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.

Spring Break

Spring Break for me came a week early, I had a very soothing spiritual trip to the beach. I tried all week after to put it into words why and how the ocean is so healing and helpful for me and all the things I did and learned in the 3 days I was away, but I just couldn't. Sometimes I think it is better to just experience, rather than try to capture or document. I think this photo and quote do it best...

-Everything in life can be heal by saltwater

Whether through sweat, tears, or sea.

Farewell to February

With the end of another month just checking my resolutions to make sure I'm keeping them in tact. I succeeded in making 2 artworks a weeks, experimented with mediums and ideas I had wanted to for a while and didn't question if it was stupid or silly. Been keeping up with my blog, I realize that the writing everyday would be way to hard to keep up with, so as long as I blog a few times a week I feel happy with myself. Bank account still in the positive, paying my bills, treating myself to art supplies and movies when I'm good. Still no small shoes! Planning my first trip for the year, to the beach here I come, where hopefully I will get some time to tan and finish my book that I started in January, ugg the only resolution I have been bad on, reading! I am such a ridiculously slow reader, I relish every word, it takes me forever to get through a book. It's okay, to make up for each month I don't finish a book I have to double up for the following, so I am now making myself responsible for finishing the current book and two others by the end of this month. Lastly for getting active in the community, I'm in the beginning stages of two projects I want to make happen. The first, to collaborate with an old friend on a new mural for our elementary school. The second is to paint and sell custom dog and cat dishes, then for all profits to be donated to different animal shelters and clinics. Well yey for another month, let the good times keep coming.

P.S: Plus I passed my final certification test, I can officially teach in Texas as of February 19th!

My NOT so secret Lovers

So I went to go see Shutter Island last night and during the whole movie I kept thinking Leonardo Dicaprio kinda looks like Jeff. Aww he's crying I want to cuddle my Jeff, weird they have the same nose...This then forced me to evaluate the other list of my celebrity crushes and realize that my friends are right I have a type! Maisha laughs at me because every time I think I am being scandalous in having a crush on an actor that is not my husband, she pop my bubble and says Yes He IS! She is not the only friend to remark on my type of guy, they are for the most part usually dirty blonde, with light eyes, stocky, with prominent jawlines and pointy noses. The more I think about the more I realize it's true, uggg all my fantasy crushes look in some way, shape or form like my husband, I'm such a lame-O!

Lets Look!The First: Leonardo Dicaprio, loved when I was 13 pre meeting Jeff

The Longest: Paul Walker, an active boyfriend of mine, fell for when I was 18

The Latest: Sam Worthington, current boyfriend as of May this year

The Hubby: been with since I was 15 married at 23

I'll let ya'll be the judge, am I truly in love with the same type of guy?!?!

So this is Love

I truly enjoy how Valentines has evolved over the past 12 years that me and Jeff have spent it as a couple. It started like all Valentines do when you are a young couple in highschool, you give the chocolates in the expensive heart shaped box, and get the dozen red roses, sprinkle on a stuffed animal, card, romantic dinner and the day is done as soon as it began. This year I think I had the best Valentines day yet. It was a whole weekend of celebration since Jeff had to work 3 to 11, plans for an extravagant celebration flew out the window, and simply hanging out together was the goal. Jeff came and took my Starry night class, which was exciting for me, Jeff has never seen me teach and I got to share that part of my life, helping him paint a famous image that is important to me. On Saturday at midnight, I guess it was really Sunday, we exchanged gifts, I got him an assortment of fancy truffles from Godiva because he is the candy lover, and a bag full of Jeff movies like, Zombieland, Land of the Dead, Beowulf, to name a few and promised to watch them with him soon. I received a bundle of my favorite Gerber daisies, I love daisies, and kind, any color! A cute butterfly balloon that I had a hand in picking out since I was beating him with it at HEB earlier that day. And most amazingly a WHOLE cherry pie from Luby's. I can not even begin to explain my obsession with the cherry pie at Luby's, it's like no other, holy cow! We had a Sunday lunch at Panda Express, and tapped off our night by venturing out into the jungle behind our house to turn up the water heater, yey for HOT showers, no more luke warm ones, it was perfect.

A Change is Going to Come

Lost in my head today, feeling ambitious and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, things are moving forward I can feel them, all around me. I signed up to take my final teaching test today, and then it's official I can teach. This concept both excites and scares the pants off of me. I'm thankful for a job posting that really pushed me to get it done. It's exactly what I'm looking for and in a neighborhood I use to live in and like alot. Maybe I'll get it, maybe I'm too late, but the thought of sometime better is enough for me. I think I have a bad tendency to settle, to be to comfortable and excepting of my situations that I sometimes don't try to be all that I was meant to be. For instance I love my current job, I love being a manager and promoting the business, and teaching classes, and painting pottery, but at the end of the day I have nothing truly to show for it. The studio is not mine, all I do is for others and it's not fulfilling anymore. I want my own something, classroom and home. Again I love my current home, I live in a house I grew up in, rebuilt it with my husband. My cats love it, I get to spend time with my grandma and my parents, but living there I feel so used. While I am close to family,I am taken for granted by them, I am asked to maintain an entire yard I don't own, pick up toys that were scattered by kids that aren't mine, and care for and find homes for kittens that I shouldn't have to. I'm tired of having to be patience and understanding of other peoples misfortunes and irresponsibilities, I have worked too hard to be held back out of guilt or hope that I will make a difference to people who don't want to change. It's a new day, time to start moving on and leaving the past behind, it's a big world and I deserve to have a happy place it in.