Bye Bye Menudo

15 more minutes remain of my life of eating animals. After much thought and debate I have decided what is best for me and my health is a Vegan diet. Its very scary throwing that out there, for I have kept the details to myself and even the thoughts of this transition only amongst a close few because this decision it very near to my heart. And for all who want to know why I have made this choice, all I will say to you is this is about me, what I want, and what I feel is truly right for myself, period. I am not going to spar or debate, or convince anyone to change, this is just for me. And I am so excited.

I have spent the past week preparing for this transition, making my shopping lists, thinking of ways to rework my favorite dishes, and saying farewell to a few that have long sentiment. My final meat meal was Menudo, at Amaya's Taco Village. There is a great divide to those who love this soup, and those who think its disgusting. But to me it's has a true ability to make me feel Christmas, and being a child, and family. It took me a long time to find a Menudo that tasted just like the kind my Grandparents used to make every year, working together to get the meat free of bone, and the recipe just right. Eating Menudo reminds me of the times I'd curiously stumble upon those preparation nights, feeling the giddy anticipation of the holiday, of laughing with my Grandpa. With giving up Menudo, I give up a food that allows me access a past, that's what I will truly miss. Not meat, or diary, but the emotional ties and remembrance that ones has with foods.

Goodbye old memories and give way to new ones.
Dear Meat and Milk, it was real, it was fun, but it wasn't real fun!
Mauh!!

Yesterday

Yesterday I saw a baby deer get hit by a car that was speeding down my street. I saw the car stop for a minute, the deer motionless on the ground, there was a child screaming, or is it the deer. I watched the car drive away, and the baby deer come up half alive. I watched my husbands empathic face, as he keeps me at a distance. I watched as the cars continued to speed by as this little animal fought on the side of the road. I watched as the drivers gave us dirty looks as we stood out in the road to make them slow down. I watched the frighten tiny deer scrabbled to get away, with no where to go. For over an hour we guarded the little deer, waiting for help or and answer from god. After fearing for the deer's safety in the street, my husband gently put the deer in the grass. I watched as a group of girls stopped to help guard. I watched as a Jeep came by to offer us waters. I watched as most everyone else couldn't have cared. I watched a cop come, I watched a cop leave. And we watched as this sweet little deer left it's misery. How are some people so thoughtless to the life of an animal while others so affected. I have grieved for that little deer like it were my own, I will be haunted by that day for as long as I live. Every time I close my eyes I feel the momentum of that car as it flies by, I hear the screams, I see that deer, I wish I could have saved it. Why are humans so oblivious and so absorbed, to not have stopped and let others deal with their messes. Why are we so often the ones who have clean them up...my heart hurts.

Flash Forward

So it's been quiet a while since I have done this, forgive if I'm a little rusty, but there is a lot to report since I last paid this blog a visit. Over a year ago I learned I had landed my first teaching job and now here I am into the first week of my completetion of my first year of teaching...and boy am I exhausted. To put into words all that has happened in this past year would be near to impossible. The past 9 months have changed my life in ways I could never explain. I have learned so much, I have worked my body to exhaustion, I have pushed my sanity to its limits, but I can honestly say I truly love teaching. It is the hardest job out there for sure, and people that don't teach can never understand. My life has been changed and has changed 300 little lives. I know every one by name, I have spent countless hours trying to find ways to convince them that Art can change their lives, and I can honestly say that I have seen an evolution in them.
But now it's summer, and time to wind down and have some time for myself.... all by myself. The one thing I can explain about being a teacher, is the longing and loving of having ones own space and quiet in the world. And that what I have done all week... just slept, and listened to music, and enjoyed the quiet. I feel bad because I have friends texting to do things and go out, but for now I need to wind down, rest, let me nerves settle and my mind ease. Teaching puts you on constant alert and it takes some getting used to, to not have to entertain, teach, and parent 300+ kiddos.
So here's to the start of my summer, and some much need me time!

