

Again...across from Eneida's (the maid's) house.

We use the bus system, I go out and walk the streets whenever and where ever I want to and we just live here. I feel free!

I'm usually with my hubby, but I go out often alone. 

Another view from one of my upstairs windows.

I like to look people in the eye and smile and say hello and appreciate them. 

Sometimes I even love them. 

I trust them and try to be compassionate and you know what? I get the same right back. 

Until last week when I saw an attempted robbery in front of my house and heard of another one - the guy got the goods this time - near my daughter's. 

I'm talking about the streets that we walk up and down to bring Sophia back and forth from house to school to house. 

Ugh. Sick feeling. 

And then...probably because I was allowing fear to CONTROL me...a couple nights ago, one of the 7...yes SEVEN locks that are on our front gates was broken. 

We do have a security man that walks the neighborhood at night.

If the perpetrator knew the next one was bigger and stronger he probably wouldn't have taken the time with the first. Who knows? 

In Eneida's neighborhood...you shop through the gate.

For the first time since we moved here...and this has happened before...only he got into the front yard last time and stole a motor...I wanted to move. NOW. LEAVE. Vamos! 
 

view from an upstairs window

Now you see why I deleted the first post. Sick feeling. Only the first description was more graphic. 

Our taxi driver was afraid to go further so he dropped the 5 of us off here to walk several blocks to Eneida's (Hillary's maid's) house.

I said all that to say this. I am safe. I am protected. I am secure. I am loved. 

And...I am so thankful that I can be near my granddaughter, daughter and her hubby. I am thrilled that we can afford to travel to the States a couple times a year because the cost of living is less here. 

I am so very grateful that we are here...learning a new language and culture...looking strangers in the eye...smiling...and sometimes loving them. 

I am happy and I will focus on all the treasure and gifts that are part of my awesome life and I will overcome fear when it rears it's ugly head. 

This is what I say I believe so I AM going to live it. 

I'll bloom where I'm planted.

I AM the one the world has been waiting for. Peace begins right here, with me. Right now. 

From an upstairs window.

I will love. Fear has no place here. 

I AM practicing love. 

This moment is the point of power. 

I am telling myself...and you...right now - that I am. 

I am.

ALTERED BOOK INSIGHT

I started altering a book because of Effy Wild's project...Book of Days...but - as much as I'd like to - I just haven't had time to watch all those videos.

What happened...is that I'm working in the book at odd times - here and there - and seeing lots of eye candy on Flickr and FaceBook - which is related to the project.

I've decided to treat it as a journal...incorporating challenges that I want to participate in - that mean something to me - into the pages. If I play along with the videos that'll be great too.

It's also a sort of visual diary with just a few written words here and there.

One thing I know...my book...Evolution 2k12...
has all kinds of meaning, feeling and spiritualness about it! And...I am in love with the process. And...I AM evolving!

The spread pictured in this post came about after watching one of the early videos where you make a fold-out. I used a tag that I'd stamped a hand onto previously and added ink to match the luscious color of the ink used on the pages.

I got 'stuck' on what to put under the hand and left it alone for a few days. 

My granddaughter - who comes every day now - and is a strong minded, opinionated little lady of four years old...has caused some impatience in annie! grandma's countenance.

So...I'm practicing loving unconditionally and being grateful for this precious, most precious little person.

The phrase, 'My heart is in your hands' kept running through my mind.

 
Hence, the hearts under the hand.

When I began the book, I used an old one. The name of it was Beautiful Stories That Never Grow Old. It has a picture of a woman reading to a child...which you can still see even after I added paint and stuff to the cover. It makes me think of my Sophia. And of my word for the year...Evolution.

So when Carol Wiebe made a comment that she was sure beautiful stories would evolve through this book...it gave me new insight. As I wrote in a note to her...

When you made the comment about beautiful stories evolving in my altered book...it opened new insight to me. I hadn't consciously put together 'beautiful stories' with 'evolution' or the fact that they were both on the cover of my book of days. On one hand, I feel silly for not seeing it before...since I've been rather concentrated on it this week; on the other hand, I'm so thankful that you pointed it out to me and that it opens a whole new wonderful way of looking at this book. I WILL fill it with beautiful stories and with your permission, you'll be part of it!
 

And so, I've entitled these pages...Insight.