Twilight...

Susan from http://writingstraightfromtheheart.blogspot.com/  posted about twilight, with magical photos, and asked what images it evokes in her readers... Here's my responding comment:

Twilight brings to my mind Night Hawks hunting on the wing and other night birds readying for their evening activities, Owls, Whippoorwills and Night Herons...

Here's my twilight post...

(Photo of painting from Photobucket; artist unknown)

Nightjar...

You flew from ground roost to limb.
Phantom of the mercurial light.
Profile silhouetted against the dark.

You knew me...
I watched from my window.

Calling sharply, you lure me out.
Tonight, again, you lured me out,
not with voice, but enigmatic sight,
lured me into the calm afterdusk...

That unnoticed time between dusk and night,
when shadows rise and cross the wood.
D 2001

Monday Flowers for Tuesday Tea....

Apology in advance for the photo quality... they were taken with my phone... you'll see why...

I believe one's week should start on a good note... and what better way to start a week than with flowers.

(Potted Yellow Kalanchoe on my desk)

So every Monday I try to get flowers for my desk for that week. Then I take a picture of them with my phone and send them to a list of friends to brighten their morning. I call them Monday flowers...

(Blanket flower grows wild on the roadsides)


Sometimes, when I don't have a chance to get flowers for my desk, I improvise and use wildflowers,

(Crepe Myrtle from a Walmart parking lot)

(Periwinkles from the grounds at work)

flowers from home,  my work grounds or from parking lots during lunch.

Today, I sent out a picture of this lovely miniature red rose bush from my dinner table.  I think I'll sit here in the morning for my cuppa...

Happy Tea Tuesday... and be sure to visit the other Tuesday Tea ladies at Kimmie's
http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com

Coastal Gold...

In honor of Kimmie's Seaside Sparrow...
http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com/2010/06/seaside-sparrow.html

Coastal Salt Marsh in pastels...

Beckoning...

Okay... it's all staring to get to me... the heat, undependable transportation, family illness, medical bills, my muse has gone and I'm being bombarded with news and images from the Gulf. Tuesday would have been my mother's 78th birthday... She's been gone almost 17 years... you'd think it wouldn't bother me so... but it's ingrained in my soul. Today was my maternal grandmother's birthday, which was ingrained in my mother's soul. I know this from her writings and just by knowing my mother.  They are together...

Don't get me wrong... I haven't succumbed to right brain emotional escalation... but I am melancholy... worried... exhausted... worn down... I guess it's inevitable for all of us, at least sometime in our lives...

Photo source Sodahead.com

I have lost myself.
I do not recognize myself
as the girl I once was
or the woman I should be.

I seek myself amid prayers
that rise on smoke of sage and sweetgrass.
As my prayers are carried on feathered wings
my emotions rise to find me.

My pen in hand,
I write myself back to where I belong.
My pen knows the way
and beckons me to follow.
                                  D 1999

Whale Sharks off the coast of Sarasota!

Great story!

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100621/BREAKING/100629972/2055/NEWS?Title=10-whale-sharks-spotted-off-Sarasota

Tuesday Tea...

Right Brain - Left Brain and the Emotional Roller Coaster...

I'm a creative... that makes me right brained, right??  I'm also a scientist and comprehensive planner, analytical and forward thinking... my left brain component...

This is my laptop in it's docking station on my desk...

What's that lurking behind my tea? BTW it's black tea... all day...

Accounting codes... Notice what's been added by sticky note...

Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill activity codes...

How do I deal with this very emotionally charged part of my work?  It's posted beside the accounting codes behind my laptop....

The emotional roller coaster

You have 7 seconds to choose how to deal with a stressor.  After 7 seconds your body releases nearly 30 chemicals into your brain, from which there is no turning back.

Stay calm and follow the path of your left brain... chemicals stay in check and you deal with the stressful situation and come to an acceptable closure... if not the situation, at least how you've dealt with it.

Escalate and chemicals are released and your right brain takes over.  Your emotions take you over the top... your fight, flight or freeze instinct engages and you don't reach closure...

