Patina

"She has no patina."

"What do you mean?"

"Life’s made no significant mark on her, despite the fact she’s halfway through it. No real scratches or creases. It’s like whatever life has thrown at her, she’s impervious to it, she’s Kevlar. Her soul hasn’t been darkened or stained by what she’s experienced; but neither has it been deepened, healed or enriched in any kind of beautiful or interesting way."

"But isn’t that a good thing?"

"No, for better or worse life should not leave anyone untouched. Our patina is what makes us interesting." -Jonathon Carroll

 

Elderberry Health Syrup

Forever is how long I have been involved in health foods, somehow knowing instinctively early on that real food was better food (with one serious caveat: I'll take french fries any way I can get them).  My daughter grew up going grocery shopping with me in a slew of natural health food stores.  Ask her about the time she took organic chicken salad with organic curry to school (curry turns things green! kids will laugh!) and her great love for Peanut Butter Bumpers.

I've always reached for natural stuff first whenever anything ails me but especially before anything ails me.  Frankly, as someone who has probably the worst case of white coat syndrome/latrophobia on the planet, I need natural remedies to work for me.

TBT: 2012 Writing Contest

In 2012 I participated in and won a writing challenge sponsored by NAIWE - National Association of Independent Writers and Editors.

You had to write a series of short articles over the course of 5 days but I unfortunately can only find one of the five.

It's fun to find older stuff you've written...and really, really hard to not want to edit it!

The challenge for the particular day I wrote this was:
Writers craft words into memorable phrases, stories, poems and plays. What writers make your heart sing? Why?

Here's what I wrote for that:

Those of us in love with words all have our favorite wordsmiths; the writers who have the ability to let us see with our mind's eye and feel as if it whatever is happening is somehow happening to us personally.  We've all seen the lists of someone's favorite authors and it is almost always populated with the big guns, the rock stars of the literary world -- Twain, Austen, Hemingway, etc. -- or whomever is currently topping the best seller list.

I would be lying if I denied my appreciation for these masters but if my personal truth be told, I'm far more enamored with the lesser known writer, the young writer, the writer who sits awake night after night pounding out the words, head in the clouds, heart filled with passion. 

Recently a story was circulating on the Internet about a renowned violinist playing unrecognized in the subway.  The gist of the story was that here was this famous musician whose performances regularly sell out at $100 per seat, yet he was almost completely ignored as he played in the subway.  Had he sent out a press release and charged admission, his subway show would have been the talk of the town with everyone clamoring for a ticket. 

We are a starstruck society. 

But what are we missing as we look up to the chosen few that we decide to idolize?

In our certainty that there will never be another (insert famous author name here), I cannot even imagine the talent and potential greatness that is being overlooked. 

If authors themselves were sold in stores, I'd much rather purchase mine at the thrift shop instead of some high end, glitzy emporium where 'anybody who's anybody' shops for overpriced, mass-produced meaninglessness.  

Besides, treasures are often found at thrift shops. 

Stars, super or otherwise, are not always visible.  Sometimes it's up to us to go seek them out.

 

Winter Hiatus / Do-Over

This year has not started out so great.

A lot of health stuff and subsequent realizations about health and people...and then some significant lifestyle changes...and then deciding that we need to make decisions because of all that stuff. 
Not a high fun quotient.

During all of this I also made some bold decisions about my photo art, including cancelling a solo gallery show.
I know; there are a million people who would kill to have their own gallery show...who would do whatever it took to secure that...and I go and cancel mine.  Aye yi yi, right?

Well good. Maybe by cancelling I opened the door for another artist to get a gallery show of their own.

"And The Road Goes On Forever"

"And The Road Goes On Forever"

A long time ago I figured out that whenever something was troubling me,
all I really need to do was get in the car and go.
Throw $5 of gas in the tank and off I went to let the cobwebs in my mind
fly out the window of my 1975 Gran Torino.
Five dollar therapy.
Don't be fooled into thinking that you still can't do that.
Five dollars worth of gas nowadays might not take you as far as it did then,
but it sure beats standing still accumulating cobwebs.


