Sleepwalking In Habits

Photo by Boyfriend

Long Key

If you always do

what you always did,

you'll always get

what you always got.

- Anonymous

Patience

Photo by Boyfriend

Long Key

How poor they are that have not patience!

What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

- William Shakespeare

Ahimsa

Photo by Boyfriend

Key West

The only thing we can control is our attitude.

We have the choice of life or death,

love or fear, in each moment.

And we bear the responsibility

for that choice in each moment.

- Rolf Gates, "Meditations From the Mat"

New Quilt!

It's taken me a looong time, but i've finally finished Kelsey's Baby's quilt!
Yay!!!

The thing that took me so long was the label.
I struggled with how to do the label, and then, after i decided i'd just hand-embroider it myself... Well...  Then i had to sit around and think about that for a looong time too.

Anyway, i FINALLY got it all finished week-before-last, and then i had to wait around for the Sun to come back out so i could finally take pictures of it!  =-)

Without further ado, here's Sophia's quilt:

While she was pregnant, i asked Kelsey what colors the Baby "felt like", and she said

"Pink and Green",

so that's what i did...

plus some.  =-)

 Kinda close-up

(Bunny was NOT here to help me, so i just did

the best i could.)  =-)

The back of Sophia's quilt

The hand-embroidered label

(i'm so proud of it, can you tell?)

Folded up, almost ready for me to mail it...

(Now where's that box)?

The trip to my sister's was very nice indeed.  =-)

We talked.  A lot!

We did a little Yoga.

She tried to get me to do some Yoga with her husband, but i honestly don't know where to begin with him just yet...  He has Rheumatoid Arthritis really really bad, and i look at his back and just get stymied.

He walks like he hurts ALL OVER, and really?

He DOES hurt all over...

So i don't know where to begin.

But this just tells me that i need to go ahead and take a Yoga Teacher Training class and specialize in seniors and people with arthritis, and i really need to

GET GOING ON THAT!

I know, i know.  I've gotta be careful what i ask for, but...

I'm sincere in this! 

I read a book called "The New Yoga for People Over 50" by Suza Francina, and she just has me fired up!  =-)

Now i'm working my way through another excellent book called "Yoga for Arthritis", and it's SO informative and good.  I'm gonna start doing some of those poses with props with my Dad today.

Actually, i REALLY need to get busy 'cause i gotta make a Bolster (or TWO) for him, and a couple of eye "pillows" - one for Daddy and one for Boyfriend.

Wow!  I'd best get BUSY!

=-)

Pet Me

Animals are such agreeable friends -

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

- George Eliot (1819 - 1880)

Road Trip!

I'm going to my sister's today for the weekend!  (Well, 'til Monday.)
(She's probably shouting, "Finally!" right about now...)  =-)

She lives in Eastern NC with her husband and two dogs, out in the country.  I don't go to see her often enough, but i thought i'd go see before her busy-season at work begins.

It's difficult trying to "fit everybody in".
We try to get to my Mom's at least every 6 weeks.
We try to get to Boyfriend's Mom's every month.
I'm doing Yoga every day, and now i'm *also* teaching Yoga to my Dad FOUR days a week!  (Big Smile!)  He told me a few weeks ago that he needs to start stretching out or something, and asked me about whether he could do Yoga or not.  I sort of joked that, "I should come to your house and do it with you." and he JUMPED on that one!  He asked me about three times if i thought i'd be willing to do that some time...
Daddy is NOT the type of person to ask for help.  Like, EVER!  He told me a year or so ago that he'd rather live under an overpass somewhere than to inconvenience any of his (all grown) children! 
"WHAT?!?!"
I'm not kidding!

Anyway, since he asked, like at *least* three times, i figured i'd BEST get my butt up and go teach him some Yoga!
It's really challenging me! 
I took him to an "easy" class (called Ease and Flow), as my Yoga teacher recommended, and he couldn't even get into Child's Pose!
http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/475

It made me so thankful that i can move as well as i can.

