Wanderings of an Elusive Mind

So can we just have a new election, a new government, maybe some people with intelligence, logic, morality, integrity? I’m weary of the chaos, the hate mongering, the divisions.

I saw a Facebook post from a man saying “people, all Trump wants to do is put a military installation in Greenland ” – yeah, well we already have a military installation in Greenland and T’s rhetoric doesn’t sound to me like what you’re saying he’s saying.

Which brings me back to how we choose how to interpret words that are put out there – how we choose what we believe and what we trust.

Which also brings me great sadness. I’m so weary of being sad. Why is it countries so long maligned for violence are starting to sound peaceful to me?

I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook about “new series” that are soon going to appear on some streaming platform someday soon. Yet when I research to learn more, nothing can be found. It would be so nice if those people with all that time to send out disinformation could use that time more productively. Gosh, that’s a very old wish I’ve expressed, but I think it applies to more people now than it did not so very long ago. And that doesn’t even demonstrate the really harmful disinformation that keeps going around.

Conversations remind me far too often how much things have changed since I was young, and even since my kids were young. Yeah, I know all old people say that – but that makes it no less true. What is sad is that I think many of those changes are not for the best for our country or our people. A friend of mine has always said she thinks we lived during the best of times – the 1950s. I might even be starting to agree with her.

So I stay in and hide from the world as much as I can. Although I do need to go out today to buy some ice cream – because, in these times, ice cream is a necessity. Whatever comforts your soul – I say you should go ahead and indulge!

It is halfway through January already, and the sun in shining – which has to mean spring is on its way. Never mind our grass, which is still green, is tipped with frost and the hummingbird feeder in my window has a layer of ice in it – spring must be on the way, because we don’t get sunshine in the winter here.

I watched the news last night, which I usually do on Mondays and Fridays. Those days because there are features included that I like to watch. It was no less depressing than it usually is, but at least I feel somewhat informed between PBS and the feeds that come in my email – often uninvited. I spent quite a lot of time yesterday morning unsubscribing from mails to which I am certain I never subscribed. Interesting how that works.

Today I will actually leave the house – a trip to the post office for Kat, then a stop for birdseed because the birds are very hungry this time of year. I am hoping for a side benefit of feeding the birds – sometimes they plant sunflower seeds and we get a lovely crop of the happy yellow flowers in the summer. I wonder if I have a photo from last year – I’ll be right back.

Amazon tells me I have read 85 books in 2025. Amazon knows because I have the Kindle app – my preference over paper books. All of them easy reading, because that’s my preference. I wonder if that number includes a couple of books I started reading, but didn’t finish. Like one about RFK Jr. – recommended to me by a fan of his. I started it – realized it was written by a friend of RFK Jr., which explained why it sounded like a fan letter. I did not finish it.

I realize that last bit tells you a lot about what I believe. My son and I have parted ways on our beliefs lately, so we have agreed to discuss it no further. I have reached the conclusion we all choose what we wish to believe, and we can all find written words to “prove” we are right – which means we really can’t trust anything at all, can we? So, we also choose what we trust, right or wrong. It’s rather a sad way to live, I think. I can only hope we survive the next few years, and that maybe, someday before too long, the sun will rise, hearts will open, division will disappear, peace will return.

In the meantime, I amuse myself with my “things” – reading, occasionally writing something here, playing with my paints, stamps, and dies.

This one is watercolor on watercolor paper which was covered with cling wrap while wet, then let dry. It’s waiting for me to decide what more to do with it – perhaps some stamps, maybe some doodles. I love the shapes that formed – and I see an eye and a nose in part of the gold – I might play with that.

This one is also waiting for me to decide whether to do more. It’s watercolor on mineral paper and was a complete accident – I started out trying to reproduce the sunset I had been lucky enough to see earlier in the evening, but then added the dark foreground before the blue and pink paints were dry, so the darkness flooded into the sky and did its own thing. What I see is what I fear is happening to the world as we know (knew) it. It could be an explosion, it could be a giant tsunami heading our way, it could be a tornado. It could be . . . whatever you see.

I think I might let this one stay as it is. I’ve added a wee bit to what the paint did mostly by itself, and I am relatively pleased with it. It’s also watercolor on mineral paper.

I fight myself with my “art” all the time. I keep reminding myself I do it for the pleasure of it, with no real expectations, and that’s all that matters. So why do I constantly question myself? Stupid, I know. Sometimes I think we humans are our own worst enemies – or at least I think I am.

Now I shall leave you – and hope that despite the chaos of our world you have enough.

Today is winter solstice, the longest day of the year. Our skies and temperatures feel like winter, but no snow is in our forecast.

Tonight we pick up Gep at the airport, making my family complete for the holidays. I am happy.

Yesterday I mixed up bread dough – I baked one loaf and put the dough for another in the freezer. Today I plan to make chocolate chip cookies. That’s my version of being productive.

The smallest feline girl has joined me on my lap. She is my puppy cat, the one that is allowed to go outside because if she isn’t, we will all be unhappy. She is the one that follows me around when I go outside, and often follows me around when I am inside. Kat says she has a cute little nut face. She followed Kat home from Thailand.

