Morning Folks 09 30 05

Yesterday's blog was about nurturing oneself in the workplace. Today's is about one of those who nurtures me. For those of you who don't know Melinda, she is a dear friend whom I met at church years ago. We've been in choir together, served on committees and shared mutual friends. And we now work in the same office every day. She is one of my closest friends. Her husband George is also a dear friend who is the best partner at board games. We always win when we are on the same team. George and Melinda and their two daughters, Lynn and Emily (Emzers to some of us)are my surregate family when mine isn't around. They nurture me and include me as one of their own when family functions happen at church. Her girls sometimes bring me little toy animals and things for my "grown up" toy box that I keep in my desk drawer. But I think Melinda is the most nurturing when she greets me each day with a smile and always has something nice to say to me and it just lifts my spirits.
She made this button bouquet for my birthday. It matches my office colors. Aren't they sweet? She is so talented. You should see the itty bitty quilt she made that hangs on my wall. And you should see the large quilt she made that she shares with the whole office as it hangs on the wall in the Treasurer's office. It is gorgeous.

Thursday, Melinda's Sweetheart sent her flowers for their 27th wedding anniversary and they are just beautiful. I thought I would post them in my blog so you could how lovely these orchids and carnations and hydrangeas are in their pretty purple vase. I took these pictures with my telephone camera so they aren't the best quality.
But you can see how lovely they are and how George's gift made her workplace and mine so much brighter. Just like she does! Don't you all wish you worked with Melinda every day?



HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GEORGE AND MELINDA!!!!








I have many wonderful friends who nurture me. Another friend, Kitty, spoke about that in the comment she left on Wednesday's blog. Kitty is one of our little gang that includes Melinda and George, who nurture each other on a fairly regular basis over some wonderful dinners. I feel so lucky to have all of these friends in my life. I hope you are as blessed as I am.

And this weekend, I am going to spend some time on Saturday on the Cape with Melinda and Andrea and Kathy, admiring Kathy's quilt guild's handiwork. Reminds me of a song written by Dory Previn:

Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend(s)
We'll Saturday-spend till the end of the day.
Just I and my friend;
We'll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles.
And then we'll move on,
But we will remember long after Saturday's gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)

Come Saturday morning
I'm goin' away with my friend
We'll Saturday-laugh more than half of the day
Just I and my friend(s)
Dressed up in our rings and our Saturday things
And then we'll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday's gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday morning)

Have a great weekend! And hug a friend.

Love,
Suz

PS. Today would have been my Grandmother's 106th birthday. Happy Birthday Gram.
PPS. Don't forget Rabbit RAbbit Rabbit on Saturday Morning!

Morning Folks 09 29 05

When we truly care for ourselves, it becomes possible to care for more profoundly about other people. The more alert and sensitive we are to our own needs, the more loving and generous we can be toward others. Eda LeShan

I found this quote in today's reading from Sarah Ban Breathnach's book Simple Abundance. I have had this book since 1996 and from time to time I go back to it. I attribute this Daybook of Comfort and Joy to changing my life 10 years or so ago.

Today's entry is all about self-nurturance at work and the rituals that we can follow to accomplish that. She has wonderful suggestions like having a favorite cup of tea, or taking ten minutes of quiet time at the end of a long day. She suggests making your work space pleasing and comfortable to all the senses; having a comfort drawer with useful items like aspirin, bandaids, pleasant smelling hand lotion and emery boards. And have a space in a drawer for a little toy box with grown-up office toys like the little rubber figures I have for different holidays in my drawer or the Spice Mouse I have on my computer that says "Who's the big cheese around here?" Having pleasant music playing and stretching twice a day and other suggestions such as these will help to make your workday more productive. So today I think I will neaten everything, put on some Mozart and take that last 10 minutes of the day to relax and just enjoy being in my space. Oh, one other thing: Did I mention that flowers from a Sweetheart help to make the atmosphere REALLY nurturing?


(Here is a picture of my Valentine's bouquet and you can see a little of my office
in the back ground. If you look really close you will see a paperweight which is a rock with the word "Nurture" carved in it. It was given to me by the former Assessor. I keep it where everyone can see it. I think it reminds me that we can all use some nurturing, even at work.)


This book is filled with wonderful fun and interesting little tasks to do or things to think about like inspiring quotes and stories and questions to ask yourself. But the best thing it taught me was to concentrate on gratitude and to work toward an authentic self. I would recommend it to all women, no matter at what stage of life they find themselves.

