Does this make scent?

I heard a wonderful line in a movie today it was,

"Do you know why we clang glasses together when we toast?
It's because we want all five senses to be involved at the time,
we can smell the aroma of the wine,
appreciate the beauty of it's rich red color,
touch the coolness of the glass in our hand,
and taste the sweet nectar of the fermented grape,
but to hear it, we must clang glasses together to include the fifth sense of sound."

My senses are keen.

I'm not saying that I have regular senses,
I'm saying I think I have extraordinary senses.

Maybe not my hearing (too much rock an roll),
OK not my sight either, as I have aged an it's not as sharp as it used to be,
but the rest of them.

I can go to a restaurant taste a dish come home and replicate it.

Sometimes they may throw me off by adding a spice I am unfamiliar with,
but most times I can get pretty darn close.

I can smell the rain coming miles off.

I can tell what my neighbors are cooking by walking past their open doors.

If you are not feeling well, I can smell it on your breath.

This can be a mixed blessing.

Sometimes while driving with my window open,
I can smell the workers stench in the truck in front of me on the highway.

When I walk into a restaurant, and I can smell the grill, I want to leave and not return.
I know that sounds petty, but a clean restaurant would not smell.

I can smell detergent in peoples clothes when I'm out shopping.

The funny thing is, my memory banks are full of scents.

The smell of my mother's lipstick, my father's work coat...can bring me to tears.

Musty cellar scent is one of my favorites.

Why am I talking about this??
I guess it has to do with the royal wedding.
I heard every detail on TV at least three times.

But not one reporter had mentioned the scents of the day.

What kind of perfume was Lady Catherine wearing?

Does the queen smell like moth balls?

All those hats! Surely the glue holding them together would have given off an air.

The candles burring in the cathedral were they beeswax??

I guess I just wanted to get a true scent of the affair.

I remember my own wedding, it had rained the entire morning so the grass was wet and you could get a scent of earth worms in the air,
the flowers were in full bloom and the roses gave off a sweet scent.

Close to the house was mint just prior to going to seed and it mingled with the pine tree.

Inside the church there were beeswax candles all a glow and I had freshly washed hair using herbal essence shampoo and wella conditioner, aqua net hairspray was the signature scent of the day, all the ladies wore it and it ruled the air around us.

Funny how when I smell aqua net hairspray even today some thirty years later,
all those memories flow back to me as if I had never left.

When people coined the phrase "stop and smell the roses" I think what they are really saying take this scent in, deep into your senses so you can relive this day sometime in the future.

Perhaps it's a great way to time travel... I believe I'll leave that for another day.

May all your senses be with you.

Peace and love,
Janice

Every six months??? Really?

I dislike the dentist.
I am so uncomfortable in that chair, I physically shake the entire visit.
I begin dreading the visit two days before I have to go, once I get the friendly reminder call stating I have an appointment, I get anxiety.

If they cancel my appointment, due to their emergency I never call back to reschedule.

This is the way I have been all my life.
I feel this attracts certain kinds of dentists, bad ones.

As a child I remember, the screeching drills, the squeaking of the filling going into my head the nausea I would feel from swallowing my own blood, and the smell of over heated drilling equipment, which still freaks me out.

I believe my first dentist was a sadist, he did not believe you needed anesthesia for fillings.

I've had about seven dentists in my lifetime.

One of them put a crown on my tooth and drilled a screw out the side of my tooth and left it there.
Two dentists later, it was discovered that the reason I couldn't floss, was because the screw was in the way.

Bad luck? I think not, just bad dentists.
They over charge you more than what your insurance
(if your lucky enough to have dental coverage)
will pay and they expect you to take out a loan to pay the rest.

Last year I was supposed to get two crowns on my teeth. He told me it'll be about one thousand dollars, out of pocket, which I would have to charge.

I told him, "no I'd rather go on a trip". He was shocked. "What if you have problems while you're outside the country", he balked.
I told him I was sure there were dentists all over the world.

So I went to Italy, bad teeth and all.

I still need to have the crowns put on, but the one is from the other bad dentist who left the screw sticking out.

I"m thinking of sending him this bill.

Dentists do not have guarantees.

You are probably wondering what the hell this has to do with art or mosaics....absolutely nothing.

I just went to the dentist, that's all, and my mouth is sore.

I have such a phobia over dentist, that to clean my teeth, the dental hygienist numbs my entire mouth, she got tired of waiting for me to open wide, and each time she touched a tooth I would jerk my head. I would be grasping the chair arms sinking lower and lower she constantly telling me to come back.

