JustMeAgain

An invitation of sorts

 

This photo was actually my daughter's idea, she wrote "you're invited"  on the sand in order to use the print for the invitations to her soon-to-be-here 12th birthday.  Leave it to her to find a creative way to invite her friends to a fun day at the beach. Anyway, while I was editing the photo to send it to the printers, this little message made me think that it is actually such a good daily reminder about the invitation we are ALL given every day to:

* Celebrate life.

* Enjoy the little things!

* Spend time with the people you love.

* Spend some quiet time alone to listen to your own thoughts.

* Give yourself permission to feel the emotions that fill your heart.  Even if it's sadness, regret or disappointment.  You gotta acknowledge these things before you can let them go. Then, you will have room left over for happiness, joy and pure bliss.

* Remember the things that are worth remembering. Forget the things that just add weight to you soul.  If I could only forget about cookies, maybe I would stop eating them so I could rid of the weight I've managed to add to my hips!

* Learn new things.

* Call someone you haven't talked to in a while. Like your sister, your nieces, your mother or Josh Groban, you know, people you really, really love. Oh yes, I have never actually talked to Josh before, but I added that just for good measure. If I could call him, I would!

* Hug someone you haven't hugged in a while. Maybe your husband or your pet rabbit. Okay, I was only kidding.  It hasn't been a while, I do hug my pet rabbit quite often!  ;D  (Yes, perhaps a silly attempt at being funny.)

* Get off the computer and go make your lovely daughter (or son/husband/significant other) or yourself, an awesome Sunday breakfast. Okay, I don't actually cook, but I can certainly put together a little cereal on a pretty bowl with a nice glass of juice and perhaps even make some toast.  That, I can handle. Just don't ask me to bake anything. Or cook anything.

Random Saturday morning

* Today is Josh Groban's An Evening in New York PBS special.  I've been looking forward to it ever since I heard about it!

* I spotted that gorgeous looking Pomeranian at the beach the other day. The cutest thing!  She reminded me of our own Foxy and then I wished we had brought her with us that day!  :D

 

* I love watching my daughter have a fun time at the beach.  I'm not much of a beach body myself (I have this whole thing about too much sun exposure and  how the sand gets into everything! Plus, I don't like wearing bathing suits) but I certainly find it very, very thrilling to watch just how much my daughter can have a wonderful time with her friends.

 

* This is another dog I spotted at the beach the last time we went.  He looked mesmerized by the water.  It made me think that dogs must day-dream, too!   I can't say I didn't warn you that this was a RANDOM post, right?

 

* Even though I don't really like the too-much sand in your hair, purse and camera/sun-burning/having to wear a bathing suit idea of the beach, I do like the photo opportunities you can catch while day-dreaming, and overall just watching how life unfolds so peacefully in front of your very own photo lens.

 

* Diet Root Beer is still my favorite drink. I can't believe I only started drinking it about a year ago.  Just to think of all the wasted years!

Oh, yes, he is loved.

 

Last weekend, I was lucky to have a very willing, gorgeous little subject (you gotta start them early, you know?) I cannot believe that my beautiflul baby nephew is already a month and a half old. 

Babies just grow too fast. This is why it is good to take their picture as often as possible. Hold on to your loved ones any way possible.

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"We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery."

-- H. G. Wells

Work commute and stuff

 

Sometimes I love my work commute. It gives me time to just sit there and do nothing else other than listen to my thoughts, or good music. Okay, sure, I also watch the road while I’m at it, too, but it can surely be a blissful couple of hours a day.  Sometimes, like today, mountains of memories made their way into my mind. And into my camera. But I stopped for a bit to take this picture. Like my daughter would say, I secret super swear that I did. 

Anyway, today, I was listening to a Sirius radio station called Escape. I wanted to be bold and change my routine which usually involves one of the following things, whether a CD from my pastor’s Sunday sermons (yes, they are that good), or music from my favorite Sirius channels “The Message” or On Broadway.  Occasionally, I’ll venture out on to Sirius XM Pops or the Symphony Hall. And if I am not listening to Sirius radio, I’m obsessively listening to Josh Groban’sCDs.  

