Reeds & Sticks

Some of my wounds are pretty much right on the surface.  It's funny, I can work & work on something & then an innocent comment about my appearance sends me reeling. Maybe the progress is in how long it takes to recover?

No biggee, in conversation I was told that one daughter has more of my husband's body type, & the other daughter seems to have mine.  Mine???  What did they mean by that?  Which sent my head whirling, with memories of people's observations when I was a girl(that they felt the need to share) about my big calves, & being told I have chubby knees by a way older man when I was about 18. Why do some people feel they have the right to pick apart girls/women's bodies? There is a whole heap of those awful feelings from unsolicited comments(too many to share here), & never ever feeling good enough.  Always feeling less than for this body.

I'm not a stick figure, my body type I don't think was meant to be.  But I spent years trying to be that, & made myself so miserable.

5ft 2inches 117 lbs here....not huge by any standards, but I've felt apologetic about my body type in a way most of my life.  Because being muscular, strong, solid was not good....I was born wrong, apparently I was supposed to look like a reed :)

I want to be fine with the way I look, so fine that comments from people don't sting, & send me into a tailspin. I'm still really working at it.

Haven't felt like I've had too much time to work on my art lately.  I did repaint this girl above, that I made quite awhile back.  Spruced her up a bit.

Love this below...so true, love to get lost in the making of something, all the other things slip away.

Been running trails & running the streets as usual. Sometimes my girls come along. Trying to increase my milage & prepare for another race.

Vacation Almost

June. The days are lingering longer, I'm happy about that.  Just a few more weeks until school is out & we hit the freedom of the open road.  In other words, hours on end of family time, crammed together in a car. We are headed first to Wilsonville, OR(a suburb of Portland) to stay with one of my favorite friends.  After a few days, & I'm sure wearing out our welcome at their place, we are headed to Olympia, WA. to visit 2 of the husband-man's sisters & families.  On the way back home from all that, the plan is to stop for a couple nights in San Francisco.

I'm hoping to scope out a few areas in our travels, especially Portland area...look at a few houses for sale, just to see what's there.  We are talking in the next year or so about trying to buy a place, or possibly build.  My main requirement is land.  I'm not a lady who cares about fancy kitchens, or walk-in closets.  I need dirt to work in, I need trees.  So we always go back & forth about trying to stay in sunny Southern California, where the prices are unfortunately sky high, or moving up north & getting way more for the money....but living in the dreaded rain.

Anyway, but I am getting ahead of myself.  For now I'm just looking forward to an end of some school year obligations, & the adventure of not feeling as tied down to a schedule(I know it sounds pretty wild). ha ha

Not Too Wordy Today

                  My girl's birthdays just passed.  India is 9 now, & Sage 11.  

I had this big chunk written here, nothing profound or anything. Just about these two, & how I hope they will continue to grow into open minded & loving people.  About not wanting them to fall into the stuff that so many girls do, when they don't value themselves. But I erased it all, because it's one of those days I feel I really don't have my shit together, & I feel like a 15 year old a lot of times(today) just trying to be okay with me. Anyway, trying to be transparent enough for them(probably erring on the side of too much), & always there to listen/talk, & letting them have their own ideas about life & what they believe.  I'm hoping that will help them on their way to be being balanced people...not that there's a magic formula :)

        A picture I took for Earth Day above, with a little pot I painted.

I had been looking at Yoga poses on Instagram the other day. So I workout a lot, but feel like an elderly person when it comes to flexibilty.  Anyway, on this particular day I was practicing my Crow pose & could barely keep my feet off the ground for two seconds. Then of course my husband gets down on the floor & does it on his first try! Jerk :)

                     Recent Paper Clay bird lady.  She is about 6 1/2 inches tall.

This is an older painting of mine.  It used to have a plain background & every day I'd look at it & think it needed more color, so I finally added to it. Apparently I'm really into this Mustardy-Gold color & dark grey...I realized the Bird sculpture & this painting are pretty much the same colors.