I admit, I am a terrible dental patient.

I wonder what life experiences cause a person to become a dentist?

Unlike a doctor, you are not in a group of like professionals, having lunch, sharing cases, discussing modes of cures. You are alone with a small staff, working in a confined cave of mucus and bad breath.

Now if you are on this career path of giving good dental health, I do not want my words to discourage you, just be good at what you do, and be aware going in...this is not a glamourous job.

People will not want to come and see you, they may even dread it.

I am hoping the dentist I have now is a good one....at least he is mostly painless,

for this I pay extra.

Now I need to call to schedule the two crowns...perhaps I'll go on another trip instead.

I needed to release this angst thanks for listening.

I'm sorry if I made anyone feel queazy.

I do know that good dental health leads to good physical health....which is why I endure.

Good health, love and peace,
Janice

Mistakes

We've all made em.
Some small, some large, some costly, some hurtful, some foolish, and some just made with no thought or research, these I refer to as "dumb ass" mistakes.

I always remember folks saying if you made a mistake make it a big one.
A good one is, to learn from your mistakes.

Don't brood over your mistakes.

Then there are the great thinkers saying:

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~Elbert Hubbard

Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it.
~Cullen Hightower

If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
~Nadine Stair

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
~Scott Adams

So why I am discussing mistakes?
Well as you know, or don't know, I am working on these mosaic masks and I've made so many mistakes, in dimensions, color schemes, contours, ( these fall in the dumb ass category).

I want to scrap the project.
However I persist.
Falling into the Scott Adams category I am now trying to figure out what to keep.

I believe this is a test.
Which is why, I am so adamant about continuing on a partially failed project.
I think I can apply this not just to may art, but to my writing as well.

Very often when we write ourselves into a corner the only way out is to become a super hero or introduce a new character or scene.

Staying with this rule of thumb, I believe I will introduce a new medium onto my glass mosaic thus becoming a mixed medium project and not scrapping it altogether.

Now to figure out what medium to introduce, perhaps wire mesh and acrylic paint.
I did take pictures but I now want to change everything..

I'll keep snapping away so you can see my process as it develops, but I'm not going to post the pictures until I figure out where I'm going.

It's hard to share your mistakes with others when we can slap a pile of paint on them and cover em up.
I feel very vulnerable putting them out there... I will, just be patient.
I will however share a mistake I made which caused me years of anguish.

This was the mistake of not believing in myself.

If you do one thing after reading my blog, do this,
tell yourself how worthy you are, and that you will never let yourself down, ever!

Life is short, we need to understand belief in ourselves, is as important as, the air we breath and the food we eat.
Peace and love,
Janice

Worth suffering for....

I never learned how to play the guitar.
I always wanted to but when my fingers got sore from holding down the strings I gave up. The truth is I never wanted to suffer for it.

Seeing this quote float around Facebook:
Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you - you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for." - Bob Marley

I apply this not just to people but to what we do in our lives, be it dancing, painting, glass mosaic or playing an instrument our individual careers dictate the amount of suffering we are willing to endure.

Fact is, I am not a fan of suffering, the Buddhist believe that there are four noble truths, they are:
1, There is suffering
2. Attachment causes suffering
3. Suffering can end.
4. There is a path to end suffering.

I'm not teaching suffering or Buddhism, I'm just getting to a point.

Truth is I know when I go out hiking I will suffer two days after my hike with pain in my knees. However I balance, the beauty of the hike- over the pain in my knees, and see which one will win.
The action of doing something usually always wins.

I don't like to suffer, perhaps I'm on the path.

Even though I do not play the guitar I am still attached to the idea of wanting to play and this, with out touching a single string causes suffering, perhaps I'm not on the path.

When I see a musician playing the guitar my heart leaps, so soothing is the sound to my soul, it vibrates the insides of my heart making me smile.

I have often thought, this process of causing a physical reaction in another human being, by just stroking strings stretched over wood, is the reason we have rock stars.

After all, it can't just be their looks, and from what I hear their personalities are not so great either, but the talent to touch two, three, or even ten thousand souls in one concert must be some sort of miracle.

We hold them up as idols, stars, untouchables, royalty.

All because they can play and sing into our souls. I feel they have the ability to heal.
Think about it, you are driving down the rode and you are feeling crappy, then a really good song you love comes on the radio...now you're feeling great.

Some of these musical artists do not understand the what, or why of their success.

I believe it's because they dull their senses with alcohol or drugs because their suffering is too great.
Maybe this is the down side and they do not get to feel the return of love being sent to them from their audience for their gifts.

