southern suprise

Noel Noel

Well she was a rescue- came with her name attached

was an inconsiderate x-mas gift for someone else

survived neglect including a snakebite

now she is the love of my pet life

and cant you tell just how very much she enjoys dressing up

its cold 32 degrees in Houston today

but i guess there are really no excuses

for dog couture

They'll tuck their heads under their wings poor things

Ah yes - the holidays' - I entered a competition last week at Parahernalia- very cool UK site with an Etsy shop = such fun and unique stuff- alas I did not win- I've also been busy making these cool little birds for Christmas,Kwanzaa, Hanuka, Solstice, festival of light gifts- for everyone on my list- I'm having a heart"felt" holiday - hehehe felt get it - I adapted this pattern from Calamity Kim's on line site- very fun and easy- I'm using felt and beading a hanger- they are like chips so easy to do and I can't stop at one!! and as I work each one has a little personality that emerges under the needle- so sweet-

http://diaries.paraphernalia.nu/paraphernalia/2008/12/the-victoriana-collection-competition.html?cid=141289646#comments

http://calamitykim.typepad.com/calamity_kim/calamity-chickens-make-do.html

TILT

Things I Love Thursdays= TILT

my dogs face
no depression music
chai
nag champa incense- smells like home!
hot baths on a gloomy day

Found Texas Trash

Even the refuse is friendly down here 'mam

Saw this cheerful albeit rusty "Howdy"

greeting me in a parking lot-

Had to pick it up

It cheered me all day

Evergreen Road

I keep seeing that Whitetail in my headlights
The one that wasn't there - then was
Arching over my hood
Like some desperate ballet dancer
First one
Then three more
All at once
Over and around me
Then gone
like ghosts
over the drifts
of the Canyon snow
I had to pull over- my hands shaking
Seeing my breath
measuring the cold moments

Wings for the Lost ones

On this night

on the eve of a day of remembrance.

I think of Doug

and his wild art,

The size of garage doors

and full of vibrant life,

bursting from the bricks

of his studio.

For Lyle Jean,

his soft southern drawl
and his wicked sense of humor,
his life ended in a whisper.

And for the last one I lost to Aids.

A three year old boy in foster care

I knew his mother , a nurse

who cared for this abandoned baby

filling his short life with laughter, joy,

and love in spite of pain.

His last words, "Mommy, I figured it out".

We celebrated him with pizza and balloons

set free on a spring day.

putting away fall

Living now where there is not such a dramatic change of seasons

I feel very weird putting up x-mas decos when it's 75 degrees

ah well - packing up the fallish things - I liked these bits.

What I like about the South

Fool the Bird

This is a photo of a card I made for a Craft show- The rusty bird cage lives on my sisters' back porch- and the little cut out bird is from a vintage German Primer- It took me a long time to be able to use/ cut up a books for collage projects- but now I'm ok with it. I managed silence the screams of my inner librarian and set the words free in a different way.

Time At Sea

Collage in process- inspired by site link below- I'm working very hard to develop daily journal habit- this was fun space with many ideas to kick start the process- I'm working on a re-purposed box - with gesso and tissue- thinking I'll put these pieces in 3-d style with other found objects-

http://www.inspirecompany.com/inspiredideas.html

Time Piece

At what point

does the present

become the past?

Every breath

each blink.

We count the heartbeats

that become hours.

We travel through time

Every moment

we turn.

To Grandmothers House We Go

I Remember

Driving all night

Through the Kansas

Dark thick with stars

You could still almost touch

the Milky Way

From the frosty

Backseat windows

Radio voices full

of farm reports

As we drifted home

Garage Sale

I stopped at the sign at the end of the road,
The items scattered as if they had been thrown
out in a fit.
The things we keep and the things we leave behind.
Reminders we keep to say , I was there , this is me, this is mine.
Belongings- lost by love
or some other force of nature.
Laying in the rain
In front of the sad house
The empty chair, the warping books, the houseplants
all tamed by some others hands-
not mine-
I can't afford any more memories today.

Above Mesa Verde

Fog is the Sky dreaming

Today I'm thinking of then

And how it felt,

to look down on the silver clouds.

The edge of the mesa

The sage singing in the morning

Floating between the worlds

The Sun drifts in

To remind me

To keep my feet on the Earth

All We Are

All we are, that

discreet fold of lavender

The pulse of thought

The striving- hopes, dreams

wish- the smell of autumn

The brush of cats velvet

All hidden, the number of

our days

Journal Page Two-

The Day I met the Witches' daughter

She smiled with bright even teeth

and ate my rice cooked with lemons

that tasted like the beach

She told me her mother was recovering

Recovering from a curse

And had a minor surgery to remove

a small horse from her neck

The horse was made of leather

and had thorns in its eyes

they had been sewn shut

She told me the word in her language meant

to have one foot in the grave, was to be pregnant.

All night long I could dream of nothing else,

but horses with red ribbons,

where their eyes should be.

And how my sons face would look

when he was born.

Journal Page One

Why

I can say why,

In four languages,

but never you answer.

Today I washed the sheets,

and put away the pictures.

Burned the sweetgrass,

and scattered the wildflowers.

One more thing,

that makes you a

memory to me.

Buffalo Dreaming

Sometimes I think

of the place in my heart

where the dust is driven up

From the dancing of one thousand hooves

the drumbeat echo of many hearts long gone

I can hear the roar of the past

driving through my pulse

and I wonder

What happens to the dreams

when the dreamers are all gone