Twenty-Five Questions To Annoy Your Friends

Look what I got this morning. Of course, isn't it much easier to share w all your friends it you post it to your blog and exhort others to follow suit? :-)



You've been tagged, you have the honor of copying all these goofy questions, writing your own response, and tagging 25 other victims. Or not. Probably nothing bad will happen to you if you don't - but do you feel lucky?


Always an Editor - this has MORE than 25 Questions (kv)


1. What time did you get up this morning?
8am

2. How do you like your steak?.
tender and almost rare

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

4. What is your favorite TV show?
The Mentalist

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
out in the wilds of Wales--or in the outback of Australia

far from people-but w an internet connection :-)

6. What did you have for breakfast?
breakfast? does that handful of stale popcorn from yesterday count?

7. What is your favourite cuisine?
one shared w good company

8. What foods do you dislike?
heavy overly-greasy foods

9. Favorite Place to Eat?
anywhere my kids are having fun and actually eating

10. Favorite dressing?
raspberry vinagrette

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive?
I don't drive :-)

not since the accident in Nov


12. What are your favorite clothes?
jeans & tank top

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
Montmartre and Les Inncocents


14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
usually 1/2 full

15. Where would you want to retire?
as far from humans as possible--give me mountains and forests please

16. Favorite time of day?
late night to early morning

say from about 12M to 3a

17. Where were you born?
Camp LeJeune, NC

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
hockey, in person

gymnastics on tv

19. Who do you think will not tag you back?
lol

no clue--depends on how busy everyone is

20. Person you expect to tag you back first?
What? I've got a tag on me? What's it say?

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
I love em all

22. Bird watcher?
every day

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?
night, hands down

24. Do you have any pets?
do kids count?

ok fine--dog, bird, fish, one each

but technically none of them are mine-except when the girl gets ticked at the dog

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share?
I can't believe I waited so long to work for myself-or that I am doing so well from the get go!

26. What did you want to be when you were little?
cowgirl or an animal doctor

27. What is your best childhood memory?
not ever missing an episode of the Monkees :-)

28. Are you a cat or dog person?
dog

29. Are you married?
nope, not any more

30. Always wear your seat belt?
Yes

31. Been in a car accident?
Yes, more than 1

32. Any pet peeves?
people who cannot face their own issues and who prefer to blame their lives and issues on everyone around them rather than doing their own work to improve themselves

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings?
cheese, and Canadian bacon

34. Favorite Flower?
blue roses


35. Favorite ice cream?
French vanilla

36. Favorite fast food restaurant?
dairy queen

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
technically once, because I drove too far in the middle of the road so I wouldn't hit a freakin' UPS truck--the guy failed me for crossing the yellow line on a residential street when no one was coming in either direction-but he still gave me a permit!

38. From whom did you get your last email?
Kerry, trying to enable both my daughter and me w various treats and tidbits

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
hmm-

in what context?

art supplies? clothing? stuff for the kids?

it's a hard decision

40. Do anything spontaneous lately?
does getting upset and tossing a load of laundry in to wash count as spontaneous?

41. Like your job?
I do now that I work for myself!

42. Broccoli?
yep, now and then

43. What was your favorite vacation?
what's a vacation?

last one I recall having was my 1st anniversary which technically was my honeymoon as well.......

44 Last person you went out to dinner with?
the boyfriend

45. What are you listening to right now?
Evanescence, for the moment

46. What is your favorite color?
Shades of blue

47. How many tattoos do you have?
'only' 19

have 2 more in the planning stages though

48. How many are you tagging for this quiz?
dunno yet

49. What time did you finish this quiz?
916a

50. Anything else you'd like to know?
hmmm....lots of things....but right now the one thing I want to know is why some people write false books about terrible things that really happened as if they were true, but when it comes out the book is fake that takes away from the reality of the bad things?

I read 'Fragments' by Binjamin Wilkomirski the other night-found it in a thrift store-it made me sick w the depravity of the Nazis-but at least hopeful that this child, like many others, made it through to learn how to live outside the camps--then I found out the whole thing is fake. Now this book detracts from the reality of the death camps, which all too many people already scoff at and say they never existed--which is almost as bad as the crimes committed in those death camps.....