I suffer while doing my mosaics, cutting my fingers over and over.

I sing to the music from the rock stars that move me most, and perhaps I'll pick up the guitar once again and suffer to play.

What will you suffer for, today?

May you never have to suffer to feel the love and peace I send you,
Janice

It rains in the desert....

Today was damp, this is unusual because dampness is not a daily thing here in the desert.
But today was cool and damp... it rained from the sky down, because I saw dirt marks on my car.

Yes, you heard right dirt marks.

When it rains here the water almost never hits the ground. You can see it raining in the distance the black streaks being brushed downward from even darker clouds.

It may hit your car and then the dirt sticks to it, but that is the limit.

Once in a while we'll get a really good shower and a good soaking but this happens perhaps three times a year.

I used to live in the northeast where rain was a daily, or at least weekly, occurrence.

I love the rain now.

I didn't, when it happened all the time... back in Pennsylvania .

But I do have some memories of rain, that makes it absolutely delightful.

When I was, lets say 10, we had a cabin in the Poconos my family would live there all summer Dad would commute back and forth to work and my sister an I would just play, swim, hike and just be free from the constrains of city living.
We would get dressed in our swimsuits eat our breakfast and not return home till about 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, or when my mom would ring the dinner bell.
Being Pennsylvania, it would rain, somedays just enough to get most people out of the lake and into their cars.
Not me and my sister and my friend Betty, we would hang towels around the life guard stand and huddle in.
Then we would make a break for it and run into the warm lake.
The lake wasn't warm it was about 75 degrees but in comparison to the 70 degree coolness of the rain it seemed like a sauna to us.
Our hair would be standing straight up due to static electricity and near by lightning strikes, but this didn't deter us at all.

The bell would ring and we'd have to go home... but only after a nice warm swim in the rain.
I can still see the droplets of rain hitting the water as we swam in and out of the depths of the lake.

This was a great day.

Childhood memories are always better, when relived through the eyes of someone else, we can relate to the smells, sounds and feelings, our own interpretation, in our minds then making it ours.
The walk home from school was always an adventure when it rained, the oak trees leaves knocked to the ground. The rain tapping on my umbrella making that familiar sound.

Most of all I can still see the puddles in Martin's Lane

big deep oil slick covered puddles, dotting the road like musical notes on a scale.

The smell of the earthworms filling the air with that glorious scent.
My socks and shoes soaking wet from the miss judged jumping attempt to clear the puddle.

Upon the drenching of my feet, all cares are thrown to the wind and the commencing of stomping in the puddles began.

This also was a great day.

When it rains in the desert all brown goes green as if by a magic wand waving over the land... and then back to the browns and tans I've learned to love.

The earth is quenched by a drink from heaven.... and so is my soul...

May your soul be quenched by the love we all need and cherish.

Peace and love,
Janice

It's all right in the Title

Life as a mosaic.
Each piece nicely fitting, into another,
to give the look of a cohesive picture, when looked upon from afar.

This is life, and pretty much everyone I know.

Looking at them from afar, we get the feelings that,
"My I am so jealous, look how much they love each other,
how they dress so nicely, how clean their house is,
how well behaved their children are."

All the pieces fitting so clearly to make a beautiful picture.

Upon a closer view, we see things differently, that is, if you can get that close.
Most of us guard this proximity fence pretty well.

We all know it's the broken pieces,
ragged edges and off color ones that give our picture it's individual charm.

Some pieces don't fit and can't be broken, so they must be placed in a new area and things are placed around it so it becomes part of the whole.

Some pieces no matter how much glue you stick to it, it will not stay,
instead it falls to the ground insisting on not being part of the whole, no matter what.

Then there are those, that no matter how gingerly you handle them, they'll cut you no sooner you pick them up.

Ahh but from afar... it is beautiful, peaceful and the envy of all who see it.

So the next time you are feeling vulnerable and insecure about the argument you just had with your _____(<~~~fill in the blank).
Think about the mosaic and know it's this kind of unevenness, discord and challenge that makes your picture more beautiful.
So step back,
take a few moments
and look....really look at your mosaic and find the beauty.
It's there...it just might be a bit abstract.
peace and love,
Janice

Procrastination

Yes that's right I am procrastinating.
I have dry masks, ready for the glass application to be applied and I decline.
Yepp... you heard right, decline.
Part of me wants to just bang these out and the other part of me wants to make the mosaic so tiny it looks like the faces are painted on.
The creative struggle. Looking at the dried plaster is making me crazy.

