C is for Contest!

Ali holding Shades of Blue 

I am about to shamelessly trumpet about my extremely talented daughter Alison. 

Alison is the oldest of my three daughters – all extremely talented, by the way – and she is an artist.  She specializes in fantasy art, specifically fairies and she has just entered a The Fairies Fantasy Art Awards Contest for a chance to win a licensing contract with Fairiesandfantasy.com. 

Shades of Blue (2012)

The first round of voting is now open and I am appealing to all who stumble across this post to please, please, please follow this link:  http://selinafenech.com/2013/2013-art-awards-round-one-voting/ and cast your vote for Allison (it’s actually spelled with one L, but we’ll work out the details when, with your help, she wins) Spokes.  She needs to be in the top five to advance to the second round. 

When she's not painting fairies, Alison
dresses up as a fairy.  

Alison started to draw when she was four years old.  Her early work, while child-like in its rendering, showed amazing promise.   She continued to draw all through her childhood, growing ever more confident and skilled.  In her early twenties, she discovered digital media and began to paint incredible works with her favourite theme: fairies. 

Ethereal Earth is the name of her art business (http://www.etherealearth.ca).  You can find her prints and other merchandise on Etsy (http://www.etherealearth.etsy.com) and Zazzle (http://www.zazzle.ca/etherealearth).  Feel free to browse – and buy! – after you vote.  Coffee tastes much better in an Ethereal Art fairy mug and books are better with an Ethereal Art bookmark saving your place.  

Here are some more examples of Alison's work...

Graphite drawing of
Humphrey Bogart (Ali
was about 16 when she
drew this)

Hunter's Moon (2012)

One of Ali's earlier Fairies

The Muse (2011)

Just getting her "wings"
Ali drew this in high school.

Doesn't this just scream winner to you!?  

You can learn more about Ali and her art in her interview for Creative-Artists-Blog:  http://creative-artists-blog.com/interview-alison-spokes/  

B is for Bah!

I was having trouble with my wireless modem, having to reset it with increasing frequency until I reached the point where I got sick enough of doing that to make the dreaded call to my Internet Service Provider, Telus.  I hate – hate! – calling Telus for anything.  Not because they don’t provide good service, but because that stupid robot that answers the phone makes me nuts.  I do not want to converse with a robot; it brings out the devil in me and, just for the fun of it, I will often say things that I know she (she? That’s a whole other blog!) doesn’t understand.  And more often than not, they are not nice words.  (Though I do enjoy throwing things at her like prestidigitation, because, you know, it’s not a word that I get to use in regular conversation much.)  She eventually gives up and informs me that she is going to connect me to a real person, which is what I want in the first place.  It further annoys me that she doesn’t even bother to get annoyed with me about it. 

Anyway, I made the call, managed not to be rude to the robot and was connected with a very helpful Telus employee of the Homo Sapiens variety who kindly agreed to send me a new modem.  We both fully believed that the modem was the problem.

A shiny new modem arrived in my mailbox a couple of days later and I rushed home after work to hook it up.  It worked beautifully.

For about 3 minutes.

(You will now see the reason for the topic of this blog.)

“BAH!”

That was three weeks ago.  Since then I have spent a total of six hours on the phone with various Telus employees and techs (who I assume are also employees, but somehow are deserving of being distinguished as the wizards they are) who performed all the remote magic they could before finally resigning themselves and appointing the grand Wizard, himself, to the job. 

Enter Gareth. 

Gareth is “the Telus guy”.  By that I mean he’s the guy in the van with the tools (and a cute Telus animal painted on the side) who comes right to your house and fixes things.  Gareth arrived at 10:30 last Thursday morning and spent about an hour and a half doing his tech wizard magic, eventually getting the Internet connection to stay connected.  He made one mistake.  He left me is business card with his cell number on it and told me (fully believing that I never would) to call him any time if I had any trouble at all with the Internet.

Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you.  Gareth was my new hero.

Two hours after his departure….

“Bah!”

