Due to software testing at work, I’m officially burned out from working with computers. I need a break from being online so I’m taking myself offline for the weekend. I’ll be back Monday sometime 
However, my Reverb11 posts will keep coming.
I need to spend some time recharging my batteries with a non-computer activity such as photography! I took some time tonight do some iphoneography. This was taken at Ellington Field.
Today I ‘m rebelling against the prompts from Reverb and Resound 2011. What has caught my attention today is the word deliberate and the road that it can take you down.
de·lib·er·ate [adj. dih-lib-er-it; v. dih-lib-uh-reyt] Show IPA adjective, verb, -at·ed, -at·ing.
1. carefully weighed or considered; studied; intentional: a deliberate lie.
2. characterized by deliberation; careful or slow in deciding: a deliberate decision.
3. leisurely and steady in movement or action; slow and even; unhurried: a deliberate step.
4. to weigh in the mind; consider: to deliberate a question.
A couple years ago I began making some very deliberate choices in how I live my life and what I can do for the planet. I’ve documented some of those choices at my other blog Sustainable in Houston. With the prompts from Reverb and Respond 2011, I realize that I want to take some very deliberate steps to drastically alter my lifestyle. It means paring down what I own, using what I have, and engaging more fully than I have in the past few years.
This decision seemed to be confirmed when I picked up The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs
You choose your existence rather than sailing through life on autopilot.
The autopilot part of this comment made me think of not only of stuffing myself with food and rampant consumerism – I have almost more books, art supplies, and office supplies than God – but it also made me think about something Brene Brown said
We are the most in debt, obese, addicted, medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.
I can relate to the obese and debt part of the comment, and if I look at how I use food when I am stressed, angry or depressed, the medicated part applies as well.
So I spent lots of time on the bus this morning writing about what I think a deliberate life means to me. Being deliberate means weighing my options and looking at all the benefits and risks of the choice I am making. Being deliberate means choosing to do the hard thing when the easy seems to be better because it meets my long term needs. Being deliberate means opening up and being more vulnerable when I all I really want to do is pretend everything is OK. Being deliberate means setting boundaries and yet becoming more engaged and tied to the people, places and things in my life. Being deliberate means I am more awake, more alive, and I feel more rather than schedule myself to death and numb out in front of the TV or the computer.
I want to be awake and alive.
And if you haven’t seen it, take a few minutes and watch Brene Brown’s TEDxHouston 2011 Talk about vulnerability.
As I get older *ahem* I am becoming more and more aware of the connections between my body and my mind. If I’m too tired, I don’t function well any more and my brain becomes foggy. This is a far cry from the young woman who used to go for days on just a few hours of sleep every night. But it’s not just lack of sleep that can make me tired.
Eating too much junk makes me feel crappy and lethargic as well. Since switching my diet away from a lot of pre-processed foods, I find that I have a lot more energy than I used to. I also try not to sit as much as and take breaks through out the day so that I’m not stiff from sitting when I am through with the work day.
My mother died of complications from diabetes. I want to avoid the same thing happening to me.
Things I’m procrastinating about:
Twelve things I want to do in 2012.
It’s also time for some of my stuff to find new homes. There are several things that I no longer love or use that need to bless someone else.
and with the possibility that I might not have a job when the merger is all said and done, I want to be in as good of position as possible. I’ve been watching my P’s and Q’s and it wouldn’t hurt me to watch them a little more.The funny thing is one list feeds into the other.
Something I’ve always wanted to learn to do is quilt. The problem is that I am afraid of my sewing machine, even though the thing is WAY easier to use than the one I tried sewing with in high school. I have done a bit of sewing but not as much as I’ve wanted since I bought the machine. One of my goals is to get over the fear of the machine and maybe head up to my Aunt Mary’s to get some lessons from her.
This year’s Thanksgiving feast was my favorite of all time. It was the first time I managed to successfully blend my family’s traditions with R’s. And the food was mostly locally sourced which is important to me. The turkey turned out well. R said it’s the best turkey he’s ever had. The stuffing was fantastic – just the right blend of seasonings, sausage, veggies and bread. 
The sweet potatoes were fabulous as well – slow roasted in the oven then cooled, before mixing with maple syrup and a bit fresh local butter. The finishing touch was topping the sweet potatoes with a mix of dark brown sugar and pecans dotted with butter. It made a brulee type shell over the top that didn’t cloy like marshmallows can. The pumpkin pie was made from scratch as well.
The only true failure of the day was the dinner rolls. I forgot to put in the salt called for in the recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. Who knew salt was so important to bread. The chickens loved the rolls they got.
While it was just me, R, and the dogs for Thankgiving. It was a meal with made with love and shared with the one I love the most. I couldn’t ask for more.
I’m playing a bit of catch up today. I managed to get wicked sick yesterday and spent the day either praying to the porcelain god or asleep. I am feeling better today though.
There haven’t been any great moments of synchronicity in 2011 that I can think of right off the top of my head. Unlike 2010 when I decided to focus on taking pictures of people and I ended up taking an outdoor portraits class with David Vu of DVisualArts. Or when I asked Ramona at Texas Art Asylum to let me know if she got 
in any vintage iron-on transfers and the next time I walked in the door, she had just pulled out the very thing I requested from a box she received.
