Ida Clare Summer is here!

Summer has arrived in Big Thicket.

“Don’t you have more to write about than just the weather?”

Frankly no.  Summer starts here way before the calendar makes it official and ends just after Halloween.  That’s why in all our Halloween photos our witch make-up has puddled around our ankles.  And you thought that was witches brew.

Summer here is like a relative that you were anxious to see come to visit but then overstays her welcome until you want to move out of your own home and just leave it with her, if only you could.   Summer in Big Thicket comes with a big suitcase full of humidity, mosquitoes, fleas, red bugs, and canning.

When I first moved to Big Thicket, I tried to remain outside the loop, so to speak, of the canning circle.  After all, there is only me and my occasional roommate to feed, so why would I go to the trouble of putting something into jars that I can happily buy down at the supermarket in a can that has an expiration date of 2017?

Because it tastes better, it supports the local farming economy, and because people are hell-bent on giving you their excess produce; their plums, their okra, their berries.  And what kind of ungrateful wretch would I be to turn down food grown in the heat of summer that was sown, fertilized, hoed, nurtured, debugged, picked, washed, and delivered to you with a bedraggled look of desperation:

“Puleeze, take these squash, and I’ve got three rows of onions and the tomatoes are coming out of my ears.”

Well, if you insist.

Maybe summer won’t be so bad after all.

Have a creative week,

Ida Clare, You Are a Gift!

My graphic has two images from The Graphics Fairy, one of the best websites on the web for free images.

Dear Creative Chicks,

Are you hiding your gifts, talents and creativity?  Stop it.  The world is starving for imagination, brilliance, passion and ingenuity.   Not somebody else's, not your best friend's, not that annoying super star on TV: Yes, this means you!

It's time to get your moxie on.  Remember the old analogy about the iceberg being more under the surface than is visible above water level.  Well, unless you are The Titanic, this is a good thing.  It means you have resources you can call upon to keep yourself  afloat when things around you are sinking.  You just have to trust that they are there.

When we lose track of what our gifts are by becoming complacent, unappreciative, bored or overwhelmed, we set ourselves up to be cast  about on rugged seas with little hope for change.  You know in your secret heart that you are better at _______ than what you will admit to.  Somebody somewhere told you not to brag and though he/she was trying to keep you from becoming an obnoxious know-it-all that people wanted to pinch, you may have gone overboard on the keeping your gifts to yourself because you got kudos for behaving so well.

You are here in this vast universe for a reason.  You are an experiment and one that will not be abandoned.  Think how intricate you are.  You have your spirit, your mind, and your hands to create outcomes.  Try this:

Go for one hour (or ten minutes) as a witness to the life around you. JUST  BE AWARE.

Feel—absorb, notice, be alive to everything, feel the energy.  Notice your own.  Be in your body, rest in the resting place.  You are a gift to the universe—ACT LIKE IT!

Notice color, texture, temperature, noise, and level of brightness, speed, and tempo.  Delight in the beauty of everything—exactly as it is.   THESE ARE THE DAYS.  THESE ARE THE DAYS OF YOUR LIFE.  Just breathe and live.  You will be the gift you are here to be.

Hugs, 

Ida Clare, It's Happy Mues Day! Imagine That!

Tag from a series I am working on to create a little book.

Dear Creative Chicks,

Keyed up by your imagination?  Does it keep you awake at night thinking about the next and the next project?  Mine does.  Don't you just love having the outcome perfectly executed in your head before you have to go through the motions of bringing it into reality.  There is nothing more delicious. (Well, except have you had any berry cobbler lately?  Berries are ripe for the picking here in Big Thicket and it doesn't take a keen imagination to guess what I've been craving for hot from the oven with a generous blob of Blue Bell Ice Cream.  Sigh. However, I digress.)