Now I should probably tell you that Bah! was not what I wanted to say.  However, my more colourful vocabulary is currently hog-tied and gagged in a secret basement room where it cannot offend or corrupt the innocent ears of my seven-year-old niece who is staying with me while her parents are in China.   I’ve been forced to use words like darn and shoot and patootie and, of course BAH! a lot.   Especially during the last nine days while I’ve been Aunty Momming and doing my best to be a good example. 

And so I called Gareth.  Yes, I checked the lights on the modem and the important ones were out.  Yes, it’s back on again, but it was out.  For seven minutes.   Right in the middle of Ripper Street.   Okay, I’ll tough it out until Tuesday.  But, please, please try to fit me in again.  Thank you.  Thank you.

The seven minute outage must have been a test to see if I would break and release my colourful vocabulary from its basement bondage.  I’m proud to say that I passed the test.

Until Monday.

Monday at precisely 11:50 a.m. the Internet went down again.  And stayed down for most of the rest of the day, only flashing on for a few seconds here and there. 

Bah!  Bah!  Bah!

Today, however, Gareth kept his promise and returned to my house.  He brought with him a Wizard-in-training named Collin and together they discovered some interesting things about the wiring in my house.  It was rather creative.  How and why it worked for as long as it did is a mystery that neither Gareth nor Collin can explain.  Not that it matters.  What matters is that they possessed the technical magic to re-create the wiring in a less interruptive and more efficient way.   They firmly believe that they have solved the problem and that I will never (at least not in the foreseeable future) have to shout Bah! at my computer or call Gareth’s cell phone again.  (Touch wood)

They did tell me that they are putting me on their special list.  I wasn’t quite sure how to take that until Collin explained that they keep a list of places that are in need of further upgrades and will return as soon as they can to complete them.

Whew.  I’d hate to be on the PIA (I’ll let you work that one out) special list.  

A is for April

I can’t believe that the A to Z Challenge is upon me already.  And, as usual, I find myself woefully unprepared for it.  Not that I haven’t been thinking about it.  I have!  I just haven’t settled on a theme that I like well enough to write 26 blogs about.

I have entertained an array of topics:  recipes, TV shows, movies, songs… the usual suspects.  And have rejected them all.  None seem at all right. 

So my first A to Z Challenge topic is simply April. 

It’s not my favourite month.  April, along with its predecessor, March, are the kind of months were one finds one’s self in a sort of activity limbo.  The weather is unpredictable; not winter, but not spring.  There is a lot of waiting going on, waiting for the snow to melt and the temperature to stabilize.  Waiting for the right time to replace the winter tires with All-seasons.  Waiting to feel confident enough to put away the snow shovels and blowers and get out the rakes and lawn mowers.  Waiting to get the summer clothes of the back of the closet and put the winter clothes in their place.   It’s often very cold in the morning, causing one to don mittens and ear muffs, which, by mid-afternoon, become a bothersome nuisance then having to be packed back home in pockets or purses.  More mittens and such get lost in these seasonless days than any other time. 

As Aprils go, this one is starting out on a decidedly good note.  It’s warm (+3), the sun is shining and the wind is calm.  March went out like a lamb, and April had begun just has gently, whispering promises of Spring to come.  Geese are making their way back up North, their cheerful honking filling the air as they fly by.  The snow is receding, like a slow-motion tide revealing the detritus of autumn not gathered before winter blanketed it in a thick white cloak.  Thoughts are turning to gardens and the joys of being outside with the warm sun on one’s back.  BBQ’s are being un-covered.  Running shoes are replacing boots.  Bicycles are finding their way out of sheds.  And the complaints about the weather are in transition.  For now people are appreciating the new warmth as they gear up to grouse about the rain and the heat that is sure to follow.

It’s good to have a challenge while I wait for all this waiting to be done.  I just hope that I can meet it!  Suddenly the alphabet seems very long and in these early hours of the day my muse seems rather more reluctant than I had hoped.  “What,” she asks, “were you thinking!?” 

Well, right now I’m thinking that it’s time to get dressed and maybe head out for a walk.  It’s a glorious day and a little fresh air and sunshine seems to be in order.  

A Blanket Fort Is a Wonderful Thing!