She has established a relationship with one of our neighbors, which means I have a bit of a relationship with that neighbor. She visits them regularly for treats, and when she hasn’t been around for awhile, the neighbor will text me to make sure she’s alright. She insisted we send them a Christmas card this year. Of course, I obeyed her request – I usually do.

I’m still playing with watercolors in various ways on various papers. On mineral paper, letting the colors and water blend however they want.

On watercolor paper, using plastic wrap to create texture.

I am wishing for each and every one of you a special holiday season this year – close your doors on the world and enjoy your time with loved ones in the warmth of your homes, sharing your time and love.

The holiday season for us seems to be gray skies spilling water drops all over. It’s the time of year when solar powered gadgets never get charged so the bright little lights we have scattered about the backyard are not bright, and the cameras we use to capture the critter visitors that arrive in the dark of the night no longer capture anything. But it also seems to be the time of year when the critters don’t visit – the apple cores I put out a few days ago are still there.

All of which means we need to find other ways, inside ways, to entertain ourselves. Kat recently replaced her Glow Forge laser printer, which was often erratic and often caused language that definitely did not have the holiday spirit to erupt, with an X-Tool laser printer. She has been busy during her at-home times creating many little things cut out of basswood – or is it birch? It’s a very thin wood, in any case. Some of what she created was the parts for my holiday village – she adjusted the size of the patterns, laid out the parts on the piece of wood, and told the machine to go. Once they were cut out, my part was painting and putting them together. Between the two of us, we created this village:

I used my die cutter to cut the background stars out of sparkly paper. I am very happy with the results.

My inside activities, when I’m not reading news bits that arrive in my email and make me sigh with frustration or grumble expletives, have been messing with my watercolors, stamps, stencils, and die cut items. Less of that in the last week or so because of the painting and gluing those cut-out objects. Here are a couple of my completed art pieces:

The first was done on watercolor paper, the second on mineral paper. It’s all about blobbing water and paint on the paper and letting it do what it wants to do, which makes my heart happy.

I’ve also been reading books – light-hearted reading for the most part, nothing that requires deep thought. I’ve always been a reader, since my early days with comic books and movie magazines – which my father hated. It my view, read what you want, it’s the reading that matters. And I’ve been trying out some new recipes for dinner a few days a week. I’ve found several vegetarian recipes that are really good – I’m into one-pot meals in a big way. Healthy comfort food, that’s my goal. Last night we had a “loaded cabbage soup”. One of these days I’ll bake some bread again – haven’t been doing much of that lately.

Now I’m off to get ready for today’s adventure – taking my car in to get a new windshield, thanks to that chip caused by following a truck carrying gravel that I failed to get taken care of before it sent a crack all the way across the windshield. Moral of this story: don’t ignore chips in glass.

Wishing you all enough.

More playing with my watercolors – I added bits to the pieces I included in my last post

And I did a new one – I’m learning, slowly. The mineral paper does not absorb the water like watercolor paper does, and it takes forever for the painting to dry. I need to practice reducing the amount of water I use, and do a bit more spreading the colors with a brush.

This image is one I started this morning, using mostly liquid watercolors but adding white, black, and gold from pan watercolors, and being more careful with the quantity of water I used.

This one was done with pan watercolors

It’s definitely a learning process. But then, all of my watercolor/stamping/stencil/mark making/die cutting efforts have been learning processes – and I think that’s a lot of the fun. I think the mineral paper would make good card fronts – gluing them to a larger cardstock card. They also would be good for cutting out with dies – various shapes in multiple colors. The weight of the mineral paper is much lighter than watercolor paper – 100 lb. vs 140 lb.

The artist that got me started on this journey is Kendra Brazzel – check her out on You Tube.

Not at all sure that title is appropriate because I have no idea what I’ll say in this post. It’s going to be one of those “stream of consciousness” things I think. I’ve been debating whether to continue posting at all, but then it feels like this is kind of a journal, to look back on as time passes and revisit where I was in different stages of this life. So here I am – with no real destination.

Our fall colors this year were amazing. Did I share this before? Oh well. They were and I loved them.

This vine volunteered to grow along our backyard fence a couple of years ago, and it’s doing a great job. This was the first year it showed any color though and I’m so glad I encouraged it.

We have gone from grapes dropping all over the patio to grape leaves dropping all over the patio. Soon our wonderful yard helper, Carlos, will come to cut the grape vines back to ready them for a new year.

Most of the color now is inside my space – the holiday cactus has started this year’s performance, which occurs just before Halloween into early next year. She’s a prize.

The lemon tree has come back into the house for the winter, and if just a few of these blossoms become a lemon, we’ll have a bumper crop (this is a really bad photo, but it’s what I’ve got).

This guy

Did this

It appears he had a great time.

I’ve been playing with liquid watercolors on mineral paper – the flow and blending of the colors remind me a lot of my days using alcohol inks on Yupo paper. Love it, so much fun.

I put a lot of salt on these two.

Whether or not I do anything else with these remains to be seen. It’s all about relaxing and enjoying myself.

