A Passion for Green

My painting partner!

sylvanend — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:34:07 +0000

She did good!!!!!

Part of our night’s work. What a wonderful girls’ night!

A Passion for Painting!

sylvanend — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:37:16 +0000

I’m so excited! My friend Lani is coming over for supper and a girls’ painting party tonight! I wonder if we will paint up a storm?!

Snow and Ice

sylvanend — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:42:42 +0000

Let winter finally begin?!

Water Gardens

sylvanend — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:35:04 +0000

Looking through my old botanic center photos, I liked this today as we wait for snow to hit Iowa. Doesn’t it feel warm and tropical?! It also reminds me of a warm swim I had last night at Ames Racquet and Fitness.

Taking Time for Kids

sylvanend — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:42:44 +0000

I love this photo I took at the graduation potluck my friends had for me. We get so busy and focused on the adult things, but here is Lora making time for the little things and the little people.

MLK Day: A Day ON, Not a Day Off

sylvanend — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:43:13 +0000

There is a lot of work that needs to be done in our society, problems that need to be fixed, attitudes that need to be changed, people that need a helping hand. When I was a part of the AmeriCorps program, we celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday as a day to volunteer, a day on, not a day off. I need to get back in that mindset and perhaps find a small volunteer niche that I can still fit into.

Here is volunteer I snapped in San Francisco back in 2006.

Zen Tangles

sylvanend — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:59:01 +0000

Last fall, this was an art project the kids worked on at a school where I subbed. Each child did their name, divided the rest of the white space into sections and filled each section with a pattern or other felt marker design, the colored over it with pencil. I got hooked and did quite a few of my own at home. VERY RELAXING PAST TIME! Art teachers and their ideas rock!

Dare to Ask

sylvanend — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:37:56 +0000

This is a poster that I have on the back of a large bookcase that encloses my little sleeping area where I am living for now. Are you a daring person? The first dare on the poster says, “Dare to ask for what you want”. You know what the hard part of this is? Knowing what you want, and perhaps, wanting the same thing, for more than a day or a week or a year!

2012

sylvanend — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:42:33 +0000

Spreading Christmas out all year long?

sylvanend — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:18:17 +0000

Ok, this is my last post about reflections on Christmas! I started out by thinking of people who are sad or feel let down around the holidays. Some of the kids I’ve worked with have major melt downs around Christmas because of family or health dysfunction. Everyone around them is building up to this huge “celebration” and their pain just multiplies as they feel it’s impossible to have that shiny ball that the world dangles out there in front of them. Some hurt themselves to try to make the pain go away. People give presents to them or have parties for them, but the perfect family Christmas can’t be obtained. And that may be true for a lot of people, especially in America, where we advertise prosperity and perfection as available to all. Our culture would be way more sustainable if we gave up our fantasies of having it all and stopped billing things as creating more happiness than they really do. It’s ok to make choices, to say no to things, to make due with less than the Jones have. Even if we can afford to have it all, maybe we don’t need to.

One more thought….I’ve heard of people who only go to church on holidays like Christmas and Easter, packing in all their time with God into some intense rush, similar to the way we eat so much and celebrate so much in a few short days. What if we made a conscious effort to make holidays less of a fuss, to spread our celebrating out in a longer, much less intense manner? Might we then give more gifts during the rest of the year? Send more letters? Get our good dishes out for more Sunday dinners? Spend more quiet time alone with God? Hmmm, I wonder…..