Me and my meme

I don't usually do memes, but I saw a fun one, both on Diane's blog and on The Boastful Baker, so I thought I'd give it a try. Here's how the mosaic came out:












Here are the questions:

1. What is your first name? Barb (My name is actually Barbara Ann, but we won't go there, will we?)

2. What is your favorite food? Chicken dijon. (Mmmmm.)

3. What high school did you go to? Kiona-Benton High School. (There aren't any pictures of it on Flickr, so you'll have to settle for what my town looked like.)

4. What is your favorite color? Lapis

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Colin Firth. (Yum.)

6. Favorite drink? Pepsi. (I know, I'm just a kid, still.)

7. Dream vacation? Italy. A villa, specifically.

8. Favorite dessert? Creme Brulee

9. What you want to be when you grow up? Transcendent. I have a lot of growing up to do.

10. What do you love most in life? Laughter

11. One Word to describe you. Irreverent.

12. Favorite Music? All kinds, but who can beat John Denver?

Turning over a new leaf in May

And the final one, the only one that was on time.

I'm sad that I won't be in the next Bead Journal Project--too much is going on in my life right now, and I really wasn't able to give it the time I wanted to. But I learned so much from it, and I'll always be glad I participated. I definitely learned a lot about self-discipline and what you can do when you push.

I am determined to turn over a new leaf as this page symbolizes. I am a caretaker. I worry more about other people and their needs than I do about myself. That has to stop. I need to show as much caring for myself as I do for other people. I've always been worried that that's selfish, but I'm realizing that it's just reasonable. I worry constantly about letting other people down, about not giving them what they need. The last few months have shown me that I need to give myself what I need, too. What I need is time, quiet, space...whether other people understand it or not.

I've been mother to my own mother, mother to people at work, mother to friends. I comfort, reassure, anticipate needs. I do the same for my own son, who's the person who should actually be getting those things. And I also need to mother myself enough to bring myself back to health--physically, emotionally, psychologically.

April BJP

Ah, one of the most emotionally honest and on-point journal pages. Who hasn't fantasized about just flying away? In one of my favorite books, "Time Off From Good Behavior", Susan Sussman says, "Show me a woman who hasn't fantasized getting in the car and leaving home and I'll show you a woman who doesn't know how to drive." It isn't always leaving home--sometimes it's leaving a job, leaving your life. Sometimes the Maine woods sound really good to me. But it's just a desire for escape, isn't it? A desire to have the *ability* to run away from your life, even if you wouldn't do it. To know that I *can* if I want. As my friend Linda likes to say when I'm stuck in a meeting and she's not, "I can go in; I can go out; I can go in; I can go out..." It's the choice that feels good.

April was a month where the urge to escape was at its greatest. But escape from what, exactly? Nothing I could put my finger on. Just...life.

The ribbon I dyed doesn't look as good on the picture as it did in real life. It was a combination of blues and greens that nearly made me swoon with pleasure. I love color.

Behinder with catchup

Well, enough things have happened since the middle of February that I haven't had a chance to do much beading much less posting. I've had to make my pages more simple since I haven't been able to spend much time on the project. I've finished three more in the last several days, though, and am closing in on the last two.

So here, at my normal late pace, are January, February and March.

For January, I started with one of my favorite quotes from William Blake: "Improvement makes straight roads: but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius." That's what I feel about art, life, everything--it's the crooked paths I've taken that have meant the most to me. I had to laugh because this piece fought me the whole way through--nothing went as I wanted it to, but I was determined to keep it improvisational and let it be what it was. I have time to make pretty things, but even though this is my "ugly child", I love the fact that I let it be. Letting go of control isn't easy for me, but I'm reaching the point where I realize I have no other choice.


And for February, a love poem to myself:


I've spent way too much of my life seeking approval from others, and invested way too much of myself in finding just the right person or thing. I loved the words from Margaret Cho--you have to be the person you want. I'm working on it.

March was my birthday! A little challenging to celebrate, but all the better for it. Sometimes I think that you have the chance to reinvent yourself every day. I'm taking advantage of that more and more all the time. And I'm finding that my true friends are the ones who not only let me reinvent myself, but who celebrate it along with me. You'll notice from the piece that my arms are very, very long, and any figure I bead seems to get chubbier and chubbier with every row. I've decided to think of that as a "feature".


I'm almost done with April and I should be finished with May in the next couple of weeks. I admire the people who can bead a whole piece, but I guess I'll reach that point when I retire.

October, November, December: the project goes on

As long as we pretend we're not almost done with February, I'm kind of catching up! (What's a few weeks between friends?)

October, my most colorful page to date, was a page about my wonderful son, Evan. He is a bass player extraordinaire, and music is his life. The beads surrounding the guitar represent all the energy that he exudes when he's in his groove. He has brought so much color and vibrancy into my life in the 16+ years he's been around. I'm looking forward to a lot more music from that kid. (As well as laughs.)


Ah, November. My aunt's funeral was in November. Etta was my "double" aunt. My mother and her sister married my dad and his brother. We had a family of "double cousins" which we were constantly having to explain to people. Etta, my aunt, was my mother's second set of eyes. She worked at the office in our school and anything I did at school beat me home by two hours. But she was a wonderful aunt and cared about us very much. Anyway, November was sort of a wet, sad month for me, and so I reminded myself of what was important--the serenity within me (thus the lotus outline) and the wisdom I carry with me (the owl bead in the center). It may be a time of dying leaves, but what I am is untouched.


Brrrrrrrrrrr. This has been a cold winter on the Palouse. We had snow on the ground for so long that I remarked to my doctor that if it weren't for trips to Walla Walla to take care of my mom, I'd forget what bare ground looks like. And now that it's melting again, the ground looks very bare. But snow is beautiful...at least at first, and I loved making snowflakes as the snow was coming down outside. I remembered that I had this "wintery" fabric in my scrap pile and it was just perfect.



Let's warm up now. I'm ready for spring.

If my feet can't be bare...

You Are Flip Flops

You are laid back and very friendly. Cheery and sunny in disposition, you usually have something to smile about. Style is important to you, as long as you can stay casual. It takes a lot to get you to dress up! You are a loyal and true person, though you can be a bit of a flake. You tend to "play hooky" and blow off responsibilities a lot more than most people. You should live: By the beach You should work: At a casual up and coming company

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

Snowday!

I work at Washington State University, an institution that very rarely closes, no matter what's going on. They didn't even close the libraries when we were covered in ash from the Mt. St. Helens eruption. But evidently what it takes to close the place down are 2' of snow (virtually overnight) and high winds. We got the day off, and here's what it looks like.


In celebration of the day off (even though the grocery stores are running out of essentials like milk because all the roads are closed and nothing can get in) it was time to make snowflakes. They'll be incorporated into my January page for the bead journal project and they're very fun to make.

Sorry they're a little blurry--I need a tripod.