With working every day there's always that thing about finding the precarious balance of ZEN and letsgo letsgo letsgo! Nico and I agreed we have to watch our input-output levels. The fuses get short at times when we do too much stuff in a day. This is of course entirely our own fault. Mad dutchy disease. We collapse in the evening to get up early again. Times when we had fluffy duck weekends are something out of books and we have some very vague memories of them. Naturally we don't understand people who get bored in their time off or who can lay about on their sofas falling asleep. What IS with that? Really.
Now the best fluffy time is crammed in the times we visit 2 week old calf Bella to bottle feed her and then watch her zoom around the paddock at top speed chasing the goats. It's a good thing Glen the dog has retired as Bella can easily do his work... she's a natural. To the dismay of the goat girls who are still wondering whether Bella is a dog, a funny smelling goat or an alien that's landed in their domain.
(this is when mum Kate was still watching too, now Bella's moved to the goatie pasture.)
our little girl is growing up. Kapow!
Still life is great on the prairie and we wouldn't want to miss it. Even with all the things we have to do to increase its appeal and workability.
And it's also good to share, with some friends who come help feeding and literally pitch their tents for the night.
Good stuff is happening. I'm trying to get my act together again for designing more fabric. The phone rings: a local design store is interested to do work with me, to display and sell my cushions. They also hinted that they would like to host a wine evening and have me present there along with a furniture designer from Auckland who will be flying down. Where will my Mooo cushions sit on top of? On his lovely chaise. Exactly. Awesome.
Because the farm work has been coming out of our ears, and the calfs are sprouting left right and center, we've been a bit busy. Just a tad. One calf need bottle feeding twice a day for another 8 weeks.
Hemptech is seriously due for a new series of ass kicking design. I better get my tush in gear. Really really. The inspi juices are flowing. They need to be directed or they will go to waste.
Well I will give you a glimpse of what I have done so far. And I will do more. You can count on it. Wine evenings or no wine evenings.
Having initiative is a blessed thing. I'm referring to the fact that when you can initiate an idea and follow up on that idea, transforming it into something sensible (and finished) that helps you to look after yourself and others, to bring things about and this results in riding the waves of life.
Damien Hirst an artist (not the famous British one but hell does that matter -not to me) has set up a surprising online store. Why? He needs a new camera and sells artworks for whatever price you are willing to pay to support him. (This initiative reminds me of Les, the twitter friend we en-devoured to set up a fundraiser for last Christmas.) The novelty here is that Damien's idea is fun, slightly off the wall with a huge doses of quirky and I have already spotted one piece I'm going to bid on. The sentences underneath the photographs capture as much as the actual photo.
Damien's mission: "My mission is to decrease the value of art expressed in money and increase the value of art expressed in the true love for it. I want art to be cheap but loved and admired. I want art to stop being exclusive and start being for everyone. I want art to belong to those who can see beauty in it and not those who are looking for profit and prestige. I want art to make a difference. I want art to be fake, meaningless and cheap. Because only in this way one could learn to apreciate art for only one true reason - because it is art. I want our world to get infected by art. I want an art pandemic."
Well said and a toast to initiatives. If we didn't have those then love would surely have perished.
That's right, we always have to make sense, make the bed, make peace, make do or make up. Either way, we 'make' a lot, we are continually 'making' as we are creators and also creatures.
Many people take life seriously. They pop Prozac, they moan to the neighbors or mow the loan, they mind their business or mind their kids and try to mind their minds. "Life is supposed to be fun" (quote by Abraham Hicks) When we were kids this seemed a lot easier, we had the luxury of fluffing around and our irresponsibilities would be excused, we could run in hayfields and hide from the angry farmer with his air rifle (a boy got shut in his butt unfo but really we had a tremendous time) and live in the moment. We could wolf down an ice cream and not worry about tomorrow. Those were the days, but today that can still be the case. I tell you, as boring as it sounds (oh no!) it comes back again and again to our mindset and general attitude. It's a continuing topic. Life's what you make it.
