"Art isn't easy"

"In my experience, it is not the act of making art that is painful. It is the desire to make something and not acting on it that causes pain" Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I cannot tell you how many projects I have in my head going on right now...

Ideas for books I want to write...

Ideas for cabaret shows I want to create...

Shows I would love to direct...

Shows I would love to be a part of...

Paintings I want to create...if I had the experience and talent and education...

I have thought about taking a pottery class...so I can have my Ghost moment...

And it all takes time...

Notice the common bond behind each one of these ideas and comments?

It's all in the dot dot dot 

and its those dot dot dots that cause all the pain and frustration.

SO I guess what I need to do is take it one step at a time and remove the dot dot dots and make them a PERIOD, more final. More "in the works" if you will.

I am reminded of Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George where his character says, 

"Bit by bit / Putting it together

Piece by piece / Only way to make a work of art

Every moment makes a contribution

Every little detail plays a part

Having just a vision's no solution

Everything depends on execution."

And that's what I will leave you with today friends...do with this as you may...

One of those tearful moments

So I had an awesome thing happen during class.
As many of you know, I am a Forensics coach...and no that title has nothing to do with dead bodies...but lots to do with competitive speech and theatre and drama and public speaking. Many folks are completely confused as  to what it means so you are not alone. But this BEAST is entirely different than say Drama One, where you are learning basics. Forensics takes it all to the next level. SO not only do you have to know how to act and create characters, but you have to infuse all that knowledge into poetry pieces, or prose, or an oratory, or into an improvised scene you create in a 30 minute time frame and THEN you throw in tournaments around the state and you got an idea of what it all begins to look like.
For a new student, this can be overwhelming.
Last year, I had a young lady who was very timid and shy. She barely spoke for the entire semester...and when she did speak, usually she was quiet, timid, reserved and thoughtful. She always had something terrific to say in feedback...she was just quiet in doing so. As the year went on, she began to grow more confident and I could see that she had potential to be a part of the Forensics program if she could get past the jitters of auditions and get into the classroom structure. There was a sparkle to her eyes and her smile is terrific and I could tell she would do very well in competition.
She auditioned very well and made the squad.
This year begins and she is just as timid and shy as she was last year. In the back of my mind, I kept saying to myself..."OH OH, is she going to make it? Is she sinking with her ship?" She just kept to herself a great deal. Touch bases with her proved otherwise...she seemed to be getting what we were teaching her...and she seemed ok...it is just in her nature to be quiet and reserved.
Skip ahead to to tournament auditions this week. She gets up and auditions with her poetry piece And it BLEW US ALL AWAY!!!!! She got up there with her sweet smile and politely asked if she need to ask if her judge and time keeper were ready. We told her yes and she opened her black book and began her poetry performance.
It was filled with wonderful wonderful writing and her performance was filled with such powerful  emotion and honesty. There was a moment where I had to catch myself as the tears began. I am just so proud of her! I cannot wait until she gets to go to tournament and experience those moments because this journey she has taken is extraordinary. I am just so honored to have been able to witness this journey and am excited to see the possibilities of her year ahead!!!

The winds of fall...

My favorite time of the year besides spring.

I love when Starbucks brings us the pumpkin spice latte.

I love when the leaves begin to reveal their true colors and the palette is extravagant and rich. Those ambers, and oranges, and burgundys, and golden hues warm my heart so much.

I guess you could say that I do not like extremes.

I do not like it too hot or too cold.

I like the middle ground.

I get tense when it gets too hot or too cold in anything, as many of you know.

But fall?

It is a beautiful time of the year when the brisk mornings symbolize coffee and crispness.

 Like a yummy, gooey cobbler and vanilla ice cream.

One of my friends loves this season even more than I do and posts daily of his love of fall...at the end of August, he posted on his Facebook page, "Welcome to the BER months"

And to Robbie, I say, "YES"

If only we could do this effectively...

This morning is rough.
ECH. MONDAY. The beginning of a long week ahead. And I am sore and tired and feeling down.
But I am going to try my hardest to find the silver lining and surround myself with positive things.
Don't surround yourself with the negative. Finding the positivity is a MUST and makes things much MUCH more bearable.
Life is TOO short.

AMEN! AMEN!! AMEN

Isn't this something to remind yourself??? I LOVE THIS!!!! Thank you, Jannetta, for posting this on your Facebook page. Never, EVER live your life in a "shoulda, coulda, woulda" situation where you second guess "if you should have done this" or "if you should thrown your hat in for that".

If something presents itself to you, and it causes you excitement at its potential, you at least have to throw your hat out there and give it a try!!!
If you are happy with the status quo, with the day in and day out, then I say by all means. But if you are not happy, what are you going to do to get yourself to a happier place? Getting yourself to a place you envision for yourself and can be much more grateful and calmer.
"If you don't go after what you want, you will never have it"


Take that tap class.
Go up and ask that cute boy out.
Throw your hat into the ring and see what comes back to you.