I am so grateful for the ability to imagine.  It's what keeps me here in Rancho Wrecko, apart from the fact that I have no where else to go that isn't under a bridge with the Billy Goats Gruff.  In my little house, I can imagine it bigger, cleaner, with less spider webs and more hot water.  I've got big plans for this place and it can all be completed while lying on the sofa of my imagination.

So today on this Muesday, let's find a comfy spot under a shade tree nearest you and imagine your little heart content.

Hugs,
Ida Clare

Ida Clare, I hate change, don't you?

Hello Creative Chicks,

Well, the lightning zapped my computer the other day and I had to have a repair man come work his geeky magic on it.  While that was going on we stumbled into a conversation that was ultimately about change.  We both are in the midst of living out big unexpected changes in our lives.  Unexpected, unplanned, out of the blue, where the heck did this come from change.

Somewhere I read that change is stressful.  Duh.  They even have a rating system.  Divorce, marriage, changing jobs, communities, and schools are the biggies.  Rack up a bunch of those in a year and you are at risk for health problems, insomnia, emotional melt downs and a possible new-found addiction just to cope.  You might have even looked forward to it, welcomed it with open arms, and still found it to be stressful.

For instance, changing the cat's litter box is a welcome change, but stressful by anyone's standard.  I guess I shouldn't compare life's big changes such as marriage and divorce to the cat box, but the truth is they can both be a little stinky.

I hope you cope with change by embracing it and rolling with the flow.  Sometimes, it's good to give up, give in, and just accept what you can't do anything about.

Here are some quotes about change from people wiser than me:

• Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.  -Sydney J. Harris

• Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes. -Hugh Prather

• You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.  -Timothy Leary 

• The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. -William Arthur Ward

Hugs,

Ida Clare, I'm thinking about Paris!

Why is it that so many of us love all things French?  I think it is the language barrier.  I mean anybody who can get away with saying Oui Oui in mixed company must know something I don't.

The language is so lyrical and melodious and seems so sophisticated when a French person is speaking it, however, I become homely-American-marble-mouth when I try something as simple as to ordering a cafe au lait.  I'm much better at ordering French fries at McDonalds.  They understand me every time.

And why are Paris flea markets better than the flea markets we have around here.  I think its because all the fleas wear those little black berets and sip their cafe au laits in little bitty cups that have been around for centuries not decades like here in the states.  Besides when the fleas here complain, we can understand them and it puts a damper on buying the damn things because they never shut up.

Oh to be in Pairs right now.  To trudge up and down the Rue de Something or Other desperately looking for my Hotel Royal Something or Other, not being able to tell the impatient cab driver the correct name or having enough funds to find out if he can guess from my waving of hands and shouting because I think if I only speak loudly enough he will comprehend.

Well, anyway.  Paris is nice.  Wish we were there.

Bon Weekend and au-revoir!

Ida Clare, It's Mother's Day

Marie Desbons is a wonderful French Illustrator.  Check out her site at http://mariedesbons.canalblog.com/archives/p190-20.html

I love Mother's Day.  It is time you get to spoil your mother a little and let her know just how much she means to you while you are waiting for a table at IHOP.

I am inspired by my mom, a white-haired Energizer Bunny who still works circles around me while I whine and complain and she does not.  She loves to garden, travel, fish, volunteer, share, and play games.  Oh and she can cook.  She loves Facebook and checks her email every day.  She can upload photos to her computer and has them developed and sent to her home mailbox.

She loves to find interesting things on Pintrest and she actually tries them out. She has made a wreath out of a water hose, a mosquito catcher out of a plastic liter bottle, a million delicious recipes and has a chest of drawers with plants growing out of them in her garden.  There's more, but I don't want to sound like I'm bragging.

My mom is an engineer - not by trade - but she has that kind of mind.  She is a problem solver and enjoys working with her hands.  She is always thinking of others which makes her in demand because she freely gives her time away to some good causes and some frivolous ones.  (I can be frivolous sometimes, but she hangs in there with me.)  She is political and not afraid to speak out for something she believes in.