 

I Scored A 90 On My Gypsy Test

The restlessness has been out-of-control lately.
It's so bad that it feels like it physically hurts to not be somewhere that isn't here.

I am a gypsy.

My mother frequently called me a gypsy for various reasons while I was growing up and then continued to do so after I became a grownup as I would frequently move from place to place, reinventing myself along the way.

It sounds so corny to say I am a gypsy - like I'm going to go tie a scarf around my head and put on a bunch of jangly jewelry and long skirts.

Well, that actually sounds kind of fun and is mostly how I really do dress, but I don't mean to say that I Want To Be A Gypsy Wannabe, etc.  I (or you) can dress in business suits and still have the soul of a gypsy.

I mean to say that it is in my blood to wander which is one really big aspect of being gypsy-ish.

I can't not wander.

And I have not been wandering much at all lately thanks to winter and health stuff we've been dealing with and where we currently live*.

Oh, we live in a great house in a great location, don't get me wrong.  JP just said the other day that it's the best house he's ever lived in and I concur with that. But that's not enough for me.  It never has been, it never will be.  My mother cannot understand why he and I get in the car and go anywhere now that we have this great house.  Like, you're supposed to not have adventures once you own a house?!  Oh my God, the idea of that makes me break out in hives.  It's why I never cared that I rented.  Renting meant freedom.  Lease is up, time to go!

I can stay in a place for a little while and then I have to pack up and go again.  I need - NEED - to see other stuff.  I need to not travel the same roads, shop the same places, see the same things.  Always needing that while always feeling the need to find that place I belong.  The essence of a gypsy soul.

I don't know how people who stay put do it. I don't know that kind of contentedness. I've sort of envied people who have that "childhood bedroom" thing going on...and at the same time it makes my skin itch and eyes twitch.  But I can't help to wonder how many who plant themselves in one place really are content or...are they stuck?  Do they even know or are willing to admit it?  Have they just given in to the idea of what "they" say you're supposed to do?

I stayed put for a lot of years so my daughter was not subjected to my nomadic tendencies while she was in middle and high school and I do recommend that gypsy-types who have kids do the same because it's not fair to them to be uprooted because you're restless.  But pretty much the day after my daughter graduated I started packing and planning. She graduated in June and by August I was decorating my new place.
I hate packing, I hate the act of moving, but man do I love the end result.

Anyway, I took this Do You Have A Gypsy Soul quiz and here are my spot-on results:

YOU SCORED 90

Gypsy Soul

You received a score above 50 points meaning that you're a Gypsy Soul!

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. ~ Kahlil Gibran

What is a Gypsy Soul?

There's a beautiful expression that refers to many free spirited people in search of something in life; these people identify themselves as Gypsy Souls.

The Gypsy nomadic lifestyle perfectly embodies the feelings of the eternal wanderer; a wild spirit that is continuously searching for a home, while battling their inner demons and struggling with the thirst for a place to belong. In fact: "Gypsy Heart" might be a more accurate description.

Gypsy Souls rarely like to settle down and extend their roots in any one place, preferring to live a life to the rhythm of their own drums, while not caring much about social convention. To seek for the extraordinary and magical in daily life rather than the normal and average is at the heart of every Gypsy Soul.

Enjoying the boundless freedom that comes with not being tied down or encaged, the Gypsy Soul carries around feelings that behind the next mountain and within the next forest there will be a place of peace: a place they can call home.

The beauty of life for the Gypsy Soul comes in the liberty to live wildly, to dance in the rain and sing under the starry night sky, to belong to no one and everyone, and to speak with their own voices.

To the Gypsy Soul true freedom comes in knowing that when you don't belong anywhere: everywhere and everything becomes home.

