Wonder, Letting Go, and Creating

I'm participating in a 31-day blogging challenge called reverb10, responding to writing prompts that are designed to elicit reflections on 2010, and hopes for 2011. You can find out more about it here.

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

I have always been very good at noticing beauty in nature.  I stop for sun rises, sunsets, color in the clouds, rainbows, etc.  My boys often have their breakfasts interrupted by me encouraging them to come to the window and look at the color of the sky in the early morning sun rise.  I always wonder how I might paint such wondrous colors.  So for me, this year wonder has most recently been found in nature in our new locale.  The trees here are tremendous giants.  Beautiful and moss covered.  A stroll is like walking through an emerald fairy land.  It is so stunning it sometimes doesn't seem real.  The ocean is tremendous and powerful.  The fog settles in to the valley making you feel like you are floating on clouds.  And, will you just look at the paint job on that chicken!  I bet the egg she came from looked just the same.....well, maybe not, but it could have!

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)

Lots this year.  We left behind a house we had designed and built, a life in Airdrie, all our friends there, but with that we also gave up all the chaos of the big city madness too.   We gave up the fast pace, and the jammed-full schedules.  Thanks to technology we can still connect with friends and family.  So....the trade off has been more than worth it.  Why?  Because it was important to slow down for our health and for our connection to our boys and to each other.  And it is also important for our boys to experience something other than the lifestyle we had created up to that point.   Busy, busy, busy, go, go, go isn't life sustaining.  So now we are focusing on experiences rather than stuff and timetables... and free weekends and evenings allow that.

December 6 – Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

The last thing I created was this digital print.  Not my usual mode of creating, but I guess that would qualify as the most recent.  It is a scan of a painted background I did some time ago with a quote from the book "Marry Your Muse" by Jan Phillips.  I sent it to some friends to print and hang in their studios.  It was put together in Illustrator so completely a computer generated project.  I have a few things I want to get to next.  I bought a small piece of felted wool and some colorful merino wool fibers to make a flower hair piece for myself.  I've been saving mandarin orange wrappers and candy containers for a recycled journal project I've got in my head.  That one will most likely become a tutorial I will share later.  And I have several journals that I have lots of ideas for that I want to get to very soon.