Establishing Patterns: finishing one routine and beginning another

5
Nov

Habits and routines are not my favorite things. Morning coffee is an exception to that, as well as finding my car keys. Other than those things, I have to work purposefully to establish routines to accomplish different goals — although, come to think of it, late evening snacking seems to come pretty easily. <– see! that’s the thing about habits and routines. If you’re not careful, you’re creating a pattern you didn’t even mean to create and you’d better hope it’s a good one because breaking it once you’ve made it? Well that’s almost as hard as making a new one.

Fall is a time when it becomes easier for me to turn over a new leaf when it comes to habits. School starts and we have all the best intentions of making our lunches the evening before, hanging up our coats and putting away our bags, exercising right away when we arrive home, you know the drill.

This fall, however, it’s been a little different because we’re in the process (the looooong process) of redoing our lower level. The amount of brain power and time it’s taking has really surprised me. That in addition to some different commitments for the kids and my aspirations of establishing certain good habits has been waylaid.

However, I’ve only misplaced my keys once and yesterday was the first time I drove away from the house without my purse. So I say we’re breaking even.

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One thing I did stick with this fall was a challenge from Get Messy to create something every day from Sept 9 to Oct 27. It wasn’t always pretty and not all my pages feel complete, but the energy was there and I showed up to the page for 48 days. Some of the pages I was quite proud of, some felt more like backgrounds that I should return to later, others were plain or ugly. But they exist because I put paint on the page.

In the middle of that, I took a risk and registered for my first writing class at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. The Loft is well known for being a hub of literary activity and they offer workships and classes for all different genres and levels.

Here’s the view walking up the main stairs to my classroom:

The class I took was for children’s fiction. It was every Thursday at 6p for six weeks. People, that’s a big commitment for a busy family. It took me 25 minutes on a good day just to get parked and yes, I was the student who rolled in a few minutes late to every single class. But I showed up, and discovered that I knew more than I realized I did. And I prioritized an investment in myself in the midst of a busy life season, which felt really good even if it was inconceninet. Sometimes those are the things that show us where our passion really is.

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The next crazy habit I’m trying to is take up National Novel Writing Month this November. It’s called NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short.

You’ve probably heard of this madness. Every day of November you try to write. The standard prefab goal is to write 1000/day for 50,000 words in the month to “win” NaNo. But you can set a goal of whatever kind suits you. And their website will help you track your progress, give you achievement awards and peptalks from lots of authors.

This is a pretty natural melding of the two above scenarios of the writing class and the season of habit. There’s something magical about making the commitment to show up, even just showing up for yourself, if that makes sense. The willingness to put your own interests into the mix, placing your own interests into the collective pool of worthy activities? That can feel like an act of rebellion, especially, dare I say? for women and particularly for moms. (Don’t worry, Guys, I see you too. But this is a moment for the ladies.)

Showing up to the page

So I’m gonna try to make a sh***y first draft, as Anne Lamont would tell me to do. I’m gonna put my butt in a chair and write. It may not be good (let’s just say it, I’ll be happy if it’s mostly coherent). Heck, it doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be out of my head and on the page. Only then do we have something to work with. Up to that point it’s all theoretical.

I hope to give some periodic updates here so if you’d like to hear some of the story, be sure to stop back or subscribe to make it even easier for you.

Your turn! What kinds of habits are you cultivating or working towards right now? What time of year is easiest for you to start fresh? And what’s stopping you from prioritizing your own interests or dreams right now?

Oops! I almost forgot to share the flip thru of my most recent handmade journal, the one for the Season of Habit. The upload is giving me the business, so I’ll include the link below, and until later, thanks so much for reading.

Season of story summary and no more alliterations, I mean it

30
Jul

We’ve come to the end of an eight-week season of story in my art journaling adventures, specifically with Get Messy Art Journal community.

It’s been busy!

For most of my pages I avoid using my own image, but I’m trying to incorporate more of these as an exercise in pushing myself.

I took over the Get Messy Art Journal Instagram account for a week and there I walked people through a step by step process of creating a page.

This is the step by step page I made during the IG takeover. This page focused on common themes and characters found in stories.

There I also shared some of the Purple Kitty story with the illustrations I’ve created to go with the story.

