A Little Imagination and a Pile of Junk

all that remains

I'm getting deliriously close to finishing my remains of the day journal. It will be the first journal I've ever filled completely before abandoning and moving on. I've been working on finishing up some pages I started months ago but never got back to. Most of them I'm not absolutely in love with but they are meaningful enough to me to finish recording or working through. And it feels great to have them done, like I'm actually accomplishing something for a change.

My favorite thing about this type of journal is all the ephemera and random goodies attached to every page. I've always collected this kind of junk from my everyday life but usually find it difficult to actually work it into my journaling process. It rarely seems to fit or be pretty enough for me. But this journal is not about being pretty but about salvaging, recording, recycling, and remembering. It is tactile and expressive and...well, fat. I can barely close the thing! I think that's my favorite part.

I spoke too soon

 

Tiny little setback here as we await the inevitable death of our beloved computer. Despite having 2 external drives, I am frantically trying to salvage the last few remains of my hard drive before it breathes its last. I can hear the awful death rattle already and I have to hold my breath, cross my fingers, speak a fevered prayer, and hop up and down on one foot each time I start it up. Thankfully, I've been able to rescue all the photos I uploaded in the last few weeks and I'm working now on the mind numbingly tedious task of transferring every album we've ever downloaded--about 1,001 from the looks of it--from my dying hard drive to a flash drive, then to the laptop, then to the external drive for safe keeping. I could seriously use a glass of wine. Hope your weekend looks better than mine! Hopefully, we'll be up and running next week. I have so much to show you. Because I don't have enough half finished projects, I thought I'd take up jewelry making to push myself right over the edge of sanity. What am I thinking? At least I'll look good going down, right?

the real all-encompassing project

 

Thankfully, life has slowed down just a tiny bit but I still haven't been able to make much time for art lately. As usual, it's always on my mind and I have plans--big plans--but am still lacking something in the motivation department. The last thing I really want to do is get started on a big project and end up having only a few minutes here and there to actually work on it. 

 

I haven't mentioned it here but we moved to Colorado with our close friends to start a church. I really hate using that phrase and putting a name on how we're just living our lives, but it's the easiest way to make myself understood. Mostly, we just want to invest in the city, make friends, create a sense of community among the people we meet, be there with an ear, a meal, a ride, whatever, when it's needed. You know, be good neighbors.  Anyway, we have met so many people since we arrived here in February and are trying to spend as much time with everyone as we can. We have several bible studies going during the week plus various meetings and such, which all make for very busy but exciting days. It's good but it's busy and I don't always do good with busy. This week I've managed to get myself back onto a schedule with school and yoga and meals. I know that will help with how scatterbrained I feel most of the time.

Because I spend more time sitting around lately, I've started doodling more than usual. I even bought a special moleskine journal just for doodling. It helps feed the need to be creative with little free time.

 

My favorite things are these flowery medallion type things. I can't stop making them and love imaging designs to fill in the concentric circles. It's good to be easily amused.

   

on my desk

~Painted papers that need to be finished and ironed flat.

 

~Garlands for Maisey's bedroom that need to be assembled and hung.

 

 

~Jewelry for myself and friends waiting to be worn.

 

~Journal pages in progress.

 

 

 

~Markers and my new Moleskine doodling notebook.

 

 

And I haven't even mentioned my two new sewing books. If it's possible to have way too many projects going at once, I do.  

little castle in the mountains

 

Have I mentioned how much I love living in Pueblo? Another day I'll really sell her to you but for now I'll just say that one of my favorite things about living here is that we're only 30 minutes away from the mountains! The glorious, awe inspiring mountains. I can still hardly believe it's true. Tuesday was Soren's 9th birthday so we took the kids on a little pilgrimage to Bishop Castle. 

 

(I snagged this photo from the Internet, not sure the source; the rest of the photos are mine.) 

I wanted to to tell you all about it because 1.) It's interesting, 2.) It's a beautiful ongoing work of art, 3.) I got these amazing pictures and I was actually able to upload them!

 

 

I also wanted to share because it's not something you'll find in any Colorado tour guide. Jim Bishop began building his castle back in 1969 all by himself and you can find him still working on it today. We didn't get to talk to him personally because he was busy screaming at another tourist who disagreed with his theology. Evidently he's somewhat of a local character. But, man, can he build a castle or what?

 

 

 

So many amazing details in stone and iron work! To be completely honest, I can only gush over this thing two days after having visited because, although we brought our children along, you will find yourself literally climbing up and around a very tall building perched on a cliff side with little more than scaffolding between you and eternity. I walked up the first flight of extremely steep stone stairs and stepped one foot out on the intricate iron walkway and immediately knew I would go absolutely no farther. John and the kids climbed the rest of the precarious path to the very top finding themselves in an shaking iron cage on a too windy day. I can't even think too much about it now or I feel sort of sick.

 

 

 

 

So, this is not exactly the place you want to bring your inlaws or elderly grandmother, but the kids loved it. And, wow, it really is so beautiful. You can read more about Bishop Castle's bizzare story here.

 

 

 

we're back, I think

By some miracle, I was finally able to upload some pictures to the computer. I don't think we've seen the last of our technical difficulties, but if I can upload pictures at least that means I can get back to blogging--yeah! Hopefully, anyway. So, I thought I would check in here quickly before going to bed and show off some of my new journal pages. I haven't touched my journal in a month or more and I can feel it. I had sort of an emotional breakdown last week but this week seems to be going much smoother now that that is out of the way.

 

 

 

My sweet Soren turned 9 today and we had a long and fabulous day of celebrating so I'm exhausted. There's nothing like watching your baby boy turn into a man before your very eyes to make you really feel your age.