I want to sand the plaster smooth, but I know this is not necessary.

It's called procrastination.

I know it too well. I have three projects started in my craft room and they have been on hold for quite some time.
Why? I ask myself this question all the time... I think the answer is more complex than just I'm busy, or I'm lazy or I need inspiration, it's more like I'm afraid to finish them, they are so well done what if I can not duplicate my skill or better my skill???

Failure is a scary thing.

Not doing anything is easy, I can justify myself here on this blog and it sounds all noble. HA!
There is nothing noble about it, it's just life.
I sometimes take myself way too seriously.
Goals are good.
If I say to you I'm going to be there at eight I'm there at eight or usually seven forty five.
I'm conditionally early. My parents drummed that into me as a young child, "You are not so important that you can keep people waiting" I can hear my father saying this over and over.
So?
Okay.. My goal is to finish or at least apply some glass to these masks by the end of next week. ok?
As for the projects in my craft room....that's another story.
Speaking of stories, I am working on a screen play/story about my grandparents. I read it aloud for the first time, to my friend, she loved it.

(although I think she is too kind and wouldn't tell me the truth if she hated it)

It's not done yet but it's in the procrastination pile along with some mending and clothes that need to be ironed.
The procrastination on this story was simple.... I was waiting for all of my mother's family to pass on (out of respect) before completion.
Now they are all deceased I have no more excuses.

Except fear... this time it's not fear of failure it's fear of success.

I am my own worse enemy.
I have the material bought to make my dress to wear to the Oscar's.

Yes, this is how sure I am, of the success of which I am delaying, by procrastinating.

The wonder of why would one delay success is simple,
COMFORT
I am comfortable in my world, I know my life, enjoy the freedom I have from stress. Success changes everyone and everything... I am not ready for the change it will bring at least... not yet.
I know you are probably thinking ..."My God Janice has lost her diluted mind,"
but then again...

you haven't heard the play.

Believe in yourself, know in your own mind there is no one else on this earth that is like you.

You are unique to this world... you can not be cloned.
Search for what you love, and do it, and keep doing it... till you are so great at it, that no one else can measure up to what you are... because when we follow our bliss, there is no ceiling to contain our talent, and no roof we can't blow off.
Peace and love,
Janice

Things that are hard but should be soft....and vice versa.

I remember being a child, and seeing old fashion porcelain dolls with lace dresses, the lace looked delicate but when touched it was hard as a rock.
This mystified me, in a way, it still does. I wanted to smash that doll and see why the dress was so hard, and see if it was hard through and through. Of course I didn't, that would have been bad manners.
Using the tulle in plaster has renewed this mystical feeling of.. wow it's soft but it's hard....hmm? (Scratching my head wanting to shake all the plaster out of the tulle just to say I could, or just smashing it.)

I once saw a metal feather...this was so wrong to my senses on many levels.

Mica is a soft rock I was obsessed with it after going to Crystal Cave when I was a kid. I got one of those cards with all the rocks glued onto it explaining what each rock was and where it came from. I pulled the mica off in pieces just so I could really touch smell and hold it close.

I touched a rock and it was as soft as a cotton ball, fuzzy too.
They said I shouldn't touch it because it was actually a crystal and it had dozens of hair like crystals coming out of it which is why it was so soft. So I bought it, just so I could touch it. They said it won't grow now because my hands have oil on them and this deters crystal growth, I now keep it in a box in my curio cabinet.
I check it regularly to see if it's growing. It still fits in the box.

When I was 12 I broke a thermometer it had liquid metal in it, it was shiny, smooth and cool to touch.
I was told not to touch it, this is mercury and bad for you.
I did not believe it was bad for me because it felt so cool to touch and it moved so uniquely around finding itself and reattaching itself to itself, then breaking in small balls just to become one with itself again...and again..I played with that mercury for about a month.
My mom found out and told me I could die from handling it.
The threat of death always moved me to action. I gave it to my mom but...
I didn't die.
It did slow my learning though.
I have since done heavy metal detox. My brain works well now, and I still didn't die.
I am not sad that I had that month with my dear liquid mercury metal.. I still can see it shining in my hand moving back and forth over the floor.
I have a strange fondness for it and when I saw Terminator 2 and the man was like Mercury those feelings of happy dread came back.
Glass is kind of like that, it's smooth to touch, cool, shiny and it is not forgiving, it'll slice you no sooner you're not paying full attention to it. This may be why I love working with it so much.

self realization is awesome

The masks are still damp I may put them in my dryer if they are not dry tomorrow.

