I went to go see Legion with (e:springfaerie) on Saturday. It was good. We ended up going to the 7:45pm show versus the 6:45pm show because they were crazy mobbed with people. So we headed over to Borders. I had a gift card from christmas and was looking around. My students told me that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is really good. But I was torn. I also have been reading a Lois Lowry Trilogy: The Giver, Gathering Blue and The Messenger. I also wanted to get the Wolvesbane and Mistelltoe Anthonlogy, but they only had the hard copy and I did not want to use my $25 gift card on 1 book. So I asked if they had the softcover. Yes, but we could not find one. I noticed another Anthology called Strange Brew. I did get a cool tiger calendar for my classroom.

We ended up heading home afterward. I watched one skater and fell asleep on the couch. Go figure.

“Why do Artists sometimes take years to complete a work of art?”
    
    I was asked this question shortly after graduating from college with my completed bachelors degree. I was personally at a loss for the answer to the question, because of lack of experience. Art was always something I wanted to do and no one ever really had to force me to complete any of my assignments in art. I too, had asked myself the same question about some artists that are considered masters in the art world. Still the answer to which I had no real comprehension of the context that can create the tides of an artist’s life, as I was still a student.
    My life offered me many opportunities this one comes with becoming an art educator. I began to look at how, not just what information is disseminated to the student. What does the student need to know? What does the student need to learn? What would the student identify with? I began to research for my students and not just for myself on each lesson I brought to my classroom. Each lesson plan had a life of its own, exploring artists as people, the context of their lives, and what they inspired through their artwork. Art History has always been a thorn in my side, my Achilles’ heel if you will. I decided to take a spoonful of sugar with my regular dose of art history and find out the beauty of the artist as well as the beauty of the product the artists creates.
    Life being the thorough educator, also gave me an experience of my own which gave me many answers to the question above. The experience of an injured spine that, by itself can continue to fill pages and volumes of my own personal journals, so we will leave the details of that aside. Several things have to be considered when asking about why did it take so long to create?
    â€œIt will be finished when it is finished” is what Michelangelo said to the Pope while working on the Sistine Chapel. Art is the equivalent of conceiving, incubation, delivery, raising and educating a child into an adult. Only the art knows for sure when it has reached completion. We have trouble with this context, because most main events in our lives are determined by an outside source. Age, Gender, Race, Religion and Economics all ingredients in the mixture, for example we start school by the age of five. That does not mean we as an individual is ready to start school at five, some maybe ready earlier or later, this is the mean or guideline as to when a child should begin to start school. These rules and guidelines are there to help us live in society. I am a girl and therefore I should wear a dress and learn to become a lady. I am a boy and therefore I should wear pants and learn to become a man. And each label give a set a rules or standards to live by. Anthropologically speaking art is a bi-product of a civilized society. When we have time to reflect about how we live about our daily lives culture becomes refined and the Arts are born within that social structure. Art lives outside of the box.
    Sometimes the reason is within the artist, unbeknown to him or her, they have something that must be learned, experienced or mastered before the art can reach completion. Sometimes it is a skill, or a new perspective, most of the time it has to do with living and coming to an understanding. These abstract concepts are much harder to perceive, learn and possess mastery of before completing the product of that education.
    â€œI Spy With My Little Eye A Butterfly?” is an acrylic painting that was started in 2003. I completed the painting in 2009. I still do not think it is finished, but that is my humble opinion. It is finished for the moment and is hanging on my bedroom wall. Every morning I do not work at my job, I ask myself is it finished? And the answer is no. Yet, when I ask myself what I need to do next? The answer is the same, I do not know. SIGH. So I wait until the answer comes and the desire to complete what has yet to be finished tells me to get my paints and complete it.

