Franklin Covey Keeps Me Sane

This morning I was getting ready for work and listening to my most recent favorite Pandora station, when a song I'd never heard before came on. It was called Mileage by Brian Vander Ark, and it was beautiful. Sort of an escapist, spontaneity encouraging song. I stopped what I was doing and sat on the bathroom counter and listened to the song, and I made me ache for a road trip to somewhere sunny and warm. When it was over I turned off Pandora and had to spend about ten minutes convincing myself not to run out to my car and drive to California by myself. I had to remind myself that I had to go to work, I had classes on Monday, I had commitments for the weekend, I needed to be responsible.  So I finished getting ready, went to work for six hours and missed all the sunshine the day had to offer, and then spent the evening mostly having fun with friends, while in the back of my mind wondering what would have happened if I had just left. But that's not what I do, and thats not who I am, and I decided thats okay. So what if I need to plan my fun in advance? So what if I take my obligations and responsibilities seriously? So what if just the thought of being spontaneous makes me nervous? Thats why I have friends and people I love in my life. Because we aren't all the same. I need friends like Reyna and Matt and Joey to make me stay up till two in the morning watching movies or go on cattle roundups, and they need me to plan birthday parties and make sure everyone is well fed and taken care of. How lame would life be if we were all the same? So I'll go on being responsible most of the time, and keep on making friends with people who can give me a shove when I'm being too responsible. And yes, my closet is categorized by type of clothing and subcategorized by color, my books are organized into genres and within genre by author, and I've been using Franklin Covey planners since I was about sixteen. And you know what? I like it that way!

I can only dream of something this beautiful . . .

Tissue Paper Pom-Poms

These are so cute and pretty and look really easy to make! Next time I throw a party or need a little extra cheerfulness in my room, I know what I'll be doing. Check out the link to see how its done, its way easier than you might think!

http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/tissue-paper-pom-poms-how-to?backto=true#slide_0

Magritte's The Empire of Light

Yet another find at book repair. I was working on a book containing a comprehensive collection of Magritte's works as well as a bibliography, and discovered many new beautiful images. Unfortunately I was not able to find copies of most my favorites online, but since this particular piece is fairly well known it was readily available. It gives a good look into the style and feeling of Magritte as a painter, but its hard to see the whimsy that he is so good at capturing. I found that he was good at capturing moments, as well as making fun of those moments. This picture gives a beautiful example of his skill at capturing movement, the water seems to be awake and alive. One of my favorite things about 

Magritte as an artist was his appreciation of women and their natural beauty. He had many busts and paintings of women and the female form, and I can't recall any of them that were stick figures wearing pounds of make-up. He used paintings of female forms without heads to represent the way in which our society can tend to see women as objects or items, rather than living, breathing, feeling, women. Any time an artist is able to capture and criticize an aspect of society that they disagree with, they have my respect. I admire most the artists who use their talent to not only create beautiful things, but to express their own beliefs and truths to others. Some are not able to express their views through words and ideas, and so they turn to other mediums and outlets. Magritte uses his skill as an artist to express his own sense of whimsy and beauty and truth, and I'm grateful that I have been able to see and hopefully understand something about him and his personality and beliefs.

The Reader by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Baile Tehuantepec