another notebook page

It’s been a while since I’ve shared something from my notebook. To be honest, I got out of the practice of filling it for a while… but I am going to be okay with that. It served its purpose anyway. I wanted it to help me to see a little differently… to look for the things I had forgotten to look for. I think, as best I could in this phase of life, I still did that. But I didn’t write much of it down. Which was also what I’ve wanted to do…

Birds and nests and trees and things like that have been on my heart lately.

This was made with a mixture of acrylics, oil pastels, paint pens, sharpies, scrapbook paper and even a magazine page… and mod podge.

book lady

Two blocks into our walk this morning I spotted a bright pink sign that read 

BOOK SALE

Friday and Saturday, 9am-6pm

I immediately turned around to go get my wallet, and then trek back to wherever this book sale sign led, thinking of my recent fall into book-page art. Maybe I could find some old books to tear up!? (Ha, I never thought I’d ever type those words, but here I am!)

What I found instead surprised me… so naturally it ended up in my notebook … ’cause that’s what my notebook is there for – capturing moments, in word-weaving and sketching and what-ever-other-way-I-feel-inspired.

Sorry, it’s not the best picture…

I don’t even know how to describe her. She is full of life. And humor. And gratefulness. She asked about my son (who is 11 months old today!) And she talked to me as if she has known me for years. She got tears in her eyes as she told me of her husband who passed away, who called her “his bionic woman” because of all of the joint replacements, and her son who died 10 months after his father. She spoke with joy in her eyes as she remembered staying home with 5 kids, and all the baking, sewing, laundry, cooking, cleaning, and mom-ing that she did, often with a book no more than a foot away (or already in her hands). She spoke of God, like He was living and breathing right there next to her… as if she knows (and she does) that she is His.

She is beauty.

I bought two books. Mostly just because I had to bring home something from her, a tangible reminder. But I’m not sure they’ll be torn up quite yet.

And I might just go back there tomorrow.

Oh, and another journal page… from just now…

Linking up with Jennifer.

Miscellany Monday

Joining miscellany monday for the first time this morning

This happened last week :)

My baby’s got rhythm :)

We painted our bedroom this color and bought a down comforter and white duvet cover… now even though the room is still a post-painting mess, leaving that room in the morning is even harder.

(P.S. that color looks dark, but it is a perfect warm-toned gray and with enough lighting, I love it).

I heard this song on the radio last night as I went to buy 2 frostys and a large fry (dinner didn’t turn out how I wanted)… I think I love it.

Blackberry yogurt and granola. Mmm.

shape and shade

Took a walk with my little boy this morning.

We walked to the coffee shop.

He had his bottle, I had chai tea.

He gave me the perfect balance of peaceful silence and adorable babbling conversation.

The red leaves on the sidewalk on the way back were the exact shape and shade as the rose petals I stepped on more than three years ago, on my way to say “yes, forever” to my husband.

a new way to see

I studied Deaf Education in college. I think I mostly chose that major because of the sign language courses, and because it was the most appealing sounding degree in the only school that I received a full ride at. I struggled through Methods and Student Teaching. I was told to “take off your ballet slippers and put on your army boots with those kids!” … and I did. It stretched me. A lot.

I haven’t used my degree for much, career-wise. I taught, online, for one and a half school years. Special Education. I had one student who was deaf, and I only taught him from November – May of my first year of teaching. I quit halfway through my maternity leave (that next December) because I realized that working at home with an infant, though seemingly appealing to the pregnant me who hadn’t yet laid eyes on the tiny human who would change the way I saw my world, was not what I wanted to do.

I don’t regret studying something that I no longer have a profession in. God used my courses to mold who I am now, to communicate with Deaf people who seemed to just “show up” in my life, to make friends that I am still so close to today… and most of all, to nurture, feed, and speak to my creative soul.

My favorite class was taught by my guidance counselor. I honestly don’t even remember what the course was called. The thing I remember most vividly (besides her telling me to put on my army boots, of course) was our writer’s notebooks. I found mine just a couple weeks ago.

My writer’s notebook was my favorite assignment. We were told to find a notebook – whatever size we liked, lined or blank. I chose blank ( though I appear to be a “goody two-shoes” on the outside, I am a rebel at heart and greatly dislike the constrictions of lined paper). We were told to write – write anything. Lists, quotes, funny signs, epiphanies, thoughts, poems, funny things people say… anything.

I have decided to start a new notebook. It just so happens that I found an empty sketchbook in my nightstand a couple weeks ago as well, the exact size (maybe the exact notebook) as my Writer’s Notebook in college.

I glued pieces of pictures from magazines onto the front and doodled because I disliked the plain forest green front with the name of whoever actually fabricated my notebook. I will probably continue to add layers to the front cover as I find things that belong there. I am not quite finished with it yet, but there it is for now.

This is the first page…

I love that quote… and several others from The Chronicles of Narnia but I have a plan to use this one in something else soon. To be shared later ;)

I will probably post more pages from my new notebook in here, too. I am hoping that it will serve as inspiration, as a new way to see.