Friday, February 08, 2013

Published 4:47 PM by with 2 comments

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Linking up with Soule Mama on this cloudy yet peaceful day.



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Published 7:53 AM by with 2 comments

Friday Finds


After being taken aback by the snarky, slightly condescending tone of the author who penned "Maybe You Are Ready for Kids, You're Just Not Paying Attention", I was relieved to see that she posted an apology. Because I do believe that just because a woman becomes a mother doesn't mean that she'll be "wiser or more ‘aware’ or more generous – if [they were], there wouldn’t be so many clueless moms swaggering around like they know everything, now would there?”

These lovely art kits created for children are making me drool! What a great idea!

"The Little House in the Big Woods" and the rest of the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are wonderful. Many of my childhood hours were spent pretending to be a "pioneer girl". The book series stated that Laura's older sister, Mary, went blind from complications due to scarlet fever. But now a new medical study is saying that they've found the real reason Mary went blind, and it's not what I thought it was. Quite fascinating.

Wisdom from a seven year old. Oh, what a different world we would inhabit if we had the same simple faith and strong confidence as adult woman as we do when we are young girls just starting out. 

I'm not the only person taking a break from Facebook in 2013. Do you agree that up to a third of Facebook users will give the social media site a rest

An orchestra that brings warring nations together in peace. "The fact we play the "Ode to Joy" and "All men should become brothers" is great. It's beautiful. It's a great idea. It's a great idea, but it will not bring peace. We are not politicians. We cannot do that. We are trying to achieve some kind of small utopia in our little community that can maybe give an example outside."
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Thursday, February 07, 2013

Published 8:56 AM by with 3 comments

The Stone Queen and the People with Two Hearts

Oh man. I have such crazy dreams.

Last night I dreamed that I and several other people I knew were transported into another universe. The inhabited world there was flat (kind of like Narnia) and had kingdoms centered around materials such as ice, stone, desert, forest, etc. (like the world from Naruto) and were each ruled by a queen. The kingdom I was dropped into was the realm of stone.

People there had two hearts. One heart controlled bodily functions by circulating their blue blood. The other heart controlled the flow of an almost invisible substance called "mether", which was the magic/soul/emotion of the person. Over the mether heart was a small patch of short tentacles that was almost always kept covered with a shield, to protect their life-source and allow them control over how they were affected by others magics. It would be uncovered to work magic, allow them to connect in a deeply emotional way to another person, or to connect with the magic around them. They could regenerate the physical heart, but not the mether heart.

Other than the heart differences, the people looked identical to humans. They followed their kingdom's queen like ants, almost blindly, because her magic linked to theirs and compelled them to do her bidding even if they disagreed with her.

The Stone Queen
The stone queen was hard-hearted and power-hungry. She was in the process of conquering the sand kingdom when I arrived. Her subjects were sorrowful that so many of them were dying in battles, but they had no choice.

I remember little scenes from the dream. The dream stretched out a long time, with an over-arching storyline. Here are a few bits:

~ I almost got close enough to assassinate the stone queen. She vanished at the last second. I was afraid that she knew about my plan, but it didn't seem like it. She wasn't used to "hearing" the thoughts of a one-hearted person, so I had an advantage over her subjects that way.

~ I was about to kidnap the stone queen's daughter, the princess, who was about ten years old, in order to use a hostage as leverage to stop the war. But the princess whispered to me that she was on my side, and already was part of a plan to "eliminate" her mother, possibly in battle, and then she as princess would become the next queen and begin to right the wrongs her family had committed. So I stopped. That girl was pretty awesome.

~ The stone queen sent out a group of spies to scope out the edges of the forest kingdom. I went with them, but was afraid that I would get found out if I was injured, because my blood was red instead of blue. The forest was CRAZY cool. I can't even begin to describe the complex beauty of the trees.

~ I met a male who had figured out a new magic that allowed him to have free will from the queen's controlling magic. He was trying to perfect the magic so that he could offer freedom to other people, who could join him in a rebellion against the queen. I introduced him to the princess. He swore fealty to her and vowed to help her win the throne so that she could bring peace.

~ The stone queen was getting so powerful that she caused an entire mountain to crumble and fall on one of the desert kingdom's main cities, completely destroying it and all the people there. I witnessed this while traveling on the spy mission. It was awful.

At the end of the dream, the stone queen had decided that she wanted to begin conquering the kingdom of ice, since that was in the middle of the world and would be a stepping stone to other kingdoms on the other side of the world. But the ocean was a dangerous place with its own alien inhabitants (another kingdom? I didn't get to see that part), so going in ships across the water wasn't an option. The stone queen decided to build a bridge to reach the ice kingdom.

With more magic than she'd ever used before, she summoned all the whales from the entire ocean. They flocked to the bright blue stream of magic the stone queen was beaming across the waters. All the whales were pulled into a line, head to tail, just above the surface of the water, making anguished sounds. The magic intensified, then pulled the whales rigid, and froze them into place like stone. The queen now had a bridge of stone whales stretching from her land across the sea to the ice kingdom. At this point, her magic was so powerful, it didn't seem like anything could stop her.

The last image I saw was the stone queen's young daughter watching her finish the magic. The princess had a determined look, but tears were trickling down her face as she watched the whales killed and turned into a stone bridge.

