The Waiting Place...

This is exactly how I feel these days.  His genius was always in the words. The exact words to describe the inner turmoil of a person trying to figure things out.

excerpt from Oh! The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss:

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. 

You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. 

Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. 

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.

I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true 

that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.

You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. 

And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. 

And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.

And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. 

Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. 

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. 

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! 

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? 

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And if you go in, should you turn left or right…

or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? 

Or go around back and sneak in from behind? 

Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, 

for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race 

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace 

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, 

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…

for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, 

or a plane to go or the mail to come, 

or the rain to go or the phone to ring, 

or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No 

or waiting for their hair to grow. 

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite 

or waiting for wind to fly a kite 

or waiting around for Friday night 

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake 

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants 

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. 

Everyone is just waiting.

--------------------

It makes me want to sit perfectly still until it all passes.

If I weren't so sure the world was coming to an end soon, I would live here.  As it is, when I see this, my anxiety reaches peak performance because all I envision are the waters of the oceans swallowing me.

/sigh.  It is breathtakingly perfect, though.

Parabolas

Excellent video and such a innate truth.  Gives me chills.  But I'm a geek, I'm sure.


Parabolas (etc.) from Everynone on Vimeo.

Unplggd

I ran across a recent Unplggd post while I was perusing my Reader.  I instantly felt grateful to myself for having diversified my Reader enough to have included such an amazing source.  Generally I stare at DIY home remodeling, one-day crafts, and Why Aren't You As Cool As Me posts that generally make me feel lazy and inept.  Having had enough forethought to realize that I would be more inclined to see how our future would take shape makes me feel like maybe I'm not as inept as I thought.


Unplggd is an amazing source for a modern uptake on technology.  Case and point, the Bento Book: 

Unplggd Post:

Here's an interesting concept entry included amongst those entered into theDesignBoom+Fujitsu Design Award competition. Instead of keeping our digital devices as separate elements, designer René Woo-Ram Lee envisions eliminating the hassle of cords and cables and giving our tablets and smartphones a place to live and use while at home in a unified laptop form. The Bento Book creates a solar powered docking station that is no longer just a passive charging station, but an all-in-one integrated system...

Amazing.  Makes me less scared and more eager to see our future.

Die Die Die

So last week The Mister was let go from his job at Edward Jones.  It's almost comical that I wasted so much blogging space by keeping up with the anxiety and the terror of it all just to have it taken anyway.  

The other comical part is that I'm pregnant.  I know, such an amazingly wonderful thing, tinged forever by the terror of it all.  

I have never in my life felt so helpless and low.  This doesn't happen to us, does it?  This doesn't happen to people who follow the rules and do what you're supposed to do.  Man, I am naive.  Everyday I learn how many ways you can get screwed if you dream big.  Just dream for a good day and leave it at that.  You'll reach that goal most of the time if you dream that small.  Sounds jaded and sad, I know, but there is no other truth in my head right now.  I have been blessed with great friends and family who love me enough to try to bring me light during the darkness.  I have received testimonies from some of the most unlikely sources and I envy their conviction and truth.  I just can't feel it.  I know I might if I actually sought it, but the heaviness of it all is exhausting.  Plus, I'm too busy shoving every spare minute of my day into a smut book that I don't have to think too much about.  I should stop, but I've already let it take me.  

In my life I've found it more helpful to say what I mean through music.  I feel like Bumblebee, but it's the only way I really feel I can communicate without giving too much of myself.  And yet so much.  The Avett Brothers have been the first band since I can remember (which isn't saying too much considering my lacking memory) that make me feel that someone knows how I feel.  Their words are exactly how I feel.  You don't have to watch the video as its just this black screen all the way through, the lyrics are below it.  Oh, and its just the name of the song, please don't look further than that..

Die Die Die

She’s fighting with the sky
She thinks she can
Living within a lie
She thinks she can
But nobody knows what lies behind
The days before the day we die
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die

She puts her hands against
The life she had
Living with ignorance
Blissful and sad
But nobody knows what lies behind
The days before the day we die
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die

Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die

You can try to swim the sea
But say goodbye to you and me
You can try to swim the sea
You can try to hold the breeze
You can try to hide the sun
But say goodbye to everyone
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die

And you can try to swim the sea
You can try to hold the breeze
You can try until skin and bones
But you will try all alone.
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die
Die, die, die

------------------

I feel that just recently I made the same reflection about a book I read and how I constantly feel as though I'm searching for myself in someone else's words.  This is probably not good for my overall health...  But must I stop?  Their words are so much prettier than mine.  

