Day 28 of 30 Paintings in 30 Days

On Day 28, my_rabbit_account posted this adorable photo of her rabbit, Alwin, and I couldn't resist trying to capture that adorabibble nose! I am *not* happy about the whiskers, but I am glad I tried... More practice!


Don't forget to check out the other paintings at Leslie Saeta's blog!

A Reminder...

Swinging under the full moon by bride_of_neptune

Plant impossible gardens. Look forward to dreams. Cry during movies. Swing as high as you can on a swing set, by moonlight. Cultivate moods. Do it for love. Take lots of naps. Take moon baths. Giggle with children. Listen to old people. Entertain your inner child. Build a fort with blankets. Get wet. Hug trees. Write love letters.

~ Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (aka SARK)
via KindOverMatter

Young at Heart

A friend of mine, inspired by my rainbow cake (and another friend's), recently made her own and posted about it. This is the recipe she used, where all the layers have fruit flavors. (OMG YUM!) But what *REALLY* got to me about this post was not the cake (although it really does sound fabulous!); what got to me was the story.

Let me share here in case, you don't want the added cake distraction...

...a wild flash of black tulle and hot pink beads flew past me. I was shocked. It had been a long time since I'd seen such 80's retro style worn with such determined...style. Stopping to stare out the corner of my eye, I took in the flash.
*

Neon pink Lace shirt layered beneath a pink concert tee.

Black tulle tutu.

Leggings.

Jelly bracelets from wrist to mid-ulna.

Crimped hair.

Pink tennis shoes with giant lace bows.

*

Marvelous.

*
As I was not-staring, 80's Girl turned toward me. Her hair gave way to her profile. Then her face. I was shocked! 80's Girl wasn't a girl at all. She was an "80's WOman!" The gal toting said Cyndi Lauper gear was no high school, teeny-bopper wannabe. Nosirree. Before me stood a round, freckle faced forty-something and instantly, I loved her.
*

All that color.

All that style.

All that life experience.

All that tulle.

*
It made me think. Growing older doesn't have to mean growing gray. Everyday can be prismatic hues of light and loveliness. I just have to remember to put them on in the morning.

I want to be that reminder to others...

I don't want to blend into the background, another 40-something lady fading away to grey. I want to wear tulle and rainbow colors and rabbit ears... I want to dance in the rain... and the sun... IN PUBLIC! I want to talk to strangers in public places, find out about their lives, make them smile. I want to be bold, daring, different! I want to put aside the stupid little voices in my head that say, OMG no! Blend in! Hide! Don't stand out or you'll be teased!

I want to LIVE and be JOYFUL! And I want it to spread to EVERYONE like some viral disease...

Another Quote

If health were our real concern, it would be dieting we question, not weight.
~ Sally Tisdale

QOTD

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
~Steve Jobs

From Gala's TiLT

“You are always living the life you create. If your life does not feel right, create something better.”
~ (Unknown)

Fairy Rose

Click for Details

QOTD

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago?
How did they work out?
Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them?
Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?

~ Dale Carnegie

Thought provoking quotes

...from The Girl with No Shadow...

"...and every time I looked at them they seemed to be laughing at me.

"I don't care. Who wants to be like those two?

"But then I see them with their heads together, and I can tell from the way they are looking at me that they're laughing at me again. Why? What is is about me? In the old days at least I knew what made me different. But now --

"Is it my hair? Is it my clothes? Is it because we've never bought anything at the [mall]? Is it because we never go skiing ... or to Cannes for the summer? Is it some kind of label on me, like a cheap pair of [sneakers], that warns them I'm second-rate?

"...There is nothing unusual about me; nothing to suggest we haven't got money. I wear the same clothes as everyone else. My schoolbag is the same as theirs. I see the right films, read the right books, listen to the right music. I ought to fit in. But somehow I still don't.

"The problem is me. I just don't match. I'm the wrong shape, somehow, the wrong color. I like the wrong books. I watch the wrong films in secret. I'm different, whether they like it or not, and I don't see why I should pretend otherwise.

"But it's hard when everyone else has friends. And it's hard when people only ever really like you when you're being someone else."

...

"I wouldn't mind if someone else was It sometimes. But they never are. It's always me."

...

"It's not that I'm shy. I like people. I get on with them. I like to talk... I'm not...too shy... touchy... or snobby... I'm always here to listen if someone's upset... but just when I think we're getting somewhere, she goes and starts some new thing... and when I say, ...don't do that, she just gives me that look and says it's only a joke, and so I have to laugh, even when I don't want to, because I don't want to be the one with no sense of humor. But it really doesn't feel funny to me... it's only funny when you're not It.