We went shopping the other day and every where she goes, she runs into someone she knows.  They want a big hug from her and she obliges.  She knows everybody and if she doesn't know you, she will talk to you anyway.  She is a Rock Star in her home town and she is comfortable being who she really is.

I hope to be a lot like her when I grow up.  I love you Mom!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you who still have your mom with you and to those of you who don't, my mom and I send you a big old hug.

Ida Clare I love Nature!

Dear Creative Chicks,
It’s Happy Muse Day Again,

Inspiration can come from any where and if you ask many creative women what inspires them, they will answer “nature.” 

The natural world we live in is truly inspiring and hopefully will be here to inspire us for years to come if we as a species don’t screw it up.

You may or may have not have guessed that I am not one who loves to go out into nature and get my hands dirty.  I prefer to observe nature from the comfort of my artificially regulated environment which includes air conditioning, background music and an adult beverage of my choice as I admire God’s handiwork.

So imagine my discomfiture as it occurs to me that short of inheriting a small fortune or finding a “Yard Man” under my pillow, I am going to have to contemplate nature up close and personal by working in the yard.

Sigh.

What’s a creative chick who’d rather be eating cheese dip and reading trash fiction supposed to do? 

My neighbor Miz. Dot knows everything about working in the yard and since she has ten green thumbs and the beautiful yard to prove it, I’ve decided to take her advice and do one thing at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed. 

Now that the azaleas have stopped showing off, it is time to work on them.

So I decided to create a check list - one way of creatively procrastinating – Right?

So I have been attending the azaleas:
Prune.   Check
Dig out grass from around them.  Check
Bend handle of tiny shovel-trowel thingee that Miz Dot loaned me and has used for years.   Check
Replace tiny shovel-trowel thingee that Miz Dot loaned me.  Check
Buy industrial strength hatchet to chop San Augustine Grass.   Check
Worry about the bugs and worms and snakes that could live in the grass.  Check
Chop snake into tiny bits.  Check

Work too long sitting on ground so that I cannot get up without assistance.  Check
Find milk crate to keep at side at all times to use to get up without assistance.  Check
Have garden fantasy and decide to make flower bed bigger.   Check
Go into the woods to dig topsoil for flowerbed.  Check
Worry about lions and tigers that might live in the woods.  Check
Learn with relief from Miz Dot that lions and tigers don’t live in the woods in Big Thicket.  Check
Shovel dirt into flower bed.  Check
Have trouble getting out of bed next morning.  Check
Become obsessed with finishing project.  Check
Google stuff on internet about putting pine needles around azaleas.  Check
Go into the woods and collect pine needles.  Check
Worry that pot growers and meth labs could be in the woods in Big Thicket  Check
Sneeze, wheeze, wipe nose on shirt tail.   Check
Search medicine cabinet arsenal for allergy medicine with "sell by" date in this century.  Check
Fight with fire ants.    Check
Treat ant bites.     Check
Wow, getting a little suntan on arms.  I like this.   Check
Crap.  Developing tan line at wrist where gloves stop.   Not liking this.  Check
Fix supper exhausted.  Check
Eat supper while lying head on table.  Check
Stand under shower till water runs cold.  Check
Fall asleep at computer answering emails.  Check
Job incomplete.  Check
Start again tomorrow.  Check

I hope that you won’t be discouraged by my check list.  Some day I am going to be glad I pruned the azaleas, but it will probably around this time next year.

Have a creative day. If you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know that I am probably trapped in the woods under a bed of pine straw waiting until the bears, meth dealers, or snakes go away.

Here are a few photos from my yard.  Remember this place was here before I got here and I haven't had time to kill everything yet.

Old fashion roses growing on old iron bedstead.

I want a garden bench to sit out here and smell the roses.

This trellis is a metal front porch post.  Love this.

This is the trellis up close.  Maybe gardening is worth it.

May the Muse be with you!