Athena Dreams Design

25 Weeks In

 

• We are just about at the end of Peony season, and I want to ask the flower growers this: why not longer? Where do all those roses come from all year long? You have to be forcing them to bloom all the damn time. What about Peonies for at least 3 months?

• The peach tree in front of our house has the starts of some fabulous soon to be summer peaches.

• In our garage are shelves with tools and stuff, and also a huge forest green rug and a couch. The couch won't fit in our house, and so it sits out there, with the rug that won't fit either. The weather has turned HOT, and now my cat asks to be let into the garage oh around about noon, and she sleeps in the garage, on the couch all the hot afternoon. My husband has taken to calling the garage "Her Boudoir". 

• Why is that the price of airline tickets has more (and I do mean more) than doubled since last summer, and we, the overcharged, are not more outraged? Is it fatigue, retiscence or ennui? Now do I just sound like Andy Rooney?

• I finished 2 (count 'em) 2 new paintings last week... that my friends might be a happy, happy record.

• Have you all heard about Link with Love?

• Have you all heard about Seek Your Course?

• OK, it's a tuesday in week 25. I think that means we are a week away from half way through. I'm going to do it with as much grace and good vibes as I possibly can!

The Holiday of Love

I know that there are a lot of people that feel that Valentine's Day is a Hallmark card invention, and more about commerce than love, which may be partly true, but according to an article this week in the Telegraph, its origins are most likely traced back to ancient Rome, among other places. 

Apparently in the days of old Rome 13-15 February was a pagan fertility festival called Lupercalia. And, OK, so it seems that the main part of these festivities centered around young men running naked in the streets using goat or dog skin whips to smack young women's bums in order to improve their fertility, but you know, it was a festival, and, all festivals usually include some wild aspect... uhm, haven't we all been to Burning Man, or heard the stories...

So, more history in a nutshell for you (PLEASE NOTE: irreverence ahead): in the very early years of A.D., there were several martyrs with the name Valentine or Valentina, who probably perished in some unspeakable ways, and then the Catholic church came along and called the 14th of February a saints day, no doubt to upstage those naughty pagans. Fast forward quite a few centuries and Chaucer comes along to write something naughty (again) in old english about the engagement of Richard II and Anne of Bohemia (mm-hmm). Now, fast forward another century and we have the first Court of Love, in Paris (of course), which deals with legal matters of the heart, and ya da ya da, and now onward a few more centuries to Shakespeare mentioning Valentine's Day in his play Hamlet - a long soliloquy by Ophelia, before the drowning.

So, that's probably more than enough to give you the idea, that the symbols and beginnings for Valentine's Day were around long before Hallmark opened their doors, I guess they saw a good thing and jumped on board, so to speak.

I want to say too, that I know there are people who loathe this day because they are single. For me - someone who has spent many a Valentine's Day without a true-love - this day has always been less about romance and flowers and having an "other", and so much more about carrying along that tradition begun in elementary school of giving a valentine to any and everyone that you love or even just like a lot. 

I loved the day of the Valentine at school. We would tape paper bags to the sides of our little desks, and everyone would put valentine's in each others bags. Most were handmade and handwritten, some the hallmark variety, but all of them were so very sweet. Did you all do this too? I remember coming home with all my Valentine's in my little paper bag, and sleeping with them under my pillow, until they got all ratty and bent, and my mother probably whisked them away.

And so in the tradition of my elementary school experience, I give you a Valentine, along with an envelope for you to print and use to your heart's content. You can download it here: Download Valentine Gift. Or leave me a comment here and I will send the file directly to your in-box. It is a 3 page document, one page for the card, one for the envelope and a page of instructions for printing and cutting and pasting. 

Happy Valentine's Day, and may all your heart's be full to overflowing.

PLEASE NOTE: This card is for your personal use only, please do not re-sell, change or modify the artwork in any way. Thanks.

September Brings New Things

Fall is my very favourite season, the air here is still warm during the day but there is a cool scent on the breeze when dusk arrives; in the afternoon the sky is deepening to that autumn azure blue; and the earth begins to smell less like a sunny yellow, and more like an ochre earthen colour. 

What do you love most about the Fall?

September brings new prints to the shop and a special running for the whole month 

through Indie Fixx Galleria. 

Sunday Morning on a Front Porch

A place to watch the world go by, or sit and contemplate the morning air, sip a cup of coffee, and listen to the chatter of the birds. Front porch anyone?

