Simplicity

As part of Life Book we recently completed a guided meditation with the purpose of connecting with our 'Art Guardian'.

Mine showed up, plopped herself down on a chair and enveloped herself in one of my quilts.  She was short and dumpy.  I thought to myself  "Oh great.  Aren't guardian angels supposed to be feminine, floaty and have wings?" Mine was a bit rugged...like one of the seven dwarfs...except female...and she looked as though she had been pulled through a bush backwards.  Her hair full of leaves and twigs.  She did look fun though and had kind eyes.

I'm not much of a face painter but I tried to make her as 'floaty' and angelic as I could.

We were also led to choose a word for the year.  Mine's Simplicity.    

Juicing

A New Year...a New You.  Isn't that what they say?

Time to get healthy.  Time to get JUICING!

Wow!  Five kilos of carrots for only FIVE BUCKS!  What a bargain.

Apples...good for the digestive system.

All that Vitamin C and Potassium.  Soooo good for the body.

Now just add in a bit of kale and spinach for those 'healthy leafy greens'.

Eewwww!

What was I thinking?

OMG.

Life Book 2014

This year I'm participating in 'Life Book'.

Life Book is a year long mixed media self development art journaling course.  At first I thought that I needed another commitment like I need a hole in the head, but I figured something like this would encourage me to adopt a regular creative practice and also push me to try new mediums and techniques.

There's going to be 52 'lessons' - one each week (really?) alternating between a main project and a lighter 'bonus' project, a meditation, artist interview or maybe even a swap.  All the pages are completed singularly and will be bound into a book at the end of the year.  More bookbinding?  YAY!

Our first project included a meditation and a warm up page to allay the 'inner critic'.  We had to write all our fears, apprehensions, excuses, niggly worries about our art etc down on the page, prior to painting over them and then to decide what it is exactly that we feel we want from Life Book.

Here's mine... 

'Nourishment for the Soul'...that's what I want out of my art practice for this year.

You can read more about Life Book here.

Coconut mayonnaise.

Welcome to 2014.  A happy healthy start to a brand spanking new year.  I've got a couple of days off so I've been whipping up a storm in the kitchen.  Double batch of soap, cream of asparagus soup from our very own asparagus, basil and pine nut risotto from our own home grown basil (yikes...it's bright green).  

Oh I'm such a legend.  What a woman.  My husband is so lucky.

I even got to researching and making some yummy looking morsels from organic coconut oil...I love coconut oil, and it's soooo good for you.  I tried my hand at coconut yoghurt.  That was a major fail with a capital 'F'.  I had the damn light in the oven going for three days trying to ferment and set the stuff.  Goodness knows what the electricity bill is going to be.  And my coconut mayonnaise...OMG...we had it last night with our salad.  It was absolutely dreadful, as hard as the hobs of hell, impossible to get out of the jar and we just about cracked our teeth on it.  All that organic goodness didn't even taste nice.  What on earth was I thinking? 

So today I'm staying right out of the kitchen.  Going to crank up the sewing machine instead......