That was my dream. There are so many unanswered questions that I wanted to find out from the story, though! I can't believe that I woke up at this point. Arg. I haven't been reading any science fiction or fantasy lately, either. So I don't know where all this stuff came from. But it was pretty cool to experience ; )

P.S. If you haven't yet voted in my poll about creating an Etsy shop on the sidebar, please check it out! 



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Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Published 9:34 AM by with 2 comments

Is Etsy for Me?

For a long time, I've considered creating an Etsy shop online. The things holding me back are uncertainty that anyone will purchase my work, uncertainty as to what niche of my creations I should make available, and uncertainty that I will have time to keep up with demand (if there is any?). There are four categories of home-made crafts that I've considered selling on Etsy:

~ Art related to synesthesia. These would be personalized names, verses, quotes, or abstract art. Nothing huge, nothing mind-blowing, just small art pieces that can be put around the house to liven things up a bit. I'm a fan of Kandinsky's artwork which was inspired by his synesthetic responses to sound and color. I mostly draw or use water colors. No painting (I would if I owned paints) or collages yet, though I'd love to do that someday.





~ Knitted items for babies. Small things like baby booties, baby hats, dolls. I can also knit sweaters, but right now those take so much time and effort that the price I'd have to charge probably wouldn't be worth it for potential buyers. I used to be shocked with the prices a crafter would charge for home-made clothes, like socks or sweaters, but once I realized how much time it takes to knit those suckers, I totally agree! It's an arduous process, especially for a rather slow knitter like me.






~ Other knitted items. I can knit washcloths, scarves, cowls, hats, cup cozies, and small bags. And hand-warmers, if need be. They're not super fancy, but that touch of home-made is always nice.




~ Postcards, blank cards, and birthday cards. I really enjoy creating cards that are one-of-a-kind,  using watercolors, colored pencils, pens, photos, words, etc. I can make several similar versions of a card design, but none will look exactly alike.




All in all, everything I create is simple. It looks like it was made at home by someone who isn't an expert, just a girl who loves to create tiny bits of handmade love. I guess you can view that as good or bad. Each item has its own character, with unique design and detail, not looking like it was bought from a store where thousands of others just like it can be found. At least I thoroughly enjoy making all of it, even if I never end up selling anything!

In the side bar of my blog, I put a poll asking which of these items people would be most likely to purchase. Could you help me out and give your opinion? I'm still on the fence about opening up an Etsy shop, and getting some feedback would be awesome! Thank you in advance : )

Edit: Sorry for the typo in the poll! It won't let me change it. Oops.
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Monday, February 04, 2013

Published 7:57 AM by with 5 comments

Can Boys Dance Too?

Okay, here's my question of the week. Another one that's been mulling in my thoughts for a while. Let's say that your seven year old daughter says, "Mom, I want to take ballet lessons! May I?" Would you say yes? Now what if your seven year old son says, "Mom, I want to take ballet lessons! May I?" Or what if the question was about tap dancing? Or modern? Or Irish dancing?

Would you allow your child to take any kind of dance lessons they wanted? Would your answer change depending on whether it was your son or daughter asking to dance?

Last week we had some lovely people share their thoughts regarding the way children address adults. How about we get some more comments here?

Always Be Willing to Rethink 
This post is part of the "Questions for You!" series.
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Saturday, February 02, 2013

Published 5:30 PM by with 0 comment

Hooray, you can now...

... sign up to receive my blog posts through email!

Here's the deal: the two things that mix me up the most are numbers and technology. I'm not good with them. So when I figured out how to do separate pages here on my blog, it was pretty much just the result of a happy accident. Then I discovered more ways to organize the layout. INNOVATION.

So now you can actually subscribe to my blog! As far as I can see, there might be two different ways to subscribe at the top of the page, but I'm not sure of the details.

Anyway... if you'd like to read what I write, would you consider signing up? It would make my day : ) I know a lot of people read blogs and hide in the corners without commenting, so for all you invisible readers, maybe it's time to come out into the open...?

This is what's been going on lately. Look out, world. We're all learning new things.


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Friday, February 01, 2013

Published 1:21 PM by with 0 comment

Friday Finds

Being off Facebook has given me much more time away from the computer, but I still read a handful of blogs, browse the news, and occasionally watch a video or two. Besides keeping up with emails and business stuff, of course. This week I found a couple gems in the online world. Take a look!

Here's a very interesting article called "Why You Never Truly Leave Highschool". It's lengthy, but worth a perusal. As someone who never went to high school, I was intrigued with some of the assertions the author made. Do I agree with him? Do YOU agree with him? Hmmm...

Are you an auditory, kinesthetic, or auditory learner? Take this test and see if it's accurate!

Guys would have a lot more respect and understanding for women giving birth if they went through childbirth pains themselves, like these two dudes. Kudos to the one who stuck with it until the end! That takes some guts!

Before you judge someone, ANYONE, think about this: you just never know what they might be feeling or going through right now. Taking these beautiful, convicting words to heart. Worth reading many times.

I'm playing her music constantly this week. Besides having an awesome name, she creates music that lets me simply be and breathe, like this piece.
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