~ All above from Anouk's thoughts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Actually...in the seduction department, colored candles are vastly overrated when compared to oral sex." ~ Zozie's thoughts on what color candle to burn for a love spell

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The thing about beauty... is that actually it doesn't have much to do with looks at all. It's not about the color of your hair, or your size, or your shape. It's all in here." She tapped her head. It's how you walk, and talk, and think...

"Call it attitude, if you like. Call it charisma, or chutzpah, or glamour, or charm. Because basically it's about standing straight, looking people in the eye, shooting them a killer smile, and saying, fuck off, I'm fabulous." ~Zozie on beauty

Epitaph

If I am to have a grave, I hope my headstone reads as lovely as Belle Starr's does:

"Shed not for her the bitter tear
Nor give the heart to vain regret
Tis but the casket that lies here
The gem that fills it sparkles yet."

QOTD

The universe gets as giddy as a schoolgirl with ADHD after eating six bowls of Fruit Loops (with Red Bull substituted for milk) when we respectfully make the leap into magic and offer to play with the cosmos on its own terms. Magic lies between us and the universe, right here, right now, this instant, and always has. (Remember to breathe.)

Love saves the universe every time.

--Jason Louv

Earth Day

Quand on a terminé sa toilette du matin, il faut faire soigneusement la toilette de la planète.

"When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet."

~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French by Richard Howard

What are your plans for the day?

You are a child of the Universe...

No less than the trees & the stars. You Have A Right To Be Here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding As It Should...

...from a poem by Max Ehrmann?

Hope Will Never Be Silent

Yesterday afternoon, the editor of Diversity Rules Magazine received hate mail threatening them to "CEASE AND DESIST" or suffer "a personal TUNEUP" adding that hate crime legislation will not stop them, even if they have to hire someone. I am utterly dumb-founded by such blatant bigotry that I don't know what to say. The police have been notified of course, and are investigating, but meanwhile, what do we do? I don't know for sure, but I do know that we can't just roll over and give in to their homophobic browbeating. We need to stand tall and face these cowardly bullies who hide behind anonymous email and find a way to stop the spread of such hatred, prejudice, and unfounded fear.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Never be bullied into silence.
Never allow yourself to be made a victim.
Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.

~Harvey Fierstein, American actor and playwright

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Straight Americans need... an education of the heart and soul.
They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel
to spend years denying your own deepest truths,
to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services
while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul.

~Bruce Bawer, The Advocate, 28 April 1998

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Mothers, tell your children:
be quick, you must be strong.
Life is full of wonder,
love is never wrong.

Remember how they taught you,
how much of it was fear.
Refuse to hand it down -
the legacy stops here.

~Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy," Yes I Am, 1993

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Please help however you can, subscribe, donate, or just spread the word...

♥♥♥♥♥♥ Hope will never be silent. ~Harvey Milk ♥♥♥♥♥♥

Quote of the Day

From "A Poet's Advice to Students" in E. E. Cummings, a Miscellany: A Miscellany (1958)

To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else— means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

QOTD

I love this quote; it sums up how I've been feeling lately, like I've been hibernating, but am now waking up and struggling to figure out where to go and what to do...

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, ... and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death." — Winter, 1931-1932 from The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume One 1931-1934

A Few Quotes

Where shall we get religion? Beneath the open sky,
The sphere of crystal silence surcharged with deity . . .
The midnight earth sends incense up, sweet with the breath of prayer --
Go out beneath the naked night and get religion there.
~Sam Walter Foss, Nature and Religion

If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and am that which is attained at the end of desire.

"I was struck by the simultaneity of darkness and light, of the tall buildings and the long shadows they cast at sunrise, of the homeless on the street corners where limousines awaited their well-heeled occupants, giddy after a night of partying. I witnessed the polarity but I sensed within it an extraordinary wisdom. Everything in the world was far from perfect, but there was something enlightening about the energy about the energy inherent in this chiaroscuro contradiction: The darkness defines the shape light assumes, negation expresses the possibility of what should be. In knowing this, I realized if we are ready to see the unseen - if we have the courage to face the shadows we normally seek to avoid - we can create what could be. In the face of everyday tragedies, the very possibility of healing and transformation made my heart sing." ~ Pyllis Curott, Book of Shadows

Quote of the Day

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

QOTD

"Life is not a war, it's a dance. The word 'uni-verse' means 'one song'. All we have to do is to sing and dance along."
-Unknown

Words of Wisdom

Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
~ Al Franken, "Oh, the Things I Know", 2002

Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
~ Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Assert your right to make a few mistakes. If people can't accept your imperfections, that's their fault.
~ Dr. David M. Burns

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
~ George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Thank you, Julie, for posting this...