RedBarn Studios

first click here and try to do exactly as they ask.
when you finish, hit your back button

go ahead.  i’ll wait for you…….

good…you’re back

did you last the whole two minutes without looking up or getting distracted?

Woohoo!

and if you did…

did you allow the nothingness of your mind take over so that all thoughts receded?

did you sit still in your own mind space?

could you visualize the waves as they rolled in over the sand right onto your feet?

did you feel your heart open wide as you inhaled and exhaled each breath?

were you able to give yourself the gift of 2 minutes?

I hope you did.

my gift to you today

toodles,

G

Tags: captured moments, down time by grace
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today was a blessing in disguise.

although i spent the whole day in bed (doctor and hubby’s orders), let me tell you it was no fun.  thankfully (knock on wood) i am not a person who gets sick very often but it also means that when i really get sick, a whole heard of elephants needs to sit on me to keep me still.

i definitely feel compassion for those who are confined to their beds for any length of time but, this time, the person confined was me.  thing is, I knew that I could get up anytime i wanted but knew also that, for my health, i needed to take the opportunity given to me to give my exhausted body a rest.

of course part of that is because i’ve had a whirlwind few weeks dealing with a recent family medical issue then, a week later, preparing and having my brother, sister and mother with me for a week over Christmas and new year’s (15 of us in the house….whew!).

so maybe i really needed this day to catch up.

i did have a lot of time, however, think about the where/what/how of what i want to accomplish in this new year.  with my notebook near i jotted down all manner of thoughts and ideas on the work i want to do going forward and ideas for future creativity. my direction has shifted slightly but more about that in a later post.

Tomorrow i will make a mental note to ease back into my “regularly scheduled programs”.

What are you doing to take it easy after the holidays?

Tags: down time, sick leave by grace
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yes….life interrupted once again.

and will continue to for the next few months but am feeling the need to get back to regular  picture taking and blogging and writing.

it’s been a whirlwind this past week with my family here for Christmas….laughter and laughter and even more laughter.

tonight we will take some time to bring in the new year together before they all head back home and my new normal begins.  so…

happy new year to all.

may the year 2011 be wondrous and wonderful for you and yours.

Tags: down time, life etc., New Year by grace
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I had such a blast at home celebrating my elementary school’s 50th year of education. Yes, sigh…..I grew up in the Bahamas, I was a lucky girl indeed.

Mary, Star of the Sea Catholic School was founded by Wallace Groves (a local developer) and Bishop Leonard Haggerty in 1960 and has been going strong ever since.

Both my Mother and my sister taught there for years and now my sister is Vice Principal, so the school itself holds lots of personal and family memories.

Over the weekend I saw a few of my classmates and we reminisced about old times and long ago teacher. One of my old teachers who attended this weekend was Mr. Percic. Believe it or not but I couldn’t call him by his first name, even after all these years.

Part of the Saturday evening’s events include a fashion parade of the school’s old uniforms. The one I wore is the light blue and white polyester (2nd from left). Can you say ugg?? Polyester in heat…ugg again!!. BTW…I sewed all my uniforms including the ugg one below. Ha!

The school’s first teachers were nuns and a few them found us on Facebook and made it back to Freeport to celebrate with us. Here is Sister Francis at the Beach Party doing a little hula hooping. My niece, Caitlyn (on the left) found it a tad easier to do than Sister.

One of the other things we did for the Saturday night event was to perform “Sister Act”. Costumes were made for each of those participating. We walked solemnly from the back of the room to the front, our hands hidden in our sleeves like nuns did way back when. That started the audience rolling already.

Here we are on stage. Needless to say we had everyone laughing, with the nuns laughing the hardest. There I am 3rd from the right in my nun costume.

We had a celebratory Mass on Sunday and then we all went to brunch. At one point we’re all sitting there talking after eating  and looked over to find my nieces, dressed in their Sunday best, embroiled in, of all things, a staring contest. Can’t even remember who won.

I’m glad to be back in North Carolina but found it oh so sweet to be home with family memories pouring in. And still, after all these years, I cry as the plane takes off for the US but am glad to get back to the family and life I’ve created.

