dental work

 

They took out the six teeth this morning, my face felt like it was hardly there - but I can definitely feel this plastic dental appliance (top denture plate) they have put in, and I can feel that my upper jaw is still bleeding some.  I hate that - because I do bleed a lot compared to most people.  They told me the plate should act 'like a bandaid' and make it stop bleeding over the course of the day - but it's been about twelve hours and I've come to the conclusion that is once again, a 'most people' thing and I'm not built like most people.  With hEDS, everything is just a little different when it comes to anything that has collagen in it, like skin, blood vessels, gums etc etc..  Gah.

 

I was able to eat some soup and finally figured out how to drink coffee without losing much of it.  But I still feel like I've been punched in the nose, too - because of all the needles and numbing they had done to the roof of my mouth.  Earlier, I told Mark I would feel so much better already if my NOSE didn't hurt - right at the bottom of each nostril probably where it was getting extra support from the rigidity of the teeth?  I don't know - but I hope that settles down because that is going to be tough.  Not as tough as the fact that my sinuses also drain down almost exactly where the dental plate extends in the back of my mouth.  

 

So, yes, the teeth look nice.  They'd look nicer without blood still seeping in my mouth.  They told me I had to keep the plate in until the next morning, and then remove it and rinse out the blood and put it back in.  That is going to be smashing.   My face still looks like I got half beat up but without the bruising.  There is a certain puffiness to it - and part of that might be because there are 'teeth' there to fill the cheekbones out there.  And I've taken three Advil over the course of twelve hours - yes, three total pills - (because I cannot have / cannot process chemically the other painkillers they normally would provide) since they pulled them out and all except the nose and one spot on the front tooth area the Advil are taking care of the rest.   I slept for about four hours, but the oversalivation and gag factor are still there, although not quite as bad as it could have been.

 

 I sat down with colored pencils and meant to just start drawing colors - in the way that I do, but it turned into one of these 'my nerves are melting' drawings and I let it, as the novacaine was still pulsing through my face and I couldn't feel my lips at that point.  Perhaps there is something there to pay attention to after a bit.  That blue line going down with the diamonds was a strange one.  Yes, the whole thing is strange.  The electricity had also gone out for an hour just after we got home and I only had cold coffee on top of all of that - so drawing helped sort things out for a bit until the power came back on.

I don't know why but I switched from French and Spanish to Romanian today and did the Lithuanian lesson as well.  

I'm supposed to be back at work in the morning here and am not looking forward to pulling that plate out and seeing the blood and the state of the jaw with the teeth missing.   

bits and kick

 

It's been a tough couple of weeks -our air conditioner has went out, and we have to find out still what we can do to replace it - so we have been dealing with the hot temperatures and the floor sweating downstairs with the humidity - the repairman said the current unit cannot be fixed.  We also need to replace our washing machine - although I knew that a few months ago it took time to come around to consensus on that and perhaps tomorrow we will actually go and get something done.

The air conditioner is a harder thing -the estimate for a new unit is really expensive

Esme finally asked me for some help with cleaning her room - it's been years that I've been backing off as I was told I was too overbearing on the subject .. but now she wants help and doesn't know why I was holding back.  I told her I should have been more forceful too, instead of just listening to the other advice, but I wanted to avoid fights and that is not always the right thing, either.

 So, while we try to decide how to repair things, I kicked my little sketch I did in my notebook off into a Kandinsky/ J Ward style?(Mark calls it that) style drawing to try to get some juices flowing.

Lots of work - so far this has been my 16th day on between the two jobs, although the day after my birthday was just a few hours. 

Summer Solstice 2024

 

*outside, it is still dark - and I want to sleep*

I hit the snooze button to try to slip back into dreams...

 

Get up, get up - you'll miss it - the spirit animal tugs at me, it's not my dog, she's downstairs sleeping, but it does the trick as good as any real nose

 

ten more minutes, for the 101 year old woman to tell me what I did wrong with the brown sugar, oh, she's not going to, I have to figure it out myself... 