Traits of the Gypsy Soul include the following:

• You're independent and individualistic
• You love to travel and explore new cultures
• You constantly see the magic and beauty in life
• You're authentic to your needs and desires
• You're attracted to the mystical and occult
• You're courageous in the face of uncertainty
• You have experienced soul loss at one point or another in life
• You're assertive and bold
• You're curious about exploring the body, mind and soul
• You're unhappy in an average, duty-bound life
• You're in touch with your emotions, but you tend to be emotionally reactive
• You're artistic, creative and self-expressive

 
*Where we live is very nice, it's just played out and it also leads to the same places I've been going my whole life.

I'm Not "Supposed" To Do This

Convention wisdom will tell you that if you have any kind of business-y online presence that you should keep it all business and not mix in your personal life.

I tried doing that.
A lot.
Many times.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows that me + conventional wisdom have never really gotten along so naturally all of my attempts to conform to it have failed.
Miserably.
Gloriously.
In a blaze of fantastic disaster.



I can't separate my personal life - aka my real self - from my business self.
We are one.

I guess that if I have a blog (or Facebook, Instagram, etc) associated with my business that I'm just supposed to write about business stuff, but the one-dimensionality of that would keep you (and me) interested for all of about 2 or 3 minutes at best.

Conversely, I guess that I'm supposed to have a separate blog (or Facebook, Instagram, etc) for my personal stuff and I guess that I'm not supposed to write about business stuff there, but don't you think that's kind of ridiculous? 

My business is based on my creativity and I don't want to sound corny or dramatic but that creativity courses through my veins. Furthermore, I am a bona fide writer - yep, I get paid all professional-like for stuff I write and have written.  So it is completely natural that I would incorporate those two core things into what I put out into the world (wide web).  I wouldn't have the first clue how to separate that out into some conventional wisdom compartments.

I see a great many people out there compartmentalizing and presenting their business or personal life as this non-messy, everything's-always-fabulous Stepford Wives persona to the world and in between my yawns I'm like "BS". 

(By the way, perfection is boring.
I want to see the real you, warts and all.  I want to know what/who is behind that thing you create.  I want a little insight into what makes you tick.)

I've said this a gazillion times in my lifetime...I've said it to my kid, to my self, to my staff, and basically to anyone who needed to hear it:

If there was one way to do a thing, one way that would lead to the whatever the goal was, 

we would all be doing it and then basking in the riches that showered down upon us all.

That reality, thankfully, is not that there is any one RIGHT way to do anything...except maybe heart or brain surgery.  Probably there is a really right way to do either of those two things and so if you're a surgeon it's probably a good idea to not go rogue and to instead stick with the tried and true. No one wants their doctor to say let's try something new and see what happens.

My other big saying that those around me have heard ad nauseum is throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.

I do this a lot which might have something to do with why my husband is losing his hair kind of rapidly.  See, I have a lot of ideas, frequently...and I also happen to think that the real meaning of life is to grab hold of it and take chances and have as much fun as possible...so I try things. 
Lots and lots of things. 
They might work, they might not, but in the meantime I'm living and learning and proactively having a grand time with this life thing...even when I do nothing more than write about not having a great day, etc.

How about you? 

 

Christmas Confession: Is It Over Yet?

There is a chalkboard hanging in my kitchen upon which I have chalked in a countdown that I change daily.

Many other people have some kind of similar thing hanging in their homes and each day they excitedly change the countdown number as the anticipated date draws nearer.

The difference between mine and theirs is that they are counting the days until Christmas and I am counting the days until the day after Christmas.


I was not always this way. There are several reasons why I no longer enjoy holidays but the biggest one has to do with becoming anosmic and no longer being able to smell the associated scents that come with holidays.

I'm not going to get into a big scientific explanation of how your sense of smell affects every single freaking thing in your life/world and that if you still have the ability to smell stuff you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Most people who smell (ha) think that if you can no longer smell that it simply means you don't smell stuff.  That is wrong.  Oh so very wrong.
You, smelling person, are smelling things right now that you are not even aware of that are giving your life a very rich, multi-faceted experience.  Like, an amazing technicolor life.
Me, as a non-smelling person, experience life in a completely one-dimensional way.  Like, in a dismal black & white kind of way even though all the colors are there, right in front of my, um, nose.