“Coulda been the Bailey's. Mighta been the wine. Coulda been the 3 or 4 chip bags. I dunno but look at the mess I'm in! My fort is in a shambles. The clamp fell on my head. Me oh me oh my! Wasn't that a party!”

This parody of the Irish Rover’s famous song was sung by my daughter early this morning – right off the top of her head, after four hours sleep and slightly hung over from helping me polish off a bottle of Baileys during our St. Patrick’s Day Sleep Over last night. 

My guests arrived at about eight o’clock and, the feasting began almost immediately.  We needed something to wash down with the celebratory spirits that we did start imbibing immediately.  There were chips and tacos and dips and chocolate and cheese fingers… We never did get to the pizza or the shrimp, but that’s okay because now we’re just that much better prepared for Geek Night this week. 

Who's that wee leprechaun?  And
where is her gold? (It's in her heart, of course!

To add to the festive ambiance, we also had sufficient amounts of St. Patrick’s Day swag to ensure that everyone could – and would – have no trouble with the Wearin’ o’ the Green.  Hats and feather boas and hair doodads and matching shamrock lounge pants were dispensed and donned.  And then the games began!

We started with several hilarious rounds of Taboo, a word game that, like Password, has one member of a team trying to get the other member of the team to say a specific word without saying any of the ‘taboo’ words that would make it obvious.  Not any kind of easy as it sounds!  The game was close, but once the spirits began to take real effect we moved on to a battle royal between The Jalapeno Bolognas and the Irish Didlos (yes, that’s Didlos, not the other word that you’re thinking of!  But don’t ask me what it means or how it came about) in a game of Backwords. 

Bizz and Miake, festively greened!

Liz all decked out for St. Patrick's Day

Backwords is an iPhone app game that involves each team recording a series of words or phrases in a variety of categories.  Taking turns, each team listens to the recording backwards, then attempts to re-record what they hear before playing that backwards to try to figure out what the original recording was.  A timer forces you to act quickly and listen carefully.  But it doesn’t always help.  If a team chooses to take a hint, their points are halved.  That is if they even get points.  Two minutes goes by fast when you are laughing too hard to hear, let alone record what you hear before time runs out. 

Cheers!

It was getting close to midnight when we finally deemed it time to start constructing the blanket fort.  The last time I built a blanket fort was for my grandchildren on the occasion of my granddaughter’s first birthday three years ago.  Before that, the last time was several decades ago and I have to say that half a bottle of Baileys on top of a distinct lack of practice is not conducive to sound blanket fort construction at all.  Furniture got moved, blankets got spread out; we even commandeered the cat tree for support!  The weak spot, where the blankets met in the middle was of great concern to us all.  Safety pins were suggested, but I had a better idea.  Clamps!  We could use wood clamps to secure the blankets to the backs of the wing chairs.  I thought it was brilliant.  My daughter/mechanical engineering student found the notion dubious, but was just tipsy enough to retrieve the clamps anyway.   The result was a cozy little hideout in the middle of the living room.

Building our blanket fort

Once inside, we realized that if the cats decided to walk across the fort, we were all doomed.  Their weight on the blankets could be enough to tip the wing chairs over on top of us.  Some of us worried that the clamps would not hold and could fall on us.  I was just drunk enough not to care.   (Yep!  I was indeed on the losing Irish Didlos team.  In case you were wondering.)

I still maintain that wood clamps have
a place in blanket fort construction and design.

Oliver hanging out with us in
the blanket fort

No one could think of any ghost stories to share, so we gossiped, made shadow puppets and continued to laugh into the wee hours of the night.  Oliver and Willow were fascinated with the fort and joined us under the blankets.  Only once did one of them attempt to walk across the roof, but, discovering that there wasn’t much supporting him, quickly and dramatically leapt off, leaving the roof sagging, but intact.  When we finally crawled into our sleeping bags and settled down for a nap, the fort was still holding up.  Good Enough Construction may just have come through for us once again.

Willow nestled in with us (and plotted
to bring down the fort after we were all asleep.)