I was also a little taken aback that my Daddy *couldn't* move that well.
It's something i never really noticed on our Saturday-morning-breakfast-routine.  It's not like i ever asked him to kneel down and put his forhead to the floor or anything.  =-)

Anyway, i've been giving him "lessons" for two weeks now, and i think we're BOTH loving it!  =-)

He's wishing he had started Yoga years ago, and i'm wishing there was somewhere around here that teaches "Yoga for Seniors Teacher Training".  About all they really teach here for Seniors is "Chair Yoga", and that's honestly what i'm NOT looking for.
I ordered this book from Amazon, and my honest wish is to go to California and learn from the author in person!  Her book is so informative and good!  When she looks at a Senior, she doesn't see someone who is "old".  She doesn't see someone who is relegated to a life of deterioration and eventual dependence on others.  She tries to eventually get each Senior to end up doing Headstands, if that is AT ALL possible!

Her book is SO INSPIRING!

I gave it to Daddy to read, for him to glean helpful tips and pointers from it.  Also, all the pictures of all those white-haired "little old ladies" doing handstands and headstands and bragging that their grandchildren have taken them to Kindergarten to use them as Show-&-Tell!  I just LOVE IT!  I hope it inspires him too.  =-)

I have a lot to learn in order to continue to help Daddy.
And i think it's inspired me to "branch out" into the Yoga-for-Seniors part of teaching Yoga. 

I want to help people to "grow young"!


Hope you have a WONDERFUL WEEKEND!!
I'll be back on Monday.

=-)

Einstein

Photo by Wes

(NO filters or Photoshop or ANYthing!)

I never think of the future.

It comes soon enough.

- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Today's Quote

Death is Nature's expert advice to get plenty of Life.

- Goethe (1749 - 1832)

Photo by Boyfriend

No Spring, nor Summer beauty hath such grace,

As I have seen in one Autumnal face.

- John Donne (1572 - 1631), Elegies

Quote of the Day

Photo by Bunny

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute

Appeal to sympathy for decay.

- Robert Browning, Paracelsus

Thought

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen

Quote

Photo by Bunny

Love is my Religion.

I don't condemn, i don't convert.

-Ziggy Marley

A Finish From Yesterday

I completed another painting. 
This one took me over two weeks to do... 
I fell into a dark, deep depression in the middle of making it, and that seriously messed with my "Mojo".

But i finally finished it!  =-)

I'm not totally crazy about it, and i didn't get the "high" from doing this one that i did from the other one, "Inner Balance".  Boyfriend confided a secret to me, and i just sort of lost that good feeling in the middle of trying to paint this one, "Grounding Down & Spreading Up".

But i love the colors in this one!  They sort of bring me a sense of peace and confidence.

Once again, the "vision" in my head is not what came out of my paintbrush, but that's okay this time.  I like it anyway.  =-)

I had wanted for her hair to look like the branches of a tree spreading up into the sky, but it certainly didn't come out that way.  =-)

Oh!  I guess i should inform you that she is doing the Tree Pose from Yoga.
I've been doing Yoga for almost two years now, and i absolutely LOVE it!

Without further ado, i give you:

"Grounding Down & Spreading Up"

She has a "fire" in her belly.

(That's her creativity.)

The Lotus above her head suggests

the unfolding of the soul.

I originally wanted her hair to look like branches of the tree

spreading up into the sky...

But it didn't come out of the paintbrush like that, so instead

she has a crown, suggesting Freedom/Liberty.

I hope you like her.
She's "growing" on me.  =-)

p.s.  I hope you know that sharing my Art is a bit like
allowing you to see a piece of my Soul.

=-)

Photo by Bunny

The real voyage of discovery

consists not in seeking new landscapes,

but in having new eyes.

- Marcel Proust

September 11th - Ten Years Later...

Photo by Bunny

We are alive and it's our job to appreciate every single minute of our days.

That is the lesson we should learn from the 2,985 people who died ten years ago.

-The Bitchy Waiter

Quote For Today

Photo by Bunny

Art is not a handicraft;

it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

- Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) What is Art?

Today's Quote

We are always the same age inside.

Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946)

Quote for Today

It is part of the cure to wish to be cured.

- Seneca (8 BC - AD 65)  Hippolytus

Quote for the Day

The heart has eyes that the brain knows nothing of.

Dr Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842 - 1933)



Today's Thought

The secret of contentment is

knowing how to enjoy what you have,

and to be able to lose all desire for

things beyond your reach.

- Lin Yutang

=-)

Thought for the Day

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste

that they hurry past it.

- Soren Kierkegaard

=-)

Thought for Today

What makes us discontented with our condition is

the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of

the happiness of others.

- French Proverb

=-)