Day 66: Inside, outside, upside down

I'm sure there are thousands of you out there wondering where I've been - all silently waiting in suspense for me to return :).  I've just reached the bottom of the creative well for a moment.

One of the great challenges in my life is that I'm an introvert and Emily is an extrovert.  By the end of the summer of us being together, I'm almost incapable of thinking and she is going into hyperdrive for lack of stimulation.

It took me a while but I started to unravel this problem a week ago.  The Artist's Way talks about two techniques to 'fill the well':  writing 3 pages a day in a journal and the artist's date  (where you go out alone to somewhere artistically interesting).  I don't get a lot of time in the summer to take myself anywhere alone but I've been working on it.

This week is Vacation Bible School.  I'm doing the craft section: 2 crafts a day for 17 kids.  Whew.  Hopefully pictures to follow.

Day 65: Another boring post

Today's creative work?  Updating my resume and writing a cover letter.  Definitely creative.

Day 64: Stuff you probably don't need to see

I spent the day creating (or at least pulling together some writers' bits and pieces) a liturgy for an alternative worship service on Sunday night.  I expect most of you don't need to know what it's all about but it was my creative work for the day.

I based part of it on this YouTube video.  Have a look.

Day 63: Clink...

That sound you just heard may be my future finally starting to come together.

For nine years, I've been praying about what to do next.  The answer has always been 'not yet'.

In the last couple of months, things have started to become clear.  Thank God.

More to follow, I hope.

Day 62: I only have one thing to say

When a resume is supposed to be a summation of your best accomplishments thus making you proud of yourself, why does it make you feel just the opposite?

Day 61: I know it's around here somewhere...

Balance.

That's what I'm looking for.

Not currently finding it in my heart.

Had a little luck here:

In my studio

And here:

At the dog beach

Will keep looking.  Will report back.

Day 60: 1/6th down...

Gretchen Rubin at The Happiness Project has a list of things which she can do even on her worst days.  Her list seems a little long but I haven't given mine much thought as yet.  I'm just beginning this thread.

My list starts with:

1.  I can do one fun thing with my kids.

The beginnings of crystals ... hopefully.

I suppose 2. could be: go to bed early so tomorrow will be a better day.

Maybe 3. should be: do something nice (and preferably non-fattening) for myself.

That's all I can come up with today; it being a bad day.  There may be more later.  For now, 2.

Day 59: Today's obsession

Rives.

Keep going.

Day 58: So it begins.

Since starting this work on creativity, I've been developing a list of Paradoxes of Worship like the Paradoxes of Creativity that I've posted before.  I put it out there today for discussion.

• We are made to feel comforted by worship forms we have used many times; we are made to feel bored by worship forms we have used many times.
• Worship is an individual need expressed by a committee
• We worship a Christ who is both the Shepherd and the sheep; the leader and the follower  
• Christ the respectful Son and the Table-turning Rebel
• How to meet the need of a median congregation without becoming mediocre
• A service has to have basic components but not be simplistic
•  A congregation is made up of newcomers and lifetimers. How do we worship so that newcomers aren't confused and life-timers aren't patronized
• The church must be a stable organization without becoming a frozen organization

So what do you think?

Day 57: And then the party came in

The party came in here last night with a vengence - my parents came home from the cottage and Heather and Ross, et al. arrived a little later.  As my head was hitting the pillow, a small portion of my brain thought, blog?  It wasn't loud enough to make me get up.

I did arise fairly early this morning to two happy boys who haven't seen each other in quite a long time.  I retreated with the dog and the breakfast to the back porch where this greeted my eyes:

I'll have to look up what these are called - it may be somewhere in my backbrain.  I'm not likely to find it after my early morning wake up call though.

Day 56: Inspired by Grace

The bishop has decided to call the new amalgamated parish ' Grace in Scarborough'.  I like it.  Mostly because I can do this with the words (the four churches are Epiphany, St. George, St. Giles and St Crispin):

So here's the artistic deal: I photoshopped the colour.  I couldn't for the life of me find the boopin' fabric markers that I bought a week ago for this project.  But after I took the picture of me in the mirror, I realized I needed one more mirror image to make it legible.  Though the mirror writing is very Da Vincian.  Since it was already open in Gimp...I figured I'd add the colour.  Ta da!

Day 55: And now for something completely different

THE BROOK

by: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
by many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
with here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silver water-break
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

Day 54: Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha-ha, HA!

What else can I say?  A picture is worth a thousand ha's.

See this post to explain:http://myartisticinsanity.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-38

P.S. Organization did happen, even though it's a holiday but really, who wants to look at boring cleaning pictures when there's Heron to be had.