At about 3:30 I woke up and discovered two things: 1) my friend, who had elected to sleep on the couch/bunk was no longer there (though her snoring told me she wasn’t too far away); and 2) there was a gaping hole in the roof of the fort where the blankets had separated.  Since I was awake anyway, I crawled out of the fort and made my way to the bathroom for a pee.  While I was doing that, I discovered a third thing:  sleeping on the floor was not popular with my bones.  I reasoned, as only a person who has consumed a fair bit of alcohol and has only had an hour or so of sleep can, that I could spend the rest of the night in my comfy bed, get up before everyone else, crawl back into the fort and pretend that I had been there all night.  Yes!  It was a plan.

On my way into the blanket fort

And, as plans so often do, this one went awry.  A couple of hours later, Oliver and Willow decided that it was playtime and the fort was the play thing.  They managed to do just what my daughter had predicted and tipped one of the wing chairs over on her.  The clamp did come loose and fell on her as well.  So, she abandoned what was left of the fort and repositioned herself on the couch, which had been earlier abandoned by my friend.  There’s no way that she could not have noticed that I was not there.

Graciously no one gave me a hard time about it. 

By 7:30 the coffee was brewing as heartily as the hangovers.  (Actually, they were fairly mild – the hangovers, not the coffee.  That was delicious!)  If I’ve learned anything from this experience, it’s that Baileys is probably not the best choice of spirits to indulge oneself in to the point of tipsy that I achieved.  I still maintain that wood clamps have a place in blanket fort construction and safety pins do not.  I now plan on investing in a package of clothes pins, however.  A recent childhood flashback reminded me how useful they are when building blanket forts, for unlike safety pins that can rip blankets, clothes pins hold firmly, but do let go without damaging anything.  I plan on testing this theory out over Easter while my niece is staying with me.  (I hope she likes blanket forts.)

Breakfast!  

This brought us to breakfast.   Green pancakes with fresh fruit and whipping cream, turkey bacon and scrambled eggs!  So yummy.   Following that we set our minds to completing a crafting project that I cannot reveal in this blog so as not to spoil the forthcoming surprise that is in store for other friends and co-workers.

I learned some time ago how important play and laughter really are.   The birth of my grandson reminded me how easy it is to become so wrapped up in obligation and life’s grown-up foibles that fun becomes just a distant memory, a thing lost like childhood to the passing of time.  Not so!  Play and laughter are just as important now, no matter how old you are, as they are in childhood.  Be silly.  Dress up.  The child never really goes away and loves to come out for some innocent fun as often as it can.  It may require a foamy or an air mattress now that its bones are not as forgiving as they once were, but believe me when I tell you:  a blanket fort is as wondrous at 50 as it is at 5!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  May your blessings outnumber your troubles and happiness surround you all of your days.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

I am not a project, some broken thing that needs to be fixed.  I am a human being.  A person!  I have thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, wants and needs, intelligence and experience.  I am not perfect.  Not by a long shot.  But I think that I deserve at least a modicum of respect for who I am.

There are people in my life who seem to think that I could use a little improvement.  (Can’t we all?)  I’m certainly not going to deny that there are things about me that need tweaking – to say the least!  I’m impatient.  I have a bit of a temper.  There’s that wee superiority complex thing that continues to haunt me now and then.  I procrastinate more than I should.  I’m fairly opinionated about certain subjects, though I do try to see the other side of things and accept them. 

On the flip side, I think that I have a good sense of humour about most things.  I love to learn.  I think I’m pretty creative (although that adjective is clearly lacking).  I’m affectionate and caring.  I’m empathetic, though not often very sympathetic.  I’m forgiving, though I don’t forget.  I take responsibility for my actions and have learned to admit when I make mistakes. 

Recently a dear friend of mine told me that she thinks I’m one of the most educated people she knows.  That went straight to my ego, inflating it with a pride that I have to admit was sadly ridiculous.  I wondered later, when the swelling subsided, if she realizes how much she has to teach me.  Does she see in herself how amazing she is and how much she has to share?  Just being around her lifts my spirits.  Her dazzling smile brightens everything!  And her deep connection with nature… Well, I think that is just brilliant.  I want to learn from her.  Having people like her in my life gives me strength, lifts me up and energizes me. 