Over the last ten years I have gone through a series of friends. I have decided this has been weighing on my conscious so I thought it time to write it out. Each friendship was a unique experience and as all real relationships have their ups and downs. Their where moments of ecstasy; moments of hum drum mundanity; moments of tempers flaring; moments of pure bliss and contentment. There were always emotional moments filled with passion and love in every one of those relationships. Or at least that is my perspective. Even within the power of love there is loss and grieving. For each unique individual that friendship is a moment in my life, good, bad or indifferent, I chose to get close to these individuals.
    I may explore in a future moment each individual, but I think it is the weight of the quantity. See I have always had this belief that friends are golden. Special people should never disappear without a cause or a reason. I have recently had to explore the idea that people serve a purpose and then leave, a new nuance for me to learn about in the genre of friendships. The weight comes with the quantity of people. Uncle Ray used to say about my eccentric behavior exhibited at quite an early age; “She is either too stubborn to quit or is too stupid to know the difference.” Sometimes I think there is an interesting recipe constantly under revision that creates me and there seems to always be a little bit of both.
    So my first response was what did I do wrong? Second thought was how do I fix it? And inevitably came the-what if there is nothing I can do? I then came to the perspective of: you can only control how you feel about a situation, so I began focusing on what I could change and do something about that. In retrospect, I began to zoom out and try to perceive the larger picture. My best friend gave me another concept: “Some Friends Have Expiration Dates.” Some people are there to help you through one thing and then move along. Which triggered another reverie about “Eyes are the Windows to the Soul, but how can we see ourselves?” I answered this question in college by realizing that we are all constantly evolving into the best possible “US” we can be, ideally. So each person is a mirror into the Soul of the Viewer. We see that part of ourselves that is similar to that which we reflect to others. We bring about the part of the personality of the Soul in an individual that has the best receptivity to our own and vice versa. So as we navigate the “Path” of our lives, people reflect that which we both love and dislike about ourselves. I choose for these last ten years to work on the part of dislike. When I was a child it bothered me as to why people did not like others. I then was faced with not liking someone myself. I then had to ask myself how am I like or similar to this person and began to work on the person I wanted to become. All these experiences have taught me to become the person I wanted to be. These ideas are all very important knowledge to have learned. Yet, each time I always worked on myself. I hope I have offered others something in return for their time and energy while they were in my life. The concept of reciprocity has always been important to me.
    My Best Friend reminding me that these people came into my life for the time we shared a common interest or goal. This is where the expiration date comes, just like death you never know when it might be coming, but it seems to be an inevitable fact of life. So then there levels of importance for every relationship, but how do you know how to prioritize without being able to look at the end? Death is different in the time expired, because that soul has moved onto another plane of existence. Here, when the friendship expires we still live in the same city, you still know each other’s address, you still have each other’s phone number and yet the window of opportunity has ended.

Yesterday was the big day, the New Christmas Cookie Tradition with my Aunt and her side of the family. I started out with the idea from her brother last Christmas. I asked her if she wanted to join in having a Christmas Exchange and I began asking co-workers, friends and other avid bakers. I had 20 people interested in October. By Thanksgiving we set a date for either the first or second sunday of December. As the date grew closer I have more and more cancellations. Before I knew it - it was down to just me, my mom and my aunt. I then was chatting with (e:springfaerie) and told her how bummed I was that she would not be coming. After a little while my numbers went up to four as the Sunday was arriving by the end of the week.

We all baked at least 4 different recipes, with a doged determination to make things work in a new kitchen. We had problems from the get go, but my mom and I were committed. We kept working. We really had the most fun I have evr had baking cookies. No, it was not your traditional cookies exchange. We baked at our location, mostly family experience. Other family members dropped in to check on our progress. We ate. We laughed. We worked. We baked. We frosted. We did lots of dishes. I can not tell you the final numbers because we were very unorganized. I can tell you all the amazing cookies we baked: The Traditional Anise Polish Cut-Outs; Sugar Cookies with Anise frosting; Anise Pizzelles; Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies; Tree Spritzers; Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies; Mexican Wedding Cakes / Russian Tea Cakes; White Chocolate Macadamian Nut Cookies; Peanut Butter Cookies; Gingerbread Cookies; Chocolate Chip Nut Cookies; Spanish Galletas and Homemade Pizzia to fuel our energy.

We started at 2pm until 11pm. So nine hours later we had so many cookies we had no clue what to do with them. YEAH! We all agreed to give it a go next year.

This morning I awoke with more aches and pains than I knew was possible. I felt like I had gone to the gym for a full body workout! I fell asleep before I remembered to take any pain relief medicine and boy did I pay.

In summation I really decided that Christmas Cookies are a labor of love, but aren't we all worth it? So remember the next time you take a bite out of a homemade cookie the amount of love, work and time that goes into making that delicious moment of pure heaven in your mouth!

My mom and I have been looking forward to buying this movie. So when Target's sale paper came out off we went to Christmas shopping and also bought this DVD to help aid our motivation in making Christmas cookies (see in a blog near you).

We watched this movie over two evenings due to our crazy days and schedules. We also watched the specials in the bonus features. The added benefit of buying or renting the dvd versus the paid per view, just my humble thought on the matter. Both of us enjoyed the dual storyline. It did peak my interest in finding out more about Julia Child. We both agreed to look for the Chefography to see if there are any on her.

I think the wierdest part about a happy ever after ending movie like this had me questioning the timing. Did they ever meet?

