Monday Mantra

Steal like an artist

I ran across a quote this morning

as I was wandering across the web like a

nomad.

 

“You don’t want to look like your heroes,

you want to see like your heroes.”

 

I think this is something I’ve been thinking a lot

about recently, perhaps in the back of my mind,

but seeing this quote pulled it to the forefront

for me this morning.

I’ve been rug hooking for over 10 years now and

I like to look back and see how my hooking has changed

with the years.

When I first started, I was drawn to hooking because of

the antique rugs that I would see in “Country Living

Magazine”.  I wanted to emulate or copy that look.

That’s what I did……

However, deep down inside I’m really not a dark, drab

primitive girl…..I do like rustic, but I’m more rustic with a

splash of hot pink!

That picture above, the hot pink giraffe in front of

the worn, rustic boards…..that’s how I felt in the primitive

world of rug hooking.

Not sure exactly where I fit in.

So I hooked a rug that had a primitive theme, but I

ventured out and made it a bit more girly…..

Much to my pleasure and surprise, I lot of people

liked it!

This gave me a little more confidence to be myself

and embrace what I felt like was more “me”.

 

It was around that time that I ran across the work

of Karen Kahle….I loved her style and tried to

emulate it in the patterns that I purchased

from her…..

I love how she added dabs of color here and there

in unexpected places, her cute little cottages

and crocheted edges. Seeing her style made me jump

off a little more and try my hand at making

some of my own designs, like this….

From loving her work I learned to steal the parts

that I loved!

Okay, so what if I tried even brighter colors?!

So far I had broken away from the drab, primitive

colors and gone to pastels….still a little safe, seeing

how Shabby Chic was all the rage.

 

So, I jumped!

I hooked this vivid turkey that was based on

an old vintage postcard that I had found years

earlier.

 

Then I came across

the work of Deanne Fitzpatrick.

At first I just thought,

wow, her hooking is really MESSY!

 

I was taught to pull up nice, even loops….she certainly

wasn’t doing that! What does SHE know about HOOKING!

 

Then I ran across one of her books.

 

Deanne is also an incredible writer, that’s when I fell in love and found

that she was hooking from the heart and hooking

what she knew.

 

That was another light-bulb moment for me!

 

I need to be hooking what I know and what I love!

 

Bright puppies….

Wild gardens….

I’m learning to steal from artists and

mash those things that I love about THEIR

work into my own art.

Run down

This is what 3 miles on the treadmill looks like….

could my hair be any more sweaty and flat?

My co-worker and friend, Joni, is training for her first

5K, so I’ve decided to “kind of” train with her and we

send each other our times for doing 3 miles…..this was

38min 52 sec for me (at the gym, in the a/c….Joni gets up before

work and runs outside!)

Not too long ago I could jog 5 miles without stopping, but then

I kind of quit doing cardio for a while and now I’m having to

start over from scratch,

but the improvements come weekly.

I’m jogging for 1/4 mile and then walking 1/4 mile….

this week I was able to do some of my jogging at 6mph,

it’s a mental game for me really.

Maybe next week I’ll try to walk 1/4 mile

and then jog 1/2 mile.

I find it easier if I play mind games with myself.

I like listening to podcasts while I run,

it makes the time pass a little faster.

I’m working my way through some of Jillian Michael’s podcasts.

You can get her podcasts HERE.

***

Last night I watched an episode of “Oprah’s Next Chapter”

where she interviewed Olympic gold medal winners.

Can you even imagine being a world class Olympic athlete and having

body image issues?!

Gymnast Shawn Johnson's Body Image Issues

In 2008, powerhouse gymnast Shawn Johnson took home four medals from the Olympic Games, including one gold and three silver. But, even on her best days, Shawn says, she struggled with the constant pressure to be thinner. Watch as this 20-year-old opens up about her body image issues.

***

I also got in a little hooking with Sandy

and Kelly earlier this week…. (actually it was the same day

I ran) this is them waving

to Patti in Florida via text messaging.

Here is Patti, waving back….

Isn’t technology great?!

I didn’t get gobs of hooking done that night as evidenced by

the picture below….

….but it’s coming along. Can’t wait to finish up the bottom

portion of the rug, so I can start the embellishing on the top!

Cleopatra is healing well, but not really wanting to eat much

of anything…….tonight she gets to skip one of her meds to

see if it is what is squelching her appetite.

