Singing :)

Do you ever just love a tune?

Here it in your head and wanna find the lyrics? I love this song... hear it in lotsa movies and decided to hunt the lyrics down.

Whoa.
LOL.

Strange lyrics.

Still love the song though...lol!

My grand-ma and your grand-ma were
Sit-tin' by the fire. -
My grand-ma told
Your grand-ma:
"I'm gon-na set your flag on fire."
--Chorus:Talk-in' 'bout, Hey now !
Hey now ! I-KO, I-KO, un-day
Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-n?.
- Jock-a-mo fee na-n?.
-Look at my king all dressed in red.
-I-KO, I-KO, un-day.
I bet-cha five dol-lars he'll kill you dead.
--Jock-a-mo fee na-n?
(Repeat Chorus)
My flag boy and your flag boy were
sit-tin' by the fire.
- My flag boy toldYour flag boy:
"I'm gon-na set your flag on fire."
(Repeat Chorus)
See that guy all dressed in green ?
-I-KO, I-KO, un-day.
He's not a man;
He's a lov-in' ma-chine.
--Jock-a mo fee na-n?.--
(Repeat Chorus)
Iko Iko

Counting Down

Well, I've been away, and probably will be most of this week, because of a combination of grueling work hours, migraine headaches, and the fact that I keep over committing myself. Hopefully next week will see a normal activity load and I'll have more time for my journals. :)

I also ordered my camera, and hope to have it by Friday, so once I get acquainted with her I'll be dropping photos in here again. :) Thanks for the great comments and nice things everyone has said. I check my email by phone when I can't get online and it makes me smile. You'll never know how I appreciate it. Can't wait to have some time to visit everyones journal like normal.
I miss everyone out there... just in case you're wondering!

While I've been stuck at home with no camera and no internet I've been drawing and playing around. Here is my latest Mermaid, she needs work, but I need a break from her, she took six hours and I am gonna stop awhile. :)

Branching Out

I am missing my camera. Going bananas folks.

I moved to Sicily when I was 22 for three years. I was a young woman used to having a car, a phone, shopping malls, and nightclubs. When I got to Sicily I didn't have a car, a phone, and wasn't near anything that even resembled a nightclub or a mall. I had a television. Everything on it was, of course, in Italian.
It took six months for me to get fluent in Italian, a year to buy a car, I never had a phone. I found a nightclub or two my last year there, and never found a mall. So my first few months I had to change my life and think of new things to do. I couldn't veg out on the phone or the TV, so I had to go on walks, I made local friends, I discovered a whole new country because I had to.

It was good for me.

I guess this is good for me too, kinda. No camera, so I am branching out. I can't take pictures, so I am taking the photos I have and playing with them. I actually did some sketches in my drawing pad for the first time in a year this last weekend. Wow.

I have limited internet access too. None at home, just at work. And at work I hafta pretty much stay late to use it, because I am way to busy during the day. So instead of hanging out on the net and getting to do my journals ::sniffles:: I am on my laptop writing my stories, drawing, painting. It's been nice.

But if I don't get a camera soon I am going to go looney.

I hafta save a little more and I should have it soon. Buying a new digital.... have my eye on this Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. ::drools::

When I get that bad boy I'll have no life... just losta photos of everyone else's life. ;) LOL.

This is a drawing/manipulation/photo that I worked up this weekend. Hours into this baby. I am not kidding. Not everyone likes it, but I just love it.

Makes me feel good looking at it. :)

Accomplishments

I am doing a painting for my mother and sisters office at thier business. I got commissioned to do it six months agao, and halfway through it I stalled out and ran out of energy. How's that for reliable? This, my friends, is why I don't like to make commitments. I am not always good on the upswing.