Here's a visual:

Me, as a smelling person enjoying the Christmas season, hands thrown out in joy

Me, as a formerly smelling person attempting to enjoy the Christmas season, hands thrown out in WTF

Let me explain even further: there are scents that evoke memories.  The holidays are filled with these scents and even without you knowing it, when you smell a particular something it wakes up the part of the brain that holds the memories associated with that scent - that's basic stuff, right?
Maybe for you it's Christmas cookies or pine needles or the ham/turkey in the oven or snow or your loved ones, etc.

All of that is gone for me.

So in the season of sensory overload, I'm over here being constantly inundated and reminded of what I'm missing and I try really really hard every single day to not think about it so that I can function to the best of my ability in this new world of sensory nothingness that I now live in thanks to my non-functioning nose.

I try to get into the spirit of things to the best of my ability, really I do.  The outside of my house is decorated so that our neighbors don't think we're Scrooges.  I have fake trees all over the inside of our house year round and one is rather tall with beautiful white lights, so that one conveniently serves as our Christmas tree.  I might bake some cookies even though I can't taste their flavors anymore.
Oh, did you not realize that when someone can't smell it means that they can't taste flavors either?
You can see what I mean by being inundated and reminded of what I'm missing.

Every day without fail I remind myself to not think about not being able to smell.  If I don't remind myself and I start thinking about it too much, despair comes, and if I let that happen I am in really big trouble.  So it's my daily battle and it's kind of exhausting.  Then along comes a holiday and screams in my face everywhere I turn and I'm just like

The only part of Christmas that I still love are the Christmas lights.  I still get little kid excited by them.  We still go for long rides to look at them.  That's Christmas to me now.

Regardless, my life is still blessed and I spend more time than you can imaging thanking God for all I have...primarily a husband and daughter who uplift me when I sink too low and who share oh-my-god-i-can't-breathe laughter with me...and let's not forget that unconditional love thing.

I just hope that in the middle of your hustle and bustle that you remember to appreciate - I mean really appreciate - the stuff you maybe take for granted.

Smell those smells, taste those tastes and in the middle of it all remember to count your own blessings.

 

I'm Big In Berlin

You might not know this but I am the resident artist at The Globe in Berlin, MD.

So fitting that I shared the spotlight with
Funk O Lisous (sp)!

All year round approximately 25 or so of my artwork hang downstairs.

I hung a bunch of new stuff there in September totaling 26 pieces and I got word that much of that has sold!  So that's pretty great 👍
We hustled and ordered a bunch of new stuff and trekked down there this past weekend to replenish stock and wound up hanging something like 39 new pieces.  Whoa.

For some reason I am pretty successful in the Berlin area.  Every single week, no kidding, I get messages from people who say they saw or bought my artwork there.  Fabulous.

Every time I write about The Globe and Berlin, MD, I have to expound on how magical it is there.  The movies Tuck Everlasting and Runaway Bride which tells you that even Hollywood thinks it's a pretty special place.

So, go, if you can manage it.

Buy some art while you're there 😏


 

I Am A Lazy Writer

Every single day I think of a bunch of stuff I want to write about and then I proceed to not write about it.

So much to write about...so much procrastination.

Guess I'll start with the selling of and then the non-selling of our house.

We decided to sell our house a couple of months ago.  There were several reasons for us wanting to do that, one of which included getting JP closer to his job.  Another reason was that we bought this house because it brought us closer to family and friends while still being reasonably commutable for JP.  We wanted our house to be a hub; a place where everyone could gather.  The giant pool in the yard was just the bonus scene in the visions of family and friends get-togethers we had dancing in our silly idealistic heads.