A Question Rather Than A Wish

Darling Melba asks:
How does money make you feel?

How funny, since I now work for no one but myself now, how both very important and very un-important money has become to me.

My basic attitude is as long as my bills are paid ad there's a little something left over, then terrific.

While I was with the network, I knew there was going to be no way I was going to be able to pay for classes of any sort for E. (dance, gymnastics, anything at this point...)
but now that I am on my own...I know the potential is there, once I start ramping up the marketing and getting myself out there, I don't see where it should be a problem.

I don't need to be filthy rich; I just need enough money to pay the bills and do the things I want to do. I have spent so much of my life fighting to have things, and then spent so much time throwing things away, giving things away, selling things that I bought and didn't use, that my main focus these days is not buying things (per se--coloured pencils and various types of drawing paper notwithstanding at the moment :-) ) but more about doing things, going places, experiencing things. I want to go to CO. I don't ski. Have no interest in skiing. But my significant other skis. And my daughter would LOVE to learn how to ski. I want to go play in the snow. Take pictures. Be out in the world and in nature. Away from my normal threads.
I want to travel to Wales, and Scotland, and Ireland. I want to visit the Loire valley. Germany. Belgium. The Netherlands. I want to go on walk-about through Australia. Tour New Zealand. Play on beaches in the moonlight. Touch the tops of mountains with reverent fingertips.

I have learned in my very strange life that the Universe wants to help. The more I hold on to things with a tight fist, the fewer things come to me. The more I relax and have faith, the more things come in. It may sound utterly stupid, because there are days I look at myself and I wonder at the things I do and believe, but it doesn't fail me. I may not like the way the Universe offers help every time, but I can appreciate the effort, for lack of a better phrase. The whole 'Let go and Let god' thing has always resonated with me, even when I am not able to let go enough to let anyone do anything.

A client of mine once told me a story about this guy he knows. The man lost $100,000 on some card game. Yes, one hundred thousand dollars. As soon as he reached that point, the man stopped gambling. Then he immediately called and donated $100,000 to a local children's hospital. His reasoning was that he screwed up with the gambling and in order to change his luck he had to willingly give up the same amount he'd lost in order to show the Universe that he broke even and was ready for a new fresh clean slate. To break his losing streak.
As in he was bad to have lost this much on a card game (it was a series of games, not just one), so he was going to be good and give that same amount away. To achieve a balance.
So, I cannot even dare to come close to that, but I have noticed that when I am need, if I reach out to someone else, I end up benefitting as well. But if I go into something THINKING I am going to get something, it doesn't...so I don't do that, believe it or not.
An example of this is I really didn't have the money to spend, but I had a little left before I got paid. Bills and food were covered. Had a friend going through some things. I knew I didn't have enough money to offer her to help her--when your whole life is in turmoil and you need to move out of one house and into ...some place else... the offer of $20-30 doesn't go too far--but she has an etsy shop that I adore--so I bought a piece of her art that I had longed for and coveted from the moment I saw it. The money helped her. The art helped me. And it healed me, to do something nice for someone, without having to say I'm buying this because I know you need the money. If she hadn't been in need, I would have kept talking myself out of buying that piece.
I've done that several times throughout my life.

Funny how we are talking about money right now. I can bead. I can make jewelry. I am not the best at it. I made one strand of prayer beads for myself and then...pretty much...haven't really done much more other than extend bracelets I bought from other people.
With the miscarriage, for some weird reason, it triggered this odd thing in me. I have to mark certain things by getting certain things. I cannot wear my tulsi malas anymore, much to my utter dejection some days. I used to wear them every day. Putting them on in the morning was a special ritual for me. I am not permitted to wear anything other than tulsi, for every day or otherwise, for some reason. If I do, it immediately breaks, no matter what it is. I have malas. I can't wear them. I have a bone mala. I love it. Can't wear it. Can use it. Can't wear it.

