no excuse inspiration

my 'inspiration' created my inspiration board.

I love my new board - my inspiration board. Sometimes, you just have to see what's in front of you to know what's in front of you.

Although much bigger than most designs I found on Pinterest, I wanted it huge - enough to handle my mountain of post-its, my jottings to myself, those from others and nick-nacks that, for better or worse, are a part of my writing process.

I'm very visual and I like to know where I'm going. So hopefully, this all makes sense.

Simple instructions: at Home Depot, purchase the 4' x 8' pink backing (Owens Corning Foamular F-150 1 in. x 48 in. x 8 ft. foam) - about $17 bucks. Mine is cut to 7 ft. long. Don't forget the screws to attach. We used 6 - 3 top, 3 bottom.

Next, Hancock's Fabrics for burlap. I was excited to find red! Make sure you get the 60" width. Other colors were shades of browns. Tacks and pins in the quilter's section and then ribbon if you want to mark the territory. The spray adhesive was a life-saver but be careful not to get it on the floor. If so, then mopping must follow. Cost: about $28 bucks.

Then, find an open space. Sweet-talk your husband and measure, measure, measure. 

One of my favorite organizational finds - the silver magnetic strip (to the left) from Ikea - hold tacks and such.

So there, it's an inexpensive creation that will change my life!

Sadly, this is the last time it will be as neat, for I hope it will be bombarded by papers, photos and pins! I can't wait to fill it up!

a girl and her glass

My husband and I are homebodies. I make no apologies for it. When he's not making IT magic or I'm not researching my latest article, we're here - right here on Mayne. Surrounded by aging pine trees and gnawed oaks, sprouting jonquils, pastures with too little grass for four feisty horses, two rambunctious albeit passive dogs, a fluffy (we'll just leave it at that) kitty and the two of us. I like it that way. There's no effort in happy. It just comes as easy as rain.

Last weekend, research demanded a brewery visit. The article - which will be featured in Georgia Connector - will offer my best picks for beer festivals in the coming year. The best really isn't a hard choice, but naturally, you start with what's in your own backyard. 

a cold night and he rescued me

To get the crowd feel, we patiently stood in the winding line outside Terrapin Brewery in Athens for over an hour Saturday night, watched as we were undoubtedly two of the (at the most) ten people representing the baby boomer generation while the hundreds that stood by us were barely out of diapers. They came from everywhere, and they kept coming for two hours. Girls, guys, dogs - and dogs. The dogs dressed in Mardi Gras beads had a particular spark in their step. 

I remembered those college years, where the Saturday night outing was a major event that usually took days of preparation in order to pull off. Hugging close to girl friends, laughing the appropriate laugh at the appropriate time, knowing who to follow, knowing what not to say, not to drink, not to wear - it all was a dance that left me left-footed then. 

Evidently, these girls have evolved. They had the moves down. The forced giggle, the lean on the right foot, the hand on the guy's shoulder, the arch of the eyebrow - and that was before they even had beer. Once inside, with the provided glass accessory, they mingled, laughed, taunted, shifted (very little), hugged, gestured, and wandered with nomadic moves - I was exhausted. I was here to research the brewery, not have a lesson in the societal movements of the twenty-something generation, but how do you get one without the other.

come dressed for mardi gras

Although some things have changed (tons of spandex and shorts in winter and accompanied by the right pooch), the basic woman (and guy for that matter) on the prowl has not. Even my husband could foresee each feline's next move (spotting her target with incredible recognition), mainly because he remembered that the progression worked much the same then at Villanova as it did thirty years later at UGA. Put a glass in a woman's hand and she's superwoman, but of course, only if you have the mingling, laughing, taunting - and on and on - down pat. Life hasn't changed that much; it just wears less clothes.

