Happy Birthday to ME

Yesterday was my birthday. With a party still to look forward to on Friday, this feels like my birthday week :D

Yesterday was fabulous. I have entered the fun forties. I say fun because that's how it feels. It's in contrast to when I turned 30, which seemed more ominous, a mark of no longer being twenty something. I even had the thought yesterday... I'm just 10 years away from being half a century old. How cool is that?? To think that in 10 years I will have been alive for half a century. Seems amazing.

Yesterday at work one of the teachers brought me balloons early in the morning. Black and turquoise and purple. I LOVED the colors, and the large one had all three colors with 40 in sparkly mylar. I dressed up, and wore my gold tiara. Kids all day wished my happy birthday. My class sang to me. Coworkers presented me with a card and collected money like we do for everyone in our grade level. My old kindergarten mentor came for the day, and taught my kids the story of the little red hen. It was just a great great day.

Last night B took me out Fogo de Chao, a brazilian meat / cowboy place. There is something highly decadent about the endless parade of men bringing fire-cooked meat to your table on huge skewers. Add to this 2 glasses of Macallan's 18 year old scotch, and I didn't think the evening could get any better. But it did.

When they brought the dessert menu, B looked through it and commented on how much the Louis Tres had gone up (Louis XIII cognac) in price. Apparently last year it was $109 an ounce, and now it was almost double that. This is a cognac that is over 100 years old, and the ultimate of all cognacs. Smooth and fragrant, light and heady. B said it was too bad it was so expensive, that he'd tried some 8 years earlier and it was amazing. He said he'd been planning on getting me some for my birthday, but now seeing the price he felt like a cheapskate.

This man is one of the most generous, smart, capable friends in my life. I in NO WAY would ever have put the label cheapskate with him, and told him so- noting all the things he was doing for my birthday (which I won't go into here). He's definitely not the frugal Scot that M is.

Then he said, "What the hell" and ordered an ounce. We shared it, and I could not get over how incredibly lucky I was. He said I deserved it, because not only could I appreciate it, I was a good person, spent my time helping others, and other great stuff that made me blush. I truly think he's the only person in my life that would say I deserved to try a cognac that cost $190 an ounce. Of course, I am probably spoiled now for all other cognacs.

The happy benefit of all that wonderful food and drink- I slept like a babe.

Goddess Series

I'm painting a series based on the goddess figure. I have two more "color backgrounds" done, one purple and one in red/black. These are on wood and measure about 15 inches by 13.

heArt Card

My heArt cards for Mother Henna's exchange are in the mail! I thought I'd post a peek at what they look like, and how they were created. The actual size is about 2 inches by 5 inches. My name is on the above for internet purposes only. The card set has my business card, signature, and numbering on back side.

I'd been experimenting with stamping. I couldn't find a "make your own stamp" kit at Michaels, so I started working with foam trays... the kind that meat comes on from the grocery store. I couldn't get the hang of writing letters backwards... they always came out looking awkward. Also, the best colorant used was watercolor markers.

At Michael's I did find craft foam sheets that come in all sizes and colors. I bought one, and decided I could make "stamps" from shapes cut out of the foam.

For the backing I used heavy watercolor type paper, and did a layer of gesso over it to better take the media I'd be using. Then I used Golden gel medium to glue dark blue papers to the backing.

Painting both a foam heart shape I made, and a goddess figure, I painted the papers with the "stamps" in gesso.
I got out my india ink brush pen and colored in the hearts.


Then I got out my acrylics, and colored in the goddess figure, adding white accents.

When everything was dry, I started to experiment with the words and how to decorate the figures.

I decided the best look was to "keep it simple". I glued the text on, then did a line of adhesive below the text. When that was dry, I "poofed" gold glitter onto the line.

Painting Golden Gel medium on the dark blue paper, I poofed purple and turquoise glitters onto it. When that was dry, I used adhesive to "paint" over the heart. Then I poofed red and pink glitters over that. After letting the design "sit" for a couple days, I knew I wanted another red heart in the lower right corner. That was Golden and poof glitter. A day later I used a spray fixative over all of them. A day after that I began cutting them out.