More fun at the Fair — Mini donuts and Fair Hair

It was interesting to discover the different brain topics this season brought up. It’s a funny thing about story: so many of our stories are intertwined with those of other people, and it can take some work to figure out how to handle telling that story. What things are for someone else’s business, and what things are for us to share because they were our experience?

While I agree with this quote from Anne Lamott, I’ve been thinking about this from a more positive angle.

Soon I hope to offer some prints of some of these pages, so check back soon for an update!

Here’s a quick video round up of my season of story journal. Hope you enjoy it!

Season of Story: meet our fuzzy main character

14
Jun

As I stated in a previous post, I want to finally complete a story that I’ve been puttering with for a few months…well, maybe longer than that if I trace it back to its origin. Anyhow, this Season of Story is the perfect moment to kickstart my story into becoming a real boy — er, cat. So I thought I’d introduce one of the main characters.

Two sizes, same kitty.

Does this character have a name? Not formally. She’s been Purple Kitty so far, but that’s cumbersome. So I reached out online and people had some really great suggestions. I’d love to hear if any of these grab you:

Ruthie

Plum

Luenda (submitted by a lovely little sweetie who is like 5 years old)

Thistle

Iris

Lavender

Maeve

Periwinkle (which could be a copyright problem (ha!) because of the old Blue’s Clue’s dog)

Jaspar

Peggy

Prince (hard to resist this one)

Molly

Violet

Callie (another submission by an adorable young friend)

Raisin

Lilly (which would end up as “Wiwwy” if pronounced by any young readers…which could be part of the fun?)

If you can believe it, this list is not even exhaustive! There were even more suggestions, which absolutely makes my day.

Because I know that in my own household, our animals rarely have just ONE name, I’ve decided to go with a very highfalutin name, one in the tradition of aristocrats around the world, one that includes basically all the names your parents either had to include or liked and couldn’t decide about. For our rough draft, I think we should go with this name but I reserve the right to revisit this decision later:

Prince Ruthie Raisin Callie Olivia Violet Luenda Iris Periwinkle

She’ll go by Ruthie Raisin or Ruthie for short. And she might be a he. But either way the first name (or is it a title?) is Prince.

Now that we’ve met Ruthie Raisin, I need to go finish up the other main character, Jewel.

Jewel and Ruthie Raisin love the Fair, and the merry go round is one of their favorite rides. Jewel loves getting that crazy Fair Hair done, the kind where they put your hair in two big pigtail puffs like cotton candy and then spray it with color and glitter that stains your pillowcase and gets in your carpet for the rest of the summer.

Yeah, she loves that.

And of course that’s not even getting into all the yummy Fair foods, like mini donuts, buckets filled to the brim with chocolate chip cookies that you then haul over to the milk barn for all-you-can-drink milk, before or after you find that one place at the Fair that has the footlong pronto pups. You come home sweaty, cranky, sticky, exhausted, and oh so happy.

But this year it might not be quite like that for Jewel. Some big changes are coming her way. So come back soon and I’ll introduce you to her and tell you more of her story. You could subscribe and then any new posts would come straight to your inbox. Wouldn’t that be handy?

The season of play comes naturally: a round-up of the first few weeks

28
Apr

As I’ve mentioned (I hope not too many times), this year I’m on the creative team for Get Messy Art Journal. I’m having so much fun! Right now we’re about halfway through the Season of Play, so I thought it would be a good time to share some of the spreads I’ve made.

For this season we’ve been challenged to work in an altered book. An altered book is really simple: you find a book (I’ve found good ones at used book stores or thrift shops) and create your art in that book. You might have to do a few things to make it amenable to your plans, such as removing pages or gluing pages together. I’ve done this previously and did a little documentation of the process which you can see here.

I have run into a little problem. I NEED MORE PAGES! There are so many good prompts and tutorials, on top of just loving the theme of the season, that I’ve expanded into a second book. One is a fairly short story with interesting block prints illustrations. I like keeping some of the original peeking through when I can, and these prints are interesting. The second book is a collection of Helen Oxenbury illustrated nursery rhymes and children’s stories. I’ve always loved her illustrations so when I saw it on the shelf, I snapped up that book right up.

Now for some pages!

