Try Your Best

We've had a lot of construction around my neighborhood this summer.  A bridge was replaced, yards and roads have been ripped up to replace old pipes, and we have three houses at the end of our street that have been torn down and are in various stages of rebuilding.  There have been times I've needed help just getting off my street or I've been blocked and needed to wait.  Yesterday we went for a walk and discovered that Josie's favorite street to do her business is being torn up.  Robert and I jokingly refer to this street as "The Beloved Poop Fields of El Monte," because Josie has such a fondness for pooping there.  I've seen her go poo just minutes before walking El Monte and if we turn on El Monte, she poos again.

So yesterday we needed to go a bit further, I was already late, Josie was giving me crap for missing her street, and we came across this sign.

As we passed Josie's beloved street again, she got as close to it as she could and did her business.  That was the best she could do.  This is likely some kind of divine message from the universe.

Offering

I can't even begin to tell you how this collage came to be.  For the longest time I only made planned art.  If a planned piece took me somewhere unmapped, I was not resistant.  But I do like a plan!  The past couple years I have been winging it sometimes.  Even when I'm winging it, a plan often forms in the process of picking out the papers, thread, or fabric.

When I sat down with the papers for this collage I only knew I craved yellow.  Eventually a hand grew in the piece, and after I got used to it being there, I moved it, kept moving it, kept asking what it wanted to be.  I was so focused on the hand fluttering around the canvas, I was ignoring what it was trying to give me.

20 Years

Today it's officially 20 years of shenanigans, adventures, ruffled feathers, goofiness, comfort, squishes, front porch sitting, and love.  We haven't been able to count all the stars or drive any kind of vehicle, Buicks included, to the moon.  So our love keeps going like one never-ending fruit rollup.

We can't say that every minute of our relationship has been perfect.  We are opposites in a lot of ways, which has made things very interesting.  Robert is a lover who wants everyone in his life to always be happy.  If someone isn't happy, it becomes his number one priority to figure out what he can do to help change that.  If I think someone isn't happy or processing big feelings I'm like peace out!  Process that shit and get back to me when you're ready.

One of the things we've worked so hard on in our relationship is to find a balance between these two extremes.  I like space when I'm processing or chewing on things.  Robert likes kumbaya time when he's processing or chewing on things.  If there's one thing we've learned these past twenty years it's how to find a bridge between space and kumbaya time and also understand each other's perspective better.  

There have been times he's given me my space and I've found myself seeking his comfort, and I know there have been times I've been very smushy and loving, and he's wanting that space.  Relationships are work!  And so much communication! 

Robert is the most nurturing soul I've met.  He is unflappable, thoughtful, brilliant, and goofy.  I am like a shrieking pterodactyl of whatever feeling I'm feeling the most.  When I first met him I both fell in love with him and also at the same time, wanted to be more like him.  He's definitely made me a better person and is there for me 100% during the messy parts of my evolution.  I can't speak for him, but over the years his inner shrieking pterodactyl side has definitely been creeping out.  When he giggles, it's one of the best sounds on the planet.  He also sings to the dogs all the time now, and I'm pretty sure I've helped nurture that obnoxiousness.

I'm thrilled I've had this much time with my best friend.  We've had some bumps along the way, lost loved ones who shaped us, and have both been down at the same time a few times (the worst and sometimes later, funniest moments).  But man, we've had so many good moments, always, unanimously agreed on all the big things together, and have had a blast.  I hope we're always together, but even if something happens to one of us, these past 20 years have been the best years of my life.

We've had similar but unusual stories.  We've been the guardians to kids from each side of our families.  As adults we connected with siblings from both sides who we did not grow up with.  We each lost the glue that held our families together, and both times it was the first time and completely knocked us down.  We've renovated too many houses, sometimes together, sometimes together but silently seething.  We've learned any kind of remodel is hard, even if you're just swapping houses that are next door or across the street from each other.  We both have had the best people come and go in our lives, sometimes holding onto them for dear life, and sometimes letting go.  

I am thankful every day I wake up and he's still here and all mine.  And I know he feels the same way about me (he sings me songs too).

bun puns

Several years ago I started the journey to figure out what the heck was up with my GI issues.  I was embarrassed, impatient, and felt like surely I could fix it.  I should be able to fix it right?  Why couldn't I fix it?  I soon gave up.  

