Aimee Fluff

I said that 1200 characters was not enough space to write something "About Me." Then I turned around and promptly forgot to write a thing about myself.

*chuckle*

Put off today what you can write about 6 months from now!

I think enough time has gone by that I can officially say, it is time to write something??! Even if it is to just acknowledge it needs to be written and revisited and edited later! I will say all the things that I have failed to say about myself:

About Me:

I'm a dual creative in one body. I both love to write and love to illustrate. (Although currently I'm doing neither because I'm a busy mom.) No one can serve two masters at once. And because I have multiple masters, I just have to take turns following them. I mentioned two, but there are more!

Isn't being a mother a creative thing?? You create children, with the right ingredients.

Okay, so I do lots of creative things. And I attempted to go to college to get some sort of official looking paper that verified that I was able to create things. I attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. But as fate would have it, moved before finishing my degree. (Something to do with my husband loosing his job, moving to Arizona, and I refusing to stay behind and finish school without him. Hum, so much for fate.) Someday I will have my chance to finish, because I believe that I will come full circle and it will happen. When it does, I will grab onto that with both hands. Until then I will do what I can.

What I can do is follow my heart. Strangely enough my heart has a mind of its own and sends me in crazy directions from time to time. Thank heavens I also have a head to guide me too. So when one gets tired the other takes over.

I also love to read, and I full heartedly admit that I've read far too many fantasy and science fiction books, and not enough classical novels to count on half of my fingers. A bane that I have recently tried to change.

My fatal flaws include; the inability to spell well 100% of the time, some grammar issues (both easily remedied with the proper classes and study), I enjoy reading every word and not skimming anything, I have a slight temper (although mostly reserved to my family and lately I've been better at controlling it), I often daydream and get lost in dramatic conversations with myself (which my husband loves to over hear from time to time), since I became a mother I've been prone to bouts of anxious episodes, I LOVE to sleep in, I LOVE to stay up late at night, I watch entirely too much television (again all of it has to have some sort of science fiction or fantastic theme), and I'm sure that I could find more amusing things to add here. But I think I've created the picture that I intended. I'm just another ordinary woman on the other side of this computer screen.

I was born in New York State, but I've lived most of my life in Arizona. I call Peoria my home because I live there. I'm online everywhere. So I hang my hat in many different places when it suits me.

I love to vacation! Who doesn't? I haven't been many places but I have a long list of dream places to visit. Maybe I will someday?

I'm sure that I will come up with more for this post... but as it is... I'm actually going to go to bed now.

Ciao!

The Look of Love

Maybe I spoke a little too soon about being excited for my son's kindergarden experience. I was so happy to have more time to do what I was looking forward to do with the new time. The show stopper is that I've since had to take him out of kindergarden because he isn't ready yet to be there.

I have to admit, that my experience with getting a child ready for kindergarden has not given me enough sense to judge correctly when a child really is truly ready to be starting school. My son is very intelligent but he is also very immature to following instructions without standing over him to watch him do it. Besides he just barely turned 5 and it isn't a big rush to get him in kindergarden, especially since he is the youngest in his class. Maybe some kids at the exact age of 5 are ready to be there, but not everyone fits that standard. And I'm okay with that. He will be that much more prepared starting at 6. Thank heavens I also had a wonderful teacher who has kept me in the loop about his progress and was very professional, compassionate, and patient about leading us to our decision to pull him out. Thank you Mrs. Malvin!!

So after doing a mad rush to find a preschool, I am now prepared to go forward and again enjoy having my son around, although at a small personal cost. I may not have as much time as I planned to have, but that will resolve itself in time. And sooner than I will really like years to come I'm sure. So for now, I am mom for a few more hours of the day than a creative. And that's okay. It is a worthy sacrifice.

"Everything that I understand, I understand only because I love."
~ Leo Tolstoy

So many times I think it is easy to look past the ability to love. How it really affects us. How having it and giving it expands us to a higher wisdom. Love is kind, patient, long suffering...

If we start each day with the goal to have more love, more kindness, patience, and long suffering, we become a different person. I'd like to believe that we become better people. And after a long time practicing, we become more than better people. We just ARE better people. So after reading this quote this evening and contemplating all the things that are on my plate. All the decisions that I'm about to make for the rest of this year, I have to say that the reasons behind making them are because I love.

Not in the sense that I'm in love with my husband. Or that I love my kids and family. But that I've been touched by the effect of love in my life. And because love has been abundant in my life, I desire to spread that love to others. I see the world through the eyes of love.