My second thought the movie inspired was the blog perspective. So many questions, most of them I need to direct toward (e:paul). How did blogs evolve into being? What is the rest of the story behind blogging? Andy you are falling behind? I ask myself, why do I blog? You know folks, I do not know I have an answer that I like. Because I need to. I have to take this up under further advisement. I enjoy reading as many other blogs as I have time to read. I feel like it is more personal and is a way to be real. Of course I joined this blog because I met many of the core group and really enjoyed them. I also wanted to met more people that live off the strip. Yet I am amazed at how often other people's blogs seem to have an element of role play. I really do not know how I feel about all this, jury is still out, but I am curious and collecting more information.

I have been really good for a while about blogging when I am actually online, which as you can tell I have not been in awhile. WOW! I have so many photo blogs to update that I still have to edit the pictures, we are going back to like July. UG. I have had some things pop up that are still not quite finish enough to post. I am still tackling my attic, but Christmas shopping has cut off that project for a few weeks. I usually make handmade gifts each year with some kind of theme. For example, I decided one year to make jewelry as the theme and I made earrings and necklaces for the women and rosaries for the religious and either keychains or beaded critters for the men. I usually start buying things between thanksgiving and Christmas this year to work for 10 to 12 months for next years presents. Well, I am not sure what happened, but recently in the last few months someone asked are you ready for christmas? And for the first time in years I am like NO! It was already the first week of December and I had not one present for anyone. UG!
It is 11 days to Christmas and I am proud to report I only have two more presents to buy and I will have everything I need for the holidays!
I have been trying to write down thoughts and ideas, journals, blogs and other stories. So I will have a few post tonight to make up for the past few, but I warn you they are completely out of order and are priority to the muse that runs my brain when I am off resting.

So like I barely keep up my blog and I haven't checked my email since June and there I was hanging out with (e:springfarie) just before school started to watch TrueBlood and we had a couple of hours between dinner and Trueblood so what is there to do...

She dragged me kicking and screaming to facebook. For like two weeks I could not help but check everyday. Who said what. What was my mini post going to be. More names to search for. I found a friend from college I had lost touch with through searching for her family members. We had lunch later in the week. Talk about instant gratification!

Found friends I did not mean to loose track of. Got in touch with current friends. Talked with camping buddies. So many people so little time.

I found a childhood buddy from my teenager years. It had been 20 years since we have seen each other. We talked on the phone like two days later.

Then it was happening everywhere in my life, not just on the computer. FOR example: My dad, mom and I were headed over to the family poker night. There is a stop sign at the end of my street and I watch thi van go by. I was like holy that looks just like my friend Jason. So we turn and meet up with the van at the next stop sign turning the same way, not once, but twice. (lots of one way streets on the west side...) Then pulls into the driveway to back into the one across the street and I'm like that IS my friend Jason. So I jump out of the car. We chat for a minute and I realized my parents are like who is this guy. So I introduced them and we exchanged phone numbers and we headed off to card night.

Today I was waiting for prescriptions at the pharmacy a Wegman's and ran into a former co-worker and exchanged emaiil addresses.

I am blessed with getting reaquainted with friends I thought I'd lost just from livin' life. Cosmic. Truly inspirational. Slightly confusing, but fun!

Tuesday was great working with my new students and getting to see how much my students have grown. Later in the afternoon I was starting to feel an unxpected pain on the right side of my neck.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling like I had freeze dried my neck it was so stiff and in so much pain. I put topical pain rlieers on and tried to do my physical therapy exercises to loosen up the neck and upper spine. I was no good that day.

Thursday I woke up with more mobility but there I was looking like an extra for Mr. Roboto. I did everything I could and went off to work. Good day with the students. Hard day reigning in my temper. I have a short fuse when I am in pain. Who doesn't? I did not actually have problems with students. I had a co-worker problem. Go figure?! I also had to get home quickly because over my birthday weekend the new fridge stopped working for the holiday weekend. SO ther repari guy was due in. Nice guy but the part was on order. See ya tomorrow!

Friday was better mobility but I had spoke with the shool nurse and showed her my neck which was all bruised. I look like someone hit my neck & skull with a 2x4. So I decided to bite the bullet and call for a doctors appointment. I also had to call my insurance because they changed the policy as of Sept 1st. Ug! Higher co-pays! $250 deductable, which sounds like cool, but what it really means is you pay the first $250.00 out of pocket. This after recieving my first check on the year that is restructured for less money per month. There is an extra check that we will get it in at the end of the year. Oh, and then I wonder why I am getting migraines and have spinal pain.?! No really?!