And so we moved into our new home two years ago with high hopes.  Tragic, naive high hopes.
All of those "we wish you lived closer" comments that we heard on a regular basis when we did not live closer were mysteriously forgotten as we sat alone together weekend after weekend, holiday after holiday, birthday after birthday...no visits from family and friends in site.
On average we are 80 miles away from all those people who said "we wished you lived closer" which is not really all that far to travel at least once or twice in the two-year time period that we've lived here.
But maybe it is...when you realize




...you're not a priority.

Ahem.

Anyway, so that stuff made us reconsider our location and take action that was best for us.
So the house went up for sale.

Within a month we had a buyer.

And our potential buyers wanted us to pay for everything and they also wanted us to throw in my beloved gazebo and - wait for it - JP's leaf blower.  Who asks for a leaf blower?  Granted, it's a fine leaf blower but, ya know, they sell them at Home Depot.
They also wanted my refrigerator even though we said in the disclosure that we were not sure if we were taking or leaving it based on what our needs would be in our new house.  But Oh No, they wanted that refrigerator and they wanted it bad.  Never underestimate the passion that could be ignited when a potential house buyer comes across a used refrigerator that is seven years old and was originally purchased at the Sears Scratch & Dent store.

You can't make any of this up, by the way.

Also within that same month we also found and contracted a house and then afterwards were informed of some stuff and realized some stuff, like:
a. the state we were wanting to move to charges 4x as much as NJ to close + also charges something called an "entrance tax" and a bunch of other fees which amounts to a lot more money output ($10,000+!) than we had figured on and could pull off.
b. we kinda really liked our house even if it was just us enjoying its charm and our own hospitality.

Our home is warm and cozy and inviting.  It has a giant fireplace and a big pool and tons of privacy.  It's really really quiet here, there is no traffic on our street or neighborhood and the whole area is kind of slow-paced and unstressful.  We don't have traffic jams anywhere near here and the grocery stores are never crowded.  We're surrounded by tall, majestic, beautiful trees that are filled year-round with birds that sing all the time which makes my heart ridiculously happy.  I have a large flock of wild turkeys that come looking for me to feed them each day.  People around here still go to church each Sunday and the churches have bazaars and bake sales and free Thanksgiving dinners for those in need. Farmland is everywhere and within 5 minutes from my driveway I can be on a meandering backroad that soothes and calms as I drive past pastures filled with horses and cows and everything in between.  Yes, it is New Jersey.  No, it is not the New Jersey that is well known.  We live in the most poor and rural county in the state and you know what?

It's good here.
Not convenient to much, but very, very nice.  We are not the types who need a mall around the corner.  I hate the mall.  I hate people crowds.  I hate traffic.

We took the house off the market last week and decided to stay put, at least for a while.
In the meantime, we've already started doing some renovations to make the house even more awesome than it already is.

An example of one of those renovations was to immediately march myself into the master bedroom and tear down the god-awful wallpaper border that the previous owners had put up.

This picture of the god-awful wallpaper border is really bad because probably I convulse every time I looked at or came near it but you can sort of tell how spectacularly terrible it is.  Doesn't it look like there was some kind of fire all along the ceiling line?

This picture shows the atrocity better.  I think the actual name of the border is Repetition Of Stone Bridges Akin To A Dystopian Nightmare or maybe Scenes From A Victorian Purgatory.

I'm stuck with the yellow and white stripes for now because we can't even deal with the idea of steaming off all that wallpaper let along doing the actual work.  Sadly but not surprisingly considering some of the other "creative" ways the previous owners did things, the striped wallpaper does not go all the way to the ceiling and in some places it is 4" from the ceiling and in other places it is 8" from the ceiling.  Uh oh, someone seems to have been drinking on the wallpaper job!
Because of their ineptitude, I may be forced to put up another border unless we can figure something else out.  If you have any ideas, please send them my way as I have developed a very strong aversion to all things wallpaper-ish.

Stay tuned for tales of even more drama adventures that have happened in the past week.