I'm not exactly sure when it was that I had so much love that it changed me forever. It isn't that I've not struggled in my life. I have had loving parents but an equally difficult dose of trial in my childhood too. I'm not going to lie and say that I had a perfect beginning or middle or today. Because I haven't. I struggle just like everyone else.

But I choose to love. And that I think is the most important thing. Love has taught me that sometimes you only get what you decide you will have. If you want love, you have to love first. It is the same of understanding, gratitude, and respect. It is a choice that you have to choose. Love has taught me that it is hard to love when you are unloved. However, if you love yourself first, then no matter how hard it is you will find a way to receive the love that you deserve. This isn't about vain love in oneself. When you have healthy love for yourself, you balance the self love with the giving love. And it all comes back to you when it is time.

Sometimes we give love to those who don't deserve it. I have to admit that I've given that love and I've often wondered why it is that I did that? Especially if they didn't deserve it? I think it comes down to another principle of love that has been taught in the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you can love someone who does not deserve it, you attract the amount of love you gave away back to yourself at a later time. You reap what you indeed sow.

I guess you really can live off of love. If it teaches you so many important principles, if it guides your life, then it affects your life. And doesn't that in the end mean that you can live off of what love has done for you? Love can be a very hard teacher. And I expect that even after I write this, there will be days to come where love is going to teach me more lessons, and sometimes I may even choose to rebuke love and choose something else. But I do hope that I will remember love and make a better resolution to come back to choose love when those days pass. I hope that I will not give up on love, that I look to its teaching methods as a necessary bread of life.

So far, love and I have been fairly close companions.

Oh so much!

Today is the first day of school. And yes you guessed it, I am happy to have some child free time because my younger son is in nap mode for the afternoon. YAY! So this means that I get the wonderful opportunity to be creative for a few hours before older son comes home from his first day of school!

I'm both happy and sad about this "new" moment in my life. The first thing I did after I put him on the bus was go home and call my mother! And yep, she knew exactly when I was about to call and exactly how I was feeling. And we both laughed and sighed together. I've walked around the house so many times today just lost as to what to do before I actually got my stride in to getting chores done. It is so weird!! I'm really glad that I had another child over for the morning to keep youngest son entertained or I'd probably had lost it from the get go.

So, now that I have moments for writing, what do I do? I get on facebook and check out some things that I've not had a chance to check out. One of them happened to be the blog of a college friend of mine, who I haven't seen for a while. We went to BYU together and studied the same major, Illustration. She announced on her blog that she is going for a month to a Plein Air Painting Competition. And honestly I'm pulling a blank, "WHAT is that?" What is Plein Air Painting? And then after googling it, checking out the link she provided from her blog site, and finding a few other references, I find that there is also something called "Plein Air Writing" as well.

Ooooohhhh? I don't know what this is and I am interested.

So lets find out shall we!

En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.

- Wikipedia Definition

So how does one do this with writing then? This article explains it better:

As far as we know, we invented the term “plein-air writing,” right here in the Gorge. We know of no other place in the country, where that term is being used, or has been used, to define a writing event.

With that in mind, we feel free to define it, as we would like. Our definition is thus: Plein-air writing is writing outdoors, with the goal of capturing in an artistically compelling way, what is going on in the moment.

It is different from other forms of writing, in the same ways that plein-air painting is different from other forms of painting.

First, writers are involved in a process of intense observation, absorbing what’s going on around them, and choosing words to reflect the impressions they’re getting about the scene. Just as painters are attuned, writers are attuned to the light and the colors of the day, the sounds or lack of them, the wind, the scents . . . everything.

Second, plein-air writers need to put words down on a piece of paper quickly, before the scene changes. They need to capture their impressions as they occur, in real time, without benefit of subsequently rethinking, reframing, and editing what they think they may have felt or heard or saw at the time.

Third, plein-air writing is every bit as challenging as plein-air painting. Writers need to be highly skilled, to come up with just the right word, just the right emphasis, just the right flow . . . just as painters need to be able to quickly choose the right color and brush, and make just the right stroke.

Finally, because it happens relatively quickly, works written en plein air are primarily short works of art, just as paintings done in plein air are usually small in size.

- web link (Also downloadable PDF)


I think I have to say that I want to try this someday. It sounds like a fun thing to do. I may do it on my own at my home, but someday it would be interesting to actually go for this 5 day competition that they have to try my hand at Plein Air Writing. It sounds so organic and earthy. I think I'd enjoy it. When I can actually break away from the kids and feel confident enough in my writing craft to try it, I'm gonna!