 

 

pull myself out of bed, remember it is the day, assemble myself and heat up a cup of coffee, stagger out into the already bird-chirping sky-lightening world, long after the moment I would normally push myself out into the world on this day - which is usually before the full veil of dark lifts, when I am still uncertain of even where to put a foot down, much less my wits

 

I think about how I have 'two tries' this year, solstice, and my birthday, days following each other, to see the world as this - and I wonder if I will use both of them, if that is what this is for, comparison...

 

But I am here, moving through the world - and ready to see what it has brought me here for at this moment. And a bird passes overhead, up above the power lines above me, as I am admiring the pale blue light of sky... long before actual sunrise, before any pinkening has come to it. And as I walk, make the turns as I am using to making them - it strikes me at one moment all this sense of scale of the environment, as the colors begin to resolve themselves into pink mimosas and yellow rudbeckia - as the gray of the road and the green of the forest separates into layered and tiered colors...

 

I walk home even before true dawn, look back at the road one time to see the pink fingers coming across the sky - my alarm has not even rung yet - I step into the house and grab up some pens, sit with my dog on the porch and try to capture this - yes, I am small in the world, and it is in motion, and I am here to experience it.

catch up

I'm tired, there has been one long week of working mostly every day between last post and this, and more... it will be good when the paycheck comes but it was exhausting while it was happening.  Everything is expensive, and Mark is worried that by the end of the year we'll be short again because I've had to get both vehicles serviced (one is in now, the other one will go in after the first is fixed) I've been trying to get more of a focus on everyday expenses, because groceries and gas just keep going up..   Last year we got cornered into a very bad vehicle repair from another mechanic than the one we usually use - and that set us up badly with the increasing fuel and grocery bills.  **still thinking on all of that**  But I've done some things in the past few weeks, some might call it just edging myself along.

 

Bread (the same kind, that Mark and Esme like to eat) was 1.79 in 2021, now it is 3.19 Gasoline has followed the similar trend.  Everything else has gone up proportionately.

Drawing : did a lot of drawing here and there - with some new pens and pencils, and to try to draw a plant sale we went to, and a thing that happened on a postal route.

the plant sale, my daughter on the right, my mother-in law in the black pants

this was at a farm not far from ours

the White squirrel situation - something that happened on one my postal routes I covered - a white squirrel was sitting in the road and there was a cat stalking it - I could not get my phone to cooperate to take a picture, and the squirrel saw the cat and my oncoming traffic and took off up a tree

 

I found some Zebra gel pens (which I've had a pack of before, they come in interesting colors) and also Zensations (also from Zebra) mechanical colored pencils - I picked up a couple of each to try them out.  Below, is another page drawn with the same tools

I used to cover all of my sketchbook pages in drawing montages like this...

Baking : baked madeleines with the lemon zest in them, and that was very good.  Made an egg-heavy crepe like thing today as well with four eggs, half as much flour and a bit more lemon zest in it, and it was good, as well.  Made a 'leftovers' soup with fresh carrot and split peas, beans and rice hotdish, chicken boullion, green onions and peppers -it looked like refried beans when it was finished, but it tasted wonderful, and I served it with some noodles and a tortilla.

 

lemon madeleines

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) softened to nearly melting

beat with 3 eggs, vanilla and 1/2 cup sugar, 3 tbsp brown sugar - 3 minutes 

add some lemon zest and a small amount (less than 1 tsp) of lemon juice

1 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, salt, beat to combine

less than 1 tablespoon of batter in madeleine shells brushed with butter

375 degrees, 10-12 minutes, do not flip

(I made a cream cheese version two weeks ago, too - and it was very good - 1/4 container cream cheese, and I think it took a little milk and extra flour to make it right)

 

crepe like thing

4 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, some vanilla, 1/4 stick (1/8 cup? melted butter, cooled before adding), lemon zest and small amount of lemon juice  beat by hand in bowl

add 1/2 cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, some salt, stir up well, should be gloopy but stick to the fork - get a measuring cup for pouring it into the pancake pan

fry on hot buttered pan, flip once

leftover soup

about 1/2 cup of bean, rice and green-chile hotdish ( I make this sometimes for myself and have some leftover usually)

