I found some Mermaids!

I've been to my local pool lots of times, but for the first time ever, I found mermaids there! They were swimming around in the shallow end. See?

 Maybe I got too close, because they gracefully got up on their tails...

...and dove into the blue waves, disappearing into my imagination.
Maybe I'll be a mermaid for Halloween.
What will you be?

A Surprise in my Yard

REGULAR LIFE:

As a mindful mother, I sent my son Scott a 30th birthday card. (Actually, when I was presented with the opportunity for a sudden visit to Salt Lake City, I was his house guest and left it on his pillow.) On his actual birthday, I did the electronic messaging thingy.

MYSTERY:

 When I got home that afternoon, there was an unfamiliar car in front of my house. I wondered who could be there. When I saw a flyer taped to my door, I figured the car belonged to a person canvassing the neighborhood with flyers. I went inside without a second thought.

SURPRISE:

I dropped my purse and put my keys away and wandered into the kitchen. When I glanced out the window in my back door, I had to look twice. There was a familiar looking person out there. To my shock, it was my birthday son! He'd come to visit as a surprise on his birthday.

(The picture above is birthday boy Scott, me, and Michael.)

I was so glad!

(Zack, Brian, and Michael scraping off "cottage cheese" ceiling)

I was also glad we had new carpet in our living room and a newly textured and painted ceiling, thanks to my hard-working boys!

(Brian sweeping on ceiling texture)

(Zack aplying texture to ceiling)

As an interesting side note, we found this when we pulled out the old carpet. The paint around the edges was to accommodate a piece of carpet covering the center. Since our house was built in 1895, I can only imagine the process of rolling up the carpet every so often and taking it outside to beat the dirt out of it!

Since our carpet was pulled up, our furniture had to wait outside for the new stuff. Michael opted to eat his lunch on part of our sectional furniture which was, of course, outside.

New carpet... picture taken at night with only a lamp on. Mysterious!

-All I can say is, it simply feels good when nice things happen. Sometimes we humans seem to hold bad times in our memories, the struggles we have, days when things don't go right. But I'd rather live like the 99-year-old man I once interviewed for a newspaper article who said, "I've never had any real troubles in my life. My first wife died, but that's to be expected. I have a good life. When we're done talking, I'm going out to work in my shed."-

Live happy!

Headlace

Yes, it's a "headlace," NOT "headless," or even "head lice!" This is the way creative minds work... see something that looks like a possibility and try it! This green and gold decoration (a necklace in a previous life) turned into a headlace today when I saw that it matched what I was wearing. It had happy adventures going around town on my head, winking and shining at passersby.

This is the way my husband, Bob, works, too. Instead of thinking, "I need a hammer," he tells himself, "I need something to drive this nail." (Maybe that's why he can fix anything with a bubblegum and a piece of string!)

So when you're writing, let your imagination put things together in ways that may not have been done before. Perhaps a necklace could be a wristlace, an anklelace, or even a waistlace! (That's "belt" for more traditional thinkers.) Letting yourself see common things in new ways frees up your mind and your creativity, which is valuable, because after all, no one can write like you!

So tell us, what have you used in a way that it was not originally intended? How did it turn out?

Playing in the mud!

The picture lies. I did not put that mud on my face, even though Brian suspected I was playing in the mud and made myself a mudding plaster mustache! Not so! It fell there of its own accord. I was in the store buying mud for our ceiling recently denuded of the sparkly, cottage-cheese type stuff, when I was treated to the mud-selling store man's tale of his childhood friend's ceiling with so much cottage cheese finish that it made hanging icicles! (Worst of all, they never melted... dun dun dun!)

Thanks to my buff boys Zack, Brian, and Michael, we got the cottage cheese off last night and mudded the ceiling into attractive swirls today, along with bonus attractive mustaches and permanent hair decor. (But the boys didn't get any! How do they do it?) We're almost ready to paint it into a happily-ever-after ceiling. I can only imagine that the next owners will get themselves some cottage cheese ceiling spray and go to town, creating actual stalactites!

Which brings me to my writing point... I had a book all ready to send out after a couple of more proofreads, but the proofreaders had (*gasp*) differing opinions!

So now I, the author, must figure it out.

What have you been stewing over lately? Have you come to any conclusions yet? 

Be That Kid Again!

          I am forever amazed by children. If you ask a child young enough to still believe in themselves and old enough to speak, they will tell you that, sure, they can sing! What song do you want to hear? Yes, they love to draw! See what a good job they did? Of course they can dance, just watch! Now you come and dance, too!

          What happens to some people's joie de vivre (exuberant enjoyment of life) as they age? I'm not saying you should dance in the aisles of department stores to catchy elevator tunes as I do, I'm saying that you could hold onto the feeling that, yes, you CAN do it, and you can do it well!

          But what if you truly can't do it well?

          I've posted a photo of my little sister. (You may recognize her, as she has been here before.) She is writing by herself which is amazing, not only because doctors at her birth said she would never walk or talk, but because she participates in my weekly adult writing class. At first, Mom had to sit by her and help her write every word. Now she does the writing herself. (SHE PRACTICED and SHE DIDN'T GIVE UP and she NEVER calls herself names or thinks she can't do it.) And the things she writes make the rest of my writing class laugh, think deep thoughts, or say, "Carolyn! I didn't know you could write that!"

          Even if it's not writing, find the invincible four-year-old you once were, (still there inside!) and do whatever would give your life exuberant enjoyment! What is it that you really want to do?