Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Grandma Moses

JS Online: Grandma Moses' art getting a 2nd look: "A critic's perspective"

...is an article from some time ago. Something that most people don't know about me is that when I was a child I won an art contest with a Grandma Moses style painting. It was hung in the Art Museum and I received a coffee table book on Grandma Moses, an Arbuthnot anthology of stories, a real life artists easel and oil painting supplies in a metal case. I was really stoked about that art supply set. Going to the museum party was not as much of a highlight, but I remember it being an honor; I got to meet "Lucy" of Lucy's Toyshop ( a kids TV show). I have no idea what they did with my painting.

Anyway, I have always liked that primitive, folk art sort of painting. To this day.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Idling the hours away... actually just followed a stat link to A9 search engine. They have this nifty feature of a sidebar with pics relevant to the search query. Just sort of interesting. I saw this http://a9.com/ilona%20.

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

blogger is extremely weird and inefficient today. Made inexplicable copy of the last post and absolutely will not upload the hello pics. Blah, a truly toady day.

That reminds me. Have you ever found that child book characters describe you? I am more toad than frog, and more eeyore than pooh. Most definitely I am more Puddlegum, marshwiggle, than Reepicheep. BTW, I think of all those characters I identify with as basically Scots in temperment.

Stereotypes are merely shorthand and icons for patterns of behavior anyway. People now like to make such a "to-do" over stereotyping. It smacks of profiling and the negative results of that. Our world wants a vanillaed homogenization where nobody has anything identifying and God forbid anything that stands above the crowd. God-in-empty-context forbid that!

What happens in a newspeak world, I wonder? After all, peoples senses don't just go away, for all the pressure to submerge them. They don't really drown...but morph into mermaid sirens that both draw our fear and fascination. Until we have lost the boundaries between myth and truth.

Strange to think about, isn't it?

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I hate my head today. It isn't working all too well lately either. I can't think of my words and I am inutterably lazy. I must find a way to funnel in some inspiration soon- I am in danger of boring myself... and that is a very bad place to be in. I bore others long before I bore myself, usually.
I notice interior design is going more modern with clean lines. Lots of Pottery Barn look. I tend to like the pared down decorating , but have had lots of clutter in real life. I am torn between design sense and sentimentalism. Knick-knacks seem to win. Plus we have most of our family people living in the house most of the time since I am a SAHM who homeschools and my husband is semi-work at home.

Oh yes, we sometimes get tired of one another! Oh yes. but the house has enough size that anyone who wants to get away a bit usually can. And often there are enough runs to outside destinations, with teens especially, that it isn't as bad as it sounds.

I have curtailed my church participation to zero - although I don't really want it to stay at that level. But I don't trust myself to keep church from exponentially usurping all my energy if I allow it a place right now. I really need to get my family life taken care of: the wedding. The homeschool demands, the organizing, the prep for having my mom come live with us. Unfortunately my experience is that those around me want my help but don't voluteer theirs when it is time to attend to my obligations here.

Sounds awful, but there it is...in black and white. Rather stark, but it comes from the fact that I hate asking for people to help me, and I hate to act all needy and whiny like those women who get their wheels greased...soppingly greased. I need some balance in that area. But since I tend to be as independent as possible, that has meant decreasing my help to others at this juncture in life. Plus the accumulation of my out of sync lifestyle. When other women my age have become "ladies who lunch" I have still been raising young children and the homeschool has acted like a job, an unpaid job. I can't just drop everything and go out to lunches and day trips and things like that. That sort of isolates you socially.

Other factors, too, but I don't think it matters to itemize them. Right now, I just simply don't have a group I fit with...except bloggers. But if I were to be precise about that it is blogging, not bloggers... I have relationships with my blogs- now there is a pathetic realization.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

We've been talking movies lately, haven't we? Besides finding myself mirroring Napoleon Dynamite, only the "idiot" response not the mouth hanging slightly open with the maddening lack of response, lately, I have been thinking some about the movies I watched.... and the next logical step to that is:
A List!
Yes, I came across a meme to list the five celebrities you find most attractive (only not in those exact words, but this is a family-safe blog).