Yes, I took the tour at Terrapin and viewed quite a hometown operation, one that is four-times bigger this year than last. I sampled the seasonal Moo-Hoo, liquid infused with a chocolaty-milky smack. Two thumbs up! I fought the crowds in the sample line as well as the deluge in the bathroom line. I people-watched, dog-watched and beer watched.

one of my picks for evening's best dressed

It was fun for an otherwise home-body that rarely withdraws from Mayne.  Got to see how the younger crowd can still take over a room. I was pleasantly not shocked. Take a girl; add a glass, and it's the perfect accessory for conversation, prowling and wishful thinking. With or without my glass, I had it all even before I braved the line.

just take a load off and enjoy!

deadline frenzy

It's still deadline pace in my writing cosmos. So instead of rants of my choosing, it's rants of what others deem necessary and worthwhile. Not that these are incredible sound topics, but sometimes, unloading what's gotten caught in the inside of my stuffing is very therapeutic, cathartic, compelling.

In the meantime, here's more from Billy Collins - a poet that I have decided has been ignored by me way too long.

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

Billy Collins

the poets are at their windows

I was lucky enough to be in the audience at the Key West Literary Seminar last week when US poet laureate Billy Collins described my life. I'm sure he didn't know that he did. I'm sure every writer in the auditorium felt the same connection. We all have our windows, our inspiration, our place in this world that draws the words to the surface. Mine is on Mayne, just under the maple tree and parallel to the front porch swing. This is my window to my world.

 

 

The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,
and the poets are at their windows.
They are at their windows
in every section of the tangerine of earth-
the Chinese poets looking up at the moon,
the American poets gazing out
at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.
The clerks are at their desks,
the miners are down in their mines,
and the poets are looking out their windows
maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea,
and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved.
The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong
game of proofreading,
glancing back and forth from page to page,
the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes,
and the poets are at their windows
because it is their job for which
they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon.
Which window it hardly seems to matter
though many have a favorite,
for there is always something to see-
a bird grasping a thin branch,
the headlights of a taxi rounding a corner,
those two boys in wool caps angling across the street.
The fishermen bob in their boats,
the linemen climb their round poles,
the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs,
and the poets continue to stare
at the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.
By now, it should go without saying
that what the oven is to the baker
and the berry-stained blouse to the dry cleaner,
so the window is to the poet.
Just think-
before the invention of the window,
the poets would have had to put on a jacket
and a winter hat to go outside
or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at.
And when I say a wall,
I do not mean a wall with striped wallpaper
and a sketch of a cow in a frame.
I mean a cold wall of fieldstones,
the wall of the medieval sonnet,
the original woman's heart of stone,
the stone caught in the throat of her poet-lover.


-Billy Collins

the big 'O'

It's a new year. A beginning. I always adore these. Gives me a chance to sweep up the misfortunes and bad choices into a pile, use my industrial-sized broom to tidy up the droppings, and chunk them away. If only it were really that simple. Symbolically, metaphorically and all that literary jazz, I'll do it all.

My husband and I officially opened a small business on January 1. All those small business articles posted in Georgia Connector during the past year got me to thinking about all the work we had been doing, most in secret. All those words I penned that probably no one was reading except my publisher, my husband and myself. All those photos we took of amazing places that are dutifully filed on the hard-drive that no one experienced except my husband, myself and probably Bear. (Bear always assists in the download, whether he likes it or not.) Its name is full circle fotography. yes, lowercase. My husband hates it, but in time, he'll come to love it. Please visit often, www.fullcirclefotography.com. Please like us on Facebook. Tell your friends. We're a business now, so numbers mean something especially to those pesky people to whom we query . . . unfortunately.

That's my first 'O'.

Next, making sense of this pile called my office. Technically, up until a few months ago, it was a spare bedroom with my own little corner in my own little chair (how I love Leslie Ann Warren as Cinderella). If I'm going to do this business thing right, I must become organized and look the part. I figured out that I'm a pack rat. Not necessarily stuff or things, but paper. Notes. Post-its. Reminders. Letters and cards. Yellow pads, most scribbled on. And all important, I must say. I wouldn't dare discard, for who knows what treasured discourse lies on those tattered sheets. They will find a home behind the one shelf with a door.

My second '0'.

There's plenty more 'O's on my list. Organization never ends. I'll be on to my spice rack, my closet, my kitchen drawers and anything else that needs making sense of. Time to de-clutter and make room for the things that will simplify and gratify my life, our life.

Even if it's only a slip of paper.

My Other Own Little Corner

My Own Little Corner

The beauty of IKEA Billie - piece by piece

Part I - Taking Shape

The End of Round 1 - Book Shelves