WORKING ONE'S WAY OUT OF A SLUMP

I don't know about you, but my journey through this Covid-19 experience has been full of hills and valleys. You can always tell I'm in a slump, feeling like maybe mankind isn't worth saving, if I haven't posted anything here at Seasonality in a while. Fortunately, I'm optimistic by nature, and always manage to crawl out of that valley before too long. Here are some of the things that helped me this time:

1) Sending And Receiving Snail Mail

This is the last card I sent to my pen pal Calvin. Last time my best buddy Paula was here, she brought a whole sackful of Transformers that had belonged to her grandson. Instead of giving them to him all at once, I decided to do two at a time. He got a firetruck and a police car on his last visit, and that's all he's talked about ever since! I set out Optimus Prime and Bumblebee for the next visit, but then along came Covid-19. Although drawing stuff like this is most certainly NOT my forte, I was told this post card made one little boy extremely happy. Bumblebee is in the works.

2) A Great Jigsaw Puzzle

My Hubby is not really a puzzle, cards or board game person, but when I saw an article on line, suggesting great audio book/jigsaw combinations, and one of the books was a Sci-Fi selection, I had to give it a try. Turns out, neither one of us is good at multitasking, and it was either do the puzzle, or listen to the book, so we opted for the puzzle -- and had a blast! We will save the audio book for our next car trip. The only problem with the puzzle was it completely absorbed us for two days, then left us feeling totally bereft. We already had several others on order, but they are taking way too long to get here. If quarantine is over when they arrive, they might never make it out of their boxes.

3) Starting A New Art Journal

Some of my favorite things I've ever painted were a couple of little girls. Unfortunately, they both ended up in other people's journals, when I participated in a "Circle Journal" project where our journals moved from one person to the next around the country, with each person adding something to them, until they finally maid it back home to us. Luckily, I at least thought to snap a photo of them before I sent them off.

Coming across them when doing a purge on my stash-basket reminded me of how much I enjoyed painting them. I also found magazine pages I had torn out and saved, showing the work of some favorite inner-child-artists.

Next thing I knew, I had a new art journal in the works!

4) The Everchanging Menu Of Wildflowers Popping Up In My Yard

So, what keeps you going these days?

WEEK SIX OF JUST WE TWO

Spotted From Our Balcony Porch Just The Other Day

Well, I can't believe it. We're into our sixth week of sheltering here at home together, and we haven't even been tempted to strangle one another yet! In fact, I think we've actually grown closer, despite the fact that he made me get a new computer in the middle of all this. However, I just now noticed that several photos have disappeared from previous posts, for no reason at all, so the jury's still out on that. 

We had a serious scare last week, when I got a message from my best friend saying her hubby woke up convinced he had a fever, even though their two very old thermometers both said he did not. Still, he couldn't risk passing anything to her, since she has a heart condition, so he had isolated himself in the bedroom, and she was leaving food at the door. She mentioned, however, that he had a lot of congestion, and had been doing a lot of work in the yard. Sure enough, it turned out to be really bad allergies, but it got us all to thinkin' -- about what it would be like to lose someone now, not even being able to be there with them as they pass, or to grieve with other loved ones surrounding you, and to have to continue on alone. It gives you a different perspective, doesn't it? Yes, Easter was a bit of a downer, not getting to be with my grandbabies, and with nary a Cadbury egg in site, but we have soooo much else to be grateful for!

For instance, I think one reason we seem to be so content in this unusual situation could be that a lot of outside stressors are removed when everyone is on lockdown, and you have a legitimate excuse not to do all those things you don't actually want to do. Then there's the fact that you become more and more aware of what is really important, and what just isn't, the longer your confinement lasts. I know I have! To still really like the person you've been with for more than 45 years, in such a "That's it, I'm outta here!" era? To have kids and grandkids who are all healthy and happy and actually missing us? That we are all fortunate enough to be doing ok financially, and won't be left destitute, as so many others will, losing not only their loved ones but also their jobs, businesses and health insurance? Yes, I'd say we are very, very fortunate. And, I think I am most grateful for the fact that all my friends and loved ones took this thing seriously, right from the very beginning, so hopefully none of them will get sick either.

Oh yeah, and one other thing I'm grateful for? Online art classes, and art supply stores! I have artist Lucy Brydon to thank for her little mini class on mushrooms, and can't wait to see what she has to offer next month!

THE MAGIC SLEEPOVER SOLUTION

As soon as we got back from our little Thanksgiving trip, we invited grandson Calvin over for a sleepover, hinting at a special "Christmas Adventure" we had planned for him. We picked him up in Austin, stopped for lunch at "the orange stripey place", aka Whataburger, then took him straight to one of his favorite playgrounds at a church near or home. He got about a five-minute nap going from there to our house, then spent the rest of the afternoon running from room to room, pulling out and playing with every single toy he could find. Then it was time for dinner and our surprise adventure -- his first trip to the Wimberley Trail of Lights at the Emily Ann Theater!

Turns out, that kid just looooooves face holes! He insisted that both he and I stick our faces in every one we passed, so Papa could take photos. Who knew there could be so many?

The biggest surprise was when this kid -- the one who wanted nothing to do with the mall Santa, both last year and this -- hollered for me to stop so he could go talk to Santa!