In 2021 I started having trouble with incontinence of varying kinds, and I admitted defeat.  I talked to my doctor and told her I was ready to get to the bottom of my GI issues once and for all (pun totally intended).  I spent the next four years doing lots of tests, various diets, pelvic floor therapy, and even counseling.  Apparently stress can kill you in different ways, including via your gut.  Who knew? 

Thankfully, at the beginning of the journey I was working from home due to the pandemic.  Things definitely got worse for a while as I went through the hoops.  As I transitioned back to working in-person I didn't bring up the utter hell my GI issues were giving me.  At that time I worked with super supportive people.  I was just incredibly embarrassed.  Incontinence is a pretty taboo thing to talk about.  In addition to that taboo problem, I was often experiencing extraordinary fatigue, bloating, and pain.  Weirdly enough, 2022-2023 were my two favorite years working at the library.  I think all the library happiness balanced out the tummy troubles and gave me something positive to focus on.  The library job and people I worked with (99.9% of them) for sure saved my butt (again, pun intended) during the time I needed it most.

The first GI doctor I had was excellent, but he had settled on this cycle of periodically wiping out the bacteria in my gut a couple times a year.  It was expensive and the symptoms always came back, sometimes in just a few weeks!  I've had a few colonoscopies over the past few years, and for a couple weeks after each of them, I felt the best I've ever felt.  I was so desperate for relief I even brought up the idea of doing a colonoscopy prep every so often!  

So then I asked my primary doctor if I could be referred to a different GI doctor, and she was 100% on board with it.  I immediately clicked with this new GI doctor, and he started me on a very rocky path to some relief.  He tried a few things, one of which was a medication that drastically improved my discomfort and pain, but the other symptoms were persistently hanging on.  As we all know one of those symptoms makes living a normal life very challenging.  This doctor didn't give up on me though.  He referred me to the Mayo clinic, and at the beginning of July I got the call to come on up.  

I have spent the majority of the summer figuring out my gut issues, and I feel like I have an excellent plan that I understand.  The first thing I had to do was put away my feelings about taking medication for possibly the rest of my life (even something small and harmless like the one I'm taking was tripping me up).  I really wanted the fix to be solely related to diet or something I could fix.  The second thing I had to do was be open to anything and surrender my embarrassment.  Lastly, it's a lot of hard work and I'm still trying to understand it all, but I feel like I have some hope for a future that doesn't involve always making sure there's a restroom nearby.  I am willing to put in the hard work and ask uncomfortable questions.

I have been reading this excellent book: The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, and just this morning there was a passage I read that stood out:

"Embracing our common humanity is understanding that we all encounter pain, we all get lost, we all have drama in our family – we all have so much happening behind the scenes. The more you see your problems as uncommon, unrelatable, and unnatural, the closer you move towards self-pity, not self compassion." 

During this whole process I learned just how common my stomach issues are.  Unfortunately, I was totally mortified about them for such a long time, I made them 1000 times worse.  There are so many people with similar issues, there are two floors devoted to them at the Mayo in Rochester!  If anyone reading this or anyone you know has chronic constipation/diarrhea (or both!), it is not normal or ok.  Ask for help!

There's a lot of hard work ahead, but I'm ever so grateful for the help and also for Robert taking off the time to be with me for all the weird, exhausting, hopeful, gross, powerful, life-changing stuff I've been a part of this summer.  I'm also grateful that my gut issues are not life-threatening.  We have officially knocked out all the super serious things, and the relief I feel about that is immense.

Such a serious post, I think it's time for a few pictures.  All appropriate, only some poo!

Rochester has this incredibly long pedestrian bridge on the Douglas Trail.  Robert and I walked the lake loop to access it, and then he walked back to the car while I explored the bridge.  Robert said to call him when I reached the end of it, and he would come pick me up.  

Well I never found the end because the darn thing led to a brewery - Little Thistle.  There may not be pots of gold at the end of every rainbow, but apparently there's at least one brewery at the end of a trail (at least that's where the trail ended for me).  I'm pretty much ruined now.  When I called Robert he was not at all surprised by my find.  

Speaking of being completely ruined - when I popped into the main Rochester library and asked for a library card for my collection, the person working there librarian gave me not only the current colors, they also went into the back for a couple old ones lying around.  