I'm game for a throwing cakes festivity or giving up serious work to start selling balloons for a while. You get the idea. If something stays the same it will never change, it's up to you to go to the slot machine and pop a quarter in. Stop staring at it from afar. Make up your mind, and the rest will follow... and have some fun while you're at it. Doo da doo da!
My husband and I have been very very busy lately. We had my parents visiting from overseas since before Christmas. There was work, there was farm work, the animals to look after, other design work, things to organize, trips to do, trees to be chopped, sheds to be build, glasshouses to take down and driveways to be planned. Basically property and work things we all do, we just do it in a farm-let format. Two calfs were born, one of them is still trying to find the right teats to use. This sucking business and starting life is actually not always that easy. So we bottle feed as well to keep Bella up to speck. Life is supposed to be fun so we help her out.
And just when I thought the whole jewelery thing was winding down -as I've been way too occupied with all sorts of stuff- there's demand for more of it, a particular design is very popular. Also there's a store here in Dunedin wanting to see my fabric designs. I've sold work both in Christchurch, Queenstown and Dunedin. So there are always surprises. I haven't made time to design more fabric or jewelery but now I'm keen to. The whole point of focusing and prioritizing is really to figure out what the heck we love to do most and then to go do it.
I decided to start my study in June/July and am currently reading the biggest books ever that a client gave me to peruse on the topic. I have also done field work in my holidays which has been tremendously beneficial. Then there's farm training: the benefit of building a new roof on the implement shed for 7 days and getting the hay in -knocking off after midnight- has been good for toning my muscles and losing weight which made me a lot fitter then I was. I'm game for some new action. Watch the space.
Now I'm content to go home again to ca-noodle Nico and see what carnage has occurred today as lumberjacks visited and gave trees some serious haircuts. Nico told me it looks quite drastic and some trees were so huge they decided against further cutting afraid they would be felled themselves. I tell you there is never a dull moment around here. I go to work to get some peace and quiet. So on we trot! It's a good summer now and the weather has been wonderful which makes both humans and animals extremely happy. Time for a barbecue and wine I reckon.
All of us are in relationships, and they change and keep on changing. That is our only certainty. It's always interesting to see what happens between us and the other. Sometimes I see examples which make me think: why do we want the other to change or to give us what we need? Why do many of us need someone else to do something in order for us to feel better? What ever happened to our own responsibility to just try and sort stuff out or make ourselves feel good?
Many great and fun things have happened when we have decided to set the other free by not needing them to give us the outcomes we desire. Self reliance and self embracing to feel whole is beautiful. It enables us to look after ourselves, be proud of ourselves and from that place of strength we can do more then we could ever do before. It's not an egotistical thing I'm talking about. It's shifting the focus from 'help' to 'yay'.
In my book there is usually no loneliness. We are not in a sci fi movie or locked in a dark dungeon somewhere. There's much joy to be added to our daily lives, to our communication with others. Try not to force other people to be responsible for your happiness, as they are not. Only you are. Appreciation is a cool thing, give it a whirl and either consider to try meditating, walking your own dog or finding a way to get on with yourself as that is the person you'll always be talking to. If you make peace with yourself, you will find it surprisingly easier to be with others.
Many things in life are just fluff and stuff. Love is what makes the world go round. Really really. I thank a good friend of mine for sharing her story with me today, it inspired me to share the above movie with you. There's always hope, there is always love, especially when you least expect it.
I'm still enjoying my "welcomed" experience. Between Christmas and New Years I had a sudden moment of discovery. I could say that my current work has changed but that is untrue: I have. I have simply come to the realisation that a new journey awaits me. This is fine. It is more then fine actually. It's like when we're in school, we move up a class every year. We get to decide what subjects to take eventually and this is where it gets interesting.
Many of us have the tendency to contemplate, think or worry about our work more then we like. I find that halting the thought process and taking some time out can help in letting the unexpected surface. The time I did this was on my holiday, the epiphany (the idea and answer on what to do in my future) came to me. I had not pre-ordered it but was happily surprised all the same. It was when I was in the middle of bandaging up Harry's head (our pedigree Angoran buck). So even when one is standing in some poo and a puddle of blood, which I was, an answer can come us. That humours me. Our 'truth' will find us when we least expect it.