There are many people like her in my life.  People who teach me the most extraordinary things.   People who inspire me.  People who, just by being my friends, give me hope, are supportive, make me laugh and accept me for who I am.  My incredible daughters with their unlimited talent, my best friend whom I love so much just for putting up with me, my fabulous MIL with her zest for life and adventure, my FIL who is the salt of the Earth – a good man with a good heart, my staff who help keep our little library flowing smoothly and brimming with creativity.  My grandchildren who have given me the gift of playfulness back.  There are two very special friends from high-school to whom I owe so much for their strength and wisdom and continued love.  There are colleagues who make my job just that much easier with their support and understanding.  There is another special lady (in a pirate hat) whose fearlessness inspires me.  There is my family who taught me that diversity doesn’t have to be adversity. 

And then there are the people who want to change me, control me, take away my soul and encapsulate it in a mold I cannot and will not fit into.  This handful of people has decided that they know what’s best for me and have made it their objective to show me the error of my ways.  Little do they know how much they have actually taught me.  Little do they know how much they have inspired me to stay on the path I have chosen.  They have taught me to be true to myself, to stand tall and stand up for my convictions, to express myself as myself, creatively.  They have given me a gift as precious as the loving support I get from others; the gift of grace.  For without their challenges, I could not have learned how deeply connected we all are.  I could not have learned how the Universe balances light and dark, peace and war, love and hate, good and bad.  And for that I am thankful.

It’s easy to get our hackles up when we think we have the answer and suddenly discover that someone else has a different answer to the same question.  (I do it all the time!)  Yet if we take the time to listen, to try to understand, it’s just as easy to see that we are looking at the same thing; we’ve just approached it from a different angle.  If one person walks up to Michelangelo’s David from the front and describes it to another person who has walked up to it from the back, the other person is going to hear a vastly different description from what she or he is seeing.  Yet both are looking at the same thing.  It is multi-dimensional.  Until you walk all the way around it, you cannot appreciate, let alone see it, completely. 

What else are we not seeing when we only
view things from one side?
(That is a rhetorical question!  Ha-ha)

There are lessons in different points of view.  They are invitations to come around to the back and see things from a new angle.  It’s okay to prefer the front, or the side, or the top… yet to deny the back exists or the description of it is valid without actually going to take a look… well, that seems to me like a very self-limiting thing to do.  That is what creates discrimination, fosters judgement and indulges prejudice.  I want to see the back, the sides, the top and the bottom before I choose which angle I will favour.  (At least to the best of my ability!)

I have no doubt that the people who are trying to change my way of thinking are doing so from a place of caring.  I am willing, at least, to give them the benefit of any doubt there may be.   I am neither flattered nor offended (anymore) by this attention.  I am grateful to them for sharing their perspectives with me and showing me that there is another angle, another play of light and shadow, to consider and, possibly, incorporate into my own practice.   Still, my practice remains my own and I invite them to come around and just take a quick look at what I see from the side I stand on.  I am happy to share what I think, what I know, and maybe with a bit of understanding they can accept and respect and honour my imperfect self as not broken or in need of fixing.  Maybe they can see something of value to incorporate into their own practice.  And little-by-little we can, even through our variety, come to a place of unity.  Of Oneness. 

Brightest blessings!  

Graphic Art - Kindergarten

So I’ve been working on upgrading my graphics skills in an introductory course on CorelDraw.  I’m having a blast! 

This course is truly an introduction level one, but that’s fine by me.  It’s where I need to be with it.  And it’s rather humbling to be creating the elementary drawings that we are working on when I started out with visions of fantastical works of art!  Ha! 

My first attempt at a "welding" shapes.
(It's a cat!) 

Like learning curves often are, this one is fairly steep.  The complexities of the software are slightly overwhelming, but the potential – once I master them! – is infinite.  Holy Moly!  But what a great and inspiring lot of features, ever-so-subtly embedded in cryptic little drop-downs and menu bars there are. 

Combining shapes and re-shaping shapes
to make a car.  

