Recent lessons learned in the last month

• Sometimes when you do a good deed it comes back to bite you in the butt
• When you buy a technique book it may have incomplete instructions so I won’t buy their books again
• Some authors are more giving and sharing of full details than others so I will always buy their books
• When you pay a lot of money for a workshop you don’t always get all the information you need
• Do your own experimenting and research and suck it up when  the workshop leader assumes everyone knows the answers
• When you sell something you have created there are people who want you to give them directions to make it on their own and for free (** NOTE: I didn’t sell it in a book or workshop)
• When your husband tells you not to lift something….DON’T !
• There are caring and giving friends who don’t come under the first thing on this list so I will pay it forward

Quite a lot of learning in the last few days and I am not too old to learn from them!

Another notch on my calendar for an accomplishment achieved.  I was notified that I am one of 28 artists chosen for the Art Odyssey Studio Tour 2014. There is a meeting on the 25th for headshots and bios to be published in the magazine.

More info to follow with a link to the list and photos.

Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over,

He became a butterfly.

And soon the winter will end and the days will be warm.

The life cycle will begin again.

We have 3 days over 50 degrees predicted with sunshine every day.

How wonderful is that?

Jane Pauley’s new book about reinventing ourselves rather than retiring is getting a lot of press lately. I love Jane and remember how upset I was when she was released from employment by the network. I didn’t watch that station for years because of it. She was a symbol for all the boomer women who were working in a man’s world.

After listening to the umpteenth interview with her I looked at Ron and said it was sort of a bunch of bunk. What separates my generation of women from today’s women is that we not only tried to do it all but sometimes it was expected. I don’t look at this time in my life as a reinvention at all. I just finally have the freedom to do what I should have been doing all along.

There is no more pressure to work and put the first husband through school while my education had to wait, work to support myself and kids as a single mom, work to make sure those kids had the best possible chance at college and life while my second husband [ 30 yrs!!] supported his own kids. I don’t have to work at a job or career that isn’t a good fit for me mentally just to please all those other people in my life.

It is a time of being selfish and self centered. It is really a continuation of a life interrupted that now has a chance to make it to the finish line my way.