Random Thoughts Wednesday

Sometimes I like to put my random thoughts out into the universe and watch them circle the bowl. :)  So, here goes...

1.  I decided I needed new stronger bifocals because I'm embracing my inner old lady and she's legally blind.  I ordered frames in "eggplant" because that's the color glasses an "artist" would wear. 

photo cred sortacrunchy.net

2.  Speaking of eyes, I'm having this crazy eye thing.  When I look in the mirror, my eyes look normal.  But they feel like they look like this:

It's starting to freak me out.

3.  I have a teenager in the house.  It's always been my theory that God designed it so that expectant mothers can't sleep in the last trimester because He knew they wouldn't be able to have another decent night's sleep in....well...ever, so they might as well get used to it.  I think a similar sort of thing happens with teenagers.  The last two years are stressful and sometimes bordering on miserable so that we aren't hanging onto their legs and wailing when it's time for them to move out.

50sretrosign.com

4.  I need to keep paper and a pen in the car so that I can take note of my brilliant but ever more fleeting thoughts..  I had a list of things I wanted to put in this blog post.  I wrote it on a slip of paper in the car with a pen that didn't really work.  Now I can't find the list, and I can't remember what was on it.  I'm sure the fourth item was going to be hilariously funny and/or deeply moving.  You'll just have to trust me.

I'm working on some new art to share soon.  In the meantime, may the Lord bless you today with either 20/20 vision or stylish eyewear and either obedient children or short term memory loss.

<3 Lori

I'll Take Joy

Ann Voskamp wrote my new favorite book.  In One Thousand Gifts she talks about how beauty and blessings are all around us every day.  It's not that they are not there.  It's that we don't take the time to notice them.  She begins to make a concerted effort to recognize and acknowledge all the gifts that she encounters everyday, cataloging them in her journal.

It's not easy for her all the time.  She and her husband and gaggle of children (can't remember how many, but a bunch) live on a pig farm in Canada.  They milk cows and tend to sick pigs and harvest corn.  She homeschools and makes homemade bread and cleans and does piles of laundry.  And in the midst of all that, she documents sparkling laugther, freckled noses, full moons, glistening soap suds, healthy children and the presence of a loving God when children are not healthy. 

It's really an amazing book.  I haven't finished it.  To tell you the truth, I can't read more than a few pages at a time without bursting into tears.  I see myself in her weak moments.  I'm frustrated by the dishes in the sink, but all I really have to do is change my perspective.  How blessed am I that I have my family here to use those dishes! How blessed am I that we have food for the plates! And when bad things happen, how blessed am I to know there's a loving God there to lean on. 

She says, "The holy grail of joy is not in some exotic location or some emotional mountain peak experience.  The joy wonder could be here!  Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be--unbelievably--possible!"  Joy is right where you are right now. All around you.  Just look for it.  The line that hit me like a ton of bricks in this book is, "The remedy is in the retina."

Habakkuk 3:18 (ESV) reads, "I will take joy."  I needed this message so much recently that I made myself  a little canvas to hang above my workspace upstairs.  I love it.  It brings me joy and reminds me where to look to find it.  And now I made one as a little thank you note for one of my Facebook friends.

Thanks so much for being on this journey with me!

May the Lord bless you with 1000 gifts every day.

<3 Lori

Butterflies and Cheese Curds

We had a lovely time in Wisconsin last week.  It was a little bit of culture shock for us and many of the people we encountered there.  There were a couple of times when I thought maybe I really wasn't speaking English because people didn't seem to understand me. By the end of the week, I had a acquired a pretty good Wisconsin accent, though, and could order a cheese curds like a native. :)  Yum!

Because we were gone all week, and I've been playing catch up at work and at home, I haven't had time for any art. :::boo!:::  However, I was inspired by some beautiful butterflies we saw at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.  The story of Dan Capps' collection on display there is remarkable.  I can't wait to paint some of these beauties.

Butterfly Haiku

Butterfly gliding

Filmy fringe, flights of fancy.

Speaking winged whispers.

May the Lord bless you today with beautiful butterflies and crispy cheese curds.

<3 Lori

Use Your Wings

I have signed up for two really cool artsy, inspiration/confidence building on-line classes that start in the next couple of weeks, and I'm SO excited I can hardly stand myself!  Weeeeee! :) 

The first class is called "Soul Restoration" and is offered by Brave Girls' Club.  Since I can't go off to the mountains of Idaho for a week for the in person version (which would be super AWESOME and which has been entered five separate times on my Bucket List), this will be the next best thing.  My girlie and I are going to do it together. So, we'll pick a day of the week, put on some cute aprons, cover the kitchen table with butcher paper, hang some green/turquoise/yellow streamers, break out the mod podge and do some art that is intended to clean out the clutter and redecorate our soul houses. :)

The other class is called "Taking Flight" and is taught by Kelly Rae Roberts, an artist, writer and "possibilitarian", who in six years has gone from being a part time Etsy artist to running a home decor empire!  If you aren't familiar with her stuff, she does these amazing mixed media girls with simple, positive messages.  Many of her girls have butterfly or angel wings, which emphasize her philosophy that we should not be afraid to, "find our creative wings and take flight toward the sky of our bliss-filled inspiration--a place where your spirt will soar."

