I Have A Dream

It is the 50th Anniversary of

 The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

August 28, 1963

There was more than one noteworthy speech. 

John Lewis, 

representing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had prepared a fiery speech.  It was passionate, demanding, impatient as young people always are in the face of injustice.  It was toned down at the request of Dr. King, but you can hear it read as it was originally written.

Martin Luther King, Jr was introduced as the moral leader of our country.  

He then gave a speech which changed lives.  It is beautiful, passionate, powerful, and hopeful.  It looks to the future.  It is also honest in stating the injustices that must be addressed.  Some of his dreams have become reality, some have not.  And it is our responsibility as citizens of this rather amazing country to listen to his dreams, make them our own and keep working to bring freedom to every citizen.

Facts you might not know

The Speech

Pretty Pillowcases

 Pair of Cotton Pillowcases

White machine embroidery & eyelet

White lace trim

 Center Medallion

 Side Medallion

 Pair of Cotton Pillowcases

Pale Blue machine embroidery

Scallop border

 Center Design

Side Design

The pillowcases are both white.  The bottom case looks a bit blue in the photograph, but that's just the way it photographed.

poeme

I'm afraid most of my posts for the past year have all been in my head!

Composed in the shower . . .

Driving in the car . . .

Wandering around my studio . . .

I think of brilliant things to write, 

Telling what is happening with me.

Or witty observations on life.

They just haven't made it out of my head.

Trusted Friends have been very encouraging, loving the stories & photos! 

Comments from visitors here inspire me.

I want to connect to the world out there.

I wish to share my active inner life,

Make ART,

Encourage creativity,

Teach.

All the support in the world can't move me,

Until I follow Nike's brilliant admonition:

Just do it!

It's all well and good to have imagination,

To dream of living in another country,

To plan grand art pieces.

Its even better to put myself out there.

To post when I have no artwork to show . . .

No travel details to share . . .

No clever stories of family or garden.

So today I just write!

Pink Saturday in My Garden

Honestly, my garden is mostly shades of lavender, yellow and green . . .
but I found a few pink blossoms to share.

 This beautiful rose starts off pink, then fades to cream with just a hint of pink at the end of its petals.

Rescued by my son from the compost pile at the garden center where he worked,

it reminds me that given enough love, water and sunshine we all can bloom!

 These lavender buds will turn pink in a few weeks.

 My son's secret corner of the cottage garden beds.

Ice Plant and Franklin.

 Pinchusion

The bees happily forage these blooms.

Bee Balm

The low growing variety has just started to push blooms.

No garden of mine or my son's would be complete without succulents.

The Hen and Chicks were moved at the end of last summer

and have been happily growing and throwing off lots of "chicks."

I didn't know they bloomed, and pink no less.  Cool!

Enjoy your weekend and visit Bev's blog How Sweet The Sound to catch up with the pink doings of a few of her friends!

Old Friends

 photo courtesy of simonandgarfunkel.com

To listen to "Old Friends," click here

70 still seems terribly strange, but I'm closer than I was when the album came out.  And today, just like at the tender age of 17, I know how wonderful it is to have old friends. I have a group of friends, women I have known 10, 20, 30, 40 + years who sustain me and support me.  They have become part of my family.  Some of them even remember my grandma & nana, two very different women who both encouraged my creativity and love of beautiful things and used to tell me I could do anything I wanted to do, be anyone I wanted to be.

My daughter's best friend does not like making new friends.  I, on the other hand, LOVE making new friends.  I made some new friends this very afternoon.  I went over to my favorite sandwich shop for lunch.  Close to where I parked my car there was an El Monte-brand RV, with California plates.  How could I not go over and say hi?  Turns out they had rented the RV in New Jersey and are themselves from the London, England suburbs.  They were actually delighted to make my acquaintance.  We ended up having lunch together, talking about their kids, my kids, music, how much they love Cape Cod, how delightful France is and a bit about our travels.  We exchanged email addresses.  We hugged good-bye and they drove off to visit P-town for the day.

I drove home and decided to tackle the stuff I am having so much trouble with lately -- I've been struggling with almost everything relating to my creativity.  What to do with the barn:  shop or studio or some combination?  What to do with my blog -- who am I writing it for?  How to get past this odd artists' block I have, where I have tons of ideas but can't get the ideas out of my head and into a piece of art.  I'm tackling the blog first -- writing it for this wonderful group of women, my old friends.  I know who they are, I can visualize their responses, and I have years of experience writing to each of them individually.  The best part of that decision is I don't feel the need to explain every little thing.  That was always the part of my blog that sounded so ponderous to me!  To my old friends, I love you dearly.  To my new friends, I'm delighted you've visited.  I hope you will join me regularly on this ride. 

Here is not the stopping point . . .

 
. . . and that is what I realized a couple days ago.  I woke early with a real sense of dread -- like someone needed my help.  So I do what I always do in those circumstances -- I checked to make sure my son was breathing (he was home visiting), I called my daughter and tried not to sound frantic and asked her to call me back, and I began to pray.  Maybe prayer should have been first!  I also called a friend to pray with me.  It came to me to examine the term "stop" from a more spiritual basis.