I am reminded once again of the great Theodore Roosevelt who said, "“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”


And I love this so much!!!


Now get out there and do something GREAT today!!!

A fresh perspective...one that I like very much

I found another awesome website that I think you should give a looksee...


An article caught my eye from one of my friends that I go to church with and I thought I would share it with you...Thank you John for opening my eyes to this!!!


It is entitled, "What's it like being a Gay Christian?" and it is written by Matthew David Morris. I like what it says very much and provides such sweet food for thought...

He writes:

“So what’s it like?” he asked as he cut into his spinach and goat cheese omelette.

“What’s what like?” I responded.

“What’s it like to be a gay Christian.”

I nearly dropped my fork.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known any gay Christians before you,” my acquaintance, a long-time professional in the Christian Music Industry, told me with a straight face.

(No pun intended.)

Of course you’ve known gay Christians, I thought. Are you kidding me? Have you ever really paid attention to the music directors at some of your churches?

Gay. Most of them gay.

(I know this first hand. Don’t ask how.)

I was so caught off guard. I didn’t realize we were going to be having this talk. I thought we were talking about faith. About my faith. Not my “gay” faith, mind you. My faith-faith. The faith that was re-shaping the landscape of my life.

I’d been telling him about how jarring it was to discover myself feeling called back to the Church. I was praying regularly, and making sincere attempts to read Scripture each morning. I was wrestling with what it means to be a follower of Jesus in a capitalist country obsessed with progress, whose citizens are often bored by conversations about justice and are mostly uninterested in the plight of the poor. I was trying to discern where I fit into the greater Christian landscape, one dominated by a religious culture that treats Christianity as though it’s some kind of “lifestyle brand” with Jesus as its celebrity spokesperson.

This is all messy, complicated stuff, and worthy of unpacking in fellowship with other Christians.

But it was my gayness that interested him; my gayness as it related to my Christianity.

Homosexuality — a word preferred over “gay” by most conservative Christians, a word that makes everything about the softest, most sensual, gentle, and vulnerable parts of my life sound clinical and cold — was, in his mind, the thing which must be coloring my conversion experience.

In rainbows, perhaps.

“I don’t know. What’s it like being a straight Christian?” I asked him. “I mean, how is your relationship to God or Jesus informed by your straightness?”

He didn’t know how to answer that question.

Few straight people do, I’m finding.

But that doesn’t stop them from asking about my gay-Christian experience. It’s a point of fascination for most of them. I am a paradox, it seems. I am the contradiction of an untold number of sermons and messages preached from pulpits all across the land. I am not supposed to exist, the gay Christian.

But I do. There are a lot of us here, in fact. New ones coming out every day.

I’m also not actively processing my Christian faith through a gay lens. That is, not until a straight person reminds me that I’m a gay Christian.

My faith does inspire me to ask a number of questions, most of them having little or nothing to do with my sexuality. For example:

How am I supposed to serve God in the world? What am I called to do, exactly?

How can I learn to love more honestly and deeply?

How can I resist the temptation to judge others, to hate those who hurt me, to covet the products which are marketed to me ad nauseam, to exploit the people and resources of this world in order to secure a safe, protected, privileged, middle class lifestyle?

How do I pray when I feel hopeless?

How do I praise when I really feel like lamenting?

How do I steer clear of easy interpretations of the Bible? How can I resists self-serving ways of reading the text?

More importantly, how can I learn to read the Word as it manifests in the world around me?

These are the questions that inform my Christian faith. These are the things I think about when I’m laying next to my husband each night before we fall asleep, him reading a fantasy novel and me skimming something theological. These are the ideas that I’m interested in writing about, and which have inspired me to begin pursuing a degree in Religious Studies. These are the questions which remind me that there is mystery in all of this.

So what’s it like to be a gay Christian, my acquaintance wanted to know?

It’s awkward sometimes. And probably not for the reason you’d think.

Profound eh?? The website has many other wonderful articles to stretch your cranium as well...why not go there and check it out? It is www.deeperstory.com

A new concept...a new thought process

I mean come on...can you imagine what this world would be like if we just took the time to be kinder?
If we just took the time to figure out all of the ways to make someone else feel more beautiful?
More special?
All it takes, I think, is a little pause in your day and a reminder to "Slow down and breathe" when the pace picks up. When you are feeling the stress kick in and the pressure begin to build...a quick reminder...breathe. Just breathe. Just take in one deep breath to your very core..." The face the problem, the higher blood pressure with a new set of outlooks.
This world is so apt to test your boundaries. And I have heard it said that there is nothing good going on in the world right now and that it is in fact kinda scary. I would tend to agree with that statement.
Can you imagine if everybody just took a breath before bombing?
Facing adversity with a brighter set of eyes?


Reach out to someone you have not talked to in a long time.
Open the door for someone.
Buy your special someone flowers or make them dinner.


Do SOMETHING to propel kindness in this world. It will bring you a whole new, fresher outlook on the day.