1. the front porch, 2. Our Front Porch, 3. Front Porch Peach Tree City Georgia, 4. front porch 1, 5. our front porch, 6. Stockton, NJ front porch spandrel, 7. Front Porch Livin' [Explored], 8.front porch 2, 9. front porch, 10. Front Porch, Liz's Place, Gran Canaria, 11. 2008 - 10 - 19 - front porch, 12. Front Porch - Vista, 13. Our new front porch dusted with snow., 14. .front porch view., 15. Front Porch - Manchester Michigan, 16. Afternoon on my new front porch!

A Week in a Life

How do you sum up a week of celebrations: Of life, and love and our journeys? 

• Arrive a week before the event, and spend lots of time in the pool
• Experience summer rain (the locals are sick of it, but we from the dry west coast were loving it)
• oh, and order in a booming sky flashing thunderstorm for a little more entertainment
• Hang with family and old family friends 
• Await the arrival of a pop-up trailer bearing a niece and a nephew and a brother and a sister in law 
• Be surprised and overwhelmed by the arrival of a "suum" made by the Thai monks that live next door to your mother 
• Build forts with wooden blocks and knock them down with lots of loud noise  

  
 

• Show up with your Play face on
• Have too much fun and fall asleep on the floor or on the grass (beds are for sissies) 
• Get dressed up and wear funny moustaches for the photo op
• Remember those we love that could not be with us in person but were certainly there in spirit 
• Be always grateful and extremely thankful for the friends and family who helped to pull this week off
• Be just as extremely thankful for the friends and family that made the journey east to be with us 
• Swim in the pool some more and get cannon-balled by your brothers and husband and nephew, over and over (that just never gets old, does it guys)

  
 

• Sing and dance with wild abandon
• Let some happy tears fall, while under a tent, on a balmy summer night 
• Stay up way too late every night playing music and singing in the living room (note: with the rain come many mosquitos)   
• Remember to hug your mother, a lot 
• Take some time to sit back and drink in the moments, the days go by so quickly 
• Be overwhelmed by the ways in which everyone truly showed up for this week
• Know in your heart that this life has ever more moments along the journey, just waiting for you to turn another corner and meet what is awaiting you
• Swim in the pool some more 
• Walk through your mother's house and remember all the parties and all the celebrations that have taken place under this roof and out in the garden, for many many years, and reacquaint yourself with that touchstone  
• Fly home and leave your suitcases all over the bedroom floor for 3 days, but open them to forage for shampoo and moisturizer
• Kiss the week adieu, and hold the memories close  

Beautiful Things from Beautiful Women

I have this category, somewhere over there on the right in my little cloud of categories, that I rarely ever use, and I want  to dust it off, and see the cloud increase the size of the category: Women Who Make Beautiful Things. I am guessing by the size of some of the other categories - like Colour Colour Colour - that the size of the type is based on how many times you use the category. Make sense? OK, so I want to increase the category size, and in order to not get caught up in the too mathematical I will not digress too much and I give you: some Beautiful Things from some Beautiful Women:

Alex of Gypsy Girl's Guide blog and etsy shop is having a Sale AND a Give-Away.  Above is an image of hers that graces my home, called Sweet Frangipani. I find that there is a magic and a delicate sweetness to her work that intrigues and calms me all at the same time. Alex is a world traveller and an extraordinary writer and thinker, and her photographs tell their own stories of the beauty and fragility and glorious mysteries of being alive on this planet. Visit her etsy shop, give her some love, and give yourself or someone else some beautiful, soul-filled photography.

Liz of Be Present Be Here has a shop where she sells her amazing wares, it's called  The Little Room and many wonderful things happen in this little room of hers. She pairs fabrics and colours and threads and creates the most amazing scarves and aprons and bags, and has just added jewelery maker to her list of talents. Above is a scarf that she made for me, which I have gotten only one chance to wear so far this year. But it seems that 80 degrees and sunny is finally leaving town (it is after all mid to late November, and we are, after all in Northern california). Seems that 50 degrees and cloudy is moving back in, and man I can't wait to get some use out of this amazing scarf. I showed you all the pendant that she made for me, special-like (yes, she does custom orders!), but in case you want to see it again, here it is. I wear it everyday. Everyday. And sometimes I find I need to wear it to bed and have it on in my sleep too.  Liz is also selling her aprons and bags at Artstream Studios shop. 

