Perfectionism Plague

Happy Saturday friends!

I have two more spots left to fill for the first Women's Circle of 2025. I wrote a whole post about what this Women's Circle is about and you can read that here. In short, it will start Wednesday, January 8th, from 6-9pm and will run 8 weeks until the end of February. The cost is $280 for the 8 weeks. There is also a small supply list you'll need to buy before class starts. It's fun, it's easy, no art experience is necessary!

I know, I know, I hear it all the time, "I don't have an artistic bone in my body." Or, "I'm too much of a perfectionist." To which I say, "You don't need any experience at all. I promise. And as far as perfectionism:

Seriously, this plagues us all and I intentionally use the word "plague." Everyone struggles with it, everyone hates it. And yet...we do nothing to make it stop. Come join the group and practice working through the stickiness of perfectionism. The more you allow yourself to play with art (and that's what I think we do) the easier it gets and the less of a hold it has on you. Plus, the art part of the group is only a piece of it!

So, I will practice what I preach! I have two paintings on my easels right now. They've been there for months. I'm stuck. Guess why. Yep, 30+ years painting and I've come down with the Perfectionism Plague. Dammit. Each painting is too far along to make mistakes at this point. I was talking to someone about them this week and what popped out of my mouth was, "I just need to take some acrylic markers and put down some scribbles! I'll either love them and move on or hate them, fix them, and move on. Either way works!

Will it be hard? Yep. Really hard. But I'm going to do it anyway because perfectionism sucks and I don't want it ruling my life.

So, to those of you who say, "I'm too much of a perfectionist to try a Women's Circle!" I say, "Fight it! We will work through it together!" We don't have to allow the negatives to rule our lives! Call, text, or email me to talk about it or join by clicking here!

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Did you know that December 20th is called Mother's Night? I've not heard this before. The night before Winter Solstice is the night that the Great Mother goes into labor to birth/rebirth the Sun, which is why it was given the name.

I love this time of year, it has great memories: I became a mother on December 19, 2007. That was the date that ManChild (just 6 months old then) officially became our son (passed through court in Ethiopia—we didn't actually get to fly out to get him until the end of January.) On December 20th my parents flew in for the holiday and I got to tell Mom she was officially a grandma! Happy tears!

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We are coming up to what one of my favorite creatives, Austin Kleon, calls Dead Week. Those are the days between Christmas and New Year's. I have a couple of clients and the newsletter and that's it. ManChild doesn't go back to school until the 6th, yay! A couple of years ago Austin was writing about how he struggled with that week. Work? Play? Both? What was expected? Nothing. Nothing should be expected for that week. We are wrapping up the year, if you're allowed to relax, do :-)

THE RANCH:

Back in 2022 I was asked to illustrate a book for Mission for Molly. This week the writer of the book Julie (left), Molly's dad Willard, and I got together at the farm for a few pictures. Julie loves the ponies too so of course they had to be in the picture:

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Wynter is doing well at Katie's! Isn't this the cutest picture of them!

They were integrated on Friday after a few days of being next to each other over the fence and this is them now:

Happiness 💜

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This is what the inside of a pumpkin looks like after the goats have had a go at it:

All those grooves are from their bottom teeth raking it :-) Goats only have bottom teeth in the front of their mouth and tops and bottoms in the back. When they eat something like a pumpkin, they have to scoop with their bottom teeth!

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One of the things you learn pretty quickly on a farm is all about the circle of life:

I didn't see it happen that day but today while we were out taking pictures for the book we were on the opposite side of this area and there was another pile of bluebird feathers. I wonder what got them? We have several sweet cats around and we've seen fox and plenty of birds of prey.

When we lived at our Colorado farm I had quite a few younger women who were kind of new to the farm have a hard time with this kind of stuff. One was so upset that a robin wasn't flying away, that in a panic she yelled, "We have to do something! We have to call the police!" In case you don't know, the police will not be coming to help you with a robin. We picked it up (obviously something was wrong since it let us) and put it in the garden area that was completely fenced so it would be more safe. It wasn't there a few hours later and no pile of feathers so maybe it ran into something, was stunned, and just needed to recover it's senses.

I get it. It was hard for me too in the beginning! The more you hang out at a farm, the more death you see. Sometimes the farm animals but birds were the most common. The babies accidentally get pushed out of their nest and plummet to the ground. I only ever found one that could be saved and we took it to a wildlife rehabber. Or worse, a snake gets into the nest and eats them, gack. Sometimes they crash into the house or a window or just get old and die.

One time B-Rad saw a coyote with one of our guinea hens in it's mouth, carrying it away while it flapped and yelled. He used the shotgun to haze it into releasing the bird and she got away, whew! Guineas are great alarm birds, they are the first to know when anything came onto the farm. They aren't great flyers though, think awkward chicken, kinda low to the ground so they were often easy pickings for the abundance of coyotes we had. Every year or so I'd get another set to replace the ones we lost. It's weird isn't it—that we could just get so used to guineas being eaten that it was just part of the process to replace them? And that some animals are replaceable while others aren't. Some you feel sad and move on and some you grieve.

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I've ruined the sink in my kitchen island. It's the spare and is often the one used when we are peeling veggies etc. I was peeling garlic and some of the skins fell into the disposal. Fine, I just ground them up. No problem. Except that's been almost two weeks and every time we wash our hands, the smell of garlic wafts up. I haven't been able to fix it yet. Any ideas?

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Farm friends! I've been wearing Keens boots for farm chores for years. The last two pairs though (I go through a pair a year) have delaminated quickly:

These are only a few months old! Any recommendations? I'm looking for fairly flexible, waterproof, and have a removable insole so I can put my own in. Let me know here!

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Sweet I Love Lucy:

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I love these four, Grandma Alaska, her daughter Mama Dancer, babies Parsley and Rosemary. They often curl up together:

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Twelve years ago. My first Christmas together with my Raynie:

THE MEMES:

My brother and I have been playing the What's Up There game and he sent me this 😂:

Every game I see where the announcers ask the players or coach inane questions, this is what I hear:

This will always be funny to me and on the rare occasion the word "moot" is uttered (uddered!! hahahahaaaaaa!) I will always say this 👇🏽 It's one of my favorite lines from Joey on Friends!

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