Books like this were everywhere, including this board book.  Rochester definitely had the most positive poop culture I've ever been a part of.

We had Chinese one night.  I don't remember the food, but I did keep this.  How many might forces have been there for me?  Too many to count.  

Speaking of food, we did find the best places, because that's what we do!

Brussels Sprouts from First Meeting Noodle in Rochester:

Borscht (the best I've ever had) from Kramarczuk's Sausage Co. in Minneapolis, MN:

The Mayo Clinic is connected to many shops and restaurants in a crazy indoor maze.  Someone mentioned that they moved there in the winter and only spent a few minutes outside.  She was able to walk mostly from her home to her job at the Mayo clinic without venturing outside!  We did a lot of walking while we waited for appointments.  The best place to eat was Saladworks, which was a build your own salad place with roasted vegetable options.

This coffee place, Qamaria, had something called pistachio sauce.  Here's the difference between pistachio syrup and sauce.  It's very simple.  If it's sauce, you will want to bathe in it.  It was an otherworldly experience.  Each sip you decide if you want straight up latte or latte after you drag your straw through the sauce.  Basically, it's the best drink on the planet.

When we traveled to Des Moines for vacation in June we didn't find any restaurants we would visit again.  Naturally, just passing through Des Moines we found a stellar place - Centro.  They had a vegan tofu gnocchi with broccoli pesto and a salad with a pile of fresh tomatoes.  Robert thought my pasta was slightly better than his!

We had one weekend to fiddle fart around, and we stopped by an amazing craft recycling place, ArtStart and one of the best bookstores I've ever been to, Against the Current, both in St. Paul.  I kept picking up one treasure after another.  ArtStart sold their papers by the inch!

We got back just this past Thursday, and the dogs were both overjoyed and exhausted.  I immediately took Margo into work on Friday in the hopes she would forgive me for keeping her from J and her customers.  This weekend has been a lot of catchup, relaxation, and tennis.  

Tennis has been brutal this summer with the crazy humidity.  My average heart rate when I play is usually 140s-150s.  With the humidity the average has been near-death - 💀.  But it's the best place to lay down all my burdens (or smack the shit out of them).

I am ready to dive into my last semester of school, do all the hard work to get my gut all spruced up and happy (and not tear myself down if I make a mistake), and really soak up all the joy of my job, art, family, and the pauses when I write it all down.

Wild

When I chose the colors for this piece, I wasn't entirely sure how they would react with each other.  I thought the red would pop, the multicolored threads would unite, and the blue would be that subtle thing that creeps in and stays longer than the rest of the colors.  What I didn't expect was for the multicolor threads to throw a party and the red to be all like "hey I'm here for it, for all of it!"

picture book reviews

Since I'm behind in reviews, I will do a few posts by age or subject.  First up - picture books!

When I opened this and saw the photograph of a deliveryman I thought, no way! I enjoyed the story with the obvious twist, and the style of the illustrations added to the frenetic energy of the story.

The first time I read this all I could focus on was that bag of library books. When are they going to the library? Are they going now? The suspense!

Spoiler alert. They don't ever take their books back to the library, but the bag of library books is just one of many beautiful illustrations.

Most readers are going to know exactly where this story is going, but even when it happens the way you hope it happens, there are still the details about how it happens. And those details are everything.

Everything is exceptional - the story, endpapers, author's bio, pages explaining words and food. And illustrations that evoke such strong emotions and demonstrate that words aren't the only bridges we can use to connect with others.

Things I love:

* How the dictionary text is manipulated and so flexible. The story is coming to life from the dictionary, and that's exactly how it's illustrated. Also, the characters singing the ABCs to put the dictionary back in order makes me feel like everything is going to be ok.  Wouldn't that be amazing - to simply sing a song to put things right?

* The font. Is there a better font than Oliver Jeffers' handwriting? Those lowercase G's!

* The idea is really brilliant. And a great prompt for young writers. What words would you choose to write an alphabetical story?

* I'm still pondering the puddle moment. Does the ending really mean the ghost has a nightly rendezvous with the feelings of others? Clouds? Or that the ghost has befriended the very essence of feelings?

Flourish

This collage was one of the largest I've made - 18"x18" but it took less time to make than a lot of smaller collages.  I used a combination of recycled papers (mostly shopping bags & magazines), a few expensive papers that show layers when ripped (my favorites to find in craft recycling stores), and some wallpaper samples.  I loved every minute making this.  It gave me zero grief, and it was tough to walk away from it.  The siren call was real.   