I learned about this during a training program at work.  Using the premise literally changed my life, professionally and personally - and just in time too - before my personal life was plunged into chaos.  My profession is wrought with the stress of fighting the sacred fight, doing the sacred work that sometimes seems to not make a difference.

It helps to have and use knowledge that keeps your head about your shoulders when the world is, quite literally, falling apart... and to be able to carry that home to use when your personal world is falling apart too?  Well that's a bonus.

http://www.carolprice.com/

Don't forget to visit the other Tuesday Tea ladies at Kimmie's!
http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com

Hottttt......

I'm mellltttiiiinnnngggg.......

SUV still overheats... it was 95 today... not even considering the humidity...
It's going to be one long, hot summer....

Floral Progress....

I hope you've all had a wonderful... or at least productive week.  I was traveling for work all week and didn't get online.  I fully intended to participate in Tuesday Tea, but the hotel wireless was such a pain to get on that I just read instead.  So I'm home now, relaxing this morning while hubby works on my SUV.  Maybe when he's finished I'll be able to run my a/c without the engine overheating... It's been in the 90s and I can't run my a/c... I'm meltiiiiinnnnggggg.....   Anyway... remember this?

Here it is once the flowers actually emerged....

Isn't it exquisite!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Another View of a Gentle Giant...

Imperiled due to habitat loss, recreational boating, unprecedented winter cold and it's own slow metabolism and slow reproductive cycle... and now the largest environmental disaster in history of the United States..

"Of the Gentle Folk"
West Indian Manatee in pastels.  See Kimmie's water color version at http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com

Tuesday T...

Sitting here having my morning (black) tea... reminiscing...

I was born in 1960.  My parents brought me home to the house they had built in 1958.  The first furniture I remember in that house was mid century modern - a wood framed sofa with wooden arms and a side table designed right into it.  There was also a 1950s stereo/turntable console, a brass starburst wall clock from Top Value stamps (like S & H Green stamps) and a pair of cool modern lamps with huge parchment drum shades. Shortly after I turned 7, my grandmother passed away and we inherited a living room full of antiques, including a Duncan Phife sofa. I have no idea what happened to that cool mid century modern stuff. Oh how I wish I had it now... especially since I'm redecorating my living room in it... I adore that style!  I have quite a bit of mid century modern pieces already... a huge bubble glass China cabinet standing tall on slim tapered legs, two teak chairs, a coffee table and a 1950s Thomasville bedroom suite, from which the nightstand is being used as an occasional table between the teak chairs... All mid century cool!

So what does this have to do with Tuesday Tea you ask...

This 1950s modern McCoy Daisy pattern tea set (minus the sugar bowl) is part of my teapot collection. It's one of two 1950s McCoy sets I have.  I love to scour the internet and vintage shops for these cool teapots.  They are some of my favorite things ever!

Happy Tea Tuesday ladies...  Don't forget to see what the other Tuesday Tea ladies are up to by visiting Kimmie's blog http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com.

Table for Two...

Since I'm turning the Florida room into an art studio... and Bruce's desk takes up the kitchen dining area (actually just a wide hallway leading to the Florida room and sliders to the patio)... and someone stole the glass table top that went with the rattan dinette (it was in the front yard leaning against a porch post)... I pulled out this old oak card table and put a couple of wooden folding chairs (I want to paint them chocolate brown) up to it...

Set it for two...
Added flowers from my (and the neighbor's) yard...

Sanseveria (snake plant), purple Wandering Jew (that's really what it's called, no offense to anyone intended) and Aloe flowers in a vase my mother made...

Bathroom art...

A $3 Walmart frame and cut down scrapbook paper...

World Environment Day...

Today is World Environment Day and following in Kimmie's (http://artinredwagons.blogspot.com) footsteps... I present Audubon's Crested Cara Cara in pastels...

Polyborus plancus is a Threatened raptor that lives in open areas of southern Florida.  It is a carrion eater often seen on roadside fence posts along pasture lands.