Over the years things have happened and I have been stopped.  I will be going along and something happens, or a friend says something/tries to define me in ways I don't agree with, I won't correct them and wham!  It's like what runners describe as hitting the wall.  It's debilitating.  I've been feeling stopped lately.  A friend did recently define me in ways I didn't agree with.  A blog friend has stopped talking with me (and the awful thing is I don't know why, which really condemns me as a terrible person.  I mean, how can you tick someone off so much and not know what you did?).  A couple months ago neighbors let me know in no uncertain terms that I am the most selfish person they have ever known.  I know this last one isn't really true, but they did hammer on for more than 30 minutes and even called me back to share more of my faults with me.  And I thought we were friends. *sigh*   Humanly, this hasn't been a very good Spring!

 In the garden it's been a great Spring!

So when the call to prayer came, the topic of stopping seemed a good one to explore.  I found these ideas useful:  

Goodness and philanthropy begin with work and never stop working.

Our thoughts beget our actions; they make us what we are.

A deep sincerity is sure of success, for God takes care of it. 

I finished up the day feeling at peace.  I still don't know who needed my help that day.   I always think if I haven't had some big AH HA realization then nothing has happened/changed.  But I look around my life and notice the things I am doing again:  the worktables in my studio are now clear (and I know Sudsy Muffin did not come in while I was asleep); I'm gathering things to sell next weekend at the flea market; I water the kitchen garden my son planted for me, it hasn't died; I went to the movies; I wrote this post!

This is not my original work, I copied this from another blog, but I can't remember where or when.

No copyright infringement is intended.  Thanks for the fish!

 

One Little Word -- Blog Hop February

OVER-ABUNDANCE

I didn't do the prompt for this month.  I meant to, even as late as Feb 28th I thought, sure, I can do this.  And I haven't.  Still I signed up for the blog hop and I'm not going to bail on that.  So as I was driving around yesterday, assiduously avoiding being at home where I might work on the assignment, without my camera where I might take suitable photos, I thought.  What was so tough about this assignment?  What was the assignment?  What was so difficult about dealing with abundance this month?

"This month is all about cultivating an awareness of the ways in which our words exist in the world around us." 

Had I done this?  Not consciously.  However, this whole month I have been distinctly aware of how much stuff exists in the world around me.  And that has made me aware of the excesses of my word.  Over-Abundance -- too much to the point of overwhelm!

 At the beginning of the month a friend and I went to a large wholesale gift show.

Aisles and Rows of stuff to buy for one's shop.  Handmade jewelry, fancy china, stationery, books, linens galore.

Beautiful things.  Things from all over the world.  And every choice a company offers! 

After three days I thought my head would explode.

I returned home to an exciting prospect and a new direction for my shop. *I'll tell you about it when things are finalized.*  But it means the shop needs to be open, and also spacious inside.  And for the shop to be open a person needs to be able to walk in the front door.  And for a person to walk in the front door, etc, a lot of s-t-u-f-f needs to cleared off the floor and out of the shop.  I was confronted once again by an over-abundance of things.  

 I've been clearing out and doing displays simultaneously.

Here are 2 shelves ready for shop opening.

Pull back and you see chairs to be painted, ribbon to be priced and display pieces to be properly placed.

 Pull back further and you see what my month has been like.  And this is so much better; you can now see the carpet!  This is the over-abundance of things I have been dealing with.  I hesitated to show this full size. . . whew that's a lot of ****  Not the sort of photo I want permanently in my pretty OLW notebook!   So, I'll get to this month's assignment eventually.  Knowing what's going on with me always helps with stops & blocks.  I'm actually looking forward to taking photos that express abundance in a way that supports me.   It was not a very pleasant thought that my head might explode!

 

 

This blog hop goes live at 8 am pst, so check back after that if you're here earlier.

And now on to the next stop in the blog hop:

Margie            http://xnomads.typepad.com
Melissa S         http://blog.mshanhun.com
Sharyn            http://LaVieEnChic.com
Kimberlee         http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.com
Jill              http://jillconyers.com/
Cheri             http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com
Cindy             www.cynthiacrysdale.com
Jenn              www.studiojenn.blogspot.com
Monica            http://scrapinspired.com/
Catherine         http://myview-catherine.blogspot.com/
Naomi             http://poeticaperture.com/
Jamie              jmpgirl.blogspot.com
Coley              www.coleybelle.blogspot.com
Melissa C          www.smudgetime.com
Donna              http://holimess.blogspot.com/
Monica B           http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/
Veronica           www.veronicanorris.typepad.com
Heidi D            http://mommy.heidimdavis.com/
Lisa               http://backtoallen.com/category/one-little-word/
Nikki              www.inkyart.com.au
Devon              http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com
Amanda             http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com
Brooklyn           www.everysnapshot.com
Kristina           http://hrinspirationfromthe403.blogspot.com/
Jen R              http://jenritchie.com
Kara               http://iwannabemewhenigrowup.blogspot.com
Eydie              www.whatwecreate.net  
Ruth               http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com
Missus W           http://www.mrswookieswanderings.blogspot.com/
Marilee            http://rose-brier.blogspot.com      <===== you are here.  Next is Cindy.
Cindy              http://seriousplay.typepad.com
Kaylea             http://www.myscrappylife.com
Dawn G             www.sunshineandcreativity.com
Rebekah            http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/
Becky              www.becky-handforth.blogspot.com
Orange Gearle      orangegearle.blogspot.com
Katrina            www.katrinasimeck.com
Jo                 http://www.mrsbeee.blogspot.com     
Nicky              Www.seejanebake.blogspot.com
Beth               www.thesingularlyordinary.blogspot.com
Kelly              http://mindingmynest.com
Tere               http://terecontodomicorazon.blogspot.com/