So....
I collect rosaries. I am so anti-Catholicism, but am very very pro-the spiritual message of the Church. My issue is not with the religion itself--it's with the way it is run. Which is my main beef with, well, most organized religions. I collect the symbols of deep faith, in order to bolster my own. Because the symbols have deep meaning for and to me.
After my first pregnancy, I turned to the Church, began making plans to take catechism classes and everything. The ex frowned upon that. He was never a big "god" person. He said I 'could', but made it sound as if it were a terrible horrible thing at the same time as he said it was a good idea for me to have something to keep me busy til I got over things.
I trust in the emotional content of the religion. I was born Catholic, even though I was not raised Catholic. Well, there's alot of stuff in there I am not touching here and now. I have an affinity for the Madonna and Child, and many of the Saints. I'll leave it at that.

I bought a rosary last night. And some wrist malas. Etsy is such an incredible thing. A terrible habit. An ever-demanding addiction. And a wonderful thing, when I do it right. I am always wary now of buying jewelry on etsy. Not every piece, not every seller, but there have been some pieces that arrived and I with my poor little bit of knowledge and skill had to augment things so that I could wear them, after they broke. Mostly just poorly set ends/clasps. Truthfully, it's not just the jewelry, but why go there? I have faith. :-)
I spent most of yesterday during the day, when I had the chance, as I was busy writing and doing other actually productive things, searching etsy for a rosary. Specifically for a rosary. I tried checking out prayer beads, but I am drawn to the rosaries. Second day in a row I did this? Maybe. I found one in the afternoon. I didn't buy it til after midnight last night. I wasn't going to buy it til after the 1st, after my check is deposited, to make sure this really is the one for me. If it is meant to be for me, it would have been there when I went back on the 1st. I needed to order it last night. I need it now. WHile my heart is still broken open and bleeding.

I will post pictures, etc later on.

My personal colours are blues and purples, with greens thrown in on top. I am mostly a pale blue person though. Despite the fact I wear so much orange.
This rosary spoke to me. It's made of alexandrite. Now, my research says alexandrite is rare and hard to find and usualy turns from shades of red to green. This one turns from blue to purple. It was meant for me. Celtic cross. Blues and purples. And the woman (? it feels like a woman) who makes them exudes a very calm peaceful loving energy. At least that's what I get from her store and her other works. She makes these rosaries and malas and other things because she loves them. It's obvious.

There is a point to this story-I swear.

I bought the rosary. Paying someone for something beautiful to comfort me in my time of sorrow. Helps her by buying from her. Helps me by releasing my pain and misery into the ether and letting it be. If I didn't buy the rosary, what would I do with my pain? I am transmuting it into something else.
This is money for me.
I needed the comfort the rosary offers. The prayer malas are more for the peace of mind and continued contact with the Divine, drawing more divinity into my life, no matter under what name.
I gave money in exchange for spiritual succor. Knowing the money helps her. Spending the money helps me. And knowing that more money will flow in to me, so I can send it back out again when the time is right.

Money to me is a cycle. An energy taken, used, transformed and passed on. It goes out. It comes in. Sometimes it comes in fast. Sometimes it comes in slow. But it comes. I do not stop. I do not give up. I have faith.

Yes, all that babble to reach that point.
Thank you, Melba, for helping me, not just talk about money, but about why I bought a rosary. It helped me on my healing process as well. I am grateful for that.

Hybrid J Has Great Questions

What about you, fellow creatives? Do you choose to become a writer, a painter? What makes you choose to write or paint or … ?

Here's what I posted in her comments:
OMG-the choices the choices....it kills me some days.
Do I get up way too early to write and reach my daily goal? Or do I sleep in?
Do I write - or do I draw?
Do I knit? Do I work on spirit dolls? Do I work on my courses? Or do I cook and feed my kids?
Too many choices-and don't even get me going on do I check email? I feel so guilty-there are all these wonderful blogs to check out and comment on.....there's never enough time for that for me.....
As much as I hate to admit it, every thing I do is a conscious choice.
I choose to write. I choose to draw. I even choose to feed my kids now and then (I'm teaching my oldest to cook so she doesn't die of starvation.)
I do not always make the best choices-and I work VERY hard at releasing the guilt of that...but I carry on...every day...


