You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2008.
in one six month period of time!
1. Remodel your house
2. Begin a new business
3. Choose to start homeschooling
4. Have a baby
5. Plant a garden for the first time
6. Start another new business
Can someone tell me what is wrong with me?
when things like this happen I am able to see past all the imperfections to the total and utter perfection of everything.
Nothing I could ever imagine would be as nearly perfect as this is to me. It might seem silly to others but…
When we were naming our baby, her name came to me in a dream. Spelled out and clear that it was to be her name. Her! A girl! (we had not found out)
The name was Talia
I looked it up and there were two variations Talia and Thalia – it meant dew from heaven which I thought was so sweet. We went with it. It took us a few days after her birth to find her middle name. I knew it was right when we said it though: Talia Grace.
All through my pregnancy I made comments that she was bringing me back to my creativity. I was making more art again. I felt the creative drive within myself burning strongly again.
I always somehow credited the baby with this for some reason. Saying that the pregnancy brought it back or after her birth that she brought me back to my creativity. After reading what I did last night, I am more certain of this than ever.
It started with some writing I’m doing about my new career endeavor (more about that later) just brainstorming and tracing it all back to the beginning. I said, aloud to the baby that she was my little muse. Her eyes lit up and she smiled and flirted.
One of the Graces and one of the Muses (the daughters of Zeus) were named Thalia.
wow. yes. Thalia (slightly different spelling). really. no kidding.
So, she is a muse. My very own little muse.
Isn’t that truly perfect?
I thought so.
There just could not be a more suitable name for her.
Happy Six Months my little muse!
*(was on the 21st)
Could it be the high from my bread success?
or maybe just the fact that I hate the brand of tortillas we have right now, yet feel obligated to use them before buying more?
Whatever it was, I decided sometime when I was up during the night with the baby that I was going to make tortillas to go with my breakfast…I wasn’t totally committed when I woke up since the kids were already screaming to be fed and we had somewhere to be at 9:30…but then I found the perfect recipe when I did my online search for tortilla recipes.
I grew up in Texas where tortillas are a bit different than elsewhere, so when I saw the recipe for Tex-Mex Tortillas on the Homesick Texan I had to give it a try. I fed the kids something else and made my tortillas.
They tasted great just like she says! I ate them with my breakfast with real butter and again with beans for lunch. YUM! I gave the kids the crappy store bought ones I had on hand and shared these with the Mr. and a friend.
Fortunately, I can buy good tortillas here because they were a lot of work. It was still fun to make them and eat them fresh and warm with butter though just like when I was a kid.
* no my mom didn’t make tortillas, the local United grocery store did and I would always eat one on the way home with my folks.
When my children get frustrated because they can’t do something as well as they want to I finally have a good example for them. Good because as a kid I quit a good many things when I felt like I was not as good as I wanted to be. My mother says she never made me continue once I’d made up my mind because (and this will come as no surprise to many of you) I was a willful and determined child.
But, here is my tale of try try again until at last you bake good bread.
I have been repeatedly failing at bread baking for about 7 years now. That includes bread machines too, sadly. I have never been able to make decent bread. I always eat it, with cream cheese usually, but my family was not always so willing. My oldest has been known to comment that it isn’t good bread and why is it the wrong shape, so crumbly, so hard, burned, yucky tasting etc. My last attempt ended up being used as bread crumbs in another recipe so that wasn’t so bad for everyone.
A few months ago, I went to a bread baking day at a friend’s house hoping that good bread baking energy would rub off on me. The loaves I made there were a big improvement on my prior efforts, but the results were somewhere in the middle of my failures and good. The recipes came from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I thought if I tried it at home I may still have good luck yet. So, I reserved a copy at the library and I finally got it three days ago.
Now, I have been able to make not one, but two totally edible, and even delicious loaves of bread.
As a kid, if I sucked at something, I’d quit. Why I have persisted in my attempts at making bread is beyond me. Because when you’ve failed at something for seven years, hell, you probably should have given up. I didn’t and now…I have good yummy bread. Bread with homemade marmalade, bread with butter and shepherds pie, bread with pesto spread on it with a salad! BREAD!
I love bread, maybe that is why every now and then I would give it another attempt. Then, I would go months without trying again, discouraged.
Well, this time was different. It was a total surprise to everyone that it was actually good. Good!
I was so happy I was yelling at everyone to taste the bread. It’s good!
The Mr. cheered for me. He’s probably relieved to not be coerced into trying the failures anymore. So, I’m sitting here with my wine, thankful for the (good) daily bread.
one two three four
FIVE!
Five years ago (july 14) Eva was born and I was born too. I became a mother.
Now, I have three kiddos, but that first one made me “MOMMA”.
What a transition. Really. for anyone to go through.
To allow so much change for ourselves and our lives by having a child. Allowing way more stuff for one thing, but no I really mean more me. And less me too.
That person I was before kids is so long gone now, but I am still some of her. I’m still an artist Or, an artist again maybe.
I still like some of the same things. Getting drunk doesn’t hold the excitement it used to but still Art does, thank heaven.
Those first few months with a baby really sucked for me. I wrote in my diary at that time, that I knew I would have to give up some of myself, but that I didn’t know I would completely have to leave in order for there to be room for her. I think it was because I thought I knew what I would be willing to give up to make ‘room’ for someone and I had to go that far and more. I was consumed by this baby. I was trying to fit my child into the space left over after my selfish needs were met. I really got shoved around by the universe a lot to get me where I am now. Nothing like having 3 kids to humble a person, I think.
