Spam

We all get it.  It is sometimes disguised so cleverly, as mail from a friend, that we don't realize what it is.....

until we open it.

They often times appeal to our ego.

"you are one of the select few who......." yada yada yada

And once you fill out a form online your moniker is sold and traded like baseball cards,

or basketball players.

About a year ago Andy signed up for something online,

using my e-mail address.

He didn't want to put his real name,

so

on a whim, he made up one.

A pretty creative,

totally ridiculous name.

The name which is now being sold, traded and wooed by faceless companies across the cyber highways is

Pinocchio Pistachio.

What a stroke of accidental genius!  If I ever thought before that someone really did think I was worthy of all these exclusive offers all I have to do is open my e-mail and read one of these.

Referral, Pinocchio Pistachio

From: ***********

 

Hello Pinocchio,
You were referred to me from a reputable source as someone seriously involved in work from home opportunities.

I have a lot of respect for this referral source so I know you could very well be a great asset to our team.

 

It always gives me a good laugh.

Last night I was walking home from my neighbors house.  It was a sunny day with blue skies. As I was walking along I looked up at the sky, which is my habit, and saw something that made me pause. 

Dotted here and there in the sky were black and white jersey cows, bobbing along lazily, like the cumulous clouds they had replaced.  They each had a little hay on their backs.  Some of them had a loose pile, making them look like they had a camel hump each, and some of them had a tightly bound rectangular hay bale. 

But the thing that really had me puzzled was that they were UPSIDE DOWN!!! As if the hay was so heavy that it had flipped these cow clouds onto their backs!

That is what I found to be odd...

       Not the fact that cows were floating.....

       Not the fact that they were hauling their dinner around on their backs......

                   But that the hay was so heavy that it flipped them upside down.

        Anyone care to interpret my dream?    

Tomorrow I turn in my first acrylic piece for the class.  The assignment was to paint a traditional acrylic painting using warm light and cool shadows.  Lat that night after everyone had gone to bed I went all over my house setting up still life shots, flower close-ups, lit candles, Etc......  Then I went in the bedroom and there was Sammy, sitting on my bed all nestled in the comforter. My husband had his night light on, (he'd fallen asleep reading) so Sammy had a lot of interesting shadows.  I hand held my camera with the flash turned off and prayed that Sammy would quietly sit through the long exposure time.  She did, and I only jiggled a little, so I got a pretty good shot of her. 

Then I made the line drawing which I would use to paint my piece.

I enjoyed painting this.  Acrylic is my medium of choice, so I was very comfortable.  A little way into the painting it isn't looking very good.  Our instructor told us that "if your piece is looking awful, don't give up on it.  Sometimes it has to go through an ugly stage before it turns out."  To which one girl in the class immediately piped up, "Like puberty?" LOL

One thing about painting a long haired cat is that you have a lot of fur to deal with.  I painted about 6 layers on the cat, maybe more.  I had to build up the fur, put in shadows and highlights, build more fur and around and around I went. 

Here's the finished piece.  We'll have the critique tomorrow, and then I'll see everything that needs more work. 

This afternoon a big adult moose decided to take a short cut through our yard.  He cut across in front of our house and headed toward the back.  Abby was home and grabbed her camera and managed to get these shots before he disappeared in our trees.  Oscar, the little twit, ran out to defend us from the invader and just about got himself made into hamburger.  You don't mess with moose.  Especially adults.

Once in a while we have moose that come down from the higher country when the weather has been severe.  They are huge animals.  Last summer we were driving in the hills, rounded a corner and almost ran into one.  I was looking up at his head and I was sitting high in an Explorer.  They can also jump.  There was once a moose that found it's way into the stadium at the university.  rather than find the gate when he wanted to get out he simply jumped over the fence!

The reference photo.   This is my son and grandson walking down our driveway.

This is my line drawing from the photo reference.   I ended up moving the baby closer to the dad.  Their shadows now merge as kind of a "walking in my shadow" kind of concept.

And here is the finished piece.  I'm handing it in today.

I narrowed 50 shots down to these 7, straight out of the camera. 

I went to my class today and, for the second time in 8 days, stood there in shock as I saw my art posted in the hall of the art building.  There are so many awesome artists up here that I feel truly honored to be featured in the hall for the second time.  It's a far cry from my head drawing class, when the instructor stood behind me looking at my drawing over my shoulder, shaking his head and saying, "Linda, Linda, Linda".  I think he thought I was a hopeless case.