Here's the rest of what I want to say:
First of all, I do want to assure everyone my children do NOT starve. I run a house like my mother's--even the mice in the walls (not that we have any) are well-fed and overweight.

Choices.
it's a concept I have tried to teach the ex in the past in relation to the children...it never clicks in his head.
You dedicate time to the things you find most important to you. And "time" means time actually spent with that project.

Sometimes my 'time' with something calls for me to be unable to sleep for 2-3 days at a stretch while I work my butt off on a particular thing...and then I do nothing for a week afterwards because I am too exhausted.

With my pay the bills job--which I am already transitioning into a new era there--it leaves me exhausted, miserable and unable to do my own thing. PLus, I do it for twelve hours a day. I do not talk to someone the entire twelve hours, most days, but I sometimes feel as if I have spent far too much time simply wasting my time and allowing my life to be sucked away.
Hence the whole--time to move along shifting in process right now.

And I heartily thank every single person who wishes along with Jamie Ridler's wishcasting Wednesday...because I swear it is the combined strength of our wishing together that is helping me break off and make this shfit.

The job wears me out, sucks away my creativity, and often times my will to live. Sometimes all I want to do is wander along online, scoping out all the amazing blogs and the beautiful scenery the internet can provide, for hours on end, days if the mood strikes me correctly.

Bad moods. I become apathetic. I don't like myself very much.

I run into the guilt of not writing, not drawing, not keeping up with the coursework I have set for myself.
I always feel guilty because there are so many terrific blogs I read, almost daily, and never get to read enough of or comment on...and there are those weeks that fly by and I haven't done a darn thing for anyone else.

I will be honest: the comments I get on my blogs make me feel---human---alive--as if I am meaningful--as if I am not completely creating in a vacuum--as if I might actually have some useful and expressive talent. Talent, capital T.

It makes me feel alot better about myself to spread the love too.

When I can't do that as often or as much as I would like, I start to feel guilty.

I hate that.

I have to decide, do I honor my own work/art and comment on other people's work/blogs as I am able....do I give up entirely on the commenting on others blogs (which would seem so wrong to me, really).
My favorite decision of late has been--do I load/unload the dishwasher and hand-wash the things that won't go in (or don't go in) or do I write or draw or collage or...well...anything but dishes normally wins out hands down. :-) Even folding the laundry. I can wash and dry laundry like nobody's business. When all my stuff is hung up, it's so simple. I don't have the space or ability for that anymore. So, into drawers things go. Well, at some point. I have been known to wash and dry laundry for a month without folding or putting it away. Yes, I do have that many clothes and so does my kid. Both kids used to, but the ex ensures anything I send home w N never returns, unless he hates it, which is rare. And the only stuff he sends over here is crap and junk. And if I so much as keep a pair of undies I am evil incarnate. So, N doesn't have much here. The funny thing is...I bought new undies for the boy so he'd have plenty here--he tends to go through undies for vast bizarre reasons (as in he stuck his finger in his mouth and wiped his spit across his undies so he can strip naked and run around :-) )--and somehow--the undies I bought are vanishing and not returning from T's house. Funny how that works--I'm evil--but he's a saint. How does that happen?

Every day is a struggle. What do I do today?
I have not been sleeping well lately. Too much stress. I hate that.
So, I haven't been getting up at 8a in order to have that hour to write before I log in to work.
I crawl out of bed about 5 til 9a and let the dog out. I am usually logged in by 9a, give or take. But I have started to soak up that extra hour or two (because the alarm now goes off at 7a instead of 6a) rather than getting up and doing my work.

I do not want to be like Sylvia Plath. I could not deal with it. Awake in the wee hours to write and rewrite. Staying up w her kids to raise them and still have a perfect and pristine house. Etc, etc.

I don't function well if I get up at 6a....I have found I function decently if I get up at 7a. No matter what time I go to sleep. My internal clock prefers 7a.

