Tag: boxes

Mindful Monday


Shades of gray.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Speech given at the National Cathedral, March 31, 1968.

The first photo is mine, contents of one of my boxes. Background for the above quote to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day is from a photo of my 2006 acrylic on canvas painting “Enlighten,” filtered to be gray.

The skies are gray this morning, too, as our bad weather begins to roll in. My mood’s a bit gray, as well. I have no “fear of missing out” today. My hope is to maintain limited exposure to any media, including social media and news, and find a more creative purpose for my time.

Mindful Monday


I love the color of this box. I like the design carved into the top with its feather motif.

I even love the bottom of the box, which emphasizes its strong red pattern in the wood stain.

What lives inside the box: heart-shaped cutouts. Most of them have what I call “Angel Affirmations.” I think the feather design is the reason this is the box I chose to store them.

The instructions tucked inside describe how I used these Angel Affirmations, and the first line explains why I chose to share this on Mindful Monday.

Think of only today…
Light a cone of sandalwood incense…
Center yourself with deep breathing…
Surround yourself with white light…
Take any heart and apply it to today’s situation…
Trust yourself…

Here are the words from the one I pulled. Maybe it will mean something to you today.

To match the mood, here’s some of the metaphysical music I was listening to while I wrote at the end of last week:

Tommy Greer’s ‘Angel’s Kiss’ 1995; Steven Halpern’s ‘Gifts of the Angels’ 1994
Steven Halpern’s ‘Chakra Suite’ 2001; Dean Evenson’s ‘Forest Rain’ 1993; Nature Quest’s ‘Andrew Lloyd Webber: Naturally’ 1995; Erik Berglund’s ‘Harp Of The Healing Light’ 1999

Sunday Sundries


Little boxes. Their value is in who gave them or that they contain small gifts of nature from loved ones. Not all boxes are square, right?1

Here were today’s RomCom rewatches from 2005 and 1991. As with many of these movies, the number of years since their release dates often stuns me.

1From The Polymer Arts, 2013, “Today’s thought on boxes is pretty simple: a box does not have to be square. It doesn’t even have to have straight sides or be flat on the bottom. A box is basically a container used to hold or store things and has a lid. That’s a pretty wide open definition, which is great for an artist.”

In the box


Yesterday, I finished reading Louisa Morgan’s The Great Witch of Brittany, recommended to me by my friend Princess Patti. It’s the most recently written (2022) of a series that includes:
A Secret History of Witches (2017)
The Witch’s Kind (2019)
The Age of Witches (2020)

I haven’t read the others (yet), but I don’t think reading out of order will be a problem because this one provides a lot of context for the others. I always enjoy an author who has a compelling gift for world building and story telling. The Great Witch of the title is Ursule, a member of a Romani family that includes a line of witches. From childhood to matriarchy, the many-layered Ursule is an “outsider,” which is both curse and blessing–it puts her in danger, but it also leads her to discover her gifts.

Ursule is strong, brave, and almost always compassionate (and experiences a lot of heartbreak). For most of her life, she has one solid and trusted friend, a raven named Drom. Of course that appealed to me, corvid admirer that I am. Drom has his own way of communicating (though he actually does speak a two-word phrase, he’s not a talking animal). He’s guide, friend, protector, and supporter, and he has a sense of humor.

After I finished the book, I kept thinking about Drom, which led me to get out the box that holds my various animal decks and flip through them to admire the ravens and crows. The crow and raven cards pictured here are from Animal Spirits.

I either have to stop collecting animal decks, or I’ll need a bigger box.

Tiny Tuesday!


In April of 2020, I posted about this idea I found: The Coping Skills Toolbox. I shared the above photo of the box I put together to help me with quarantine anxiety (not only was the world gripped by a pandemic with no preventative medication and few effective treatments for some populations, including my own, but I was laid off from my job of six years due to the pandemic).

Looking back at that post reminds me that I’ve been forthright on this site for at least the last four years about how anxiety has been a lifelong struggle for me. I was prescribed medication for it when I was eighteen that I never used. In 2022, I was prescribed medication on an as-needed basis, which I used very little of. I will occasionally take medication to help me sleep.

Medications are rarely my first option. What I have to take for my physical health, I take. But I’ll always try to manage anxiety in other ways. This is not in any way a judgment about people who manage their physical and emotional health through medication. For a variety of reasons, it’s simply not my first choice.

I still have that “toolbox.” I’ve long-since rewatched the comfort movies and reread the comfort novels that were in it, so they’re no longer in there. It still holds my Magnetic Poetry Journal that I sometimes put poems in, along with the magnetic board I can use to arrange words. It still holds a small coloring book and two tins of coloring pencils. The toys–Superman, Batman, and the tiny plastic cars–are still in there. The bottle of bubbles is not.

After looking at the book I often use as ideas for my Tiny Tuesday posts (shown above, on the right), I decided to add to the box again because of two things I found listed in the book.