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Don’t you just love the idea of a Saturday from your childhood? All cereal, cartoons, playing outside, using your imagination, running until your legs feel like noodles, coming home all windblown and full of stories from your adventures? Yeah, sounds pretty great.

For the next page we got to play a game. You’d roll the die and depending on what number you got, you’d consult a list and do whatever corresponded to that number, paint, scribble, write, drip, stencil, you get the idea. So what started out like this…

…ended up like this…

That game could get addictive, I tell ya! It really took the decision-making out of your hands and kept you moving. Getting tired of painting? Roll the dice for a new idea. It was also a good reminder to utilize different techniques and not always rely on what you’ve always done, shake things up a little.

For the next page I used my hands quite a bit to spread the paint around. It’s funny but there’s something really satisfying about using your hands to move paint around. I put a small paper figure on the right side and then this big lady wanted to show up on the left side, and the contrast led to the writing. Sometimes I feel like I’m too much, too loud, too opinionated, too whatever but I try to remind myself to just be who I am, let my personality or my spirit be as large as it truly is, because that’s the authentic me. Why walk around doing a dulled down imitation of yourself all the time?

If I could wear my hair like the person on this next page, I totally would.

In my mind, playing often involves movement, really movement of any kind.

You can really see the block print figures on this next page. They were under a tree, so I went ahead and used molding paste to create more leaves with a palette knife. I liked the texture and dimension they brought to the page, but it’s a little hard to see in this picture.

Since we’re in the season of play, why not have a flower-face lady? She’s an image transfer from a magazine — I didn’t even have to put the flower on her face, she came that way!

Here’s a close up of the left corner because TEXTURE!

The next page just feels swirly and calming to me. The process involved a lot of experimenting and layering — this page is heavy with paint. I haven’t used these pigment powders much because they frustrate me, but someone challenged us to learn something new or use something you already had in a new way. These little gems have been in my cupboard, so I figured it was a good time to learn how to use them.

My own contribution to the prompts involved thinking of your favorite things from childhood, putting them in some kind of representation in a balloon and then connect them to you as a child. Here’s what I ended up with when I did my own prompt. I was thinking of a very specific outfit that I LOVED as a kid, it had these great puffy sleeves and a goofy skirt. The pattern here is it’s own thing, but the color scheme isn’t too far off.

Crazy how many different results there are from the same person. I know there are themes in my pages, things I come back to, but there’s also a lot of variety. Does that mean I don’t have an artistic voice? Does it mean I’m versatile? I don’t know! Making more pages will lead me to answers, so I’ll focus on that and let it work itself out.

Thank you thank you for visiting, and I hope you’ll come back again soon!

Arty Developments

27
Nov

Things have been percolating on the art front for me lately and I wanted to take a moment to share with you, because you’re lovely and have always been so supportive.

First, big excitement: I had a painting accepted to an art magazine called Brush.

**cue excited squealing**

So what if it’s just a small contribution to the gallery pages? It still feels like a big milestone for me. You can get a hard copy OR you can get a digital download of it. WE LOVE OPTIONS! If you feel so inclined you can order it here.

I also had a tiny thing included in The Phoenix Soul magazine, a beautifully soulful publication. I love what the editor, Amanda, is cultivating and you probably will too.

Because it’s Cyber Monday I wanted to let you in on two good deals. One is that Society 6, where you can buy high-quality prints, is saving up to 40% AND free shipping. Whaaaaat? Yup. It’s true. So if you have any interest in ordering a print of something I’ve made, you can check it out here. They have other options, like phone cases and pillowcase covers (is that redundant?), but I haven’t done anything with those yet. Do you think I should??

Until midnight tonight there’s 15% off in my Etsy shop. I don’t have a ton of listings there, but each one has been crafted with a lot of love and time. It would be great if you’d take a peek, and let me know what you think. Here’s the link that will take you to my Etsy shop.

That’s all for now. I have some more exciting arty news but I can’t share it quite yet. I hope to let you in on the details in the next couple months. I’m not even going to tell you about trying to do National Novel Writing Month because it’s been such an utter disappointment (read: I’ve hardly written anything) but I AM trying to develop a new story that I’ve been mulling over for at least a year. I’m putting it together, but I keep finding bunny trails to follow, which gets me off track.