So, this was a bold change to listen to this channel that features songs that I have not heard in decades. As in three and a half decades ago!  I'm surprised I could remember some of those lyrics. And what a pleasant surprised it turned out to be!  I caught songs like “Spanish Eyes”or the music piece by the late Paul Mauriat “If You Go Away." Many of the tunes I heard today were some that my mom used to love to listen to 24/7 when I was a very young little girl, I'm guessing since I was born, although the first memories I have are from I was about five.  It made me realize that my music obsession over a particular type of music is, in fact, hereditary. I remembered how my mom used to be insanely in love with Engelbert Humperdinck. And how she would listen to “Spanish Eyes” dozens of times a day! I even realized that I still remember some of the lyrics!  Truth is, she still loves Engelbert! Her love has remained faithful after all these years! The funny thing is that my mom does not speak a word of English, but she used to love English songs. And still does, of course. Kinda like when I listen to Josh Groban or Placido Domingo sing in Italian (or French) and I can almost repeat entire songs even though I don’t speak Italian, or French!

Ah, the blissful experience of memories coming back to life. Memories that reside peacefully engraved in our minds, until a beautiful song reminds us that it is time to dust those happy memories off so we can be a kid again.  At least for a few hours in the day.

Music is, in fact, a beautiful art.

So here it is: FRIDAY!

 

Yes, Monday are awesome...but Fridays are still the best!  :D 

Happy Friday my friends!

Looking forward to a nice three day weekend.  No specific plans, just hoping to have some time to spend in my garden and finish re-organizing closets (who knows what other old treasures I might find), de-cluttering a little and lots of other catch up projects at home.  Hope you all have a wonderful and very productive weekend!

Oh, and if you get a minute, check out the Artistic Visions blog.  I have added more pictures, more entries, and a new young little artist, Sabrina Hammon.  She started creating from the minute her little hands could hold on a crayon, or finger paints. She made her first oil painting at the very young age of five years old. And since then, her ART only gets better.  I am so proud of her! And she is still, only 11 years old, soon to be 12.  If you want to see some of her precious art, go here or here.   Or, check out her latest creation ~an altered phone!

Gotta love her creative spirit! :D

Circa 1989

1989 was a good year. A really fun and exciting year for me. I was only 19 and already attending law school in Mexico, writing for La Voz de Michoacan, a local newspaper in the small city I was living at the time, teaching English as a second language and dating a monkey!  Oh, wait a minute, that monkey was not my date!  But he was way too cute, wasn't he? Given the chance, he would have asked me out for sure!  Ha ha.

As I was cleaning up the scrapbook room tonight I came across an album I made some years ago.  This was actually an album I made 8 or so years ago.  You'll have to excuse the horrible design. My only defense is that I was rushing to complete that album. Or I was really tired, probably working on it in the middle of the night, like always. I do remember that I made this album about me, but it was intended for my daughter, so that one day she can read about the things her mom did a few decades before she was born.  I can never clean the room without stopping and snooping around. I suppose this is the procrastination part that takes over me whenever I am attempting to clean anything. And now I am blogging. I suppose that is even more of that...well, how would I call it?  PRO-crastination. 

Anyway, since I am blogging, I might as well share a little about this particular page.  It includes a few pictures taken for a story I was writing for the newspaper at the time.  On the bottom picture you can see me holding my old recorder asking questions to the Zoo Director.   Behind the two of us was an elephant that was like a local celebrity.  He was missing one ear that he had lost some years before.  I can't remember all the details now on how he lost his ear, so I am sure I will have to find the newspaper article so I can read what I wrote at the time (my memory is not that great considering that I wrote that article some 20 years ago!)  My goodness!  20 years ago I was 19...that reminds me that by the end of this year I will turn 40.  What a scary thought. I better get back to what I was doing and forget all about how old I am...

 

Happy Monday!