This is the first day of the rest of my life...

I have taken 24 days of my life and put all my energy into find a teaching job. I have not let myself paint, or draw, or blog, or work on my website, just job hunting. And today after the long and winding road of trying to get a professional job to call my own, I was offered a teaching job at 8 am this morning. I got to visit my future classroom, heard the words salary and benefits, oh my god! I can't believe this is real, but at the same time it feels so natural. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and every thing I have ever wanted out of my life is obtainable. So here it to the beginning of the rest of my life, now I can relax and enjoy the rest of my summer in peace!!!

Manic Creative Energy

Man my brain is swirling around with ideas and things I want to accomplish that my brain might burst with excitement and anticipation!!!!!
So before that happened I decided to jot down my ideas before I forget them all in this surge of ambition.

First and foremost I want to use my art to help people, since an art therapy certification is not in the cards for me right now, I want to try to change the world one tiny way at a time, here are the bare bones of my ideas

• Paint bowls to donate or sell to raise money for local animal shelters


• Sell some artwork to donate money to the Animal Rescue for the recent oil spill


• Get some celebrity bowls signed for Empty Bowl Project


• Raise some money to help rebuild the playground at Brooke Elementary


• Host a fundraiser for an OCD organization

Uhhfooo breathe.

On top of that I also want to start chipping out a place in the art community for myself. I want to create products to sell at festivals. Get prints made of some of my artwork I cannot part with, and really try and get out there and develop skills, including

• Caricaturing, and drawing pets


• Exploring my love for making cute ceramics


• Learning to make jewelry


• Having a show of my own


• Writing / illustrating a children's book

And on top of all these things, I just want someone to give me a real teaching job, so I can have a stable permanent home and have that part of my life mapped out and in place.

ahhh there now I wont forget anything.

reinVENTING

Haven't wrote in a while for fear of breaking on of my resolutions, dwelling on the negative, but I realize that I have to vent and get it out somehow, for it has stunted my creative growth and therefore caused me to not make art or write for weeks. So right now I'm sad, my favorite cat disappeared and hasn't come home, job hunting is awful, makes me feel like an unorganized cow, and I had been feeling like a sloth. I know now reading this it could be worse, but I get stuck in a rut and I'm ready to snap out of it. This week has been alot better, I started working out and eating better. This has given me more energy to brainstorm and find new ways to deal with my unhappiness. I have a new plan of action for finding a job, no more of these cattle call job fairs, its time to take a more personal approach and not worry about whose shoes I might step on. I have found a creative project to deal with the loss of my Chu, and allowed myself to be devastated no matter what others think. What people don't understand is that I lived on my own for many years and the only company I had through all of Jeff's absentances were my pets, and now my Chu who I had for 5 years since she was a little Christmas kitten chewing on my belt, being toted around in my purse, sitting in the passengers seat of my car cat is gone. Time to move on, think I'm gonna volunteer at the animal shelter this summer, help other kitty find homes. Anyhoo, just feeling blue, tomorrow will be a better day...

Reclaiming My Youth

I've decided to try to reconnect with my high school self. I realized looking through a bin filled with letters, artwork, poetry, and pictures of my teenage self, how much I missed that girl. She was so sincere and romantic, reading poems that I wrote and so fearlessly put out there, make me blush and cringe now. And they shouldn't, the old me wasn't afraid to love whole-heartedly, and be a little dramatic, and see the movie magic moments in the everyday life. When I was younger I was a dreamer, and a big old mush, I'm going to try to reconnect with that part of myself before I became jaded by the real world. This could be fun, most of my close friends never knew me when I was a writer, wanting to live in the dessert in New Mexico and write movies and learn how to paint. I'm going to try once a week to put some of my old self out there, I want to be that girl again!

This was my favorite piece or artwork I made my senior year, the one and only year I took an art class in high school. It's a mono print that I went back over with chalk, it was shown at the AISD end of the year student art show.