What Do I Wish to Accomplish?

I recently discovered Jamie Ridler Studios through the Mondo Beyondo class I'm taking. I instantly subscribed to it & have been podcasting her audio interviews. This is my actual 1st assignment from Jamie. It goes along with my Mondo Beyondo Dream List - What I wish to accomplish is to become a photographer - an excellent, respected, working photographer who is able to run her own SUCCESSFUL business. I want to be more than proficient in editing and graphic software - such as photoshop, so that I can not only make incredible portraits of people, but also so I can create fun photo manipulated art. That would be AWESOME!


There are other goals I wish to accomplish - getting junk food out of my diet & living a simpler life - something I want to create & teach to my children. I want to write. I love, LOVE writing - but I'm more of a stream of conscious type writer, forgetting commas, writing run-ons, etc.

This is the most important thing I wish to I want to accomplish - to be a better, more peaceful & funnier mom. When I'm gone - I want my kids to remember me not as the wild banshee mom, screaming, yelling & acting neurotic. But a mom who created a warm, loving & safe home. One who did cool things, opened up the world to them & insisted that they follow their dreams!

Time Lost & Found

Of all places, to read an article - April 2010, Sunset Magazine, that hits home with my Mondo Beyondo Class. So mainstream! The article "Time Lost & Found" by Anne Lamott spoke to me enough that I underlined throughout the article, as well as tore it out of my brand new magazine.

"-that there is nothing you can buy, achieve on your own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment & wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing,dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for : enlivenment, peace, meaning, & the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty."

When I read it, I obviously knew this was no nature essay. She goes on: "You have to make time to do this" Time yes, I'm always trying to find it. Where is it hiding? Under the bed? In the closet? Just when I think I can grab a handful of time, it surges through my hand spurting here and there, leaving quickly fading spot on my shirt. Catch it!  I have an hour! No wait! - its 30 minutes. Ten. A second! Wait! Wait! Don't go!

Don't be so fleeting!  Can't you stay awhile longer?

She goes on to advise, advice I've heard before. Advice that is relevant & true. Find a way to make the time - don't watch the news, give up time else where. Don't be so neurotic about having a clean house. Commit! Commit to writing a page each night, or drawing, or going out to take pictures. Julia Cameron, in The Artist Way advised once a week to go on an artist walk.

Anne Lamott goes on to state" "I know how addictive busyness & mania are". She asks is this how we want our children to grow up - . . ."to spend their precious life in a spin of multitasking, stress & achievement. . ." No I don't! As she states I want ". . . much more for (my) kids, (to have) lives well spent in hard work & savoring all that is lovely . . ." So how am I fostering this in my kids? Am I allowing them enough time to hone their imagination? To be outside, reveling in the pill bug turning into a ball, jumping into puddles, taking them to the local museum? Honest answer - sometimes, when the schedule is not full of piano lessons, dance, swim, baseball, CCD.

Anne Lamott ends this article with:

" . . . you need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, or your Self, unless you're incredibly busy & stressed, in which case you need an hour. . . . . Fight tooth & nail to find time, to make it. It is our true wealth, this moment, this hour, this day."

Thank you Anne Lamott! Thank You! I will fight tooth & nail for it!

The Artist Way

I've been taking an online, self help class through a site called Mondo Beyondo. It is an extension of a few books I read: The Secret, Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting & Focus on the Good Stuff. Each of these is about the power of positive thinking, appreciation for what I have NOW, and achieving my dreams. That is one reason I took this class. I have ADD right now - taking a photo class, drawing class, crocheting, and sewing. I feel I need to focus. I need to concentrate on one or two, so I reach a level beyond being a jack of all trades. Not only that, this reverts back to my older post about discovering my new path and going for it. Graphic Artist keeps popping into my head - but I don't want to be a logo designer. I saw a magazine today called Digital Artist - that is more of what I want to do along with photography. I read something that hit home a few weeks ago - I think it is why I fell in love with scrapbooking- it is because I'm a story teller. I am. I want to tell stories with my photos, I want to tell stories with words, and I want to tell stories with drawings. I'd also like to incorporate them all together.

The other reason for taking this class is I want to find inspiration from within. I don't know if I need to find my focus first & then inspiration will come. From this class I have discovered two other sites - Jamie Rider Studios & Magpie - Girl. I am amazed that there are SO many women like ME, craving creativity; so many women like me who want to be an artist.

While listening to a podcast: Creative Living with Jamie Rider, her guest - Magpie Girl stated what I read in The Artist Way: creating is connecting with our spirituality, our divinity, our faith. God is an artist - he created this beautiful, gorgeous world. I know that is what I crave - to be in touch with my divinity with in - so that it emanates out of me, for my family, for my friends, for the world! This might sound too new age, but I believe God resides in me. The greatest thing I can do is find that trigger that will cause him to no longer be suffocated with in me, but erupt out of me with such force & brilliance that his sheer radiance will be blindingly brilliant and dazzling. I feel that once I find this creative g-spot, that thrills me beyond belief, that this will happen. Maybe I pushed off this desire by not going to the retreat at the Royal Way. Maybe it would have brought me more focus. Maybe I would not be rolling a dice to take the path that I've already traveled. Maybe!

These dreams I want to manifest.

Good Reads

     I'm so lucky that my kids allow me to read to them.  Not a reader as a child or young adult, I'm not sure how I became an English major in college.  I only know that by the time I hit ECC, that I had fallen in love with the printed word.  I can tell you the exact story that hooked me - D.H. Lawrence's The Horse Dealer's Daughter.  I'm making up for lost time, catching up on all those books I never read. 

     My eldest & I began the Charlie Bone series.  I listened to the first book & was completely entralled.  Yvonne lent me thier copy of the book, and thus our adventures with Charlie began.  Similarities to Harry Potter exist - a boarding school for the gifted - both in the arts and with supernatural powers.  And there is the fight against evil, the darker powers always looming close by.  (Where! Oh! Where? is the spell check button - my typing skills have been detrimentally influenced by texting!)  The book definately has it's own personality different from the Harry Potter series.  It is equally captivating & compels you to want to continue the series.

     With my middle child, we began the Molly Moon series.  I should note that I read the first Molly Moon book to her well over a year ago, & to be quite frank, I did not think it had mesmerized her in the least bit.  However, when we finally finished the previous book, an E.S. Nesbitt book, she picked up the second Molly Moon book.  The love affair began.  We just finished the third book.  I love this series.  Each book, like the Harry Potter Series is equally well written.  The second Charlie Bone book, I felt was slightly, & only slightly not as good as the first.  But Molly Moon!  I'd wake up in the morning, thinking about what I had read the previous night.  I love that she threads these compelling thoughts and bits wisdom throughout the story as Molly is faced with challenge after challenge.  I'm not sure if a young reader would say "Wow! That's deep".  or "Let's discuss how time might be like a wheel, with the end of the world next to the beginning."  Maybe I notice them because I'm an adult.  Irregardless Molly Moon ranks high on my list as one of my favorite series.