Looking back, my other world was so superficial (of my ‘friends’ I know only 1 now). This new world, though raw at times, seems so much more tangible as real life to me. I don’t know how many days I had that were truly authentically lived. Unless I was alone with my husband or talking to another artist, it was just a series of contrived social encounters. Nothing I would ever really want to go back to.
But… now, I am about to embark on a career again and it seems like although I haven’t worked in my field for over 4 years I am so much more qualified now. As a human I know that I see things differently and see how I wasted so much time in graduate school. boy, if I had nothing to do these days but go to a studio and make art….whoa!
but…I have something to say now that I didn’t before. I have a way of working that wasn’t available to me until just last summer. I know that my entire journey had to include having these wonderful little people that call me mother. I wouldn’t be the artist I am now otherwise and I would not be living to the same degree of being alive that I do now. I like when I get these glimpses of the spiderweb that connect all things in my life. It is so fragile and strong at the same time. interconnectedness of art and life for me with friendships and time. I recently showed some of my newer stuff to an old gallery acquaintance and got this:
I love the images of your art — honestly! I really think you could have some success with those if you price them right. Next time you are in the area, bring a few for me to look at — it’s so tough to get a sense of the wax in the photos. I’ll also keep them in mind if I have any designers looking for kitchen art.
Good to hear from you. See you at the gallery!
Now, as an artist, getting someone to look at your work is like an interview. But…since I was really truly non attached as all of these pieces have been given away to friends anyway and I could care less about them, it was just nice to visit with someone about them that knew art. I felt relaxed and very non attached about the outcome. It is where I obviously should have been all my life and especially when I was showing and selling work, but I was always very attached to the outcome and trying way too hard. Maybe I try way too hard at eating healthy and getting my kids to say please now, so there just isn’t room for me to give that much care to my artwork. It has begun to take it’s right place in my life. It is my work, but not my life. I don’t know when I’ll have a whole body of work to show this person…maybe in the spring of next year…but maybe I’ll be too busy with other things. I am happy to say I am not worried about any of it. I’m a mostly happy mom and that is a very big job right now.
I feel like I have arrived in some sort of personal no man’s land recently.
I don’t know how I got here, but it’s becoming a place of introspection which I suppose is always good however you get there.
Since I’m not a great writer I am just going to list my no mans land scenery and maybe some of the reasons it’s led me to introspect.
My almost five year old has become the bossiest bitch lately. I can hardly control myself around her to remember that she is only 4 years old, and I am supposed to be her mother. I am supposed to teach by example.
So, is my example that of a bossy bitch? Is that it? or is this something all little almost five year old girls go through? I remember my own childhood of ‘back talk’ and of getting smacked in the mouth for it when I had braces. I don’t want to go there as a mother. I want a healthy relationship with respect from my daughters (something I still have a hard time with with my own mother). I am trying to be less sarcastic with both of them (mother and daughter), as I can see that some of my daughter’s attitude is what she sees, but come on!
Friendship
I’ve always been kind of a shitty friend, I think.
I’m more of a go do something (mountain bike, camp, go to art shows) or come over and do something (BBQ, drink beer, fix things, paint) kind of friend than a let’s talk about your feelings kind of friend. In fact, please don’t talk about it or I’m likely to start cleaning my kitchen for lack of something to say to you. So, in a real crisis I try to remain silent and make myself useful. When I was a practicing artist, I could make things that let people know how I felt. I gave tons of art away. I have one friend whose entire place is filled with my artwork. I like visiting her; it’s like reading an old diary.
but I’m real uncomfortable with feelings etc…However, if I can ‘do something’ let me know I’m extremely loyal that way and will do just about anything for people I care about.
So, now that I’m trying to home school my bitchy almost 5 yo, I wonder what kind of example I am setting for her in that category too. Not to blame my mom, but like her, I think, I walk to the beat of my own drummer and don’t make real friends easily. I don’t always relate well to those 10 years younger than me with children my kids’ ages nor do I relate now to those in my own age bracket. (Not to mention the single friends, married but no kids friends etc etc.) The women my own age may have their youngest going off to school and I’ve chosen to begin homeschooling. All of that re-frames their time as well as mine. (Not to say I don’t have friends, I’d like to think some people consider me their friend as I consider some to be mine).
But, hell it’s awkward for me. How to put this? I think I easily become the odd man out in certain circles. My daughter will easily fit in with the children, but I end up feeling like it is such a wasted effort on my own part OR I like the kid, so put up with the mom OR love the kid and hope the mom puts up with me. How do those needs get met? Mine and hers? I know from growing up with the mom I did that I have to make certain that I honor my SELF, it’s the only way I can set the right example for my girls. I just need to start figuring out what that means other than spending a lot of time alone in my studio with loud music and a coffeepot. I need to work on my friendships (and that new piece of art I have in mind) but I don’t really know what all that means since I think I’m pretty self-centered (like my one week shy of being a 5yo).
My friends think I have time.
(ha that is for Michelle who tagged me for this, based on this.
A six word memoir! Written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure is a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were- For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. There’s a video on Amazon with examples from the book, it sounds like a fun read! I’d like to start a six word memoir meme and here are the rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!
Well, I can come up with my own memoir. However, I don’t know 5 people that I could tag on this so…I’ll just leave that part off.
I came up with lots, but narrowed it down to a few.
Art Making Coffee Drinking Desert Momma
Longing for time in my studio
Getting out of my own way
and M offered his help with:
hot husband, great sex, three kids
