dating myself

I'm on week four of the Artist's Way. Today I finally took myself on a real artist's date. The past three weeks I've been squeezing them in as I did some other task or counting something that I needed to do anyway as a date. Cheap and cheating all at once! But let us not dwell on the past. I have the hang of it now. Went to Louisville Antique Mall and hung out for an hour. I brought $39.22 worth of art/creativity supplies

• a round tin can filled with 1/2" high, white letters
• 4 small wooden 1/2 circles that look like they belong above doll house doors
• a pack of old quilt pieces
• a button with a little, yellow Keith Harding person having a fit
• a button with a spiral inside a square - it reads "Aerial view of life unfolding" and if you look very closely there's a quote by Soren Kierkegaard inside the spiral "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.)

For now on I'm going to write about my artist dates within the Artist/bibliotherapy area of multipurposewoman.

more structure!

multipurposewoman was giving me that overwhelmed feeling so I chanted the definition (overwhelmed - a stress symptom indicating the need for more structure) and chanted until I knew what to do. Then I made a list on big paper and then I did it and I feel better and the site looks better, as in easier to navigate and easier for me to update, and know what areas need content. So that's what I've been up to.

Multipurpose woman (yes, you) what have you been up to? e-mail me and tell me something.

Home & Garden TV rocks

Does that sound like an oxymoron? Well, it's not. HGTV did a segment on me and my fiber collage a few months ago. The segment has been re-aired at least twice and each time I've gotten inspiring e-mails from people saying how much they enjoyed seeing me, my work and my studio. It aired again this morning and people wrote and it made me happy. I've been in slow mode and haven't been very productive but today I got e-mails throughout the day and it really woke me up. Thanks HGTV, Thanks people who like to write!

blog by e-mail!

I just read that I can send updates to this blog by e-mail. It's worth a try. Hopefully, it's make it easier to me to send a note or two throughout the day. I like the idea of twice daily blogging.

favorite book rediscovered

One of my favorite get-your-life-together books is Wishcraft: How To Get What You Really Want by Barbara Sher. I've started rereading part of it in an attempt to complete my goal of organizing all aspects of my life. It's funny to me how books I brought years ago in what now seems to be another lifetime are useful now. I remember buying this particular book. I was very down, wandering around downtown Louisville with my then 2-3 year old daughter. My goal was to be out of the apartment and to buy a book that would make me feel better and give me some guidance. I've always looked for words to guide me. Anyway, I was in the bookstore. And what I'd do is just look at titles and then buy the one with the best title. I could I resist "WishCraft"? The subtitle sealed it: "How To Get What You Really Want". I remember immediately feeling better and walking home pushing the carriage with much more hope and energy than I'd started out with. Later, years later, I found another great titled Barbara Sher book, "I Could Do Anything: If Only I Knew What It Was"! I love that.

blogger education

I'm determined to get this main blog page and the other blog elements that I want to add to Multipurposewoman do what I want them to do. Was the web created to frustrate and challenge people with control issues?

I Stand Corrected! I Hope

Based on a few random comments from misc. people I'd placed the novels of Omar Tyree into the category of stuff I didn't want to ever bother to read. But, since I finished Black Body last night, I'm in need of some fiction to read between completing tasks.
This read a passage do a task thing I do sometimes helps me get in extra exercise and ensures that I take regular breaks. It may sound strange but it works for me.
Anyway, I decided not to reread anything, not to read something I thought I "should" read, and I'm too lazy and tight on time right now to go to Target and buy Cane River. So I was looking at one of the bookshelves and found Omar Tyree's book For The Love Of Money. My child read it a couple of months ago. I know - but I let her read anything she decides she wants to read.

Still a little leery I glanced at the back cover and saw that Mr. Tyree has a website. Went there and discovered a section titled "Omar's Mission".
I love a man with a mission so I went there. I like what I found. He has named the genre of books I've been trying to avoid and into which I'd put his work. He wrote: "I call this pigeonhole genre "Black Soap Opera Fiction,. . . ." That's exactly what'd I've called it in my mind. Omar goes on to say that

. . . more "novelistic" and mature bodies of work from African-American authors is now identified as 'too serious, too deep, too long, and too purposeful.' My response to this is, "GOOD! And we need MORE of it!"

Amen - So I'm going to read For The Love Of Money. I hope that Omar Tyree lives up to, or at least seems on his way achieving, his claim of being a "creator of timely and serious literature that will become new American Classics" because that's exactly what I need for inspiration. Multipurposewoman, I'll let you know what I think.

peeves - actually just one

You know what really is driving me crazy? those big white gaps between headings and text. I'm going to have to learn how to make a style sheet and make the over large gaps disappear. It's silly how much it bothers me but I cringe everytime I notice it. I must be having an exceptional day because that's the only thing I have to whine about! Just returned from the Kentucky Center for the Art's Exceptional Children's Festival. An annual event that's always touching and educational. Off soon to play with my young artists at Iroquois. But first I'm going to fix/correct/change/add a thing or two to Multipurposewoman.org Until next time: be multi-grateful, be joyful on purpose and thank a woman just for being herself.

techno rant

I'd love to throw a fit about all the things that keep going down silly lane as I try to get Multipurposewoman just the way I want it but as soon as I wrote title "techno rant" the need/desire/want to throw a virtual fit sort of dissolved - perfect word dis-solved - it didn't solve itself or get solved it's still there only in a different form - I'm not dealing with it - it's a child pouting and then throwing itself down to wiggle and whine and attempt to embarrass its parent who gets down and joins the wiggler. If you know me you realize that it's my bedtime hence the silly talk without the punctuation. Until next time be open to multi-colored dreams, infuse your purpose with child-like curiosity (why? just ask why?) and every now and then just be a silly woman.

back from an enjoyable trip to Berea, Ky. Still can't get the syntax error off the page! Tomorrow I bet I will or I'll go crazy trying. I haven't looked in the news today for a woman of note but I know they're out there. If you know of someone doing something out of the ordinary or simply living their ordinary life in a grand way, write and tell me about her.