Here's my list:

1. Brad Pitt
2. Johnny Depp
3. Harrison Ford
4. Hugh Jackman
5. Eddy Murphy (yep, you read right)

The trouble with the younger ones is they are too close to my sons ages, and that gives a yuk factor when I am not in my fantasy always-29 age. One that would be on the list if he were alive is Bruce Lee.
I like the bad boy with the glint in his eye...but whose core has something kind and redeemable.
Jet Li, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson...they all came close to inclusion.

How about a list of those who are repugnant? How about that sort of list?
that would be difficult because some of those have repulse/attract factor. Think Christopher Walken. He is both. Maybe it depends on the role. Like Kevin Bacon. I thought he was attractive until that movie with Meryl Streep.

My husband can't come with anyone besides Goldie Hawn. Now you know he is hiding things when he can't come up with more than one celebrity name. The man likes to play the Public Enemies (Two-Disc Special Edition)cypher.
Tonight saw "The Village". I think that is what it is called-my husband picks the movies, I just watch them. That is one very strange movie. The end was actually a bit of a surprise, mainly because I wasn't sure whether the highly stylized manner of most of it wasn't just symbolic and presenting a philosophical view-which it was, but the end was something of a surprise.

I know that I am watching way too much video along with way too much computer time, but really I have an excuse. It is called STIR CRAZY.

Wow. Glad that is out of my system. I think I will walk around my yard tomorrow in the wet and sink maybe, three inches down, -just kidding, about the walk. No I will stay inside and try to break the mood with ...I don't know, more blogging? Actually I hope to break from the computer tomorrow... and maybe for a couple days after that. Maybe I will read for more than twenty minutes. Now that would be different, of late. Maybe I will cook a real dinner as opposed to my reasonable facsimiles of dinners...that would be different too-but wait. that means shopping.ooooh nooooo, not shopping.

I didn't agree with the premises in The Village. Another time...aw, you'll live:)

Monday, January 10, 2005

hmmmm. I feel the need to explain my economic position in life. I don't know if there are lots of others my age that find themselves in this position or not... I have made life decisions that were outside the scope of the average...like having ten children.

Most all my life I have lived in the lower middle class and a few times during job layoffs and such dipped into where I probably would have qualified for welfare -if I hadn't been so set against it. I just don't like exchanging human dignity for a few bucks.... not unless the kids were out and out starving. then, I would've been on food stamps and such, but it was my blessing to not have to go to that extremity. What I did have was enough of the experiential taste of that to have some compassion for those on the receiving end of the helping hand and strong opinions on how one should give.

My dad had a good enough job, but he was very frugal. OK, He was stingy, and not only that, but he liked to put us, his family, into a sort of social experiment lab. Living like the "other half", even though he made decent money. I don't begrudge that, it caused me to know how to tighten my belt and squeeze blood from rocks when that is necessary. It parlayed into being able to raise our large family on a very tight shoestring of a one-worker home. One breadwinner -mybad. And he did have some savings, which after he willed over half to some strange woman, left something for his kids. Me being one. That is where the stock came from, and that is why I can talk about that now.

Anyway.... I will never be a luxurious consumer, and won't impress you with my fab wardrobe, which is still mainly second-hand from my sister- she does have good taste, though:) these are most likely good things, and I am one of those people who mourn the end of "you can't tell a book by its cover" sorts of adages.

I do however strongly have faith in the scriptures which say
Psalm 37:25
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.


I expect that my God will supply my needs. I just don't limit the manner that he will do this..... I am grateful for his timing and his faithfulness.
About some movies I watched lately.

First someone on a blog dissed Open Water. I thought it was a bit home-movie at first, but by the end I felt that it was probably one of the more horror producing for all that. It was an interesting movie in some ways and not in others. The dialog seemed fairly realistic, and the manner of filming gave it a fresh feel.

Now on the other hand everyone is talking up Napoleon Dynamite. This I do not understand... it is like visiting people that I regularly had contact with a couple decades ago and still run across, lately. No kidding. I live in the Midwest. You see lots of this sort of "action" in the Midwest USA. I have to say I tolerated it better with the commentary by the actors/producers whoever. These poeple who look at you blankly and say "idiot!" are people I like to avoid. But especially the Uncle Rico character people..... I especially avoid them.

