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Everything Else

Aug 27 2014

Up, Up and Away

By Everything Else, Uncategorized

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It took a little doing, but we’ve managed to get our ducks in a row, and now Mike and I are actually going to be getting away for a little vacation. Just us and the mini-wolf pack. And a stack of books, a bunch of art supplies, a guitar, a yukulele, our swimsuits, and our fuzzy slippers. (Shhh! The fashion police aren’t invited!)

I’ve been busy crossing off things on my Do-Due! list and have a couple of updates for you — in no particular order…

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I got all the Leftovers prints hung. Most of them are in the stairwell going down to Mike’s studio. I wish the lighting were better. Next house. Tall walls, better lighting — I’m getting my “must have” list together.

We did end up selling our faithful 2001 Subaru Forester, “Wasabi-Ru,” to a terrific family and buying the 2015 Forester in Jasmine Green. Had to wait for it to come in in that color — no substitutions, thank you very much. We LOVE her, and have named her “Roux” in anticipation of adding New Orleans to our mix since we will be driving there when we go next February.

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We have booked our home away from home in New Orleans! We’ll be stayingin a perfect little Pied A Terre Uptown, three blocks off of St. Charles directly behind the Columns Hotel where they filmed the movie “Pretty Baby” a million years ago.

I am very excited because our neighbor on the same property is the artist Rebecca Rebouche. (Some of you will appreciate the strides I am making in the art of understatement.) Among other things, Rebecca designs for Anthropologie….

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Anyhoo…had to stop and catch my breath there for a minute… things are shaping up nicely around here with Monsters! put to bed, and “Water Works” (the next TVAA show coming up at Track 13 in Nampa — juried this time!) posted and open for submissions, and all my personal art commitments under control.

I’m sure I’ll hit the ground running once we get back, but for now it’s all blue skies and happy clouds and colorful balloons…just like these we saw just this morning in Ann Morrison Park.

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And we’re up, up and aaAAWWAAAYYYYY!

Aug 20 2014

Time Flew!

By Everything Else

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Oh, Hello!

I guess I’ve been a wee bit distracted with things besides updating my blog these past few, … er, well…several days, but I’m back now, and I apologize!

Don’t I look contrite?

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Yeah. That’s me, suffering at Tour de Fat this weekend.

Mike “Mr. Stripey,” with his bike “The Bee,” sacrificed his Saturday to accompany me.

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We’ve ridden in the bike parade for 5 years now and it’s one of our very favorite things to do in the summer in Boise.

TVAA set up a booth at Tour de Fat two years in a row. We had the public paint tiny paintings of where they liked to ride their bikes in a grid we imposed over a larger painting of a bike we painted in advance. I painted the bike the first year, a red and white cruiser.

That painting hangs in the workshop at the Boise Bicycle Project.

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Terry Burkes painted the bike the second year. It’s a bike made of tree bark. It hangs now in the new studio space in the offices of Boise State Public Radio.

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My favorite painted bike though, is my bike. Which I painted in 2010. It always gets a lot of compliments during the parade. Especially from anyone in a tutu, and the under 10 crowd.

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I’ve got lots more to tell you, but as you know, it is best to “take little bites and chew them well” — so this little bite will have to do for now!

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Ride on!

Jul 01 2014

Hokey Pokey!

By Everything Else

I guess I’ve been spending so much time making sure Mike’s routine was back to normal that I managed to let my own routine stall out. Not that I have a set schedule really, it’s more of a state of mind. But, I did manage to blow off the entire 2nd half of June. Oops.

Well, Mike’s routine is back to normal now — he even rode his bike to work this morning — which means it’s time for me to get off my…sofa, and get to work.

You’d have thought the past couple of weeks prime time for reading, but sadly I didn’t even have the bandwidth for that — hence my lack of “4 Favorites for June.” I did read one interesting book, My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., after seeing her amazing TED talk by the same name.

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Jill was a 37 year old neuroanatomist when she had a massive stroke in her left brain which left her as essentially an infant in an adult’s body. The book details the 8 year journey of her recovery and is a very clear description of the right and left hemispheres of the brain and their very different functions and personalities.

Being 72% right brained myself (BuzzFeed tells me so) I was not surprised to learn that my dominant hemisphere is spontaneous and imaginative and perceives each of us as equal members of the human family, all related and necessary to the whole.

Our left brains are where we define ourselves as separate and individual, and where we store our attachments to everything in our lives, both good and bad.

I was surprised to learn that as Jill recovered she chose not to recover certain “attachments” of her left brain. She let go of resentments and anger from her “previous life” which she no longer had any reason to hold on to as they had happened to the other Jill in her other life.

The take away from the book is we can consciously practice “stepping to the right” in our thinking and behavior and unlearn attachments to anger and resentment which are meaningless in the big picture.

Hey! Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

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You put your right brain in,
You take your left brain out,
You put your right brain in,
and you shake it all about.

You do the Hokey Pokey
and you turn your thoughts around.

That’s what it’s all about!!

Jun 14 2014

The Grass is Greener

By Everything Else

The last time I wrote, Lula was doing the hula on her quilt in the garden and I was admiring the weeds and feeling lazy, when what should appear in my mailbox but an invitation to the Idaho Humane Society’s 24th Annual Lawn Party — with a collage I made on the cover:

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I love a good segue.

It’s a really fun invitation created by Will Spearman with art donated by several of us local, animal loving, artists…

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and is of course for the benefit of the Idaho Humane Society, the organization which brought us Lula, and Snug, and before them Redfish, Pomme, Dillon, and Scoresby. Our family, to say nothing of our hearts, would have been so much smaller without those furry girls and boys.

If your family, and your heart, are bigger because of the Idaho Humane Society you know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you don’t yet — run, really fast like you have four feet, to 4775 Dorman Street and change all that. It is the best feeling in the world.

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You can also make a donation any time, which feels almost as good. The grass really does seem a little greener when it’s your happy pup or comfy cat enjoying it on a lazy afternoon.