The interesting thing was my thought processes while making these. In one way, it was very soothing, like an artistic mantra done over and over. In another way, it was disconcerting when I heard the gremlins in my head disparaging the work in all sorts of ways.

Regardless of what they said, I like the final outcome.

New Things

My ankle is getting better. I can limp around the apartment without crutches. The best part of this is that I can carry items to the living room to eat in front of the TV. Eating in front of the microwave isn't near as fun.

I've been redoing my professional website with a different provider, under a different domain name. HennaRose.com was taken, so after some thought I went with HennaBelle. I'd love your input on the site, let me know if I have any broken links or images or typos. It's at http://HennaBelle.com If you want to see a comparison of the old site, that is still up at http://SanchalaMehndi.com Eventually I'll change that domain so it points to the new one.

I changed the name because the old one, while pretty sounding to my ears, is hard for the average person to fathom how to spell or pronounce.

Other Healing

So I went with some friends today to an open house for an acquaintance of theirs who's a holistic physician and urban shaman. He's got a new space at a center and offers energy work, bodywork, and counseling.

Listening to him today talk about his "regulars", stewardesses, waitresses etc, that are constantly wound up and just need to let go and unwind... I started to cry. I felt like he was talking about me. Like that stress was the only thing holding me together so I didn't just lose it. But more than that, that I was in the presence of someone that could help. When I can drive again, I think I'll schedule a visit with him.

I'm not happy. I guess I'm depressed. I'm in a small pain still about my ankle, and have frustrations over what I can and can't do. I'm eating all the wrong foods for the wrong reasons.... I mean.. really- Pizza Hut Chocolate dunkers? WTH was I thinking??

B came over the other night to deliver some items, and I just cried then too, and didn't really know why. He thinks part of it is my environment, my apartment- so his new project is to find me a new place this year.

I think I'm not happy though, because I'm not creating. I'm happiest when I'm producing something- whether it's the 4 batches of cookies for New Years, or a henna design, or a journal page.

I'm participating in a heART card exchange, and have materials and ideas rolling around for that. I meant to get to it today, but instead hid in a video game where I could have pretend accomplishments and forget about my surroundings.

Tomorrow I want to create, to be in my studio and putting gesso to paper. I think it would be a kind of healing for me.

Ankle

My ankle is healing. It's healing faster than I expected, but I attribute this to the turmeric paste each night. I went last night without pain meds at 1am, and woke up with only an ache / soreness. Compared to the blinding pain of last Monday morning, it's a miracle. The swelling is less, although still there. I can move my foot from the ankle a lil, without pain.

I've been really blessed with my work situation, co-workers helping take my kids to PE and art etc. Parents (thanks Dana and Cindy) that take me home from work. I'm hoping that by the end of next week my foot will be healed enough that I can drive- at least short trips around my neighborhood.

One a different note, my friend Julie is in India for the first time. Read about her adventures here:
http://gitting.wordpress.com/

The Rest of My Week

The rest of my week has gone well. I'm slowly getting back into the routine of school without the panic of Monday morning. I'm also waking up at 1am each day to take ibuprofen, so that I'm not waking in extreme pain.

One of my Indian parents recommended turmeric for my ankle. One, making a paste of turmeric and water and salt to apply to the area before bed, and wrap it up. I did this last night, wrapping with toilet paper like I would for henna, then putting a black sock over it all. Immediately I could feel a cooling, almost tingling sensation in my foot, and the swelling was down this morning. Usually as soon as I wake up and get moving it starts swelling again, but it's better than that so far.

The other way was to take turmeric root, grate it, then press it to get the juice out and into some warm milk. This, he said, would help with pain, as well as be good for my cough. About 10 minutes after I finished it, I coughed, and sure enough, it was looser and less tight than before.

YAY for cultural remedies!

Today at school we have "Beautiful Beginnings"- a kind of honors day for Pre K and K. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to stand up and present them, or sit down and present them, or have someone else read for me or what. We'll see.

Tonight M is coming over to watch the rest of Sukiyaki Western Django- a Japanese spaghetti western spoken in English, and it has Quentin Tarantino in it as well. Heavy blood advisory though... not for children or squeamish.

I've closed my henna business through the end of February. I figure by that time I should be well enough to walk around at gigs without crutches.