Thanks for your continued support and encouragement! Have a wonderful week!

Renewed Shenanigans

21
Feb

Since it’s a strange weathered-February, it seems right to finally do an update here. I haven’t been trying to maintain radio silence; I’ve been moving into an expanded role in a job that’s been developing on the side for a bit. It’s exciting and I’m now part owner of a small business, which shows you how little screening they do of these sorts of things.

That’s only part of it, and I could use your input with another part.

As you know, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet for creative experiences. Painting has been at the forefront for longer than I anticipated. My dad getting sick and then losing him made it virtually impossible to tap into the writing that I had identified with for so long. I’ve (mostly) accepted that.

[Shhh…I’ll tell you something extra true: there are moments when I wonder about lost-time or opportunities I might have missed. That’s my first impulse. Once I notice that impulse, I remind myself that’s coming from a place of scarcity and a place of worry that there are a finite number of opportunities available, a.k.a. if I don’t get one of these opportunities they’ll run out before my turn comes round again. I don’t have to accept that mentality, and I don’t. There’s more than enough to go around, for me and for you too.]

I’ve allowed myself to explore and develop other ways of expressing the roiling thoughts and feelings that have come in these years of wrestling. Paints, scribbling, ripping paper, smearing color – these have become a language without words.

Original mixed media art by TC Larson (that’s me!)

This is good; it’s good to have tools with which you approach the world. It gave me new ways to work through difficult situations and was useful then when, about six months after losing my dad, my daughter (I call her Princess Teacup here) was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

The diagnoses is permanent and it has impacted, well, everything. It’s not that you don’t get used to it – you do. It’s that by necessity, it changes so much of the rhythm of your life.

Okay back to you, Dear Reader. You can see that I’m a little all over the place. I could really use your input.

Painting, writing, creativity.
Type 1 Diabetes
Family, friends, silliness, and motherhood.
Encouragement, faith, spirituality, crabby wrestling with the Church.

These are all things that flow through my life. Does it make you crazy to hear about ALL of them? Do you wish this space was more focused? Do you wish you knew you could come here and get a daily pep talk? Do you get tired of hearing about grief and loss? Would you like to read snippets of stories I’m working on, now that I’m writing again?

This is when I turn to you, Dear Reader, and I’d really value what you have to say. Speak freely now, friends. I want to hear it. Your input can help shape the direction I go. I plan revamp things in order to better make this space reflect some of the shifts that have happened, and hearing from you would really help me.

Even though it’s been a while, I want you to know I appreciate you and the opportunity (there’s that word again) to share here with you.

Now get outside and enjoy this bizarre February heat wave. We’re all suspicious of it and are pretty sure it can’t last. Remember, the high school winter sports finals haven’t happened yet, and that’s when we here in Minnesota almost always get hit with a blizzard (click here for proof!). Don’t put away those snow shovels yet.

Since I’m already being “that person” and asking for things, I’m just gonna go for all the bananas and put this here: Donate and support us at the JDRF One Walk Fundraiser.

Grit and Grace: Vulnerable stuff in the Phoenix Soul Magazine ‘Reborn’ Issue

15
Jan

You may not have noticed in my previous post, but I was really excited about something — think puppy-chasing-its-tail-in-a-dizzying-circle excited. I had to wait to tell you until now, but now I can share.

Wanna know what I was so excited about?

Do ya,

do ya,

do ya?

Okay, I’ll try to maintain my composure and be professional about this, but I don’t know how long I’ll be able to maintain that façade so I’ll make this quick:

I got to contribute something to The Phoenix Soul Magazine. It’s an indie e-magazine with essays, poetry, artwork and a beautiful layout. The whole vibe is honest and real, seeking beauty in the midst of mess and looking for shining moments in the middle a storm. The curator, Amanda, has a beautiful spirit and is creating a really unique community of readers.

In this issue the theme is “Reborn” and my little bit is a piece of poetry (I read that with a Winnie-the-Pooh voice in my head), an art journal page to go with it, and one or two other short paragraphs. You can Click here to get your copy — and I think you’ll really enjoy it. You can buy single issues, like this one, or you can subscribe in larger chunks and get three or more copies as they are released.

Thank you for sharing in my excitement over this!

If you do get a copy, would you come back here and tell me what you think? Or you could share your thoughts over at the Facebook page?