And I see on Amazon that there is one for men now called A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance. If it is half as good as the one I am familiar with, I hope you take a look at it.

I know some of you have Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy because I gave it to you. Although some of you might not have read it or gone all the way through a year with it, you can pick it up and start anywhere and go back to it year after year and I just hope it helps you to find your authentic self and reminds you how gratitude can change your lives.

So, there is my book report for today. If you have a book to tell us about, please leave a comment and share it with us. I would love that!

Have a wonderful Thursday.

Love,
Suz

Morning Folks 09 28 05

A Swiss-born painter and graphic artist whose personal, often gently humorous works are replete with allusions to dreams, music, and poetry, Paul Klee is difficult to classify. Primitive art, surrealism, cubism, and children's art all seem blended into his small-scale, delicate paintings, watercolors, and drawings.

Klee grew up in a musical family and was himself a violinist. After much hesitation he chose to study art, not music, and he attended the Munich Academy in 1900. There his teacher was the popular symbolist and society painter Franz von Stuck. Klee later toured Italy (1901-02), responding enthusiastically to Early Christian and Byzantine art.

Klee's early works are mostly etchings and pen-and-ink drawings. After his marriage in 1906 to the pianist Lili Stumpf, Klee settled in Munich, then an important center for avant-garde art. That same year he exhibited his etchings for the first time. His friendship with the painters Wassily Kandinsky and August Macke prompted him to join Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), an expressionist group that contributed much to the development of abstract art.
A turning point in Klee's career was his visit to Tunisia with Macke and Louis Molliet in 1914. He was so overwhelmed by the intense light there that he wrote: "Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it, I know that it has hold of me forever. That is the significance of this blessed moment. Color and I are one. I am a painter." He now built up compositions of colored squares that have the radiance of the mosaics he saw on his Italian sojourn. The watercolor Red and White Domes (1914; Collection of Clifford Odets, New York City) is distinctive of this period.


Klee often incorporated letters and numerals into his paintings, as in Once Emerged from the Gray of Night (1917-18; Klee Foundation, Berlin). These, part of Klee's complex language of symbols and signs, are drawn from the unconscious and used to obtain a poetic amalgam of abstraction and reality. He wrote that "Art does not reproduce the visible, it makes visible," and he pursued this goal in a wide range of media using an amazingly inventive battery of techniques.
Klee taught at the Bauhaus school after World War I, where his friend Kandinsky was also a faculty member. In Pedagogical Sketchbook (1925), one of his several important essays on

art theory, Klee tried to define and analyze the primary visual elements and the ways in which they could be applied. In 1931 he began teaching at Dusseldorf Akademie, but he was dismissed by the Nazis, who termed his work "degenerate." In 1933, Klee went to Switzerland.

There he came down with the crippling collagen disease scleroderma, which forced him to develop a simpler style and eventually killed him. The late works, characterized by heavy black lines, are often reflections on death and war, but his last painting,
Still Life (1940; Felix Klee collection, Bern), is a serene summation of his life's concerns as a creator.

Color possesses me. I don't have to pursue it. It will possess me always, I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour: Color and I are one. I am a painter.
Paul Klee

Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first. Paul Klee



Everything vanishes around me, and works are born as if out of the void. Ripe, graphic fruits fall off. My hand has become the obedient instrument of a remote will. Paul Klee



Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Love,

Suz

Morning Folks 09 27 05

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child must work for a living,
But the child that's born on the Sabbath day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.


Ed and I were both born on a Thursday.
Doug was born on a Tuesday
and Bill was born on a Saturday.