1 large carrot, peeled and chopped

1 handful of green split peas, washed

1/2 bouillon cube 

1 handful of old fashioned oats

1 handful of green onions

a few jalapeno peppers (from last summer's harvest) (made it quite spicy)

black pepper, olive oil, salt and celery seed

water (of course)

bring to boil, then simmer for about 40-45 minutes stirring as needed

you can use an immersion blender and blend it up if you like

I've crocheted several new bags for the eventual art shop - and am working on a topper rug thing for a footstool I have that never seems to get rid of the cat hair on it - so I wanted something washable. It's the same technique I've used to make the machine-washable bathroom and kitchen rugs that we are getting so much use out of - except this will fit over the square lid of the footstool like a hat.

Esme has had a few 4H wildlife meetings, and I'm reading 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmus that I got at the library sale while I wait for her to get done with those.

Working on a multitude of different languages when I have the time and energy to do so.  Did a lot of Czech today, caught up with some Portuguese, Greek, Japanese, German and Romanian in the past few weeks.  I don't usually do German on DL because I took it in school, but I watched a show in German, and on DL I still get the order of the verb wrong, especially.  The show is  'Mindblow' which is about sort-of time travel and alternate timelines - hope I can find the second episode when it airs.  

 

Language update : 

French -       L 25 XP 49620     19620 XP beyond Level 25
Welsh -         L 24 XP 28243     +1757 XP to next level
Spanish -      L 23 XP 24570     +1430 XP to next level
Japanese -     L 19 XP 14317     +683 XP to next level
Czech -          L 18 XP 13083     +417 XP to next level
Romanian -     L 17 XP 10969     +1031 XP to next level
Portuguese -  L 16 XP 9632         +868 XP to next level
Italian -          L 15 XP 7544         +1456 XP to next level
Greek -          L 14 XP 6927         +573 XP to next level
German -      L 13 XP 5956         +44 XP to next level
Finnish -      L 13 XP 5515         +485 XP to next level
Catalan (es) -  L 12 XP 3923     +977 XP to next level
Swedish -      L 11 XP 3689         +211 XP to next level
Norwegian -  L 11 XP 3082         +818 XP to next level
Spanish (fr) -  L 11 XP 3025         +875 XP to next level
Hungarian -  L 10 XP 2438         +562 XP to next level
Ukrainian -  L 9 XP 2228         +22 XP to next level
Irish -          L 9 XP 2174         +76 XP to next level
Turkish -      L 9 XP 2020         +230 XP to next level
Polish -        L 9 XP 1793         +457 XP to next level
Chinese -     L 8 XP 1426         +224 XP to next level
Russian -      L 7 XP 1023         +102 XP to next level
Zulu -          L 7 XP 759             +366 XP to next level
Guarani (es) -  L 6 XP 611         +139 XP to next level
Dutch -          L 6 XP 540         +210 XP to next level

(es) learning from Espanol

(fr) learning from French

our cat Lyffan, a Manx cat, sleeping on my bed

she couldn't be happier

North American Solar Eclipse 2024 April 7th

 

 

The shadows through the trees on my postal route (above)

The artwork I made the night before (below) in my sketchbook

poems for the first week of April

 

Grow and Be Happy : Heron on Nest

inks and colored pencil

Illustrated poetry book : Unspoken Things Made Words 

available to order in print here at Amazon

'Acorns'

 

Acorns

Someday we will walk together

along this path in wonder

at the same leaves on the ground

that small oak

which neither of us trod upon

instead allowing it to put down roots

for years, there in the soil

it has now grown tall

and we can sit in the shade of it

well before we thought was possible

rest our heads against the bark

and say how lovely is the day?

