I’ve been having to tell myself that a lot this week. It comes from when I portrayed Edith Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank last year at the Albright Theater. I found myself getting so caught up in my character and the lives of these people we were playing that I was stressing myself out. As you can imagine this was a very intense show for all of us. Anne and Margo reminded me so much of my own two daughters that I found myself forgetting at times that we were only acting and this wasn’t real. My cast mates and friends would just tell me, “Calm the #$%! down Mrs. Frank” to remind me that I didn’t need to be so intense all the time.

I am not by any means comparing my day to day life with that of Edith Frank, I definitely have “First World Problems” and not anything meriting the stress she was under. Instead I’m just reminding myself that my reality isn’t her reality and I just need to keep some perspective.

Things that are frustrating me right now:

• Not having enough space in the kitchen cabinets for everything to be organized neatly.
• Too much crap we don’t use in the mudroom cabinets so I can’t put other things away in there.
• Not having enough energy to keep the house as clean as I’d like.
• Not having as much help keeping the house as clean as I’d like.
• Trying to figure out what window treatments to make for the kitchen.
• The bedroom drapes.
• The cheap living room end tables.
• The disorganization and ugliness of my sewing room.
• The mess in the unfinished side of the basement.
• The orange cat situation.
• Emma’s unfinished bathroom.
• The dogs sleeping on our bed so the sheets are always gross and not giving me enough room so I can sleep well.
• Being fat and not having the time or energy to do anything about it.
• Being the only one that notices and seems to care and want or know how to do anything about all of these things.

Last weeks’ painting job really brought this into focus. I had to practically empty out half the first floor. There were so many cobwebs and dust bison behind everything I was embarrassed. I have been slowly returning things to their places and washing everything down before putting it back. Some things have overstayed their welcome and are being sent packing. Other things are better appreciated now that I have a chance to give them the honor they deserve.

For so long now I just haven’t had the motivation or energy to put toward doing these household things. It frustrates me. Yesterday and today I spent more time outside working and left the inside work for another day. Over the last 15 years I’ve put a lot of time and energy (and money) into the yard here and barely feel like I’ve accomplished anything. Problem is that if I ignore it or let it go for even half a growing season it goes to hell and I have to start over. Today I decided to try to appreciate it and look at it through different eyes.

Garden May 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I’m looking at what I have accomplished and appreciating it. There will always be more to do. I will continue to get too tired to finish it all and my body will ache at the end of the day. But that is okay. I’m grateful that I have a beautiful yard to work in and a fairly healthy body to work with on this gorgeous day.

I’m trying really hard to take all this positive energy to heart but I still feel a bit of bitterness and frustration. What is that saying? “Fake it until you make it?” Some days I just end up feeling like a big old faker and think I’m just lying to myself and everyone around me. Will I ever be satisfied? When I say I don’t give a shit and let it go I feel momentarily better but later when I now have more work to do because I let it go I get frustrated again and the vicious circle begins again. How do other people deal with this? How do other people both delegate work and not get annoyed when it isn’t done the way they’d like or find a way to instruct the delegate to do it without sounding like a bitch?

I don’t like being such a Negative Nellie. I read a lot of blogs that are all sunshine and rainbows (even when it rains) and I find them beautiful, inspiring and like a little vacation in my blog reader. But I can’t help but wonder if they ever have a bad day? Do they ever get weeds in their gardens? Do their dogs ever shed and make a mess all over the house? Do their cats poop on the hall floor just because they are being dicks? Or is it all a sham and an artifice and they have the same frustrations and set backs that I have but just don’t air it out for the world to see?  I guess if I were just funny it wouldn’t matter.

There has been no sewing or crafting going on around here this week. We have started the monumental job of preparing for Sarah’s graduation party next  month. Last week we had all but the living room on the first floor repainted. Boy, was that a big job even though we hired professionals to do the actual painting. My house still isn’t completely put back together but it is getting there. I’m really happy with the colors I chose and having pros do it was the best choice I’ve made in a long time. They did a great job preparing everything and the finished work is so much nicer than what we would’ve done.

This is the den/office. I found this rug at Lowes Friday. I obviously need to move more furniture back in there and hang some stuff on the walls. But not as much stuff as we had before. I do think my Eiffel Tower photo will really pop against this blue though.

I ordered some fabric for drapes last week during the Joann Home Dec 50% off sale. Hopefully it will be in soon so I can get those done and up.

We had shelves on the walls in this corner before but we took them down and I don’t plan to put them back up. Once Sarah is off to college I’m not sure this desk will stay here. I used to use it a lot before I got my new laptop but now it just collects mail, dust and evidently a pair of my shoes. We also had two printers on it that I haven’t put back yet and I’m not sure both are going to go back. One is a scanner/printer and the other is a wireless printer that we all can use from our respective laptops from anywhere in the house. But they take up most of the desktop and look really messy. I’d like to find room for the scanner upstairs in my sewing room and some kind of printer cart or cabinet for under the desk for the other one.