The Lower Lights

These times they are a trying.  In times like these, when I can't seem to find any obvious solutions, I like to play this album.  Those of you that know me know that I am not religious, much to my parent's dismay.  I don't believe in organized religion.  I never have.  Maybe one day that will change.  Until then, you can all breathe a sigh of relief to know that I'm not a complete heathen and I do listen to happy religious music.  It makes me feel a light even though I don't always believe.  It gives me hope.  If you love bluegrass-y-type music, you'll love this album.  These are songs my Grandma and Daddy used to sing around the house and at church.  I play this album almost every night while I make dinner.  The Mini Me loves it and always asks for it.  Check it out.

http://thelowerlights.com/music/  You can listen to a few songs right here on their website or buy the digital album for $10.  It's the best $10 I've spent in a long time.

I've attached a video of one of my favorite song for you to view.


Secret Prayer from The Lower Lights on Vimeo.

Hopefully the uplifting feeling will produce some sort of solution...

Om

I just got into one of those arguments with my husband.  You know the ones.  The ones where you fight over the intonation or the word.  Just one word.  Yet the fight will take an hour it seems.  You've gone places you don't want to go and swore you would never go again just to prove your point (which is still right).  So for the last twenty minutes, my chest has still been in turmoil.  The storm is just raging inside.  Like after watching a particularly surprising and terrifying or uncomfortable scene in a movie.  It takes a little time for me to calm down.

But as I was perusing through my Google Reader, I came across this photo of a library in the woods.  /sigh.  Complete calm.  My "happy place" that I go to when I need to calm down is a forest.  A deep, dense forest alive with large, overgrown and untidy trees.  When that doesn't work, I go to books.  I escape into another world.  I recently was reading a book and came across this paragraph that felt so familiar, like it was my own skin.  "She threw herself into books, emulating each character she met.  She never managed to find herself in these books no matter how she tried, exhuming traits from between the pages and donning them for an hour, a day, a week.  We think, in some ways, we have all done this our whole lives, searching for the book that will give us the keys to ourselves, let us in to a wholly formed personality as though it were a furnished room to let."

So here, in this one photo, I have both the environmentally calming trees and the mind-numbing (or sometimes mind-raging) escape of books.  Complete. Serenity.

Bring it on, Mister.

Silhouette How-To

I've had a few people asking about the silhouette I did for the birthday party, so I decided to put up a step-by-step with tips.  It was actually very simple with the exception of getting the child to remain still while you take numerous photos of their profile.

Step One
The first thing you want to think about is what you want each child to wear and how you want their hair - you want each child to be different so you can tell them apart.  You can put them in something "showy" like a big collar or something, which helps when you have multiple kids so that you can make each of them stand out.  My kid wears a lot of ponytails, and I thought a pony in a profile would be darling, so I chose that.  You could do a bun, a cute little sprout on top, braids, leave it down, whatever.  Choose what most describes the child.

Step Two
Once you get those things figured out, try to get them in front of a white wall or something light colored for the photo.  Take a close up with just the bust in the photo - when looking in the viewfinder, have the child's head and bust fill the entire space without cutting the top or sides off.  Take numerous photos so you can choose the best one later.  My kid stayed still long enough for me to get about three - luckily she was pouting sufficiently enough in one that it made the perfect profile of her.

Step Three
Once you have enough photos, upload them to your computer.  Use photo-editing software to maximize the contrast of the photo so that the outline becomes sharper.  I use Picasa, so the tool I use is the "Shadows" tool.  Don't completely wipe away features, just harden the lines.

These are the photos of my little one - I took some with a nice big collar and then with nothing to see which I liked better.

Step Four
Once you've chosen your photo and hardened the lines, print your photo to a size 8 x 10 (you can always make different sizes, but this size worked well with an 11 x 14 frame).