And, it wasn't even as if Goobs had a long list of "wants" to give him. When he was asked what he wanted Santa to bring him, he just smiled sweetly and said "A toy." Santa, a bit taken aback, asked "That's it?", then chuckled and replied "Well, yeah, I think I can handle that!"

As for the title of this post, we discovered something amazing this year. You see, ever since Goobs got too big for a baby bed, keeping him in any sort of bed at our house has been difficult.  We tried sleeping three in a king bed together, which was a bit of a disaster, since that kid changes positions at least 50 times per night. Then I offered to go sleep with him in the guest room downstairs, which worked pretty well, except for the fact that he wanted me to go to sleep when he did, at 7:30 or 8, and kept sneaking out of bed every five minutes, to tell me it was time for me to come to bed!

So, this time, I had a brainstorm. Between the time running around at the park, the time running around at our house as he pulled out every toy, and the time running around at the Trail of Lights, I knew he would be one pooped pitootie by the time we got home. I managed to keep him awake in the car, then, while I got him ready for bed, Papa opened up the sofa bed in the living room and cued up the new version of The Grinch on the TV. We all snuggled under a cozy blanket together in the sofa bed, and five minutes into the movie that boy was sawing logs. Seriously! And, he stayed there for ten hours straight, while Papa and I managed to tiptoe back to our bedroom, and both got a good night's sleep in our own bed for once. It's a miracle!

Now all I have to do is figure out other ways to absolutely wear him to a frazzle, once the Trail of Lights shuts down for the season.

WARP SPEED AHEAD

Time goes so slowly here in Texas during the hot months. You start to think they will never end. But then you get your first cold weather, sometime in late October, and suddenly it's warp speed ahead! When I started having doctor appointments and stuff I needed to keep track of spilling into the new year, I realized it was time to high-tail it to Target to get a new agenda for 2020. On our way there we stopped at Costco to pick up a few things, and that's where I spotted this.

I gave it a quick flip through. saw that there was actually room in there to do some sketching and journaling alongside the calendar stuff, and thought "Hey! Maybe this will help me get back into those daily sunrise habits that led me to blogging in the first place -- the ones that have kind of fizzled away over the years. Plus, it will save me a trip to Target!" So I bought it.

It wasn't until I got it home, and gave it a closer look, that I realized it was actually a "mindfulness" journal, all about learning to be present in the moment, instead of constantly focusing on what's ahead -- something else I used to be much better at.

In order to help us along the path of learning to stay present in the moment, they have a rotating set of tools, such as coloring exercises...

breathing exercises...

 art exercises...

 journaling exercises...

and more!

It got me to thinkin', maybe this little journal and I were meant to find each other.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: CRAFTSMANSHIP, PROGRESSING OR REGRESSING?

Coming across the seeds of this post, in one of my old journals, got me to thinkin' -- about all the changes, modernization and growth that has occurred in our little town since we moved here more than ten years ago, all the small businesses that have folded, and our obsession with online shopping and cheap goods in general. Sometimes we feel like the town we loved is disappearing right before our eyes, but that could just be a sign of old age creeping up on us. Don't all old people say that? Still, one has to wonder...

FLASHBACK 

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Right around this time last year, one of the most exciting things ever happened to me. I opened my newly arrived issue of Art Journaling magazine and found a 5-page article about my Sudan/Barcelona travel journal right there in it. It wasn't exactly a surprise, however. I had mailed the journal to them for consideration months in advance, then had a very long wait before they told me it had been accepted. That was followed by weeks of answering their questions, and writing an article to go with the images and getting that approved. Then there was the shock of finding out that, unlike the first time, when I just had one image printed on a half page at the very back of the magazine,  I was actually going to get paid for this article! By the time the issue with my article came out, well, it was almost anticlimactic.

Months later, the fall issue showed up in my mailbox. I was doing my usual quick flip-through, sitting on the sofa next to my hubby, when I startled and gasped. "Was that what I think it was?" Yep, there it was, big as life -- a blown up segment of one of my journal pages, in the "Written Word" section, no less. Now that was a shock!

This image is not one of mine - just wanted you to see the description above it.

Well, guess what happened again this week, when the new winter issue came out? Yep, you guessed it. And, again, it was about the lettering.

Why am I so flabbergasted? Well, because my lettering is the thing I've always been most self-conscious about -- especially now that everyone is so big into lettering and calligraphy. The only bad grades I ever got in elementary school were in handwriting. I just can't keep anything in a straight line, and when I took that lettering class at art camp this year? Well, I enjoyed making the pen, but using it? Not so much. I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not a a slow-and-precise kinda gal. I'm more of a quick-and-messy one. And ya know what? I'm learning to be okay with that!

As my daddy was fond of saying, "Just shows tuh go ya!" We are our own worst critics, are we not?

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Bounty From The Bountiful Sprout, A Local Food Co-Op I Helped Launch After Reading This Book

Many moons ago I read an amazing book that answered so many questions about what we eat and why, so I decided to share it as part of my "Year of Reading Dangerously" give-away back in '09.

 WHERE DID WE GO WRONG?

ADDED INCENTIVE

AND THE WINNER IS...

Happy Reading, and EATING!