Sunday, January 17, 2010

 

The seven habits of highly ineffective people

I really try to keep the complaining to a minimum, here. I find complaining unattractive. I also find snarkiness unattractive. None of that ever gets anyone anywhere. And yet today here I am feeling snarky, unattractive, and full of complaints. A painting I'm working on, which was full of promise, has turned out to be something other than full of promise. I attended a funeral yesterday and now am feeling very bitter about the fact that we all will lose everything we love - all of us, all of everything. I'm cold and it's only January, and it's going to snow tomorrow for the first day in ages, when I actually had a tiny bit of fun planned, which will probably now be cancelled. I have paintings and books piled high all over the house and since I have nowhere to put them they are driving me bats. I can't bear what's happened in Haiti. Arg. A day of Dark Thoughts, about issues large and small. I wonder what the *other* seven dwarves were called - Snarky, Twitchy, Fussy...

OKAY. Time to bake some cookies, hug the cat, bundle up and go for a walk, look at the ocean. Continue reading Volume VIII of the Diary of Pepys (which finally arrived). Think about the next painting. Hope for long lives with the ones we love.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Comments:
Atta girl. Keep going. There will be good days ahead.
 
Probably a good idea to stay away from Slaid Cleaves' music right now... Meanwhile enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8f8drk5Urw
 
Common "question marks" for us all.

Are there no "full stop" answers, just "....." ?

Yet, everyday life keeps warming us

ps A big ! for the 500th
 
Back to my usual practical self today, feeling better about most things, and feeling fatalistic about others. Thanks, friends. Chuck, the juggling video DID make me smile... also, the molasses cookies are good, and I'm another hundred pages along in Pepys. And I worked on the painting a bit more, and resolved it (mostly). I just came in from shoveling snow. Life is all right.
 
Had I known you were baking molasses cookies, there would have been no need for the juggler video! That struck a major chord with me--molasses cookies are a long-standing tradition in my family with an old recipe that goes back to my New England great-grandmother (we're still baking them today). Some of my fondest childhood memories are associated with those cookies in my grandmother's kitchen. No wonder you're feeling better!
 
Chuck, in search of cookie bliss I have been working my way through all the molasses/ginger cookie recipes in "The Island Cookbook" from Islesford, Maine (1940) - ten ladies' church group recipes for everything from cakey big cookies to small snaps. A lot of variation in ingredients - this last batch called for vinegar - thus far, all delicious!

Today's painting is much better than the other. Shoveled even more snow. Thus January continues.

p.s. I liked your recent post about Rick Bass - a friend of mine has a cabin in Yaak, he says it's incredible there. And thanks for mentioning me at Christmas!
 
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