I do, however, want to find that space where I can write and work on my art and work on my courses and work w E on her courses and keep a moderately clean house -- all at the same time, every day....and still have time for email, and phone conversations, and IMs, and commenting on other people's blogs....and everything else I want to do in a day.....

I haven't figured out how to quite manage that yet.

So, I purposely make time for the things that are important to me.

Right now, paying the mortgage and feeding the kids is a very important thing to me. So, that gets priority.

My significant other is very significant, so he gets top billing in there too.
Which means I check my email and will make time ti IM w him if he's there.

My writing is important. My art is important. My self-education is very important.
Do I do these thigns every day?
No.
But I try.

I am hoping trying counts.

The ex always swore because he had "good intentions" he was fine....I think it's a crock...and I won't go into my Hitler had good intentions speech (you know, until he went nuts and all...)

I do think because I don't give up completely I should give myself credit...and I try to. It may take me a year to finish a 12 week program...but I do get it done, eventually. Even if I have to re-start it a couple times to keep up.


The one question I keep forgetting to answer is WHY....
Why do I chose to write? Why do I chose to draw? Why collage? Why....why do I do what I do artistically/creatively speaking?

Why do I want to do so much more when I have more space/money/time??

Because there is a driving urge in me...to write...to draw...to be...me....to not fit into that stupid mold they pour everyone into.
I am an Artist.
My soul is weak and strong and coarse and tender...and I have no real choice other than to express it or I might just--die or implode or explode or whatever happens when I reach that limit....

My writing/art keeps me sane...gives me that release better than my three-shot tequila quest (it takes 3 shots to really round off my edges -- I am ok with two shots, but that third one makes everything so calm and peaceful...lol).
My artwork is my therapy.

Why do I draw now? Because I spent too long listening to those people who 'meant well' who told me I had no imagination and I gave up.
I listened to the ex and allowed him to kill me--literally--he ripped my heart and soul from me and I was nothing at all but some random husk walking around...and by the time I began to heal the other ex got hold of me and ruined me even more....

I allowed myself to be smothered. I allowed myself to be killed.

I am not the Phoenix, bursting forth whole and vibrant from the ash. I am a little mewling kitten with my eyes almost open, hoping the light I seek is a good thing.

This sort of harkens back to what BlissChick asked a bit ago:

If no one had ever told you who you were, who would you be?

Do you who I would have been?
Sometimes I wonder if I would ahve been that cowgirl I am struggling now to become. :-)

See, the person I see that I could have been would have been a stripper and a farmer, would have gone to college and studied nursing and psychology and religion and philospohy. I would not have been a nurse though.
I would be a much more hard-core hippy than I am currently. Talk about self-sustainable living....I'd have been far more all over it.

I would have built my own house by hand--with help, yes. I 'd have been raising animals and plants and herbs and flowers and vegetables.

I would have been drawing and painting and writing and creating. I would have created sculpture from metal. Would work with clay.

I would have many more children, would have started having them when I was in my early twenties and would still be having them. I would have wonderful nurturing relationships with the fathers. Yes, fathers. Only because I am not the type to stay stuck with one guy who eventually will bore me. But I am the type who can be open and generous and loving to complete idiots if they allow me. (Currently, T will not allow this to happen. But then again, he never did during the relationship, so I don't expect him to change.) ALthough even the other me would find the one man with whom to spend the rest of her life.

I would probably have grandchildren at this point. I would raise my children to love the earth, to be open and free, and yet be responsible.
I'd travel, all over the world, touching things, learning things, exploring things, reaching through the present to feel the Past.
I'd write. And write and write and write. And it would all sell, because i would have such amazing wisdom to share from my Journeys.

Thats not who I am, but I am working to integrate the pieces that are still me from the person I might have been into the person I am trying to be right now.
That's the best I can do. Find the me I lost and work to integrate the pertinent bits into who I am now.

That's why I do what I do. Because I am trying to heal the breaches. Trying to fill the holes. Trying to be the best me I can be. In whatever way best suits me. :-)