Does this realization mean I will desert my current employment? No. It does mean I'm doing my homework in guiding me in how to approach the next step. It would definitely be to stay where I am now until such time I get the sense it's time to move on. That won't be for at least half a year if not 12 months. I'm actually quite happy in my work once I stop resisting certain aspects of it. Again: my work had not changed: I have. We can get so caught up in expectations and 'should bes', whether it's other people's or our own. There is only allowing something to enter our life, to choose. I have consciously decided quite a while ago that I wanted to do something new and essential. It's not that this new experience would be better then the previous, just different. My predicament was that I was continuing to be stumped on what that 'new experience' would be. All I knew was that it was time for change as I could feel that in every fiber of my being.
I guess that when we try to control something, whether it's our life, or aspects of it like our job, that thinking or worrying about it doesn't help one bit. We have already made a decision, had an idea and it takes the 'mute' button to actually hear what solution is being presented to us. Isn't life fabulous like that? It's not you that captures the thought, it is the thought that captures you.
How the same are we? What do we share? Where do we overlap? What do we have in common? Things we ask ourselves on a daily basis when we talk to another person. Finding 'the common ground' is older then your grandmother. And wanting to belong and get noticed as well. That's like cave time territory all over again. Yet now we use different media to promote ourselves to the world and to connect to others.
Check out Youtube to find out how many people crave to be noticed. 'Yes I am unique'. Are you? Of course we're not. But we all like to think we are. Why? So we feel we matter. We all like to think we make some kind of difference, that we contribute, that we are here for a reason. Anything. Would we bother otherwise? Interesting question.
What compelled me to start this post about 'wanting to belong and matter' was just thinking of when goat Monty was first taken up in the goatie homeboys club about 3 months ago.
There was the first meet n greet (painfull), the surrendering to other's opinions (humiliating piddling ensued to establish submitting to the goat homeboys' power) the rules laid out (chewing of ears and sniffing the piddling), establishing hierarchy (how sad can it get) to absorbing the new member in the clan (disdained faces and some cold shoulders shown). Now this admittance ritual would put most of us humans in the depression corner. Seriously. But what happened? Due to Monty's bouncy nature he soon won the woolly critters over by playing with them. He started at the bottom with a 1 year old he shared bottom rankings with and worked his way up the ladder. Now he's head butting the 2IC and he gets away with it. Why? Because he's an excellent PR goat THAT's why. He decided to first adapt, but then to show his true colors and get accepted anyway.
Mind you another goat, a girl called Nerada, tried it a different way, she came in the new herd all huffy and waving her handbag about like a snooty Paris Hilton. It didn't work wonders for her, if anything she was rejected, and she had to learn to play nice to be accepted. She now hands out the occasional head butt to show she is strong but she receives treatment accordingly. Being different is one thing, throwing your weight around to establish your place is not socially helpful, neither for goats or humans.
I find it interesting how both animals and humans have these rituals and habits to establish themselves in a society group, to find their way. Some things never change, just the means to find a place in the world do. I like Monty's way of quietly testing the waters and deciding to have some fun with it. God knows the world is serious enough as it is.
Yes I'm back! Hurrah (tapdance and weird face pulling inserted here)
Many people ask: did you make new years resolutions? I did make a decision for 2010 that involves being more effective and coming to a solution regarding my work. Already I have had an epiphany I'm not ready to share yet. Just thinking and pondering about it makes me excited. All in good time.
Anyhoo: this year has started off fabulously because I'm happy. I'm having a great time with my beau, my canoodly pookems, my whimsy and wise love. I married him 2 years ago this Saturday and we seem to have tons of fun, especially in the holidays when we actually have time to not be serious and so responsible. (Having a farm and working hours in the city too carries enough weight - we have a resolution to get things done and ALSO be a bit nutty which ensures we lighten up and have a great time.)
Nico I love you and I look forward to many more times of cuddles, of ponderings, of just mowing the lawn or fixing a new gutter on a shed together. You are still the best man I've ever known, and that's saying something after being together since 1992. Yeeehaaa. ps: Yes yes I will make you some muffins again as you love them so much....