 

 

 my little cat, Minion

Tortoiseshell

Little black cat

with the one orange paw

curled tightly in a ball

on top of a shirt in the laundry basket

that I wore yesterday

discarded there on my way in from outside

no longer with the warmth

but perhaps still the smell of me

this is one reason she has chosen it

She tries to ride the bow of my hip

at night, while I sleep

but my ship it rocks too much

while I am dreaming

turning over and over and over

she tries to cling with claws

then we disagree

and the tossing turns to Neptune

she has to admit -it makes her a bit seasick

so the laundry basket, it is

begrudgingly

 

 

And the other day - when I was feeling a bit up and down over social anxiety.. It's a strange feature of that - that I will reach out to someone and it will be very good - or I will attempt a hard task or lesson on something and it will also be very good - but then the next moment I often feel even more anxiety that has to calm down, like a fire that has burned too hot and now everything is boiling to the top of the pan. So, I've learned that feature and now work to dig myself out of those feelings as soon as I recognize them. I congratulated myself, that night, which is a necessary part of reflecting on it all, for how many times I pick myself back up, ten times in an hour it feels like sometimes, no really, it was good, you are doing well, just get out of this feeling, it's an emotion, and one we have to keep working on...

and this flowed out:

Pompeii

When I fall down unseen,
within these hallways, inside my head
I get back up, ten times in an hour
over and over, or perhaps just one
handspring that was barely noticed
but each time I work my way up
and ask which way the wind blows
that makes me feel so light
such glass in my bones
but at least glass has weight to it
this is more like volcanic ash
reduced to ghosts and fragile shells
from fires too hot to handle
ready to blow away unless I capture it
in my palms and carry it to a safe place
so gently, where it may perhaps
against all reason - become rock again
I must take them, these fires, in small pinpoints
where they rush through the surface
needing to take a few moments to cool down
so that is what I am doing
when I am inspecting the ground like this
with my fingertips, furiously sketching, seeking
looking for a place cool enough to take grip again
and hoist myself up

Out into the Mathematical

 

Out into the Mathematical - the tesselations, the colors how they change, lines of geometry crisscrossing the scene, I cannot describe to you what I find so thrilling in the 'mathematical' ways of the plants and trees - it is something I have no actual equation for, only that I know it when I see it, and some little part of me that cannot do the calculations rejoices all the same in seeing it played out before me by Nature

  The Snowball bush, and the trees, this morning - although the color behind the trees was much more of a purplish-blue that the camera cannot capture.  We've had that with the morning glories before, too - it just doesn't capture the same color as I see with my eyes.

 

Our little tortoiseshell cat, Minion, drinking from the water trough

and some post-it note sketches of our goat sleeping by her hay bowl, using pens that were easily to hand

 

Languages : starting with Romanian (oh wow, there are words I had forgotten and it feels almost new to wrap my mouth around 'oraș' and 'ţânţar'...and yet, I'm better at it than I should be, so some part of my brain remembers I had studied it a few years ago.   Will head over and do the French and either Spanish or Catalan after a little bit.  Was proud that when I did the Romanian test on my phone profile on DuoLingo I was popped up to nearly the end of the first section to start in .. and I am at the middle of the second section in the main profile on the computer.  I made a mistake in order that probably set me back a little - but that was a good score!

At the Limit of Reflection - acrylic painting

Convolvulus : Morning Glories - sketch

The Morning

 

"La Dimineata' : The Morning

viburnum in jar, colored pencil

  

thoughts first thing in the morning, as I made the bed, and washed dishes, and started the coffee before my shower... I think that many, like me, were trained to think happiness is a warning sign, 'regular happiness', contentedness, not a reaction to some major life event, if we are content it is because something has surely been forgotten, we have slowed down when we should have been keeping up, there is something wrong if we can and do stop and realize that 'we are happy' in this moment, this simple task, this morning, these feet on this road, this small goal made and then reached. And that is so much opposite of the truth. Because we know that it is momentary, and we are looking for 'the other shoe to drop', as it will, eventually, but then we entirely forget this moment, the one we are happy in, WHILE we are in it, in the distrust of it. And we are trained that way, by our society, it seems... Well, I was. And I'm trying to get out of it, here and there, between shoes.

 

Poem (from me)

Le Bonheur

Have you heard it?

That little bell that rings

when you find yourself suddenly smiling

chin on your hand, and you ask Who Me?

Do you see it, that bit of blue

shining out between the tree branches

the taste of your favorite meal

although you had nearly forgotten it

in all the spaces in between

do you feel it?