I know people will think I just don't get this.... but I did get it. And I still don't like it. But my kids love it, so I had to sit through a couple showings of it over the time they had it. And now I have to hear my teenage son constantly say "idiot!" in the same inflections that high school boys I grew up with said it to each other (none would have dared say that to me.... I had comebacks like "you sanctimonious prig" - which I actually felt badly about when I used it, the poor guy looked so crestfallen). I could do without hearing Napoleon-inflected invective throughout my day, now, though. "Moron" - I better stop before I haunt my own mind with this stuff......

Ok, those were my form of reviews.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

I have watched ye olde stocks falling the last couple days... easy come easy go. Trying to get my kids jump started on their schooling- essay writing to be exact. Yes, I know how to write.... I just don't want to do it that way. {sure, Ilona} -hey! third person! Now how effete is that?

I watched Troy on video last night. and -completely unrelated- could not sleep well all night. I think it was the nasty constant drip of rain. I couldn't find the aspirin either. That was a bummer.

Want to know what I had for dinner last night and for breakfast this morning? chocolate. I am going to be sooooo sorry that I am allowing my extreme parts of personality so much dominance.... for the last week I have just about done only what I want to do. when I want.... except for a few exceptions. I think it is sort of a pendulum swing from the vast amount of displacement of self that took place over the holidays. I really was bending over backwards most of the last couple months.

Gives a major crick in ones back.

Ohyeah... the outdoor mice have been invading. That happens alot when you live rural. You just break out the mouse traps and all... but I majorly hate rodents.

Except squirrels...from far away. I don't like squirrels that get overly familiar with my habitat, but I have cats around that ensure that does not happen. Not for that reason-it just works that way.

update: that was second person, wasn't it? Now I'm not sure and will have to brush up. second is you...um..um...so maybe Ilona would be third except I addressed it like to someone I was talking to, which technically is second person. Unless I was talking to you about me, which is Ilona...as a side comment, which then made me correct before I went through all this....

OK. I promise to stop rereading my own stupid posts... so much. I mean I can't totally stop just like thaat.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Russian Chai



The Russian word for tea is Chai, and I will always remember it. When I was in St.Petersburg, I found that tea was everywhere and seemed to be more favored than coffee. I spent my week in St.Petersburg during a very cold November, and every resturant was quick to offer tea. In Russia, they brew their tea thick and hot and pour it into small glasses. I had thought that England or India would have been the capitol of tea, but not so. The Russians thrive on it, and while viewing one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world in one of the most spectacular cities to be seen, with a cool chill moving across the sky, a drink of this Russian Chai completed everything.


-H.S. Bailey

Monday, January 03, 2005

What new things did I learn in 2004? I learned how to work with MT code for my other blog. Sort of learned. It is more complicated than I thought and I can't rely on frontpage to jimmy with it since that ____ program automatically changes the strange code into stranger characters, and I don't know how to turn the auto-change off yet. So I hybrid it with Notepad, which does really strange things to the formatting. Ok. I half-learned.

Another really new thing for me was to learn how to read stock writing. :) Yep, all those magical little symbols and numbers that stand for why your money is going down the drain and why everyone else seems to get rich. Of course, I only half understand that in my math-challenged sort of way. But now I have a teeny bit of stock and I can now lose money all by myself instead of depending on others to lose it for me. What a feeling of power and intrepidness!

I haven't figured out funds yet, which is probably good. That is saved for 2005.

I wish I had done lots of this sooner in my life, but wow- what would I have done? Things are probably best in their own time. I am more self-reliant now.

I watched really really stupid things on videos and caught up with last decades culture. I know the draw of Friends, I understand the freaky eschatology of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know what it is to pull an all-nighter for 24... and be the undead for a week afterward.

I disengaged from online forums. I am now deeply embedded in the blog culture, which I don't really understand the workings of yet.

I am seeing a pattern here....

Saturday, January 01, 2005

good things bad things......

good: my husband decided he wanted a new printer, so he took mine and bought me an excellent new one! I have eaten lots of good chocolate lately. I think that's good. It tasted good:) and other yummy things. Happy Holidays indeed.

bad: I am tired of words. I have overloaded on reading blogs and writing blogposts. Way overload. it is intellectual binge and purge.

ok. done. there's is more but I am blogged out, ppls.