There are only two instances of synchronicity that I can remember. The first is when Ramona asked if I wanted to be a board member for her non-profit The Center for Recycled Art. I’d been thinking about asking her if she needed help with the web site/social media and she beat me to the punch. At least I get to use my web and social media skills for the greater good.
The second was when I got off the bus downtown for work and saw the old man feeding the birds in front of the Houston Police Station. I just happened to have my DLSR in my backpack with me. And that led me make the pictures that have been my favorites of this year (If you haven’t seen them go towards the middle of this Reverb11 Post about intuition and super powers.)
The one great experience I had this year was seeing Peter Gabriel live early this summer. I think it was just the overall energy of the concert and seeing the images he paired to go with his words. At first I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of the New Blood Orchestra, but when I saw the performance it was out of this world.
Guidance comes from multiple sources in my life. While I do pray for guidance, I’m not always good with the answer I receive and I do struggle with being an obedient servant. My prayers are mostly written, in long hand in a special notebook I keep for that purpose. Sometimes my prayers are answered in a very straightforward manner. Sometimes it takes me awhile to figure out that the path I prayed for is a bit more crooked than I expected.
I also take guidance from my main squeeze. R is happy to give his opinion if I ask for it. Sometimes he doesn’t get the situation I’m explaining and it takes a while to give him the overall picture so that he can guide me. But in those situations the response usually is “when I worked in the shop, we’d throw hammers at each other to solve issues like that.” My response to this answer is always, “Sorry Babe, you can’t do that in corporate America.”
R is great about thinking about what I said and giving me guidance.
The final place I try and get guidance, especially when it comes to my career is from my manager. What I like about his guidance is that he gives me a perspective that I might not had thought about before. At one point he mentioned me moving into management and I honestly wasn’t too keen on the idea. But when I talked to him about it later, he said that one of best parts of being a manager is working with someone to bring out their best. Now that is something I would like to do, but I still don’t think I want to do in a management capacity.
Do I take guidance? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. But I always listen to what’s being said and often times it makes me aware of behaviors or patterns that I wasn’t noticing before.
My picture of the year
My biggest time waster is probably the one I love the most – surfing blogs and social media sites. I can spend hours doing this even though I’ve promised myself that I would spend time doing other things. It’s easy to start doing research on something and five hours later I’ve exhausted myself and gotten nothing else done. After Reverb finishes this month, I do plan on starting the New Year with an Internet sabbatical. I’ll prep some pictures/pieces to post while I am gone and go into hibernation for about a week.
I first did a media fast as part of The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron
Who knows, I may actually do the sabbatical before the end of the year and just respond to my own Reverb #2011 prompts in preparation.
As for what would happen if I devoted a small part of my internet time to something on my Life List. I would expect lots and lots of growth, like getting over my fear of sewing machines and integrating cloth into my art and learning how to make quilts!
Life is good. These are the words that have popped up continually in my life this year. My brother says it all the time, and I’ve noticed other people in my circle who use it as well. And just like Life is Beautiful” has become my theme song, Life is good is my mantra.
If I look at my life, it is good. I have a cat and a boyfriend, both of whom I adore. I have a great job which support my art, gardening and photography habits. I’m blessed to have a good relationship with my family. I’ve also got good fantastic friends and co-workers.
Today’s Reverb prompt and Resound prompt are dichotomies of each other. One asks about being a beginner at something and the other is about something I achieved.
This year I entered a piece in an art show that my friend Ramona was hosting. I was hesitant about entering it. What if Ramona was just blowing smoke up my butt about me being OK about this? But based on the unsolicated comments that came from on my reverb post about intuition and other pieces I’ve shared with people other than Ramona. Maybe, just maybe I do have what it takes to be an artist. If I let myself be an artist, I can continue to explore, work, and grow in this area of my life.
One of my achievements this year is that I have a picture in the PX680 gallery on The Impossible Project Web Site. I took the picture after a friend told me about some street art that was done on Washington street near downtown Houston.
I’m really proud of this image.
When I want to play these days, I get in my car and head down to Jamaica beach and play in Galveston Bay. While it’s a bit on the nippy side now (39 degrees and falling), in the summer there’s nothing better than wading out into the warm waters of the bay and then either jumping into the oncoming waves or floating on my back and just bobbing along. There’s also the beach where I can walk and find shells, or build sand castles.
There is nothing like playing in the Gulf!
As to who is Louise to my Thelma? Well the person who brings me the most joy is R. We’ve been together now six years. It’s been six years of laughter and tears and the occasional tribulations. But we can say we not only love each other, we like each other and I think that’s a rarity these days. I hear so many girlfriends and wives complaining about their husbands and boyfriends and it just makes me sad.
There is a lot of silliness and laughter in my world because of R. Mornings are a combination of cuddling and tickling to wake up, with the occasional “Buzzzzz” coming from R.’s lips and into my ear to make me squirm. There’s battles in the morning to get R up and out of bed by turning all the lights on and pulling off the covers. And there are trips from the coffee fairy when one of us doesn’t want to get up.
We have grand adventures. Trips to Iowa to visit my family with side trips to see where King Corn was filmed and to take a small blue pig down Route 66.
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