This is the bonheur

welcome back traveller

drop your bags by the door

while you realize you have returned

to sit upon the hearth and be warmed once more

Medium in Art

'Mortal', ink drawing, 30 minutes, left hand

I keep experimenting, and think that is more being an artist than making four foot murals all in one style etc...  There is a difference between being an artist and being a commercial artist .. although, yes, you can be both, the goal for one 'mode' is necessarily a bit different than for the other.

The Thoughts:
 

My husband was commenting on some art news that (almost) everyone he sees making big splashes seems to be 'one medium' - usually something like oil painting, or welding huge metal sculptures etc etc.. and that is all they do, and they are celebrated for it and the museums are full of huge sculptures and four-foot-wide oil paintings etc while there are thousands of artists out there doing their thing in small formats and whatever medium brings their idea most to light. I do like the variety that is shown in the DayLight Gallery in Camden, TN for that reason.

 

I told him that the one medium I focused on for my years in school was ink - but for some reason the main reaction to that was : 'And it's all 'just' ink - how do you have the patience to do that?', and the second reaction was 'Where's the color'... so yes I have branched out over the past decades into not only colored inks and watercolors, but colored pencils (which are often seen as 'not professional') and pastels and paint ... but the other side of that is that it seems unfocused. You can't have your cake and eat it, too - either you're versatile or you are focused. 'Why do you make so much? Do you ever sleep?' The thing that, I believe, makes me an artist 'the most' is that I am compelled to create, to express, to chase whatever it is almost every single day.

That also equals mountains of work, and little outlets for most of it.. it can be a bit overwhelming at times truthfully to look at it all. I put a few small things in the gallery, or offer one up on a site for a while, but that doesn't mean I'm not making another item tomorrow etc. I tend to send some pieces off to special people once in a while, and then that is sending off little bits of myself to say 'I thought this might mean something to you, too.. and either way, here it is'....

 

 

 'What Can you Reach from Here?', paint and inks

black paint, white paint, blue paint, black india ink, gold ink, brush, palette 

What can I reach from here?  This palette, this brush, these paints, this pen... what about that mountain?  I don't know, I haven't built it yet.

Experiments, like left-handed drawing, and 'we're gonna run with whatever we can reach from this point without getting up.. and we're starting with this brush, good luck...'  It's constraints and yet it's also freedom within the circle to do whatever it is that circle can bring... and then expand it, refocus it, do something else.. and through every single thing you do, each thing that is different from each other, the same element is you - and those that can see that, then they know something more than just the casual observer of one piece

Poem : 

Graywing

The clamor can quiet a bit

that deafening onrush of Time

when watching the plain gray moth

grip the stem of the plant

swaying under its weight

and drink nectar from the white flower

that you had not even seen

Two poems and thoughts

 Random thoughts:

 

my cat has taken to parking herself in my chair every morning before dawn, and not leaving until I pick her up, protesting and hanging like a limp cloth, waving her whiskers at me and half-flattening her ears until I put down her feet gently on the floor beside me and she looks up and says 'oh, it's like this now, huh?' and curls around the foot of the chair in determination that she will remain as close to as exactly where she wishes to be as possible, with this human involved in the process

 

I would like some larger paper, and then I use what I've got

and that takes me long enough already, so I guess that's that

 

I look at my inks and my pigment pens and think I've used up some and don't touch others... but they sell the pens in packs and then I pick up one of the ones I don't usually use and take it for a stroll to do what it can do on the paper in front of me, the same with purple pencils, and reds, and then I am using eight types of things on one piece of paper and perhaps this is how I learn things... they say we all learn through play

 

 

two Poems from today : 

 

 

knitting : what may or may not be a stocking hat

 and the yarn was quite a pain to start out on the dpns, I thought about giving up but decided to give it a little longer, and now I'm a few inches in and maybe just maybe it will come to a fruition

 

Follow that Car

 

Somedays, it can look like a mess

it can be frustrating as hell at times

you can be uncertain you've got enough materials

or if you will ever have the time to finish it

to the standard that is in your mind's eye

and yet, you continue

and that, is when you know you're on to something

Mr. Taximan, follow that car

it's going my way

 

 

  

colored pencil drawing : available at mariemeyer.etsy.com   

the bird was in the grain of the paper, so it truly had to be drawn

Nesting Thoughts

 

All the words have fluttered away from me

in this hour of nesting

thoughts and habits

an hour of practice

unlike any other – even when they start the same

just like words – the image begins at one point

and before I can figure out what to say

it is already taking its own path

I am simply following

the way the motion goes

the crow’s line

drawn between two points

I did not choose

lessons for life

 

 

 sketchbook

I've got a couple of other things I did today, as well.. 

