Aaah, a moment of quiet...

Didn't sleep well, if at all, last night, so I'm the first one up this morning. I love this time all alone while everyone else sleeps. There's a sense of peace, of the quiet before the storm, that I've always relished...

It seems that lately, I have so many posts rolling around in my head that I'm overwhelmed by them. I started to keep a list of them on my new phone--and oh, don't get me started on my new phone, a BlackJack that I got for $18.88 at WalMart and I didn't think it was possible to be so infatuated with a little chunk of metal and plastic, but I am, so there you go--but the list itself got so long that I stopped even looking at it.

It occurs to me this morning, sitting here reading blogs and catching up on all my blogger friends, that I know what to do with this list of posts--just what I do when I stare at a stack of blank canvases, just what I do when there is dinner to make, just what I used to do when there was some horribly difficult dry reading assignment to do--just start.

That's it: Just. Start.

I say this to Joel when he's moaning and groaning about a paper he has to write for the Honors 10 English class that is so demanding ("I didn't want to take this class Mom, I told you I didn't want to take it, I'm no good at writing, and I didn't want to work this hard, and I'm not you, Mom, I didn't want to take it, and here I am and I don't know what to write for this paper, Mom, and I told you that this class would be too hard for me, Mom, and it'll be your fault when I flunk, Mom").

Just start, Joel.

Just start, Karen.

So I will start posting again, and know that the words will come, and maybe they won't glow the way I want them to, and maybe they won't communicate all that I've been feeling lately, but I'll just do what I can, and write, and then write some more, and then some more. Start, and start again, and keep on starting.

I think I must be at some kind of locus point in my life, a point where I need to choose to move in a direction, to start things spinning again. I have to act, and instead I've been in some kind of holding pattern. So much seems to be going on around me while I'm just in stasis...

The gallery where some of my paintings are hanging is closing in January, (and oh, by the way, she doesn't have the money to pay me for two of the paintings she sold this fall, but I trust her, right? I know she'll pay me eventually, right?), and I'm finally off of the school board after two 4-year terms (hooray, hooray for me for not running again, for refusing to continue doing something that made me physically ill each month, even though teachers and parents asked me to run again and said I'd done such a good job--hooray for doing what I know is right for me and my family), and my house seems to have a mind of its own, sprouting random clutter (in the form of sports' equipment, and clothing, and used cups and dishes) on every possible surface, and my BFF (best friend forever, for those of you who don't know, and oh my, does this ever take on new meaning when you've been best friends for TWENTY SEVEN years)--my best friend is in Kazakhstan, adopting the baby girl that she's been waiting for all these years--I'm going to be an Auntie!, and oh, you name it--just so much happening all around me.

So today I burst the bubble, step out boldly in a direction, stop looking at other peoples' paintings and start making my own, stop listing possible blog entries and start writing them instead.

What's that quote, about how movement has power in it?

I'm going to

just

start.

I'm Baaaaa-aack!

I've been putting this off for a couple of weeks now, feeling like I do in dreams sometimes, where I've not done my homework for the longest time and now it's time for the test... I just haven't been out in the studio much over the last month--kids starting basketball practices, working on the wedding photos I did last month, reading the Twilight books (and if you haven't read them yet, you absolutely must. I cannot emphasize enough how great these books are. Let me know when you read them--I'm interested to hear what you all think.

So today I'm out in the studio, paints ready to go--but again, to put it off, I started working on the stairs down to my studio--remember when I worked on them last spring? Well last week I was lucky enough to get a load of broken concrete pieces from my friends Geri and Nancy, so I'm paving the steps.