Take care

She’s home

She’s a tired girl, but she came through her surgery just fine.

Instead of having a big golf ball size stone, she had lots of

tiny birdseed and sand size stones that they had to take out.

Thanks for all of the well wishes for her!

Unexpected trip

Today I made an unexpected trip to the veterinarian's office

with Cleopatra.

For the past couple of days she has been breathing a

bit heavy, but for an older dog, when it’s REALLY hot outside,

we thought it was just the heat.

Last night, Kenny even took her in the pool to cool off.

 

She doesn’t do any swimming, she just likes to

be held.

Looks pretty relaxed doesn’t she?

No, we’ve never tried putting her on one of

the floating mattresses…..

….but she does enjoy, when she is feeling well,

running around the pool, while we are in it, barking

at us!

Of course she likes being dried off as well.

I woke up at 4am this morning because I heard her

STILL breathing heavy

Heavy,

shallow,

and

fast.

Of course, since I work in a cardiology area, my first

thought is that she has congestive heart failure….

she’s older, 8, almost 9…..

Dr. Rudd

listened to her heart and said her heart sounded fine.

She then listened to her lungs and said she could only hear the

tops of her lungs filling, not the bottoms of them.

She was also running a fever.

She wanted to keep her for some x-rays and possibly some lab work

to find out what was going on.

I came home and took Lonnie for a walk, while it was still fairly cool

outside…..best to keep busy or else my mind starts to wander and

start thinking of lung cancer or some other malady that could

be causing Cleopatra’s problems.

Dr. Rudd called back and said her lungs looked fine on the chest x-rays,

but they took abdominal x-rays and they showed that she had a golf ball

size stone in her bladder.

She also has a urinary tract infection……

Cleopatra is home on antibiotics, pain meds and liver meds, because she also

had an elevated liver enzyme.

Dr. Cook (who removed Cleopatra’s cyst back in June)

will be doing Cleopatra’s surgery on Monday and hopefully

she’ll be feeling much better

after her stone removal.

Late summer babies

We have a mother dove who has set up a nest

poolside.

Yesterday, I was able to peek in on her and her chick.

I was actually quite close when I took these photos.

She is so tame, she is almost like a pet.

My only worry is that her nest is so close to the pool….

I hope that chick takes to flying and doesn’t end up

in the pool.

I walked outside this morning to get a picture, so I could

show you just how close she is to the edge of the pool.

Of course, she was still on her nest with her rapidly

growing baby.

 

Hooking with scraps and such

If you’ve been following my blog for very long,

you might notice that I’ve been trying to work my way through

my stash of wool left over from my teaching days.

I’m still working on Cleopatra’s rug off and on.

A while back, I was also using up some scrap linen or monks

cloth and hooked these little rugs……

I think they are about 9” x 13”…..just the right

size to put under a casserole dish….

a great way to use up some of your scraps or worms

and something you can use on an everyday basis

or give as a little hostess gift.

Now to get them finished off!

Pushing

Honestly, I was surprised that I didn’t need a crane

to get me out of bed this morning.

Have you ever had a work-out where you just KNEW

that the next day you were going to be sore?

Yeah, I had one of those Monday!

I went to a FREE class at the gym called “Group Strength”.

We did crunches…..

by the 20’s…..regular crunches…..

….bicycle crunches….

….reverse crunches….

Just when I thought I was going to die, we switched

over to planks….

then side planks on a bosu ball….

Why is this person smiling? My arm is shaking!

I think then we moved on to weights…..

Yes, we’re still on that damn bosu ball, which is

working the abs!

We even did push-ups with it!

Okay, we didn’t HAVE to…..I did a few and then

switched to girlie push-ups…

At this point, I have sweat dripping down the back of

my neck….

What?!

We still have 30 minutes left!

Yes, you can cram a LOT into 30 more minutes!

Surprisingly, I wasn’t nearly as sore as I thought I’d be!

I thought I would wake up on Tuesday and not be able to move,

but Tuesday wasn’t bad……usually it’s the 2nd day when the soreness really

hits, but I’m happy to say it’s not that bad…..yes, I’m sore in a few

spots, but it’s a good sore…..not a “so sore I can’t squat to pee” kind of

sore !

I’m signed up for another class tonight…….

it’s called RIP…..

I hope it is supposed to make me look ripped…..

and not make me feel like this….