request for help.

Dear Readers,
I have favor to ask. It's not a huge one, but I could really use some help. One of my VERY dear friends has recently moved to New York to attend school at Purchase College for sculpture. She has been STRUGGLING to find housing and has been unable to find anything. She has $$cash$$ and is employed if any of you know of anything...it can be a studio apartment, a room for rent....anything that will take her and 2 cats ASAP. Just send me an e-mail (mcaldwellc@mac.com) and I'll forward it to her if ANYONE knows of anything!!!
Thanks a bunch,
love,
Mary

Missss South Carolina!

My top 3 favorites are, like:
1. everywhere like suchas
2. US Americans
3. build up our future for our children

Designing my life away....

Since I have been immersed in the design culture, I can no longer simply answer a questionairre without somehow "designing" it and adding my own personal touch. THANK the Lord I no longer have to take tests with scantrons.

New Art.

"If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint." –Edward Hopper

I started painting as a way of expressing myself. Not being a terribly "emotive" person and, simultaneously, being a person full of emotion, I needed an outlet. I have journaled since I was in High School...and kept all of those journals. In fact, I keep everything. I am the ultimate documenter of my life. It could be the highest form of narcissism, but I think we forget too much. We live in world of constant transition where things are so impermanent. We can change, reinvent our lives, lose our history by adopting a new identity and we too often forget how we got where we are. Being in school for the past 2 years, I have not had much time or energy to paint. There has been much to paint about, but no real time to commit to it. I suppose I have put some of that energy into my design work but last night, when I pulled out my supplies and sat down to create, I remembered why I love painting. It is easy, there is no thinking involved, there is a complete freedom to express whatever I want. It doesn't matter if it communicates, it is not about that. It is a snapshot of a moment in time, a thought, a feeling, visually interpreted and I am the only person who ever really has to get it, understand it or know what the "story" behind it truly is.

Intellectual Soulmate

So, the other day at work we got on the subject of "intellectual soulmates." Those people by whom we are inspired to think, feel connected to on a cellular-braniac level, you get the picture. I was unable to identify a true intellectual soul-mate...so, I ask my kind readers today, WHO is YOUR intellectual soulmate?

Maybe I'll figure out who mine is....

My Aura is.....ORANGE!!!

What Color Is Your Aura?

Your aura shines Orange!
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Happy Monday!

This post is for Anne

My tattoo.


....and my personalized laptop, complete with my favorite word...yeah, the kerning is off on those letters, but look at how cute the Beagle is. How could a person concentrate on type alignment with that sweet face staring back at her?

Change is hard.

"Just stay focused. Don't react. Just be a witness and you will see the magic of it." - Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji

I have a love-hate relationship with change. As much as I seek it out and embrace it, the letting go of the old and mourning of the past is the part I dread. I suppose no one out there really likes that... In times of change, my mantra is usually to buckle down, move forward and "stay strong." In other words, I typically tune out any emotional response I may be having and just become numb. It works...really, it does.

Okay, truth be told, it doesn't work. It just creates a stockpile of unresolved emotions.

I am in the middle of HUGE change. I have finished school, gotten a "real" job, moved in with my girlfriend and closed a massive chapter of my life. Whew. Consciousness is a bitch. Now I remember why I liked to tune out emotional responses...because they are hard but THIS time, I am choosing to do things differently. I am staying open (even if cautiously so) to all that is bundled up in this mass of change.

But isn't that why we are all here? To challenge ourselves to grow and be open to the opportunities life offers us to change? If I have learned nothing else in the past 5 years, I have learned to be open to change, and willing to look at all aspects of myself and work on those parts that are deficit. I have found plenty since I started looking, but, really, who wouldn't? That is the beauty of the human spirit...that we are alive, a compilation of complex experiences, emotions, thoughts, choices...all interwoven and layered over an even more complex and mysterious matrix of biology.

If nothing else, this proves to me that there is a higher power.

check it out.

This just in, courtesy of Audrey: Ray Fenwick
LOVE HIS WORK.