Tags: down time, family by grace
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in the last few months i’ve been reading more and more blogs about photography, digital scrapbooking (to print and use in my fiber artwork) and being zen.

this last one, being zen, is what has got me on a centering myself path. Here I read about making a comfort list.

there are many kinds of lists we can make about ourselves including the gratitude journal I started keeping years ago (and still do) and, most recently, my not yet completed “bucket list’ but what, you ask, is a comfort list?

in a nutshell, a comfort list is a very personal list of things that bring comfort, a sense of serenity, tranquility or contentment.

so yesterday in my daily meditative-like blog wanderings i came upon the comfort list. just the thought of writing a comfort list was comforting (how can that be?)

off the top of my head, here’s my list for today, right now at least:

• writing a comfort list (you know I had to include that)
  
• swinging on the front porch watching the world drive by with….
  
• a nice, gently blowing breeze
  
• slipping into a cool bed at night
  
• smell of soup on the stove
• watching my children sleep
• a few hours in a comfy chair at the bookstore with…
  
• a chai tea latte
• birds playing at the feeder
• a cool shower on a hot day
• eating island food (OMG!)
  
• my nightly cup of tea
• the whiteness of a snow covered field
• the feeling after i’ve walked a couple of miles
• watching my kids play together
• talking with my sisters
• first day’s light streaming into the window
• the evening of Christmas day when all is calm
• the quietness of the house

i could write forever as more thoughts keeps tumbling through my head.

what’s on YOUR comfort list?

Tags: down time, ponderings by grace
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Some days you just need to pause, take a deep breath and re-ground yourself.

Happy Re-Grounding Day!

Tags: down time, Inspiration, life sayings, pic of day by grace
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I  have been lax of late when it comes to my blog and my Facebook and Twitter pages. Let me give you a heads up on what’s been going on.

Last year in October I made a video of my studio for Cloth Paper Scissors Studios‘ virtual tours (check my studio tour here). I had so much fun taping it and even more laughs trying to put a cohesive video together with all the retakes I did.

Anyway, I knew I needed to clean –REALLY, REALLY, REALLY clean my studio (a 2nd floor bonus room).  Of late I’ve had to search high and low for items that were always readily available and that has made working on new art pieces a hit and miss thing at best.

So I mentioned to hubby in February  (okay, okay…..I whined about having to CLEAN) and he approached me a few days later about completely revamping/redoing my studio (now that’s what I’m talking bout!)

So he started redesigning use of the space and I started on my closet…figuring that in order to effectively and efficiently redesign the  studio I had to tackle the closet first.

Took down the regular wired shelving, bought 2 new heavy duty shelving from local DIY and put those up. I did not, however, like the gun metal gray so I also bought a couple of cans of spray paint to change the colour to white.

Next step is to start on one corner of the studio and work our way around so that I could still work even if I had work around things for a bit. Now that I have the shelving in the closet, a lot of my “stuff” can be housed in there, freeing up some valuable space in the studio itself (are you seeing the BIG picture yet?)

As well, this will give me an opportunity to inventory ALL my supplies for business purposes of course (whooee…getting faint just thinking bout that task)…been a recent conversation on one of my art list about that. So that’s the long reason why there is no artwork to show you.

But there’s more…..

What has kept me from really pushing forward with the studio revamp is my position as Co-Chair for the 2010 NC Quilt Symposium, to be held June 3rd – 6th. This is a big event for our fair state of North Carolina AND, our guild, Charlotte Quilters Guild, is hosting it this year…..in 5 weeks! Yikes!!!!!

As well as being one of 3 co-chairs I am also the Teacher Chair so I’ve been working with a great bunch of teachers who will be teaching at Symposium this year. Look at this line-up (names are clickable):

Charlotte Angotti
Cynthia Corbin
Melody Crust
Patti Culea
Kim Diehl
Karen Eckmeier
Ellen Anne Eddy
Robbi Joy Eklow
Flavin Glover
Bonnie Hunter
Janet Lasher
Susan Purney Mark
Velda Newman
Jenny Raymond
Paula Scaffidi
Pat Sloan
Karen Stone
Carol Taylor
David Taylor
Laura Wasilowski
Elin Waterson
Terry White

We are all racing to get things finalized so that we can put on a fantastic event. We are soooo very excited to have everyone over our way.  There’s still space available in some classes so be sure to check out the website.