There are so many women out there creating amazing things, and creating amazing lives, and sharing their beauty and their wisdom and their own unique voices with us as they go. Celebrating all the creative and beautiful women out there is so very important for all of us who are creating a life as we go, and needing to know there are other kindred souls out there doing the same, and so my small contribution, growing the cloud category: Women Who Make Beautiful Things. 

You're Out of the Woods . . .

Literally, well, yes, and also no; and metaphorically, hmmm well, no. . .  the mess, the clutter, the usual state of my studio, and then some. And, my schedule, well, that's all gone to hell in a handbasket... (I always imagine one of my grandmother's summer straw purses, on it's way to the fires of hell, when I hear that phrase, and it's always the same purse I imagine).

All week I have had this song running in my head from the Wizard of Oz, you know the one that a bunch of angelic (maybe a little creepy) voices sing in the background, I think just before the gang arrives at the gates of Emerald City. I don't think it has a name, which works for my state of mind too . . . but, now, close your eyes and hear the high voices singing:

 

I never knew all the words, but of course Google does, and YouTube has a sing-along video for the occasion . . . and who knew there was so much religious symbolism... step into the light... march up to the gate... okay, the song is still playing in my head, but with all the words visible it takes on a whole new meaning...  maybe my new internal soundtrack should move along to being Whistle While You Work... 

5 Wonder-fully Musical Things . . .

A big part of my life is spent in my little studio, and a good part of the time that I am here, there is music playing. I will be the first to admit (read: confess) that I get a little obsessive about my play lists. I find a new album, or a new artist that I love, and it's all I want to hear. Anyone else do that?

My ears only want that one voice, those certain wonderful melodies, that awesome sound that creates the soundtrack for my studio for weeks at a time. And then I'm done. Done with that wonderful. magical sound for a long time, and on to new ones. . . 

Holly over at Decor8 recently posted a list of what she was listening to and asked readers to comment or post links back to what they were listening to: kind of a Musical Share, if you will. And so in that spirit: here is a list of what I am currently loving to hear, would LOVE to know what you all are listening to, maybe there is something else I should be obsessing over and don't even know it yet...

Omar Sosa: Free Roots  amazing CubanLatin jazz, love him!

Erin Corday's Secret About the World is  like a life story all in one CD . . .  I pulled this CD out a few months ago after not hearing it for years, and now it on constant shuffle.

Jesca Hoop: Kismet

Tom Waits says: "Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night." Mmmm Hmmm

Tina Malia: The Silent Awakening 

a gorgeous voice

and finally, my latest Jonatha musical obsession/love

The Works her musical collaboration with Woody Guthrie.

SO, now, if you feel so moved to share your current musical loves, I would love to know what you're listening to in your studio : on your iPod : in your car : and on your computer!

The New and the Everyday

There is a long list of Things that Make Me Happy, and one of those, I must admit, are new clothes. New colours to blend into the clothes already in the closet, new patterns and textures to touch and look at, and an all around new feeling inside my person when putting on and wearing the new clothes.

There is a part of me that feels like I should be less in love with buying new clothes, that there is something a bit... shallow, a bit crass, but, then I think: since it is more accepted to be out in public dressed, rather than, undressed (at least in my zip code), I may as well buy some things that will make me smile inside when wearing them. 

Buying new clothes always, always, always sends me back to that shop for new school clothes which happened in our family every August. All the new clothes, carefully chosen, and the new pair of nice shoes, to put away in the closet: All the clothes that I had outgrown removed from the closet and either claimed by my younger sister or put in a pile for Goodwill. Such a ritual, just like the new notebooks and book covers (ah but paper supplies, that's a different entry on the List of Things that Make Me Happy) that were purchased every year. 

The new clothes all put away so lovingly, so carefully, even organised by colour, and outfit; and, for the first few weeks of school, returned to the closet or folded carefully after laundry day, eventually became familiar, ordinary even, and more often than not, never made it off the floor of my bedroom in between washings (and, truthfully, that hasn't much changed).

There is a different smell about new clothes, even after washing them, they have an aura of specialness, a feeling of rarity, even a sense of daring. Perhaps wearing these clothes will make me walk differently, perhaps I will fall a little in love with the feeling of the new linen skirt brushing against my calves, perhaps I will see a new and different aspect of the person that lives deep inside of me, perhaps wearing these new clothes will shift something in my perspective. Or, more likely, they will just make me ever so happy, way deep inside, the first few times I wear them, and then they will blend in with all the other colours and textures in my closet, and become more ordinary, and special in their everyday familiarity: Friends.