Zen Cat Art

Happy Birthday...

 

Happy Birthday to us... and to the world's best daughter-in-law!

Terry's Book... Artistic Dozen Round Robin

 Here's a peek at a fantastic book! Terry Fryer's "Loves 2 Bead" - Friends - book is a delight. 

 

 
Inside

 
Elise's page.

 
I love Rilke.

 
Mary's page.  I love the pocket and the attachments!

 
Kim B's page.  I'm sorry is you can't see the grand picture clearly. 

   
My page for Terry has a representation of her chart in a little circle pearls. 

With a little card inside...

 
Wish we were all sitting on the porch together again!

Lots of big hugs to all of you!!

A Great Tea Party!

 

It was a GREAT Mad Tea Party!  Thank you Vanessa for starting this!  I totally enjoyed making the party and visiting everyone else's on line.  I'm not quite though the list but I'll make it over the weekend.  And I'm still getting comments on mine - forty so far, can you believe it!  We bloggers live for comments!  And cupcakes...

Well, the cats have washed the crumbs off their faces and we have washed out the tea cups but we're still talking about it and already making plans for next year!  

If you have left a comment and I haven't answered you yet, I'll get there.  I'm running a bit like the white rabbit...just a tiny bit late!

Thanks again for stopping by!

Mad Hatter Tea Party!

 
There is going to be a tea party here today!  This afternoon (we must make preparations and have the guests arrive) but if you are up early please go and visit Vanessa's wonderful site "A Fanciful Twist" while I make the cupcakes.  Come back a bit later and there will be a party in full swing!!

Click on the the link and to go to Vanessa's fabulous tea party.  Don't for get to wear your hat!  And visit the blogs that are in partying.  On the right is a list of everyone who is partying! 

Our first guest has arrived!
 
Our first guest has arrived and is waiting patiently for the party to begin.  She's doing a little reading in the meantime.  She has invited Tommy-King-of-Cats...
  
The fairy queen sprinkled her magic so Tommy can fly to the party - I think she will be coming as well!
 
The first yummy cupcakes are out on the table.  Soon more guests will be  arriving!
 
And here they are!  Abagail and Amanda, Shatoya, Ms. Bunny Pot, Shiro Kitty, and someone... has left their watch!  Who could it be?
 
Maggie! 
 
"What a wonderful party, Mom" said Maggie. "Where do we go from here?"

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
(Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

Thank you for coming to my party!  Please, leave a comment and come back again! 

Kitty Grace Note and it's a beauty!

I was having a bit of a frump today!  Twenty-two days of rain just put me over the top - sort of cabin fever covered with mold.  I'm generally pretty happy but my endorphins were all hiding under under umbrellas and just as I was about to jump into a vat of poor soggy me when I saw an envelop in the mail.  An arty envelope, with a picture on the front, and a card inside with a lovely note...and this absolutely adorable kitty bead and a hand stamped charm. 
 
How cool is this?!  Thanks, Kim!  You are the best.  This "grace note" absolutely brightened up my day.  

Photo Quilt & a Grace Note...

This is a small photo quilt.  It's a sample for a class that I am teaching in July.  Photo quilts are lots of fun - in class you get to see bits and pieces of everyone's life.  When I do a commission (I just finished a large one - story and photos are coming soon) I feel as if I really know the person by the time that I have finished the quilt.  I have made them for weddings, birthdays, graduations, births & deaths - they are joy to make and a joy to receive - I love it!  
And speaking of knowing people, you might just find yourself in this quilt.  If you're not here you could be ont he cutting table ready for the next sample!  Of course, I did have some help...

Here's another Grace Notes for you.  At the end of my street there is a farm (yes, I really live in the woods) and I when I was starting out for the post office and my morning walk this little head popped up.

We looked at each other for a bit, sizing each other up, and just for the fun of it...I mooed.  I have no idea what I said but she took off like a shot, legs going in all directions. 
 
Nothing like Mom when a stranger moos at you!  No doubt what Mom was thinking...leave my kid alone.  That little face, just made my day. 

Tell me what makes you smile...
 

Undulating Floors & Quilt Doodles...

My friend Karen Eckmeierwas in Vienna last week and visited the buildings designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser.  He loved bright colors and rejected straight lines - even in architecture. 
 