This morning, I added my Magnetic Poetry Haiku Kit and a movie. I don’t know if Sliding Doors is a classic at twenty-six years old, but it’s a comfort movie for me. I watched it earlier, and it inspired the haiku I created which is now written in the journal, too. As you can see from my photo below, all the words I wanted weren’t available to me, so I added them to the photo. The haiku goes with the theme of the chapter I’ll be writing when I can get my brain directed that way again.


There is a quote from the movie that’s one of my favorites, when one of the characters says, “I’m a novelist. I’m never going to finish the book.”

Hope you’re all having a good Tuesday and being kind to yourselves.

Sunday Sundries


Shells.

I’ve been doing Button Sunday posts since September of 2006. I feel like I’ve exhausted my ability to find new ones either among my own collection or online. I still want a Sunday theme. Not wanting to get locked in to any one topic, I hit on the word “sundries” as a word that not only means miscellaneous but sounds like Sunday. I think it’s wide open for things that I could photograph (including right here in my home). I’m seeking ideas, suggestions, even challenges. You can tell me in comments to this or any other post, any time, and I’ll start a list. I always see all the comments. Or email me. Or text me. Or call me. Or tell me when you see me in person.

Give me nouns, and I’ll start a list of your suggestions for future photo opportunities. Can’t think of anything? All you have to do is look in your own space. What do you see? A bird? A phone? A fan? A shoe? Or you might think about things people collect, e.g. books (book covers? specific kinds of book covers? some of my favorite mysteries?), teacups, something old something new something borrowed something blue–who knows? You don’t have to think about the size–remember, I have a house full of things at smaller-than-lifesize scale.

Help me share Sundays with you in photos and give me a reason to use my camera.

ETA: In honor of Father’s Day… Whatever role you took as a parent, or whoever parented you…
Whatever path got you to the ones who needed you, or who were there when you needed them…
I celebrate you and your shared bond. Since my theme today is “shells,” it occurred to me to share a photo of this box.

After my father retired from the many places his desire to work had taken him, he volunteered his time with the elderly. At one of the places where he volunteered, a lady made this embellished cigar box for him as one of her crafts. My mother kept it after he died, and when Mother died, for a time, Lynne kept it in her guest bathroom, which had an ocean theme. When she moved or redecorated, she returned it to me. It’s next to those shells I featured in the other photo, many of which came from Lynne’s sister. The bowl those shells are in was a Christmas gift to Tom’s mother on the Christmas Eve she went into labor with him. Lots of family on that shelf.

Tiny Tuesday!

Today was a day of being close with friends when we said a hard goodbye. Not my place to share this publicly yet, but I wanted to mark the date.

Interestingly, a winged visitor joined us in the early evening as we sat outside (a rare opportunity this summer; shade and a breeze made it possible). I had hoped that distant cry heralded an arrival, and then a very large crow landed in the tallest tree just outside the back of our property. Some say crows are bad omens. Not to me. I think they bring a little magic and sometimes a message. I felt like he confirmed my choice to begin the next book with my “crow” character.

I want to do more thinking and reflecting–timely, as Mercury goes retrograde mid-afternoon tomorrow (thanks, Pat!). For me, Mercury retrograde provides an opportunity to pause. It also reminds me to make sure my actions are aligned with my intentions. Of course, any of us can do this any time. Mercury just makes me mindful of it.

Adding a couple of tiny reminders of a love that made me laugh.

Tiny Tuesday!

It may be Tiny Tuesday, but I packed getting a lot of stuff done today–just the business of living and taking care of a couple of issues I’ve been putting off. So busy that by the time I got home, I needed to start dinner and get dogs in and out between rain showers.

Found this young lady a couple of weeks back on deep discount at Ross. So interesting to me, because I’d just written a new character whose description matches her. (That box she’s placed in front of was a cool gift from Lynne long ago.) She’s Mattel, and not as tall as Barbie. She’s a teen, and the character I wrote is 18, so it works.

Tiny Tuesday!

April 18, the anniversary of my father’s death, never gets past me. I always remember both of my parents’ birth dates on the day of, but most years, I overlook the date that my mother died until sometime after the fact. I think because that anniversary is on the first day of the month (June 1), and I rarely notice month changes in general. I do remember infinite details about both those days, in 1985 and 2008, but I agree with the concept that time is a great healer; even the saddest memories are much softer and always tempered by the better ones.


Because it’s Tiny Tuesday, I woke up with the idea of sharing this lacquer cigarette box, a gift to my father from the chief of police where he was last deployed in Korea before he retired. It’s been packed away for a while, and I’ve decided to display it with my other boxes.


A look inside. On the left is a compartment for holding a pack of cigarettes, maybe even some of the smaller cigar brands. That’s a cigarette lighter with a University of Alabama emblem I was given when I was in college, and since Daddy and I both graduated from there, this seems like a good place for it. On the right is an ashtray in pristine condition, so I know it was never used.


Inside the top is hand lettering to show the names of the giver and my father.

I wish one of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren would want this memento, but to date, none of them seem to have my sentimental (possible hoarding?) tendency. But as long as I’m around, this piece of my father’s history has a home.