Today I went with my parents to Lake Geneva Wisconsin to look at these giant snow sculptures before they melt.  The craftsmanship on these sculptures is just so amazing.  The level of detail put into something that by its very nature will not last is truly amazing.  I find impermanent art to be so very fascinating.  I think it is because at some level all art, all everything, is impermanent.  Those who make art that is meant to melt away are only accepting the inevitability of all things.  There is a special beauty for things that do not last.  Nature is like this.  The most beautiful seasons (according to my subjective opinion) are spring and fall.  They are beautiful because for a short time the trees are filled with such lovely colors.  The pastels of summer blossoms on one hand, and the deep warm tones of fall foliage, cannot be preserved beyond their brief time of the year.  They must be appreciated in their time, not ours. Museums are great and wonderful places.  The preservation …

We hear a lot about ‘first impressions’ or ‘gut feelings’.  And we seem to put a lot of stock into the first thoughts we have on something.  So often we seem to think that our first thoughts are most likely the correct thoughts or the most genuine of thoughts.  I find this notion rather troubling.  It is often not until I have considered something for a while, even a few seconds that I am able to give my real opinion on something new.  More than that though, my first thoughts are often knee jerk reactions, sometimes unkind or not reflective of my ethical code.  I think generally our first thoughts on things don’t actually say who we are.  It is what we think next that is the true indicator of our moral framework.  Our second thought is who we have chosen to be, despite our systemic biases or baser instincts.  Because that is what our first reactions and thoughts are, base instincts.  Maybe it is just me, but I often feel like my first reactions …

Today was the annual meeting for the parish where I work.  Annual Meetings are where the parish comes together to vote on the budget for coming year and other important business.  It is one of those meetings that requires most of the parish to be present, but it is also something that no one really wants to do.  Aside from a contentious vote about the time of the service and our relationship with another group that meets at the church the meeting went fine.  One of the odder things that happened was the attendance by a person had moved away to a different church two years ago and was no longer considered a member in good standing.  For some reason he decided that it would be a great idea to come to this meeting in which he had no vote.  This person used to love to physically hover over me and talk down to me both literally and figuratively.  I always take it with pretty much a smile on my face and say things like …

There are a several things I could do to make my life easier.  Things I could organize or keep clean or use regularly that would probably noticeably improve my productivity.  That’s not even to mention the myriad of tasks that I have been putting off doing that are only getting larger and more unmanageable the longer I put them off.  The question I ask myself is, ‘why?’ Why, if I can see what needs to be done, do I let things get so out of control?  It is almost comical, or it would be if it was happening to someone else, someone I don’t like very much, perhaps.  Instead, I go to sleep every night thinking ‘I will take care of these things tomorrow’.  I will fill in the planner, and I will clean the room.  I will make sure a space is dedicated solely to writing and I won’t fill it up with craft projects or overflowing papers.  I will go online and pay those medical bills, even though I think it is ridiculous …

I was thinking of using a writing prompt for today.  I just couldn’t figure out what to write about.  I did not have a great day.  This is annoying because it seems like just another in a long line of not great days.  Do you ever have the feeling that you are forgetting something, but you just can’t figure out what it is, and you have this anxious feeling in your chest that is screaming at you to remember, but remember what?  It’s a bit like being in a dream where things do make a sort of sense but everything is a bit fuzzy around the edges. Do you ever wonder if you are in a dream?  I know that is some high school grade ‘deep thought’.  But even so, it occurs to me all the time.  I used to live near someone who would let their alarm clock ring constantly.  Every time I walked by their house I got this strange feeling that I was the one who needed to wake up, like any …

Today really got away from me.  I look back on today and I cannot figure out what I did, before I knew it it was 11pm and I haven’t checked anything off of my to do list.  I did some work, made phone calls, sent some emails and worked on the website.  I then found out that the boiler in the church where I work has stopped working – again.  I have stressed about that damn boiler more than just about anything lately.  So I am calling around asking people to step into the church to check on things, wondering if the pipes are going to freeze and burst before any measures can be taken and wondering if I should drive the hour out there to do, something.  I work part-time, and on Wednesday I worked from home because the weather was kind of bad.  I had that scare a couple of weeks ago and now I genuinely worry about driving in bad conditions.  I never used to worry about it like this.  But of …

When it comes to trying something new I often risk failure because I am immediately drawn to the most complicated projects.  For some reason it is so hard to convince my own brain that it cannot just skip the basics and go right to the advanced techniques.  This often leads to frustration and projects never really making it off the ground.  Today I dealt with one of those instances.  When I was in high school I was very into making things with seed beads.  I could use a bead loom just fine, but what I really wanted to do was bead weaving by hand.  I got one of those ‘Darice’ booklets (if you were a crafter in the 90s you know what I am talking about) on bead weaving and dove right in.  I became so frustrated with the whole thing that I gave up and never tried bead weaving again.  So when I decided to try again to learn a simple brick stitch, I actually got anxious because I have convinced myself that I …

I made it a month.  I said when I started that the first month or so would be mostly about just meeting the challenge.  Even if all the new things I do are inconsequential and uninspired, if I can just get them done, then that will be a win.  And I did it.  By the skin of my teeth, but I did it.  This is pretty important to me, because pursuing something like this and doing it every day is difficult for someone like me.  I know my weaknesses and I am a procrastinator who loves to plan to do things but I have a great difficulty getting those plans off the ground much less finished. In the grand scheme of this challenge, one month is not a lot, but I will take the small victories as they come.  Some of the new things will take time, and the next challenge (within the greater challenge) is to work towards those goals.  To be able to complete the full 1001 days I really will need to …

I tried to paint with Gouache today, and it sucked.  I don’t know if the paint was just bad quality or if I lack the technique to make Gouache work, but it did not flow very well for me.  It was sticky.  Now I could just blame the paint and let that be that, but I also know that I am not a great painter.  I do not have the skill and for some reason my patience runs out far too easily while I paint.  Strangely this only makes me want to crack the code of painting.  I wish I was one of those people who could look at something they aren’t good at and go ‘oh well, that is not something I need to do, so I won’t worry about it’.  Instead, if I am not good at something it will annoy me every time I think about it.  Let’s take languages for an example.  I have a pretty good ear and can pick up accents rather easily, but I am terrible at memorizing …

Sundays are rough.  For some reason they just drain the heck out of me.  I usually have to come home and take a nap.  Even with limit human interaction on account of Covid, I still get exhausted.  You see, I am an introvert. I have taken many an MBTI, in seminary they gave us an extremely in-depth version of the test which broke down each section into other sections and put each attribute on a scale you could see just how much or how little you fill that particular type. I am really not sold on personality tests like MBTI.  I think that even if the test is carefully administrated, it is still reductive. That said, I agree with its assessment of me, especially in regard to my introversion.  I am an INTP (I used to score more INFP).  This means I am an ‘Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving’ person. If we looked at these traits as being on a spectrum with Introverted on one side and Extrovert on the other, I consistently test all the …