Happy Birthday to Tina-my dg-in-law

Thanks for joining our family and helping create a beautiful family with eternal goals when you and Daniel found each other. You brought me my first  grandchildren when the twins joined your family then Nathan and James rounded out the picture. Future blessings and opportunities to learn and grow together. Good time celebrating together and challenges to overcome help us all to grow. Love you...

Off to GRANDPARENTS day at James' school

I get a mini-vacation flying north to visit family in Utah Valley. It's a 50 min flight but a 4-5 hour drive...so I'm flying as my designated chauffeur will stay home and work on the boat. Off to an adventure. More photos and info later. Six of my seven grandkids live in the same area.

Time to DECLUTTER!

This morning I spent at least an hour sorting through my closet and picking out items to donate to Deseret Industries thrift shop for resale to others. It felt good going through many pairs of pants, some new with tags still on them. Deciding which fit and that I would wear, and giving away the others. It's called DECLUTTERING and is so helpful not just for closets but for our minds. I've found a way to do  it with my mind. It's called MORNING PAGES-3 handwritten pages every morning before I start my day to capture and sort all those random thoughts that whirl through my mind, confusing and stopping me from focusing on what's really important. Try it-you'll be amazed.

Spring Festival of Literary Arts coming up

I'm involved again with organizing and doing publicity for our annual Poetry in the Park-my 5th year at doing this. Click to enlarge. We have three days of poetry readings, workshop and a creative writing seminar. Details on www.poetry-in-the-park.com

Healing Memoirs Class

Here's my second class with a group of friends studying Julia Cameron's book It's Never Too Late To Begin Again. We have a fun group of creative individuals who are interested in wriitng their life story in a new way. Looking for the positive qualities from past experiences in terms of discovering Wonder, Freedom, Connection, Purpose, Honesty, Humility, Resilience, Joy, Motion, Vitality, Adventure and Faith. It's interesting as we search weekly for these qualities in our past experiences, it helps bring healing and balance to the trials and challenges that we each have faced. If you'd like a handout from class, just email me at lin at sunrivertoday dot com and I'll send you a copy. You can learn with us. We are only on chapter 2-FREEDOM now.

Missing is Barbara-too close to camera, L-R: Pat, Isabelle, Carolyn, Judy, Cindy, Cathy, Carolyn and Pat-all friends willing to learn new things!

Glass Flowers Sequel or Ending?

For those of you who read my blog will remember my excitement over making glass flowers to decorate my desert garden. Well, I had fun gathering the colored glass plates, bowls, candle holders, etc. Then deciding how to group them. Then gluing them, then having problems with the glue that didn't work. Decided to try putting them into the ground today. They seemed dry, but those babies are heavy and once in place the trial flower slipped off its stem and fell in the bushes, but didn't break.

Hubby had to bend the rebar for the stem then we threaded garden hose over it-clever!

It looked great for about 10 minutes, then disappeared, fell off.

 I can go get the right kind of adhesive and try again but think I'm tired of this project and hubby definitely is. He said today, I thought your idea of making pottery was better. Well, I made my last pot in Roosevelt and they were heavy. Never quite figured out the knack of how to throw a pot. But think I could probably easily throw my glass flowers away or maybe wait awhile and try again. But the problem is the adhesive I used never dried and I ca't just pull them apart and reglue them because it will make a big mess and then I know hubby would be ready to throw me away with the glass flowers...lol! But it was fun and a new experience.

Somewhere in Time

The other morning my husband came inside from getting his newspaper and told me there was a dead lizard on our block wall outside. Well, I had to see this because lizards move so quickly that you hardly ever get a closeup view. Sure enough the lizard looked dead, BUT he wasn't. Later when we went out to see if he was still there, the wall was empty.

We surmised that the cold morning had stopped our lizard from moving about until it warmed up more. That brought all kinds of thoughts to me about a possible poem which I attempted to compose. Unfortunately I can't find the paper I wrote it on, but I'm sure it will turn up SOMEWHERE IN TIME as I work on sorting all my paper piles on my desk.

Do you have a thought about this lizard or an idea for a title for the photo? He is hanging on tenaciously. That's a hard word to spell correctly. Some days I feel like that too. Love to have your thoughts on this topic, just leave them in a comment. Meanwhile I'm still looking for my poem....lol!

Challenging Art Project

I was so excited to make some glass flowers for my back yard after seeing a fellow bloggers instructions and so I began gathering different shaped and colored glasses to assemble my project. This part went well and was fun BUT then came the challenging part of gluing my flowers together. I didn't get the recommended glue but chose something else available at Walmart that promised to be great. It wasn't...thus the CHALLENGE begins. Need to find some stronger glue..to be continued. I won't give us this easily...

it was fun to gather colored glass and try out different possibilities with shapes/colors

Next came the challenge of gluing them together these dollar store pieces.

I had to weigh them down as the glue was slippery-should have guess something was wrong

Trying not to tbe messy, I ruined my hubby bests gluing gloves...oh well!

 

Then in the middle of the night, one of my creations slipped and crashed to the floor

STRESSED-Who ME?

Well, I used to blog daily, now I'm lucky if it's once a week now although I'm writing more on FACEBOOK. Guess that's okay-unless it causes me STRESS. That's when your mind is on overload with all there is to do BUT I have DISCOVERED a CURE for that, it's called MORNING PAGES. Created by Julia Cameron in her earliest book The Artist's Way, I've kind of used it for years now, but called it journaling.

In the purest sense Morning Pages are done in the morning, by hand not on the computer like my journaling is and done at one  sitting. Getting up  in the morning, it's the first thing I try to do, go to my desk, take out my journal and write THREE PAGES of random thoughts down freely without thinking about grammar, spelling, etc. Just writing daily about anything or nothing just to loosen up and relax yourself of all the many items whirling around in your head...

We all have them: to do lists, guilt feelings, naggings, and self criticisms. LIFE! Just the process of taking pencil in hand, helps you to SLOW DOWN  and FOCUS MORE. TRY IT,  YOU'LL BE AMAZED. Write quickly and freely, don't reread what you've written, just let it be for now.

Welcome SEPTEMBER

It's back to schooltime so I've signed up for a couple of community education classes: Tai Chi and Laughter Yoga. Sounds fun and I need some gentle exercise. I'm also going to be teaching a class at my home on Julia Cameron's latest book "It's never too late to Begin Again." We'll meet weekly and explore writing Healing Memoirs. See my post about her book here. If you'd like to take the course online with us, buy a book and I'll send you class outlines. Should be fun. I just got released from our church's Relief Society presidency after serving for two years, so I'm excited to be starting a class in my home. What are your plans for September?