Autumn

Autumn is finally here! Now if only it would actually start to cool down.

Inspiration

Last week, I started taking a creative writing course at a local college. This was open to the general public, so with the encouragement of my mom I registered for it. While the first session was more less introductory, I shared with my fellow budding authors some of my inspirations. I write both poetry and allegorical fiction--another term for fantasy. Most of my scenes or poems are inspired by music and art.

Some of the scenes in the current story I'm working on were inspired by music. There is a scene that was inspired by Loreena McKennitt's "The Mummer's Dance." I love the imagery in this song. Music also inspires my characters. The heroine in the story is very human, she has gained a ethereal presence. I had already written her to be like this before I had heard "Kindred Spirit" by Deuter. The song invokes images of the heavens and space in my mind with its enchanting, ethereal sound. It helped me to develop that aspect of her character. I could imagine that this would be what her theme music would sound like if the story was made into a movie.

My senior year of high school, I wrote a poem that was inspired by Claude Monet's Le Pont Japonais a Giverny. With the encouragement of my English Lit teacher, Mrs. Matthews, I submitted it to a poetry contest. That poem made the top 10 in the state amongst 10th, 11th, and 12th graders. It got published and I won a savings bond.

On Monet's Bridge

While I slept one night,
I dreamt in shades of blue and green.
Except for you and I in the midday light.
We whispered words we'll always mean.

Everyday we met together at this place
With kind words of love and enjoyment.
Greeting each other with a warm embrace.
Our laughter echoes with excitement.

On Monet's bridge began the love.
Our very first kiss the water reflected.
My heart beats like the wings of a dove.
It was nothing I ever expected.

Before graduating, I gave Mrs. Matthews the small print of that painting that I had. The very same one that inspired me. Mrs. Matthews--whether she knows it or not--had a big impact on me in the development of my passion for creative writing and English literature. The first book I can get published, I would like to dedicate it to her.



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Now playing: Within Temptation - Memories
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Signs of the Time

Here we are again. Summer is winding down. It has been relatively uneventful. We took no trips any were. Well, I did have a girl friend weekend Back in May. I got to see some of my old friends and made some new ones. We mostly played games, shopped, and got our nails done. My first pedicure! It was really fun. I can't wait for our next weekend. Still, the summer was uneventful none the less.

I know there's still a little over a month left until it is officially Autumn. I can't help it. I can already feel it in the air. I can see it in the trees. In fact, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the small maple in the front yard has already began to change. The art included in this entry is from that very tree. I had actually made this a year or two ago. The colors were good then. I'm hoping for good color this year as I won't be going the mountains this year. The weather has been hot with hardly any afternoon thunderstorms this summer. But I know when it's getting close to Fall. The rain chances start to pick up and it rains for hours. Where as with summer afternoon thunderstorms it doesn't usually last very long. You can just tell by the gloom it's the weather preparing the world for the seasonal change. It seems that every season as its own gloom as far as rain goes. Winter has a gray gloom. Spring, a clean and bright gloom. Summer has a dark and chaotic gloom. And Autumn has a dark and somber gloom. Another thing about the Autumnal rains, good movie watching weather(or book reading weather). Just this past Sunday, it rained all day and most of the evening. I watched BBC's 2006 production of Jane Eyre. It's about a four hour movie, perfect for rainy weather. Even the tones of Jane's life at Gateshead and Lowood school match the tone of the rainy weather. Perhaps even her life at Thornfield Hall has it's gloomy tones, but they are much brighter than the former.

The days are getting shorter. They actually start getting shorter at the summer equinox. I have been tracking it ever since I downloaded an app on my smartphone that tells me when dawn, sunrise, the solar noon, sunset, and dusk is. I can go forward and see the times. You can see that dawn and sunrise are getting later, almost minute by minute. Sunset and dusk are getting earlier just the same. I personally can't wait for it get closer to my time to get up. Even though I have thick curtains, I tell when it's morning due to the light that manages to come in and wake me up sometimes over an hour before I need to get up. Sometimes I just need that hour of sleep even if go to bed at my usual time. Speaking of which, I'm thinking that I'm going to head to bed here in a bit. It's actually about an hour early for me. So goodnight world.