What day were you born?
Here is a link to a nifty little website that will figure it out for you if you don't already know. http://www.timeanddate.com/
Just click on calendar and put in the year of your birth. This is actually an interesting website for looking around in. There is also this website that is quick and easy to use to figure out what day you were born on. http://www.hugkiss.com/birthday/monchild.html
And here's another fun one http://www.rexanne.com/bday-info.html On this website I found all of this about me:
You entered: 8/16/1951
Your date of conception was on or about 23 November 1950.
You were born on a Thursday under the astrological sign Leo.
Your Life path number is 4.The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2433874.5.The golden number for 1951 is 14.The epact number for 1951 is 22.The year 1951 was not a leap year.As of 9/26/2005 7:49:48 PM CDTYou are 54 years old.You are 649 months old.You are 2,824 weeks old.You are 19,765 days old.You are 474,379 hours old.You are 28,462,789 minutes old.You are 1,707,767,388 seconds old.
There are 324 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 55 candles on it.Those 55 candles produce 55 BTU's,or 13,860 calories of heat (that's only 13.8600 food Calories!) .You can boil 6.29 US ounces of water with that many candles.
In 1951 there were approximately 3.6 million births in the US.In 1951 the US population was approximately 150,697,361 people, 50.7 persons per square mile.In 1951 in the US there were approximately 1,667,231 marriages (11.1%) and 385,144 divorces (2.6%)In 1951 in the US there were approximately 1,452,000 deaths (9.6 per 1000)
Your birthstone is Peridot
The Mystical properties of Peridot
Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)
Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade
Your birth tree is
Cedar, the Confidence
Of rare beauty, knows how to adapt, likes luxury, of good health not in the least shy, tends to look down on others, self-confident, determined, impatient, wants to impress others, many talents, industrious, healthy, optimism, waiting for the one true love, able to make quick decisions.There are 90 days till Christmas 2005!The moon's phase on the day you wereborn was waxing gibbous.

Oh My Gawd! Only 90 days until Christmas. Gotta go shopping.
Have a great day. Love, Suz

Morning Folks 09 26 05

Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto. Charlotte Bronte



Good Monday morning to you all.

Love,
Suz

Morning Folks 09 23 05

Decalogue of the Artist


.

I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God
over the Universe

II.There is no godless art. Although you love not the
Creator, you shall bear witness to Him creating His likeness.

III.You shall create beauty not to excite the senses
but to give sustenance to the soul.

IV. You shall never use beauty as a pretext for luxury
and vanity but as a spiritual devotion.

V. You shall not seek beauty at carnival or fair
or offer your work there, for beauty is virginal
and is not to be found at carnival or fair.


VI. Beauty shall rise from your heart in song,
and you shall be the first to be purified.

VII.The beauty you create shall be known
as compassion and shall console the hearts of men.

VIII.You shall bring forth your work as a mother

brings forth her child: out of the blood of your heart.

IX. Beauty shall not be an opiate that puts you
to sleep but a strong wine that fires you to action,
for if you fail to be a true man or a true woman,
you will fail to be an artist.

X. Each act of creation shall leave you humble,
for it is never as great as your dream and always
inferior to that most marvelous dream of God
which is Nature.


- Gabriela Mistral

Translated by Doris Dana






Decálogo del Artista


I. Amarás la belleza, que es la sombra de Dios sobre
el Universo.

II. No hay arte ateo. Aunque no ames al Creador,
lo afirmarás creando a su semejanza.

III. No darás la belleza como cebo para los sentidos,
sino como el natural alimento del alma.

IV. No te será pretexto para la lujuria ni para
la vanidad, sino ejercicio divino.

V. No la buscarás en las ferias ni llevarás
tu obra a ellas, porque la Belleza es virgen,
y la que está en las ferias no es Ella.

VI. Subirá de tu corazón a tu canto y te habrá
purificado a ti el primero.

VII.Tu belleza se llamará también misericordia,
y consolará el corazón de los hombres.

VII.Darás tu obra como se da un hijo: restando
sangre de tu corazón.

IX. No te será la belleza opio adormecedor,
sino vino generoso que te encienda para la acción,
pues si dejas de ser hombre o mujer,
dejarás de ser artista.

X. De toda creación saldrás con vergüenza,
porque fué inferior a tu sueño, e inferior
a ese sueno maravilloso de Dios,
que es la Naturaleza.


- Gabriela Mistral

I love this poem. I love it in English and in Spanish. Even when you aren't sure of what you are saying, the words sound beautiful. Writing, painting, composing, playing music, sculpting, quilting...and even speaking are ways we can express ourselves and be creative. I even feel like I am being creative when I do my blog each day.
I think we all need to have some creativity in our days-especially those of us who use the other side of our brains most of the day. Some day maybe I will get back to seriously working at writing some poetry. Or maybe I will take up painting or photography or web design!
But for now, some nice pictures and a few nice quotes, mix them all up and voila! (Or is that Viola?)and I have my blog. Enjoy that part of your brain for at least a little while every day and you will be happier for it. I am sure of it.

Love,
Suz