Another Day in Paradise: Good Thoughts on a Rainy Monday

I sure woke up in a good mood today!

It's raining and rain in this dry part of the country is always welcome. It was nice to hear it pattering on the roof when I awoke and I was especially happy that we got our new bushes planted before the rain started; way to go, Mary and Ben!

Even better is that it's a rainy Monday and I don't have to go to work. Now I mostly loved working, but I sure don't miss it and especially not on a day like today. How nice to settle in for a cup of coffee, some nice hot oatmeal, and a calm hour or two before the day begins. I do have things on my calendar today --Meals on Wheels later this morning and then manning the membership table at tonight's Front Range Contemporary Quilters meeting-- but it's lovely to not rush in the morning rain.

Also, I've been sleeping well for several weeks without taking any sleep aids. Maybe the increased walking I've been doing has helped, or maybe I've just got less worries on my mind, or maybe it's because I've cut back on my drinking, I don't know, but I'm sleeping well and that makes a big difference. Actually, one thing that has helped is when I wake up in the middle of the night I now play a game that my neighbor taught me. You pick a subject and run through the alphabet thinking of items that go with each letter of the alphabet. Like, if I picked quilting as the subject I'd think A is for applique, B is for basting, C is for cutting, etc., etc., until you fall asleep. This gives your mind something to do besides fret, which it so often does in the middle of the night. Works for me! I usually conk out about half way through.

Time for some photos, don't you think?

We had a little dinner party to celebrate three May birthdays and Paula brought these lovely lilacs. I do love lilacs. Ben and Ray both have birthdays tomorrow and our good friend Lotus had hers last week, so we had a feast to celebrate. The menu featured oyster and caviar from Massachusetts and lobster rolls from Maine. (Yes, you can have these yummy things shipped to your house and when you compare it to the cost of paying a restaurant, it's within reason.) It was a really fun evening.

Seems like we've been doing a lot of great eating lately, both at home and out, so I was glad to see this morning when I got on the scale that I hadn't gained any weight. It probably helps that I'm able nowadays to eat and then stop. For example, we had Lays Classic potato chips with our lobster rolls, and they are so good that of course I had to have some. But then we sent them home with a friend who has a thin teenage boy in the house. We didn't keep them around to eat the next day. Same with the really delicious pound cake that Dawn made which we served with strawberries and whipped cream. Oh, it was good! But I had my piece at the dinner and we packed the leftovers off to that same thin teenage boy, so there's none left in the house to tempt us.

Since it's Ben's birthday tomorrow I have to brag on him. He got up at 1:00 am one day last week to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park with his friend Kent to do some higher altitude hiking in preparation for some mountaineering that Ben plans to do when we're in the Swiss alps the end of June. Here's a view Ben sent me showing the sunrise.

And here he is up near Long's Peak. Awesome! Both the scenery and Ben, don't you think?

You may wonder why they had to get such an early start (well, I sure wondered.) It's because they wanted the snow to be nice and cold when they hiked through it. When the sun comes up it gets slushy and not so good for hiking through.

I took my second Very Beginning Watercolor class on Saturday and found it quite frustrating. The teacher told us to paint a cherry but there wasn't any cherry to look and she gave us no other instructions. The cherries on the left were the ones I did in class. Besides not being able to "see" a cherry in my mind I haven't got the whole thing about mixing colors and using the water effectively, and the class didn't help me. But on Sunday I got on YouTube and got some online instruction, including a whole video on --guess what?-- painting cherries. (You gotta love the Internet!) So I was able to paint the cherries on the right. I'm starting to get some idea of the whole color mixing/layering thing.

What I have found is that I really like brushing paint on paper. That process is very soothing to me. So yesterday I set up a little basket with painting supplies and found a spot for it in my dining room so I can just sit down and put some paint on paper when I feel like it. Even if I never make anything decent looking, the paint supplies are way cheaper than therapy, so why not paint something?

Somewhere in my Internet searching I came across this great statement from The Frugal Crafter. She talked about her inner self critic (which she nicknames The Practical Party Pooper) and how it asks practical questions about fun projects, like "What are you going to do with that?" She wrote:

I don’t have to “do” anything with it. I can make it because I enjoy it. I can give it away. I could put it in my next craft fair booth. I can set it on a shelf and look at it. I can store it. I can use it or it can just be. Your art does not have to have another purpose other than to make you happy. Art is meant to be created. An artist creates. That’s what we do. What happens to the creations after we are done is not as important as the process we go through to create it. That in itself is enough. Nobody asks a musician “What are you going to do with that song after you play it?” They just play it! Musicians play, actors act, runners run and artists create! Enjoy the process.

Another thing that put me in a great mood this morning was seeing this article in the New York Times about how the commencement speaker at Morehouse University announced that he will pay the student loans of this year's graduates. Not only was his generosity inspiring, but his whole story was, and reading it was a welcome change from the rest of the morning's news.