A morning in May....



Stepping out my front door about 7:15 this morning, with camera in hand, I set out to capture some images from the garden as the sun was just coming onto it. The first thing I photographed was my flag with soft pink iris.

Notice the ants already busy in the peony?

The rhododendron is still in the shade.

The sun hadn't yet reached this pink/peach iris ....leaving lots of blue toned shadows.

[A note of thanks to Mr. Pear for all the gardening which makes these beauties thrive!]

"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door."~~~Emily Dickinson

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Back inside the house, a "May Basket" quilt hangs on the newly painted soft yellow wall!

Still painting today....
(posting a "lovely" photo of the tools I just put down to do this blog post!)

This room, where our computer is, is being painted a color from Valspar called "Lighthouse Shadows". It IS a shady room now! LOL! I can't just be in here and paint...the computer keeps "sucking me in". I have visited a blog or two, answered and e-mail and now I am posting!

Some of us are trying to decide just how much "reality" is called for on our blogs. (Hence the paint equipment today...tee hee!)

None of us have lives that are "perfect", ( whatever that is...) we are here to live and learn. Personally, I am only comfortable sharing the positive side of things. Avoiding drama may make for a boring blog but being a visual artist, I'm more interested in eye candy and photos of lovely (or unusual) things.

Here is the quilt I am working on at the moment. You may remember that it was "rescued" from a flea market a couple of months ago. If all the world around me is emotional and visual chaos, I will center myself by quilting or knitting.

The rocker holding the quilt belonged to Mr. Pear's mother. You can see the TV room area of our world...going onto the cluttered and crowded (at the moment) back porch.

Over the weekend, besides painting, we watched one episode of "Rosemary and Thyme", and 2 episodes of "Hamish Macbeth". These are wonderful series from the BBC, filmed in the colorful British Isles! We had one friend to share our evening meal and watch these with us on Saturday night and another on Sunday! Even with all the tables covered with painting equipment, we used TV trays and were perfectly happy!

[Now, it is against my blogging policy to reveal too much, so I won't tell you about how Mr. Pear has recently bought the old Robin Hood (with Richard Greene) TV series. He wants me to sit and watch it with him...and believes it to be true and accurate historical drama. I observed to Mr. Pear (who is very attached to anything right wing and Republican) that Robin Hood was a "liberal". We are still married...and of course this is not on my blog!]

This is an area of our recently painted living space which is slowly coming into its own. I painted the watercolor portrait of my granddaughter, Lili (nickname), from a photo taken by my friend Barbara. Lili is in a dark red velvet chair. I had so much fun painting that chair with quick strokes, using a wide flat brush and lots of alizarin crimson! Lili has seriously curly hair...I used a sponge for part of her black hair and a sharpened twig (yes, from the yard) to add some tendrils of her black locks. I love the mischievous gleam in her eyes!

Below her portrait is my lucky bamboo (several years old) from Lizzzie and 2 bowls. One is a handmade "Zen" raku bowl with pieces of sea glass in it. The other is a black bowl from Taos. It is from the Santa Clara pueblo artists.

Now back to painting...how lucky I am, Lizzzzie is coming over to help me!

Pausing for a bit....

Because plans do and have changed....I have a few days of sacred or "pausing" time.

The carpet crew did not show up as we expected, they are not coming until Friday!!!! [The computer has been hooked up after all and I can post.]

Until the carpets are laid, I am in a bit of a "suspended" world...most of our "stuff" is packed up and in the garage. The house is open, bare, truly decluttered. Walls are just standing there with the wonderful new paint colors. They too, are un-cluttered as of yet. It is like a peaceful retreat center in my own home.

As we carried so much of our "stuff" out the door (temporarily), friends and family began dropping by. Some came to help, others for various reasons.... Perhaps there is a message here for me, it being better to fill one's life with people than with possessions?

One friend, Macrina Wiederkehr, came by and gave me a copy of her latest book, "SEVEN SACRED PAUSES".

