A Road Map

Sometimes it is easier to find your way when you already know where you are going.  These questions are from Julia Cameron's book The Vein of Gold on pages 105-106.  I think they are useful when I need a reminder about what things move and motivate me.  Think of them as a useful compass...


1.  Name five favorite films.
2.  Name your favorite childhood book.
3.  Name three characters you loved.
4.  Name three characters you would love to play.
5.  Name three topics you think about.
6.  Name three topics you read about.
7.  What was your childhood book about?
8.  What are your movies about?
9.  Do your movies and books have anything in common?
10.  Do your characters, your reading, and your thinking connect up somehow with your movies and your childhood book?


Other helpful sites
The Happiness Project Toolbox
Authentic Happiness
The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch


Moon Report:  95% of full.  Waning gibbous.
Outside the Window:  Cold.  Partly cloudy complete with muted snow glare.

art journals

I found SuziBluTube because someone on the boards at WetCanvas recommended her.

She is funny and has great ideas for art journals! Really, I never knew that art journals could be so cool looking. I always thought of them for plain jane sketches and making a color chart of all my colored pencils and testing mixed paint colors. But Suzi's journals feel alive and more like a JOURNAL than just a journal.

Here's her first How to Make An Art Journal post

They are highly entertaining and just good fun. Enjoy.

learning crochet

I'm learning to crochet things a bit more complex than single and double stitch scarves. Unsuccessfully I might add.

My grandmother taught me how to crochet when I was about nine or ten, but I just recently "rediscovered" it. It wasn't so much a rediscovery as an alternative to my terrible hand-eye coordination with knitting. [Some people are ambidextrous enough to knit, but I am NOT one of them.] So I returned to a stitching method for which I had an ability.

Here are a couple of interesting places to visit: Crochet Pattern Central and GrannyAlong Blog.

Granny squares should not be rocket science. They are supposed to be one of the easiest squares to do. I can't get mine to look right to save my life--it all goes down hill after the foundation chain. My first layer no longer looks as if it has been chewed by weasels, but the whole square is less than elegant.

But I'm going to keep working at it so I can attempt the Babette Afghan. I swear one day I will get it accomplished! The Purl Bee also has a flickr account where you can see the different interpretations for the blanket and all the wild colors people have used. They are fun and beautiful.

I love blankets. I'd like to have my cedar closet full of warm quilts and afghans that have been made with love by someone that wasn't a factory. The handmade kind are always better.