Weekend Finds

So there have been a lot of ups and downs in this Queen's life these days. The downs were the extremely sad news about a friend of the Hubby's who was killed in a motorcycle accident on Friday. He was 40 years old and the father to triplet 11 year olds. I also have a friend who is bravely battling cancer who I spent some time with last week. This, along with the re-surfacing of my own issues with panic attacks and the deep down blues, has made life challenging, to say the least... It just feels like the world is a scary, sad place sometimes....

The upside has been the wonderful tender love and care that I have been getting from some dear dear friends and love ones. That is what it must be all about, I think, holding on tight to what is good and celebrating it whenever possible. So in the midst of the crappy stuff, I lift my half-filled cup to my pals who make life beautiful and worthwhile !

While on the look out for good things this weekend, I made some fun finds. My friend Sonia and I hit a flea market in Hollis, NH on Sunday. We didn't buy much but here is the crazy piece that had to come home with me :

This cobalt blue glass hand was mine as soon as I saw it ! The red $5.00 sticker is still on it. Of course I had to play with the seller and ask "You gonna give me a hand ?" when buying it. Good for a little laugh anyway...When I told the Hubby about my day's activities, I said "You will never guess what I bought at the flea market today !" He didn't guess... he wasn't as excited about the blue hand as I was but he was fine when I said it was going in the studio....

Another find was out there in Blogland. I discovered the wonderful blog of Sarah Whitmire at Caspiana. She has started a project called Soul Journaling and gives guided art journaling prompts everyday. I love the activities she has has us do in our journals. They are directed yet open ended at the same time. With the scatterbrained feelings I am having right now (Hubby call it "Etch-a-Sketch Brain"!), it has felt so good to have someone else set the tasks and just dive into the process. It took me all weekend to catch up as I think Sarah is now on Page 8 of the journal but we are completely welcome to start anywhere and to take our time. This is the page I like the best so far :

Sarah prompted us to create a page with our Soul Armor, what we would need to nourish and protect our artist's soul and what we would like to surround ourselves with more of in our creative process. She also provided links to copyright free images of medieval armor to use in our pages if we wanted to. I like how this page turned out. The first word that came to me was "Self-Love" - that piece of armor is covering my heart and I think it is the one piece that needs the most reinforcing right now...

I will share some bits and pieces from this Soul Journaling journey but also feel kind of protective about it, like it should be just for me for the most part... part of getting myself to a better place....

To end off for today's post, here are my Monday's Three Beautiful Things (it was hard to find these today but here goes...) :

- my blue cobalt hand sitting on the bay window in the studio

- grilled mushrooms, onions and zucchini on the BBQ was yummy at supper

- gave the Hubby a nice back rub after work - it was nice to be there for him for a change

Hope your day is filled with beautiful things !