Positively Speaking
- Silver-lining time!
Remember those cardboard boxes I couldn’t collapse so I left them out in the rain for three days? Well, the silver lining is that wet cardboard boxes can be collapse very easily by arthritic hands. 
- I have been getting housework done semi-regularly these days. I have a clever little rechargeable vacuum and the new steam floor cleaner which does pretty well. It pleases me that I am able to do this stuff again {albeit not as regularly as it should be done} because it helps me to realize that I AM doing better in both mind and body.
- My art mentor came back from Texas to find her basement flooded {actually, I think I mentioned this…} but she sent me a long email with some suggestions. All of them are interesting and some of them have got me quite excited. One of the things that I hope to work out with her help is a statement of what kind of artist I am that doesn’t refer just to the tools I use. A sort of philosophy of my art, I would guess. I went to her site to read hers and the writing teacher in me cringed. There were no misspellings or grammar or punctuation errors, but when I got to the end, all I could say was "Um, huh?" She writes as if her objective is to confuse her reader and obfuscate the meaning of what she wants to say. She may know what she wants to convey, but she has at least one reader who is baffled.
- I have a birthday coming up on May 15th. In eight days, I will be 77. In Italian, that is "In otto giorni, sarò settantasette."
Is the life I’m living the life that wants to live in me?
Parker Palmer
"I yam what I yam."
Popeye
Wow, 77! You are doing awesome! And Happy Birthday, in case I forget, which I won’t because Facebook reminds me of these things. Confusing writing baffles me. When someone used 10 big words to say what could be said with 3 small ones, I wonder what kind of impression they’re trying to make.
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I usually end up getting the scissors to awkward cardboard boxes – though that’s no easy task either!
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My birthday is May 18…I only hope to live to be 77. Hope yours is a good one!
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Happy Birthday, well in advance! We have been friends for quite a few years on OD and I have so enjoyed your notes and keeping up with the many things you have done in life since I first met you here. You were, and ARE, an inspiration to me for the way I want to live and look at life as I get older. THANKS, PATRICIA! :o) !! That’s funny, how your art mentor can’t write well. It reminds meof Wendy and me….she can’t write and I can’t draw, but together we can do both. I LOVE the Parker Palmer quotation you shared. That’s a good motto for life, really! hugs, Nicky
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Italian is so beautiful. And I think mission statements, in general, tend to just confuse the reader. It’s like taking all the simple things you want to do as a business (or in this case, as an artist) and flower up the words beyond recognition when they should just say something like “we’re stacking it deep and selling it cheap” or “you get what you pay for” or “like it or leave it.”
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I think creating your artistic statement could be a brilliant exercise. I hope you share it with us!
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Happy Mother’s Day 🙂
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I confess that I jump on stubborn cardboard boxes. Thank you for your congratulations!
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happy birthday early. got any big plans? when i have big cardboard boxes to get rid of… i put on my shoes and jump on them. smaller boxes i can get rid of with bare feet. take care,
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An early buon compleanno to you!
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