 

 left-handed drawing with some right-handed coloring in on the plant

World Tree with Dragon : Progression

World Tree with Dragon

(image of figure, wearing deer skull with horns (responsibility, family, heritage)  reaching 'through' the life and moon symbol to touch and create light shining on the opposite side of the world tree, while kneeling on the roots of the tree where the Dragon sleeps (mortality, the Earth, 'Universe turns' symbol clutched by dragon, also signifies the march of Time).  Bird giving knowledge (leaves to head).  Rabbit looking forward (symbol of regeneration and generations)

progression of an automatic drawing

 

pastel underdrawing 'scribble' to music

  

adding two colors of paint

deciding where the figures are

 

embellishing with gold and blue paints 

 defining more features

filling in blank areas

next step would be to go over with a fine brush and black or dark brown, or to go over with a permanent India ink pen

 

 final stage

Of Feathers and Wheat and little ink sketches

somebody, Lyffan cat, is bored in all this ice and snow

and deciding to try to eat the decorations

 

 ink and colored pencil

And I updated my Cloudfolios a little because they said it had been so long 

https://www.cloudfolios.com/MarieLamb/
 

Christmas 2023

 

I haven't been taking Christmas pictures, but letting everyone open their presents organically and just spending time.  I made a few cards after lunch today, and read some of the book Esme got me for Christmas.

Had finally finished up those fingerless mitts a few days ago, that had been started a year ago! They're too big, but they are complete and they do fit, just loosely. It's so warm I don't really need them right now! So with these needles free I had started a simple ribbed hat pattern, size 6 dpns, 100 stitches give or take... 1 x 1 ribbing - and I always make the hat a little too small or a little too short so I think I'll keep this one by my desk and do a little 'overkill' on it, a bit too big perhaps, and longer -- some of my instincts say to mix a somewhat-clash color with it, like Navy Blue, and then it will be 'a real thing' compared to just a plain straight color. It is supposed to get colder again after a week or so - and since I keep having to put my other hat from last year back on after it slips off my head - I thought another hat might perhaps be a useful item if it turns out better than that one. Accounting myself to stop knitting so my hands will be in good shape tomorrow... Is six o'clock too early to go to bed? Considering the dogs wake me up multiple times in the night and wake-up time is before six in the morning, it is probably okay.

 

I have a big route tomorrow, and not my usual one - and we expect it to be heavy.

I need to go fold the laundry and go to sleep, probably.

 

 Our Minion cat already has gone to sleep on my desk - although I had to evict her out of a baseball cap she had claimed... put this ten year old scarf on the desk out of a bag hanging on the wall and she eventually accepted it.

 

Grandma Irene came down for lunch, we made pork roast and I made a butter cake with ginger-syrup poached pears beside it. The pears were a bit soft, but better than too hard. We did a few small presents, something for each of the family members to wear, a book, candy - and a little something else for Esme. She got a game she wanted on the computer, and there is an art item coming in the mail for her soon. I bought her a book by Erin Hunter, which she had previously missed I think, by her reaction.

I've still been doing French language this week, maybe one or two lessons for something else, but switch back and majority of French. I've done a little drawing, mostly for thank you and New Year's cards.

I also need to order the next proof of my book soon so I can get it looked over and push the button to order print copies.  

 

 

 

Mid April

 

drawing : Come Dream with Me

Loki

gardens

winged elm tree

 

art finds at the flea market

including a Commodore A. W. Faber red copying ink pencil

Martian desert, in stages... probably will do more to it

Sumerian Lion in gold paint pen

Languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Welsh, Irish, a little Dutch