Then in head drawing one day the instructor, (different instructor) lined up all the days drawing from best to worst.  I felt pretty confident that my drawing was one of the good ones, but had to keep looking down the line farther and farther into the "not-so-good" territory. I wasn't last, but I was keeping it company.

In traditional oil painting we had to line our pieces up along a wall.  Then the instructor had us go up one at a time, choose the one that we thought was best and so on down to the worst.  Then he had others switch the paintings until they were, once again, arranged from best to worst.  My painting just kept getting shifted further and further down the line.  And I do mean DOWN the line, not up.  You can't have any pride when you're in art class.  If your feelings are going to get hurt by the critiques, you may as well hang up your smock.  I just keep plugging away at my art.  I do it for my own enjoyment, not to impress anyone or make a living.

So in this class I have been pleasantly surprised. I think maybe I have found my niche, so to speak.  It's been kind of a rush.  But I'm not getting a big head about it. I know just as assuredly as I am breathing in and out that next week I will probably be bringing up the tail once more.

Oil Lift Off

First we get a photo reference.  This one is of Mesa Falls which is not far from where I live.

Make a wash over the entire prepared gessoed board and "lift off" the paint in the areas that will be light.

When the paint is dry you can put oil glazes on top. 

This is pretty close to the finished piece.  I did tweak it a bit more after the critique, but didn't get a photo of it all finished.  I'll have to take one after I get it back.  It also looks a lot better after you take the tape off and put it in a mat.

3 Stories:

Story #1 - About a hundred years ago my grandfather, George Haroldsen, was a farmer in Idaho.  As anyone who is remotely connected with agriculture knows, water was the lifeline of everything....and the cause of a lot of serious offenses. 

Water rights supposedly guaranteed that you would receive what you were allotted.  But the rights don't take into account those unscrupulous few who go out and steal another man's H-2-O.  This was the case with my grand-pappy.  George "set" the canal to receive his allotment of water.  When he went back to check it later he discovered that his water was no longer flowing in his field.  It was being averted to another.  In the course of events George and the thieving neighbor had words, and then more than words.  In the end the neighbor was in the hospital and George was the cause.  The cancer in George's soul came when a ranking church official took the neighbor's side over my grandfather's.  That one incident colored the rest of George's life.  For over 60 years he stayed away from his church, though at the end of his life he did "return to the fold".

Story #2 - When my husband was a teenager his older sister eloped.  She had been dating a man quite a bit older than she, and probably felt like she was never going to have parental support in marrying him.  So she decided to run off, get married, and hope that all would blow over in time.

It took a long, long time to blow over.  Mike's mother was devastated.  I think she was hurt to be left out of her only daughter's wedding.  It's understandable, but still very very sad.  She went through a time when she refused to acknowledge her daughter's very existence.  All photos that included her were destroyed, or she was cut out of, no one was allowed to mention her name.

For 8 years.

It was a very stressful, tense, and unbearably sad time for the entire family.  Thankfully, that rift has been healed and mother and daughter are once again close.  But at what price?

Story #3 - On the very day that I was to drive to Jackson Hole to catch the plane to visit my sweet friend, Joisey, I attended Parent-Teacher Conference with my son, Andy. I felt some underlying anxiety as the day was stormy and I knew the drive would be harrowing. At the conference I talked briefly with the school secretary, who also happens to be a friend and member of our once-a-month Lunch Bunch group. She and I were discussing a major problem that had arisen with Andy's Work-Study employer.  Andy was receiving an "F" in the class because the employer refused to do certain paperwork items that showed his job performance. I had Mike ask the principal (another good friend) for advise about it and he told us he would take care of it.  I mentioned this to the secretary, that we had talked to "Roger" and he said it was taken care of.  She then blew up at me and told me "That offends me".   I just had to stare at her.  I was preoccupied with my pending drive and could not understand WHY she would take offense at what we did.  I could feel my blood pressure start to rise and knew that it was only a matter of seconds before I said something to her that I would later regret.  I started to walk off waving my hand at her in a dismissive way.  Within an hour I was on my drive, but I was still very bothered by the entire incident.

I talked to Mike later.  He had gone over to her house to explain what had happened.  She thought we were stepping over her authority by going straight to the principal.  Mike assured her that it was entirely a friend to friend asking for advise kind of thing.  He had no intention of having him "take care of it".  He offered and we (not being the kind of people to take offense easily) didn't know we would be ruffling any feathers.

Why have these three stories been rattling around in my brain all day.  I know, but don't want to say.  I just think sometimes that life would be so much easier if we could read each other's minds.  If we really knew the intent behind the actions that causes us to feel resentment we would be more tolerant and less inclined to pass judgement.