It would be great if we could get more people to discover The Phoenix Soul so tell your pals to go get a subscription, and tell Amanda, the editor, that we love what she’s putting together (she’s on Facebook and Instagram)! And seriously, thanks again, everyone. Mwah!

Investing in Yourself

8
Jan

This week I invested in myself…twice.

Before I tell you about it, help me remember to tell you about the exciting thing happening next week. I’ll loop back to that at the end. Don’t let me forget, okay? Alright, nevermind. I know I’ll forget so I’ll just tell you now. You’ll want to check back in here in about a week ’cause I submitted a scary, vulnerable something for a thing and now that thing is going to be available and I want so much for you all to see this because the thing this thing is in is SO COOL and I think people will really get into it and possibly discover a whole new resource for finding beauty in the mundane and other people who acknowledge the pain and rawness of life, so be sure to come back next week and I’ll have links to share and it will be great!

Whew!

Okay, back to investing.

The first was that I took myself to an exercise class I know I enjoy. It’s snowing here in Minnesota, I overslept and there was an expoential degree of hurry-scurry as the kids and I tried to get out the door. It would have been really easy (REALLY) to drop them off and return home.

But I didn’t.

I put it in high gear, threw clean clothes and stuff for a shower into a bag (the world would thank me if they saw how sweaty I’d be if I didn’t shower after this class), got the kids where they needed to be, and arrived at my class (a Latin hip-hop-cardio-get-yer-groove-on-type of class, if you must know) just as they were starting. And even though it was inconvenient to prepare to get there and also be able to do the other things necessary to keep things running semi-smoothly at home, it was worth it.

I am worth it.

Minnesota in January

The other thing I did that was an investment in myself was to take a step of bravery and small financial investment.

My church is hosting an art festival and has invited people to submit their art work. This is the second year, and I didn’t make it to the first year to see what types of things are a part of this. I imagine my stuff will be very…grungy by comparison. Also there the factor that they’re saying if a piece is not three dimensional, it needs to be framed. Like in a frame. To hang on a wall. In public view.

This sounds like a stupid idea.

However stupid, once I heard about it, it was something I could not get out of my head, so I’ve been working on something for a few weeks now. The only thing that remained was to frame it and bring it to church.

Did y’all know that frames aren’t sized true? And that canvases can warp and only be somewhat true to the size they claim to be?

Yeah, me neither.

I wanted to do this on the cheap, and I discovered that I could find my own frame and then have a store prepare my canvas in said frame and make sure it’s all ready to go. Easy, right?

The only problem was that my version of cheap meant trying to find a frame at a thrift store, and with thrift stores you never know what you’re going to find and in my case, it was NOT finding a frame the correct size.

Okay, plan B. I’d have the store frame it. after all, I have a coupon for like 60% off, so how bad could it be?

When your budget was a frame from Salvation Army, it turns out that it could be pretty bad.

The frames were gorgeous, of course, but the price was not.

No problem, Let’s go to Plan C…or D…or whatever we’re on by this point. After making multiple phone calls, and visiting two different stores — one of which had my co-workers wishing me travelling mercies and asking me to send postcards — I got the open frame I needed but the shop I got it from couldn’t do the finishing in time for me to get it turned in on time.

I was feeling really stymied. It seemed like maybe I was pushing against forces that were aligned against me, as if I was being held from going any further with this action. There have been times in the past when this has happened and it ended up being a protection of sorts. It’s sometimes hard to tell if you’re just in a busy and having a hard time getting everything done or if you’re being redirected by some force greater than yourself.

As I realized what was going on, and became aware of how frenzied it was making me feel, I felt something shift inside my heart, and I knew I could let it go.

I didn’t have to participate in the art festival in order for my canvases to be a worthwhile endeavor.

No one else had to see them at all, or affirm them or me.

They were worth my time and energy, if only for my own enrichment and process. Painting and art journaling are worth my time and energy because they have been good for me, so good.

When I talked to my husband about it, about trying to save this money by using a thrift store frame and squeezing the canvas in it even though it didn’t really fit, he stopped me. He told me I should just buy the frames new. He told me I should have the store finish them for me. He supported this attempt to put something out into the world (he didn’t say that part in as many words) because he knew it was important to me.