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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan - U Want Me 2
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Recycling Fabric

This is my first project posted here.

Sometime last year, my mom found a post about a tea wallet. I like the idea, but finding a pattern to make one was hard to come by. However, I did find a tutorial. But being that I my sewing skills are pretty much limited to making pillows and pin cushions, and I knew I couldn't put this together by just a tutorial and not a pattern. So, I talked to one of my fellow MK beauty consultants who is good at sewing to take a look at the tutorial. She said she thought she could do it. I gave her the fabric, which I got way too much for what was required. I just wasn't sure how much I would need. When I got the tea wallet back, I got the extra fabric back as well. I thought I'll just make a throw pillow out of it. Well, my mom ended finding a foot stool. I can't remember if it was at a yard sale or at the Goodwill.I decided to overhaul it with the some of the fabric.














The stool doubles has storage. The cushion is the lid and opens up to let you put things in it.The before is below.



I at first I wanted to use the white fabric to add contrast to the wood that I would be spray painting black. But the black fabric had enough white to stand in as contrast. To line the underside of the lid, to hide the wood I used a decorative file that I found at Michael's. The after is below.

I still had some black fabric left. The white will be used on a bulletin board that I'm working on as well. My mom is the process of making a stencil out of the same file folder pattern so that I can have a pink design against the black of the wood. I will actually post about that when that is finished. If I have enough of the white left, I may used it and the black to make a pillow. I'm thinking about having the black on one side and the white on the other.







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Now playing: Delerium - Angelicus
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Winters Past, Springs Future

Long time no write....

Spring is in full swing. Pollen is in the air, all over the car and everything else. I'm feeling inspired to write, not only here on my blog, but also on a story I've been working on. I don't actually plan on publishing it. If I did, I would do it through Lulu.com where you can self publish for free. But I most likely won't. Something I've come to realize here lately is that my story writing is therapeutic. It helps me deal with everyday stress and it has helped me to get through some of my toughest times. I pretty much use my experiences and make my characters have those experiences in some sort of way. But anyway, this was not what I wanted to post about.

This winter has been an eventful one. We had a snow day in February. It was called "The Great Snow Fall of 2010." We had three inches of snow here. It still snowing about 5 o'clock Friday, February 12 and continued on until the early morning. Now, for a Northerner, snow is not a eventful, it's everyday winter life. So, humor this Southerner. We don't get snow like this on a regular bases. The last time I experienced a southern snow fall was when we live in Charleston, South Carolina in 1990. And yes, both times it did stick! This snow fall was my nephew's first real snow fall. He experienced a small amount of snow that didn't stick in North Georgia back in late 2008 early 2009. He didn't pay much attention to it at the time. But he was excited about it this time. The snow began to melt in the daylight and by the afternoon it was all gone. I was actually kind of depressed after it was gone. The world was back to normal. God gave a lot people a gift that day, and it may a lot people happy. Especially the children. It was such a nice treat.

Now spring has sprung. It seems as though there were somethings that bloomed over time, while there were other things that bloomed over night. It's like magic....no more like a miracle. A beautiful miracle. The grey of winter springs forth into vibrant life. Death loses its grip and life begins again. Which brings me to Easter.

My Easter was downplayed this year due to health problems. But the meaning didn't leave me. Despite Easter being originally a pagan celebration, I don't think that it's a coincidence that Easter--as we know it--is celebrated in the Spring when life is given back to the world. To me, the blooming of plants, flowers, and trees are a natural testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. Winter is cold, grey, unfeeling, and death like. Spring is life, beauty, color, and warmth. Death loses, life is given back to the body.

I saw the most beautiful, other worldly sunset late last month. There were deep purples, pinks, and blues set against thin clouds that seemed to stretch from one end of the horizon to the other end. I wish I had my camera at that moment. Just seeing the highway lights against that sky was so bizarre. There is so much beauty in God's creation.



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Now playing: Avril Lavigne - Alice
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