Under Lavender Skies

Hello again, I hope you all started your week off on the right foot!  I present to you a very short story, both characters (I am counting the cat as a character), remain unnamed.  However, I do have a name for the girl that you meet and it's possible that you will meet her and her cat again very soon, maybe even her Mother and Grandmother too.  Enjoy!  It was that time again when the days were accompanied by a perfect breeze yet the nights with a startling and unexpected chill.  I had left the house, enjoying the breath of air on my bare arms, and returned by grabbing the first blanket I could see and wrapping it around my shoulders.  "I'm home! Kitty?" I called into the dark hallway, I am not exactly frightened of the dark but it was unsettling, seeing nothing but a hollow black hallway ahead. I grabbed my Halloween witch hat, which I added a thick and flowy orange ribbon to (I had been working on a couple of Halloween crafts before leaving the...

I am really proud of how this one turned out!  It's a self portrait from a photo that my sister took of me about a year ago. Scroll to see the reference photo.  It took me three weeks, working on it 2-4 times a week (I need to start keeping track of hours spent on each project). Scroll to see a couple stages though I didn't didn't take a photo after every time I finished painting.  I hope you like it! 

Happy Monday!  If you didn't notice, there was no post last week because my family and I went camping (pictures coming soon). Last week was the first Monday I have ever missed a post. I have gone from being really motivated and writing every week, to posting (mostly) posts that I wasn't proud of but putting out because it was a Monday, to saying to myself, and others, that I will make simple posts revolving around a poem, that still take quite a bit of work, to being where I am now and being okay with skipping a week. I actually did finish this post last week but wasn't able to schedule it in time and I wanted to do what we go camping to do: live in the moment and take time to breath. So you know what, I'm okay with missing October 11ths post.  Please enjoy this beautiful piece of writing by Mary Oliver, my favorite poet. I hope it will brighten your Monday just a little.    ✰✰✰

I am an oil painter now...  It's not that I didn't consider myself an oil painter before. If you paint, you're a painter, if you write you're a writer. I don't believe that you have to sell a painting or a book to consider yourself those things.  But this painting (pictured below) changed it for me and really made me realize that oil painting is the paint that I like best.  I originally began this painting with acrylic paints. I thought it would work better since many sections needed to dry before I could add more. It ended up going in the opposite direction.  Acrylic paints dry really fast, they were drying on the palette before I was able to mix colors. I've gotten to the point in practicing oils that using acrylics was actually much harder.  The fact that oils take longer to dry is something that beginner oil painters assume will be more difficult, at least I did a while ago, but it is actually an asset.  With practice, I have gotten to the point that oi...

All the photos, except the sun set, we're taken at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art.  Enjoy! <3 "The Sky of Life" by Abby McLean  The world rattles on On rusty hinges,  Cracked doors, And through clogged tunnels And we’re expected to move Through them Either that or  The world moves on On a conveyor belt of sorts  Always moving  Relentless And we’re expected to move With it It’s the first of September, I lay back on a bench Sweltering in the heat And watching the clouds  Change shape  Above me Then I have the idea That maybe the picture of life  Doesn’t have to be continuously moving forward Maybe a better image would be  the clouds Or the sky The clouds and rain and lightning move around it Like people and things, in our own lives But the sky is rarely alone And neither are we  Even though it is the first Of the month And I am melting  Under the sky I watch the clouds Move on And try to be impartial as they go And ...

If you haven't read the short story I posted last week you'll want to do that before you read this.  You can find the story here .   The story "Brick Days," was inspired by a couple of things and ended up changing from the original intent.  The middle of the story really just happened, I didn't plan it and when I sat down to write, that's what came out.  I like how it turned out though, about an unexpected friend that was there for a moment and then gone.  Unexpected and unasked for kindness is what I was going for.   Let's start at the beginning. . .  There really was a fly in my water cup one morning.  I noticed it but didn't do anything, didn't throw it out or move it, just like the main character in the story.  That evening I noticed that someone had put my cup next to the sink and I knew it had been mine because the fly was still there.  So if you were wondering how I came up with the beginning of the story, there you have...

Hey everyone!  It has been such a long time since I last posted a short story and I am very excited to share this with you!     Brick Days By Me  There is a fly in my water.  It isn’t dead, but fluttering around, pushing its legs and body like it still has a hope to make it out.  Flinging my head back, I finish the last swallow of my coffee and set it in the sink on my way out, not bothering to clean the cup or throw the fly outside or down the sink.   Resting before the front door of my smaller-than-should-be-allowed apartment is my bike.  It’s silver and the best and ugliest bike I have ever had.  It’s not even that ugly, the absence of prettiness doesn’t necessarily leave ugly as the only option. I lug it downstairs and think at least it’s only one flight.   I have a friend who lives on the third floor, he rides a bike around town too.   I push off outside my building and wait until the brick ground smooths out to ...

In the Evening. . .  Sitting down, I look into the eyes Of my cat who's perched on the mound Of books and others likewise the room is not very clean but the setting sun through the windows makes it serene  In the evenings I write, diving into a different world for an hour or two. As I create, ideas take flight,  I work to write something true.   My green-eyed girl comes down from the desk to hop in my lap to flop down and curl.   Stopping for a second, I look out into the encroaching blue, at the sun and fog and clouds,  and wonder how anyone would get anything done with such a view. ☆☆☆

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I present to you, Two-Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin!   I really like this poem, it's really strange and bizarre upon the first read but when you read it more than once you'll begin to understand it more. It's almost like the more you read it the more you'll discover. It's also very short, so reading it multiple times hardly takes any time at all.  Here is a really great analysis of this poem if you're interested: https://www.artdiscourse.net/two-headed-calf/ ✰✰✰

At the beginning of this year, I made a New Year's Resolution for myself as well as one large, and far-fetched goal, that I thought was achievable if I worked hard enough.  I have come to find out that it was a terrible goal.  My goal was this: to get some piece of my writing published.  It could be anything, a short poem or a story.  That probably sounds crazy but I have entered many contests, and there are a lot more of them out there than you would think.   Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed that writing became more of a chore than something I jump to in the morning.  It’s really a terrible feeling, wanting to write and to be happy and excited about it, but just not.  I wasn’t writing to get better or to just write, I was writing to get something published.  Unintentionally, I was putting pressure on myself to write really well so that it would be something I would be proud to enter in a contest and in turn to achieve my goal....

I think these turned out really well and I hope you like them as much as I do! ☆☆☆