2 days till Groundhog Day.....

Quincy Jones's call for President Barack Obama
to establish a Secretary Of The Arts has
inspired a petition which already has over
200,000 signatures. Click here if you
would like to sign the online petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?esnyc


Website if you want more information: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303264.html

"Ride into your life on a creative
cycle full of juice, abundance
and ecstatic wonderment."
...Sark

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.
All Rights Reserved.
Gate image taken in Las Vegas, NV.

"Look at everything as though
you were seeing it either for
the first or last time."
...Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.
All Rights Reserved.
Image taken at Chicago Botanical Gardens.

"You can't depend on your eyes
if your imagination is out of focus."
...Mark Twain

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008.
All Rights Reserved.

"My bones feel the quilts
A Frosty night."
...Yosa Buson

F.Y.I.: website about Yosa Buson: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Island/5022/busonbio.html

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.
All Rights Reserved.
Snow Abstract.

"In all things of nature
there is something
of the marvelous."
...Aristotle

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.

All Rights Reserved.

Sun trying to break through clouds yesterday.

"Start by doing what's necessary,
then what's possible and
suddenly you are doing
the impossible."
...Saint Francis of Assisi

Ring in the Year of the Ox

Peace

"Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart."
...Unknown

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008-2009.
All Rights Reserved.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.
All Rights Reserved.

I learned where the fuse box was in my car today. It was not a simple task to take the cover off. Inside was a plastic tool, which looks like a nail clipper. This tools’ purpose is to remove an old fuse and replace it with a new fuse. Different colored fuses can be stored in the container. The backup lights are now working perfectly.

I dropped by the library and picked up some books to read and CD’s to watch during this weekend. Right now it is in the 20s in the Chicagoland area but heard the weather is going to get colder for Saturday and Sunday.

For dinner we had a fish fry, garlic bread and homemade red cabbage.

Here is the Red Cabbage recipe:
Chop a medium-size head of red cabbage
into fine strips. Boil the cabbage until it is
soft (about 2 hours) over a low heat in
1 cup water, ½ cup apple cider vinegar,
½ cup sugar, one apple peeled and finely chopped,
and 1/3 cup red currant jelly. Just before
serving, add a pinch of dill and a pinch of coriander.
Stir and simmer. Add more vinegar,
if sweet sour taste is preferred.
I left the 1-teaspoon of salt out
of the recipe, but add it if you like.
FYI: My mother-in-law liked to cook the
red cabbage in large strips.
Personally, I like to take a spatula
and cut up the strips, finely.
Third choice probably would be to
put red cabbage in a blender.
Enjoy!

"You know they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. "Floods" is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is like that: remembering where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, what valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place."
...Toni Morrison

Haiku Moment #24
Dawn
wild rice shrouded in silence
fog broken.

Choices

This morning I was battling with my inner voice. I'm tired. I don't want to go. I have to clean snow off the windows on the car before I can go. I would rather watch the Inauguration. And so on with excuse after excuse why I didn't want to go on a photo shoot at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. So I decided not to go.

Instead I choose to go to breakfast with John, my husband, pick-up things from the cleaners and then go home and watch the Inauguration.

Things spun out of control. While stopped at a red light, a car from behind crashed into our car. So we wound up filling out a police report. We missed the Inauguration. Ten years from now when I am asked where I was when history was being made, I will have to say, "I was in an automobile accident at the time Obama was sworn in."

I learned today, to do what my heart of heart tells me to do. Don't argue with the muse.

“Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.”
…Chuck Jones
Warner Bros. animator

Information about Chuck Jones see this site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Jones

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008-09.
All Rights Reserved.

“And the day came when the risk it took to remain
tightly closed in a bud was more painful
than the risk it took to bloom.”
…Anais Nin

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008-09.
All Rights Reserved.

“When you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.”
--Wayne Dyer

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009.
All Rights Reserved.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Wringer Washer dated 1900.

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn't show. I think anything like that — which is contemplative, silent, shows a person alone — people always feel is sad. Is it because we've lost the art of being alone?"
…Andrew Wyeth, Artist.

View slideshow: http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Painter-Andrew-Wyeth-dies/ss/events/en/011609andrewwyeth

View Wyeth's Paintings: http://www.awyeth.com/
and http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/

Haiku Moment #23
A foggy branch
ten yellow flowers, fence and stone
red tailed hawk.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Lost glove at library.

Seven adult women entering FAO Schwartz Toy Store in Las Vegas, Nevada, was interesting to say the least. We all started acting like children. Here are two pictures taken while playing a piano with our shoes on. Can you imagine a piano keyboard on the floor in the first place? What a hoot!

Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Our power went off while doing this post. Thanks to
Commonwealth Edison we have lights and heat and
our water didn't freeze in the pipes. It is 3 degrees
above zero in the Chicagoland area with
more snow expected.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! All you creative folks out there in bloggerville, listen to an inspiring and informative interview with Yo-Yo Ma, a virtuoso cellist, at this site: http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2007/10/19/segments/87058.

Cacti Images

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Cacti taken at the Chicago Botanical Gardens.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Cacti taken at the Chicago Botancial Gardens.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
Description: Cactus, Chicago Botanical Gardens.

Haiku Moment #22
Scarecrow
under the full moon
dancing.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008-09. All Rights Reserved.
Textures of rope and wood.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2008-09. All Rights Reserved.
Another shadow image taken in stairwell.

Haiku Moment #21
Cool autumn
sand bags, broken lantern, hurricanes rest
darkness and hibiscus.

Photograph by Joyce Meyer, 2008-09. All Rights Reserved.
Shadows captured on stairwell.

"A painter should not paint what he sees but what should be seen. "
...Paul Valery
French critic & poet (1871 - 1945)

Haiku Moment #20
Painted desert
hearing the journeys end
glass dome jar.

Photographs by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.

Artichoke Agave cacti images were taken at the Chicago Botanical Garden.

Circles

"As a symbol, the circle expresses the totality of our being. Whether in sun worship ceremonies, in mythological stories, or in religious art, the circle points to the most vital aspect of our existence--its ultimate wholeness."
From Ensō: Zen Circles of Enlightenment
Audrey Yoshiko Seo

Photography by Joyce Meyer. All Rights Reserved.
I was amazed to discover that an empty wasp nest appearing above is similar to an artist rendering of the Milky Way at this website: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-01-05-milky-way_N.htm?csp=DailyBriefing

Check this site out, Mexico's mile-long cake to celebrate the Epiphany:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=11399051.
Can you imagine baking a cake that big?

Copyright Infringement Information:
Turn your speakers on and listen to an interview with Ed Greenberg, Intellectual Property Attorney at this site http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/wordpress/?p=276
Photoshop User TV interview with Ed Greenberg- Part 1 and Part 2

Haiku Moment #19
Petrified rock
wrapped in secrets
touched by many moons.

Hibiscus taken while visiting Saint Augustine, Florida. Notice the pistil ends are heart shaped.

Collections

How did my collection of Italian Men start? As I remember, I went to a Niles (a suburb near Chicago, Illinois) High School Band dinner. Quess what they served? Pasta. At that dinner, I won a ceramic container which was in a shape of an Italian cook with a purpose of holding wooden spoons. Later, I purchased two other Italian men items which are displayed on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. And then the gifts began coming, and coming, and coming. Now I have a clock, a round mirror, two pot holders, a wine container and miscellaneous other Italian Men which make up this unique collection.

Why do I continue to collect this particular item? When I see Italian Men items in a gift shop, their antics make me laugh no matter what type of mood I'm in. At this point because there are so many pieces in the collection, I need to be selective. I don't collect them for an investment. I collect them because they bring me joy.

What do you collect? Where are they displayed? Why do you have this collection? When did it start? Do you keep records?

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.
In December 2008, I received this as a gift. I call her Penny Pasta. When her left hand is squeezed her mouth moves while singing
"THAT'S AMORE"
Jack Brooks/Harry Warren
Published by Paramount Music Corporation.
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
©(P)PBC International, Inc.
22" AUNTIE PASTA
Chantilly LaneTM MUSICALS
http://www.pbcintl.com/

Photograph by Joyce Meyer ©2009. All Rights Reserved.

This was a Christmas gift a couple years ago. I call him Tony Pasta. When his left hand is squeezed his mouth moves while singing

"THAT'S AMORE"

Jack Brooks/Harry Warren

Published by Paramount Music Corporation

All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

©(P)PBC International, Inc.

22" ALFREDO

Chantilly LaneTM MUSICALS

http://www.pbcintl.com/

Haiku Moment #18
Shaking red bells
choices under snowy branches
heavenly voyage.

Garnet the birthstone for January, signifies friendship and trust. It is believed to rid the body of negative energy and emotions.

Hibiscus flower taken while visiting Saint Augustine, Florida.

Write down twelve (12) goals.
Jot down plan on how to reach your goals.
You can’t get there from here, if you don’t take action.

Attention! Attention! I just found out that planes in New Zealand can fly with a 50-50 mix of fuel and jatropha oil (a poisonous plant). Here is the website for those of you out there that want to read the story: http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20090101/736/tnl-poison-shrub-oil-powers-new-zealand.html

Here in Illinois we use corn and fuel to navigate our cars.

Any other ideas out there in blogville know how to save fuel oil for another day, year, century? Would like to hear your response.

Happy New Year

From our house to your house, we wish you good health, peace and a prosperous New Year.