And our lives would be so much richer. Because we wouldn't have to suspend our church attendance and the sustaining influences of the other members.  We wouldn't lose precious photos and memories untainted by the "lost years". We wouldn't avoid attending a monthly social event because of the awkwardness of seeing someone who "offended" us.

My intent is never to offend.  I don't think anyone's intent is ever to offend.  I would be heartbroken if I found out that I have offended and the offending party is waiting for an apology that I didn't know I was to give.  I have pretty thick skin, like I said, and am not offended easily.  But if I were wronged, would it really be worth the mental anguish and pain, all that emotional baggage to drag me down.  I hope not.

I'm sorry, Mama.

I'm sorry the snow keeps falling and falling.

I'm sorry Andy got stuck in the driveway this morning and you had to pull him out and then you had to shovel our 90 yard long driveway.

I'm sorry you have to keep shoveling off the deck and the stairs so I can go outside and do my business and it just keeps snowing.

I'm really really sorry.

But maybe if the snow lets up for a day could you do me a big humongous favor?

Please?

Can I get a haircut, Mama?

I'm starting to go blind again.

I grew up on a farm.  We lived quite a ways from our nearest neighbor.  This isolation was good in many ways.  We found playmates with our siblings since outside friends were not readily available. 

But there was a drawback to this type of upbringing.  I was painfully shy.

I would stand off to the side watching with awe at the ease in which other children found new friends.  One time at the city park I saw one girl walk up to another girl and say, "do you want to be friends?"  The second girl happily shook her head up and down making her pigtails bob forward rhythmically.  They then grasped hands and skipped off to the swings.  I could no more do that than cut off my arm.  If I thought of doing it, I would not be able to breath as the spasm in my chest tightened. My heart would race and my face turned bright red.  I would back quickly away until the distance was great enough that I could gain some semblance of calm.

I did make a few friends thanks to my mother who encouraged and my church goings which threw me in with other girls my age. 

But mostly I was terrified of people.

And I remained that way through Jr. High.  Social anxiety caused me a lot of grief.  One time I was to play the piano at a recital.  I had my piece memorized.  As I sat waiting for my turn to walk to the front I could feel my panic increase.  Since I was one of the more advanced students I was near the end.  The waiting only made it worse.  One after another the others went to the front, sat at the piano and plunked through their little pieces and I  couldn't stop my hands from shaking.

As it came my turn to play I began to doubt my ability to even walk in front of these people, let alone play my piece.  But I did make it to the piano, only to find that my piece had entirely left my mind.  I made a couple of tentative starts and then just sat there frozen on the bench.  My teacher had to come up and tell me that it was okay, I could go sit down.  I was humiliated and ashamed.  How come it looked so easy for everyone else? 

I had to go to the doctor by myself when I was about 14 for a minor complaint.  As I sat in the examination room I started to panic.  By the time the doctor came in I was falling to pieces.  I could hardly tell him what the problem was because I was crying so hard.  I'm sure he thought I was a basket case, sobbing while telling him I had a wart or something benign like that. 

I don't remember where I was or who said it, but it was about this time that I heard an awesome  piece of advise.

If you want a characteristic, act "as if" you already have it.

Never had any other statement hit me with as much force as that one.  I pondered on it for days. 

If I want to be friendly, act as if I was already friendly.

If I want to be outgoing, act as if I was already there.

If I want to be confident, BE CONFIDENT!

I decided I had to try it.  As scared as I was, there was one motivating factor that was the catalyst for my change.

Boys. 

Or actually one particular boy. 

I really really wanted this boy to notice me.  I knew that the way I was at the time there was a better chance of me meeting the pope than for that boy to acknowledge my existence.  I formulated a plan.   I would become friends with his sister.

One afternoon in school we had an assembly. I walked into the auditorium and saw this girl sitting right next to an empty seat.  I gulped, told myself to act "as if" I was a friendly outgoing fun person.  I went over and sat next to her.  I introduced myself and we started to talk. 

I amazed myself.  We had fun talking and laughing.  I had made a friend.  Someone who an hour ago didn't know I existed was now my friend. 

To shorten the tale just let me say that the boy didn't pan out, but the new friend did.  We remained close for the next 4 years until graduation. 

What a powerful tool your mind is!  If a simple little trick like that can change the course of your life what are the other possibilities?  I've used this trick numerous times throughout my life.  When applying for a job I tried to act "as if" I was the best candidate.  When comforting a heartbroken child I acted "as if" I was the most compassionate mother.   And it worked.

Because in acting and believing it becomes a reality.