simplelife

I hate practicing. From the time my four-year-old feet first swung from the piano bench, I hated sitting still and figuring out sounds from notes someone else wrote. I didn't mind playing around with my own music. The piano stood in my room. My dolls were on top of the big old-fashioned piano cabinet, so I stood on the keys to reach them. I could make music anytime I wanted. And some days I wanted to play (or walk on the keys) a lot. I just didn't want to practice. I've played for groups, choirs, and orchestras since I first played for my brother on violin when he was 6 and I was 5. I accompanied a singer in church when I was 9, transposing by ear around the key right for his voice... The music was in Eb, a pretty safe shape for small hands. He went down in pitch with me following, and around... and ended up in B major (5 sharps). Groan, Bb and C were not a problem, but Erhard wanted B and only that one. "Sure she can do it," said my dad. The guy was over for Sund...

I take a break, the continue purging on the same day as last post. I look at the studio again. Take the unnecessary stuff off my desk, pile it on a chair. Move baskets holding crafts beside the art desk to the middle of the room. Try to unscrew pen holder from art desk. Strip screws with lousy "pink girl" drill from girl toolkit W got me. What was he thinking? Every time I look at it I think someone must think women shouldn't use tools. Everything is flimsy. You have to borrow a guy's tools to get anything done. Maybe the ploy is "Move over honey, and let the strong man do it." I move the mangle into place by the art table, ready for printing. Some day. I have to look inside - beautiful condition! The original cord is worn, but not worn through, so I can repair it with electrical tape until W replaces it. HURRAH HURRAH, good progress. A box of 25 Arches watercolor sheets leans against the mangle's old location. I'd forgotten! The paper goes into the ...

The process of finding a room is both more interesting and more tedious than expected. I had cleared under my writing desk but everything was in the middle of the room with nowhere to go. Clearing is a good job when waking at 4am. No one makes demands and the courtyard fountain outside the open office window gurgles a soothing accompaniment (who needs a desk fountain!). After I emptied the library card file and ten crafting drawers, W carried out two boxes and a large portfolio crammed with stamps, papers, inks, stamp pads, and other paraphernalia associated with paper crafts. I assembled a bag of stamping supplies for Colleen, to say thank you for working the NU booth on the weekend. Today the Texan card-maker comes to my workplace for the stamp gear. There are no stamps left in my home office. I don't really like the name office. Am thinking of calling it my studio. A place to write and create. I moved a rolling file case from under the art desk to under the writing desk, a feat ...

I'm listening to www.ucb.uk.org - Brits playing Christian music, a lot of it American stuff. Early this morning (5am) I was debating whether to lie in bed or get up to work on my room, and the winner was, "Get up already! You've been lying here an hour." Relaxing to the music, the floor under my desk is empty for the first time in years. Out came the picture frames, empty or filled with old favorites that no longer fit their rooms. Those went onto a closet shelf - Melissa mentioned she needed some frames. (The girl can shop here and then we'll sort or toss the rest.) Out came a bag of large sheets of printmaking paper. I labeled the bag "Print" and tucked it into the art papers box in the closet. I'd forgotten about the huge drawing portfolio with my charcoal work from class and the thick pad of newsprint waiting for inspiration. That is leaning against the closet. Last and best, a box with my beloved monotype press and manual. To make a space for th...

We made four signs, one for each wall. I post them at 2am when I get up, thinking it is 5am in Seattle's September darkenss. To the left of the door: "Authenticity" becomes almost invisible, tacked on the white pegboard. Straight ahead beside the south window, "Truth." To the right where art books and the sewing table stand, "Openness." And beside the entry, between the mirrored closet doors, "Freedom." I choose the theme "Potential" for a room of my own, the office at the end of the hall. When I look at the map again, I realize my inner north-south orientation has mucked up my sense of direction. The map is written upside down for where I sit to write. So I have to redo not only the sign on one wall, but every single one. My action reflects the process of sitting with CL at a coffee shop and drawing up the plan. At the last minute, we moved every label, and when I post the signs on the walls of my office, I have returned to the ori...

Here's another book up for perusal and free to the second person who asks for it. This is a nice story to read as you relax from end-of-garden chores! In Stray Affections , the last thing that Cassandra expects out of her Sunday is to be mesmerized at a collectors’ convention by a snowglobe. She’s enjoying some shopping time, with husband Ken at home tending their brood of four young boys, when she’s utterly charmed by the one-of-a kind globe containing figures of three dogs and a little girl with hair the color of her own. She can’t resist taking the unique globe home—even if means wrestling another shopper for it! The beautiful snowglobe sparks long-dormant memories for Cassie, of her beloved Grandpa Wonky, the stray she rescued as a child, and the painful roots of her combative relationship with her mother, “Bad Betty” Kamrowski. Life in Wanonishaw, Minnesota is never dull, though, and Cassie keeps the recollections at bay, busy balancing her boys, her home daycare o...

We moved the bed to the opposite side of the room and painted one wall of our bedroom chocolate brown yesterday. The tin said "Walnut Bark," but the paint melted on the wall like milk chocolate. Today we put up the 9' hot pink velvet drapes inherited from my stylish auntie, who bought them for her living room in the 1960s. They puddle on the floor. [We is a loose term: I have the imagination that leads to concrete ideas; dear W does the hard work.] Our bedroom carpet is neutral beige. Auntie Molly's LR carpet was apple green. Granny Smith apples, that is. And her furniture was carved Italian - with gilding. So I feel like the pink and brown is quite neutral, even with white bedding. It's always fun to see a space evolve from idea to reality. The drapes have been packed in an old suitcase for at least five years. And I didn't find "my" brown until walking into Home Depot yesterday around noon. Now the wall is finished and the bedroom is in an uproar w...