Right now we’re just playing with them; getting to know how they work and what we can do with them.  In five weeks or so, I’m hoping to graduate from my decidedly novice state and enter the world of intermediate newbie.  For now, though, I’m thoroughly enjoying the play-dough and building blocks stage of development as a graphic artist.  

And the Guest Room Progresses

Happiness is a project complete! 

And boy, are my knees happy that the flooring in the spare room is done.   As am I! 

The poor spare room has been under renovations for a year and a half.  Admittedly, I have been picking away at it.  Now that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I think it’s time to abandon picking and start getting’ her done!  The looming deadline for completion isn’t conducive to procrastination anyway.

In seven short weeks this year’s round of house guests will begin with my niece coming to stay with me while her parents are away.  My daughter and grandchildren will also be here around the same time.  The Ostara bunny will be dropping in for the first time in ages and ages and there will be feasting and egg hunts and fires and labyrinth walks and a general celebratory welcoming of Spring.  A functioning spare bedroom is going to come in handy.

It all started in October of 2011 when I had the bright notion of fixing up the spare room, getting rid of the painted over wall paper, the old carpeting and bringing it into the 21^st century.  I thought that it would be a relatively simple renovation that would be done in a few months (even picking away at it). 

Wallpaper had been painted over with a bright green latex.
It took weeks to steam it all off.

Under the 35-year-old carpet was this nightmare!  

As it was, it took weeks to steam the wallpaper off the walls only to discover that the wall was in terrible shape and getting it to a paintable state was not going to be easy.  I finally had the brilliant idea to texture the walls.  Never having done that before, I had no idea that it would involve several tedious steps of preparation to achieve.  Before I could even think about working on the walls, though, I had to pull up the carpeting.  What lay beneath it was a veritable nightmare!  There was no way that I could just lay new flooring over it.  It was a mess.  I wanted to cry.

Having reached and passed the Rubicon, I had no choice but to carry on.  So I filled and sanded, and filled and sanded.  And filled and sanded some more.  Every time I thought that I had found and fixed all the bad spots, I’d turn around and find some more.  For such a little room, the walls were unbearably mangled.  Even now, there are a couple of nasty spots in the closet that I now plan to cleverly hide with a well-placed closet organizer. 

Once I’d had my fill of the filling and sanding, I had to prime the walls – with oil-based primer!  Yuck!  I hate working with oil-based paint.  Finally I could start applying the texture.  It went really well and I was thoroughly pleased with the results.  But then I had to prime again.  With more oil-based primer.  More yuck. 

At last, I could put some colour on the walls.  I chose Sassafras, a delightful medium green to match the stitching on the incredibly fun and funky blanket from India that I bought just for the spare room.   Painting the textured wall took forever.  And a lot of paint.  I really don’t mind painting at all, but this was proving to be an enormous job.  I was beginning to think that the retro 70’s look wasn’t so bad after all.

I wasn’t at all sure that I liked the colour of the walls.  It was darker than I anticipated, much better suited to a feature wall than to an entire room.  I turned out the light, shut the door and decided to sleep on it. 

After a good night’s sleep, the colour didn’t seem all that bad.  Once the flooring was in and the trim on and some curtains up, it would be fine.  Right?

This brought me to the flooring.  The only way to solve the problem with the horrible mess was to install a sub-floor right over the top of the whole thing.  Two and a half hours and four sheets of Enstrong later, I had accomplished just that.  It looked more like a jigsaw puzzle with all the weird angles and notches and my not-so-steady hand at cutting, but it was way, way better than what was there originally.  On to the flooring itself.

I chose Drop and Done vinyl flooring.  What a fabulous product this stuff is!  You just put it in place and that’s it. 

Honestly, though, another six hours on my hands and knees measuring and cutting and fitting was enough to know that this is definitely not a career my wrists and knees could ever be paid enough to do.  I ache all over.

Much - MUCH! - better.

But what a happy ache it is!  The floor looks great and the paint looks fantastic with it. 

There is one minor hurdle in getting through the next step, though.  I don’t quite have enough money to buy my mitre saw to cut the trim with.  So, I’ll have find one to borrow for now.