I'm not making eggs this Easter I feel sad about that.

Sing loud, dance as if it is all that matters, laugh heartily, and join in, touch and feel everything, even when you are told not to, (except at the art museums, they will throw you out and you will not get a refund) you are the reason life can not be limited, or sucked up into a vacuum.
Be at peace, you are loved,
Janice

Rain coming from the ground up...

Yes, you heard right, my friends and family from the northeast, it rains from the ground up here in good ol' Southwest, we call em sprinklers.
Cost to have  some green in your yard $$ money money money.....money! (sung by Abba?, Yeah, I had to look it up too)
Ah but I love it when I can see my roses in bloom.
So, I pay the price, not with bad weather or overcast or rain disrupting my days outside.
Today was a costly one though, this past year we had a cold spurt  that broke a zone in my yard.  I have no idea how long it was leaking  but we caught it prior to my house washing down the block.
Whew... you never know it could happen... we are on a "floating slab" as the realtor put it.  The image of that statement always conjured up in my head, my house floating away.  My husband assured me this could not happen, but does he really know?? Really?

Now, we have our rain programmed, it rains every morning at precisely ten o'clock mountain time from the ground up.
Please try not to shower at this time or you will get a very hot shock.

Back to my mosaic masks.
Plaster is a fun thing to work with, it dries quickly and can be manipulated while it dries.  Cleaning up is easy as long as you have vinegar, it easts right through the plaster.
I coated the styrofoam with plaster that I carved yesterday (which btw upon getting undressed for bed, I found I had the remnants  of styrofoam in my granny panties, and in every other unmentionable  crack and crevice unknown to man).
Too thick for a mask I decided to cut the block in two.
Now I have two masks!  (reproduction was never so easy)  I added some aluminum foil to give it better form, and coated the masks about  three times.
Then I had a creative thought to cover some tulle with the plaster and crinkle it to make it look like a bow. (I guess one of these masks is going to be a woman)
I'm thinking of using hair extensions  for her.
It worked, but I'm not sure how it'll hold glass... we'll see.
Then I coated the back of the masks with plaster and placed wire hooks into the backs for hanging.
I actually took pictures however I'm not sure how to upload them onto this site yet.

Now I will wait  to allow ample drying time, this is where I usually get in trouble, I am so impatient I mess things up by rushing the process then end up having to start all over again because it just was not dry.  So I am writing here  instead of screwing this project up.

Just so you all know today is 4/20... if you are not aware of what this means ask your kids.
The beauty of a day like 4/20 is the freedom to be one with mother earth and enjoy her bounty and herbs that she freely gives us.

The Beatles said it best when they sang...  And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

My first Blogg (did I spell that right?) 4/19/11

Welcome to my thoughts, views and my silly ass remarks.  My mission here is to bring good feelings, wellness and joy to otherwise dull and uneventful living, and I hope you get something out of it too.

Today I felt unaccomplished, not that I did nothing I just had this overwhelming feeling that I had forgotten to pick someone up or go to an appointment  or perhaps I just was put out of touch by the awesomeness of the full moon last night.  My dog Fozzie  kept looking at me as if? She knew I was not on the right time table.

It all started with a early morning phone call, you know the kind, they say, "ohhh I'm sorry I woke you  go back to sleep," and no way is that happening but they refuse to tell you why they called so now you can't sleep b/c your mind keep imagining why they called, and you really have no idea  so of course you can't get back to sleep like you had been in time before the call.  Speaking of time, ever since we jumped forward w/ daylight savings time, I've been out of it. I'm sure I'm not alone on this one.

Oh I  called her back and you know why she called at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am? She wanted to return a sleep mask! I know! Crazy huh? You can't make this shit up.

My goal for the week is to figure out how to make a glass mosaic mask, so today I carved some styrofoam with my drummell  tool (I think I still have some of those pieces up my nose) Yuk! what mess! Kids do this outside with a nice breeze.  I managed to make a face out of the styrofoam, my next phase is to use some plaster of paris to make the face more believable. I'll post pictures along the way but today I didn't take any.

I will continue my trial and error of mask making and see where it leads me.

It's Easter week and I've been debating making colored eggs.  My cholesterol is high and I shouldn't eat them an neither should my hubby so... I don't really want to, but the tradition in my head is yelling at me to make some. Tell the voices to calm the hell down!
I'll be back, hopefully I'll be more rested.

Life is measured by the ripples one leaves behind, not by the splash one make on entry.
Peace,
Janice