So now you know…I am officially tired but still keep trucking on. Ideas for art pieces still flood the brain but it has been told to put them on hold…at least till I can catch my breath on June 7th. Ha!

Toodles,

Tags: down time, life etc., monday posts, organization by grace
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Yesterday I got straight to writing my morning pages and then ventured into my studio. I only had a few hours to work cause it was P-day! (Prom-Dress-Buying Day).

Anyway I wanted to try a new-for-me technique (Wen Redmond’s holographic images) and remembered that I had seen an article about it in one of the zillion Quilting Arts (QA) magazines I’ve acquired over the years.

What I decided to do next was different than my original plan. Instead of sifting thru all the the magazines searching for the article, I decided then and there to grab a few (okay about 10 or 12 of them), settle in a comfy chair and ingest some creativity.

This regular habit of mine was long overdue.

When I get the mag in the mail I usually read it front to back..no skipping pages — ooh shock horror! My friends laugh and think I’m loony but I just cannot read the 3rd article (or whichever one) first. It’s just not in me, so there… you know one of many, I’m sure, eccentricities of mine.

But here’s another thing that I do….when I first sit down to read the mag I make sure I have a pen and some post-it note tabs with me.

As I’m inhaling the words, I come up for breath long enough to write the name of the article (or a pertinent tidbit to remind me of what it contains) at the top of a tab and stick in on the 1st page of the article.

The tabs are placed in the mag in a stair step manor so that I can easily view each one. When I run out of tab room on the front, I just place them so they face the back of the mag and I have another stair step heading back towards the front of the mag. This way I can flip the magazine around to the back to see other tabs.

I started doing this before QA began offering their article index on their website. It was so automatic for me to start tagging as I read. Besides, I could just see me misplacing the printed index sheets somewhere in the abyss of my studio. With my way I just look at the top of the mag to see which articles it contains and go from there.

I did get thru at least 5 of the magazines before I had to get ready to hand over the credit card. What a morning well spent! …even if I did get sidetracked.

Tags: down time, monday posts, this 'n that by grace
2 Comments »

A few weeks ago I asked my son what he wanted to do on his day off from school. He said “something fun please”. Now the pressure was on…what to do to entertain an 8 yr old????
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I decided on a “Picture Day”. and he was all for it. We took our cameras and I drove way into the countryside, pulling over whenever we chose to take pictures of nature, dilapidated buildings, gigantic rocks in from of an abandoned cemetery…anything was fare game.
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on the rocks

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the artist

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cool car huh?

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wish we could have gotten closer.

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~

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Se ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

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Tags: down time, family, family trip, road trip by k grace howes
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One of the highlights of our family vacation to Nassau was the fishing trip my brother, Andy,  took the boys on this past Friday. He’s been fishing for eons but for my little man…he had never ever set eyes on a live fish (not counting the ones in our fish tank of course).

Here they are fooling around while waiting for the boat to be taken out of storage. That’s my 3 nephews on the left and in middle and hubby and little man on the right.

Okay so the “He Men” go off on the boat, 10 miles off the Bahamian shore,  to prove that they indeed can provide for their lady folk at home (get real…..we were off somewhere shopping!)

Anyway they come back home full of stories of all the fish caught and the absolute fun they had. I think the best part of the after trip was watching the swelled chests of the men looking lovelingly at their excited kids talk about the all fantastic fishing trip.

I was told that little man had caught fish but because we had to freeze them for the plane ride back home the next day I didn’t get to see what he caught. Well I have the unveiling right here….ta da!

His First Fish! Yippee!

He caught 5 of these little beauties (called porgies)! The absolute best thing of all though was sitting down to dinner last night, after emptying cases and getting house back in order, to eat the fish. Little man was just beamimg ear to ear.

Don’t you just love the little pleasures in life?

~

See ya next time “In the Hayloft”,

Tags: Art, down time, family trip, pic of day by k grace howes
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