by Charlene Teglia | Jun 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
1. Celebrated birthdays, mine, my dad’s and my daughter’s. All in a row!
2. The garden. Still with the crabgrass. Also, deer ate tops off my sunflowers and cucumbers, so we’re trying sterner measures of deer deterrent. Husband found something called a Scarecrow sprinkler that’s a motion-detector. Detects and squirts deer. We’ll see if that works better than Liquid Fence, which they are holding their noses and ignoring.
3. Organizing. We never actually finished unpacking, so we’ve been working on organizing basement, garage, office, getting books unpacked, etc. These things take time.
4. Summer schooling; doing review of what kids know before starting the next year, seeing where gaps are, where they need more practice. Also setting up for the coming school year with organization for books and materials.
5. Went to see Knight and Day. Tom Cruise played to his strengths by playing an “am I crazy?” character and it really worked. I pretty much hate romantic comedies because they’re not funny or romantic, but this movie made me laugh many times and I believed the romance, too. Plus lots of action and adventure. Will be getting this one on Blu Ray.
Aside from that, the husband is gearing up to build furniture for kids that’s sturdier than what they have and I’ll paint it (yes, like free painting, flowers and fun designs, colorful and bright) so we’ll have many ongoing projects inside and out. I might even get around to my mosaic-tile table top project at last.
by Charlene Teglia | Jun 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
I love this day. Five years ago today, my first book in print hit shelves and I was in labor. And did I mention it’s my birthday? It’s a great day for a birthday, the official beginning of summer.
To celebrate, I have Hello Kitty cupcakes because I’m mature like that.
Hello summer, hello cupcakes, hello birthday.
by Charlene Teglia | Jun 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
I’m not sure I’ve ever before in my life experienced quiet mind, despite yoga, meditation, and myriad attempts to slow the mental galloping or at least channel it into a novel. I blame the double dose of gemini in my birth chart for giving my grey matter rocket fuel, but quiet mind has been an impossible mission. Even when my body was at rest, my brain was orbiting the planet.
Until now.
I sit and look outside at the trees and watch birds at the feeder and my mind is quiet. I go out and work in the garden, and beyond the occasional “is my lower back going to survive this?” thought, my mind is quiet. After a lifetime of mental racing, the quiet is unbelievably restful. When my brain starts going into overdrive again, I just look out a window, or go sit out on the deck, or on a garden bench, or in the gazebo, and quiet returns. I’m in the moment, not years in the past or future or trying to figure out how to solve next month’s problem this minute. When my mind is quiet, there’s room for solutions to come.
If your mind won’t quiet indoors, try getting outdoors. Take your notebook and pen with you. Do enough physical activity to tire you out a little, and focus your mind on your task so it isn’t running away with you, and find quiet. Along with it, you might find the plot solution you need, the idea you were missing to make some task easier, or the answer to a personal dilemma. A quiet mind is like a weeded garden.
by Charlene Teglia | Jun 19, 2010 | Uncategorized
I’m battling crabgrass. It wants to take over the garden. I object. I’ve dragooned my husband to fight with me, wielding hoes. We dig it out on one end. It spreads from the opposite corner. Crabgrass is persistent stuff. Last night we had a massive storm, which did not, sadly, set the crabgrass on fire with lightning or drown it in a flash flood. So today I dug more of it out, battling it down past the watermelon and cantaloupe, pursuing it up the row of sunflowers.
The next book I write needs an antagonist as determined and evil and pervasive as crabgrass. It’s not easy to beat.
The book I’m working on doesn’t have an antagonist yet, so this is something to ponder. I have a protagonist with a problem, but the rest is undefined. This is kind of the best part of building a story, collecting the pieces and letting them come together. The perfect puzzle to turn around in my head while I dig out another patch of crabgrass, may it wither and die.
by Charlene Teglia | Jun 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
1.Want to make your own mandala? Here’s a great resource. One of the interesting things I read by an artist who teaches mandala workshops is that people have a hard time finding the center when they begin. The center of the mandala represents your heart, so it’s interesting that so many people are out of touch with their hearts. It’s all about feeling instead of thinking. Good creative exercise for those of us who tend to overthink.
2. The Naked Scientists on hobbits. Go
listen.
3. Make a hammock! Instructions and a list of materials on Mother Earth News, along with guide to knot-making.
4. Build a
pallet playhouse.
5. Make a water garden.
Learning and doing are great ways to get new ideas, relax, keep your hands busy, and let the brain work on creative developments.
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