I was worth it.

I was able to get it to the shop where they’d prepare it. That part did end up being economical. The investment of time, gas for my almost-on-empty tank, and energy was…let’s just say it was less than economical. But it didn’t matter if I was saving time or money any more. Because the expense was going towards a worthwhile cause — me.

What about you, friend? How are you allowing yourself to invest in yourself in this new year? What ways can you mindfully allow yourself the freedom to do what replenishes your soul?

Don’t forget to stop by the Facebook page next week, or check in here, to find out about the fun news I’ll have. There are links up on the right that should zip you over there, or you can subscribe and have posts delivered to your inbox — so efficient!

Season of Words – Final Week

31
Oct

It’s Saturday and I was supposed to post on Thursday. I didn’t post on Thursday. My week just didn’t allow for it. I’m going to have to be okay with that. I’m trying to be okay with it.

It happens quite a bit, that whole “life’s demands requiring attention” that conflicts with the way I planned to use that time. It’s a constant dance of compromise and balance. I wonder when I’ll get it figured out, or if one is always in the active process of finding the way.

One of the prompts asked us about a favorite childhood story. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read this story. Can you tell from these pages what story it is?

The quotes I chose from the story are: “It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” And another one: “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Yup, they’re from The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe. (Just so I’m not getting more credit than I ought, the scene on the left hand side of the page was already in the book of fairy tales I am using for my altered book.)

The next batch of photos is showing how I put some extra paper in my book to build onto a page that already existed. My son came home with an example of a parfleche, or a type of Native American pouch, he’d made at school. It was the perfect way of including a different way of journaling. The drawings were part of the book, and I know the parfleche doesn’t exactly “go” with the page, but there’s so much going on already, I figured a little more wouldn’t hurt anything, and I out it in the right side because I couldn’t bear to cover up that fairy.

I found this quote and knew I had to use it. I had already put down a bunch of paint, so I simply wrote out the quote and stuck the words on the page. It seemed to round things out, even though I didn’t have the quote when I painted earlier. It’s fun to let the process take you wherever, to not resist and enjoy the unfolding.

My book is full. All the pages have been used and it’s been really fun to see it come together. For my final lage, I used a quote I saw on another Get Messy participant’s (Katie) page. I think it’s a great note to end on. Thanks for allowing me to share my pages here, and for your kind comments. For the month of November I’ll be doing National Novel Writing Month, and I’m trying to make myself share parts of my work in progress, so check back in November (or subscribe to this blog and have new posts delivered to your inbox) for a little portion of a story.

We are pieces of mosaics.

Pieces of light, love, history,

Stories glued together with magic and music and words.

~Anita Krizzan

Filling up the Altered Book

1
Oct

All week I’ve been working on preparing my first altered book. It takes some time, and some patience, and unfortunately I’m a little short on both, so it’s not perfect. But this isn’t supposed to be about “perfect” so I’m going for it anyway.

Here’s the cover of my altered book. I don’t love it, but that’s ok. It’s more about what’s inside than worrying too much about a perfect cover.
I knew I didn’t want to invest my time on the cover (my choice of book didn’t lend itself to a fancy, cloth-bound cover) so I just covered it in butcher paper like I would have covered a textbook back in high school.
Dig the quill and ink splotch? Since this season of Get Messy is “words” I thought it was appropriate.

Here is an author bio and a dedication page (it’s fun to make your own book have official stuff like bios and dedications).

The final thing I got done was to paint a whole page, then put a quote over the top. I went on auto pilot and used a different notebook to paint the page, and didn’t realize it until I was done. I had prepped a page in my layered book, so I incorporated the painted page into the book for a gigantic spread. Fun! Now it will fold out and it even worked with the colors I’d chosen at a separate time. Here’s what it looks like unfolded.

The drawing of the woman was in my book and she worked really well with my journaling. I have mixed feeling about the quote I used from Catherine of Sienna — I like it but found another I like better. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

The idea of fire tends to be a recurring theme in spirituality, but setting the world on fire sounds more like destruction than inspiration…maybe that’s just how I’m feeling tonight after thinking too much about it. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

Thanks for letting me share here. Does it freak you out that I’m painting in a book or does that sound like fun to you?