I told you in my first blog post about some of the jobs I have held.  Most of those were more "spirit souring" than "spirit soaring".  Since I've been a closet poet, author, artist all my life, I'm ready, ready, READY to get some air under these rusty ol' wings.  I feel a little like the Tin Man, though.  Anybody got an oil can I could borrow?

In the meantime, my pink/turquoise mood continues...only this time it has wings!  "Write your own songs to sing.  When your bough shakes, use your wings!"

May God bless you today and give your soul lots of lift.

<3 Lori

My Dear Little Girlies

Maybe I'm the only one.....But I'm going to go ahead and ask anyway and potentially expose my inner psycho.  Have you ever tried on a garment and hated it SO much that you want to buy it just so that you can take it home, chop it into little pieces, break into a pouring sweat digging a fire pit in the backyard where you can burn the pieces, mix the ashes in with the chicken feed, scoop the chicken poop to use as fertilizer for a flower garden so that you can grow something lovely to replace the nastiness that was that garment you tried on?   No?  Yeah, me neither. ::wipes sweat from brow and tries to hide the shovel::

OK! OK!  I confess!  I did feel that way when I tried on the swimwear that was delivered from Land's End today.  There is not much that is more humbling than trying on a swimsuit.  One more reason to really like winter!  It's basketball season; I look better in darker colors; I like fuzzy slippers, and there's no need for swimwear! Sign me up!

My mom gave me a bag of really old letters from the 1920's and 1930's that she's had in her attic for a long time to use in my art projects.  In some of them, a grandmother writes to her granddaughters beginning her letters with, "My dear little girlies".  I LOVE that!  I want to be one of those girls receiving those letters!  So, I used one of the greetings in my new mixed media piece called "My Dear Little Girlies".

Against a background of weight loss schemes, girdle ads, and dress patterns from a 1950's McCall's magazine, my little love note to all the girlies who might have to try on swimwear this summer is this:

Not a size two

And happy to be

The only girl who

Can be perfectly ME.

And feel free to call if you need a hand with your garden. :)

May the Lord bless you today and remind you of how perfectly perfect you are.

<3 Lori

LeissnerArt on Facebook

I've Lost My Mind....and my boob

The title is a little misleading.  I've definitely lost my mind, but I do know where my boobs are right now.  All three of them.  Well, to be honest, I don't know exactly where two of them are.  I don't know if prosthetic breast humor is appropriate for blogging or not.  I guess if it's not, surely the blog police will issue me a warning for a first offense.

I said the other day that I sometimes write silly poetry.  Here's the latest that pays homage to lost minds and missing boobs. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Where are my glasses?  I can't find my purse.
Just when it seems better, I realize it's worse.

My brain has these dark spots where light doesn't shine.
That's where stuff is hiding--the lost stuff of mine.

The name of that person. The quote I just found.
My paintbrush. My checkbook. That thingie that's round.

The most frustrating thing..I don't want to be rude...
But what gets me most is when I can't find my boob.

I should be more careful and put it away.
But I just want to throw it by the end of the day.

It's been in a basket and out in the car.
It doesn't have legs!  It can't have gone far!

Some women are late when they can't find their keys.
I appreciate that, but they got nothin' on me.

My issue is this--I can't leave my house
When a body part's absent that should be in my blouse.

~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all started with this.  And then there came this.  Now that my brain is locked in rhyme mode, there's no telling what else might come up.

May God bless you today and help you find your missing stuff.

<3  Lori

PS.  If you want to get see new art, read some really lame poetry, and hear about giveaways, you have to like my Facebook page--LeissnerArt

Right Brain Took a Field Trip

So, yesterday as I was working at my desk job using my left brain, my right brain (as it often does) twiddled its thumbs for a while. It finally got up and, like a small child left to her own devices, wandered away. After a while, it came back with a poem clutched in its chubby little palm.

You might recall that I write some silly poetry.  I'll share it here sometime.  Anyway, this little poem, which is not so silly, morphed quickly into something else.  THEN, it morphed again while I was still at work.  It changed AGAIN when I got upstairs to the studio. That often happens. And my biggest frustration is that, as an untrained artist, it's sometimes a real struggle to implement the great ideas my unfettered right brain brings to me.  This one's going to work, though, I think ::crosses fingers:: :::uncrosses fingers because it's hard to type that way::.

I said I would give you a sneak peek today.  I'm sorry about that.  I realized I can't...at least not today.  It's a surprise for someone who might see it here and I don't want to ruin it.  I'll have to show you tomorrow.  Suffice it to say, it's a poem.  It's pretty cool (at least *I* think so).  And I want one!!! :)

May God bless you today and show you his love in some amazing way.

<3 Lori