Step Five
Find yourself some really nice, thick, cardstock in your choice of color - I liked the traditional black.  Use a minimal amount of double-sided tape or sticky dots to stick the photo to the cardstock.  Very important: Make sure you place the tape on the outside of the profile!

Step Six
Take an x-acto knife and carefully cut around the shape. I didn't worry about hair whispies, I just did the solid shape of the head (except I kept her little pompadour she gets).  I had to play with Rosslyn's hair a bit, the ends are perky, but its hard to cut them out, so I just did several jagged cuts for the hair.

That's it!  It took me about an hour and a half once I got it in my head to do it - so for you savvy crafters, it shouldn't take too long.  Good luck and if you guys do some, I'd love to see them!

Finished product:

A Craft a Day Keeps the Worries Away.

The Mini Me is having a birthday party this Saturday - which usually would elicit a "Yay!" response from me.  This time, however, it snuck up on me in the midst of other stresses and its become more of a "Oh crap, I have no idea what's going on."  Luckily, I had the forethought to hold the party at my sister's house in St. Augustine so she and my Mom have banded together to bring the party to fruition.  I basically have let go of control over the details, but at least I can craft!

I have seen silhouettes all over the crafty blog world over the past year or so and have always wanted to try it, but never forced myself to stop long enough to try.  That is the best thing about special occasions for me, it forces me to stop and do what I do best - create.  So as I was sitting in my apartment yesterday not at all motivated to mother my poor, helpless, tv-watching daughter, I began to brainstorm and the silhouette and party crown slowly (and painfully) crept into being.  The silhoutte was actually quite easy.  That was accomplished in one episode of Curious George.  (Although it took an additional Barney to pull it all together into the frame.)

I had cut out the template for the crown the night before, but I was absolutely stuck on what to put on it.  All of the crowns I had seen on Etsy or in my Reader had the age sewn on or maybe initials - but I really just didn't like the primary look of it all.  I really wanted something pretty, but this is usually where my crafting goes wrong.  If I would make the crown for the mini me like I'm supposed to, it would be a whole heck of a lot easier (and more basic - shudder).  Instead, I make it for me and force her into it - poor (stylish) dear.  So six hours and three variations later, I finally put together a centerpiece and slowly figured out the details over two Redbridges and a movie.  Finally, after poking and pulling and nearly rubbing skin sores into my poor tender fingers, I had created a crown for my Mini Me!  Just so that she can wear it for ONE picture and then never glance at it again.  /sigh.

Please do not laugh at my photography skills or lack thereof.  One photography class does not a professional make.

The flowers were made last year for her birthday party and have served as decoration for our apartment ever since.  I'm thinking I'll be using them again this year sans ugly green floral foam and dollar store container.  

Onward to further birthday crafts!  I'll post today's accomplishments as well.  I need oohs and ahhs people...

This is getting as bad as my journal.  Months will go by before I write another entry and then I'm left apologizing to ...who?  My journal?  No, I guess I'm apologizing to my future self who wants to look back and read my entries from my younger days.  Or maybe my kids after I'm gone.  I'm apologizing for not being more diligent in keeping up with the ins and outs of every day.  Usually though it's just that nothing has changed in the days that have past.  Or that everything has changed and then time brings it all back to exactly where you were before, so it seems like nothing has changed.  Either way the sad truth is that I'm still here having progressed in no way except in time.  

I would like to say thank you to all of those who expressed concern and have spent time and energy thinking about us through the whole fire incident, most especially the MOPs group.  I do not know how I would have gotten through it all without you.  Not only the ones who brought dinners or took Rosslyn for a playdate, though the generosity of that blew my mind, but all of those who called, emailed, or stopped by to help.  You are forever in my heart.  Thank you.

The fact that now my blog has been viewed by those from MOPs and others that I did not realize has caused me to shy away from my original meaning of posting.  I'm not yet comfortable with spreading word about our financial struggles with those that I see everyday.  I should not worry about being so open, but I am very proud, too proud I know, but proud nonetheless.  

Still, I will come back and continue to be the charming writer that some of you think that I am.  I appreciate the time you have given me to throw my internal temper tantrum, but the time for wallowing is over.  I actually think I have changed my mind from the statement I made at the beginning of the post.  I have progressed in one way:  I have become just slightly more aware and awake than yesterday.