I do lots of creative stuff. I call myself an artist, and a photographer, but I am not sure there is really an appropriate one word description for how I see myself. I paint, I draw, I write, I take pictures and do pottery and little things I call clay doodles. I like weaving and making baskets, sewing, gardening, scrapbooks, making costumes, decorating my ouse, blah, blah, blah....
I like making things. It's a positive thing, creation. It's something I can do, and then look back at it and feel good about an accomplishment. Strangely enough I feel the same way about cleaning house. I can work at it for hours, listening to music or watching a movie sporadiaclly, nd when I am done I not only can see what I have accomplished, but I have made my surroundings a better place to be. How nice is that?

I submitted three pieces to be considered for an arts festival today. I haven't done anything like that in awhile. Two photos and one pencil sketch, and I am incredibly nervous. Partially because I am afraid they won't like my stuff, partially because I am afraid they will. If I get accepted it means I get a booth to sell my stuff at for three days during this Festival, which is all about food, music, art.... and I will have a lot of work to do to be ready. Talk about an opportunity for accpomlishment. Or self-recriminations. heh....

Ya know what I miss? a close friend, locally, whom I can share my interestes with. Like I used have when I was younger. When I had fewer responsibilites, more time, and the energy to blance multiple relationships. There's someoneout there, I know who wants the same thing. I hope to take a course at the University this Fall, who knows... maybe I'll meet her there?
What a meandering mess this entry has been. Not at all what I had expected. Ah well, that's me... a little of this and a little of that!

What makes you feel good? What lifts you when you need a lift? Any good ideas out there?

Crying to the Sky

Okay. I normally stay away from talking about bummer things here. But I hafta share, because I am so low today I have cried enough tears to create a rain forest in the Sahara.
I have these kittens, long story, but they all live under my porch. I have been trying (frantically) to find them homes, to no avail. Slowly but surely I have come to love every last one of them.
This morning I was late for work, and in a great hurry I backed out of the driveway. You can guess, I imagine, what happened.
I heard my 16 year old screaming at me and looked up, and here was one of my dear kittens flopping around madly in the driveway, obviously injured. My first thought was I had crushed a leg or something. Horrified I jumped out of the car and ran to where the kitten was and grabbed her up into my arms. She had a profuse amount of blood coming from her head, and one eye was popped out, part of her skull was crushed. She couldn't be saved.
If she could have been, I wouldn't have put her through that.
I won't go into more gory details, but we put her down. I bawled in the front yard for half an hour before they could make me bury her. I have relived every awful moment of it all day. If I had taken a photograph the image could not be clearer in my mind, and I am just broken to pieces.
She was just a cat, I know. I didn't mean to, I know. But she was a living, breathing, playful life which came to an awful end, and I can't get over the tragedy of it.
I will be okay. My kids will be okay. But I just needed to share how sad I am. Sometimes being an optomist doesn't keep the blues at bay.

The Biggest Little Things

Have you ever found yourself forcusing on the big things, and missing the little things? How's the saying go? "I can't see the forrest for the trees." I remember a few years ago I got a new pair of glasses and was in awe at what I had been missing. I have always loved the world, loved to see what was around me. But with the glasses came the utterly amazing revelation that it is possible to see individual leaves on the trees. They are not simply large green smudges on the horizon of my vision, looking for all the world as if they'd been painted with a sponge. I could see the individual leaves flutter in the breeze. I watched that first tree for thirty minutes. Then it was on to blades of grass, items in my own home, and the fine print on everything I could lay my hands on. Maybe that's another reason I am so fascinated by photography. My camera allows me to see things my eyes would miss by themselves. They allow me to see the world up close and tiny, to view details in a large way I'd normally miss. And the recorded image becomes a memory I can keep forever.



I wonder what I'd have the glory of seeing if I could apply that vision to everything? To not miss the fine details of those I love, friends I cherish, events I can live in for a moment to brief to catch a breath in? I have some fairly deep thoughts about my parenting the last couple of years, which I'll share when the opportunity arises.
Have any photos of something tiny you might have missed without a camera? Or a remembered moment when you took the time to focius on the details? Share em with me.... I'm in the mood to have my friends (this is you guys) relax with me and share the good things, the little things, that tower over the big things we sometimes focus on. :)