With the house so peaceful, and enjoying some sacred solitude, I have begun to read the book slowly, hearing her voice in the beautiful words. At the end of her Introduction is a poem she has written. It ends

"Reverence each hour

as a small stepping stone

on your pilgrimage

through the day.

Receive the gift

of seven sacred pauses.

Practice waking up* seven times a day."

*I love the idea of waking up (really becoming aware of the wonder of life)! If you have been reading the current Oprah bookclub selection , "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle, you know that his book is all about waking up (awakening) too!

Macrina's wonderful book is available here (you will have to scroll down to find it.) There is an CD of chants available to accompany it also!.

Of homes and houses...

I'm cleaning out and de-cluttering....making way for new carpet which is coming next week (I think).
Now, I am easily distractable and found myself getting mentally "lost" in come of the things I have come across....
1) I found my copy of "Anam Cara, a Book of Celtic Wisdom" by John Donohue. I had never stopped to read it. So last night I began.
It is beautiful, about being a friend to yourself and all of creation.
I can relate it to the "non-resistance" and "acceptance " (as in "Thy will be done." The prayer that never fails ...Jan Karon) I have been hearing Eckhart Tolle speak about.
One quote from the first chapter I really loved, "To be holy is to be home, to be able to rest in the house of belonging that we call the soul."
SOOOOO....I did a collage of a house. This one has four rooms. Body. Mind. Emotion. Spirit. According to wisdom from India, one should visit each room of the home each day for a balanced life!


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2) Something else I came across while moving all these "things" was this photo.


It is connected to a moment of synchronicity.
My mother and I were going to a quilt show in June, a few years ago. She had just told me that she had talked to my brother, and he had been cutting hay. However he was concerned because it was such a rainy week.
When we looked at the raffle quilt offered by the quilters holding the show, the theme was houses. There were many wonderful blocks of special, sheltering homes. The last block however, was of a small home in the distance, a tractor in the foreground, a hill with hay lying over it and a dark stormy sky. The maker had embroidered a verse about "Hay on the ground and rain in the forecast!" I told my mother to purchase a chance on the quilt because it was surely her quilt. She did and of course, her name was drawn!
She then gave the quilt to my brother and his wife!

How to quilt with a kitty!

(action shots taken last week on a cold winter night by Mr. Pear!)

You must of course use a wooden hoop to secure the quilt and a thimble to protect your finger. Get into the wonderful rhythm of making the hand-quilting stitches, Breathe, Relax....only to have the resident pet crawl up to cuddle and investigate!

....Then, decide that there will be other times to quilt, so try to read a book....seems like Shadow* wants to be in on this too! (I really don't think one can quilt with a kitty!)

* Shadow is almost 14 years old. She was a beautiful solid black cat, we thought. I was gone a lot this fall...she was a bit neglected, and her fur which is a nightmare to keep free of mats, was beyond the groomers help. So she had to be shaved....and in the cold month of January! She stays inside now awaiting the growth of her new coat and warmer weather! (Will the fur come back in as black, or will she now be an "old gray kitty"?...time will tell!)

I'm Home!!!!!!!!! packages and envelopes here to be torn into!
(and e-mail galore to catch up on!)

(below: scanned image of a page from Living the Creative Life by Rice Freeman-Zachery)

I still haven't read all the snail mail and e-mail which was waiting here....(I only just got home!)
[My e-mail password did not work while I was at Mom's so I apologise for the unanswered mail......you are all so dear to remember me this past 2 weeks!]

I received a wonderful birthday gift book from my daughter and her family, "Living the Creative Life" (I'm not sure she should encourage that!!!LOL). I scanned a page from the works byViolette, where she is journaling about the pumpkin....just what I was doing at Mom's, (journaling about the pumpkin I had set up outside her house and what symbolism I was finding in it)... in a small moleskine. [I left my journal there to pick up again on my next visit so I can't scan and share right now. :-( ......maybe later!]

The mail also contained some professional photos from my son's wedding...I may show some of those soon.

I'm enjoying a cup of hot herb tea now, as it is chilly. I may switch to wine before the eveing is over!