My progress pictures show just how difficult it was to walk away from it.  It grew like wildfire in just a week or so.

Mirror

For a couple months last fall I stopped writing reviews.  Comprehensible word making went down the toilet so to speak, and reviews were among the joys I shelved during that time period.

So far this year I'm back in the habit of writing reviews for all four and five star books I read (and absurdly proud of this).  I don't have any reason for not sharing the reviews here, and I feel like this review is really the perfect place to start:

I'm not sure I needed to know this much about Norman Rockwell, but sometimes there's treasure in an information dump.

I've never appreciated a smattering of pictures in a book as much as I did with this one. So much text! I didn't know anything about Norman Rockwell prior to reading this, and after reading this, I'm not sure I really like him. Did he ever let anyone in? This feels very much like a cobblestone street, each rock a voice, all coming together to paint an image of one person.

What I really enjoyed were the stories about the paintings I've seen all my life - what went into making them, who the models were (often the same person for several paintings in a row), the errors (who knew there were any errors at all?). I was shocked to discover Rockwell wanted to be more than what he was. You think if you were Norman Rockwell that would be enough. I was also surprised to read that he always needed the objects he painted in front of him. "He went cold when he tried to draw an image from his head, as he said. He was afraid of what might come out if he allowed himself to fall prey to his imaginings."

I appreciated reading about all the artistic rituals, his obsessions, and the ins and outs of his studios.

It was long, but it was worth my time.

Favorite moments:

"He usually started his day by drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola, which helped him wake up, and mulling over the painting in progress on his easel. He would try to figure out which part of it didn't work and he always found something. This provided him with an entry point back into the painting and opened up a space of concentration into which he could disappear for hours."

When I read this, I was completely overcome with this weirdly profound since of solidarity. Here I am over a hundred years later doing the same thing but with a completely different medium and technology at my disposal. Whenever I get to a stopping point with what I'm working on I take a picture. Any down time I have after that I stare at the picture and find my entry points for the next time.

Another line I felt deeply was when the author was writing about Rockwell returning immediately to work instead of honeymooning with his wife (number two I believe). "Already she [the wife] must have known that artists are high matrimonial risks who save the best part of themselves for their art."

Unlike Rockwell, I caught a lucky break with my husband, because he loves his work as much as I love mine.

I also related to how Rockwell felt about books: "It had always been his habit to thumb through art books during the day, leaving two or three propped open on the floor, near his easel. It was one reliably positive thing he could do when he felt depleted and devoid of ideas."

Yep, sometimes books are what picks us back up again. That's why they must always be nearby!

July

July was bananas, so I was unable to post.  I wrapped up another semester (only one left).  We did lots of things at work: wrapping up the remodel, starting up social media, country club trophy season etc.  Some extra time went into my mysterious gut disorder (maybe less mysterious soon).  Lots of art, writing, tennis.  The usual.

Here are a few special moments:

A few years ago we had regular barred owl visitors.  Almost every time we looked out the window or walked outside we saw them.  Then they disappeared.  But maybe they are back.  Robert Facetimed me one morning on his way to work and told me to come outside.  

An owl on the ground!

But the owl very quickly flew to a tree when I came out.  My excitement (even the silent kind) is too much.

Margo has been working hard at the shop.  She's recently been learning all about social media and has been a good sport about it.

She now knows a little about trophies too.  You need an award?  She'll help you pick something!

Occasionally Josie visits, and we have an honoree shop dog.

They both work hard at their jobs, so there has been even more flopping than usual at home.

Heck, even a recent visit to a splash pad tuckered them out.

Life is good.

Making Centers

Mostly chaos here.  Murky, hopeful, good, overpowering, ripe.  All kinds.  Sometimes a center of calm too, but only enough to build a brief cocoon.  

I've been living in my art and work some days, and I'm good with this for the moment.  

I made two companion embroidery pieces, but when I was finished, I no longer liked them enough to put them out into the world.  The colors worked together sometimes but clashed other times.  It was too much chaos. 

The page above is from Make Meatballs Sing, which is about Corita Kent.  

Right now it's good enough to just Make.  And maybe treat the process of Make as a cocoon.