Everyday was like come home and take a 2 hour nap and still I could sleep 8 hours no problem. I basically was limited as to what I cold do and what my body would give me permission to do, which was no much. Hot showers, exercise, stop pain, tylenol, pain patches, ice, heating pad, sleep. I could watch tv. So tv it was.

I rewatched Centerstage, Teen Wolf and Teen Wolf Too! When the phone rang...My BFF (e:springfairie) who has HBO called Saturday to let me know that HBO was replaying TrueBlood both Sat and Sun. SO I invaded the family compounded proceeded to stare at the tv screen for like 13 hours over two days. Yeah True Blood! Thank you for the fantasy repreive.

Today was the doctors appointment. More exercises and two muscle relaxants, which once I got through the deductable and reducing my savings to a mere nothing. I have all but one script to go. Once I got the first muscle relaxant I started to feel human. I still have a tension headache and moderate pain in my neck and upper spine, but it seems much more reasonable then when I did not have the script. My mobility has increased as well. Yeah!

THe next one is for bed time and I guess makes you really sleepy. We shall see at bedtime.

"NO it is to the pain, Highness" Wesley AKA the Dread Priate Roberts from the Princess Bride...

So much more to blog... different topics though...

I woke up thinking ok. I am 35. Half way between 30 and 40. I proceeded to ask myself what I wanted to do that day. I determined that Laundry therapy, some movies and maybe go to my dad's labor day yard party.

I managed to get he laundry done and as I was folding I discovered that the Labor Day Yard Party was supposed to be surprise party for me more like spontaneous b-day party. I'm like ok cool. So I pick out a cute outfit and head down after the laundry.

Did I remember to take one picture? NO!

So there were like 25 friends and neighbors. Ok. One set of neighbors piled their plates and left. Did not speak to me or wish me a happy birthday. How rude? Another ate more than half of my Carvel Ice Cream Cake. Same person took home two plates of food saying my dad said it was ok ad he knew nothing about it. Beer was the drink of choice. I do not drink beer. (long story) People were being loud and obnoxious. I was really surprised. After I helped to clean up I put myself to bed early.

Just before I go to bed I hear a huge arguement. I still have not got the skinny on ths one and I do not think I care to know t be honest.

THe food was awesome. We had beer, pop, hot dogs, sausage (which were eaten before I made it down to the party), hamburgers, potatoe salad, spicy cabbage (OH my was that good!), baked beans, puerto rican rice and beans, ribs (which I never got to taste.) and Carvel Ice Cream Cake.

Overall a very wierd welcome to my mid-thrities...maybe that is why I like to spend time with individuals instead of having a party.

I had stopped into the mall on the 7th. We had to pick something up or pay on something. Anyway we were there and stopped into Clarks. My mom wanted a new pair of shoes. I'm like tired of the mall and want to go home. This Sales Associate was so cool. Before I knew it I was trying on shoes. Being a teacher you are on your feet all day. She told me about this shoe line called UNstructured. OMG! I tried the shoes on and did not want to take them off. SO much more comfortable than the sandles I was wearing. I bought them. I notice that they had blue which matched my purse, so I ordered them and had to go pick them up. They were in so we went on the 13th. Here is an interesting part: I had bought a pair of shoes from them back 2 years ago. I loved the color: green. When I wore them all day I had blistered at the heels of my feet. PAINFUL! I remember shoving them under my bed and forgoting all about them. They gaurantee their shoes and they gave me my money back which I promptly spent on the second new pair. I forgot to take a picture of the shoes...we walked all around the mall. Stopped to Johnny Rockets for a bite to eat. Went into Lane Bryant for Shirts for work. SALE. Then we were headed for something to drink when a man with a clipboard asked to talk with us. He was from a survey place and wanted to know if we would take a suvey based on food and beverages. Sure. Then we found out we got paid at the end of the survey. Cool. Between the two of us we made $10.00. We were no longer thirsy and continued to shop. We found a sheet sale. Then dad called and it was time to head home.

In no particular order the pictures from that day:

I like clouds.


I like to see what I can see in the shapes of clouds.


More clouds.


THis one looks like a bird to me.


Dark Clouds.


Around the bend toward the Galleria


Galleria Entrance


Flags at the Galleria


Lord & Taylor at the Galleria Mall.


I looked up to see directly over my head once we parked.


Galleria Parking Lot.


Sky above the Galleria.


Heading toward the Galleria


Little Clouds


More Little Clouds


Macy's at th Galleria


Many more clouds


More and more clouds


Clouds are cool.


Scene from the Thruway


My favoriteset of trees on the thruway.


Walden Village Sign on the way to the Galleria Mall.


Sky


Good - bye Galleria!


Heading home from the Galleria.