Thanksgiving will soon be upon us – I hope each of you has a day filled with love and joy, and lots of good food. Those things to be grateful for – things that are easily taken for granted.

I wish you days filled with enough. Until next time. . .

For the past year or two, the mantra on social media has been to post “happy posts” – there is enough garbage in our faces on a daily basis, we need to focus on being happy. I’ve been in the midst of that, I’ve been ignoring (for the most part) the news, I’ve been playing ostrich with head in the sand – and suddenly, I cannot continue that way. I just can’t be quiet and hope for the best.

The best – yeah, right. The best is behind us. The worst has not yet hit us, but I am certain it will. Because if we are quiet, if we ignore the fact that far too many of our elected officials are in it for the power, for the bucks, for the fame – or notoriety – and too few of them believe in their oath, the “for the people” thing, the constitution, or their honor, dignity, morality.

It’s time to raise our voices. How can we stand by with our rose-colored glasses and the pretense that happy news is real, while families suffer from food shortage, health shortages, the shortage of feelings of dignity or being worthwhile? I do not blame the government shutdown itself for what is happening – I blame the leader and his sheep for doing everything they can to keep the situation in total chaos, for failing to negotiate in good faith, for failure to honor our country, our freedoms, our needs, for failing to abide by our constitution, our laws, and our courts.

I blame the Supreme Court for failing to make judgments based on the law rather than the politics, for bowing down to the madness, for – again – failing to honor itself, its mission, its morality, its dignity, its fairness.

I blame our political parties for their acting like each party is an island, able to continue on in their own, selfish, ways, unconcerned about the average guy. Tax breaks for the wealthy, ignoring the average citizen and his concerns about surviving the forever increases of the costs of living, the defeat of never managing to get ahead, the sense of being of no importance and having no voice.

After years of failing to reach agreements on the budget, the direction of the government, until the very last moment, the government shutdown was almost a given. It had to happen at some point, on this road to total destruction of all that is honorable, on this road to that big boom that forces us to realize the depths of dishonor and then, hopefully, rebuild into a stronger, more unified, nation.

Is it possible to stay quiet when families are going hungry, but our elected officials are still warm and comfortable and well-fed? When federal workers are working without pay, or being laid off, yet our elected officials are “on holiday”, not reporting to do their jobs, but still receiving full pay? Where is the fairness in this?

It’s time to speak out – to leverage what authority and power we have as women, despite the efforts of our male-dominated government to tear away our rights, to get us back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, humble and subservient.

I am woman, I will roar. . .

This morning I learned something new – I read an article in The Atlantic by Sophie Gilbert, in which she talked about an article published in the online magazine, Compact. The article was written by Helen Andrews, called The Great Feminization.

To quote Sophie, in the article Helen explained what’s wrong with our country. “Andrews’s thesis, published by the online magazine Compact, is that everything wrong with institutions in America comes down to the growing influence of women. Women, she argues, have implemented “wokeness” across the land, and her evidence for this is the outrage over Larry Summers’s comments about whether women might have less natural aptitude for math and science, which led to his resignation as president of Harvard University in 2006. Her 3,400-word essay seems to assert that wokeness is inherently feminine, prizing “empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition,” and that women—with all our feelings and conflict avoidance—are ruining the nation’s most fundamental institutions.”

She further states, as support for her wanting only men in authority “. . . men are predisposed to “reconciling with opponents and learning to live in peace.” That statement is, of course, backed up by years of war and genocide under the “leadership” of men, right?

All of this just increases my stress level, which has elevated greatly during the past year. I fear for our country, our freedoms, our rights. I feel sadness for the apparent celebration of idiocy, stupidity, and power-hungry politicians.

It strikes me that “empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition,” might be a some things worth trying, if the opportunity is given.

In the meantime, to soothe my soul, I play:

I think I’m a day late, but so be it. My “walk”tober is less walk than tober, because my attempt at walks usually end rather quickly, when my old parts get grumpy and threaten to just quit on me. This year I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico to visit a good friend and stayed for two weeks – unusual for me. I’m usually ready for home after a week of being away, although sunshine, warmth and large bodies of water can make me want to stay for longer. Santa Fe had the sunshine for most of my days there, and some fall version of warmth, but as much as I enjoyed being with my friend, I was ready to be back home.

There were the clouds – first from the plane flying there, which I’ve already shared, but sometimes we have to share again. I saw such a great variety of clouds during that flight, as there was no break from them.

And from her back yard:

There were the Santa Fe edition of October sunsets:

Heading back home, Kat picked me up at a hotel in Portland – she arrived late Saturday afternoon and my plane got in just before 9:00 p.m. so I shuttled to the hotel. It was raining on Saturday and still raining when we woke up Sunday morning, but the view from our room was lovely:

Driving home, the colors were gorgeous, at their prime. No pictures of them because it was raining heavily and any photos taken through the wet car windows would have looked like we were in a car wash, the world around us completely blurred out.

At home, when the rain stopped, October colors were in full force in our front yard and in the neighborhood:

On the very last day of October, aka Halloween, I ran across this happy pink bird – perhaps a flamingo?

That’s my version of Walktober!