Bye Bye Summer. It's been fun!

Wow, the days fly. We have had wonderful house guests, continue to meet the people in our new community, find meaningful ways to contribute, cruised the Rhine and Mosel Rivers, participated in a week long poetry workshop in the mountains and more.

Now, I am working on pulling poems together for a book. I have an angel who wants badly to see this work in print. He is always supportive, encouraging, appreciative and pushy! The best part of this is, he's The Husband. Believe me, I know how very lucky I am.

Compiling a book is harder than I ever imagined.  I swing wildly from being proud and excited to hating everything I have ever written. I hear old voices in my head asking, just who do you think you are, missy? A lovely poetess in one of my sessions in the mountains probably gave me the best advice. She insisted that I just need to get some poems between two covers and printed. If she told me once she told me 20 times to JUST DO IT. So that's the frame of mind I am in today. I'm just gonna do it!

Here's one that speaks to it's own creation.

The little one at the bottom right is about another thingie. So many thingies I have. So many poems about all my thingies. Maybe that should be the title of the book, Thingies.

Sketchbook Madness from the River Cruise

Of course the old church is NOT listing nor is it sitting ON TOP of the bushes. Otherwise, it looks exactly like it! Yeah…I am happy with the sky.

Still a work in progress. Years ago, I sketched every day and was amazed how much I improved. Then I stopped and was amazed how quickly it all turned to worms! I'm back to a sketch a day. Obviously still have ground to regain. I have also discovered that I love water colors. I used to be strictly acrylics. 

Here is the cover for a small art book I am working on. The paper will be hand painted then about 16 of my small poems will be hand printed on to the pages. I have finally figured out how I will bind it. My original plan, lets just say, fell apart. I am all excited about this. It successfully keeps me from working on the other book! Don't tell The Husband. 

Here are some new cards

A day at the beach is still high on my list of things to be grateful for. I was reminded how generous the randomness of life is when this gull flew right into my view finder just as I hit the shutter.

And the days end in peace and beauty. I just have to remember to LOOK!

As Whitman said, Do I repeat myself? Very well then, I repeat myself. 

Here's what I'm thinking: Our dreams come true while we are preoccupied with the ordinary bits of life.  So, always keep those dreams playing in the background. Like elevator music. One day you will hear that crashing crescendo! 

(People have sent this to me several times on Facebook. I hope I'm OK publishing here.)