In 1954, he designed building these apartment buildings complete with undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows.

His Mould Manifesto stated "A person in a rented apartment must be able to lean out of his window and scrape off the masonry within arm's reach. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and paint everything outside within arm's reach. So that it will be visible from afar to everyone in the street that someone lives there who is different from the imprisoned, enslaved, standardized man who lives next door."

I love it!  It kind of makes me want to lean out one of our window with a paint brush...

Maybe a mini-quilt would be a better idea! 
  
Where are my crayons?! 

(Note: The photo is by Evgenia Kononova and has been released into public domain.  You can find this and other pictures in the wikipedia article on Friedensreich Hundertwasser.)

Summer Solstice

 

A Happy Solstice and a most beautiful summer to you all!  And a very Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there!  And to all of you who are living in the Northeast...Happy I'm-thinking-about-building-an-arc Day! 

Grace Notes...

Grace notes are musical notations that represent several kinds of musical ornaments.  They are smaller in size than a regular note and augment the piece.  When I took piano lessons, oh so long ago, I just loved seeing them on a page.  Wikipedia says that metaphorically grace notes indicate concerns which are of secondary importance to that which is a primary concern.  For example, the table setting for a party would be the grace note to the menu or the guest list.
 
But the table setting can be beautiful and add to the experience of the meal.

Grace notes in life are, for me, those little things that you come across - mostly by surprise - that make you smile.  They are not the big things like landing a new job or winning lotto but they add to your day in a "priceless" kind of way.  Ineffable, personal, they touch a place beyond words.  They lift us up, even if just for the moment and they carry us to a better place. 

The catch is you have to be present to notice them.  Here's an example...  I was heading out the other day in a rush and there on the wooden shelf by the door on our deck was this circle of stones.  I had put them there in a pile when the flower pot them were living in broke.  I had intended to put them in the new one but hadn't gotten around to it.  My husband arranged them in this nice little circle, a bit of a mini Stonehenge right on my deck.  It's so like him to do a little thing like that, quietly, without announcement, for no reason other than to please himself, to make a bit of order out of chaos. 

Finding the stones there made me smile.  A bit of grace - an unearned favor from the universe and Phil.  In pausing to enjoy them for a moment, I found a better rest of the day.

I think I will collect these grace notes and tuck them into my day where I can peer at them when I need to be reminded that there is always a bit of grace around if you look for it.   

Phil's first week...

Phil started "teacher school" this week.  The Alternate Route to Certification program to teach High School English.  Here is the promised picture of his first day.  I was voting for a Roy Rogers lunch box but Phil went fo the forty pocket backpack. 
 
The backpack is so heavy that if you tossed it overboard attached to a chain the Queen Mary couldn't leave the dock.  I staggered back just trying to pick it up but Phil trotted off with it - strength coupled with adrenalin is awesome. 

The first day a great big guy walks into their classroom to lecture and the first thing he says is "everyone stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance."  So everyone stands up.  Then he asks "why are you standing?"  The lifting of eyebrows circles around the room.  He explains that in 1943 the Supreme Court ruled that kids did not have to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance if they didn't want to.  He also told them that in a 2002 decision, it was ruled that teachers HAD to stand and say the pledge, even if they didn't want to.  Then he told them that this was just a fraction of the things that they would have to know just to get through the first day!

Yesterday's lecture was about the difference between the adult vs. child, and male vs. female brains.  And how they are indeed different.  Very different.  Like we didn't know.  He said, girls are generally more verbal, more easily insulted and hold a grudge longer.  Guys don't talk too much and identify more with "tribes" (whatever group that might be - but sports teams and armies come to mind) and insulting or hitting one another could mean that they are firends.  Kids, in general, operate more from emotion than logic.  And sometime, even if you ask them to sit still, kids just have to wiggle around.  Yeah!

Just to make it more interesting Phil has been doing all this with an incredible case of poison ivy - all over his face no less.  And when he went to the doctor to have that looked at they also found a bulls-eye rash from a Lyme tick bite!  So much for mowing your own lawn in CT.  So he is munching prednisone with a doxycycline chaser.

And here is the best part, when Phil went for his meeting this morning with the ARC Counselor who reviews and makes recommendations on everyone's resume and cover letters, they told him he was the best writer in the whole program!