I tend to complain about Mondays because they are always packed with things to-do and not enough hours in the day to do such things.  And let's face it Maria (yes, I'm talking to myself on this one), it's always hard to get back to work when you've just had a few days of fun-filled family time. Today, however, I want to change something about Mondays. I want to change my own view of them since that is the ONE thing I can control.

I have been thinking lately that with all the stuff going around in our world, all the sad or not-so-good things for which I have absolutely no control over, I often forget about the one thing I can change, and that is my own perspective on things.  I can choose to have a happy and content attitude towards life.  I can control my personal response to whatever the day brings.  I can choose happy. 

And so, today is A HAPPY MONDAY for me and I hope for you, too. 

Having said all that, let me now move on to share a few happy things to start my, well, HAPPY Monday!

* I cannot express enough my complete gratitude to Liz Ness and Jackie Wood for a feature interview in their blog Illustrating Stories. This blog has been a personal favorite since its beginnings.  And being interviewed by someone that I love, respect and admire so much is such a fabulous honor!  If this all wasn't enough, this interview gets to go right alongside other artists that I admire so much.  Really, this is such an honor! Be sure to check out all their other interviews in this link.  I really have been on cloud nine ever since Liz wrote to me about this.  Thank you so much Liz!

* Last night I updated a few more pictures on the Artistic Visions blog.  I added a few new entries with pictures from sample work from Eve Ham and Corina Venegas. 

* I managed to find a little time for creativity this weekend. It was very stress relieving to create a few little tiny pieces of art.  Even if it's something small, like Artist Trading Cards, can be a very good outlet. 

 

Act of Kindness to Myself

 

Yes, this is truly how I feel. 

Experiencing creative moments in my every day life

is what I need to be a happy person.

Catching glimpses of beauty in every little chance I get,

is a life saving act of kindness I give to myself.

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* When the days are too long and are filled with t0-d0 lists and work and deadlines, my heart longs for creative shooting of pretty things.

*When little aches and pains start showing up for unexpected, and un-invited visits, my soul screams for creative thinking.

*When life gets busy, my spirit prays for quiet moments of inspiration.

Silly foot and stuff

* Had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. Thank you so much for all the good wishes.  Saturday, we spent the day at Wild Things in Salinas taking pictures of animals.  Doing the things that me and my daughter love to do most.  For her, a day with her beloved wild animals; for me, a day filled with photo ops.  It could not have been any better.  Here are a few of the animal pictures I took that day.

*Sunday, I had a little mishap and fell down the stairs (note to self: do not text with only socks on while running down on hard wood stairs), but thankfully no bones were broken.  After a few hours in the ER, and  a few x-rays later, we found out that it was only a moderately severe sprained ankle.  The ER doctor that examined my silly foot was really funny.  He sent me home in crutches.  The idea was to keep the weight off the foot. Yeah, right. Like I would do that. Anyway, he did comment on my shoes and said they were the cutest shoes he had seen that day.  He gets brownie points for that and gets forgiven for trying to make me look even sillier using crutches. Here is a picture of the shoes.  They are handmade by Em & Sprout and are sold on Etsy.

* After coming back from the ER, we made it right in time for dinner at grandma's house.  And I got to see my beautiful nephew.  He is getting cuter by the minute!  I just adore that little bundle of giggles!  And it is so endearing to see the whole family go crazy over him!  It brings so many sweet memories of when my baby was a tiny baby, too.  And yes, everyone still goes crazy over her, too.  She is almost 12, but still a baby! Okay, she might not think so, but in a mother's heart, your babies are always your babies! And if you thought you were getting off the hook about my posting more nephew pictures, well, not today.  Here are a few of my favorite pics from this weekend.

*We have been fascinated by one of grandma's garden recent blooming plants.  Just look at that picture of my father in law next to it.  Keep in mind that he is 6'2".  That plant is huge! 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day weekend

 

To all the mothers (including moms of dogs, cats or rabbits), grandmas, great-grandmas, aunts, sisters, friends...happy Mother's Day weekend.  I hope you get to have a beautiful, colorful and fun weekend!