Sunday was spent reupholstering the dining room chairs. I also found this fabric at the Joann sale and really love it because is brings together all the colors from all the rooms.

I’m going to wait to show you the kitchen colors but you might be able to get a good idea from my fabric choice. It’s a BOLD statement for sure.

This weekend was also Sarah’s Senior Prom. I don’t have as many beautiful pictures of her this year as I took last year. We were rushed and disorganized and the kids were in a hurry to get to the official photo house. So I snapped a few quick ones and let them go. Then when we got to the “photo house” we started taking group shots and I forgot to have her stand alone for any. Plus I haven’t been happy with the photos my SLR has been taking lately. The exposures are off and everything looks foggy. I think I need to take it in for a good cleaning and maybe see if the sensors are messed up or something.

That’s her on the left with the corsage the size of a small shrubbery.

Her date was her friend Chris who she’s known since 2nd grade.  He graduated a year early and started college up in Milwaukee this fall. She was worried she wouldn’t have a date this year and then one night she came home to find our front lawn “forked”. (This is when pranksters cover your lawn with plastic forks stuck all over it.) This time (yes he’s done it to us before!) the forks spelled out “PROM?” She knew immediately who had done it (because she knew he was home from school for the weekend.) and called him up to check if he was serious or if it was just a cruel prank. I guess he realized that this was actually also his Sr. Prom in a way and thought it would be nice to do something with his high school friends one last time.

Of course this all just means that the snowball that is the final month of Senior year is swiftly rolling down the mountain and I’m feeling like I’m going to get knocked over by it any minute.

I’ve been intrigued by mandalas for quite some time. I briefly was making photographic mandalas in Paint Shop Pro and had an etsy shop featuring them. But they didn’t take off and make me famous so I quit making them. But I did have a number of them enlarged and framed and now display them in my house. I recently realized that I doubt most visitors to my home even know that I made them. My biggest failing as an artist is my inability to self promote.

I never lack for great ideas and most of the time am even able to bring my ideas to fruition. But I don’t know how or have the social aptitude to get my work out there to the people. This is why my business failed. Does it really matter? Do I need public acknowledgement to be successful? Is my work less valid because no one pays for it? The artist in me says no, it doesn’t matter. Just make art for art’s sake. The little girl that always wanted to be noticed says yes, I just want to be loved and recognized for my talents.

I want 1000s of blog followers, book deals, appearances on HGTV, a product line and people standing in line at CHA to meet me. Or do I? Maybe I like that I can spend a day on my couch watching stupid tv and alternating between doodling and crocheting. Could I still do that if I had all these followers and fans and work to do? Would I hate it if my passions became work. Or would I be one of those lucky people who could say, “It isn’t work because I get to do what I love everyday.” I call bullshit on that. Sorry, but once you have an obligation to someone else, it becomes work. It may not be shoveling horse shit but it is still work. And let’s be honest, I don’t want to do all the work that it takes to get to that point. We all know that there really is no such thing as an overnight sensation or just being in the right place at the right time. That’s why I think sometimes it is the people with less talent that make it bigger than the more talented person. They have to work harder at whatever skill it is they want to be good at and that puts them out there where those “discoveries” are made.

Is the only reason I jump from one craft to the next because of lack of recognition for my talents in one particular field? Not completely. Frankly I get bored too quickly with doing one thing all the time. I typically circle back to most of my interests at some point. Some of my interests are more seasonal. Sometimes I turn to certain mediums because of an emotional need. Sewing is more solitary and isolating. Knitting and crochet I can do in more social settings. Making Zentangles is somewhere in the middle. Within sewing I find quilting fills one type of need creatively while garment sewing uses a different part of my mind.

Photography is completely different than all my other hand crafts. When I make something be it sewn, knit, crocheted or drawn, I’m creating something out of nothing. Taking basic supplies and putting them together to make something new. When I photograph something I’m looking at something that is already there and trying to capture it the way my mind sees it. Like all art forms there is a combination of artistry and technical skill. Often I think my art is my therapy. It is definitely my meditation.

**All of the above photo Mandalas were made using photographs taken at Rosslyn Chapel  and Roslin Glen in Scotland during our 2007 trip.

**The Zendala was made using a template from Tangled Harmony.

ETA: I was flipping through my Zentangle Journal right after uploading this post and realized that this Tangle needed to be included in this post even though it wasn’t a mandala or a spiral. The message is the point. The words are part of a lyric from one of my favorite Jason Mraz songs. Unfortunately the song has a title that isn’t easy to share with people without offending.