From Under My Rock

Has it been more than three months since I've blogged something? Time is making less and less sense to me.

I can fill you in pretty quickly on what's been going on the last 3 1/2 months. It's been a whole lot of very little. The death of my father has kind of thrown me for a loop, the latter of which I find to be an appropriate expression because I do kind of feel like I am tied to the end of a rope that someone is just swinging in wide loop-the-loops nonstop 24/7.

To cope with everything I have pretty much just thrown myself into art... coming up with new projects, some new designs, and delving into some new mediums.

I find that if I need real diversion from reality through art I require very strong immersion into the new work/play… something that takes up a lot of my brain so that it is not thinking about things other than art. I need my brain to just be doing, not thinking. There's entirely too much thinking going on here lately. Dangerous stuff.

Since I have been unable to get upstairs to my own studio (hemiplegic migraines), I needed to bring some of the studio downstairs to the living room. I attempted to keep the needed supplies for the project I wanted to work on down here to a minimum so as not to make a great big mess. Sometimes that's hard to do as a mixed-media artist.

So I grabbed the bare bones of paper crafting supplies: scissors, pens and pencils, eraser, ruler, glue, and tape. But the thing I really wanted to get into was PAINT, which I haven't worked with much for quite some time and have longed to experiment with more as I have been playing with it in my art journal.

Of course doing something with just paint wasn't enough. My desire to do something with printmaking has been growing again. I decided to create my own stamps out of Fun Foam. It's super simple to make your own stamps out of foam, and I want to show you how I do it. But that's for another post!

I'm sure Mr. M is not keen on how much of the living room is over taken by the art studio currently, but I'm having a really good time!

Business is still running mostly as usual. Please bear with me as illness is preventing me from checking e-mail as frequently as I would like to and also from being up in the studio as much as I need to. Currently, it is taking me a few days to answer e-mail and other messages, so please be patient. I’m here but moving at a snail’s pace sometimes.

I'm so looking forward to some insane indie crafty fun at

Mayday! Underground Crafts + Art Show 

Saturday, April 30, 2011

10 AM - 4 PM 

The Main Street Armory 

900 East Main Street in Rochester, NY! 

I, In My Head Studios, will be there with my Tiny Works of Awesome domino and game piece jewelry and accessories plus some NEW stuff! Yay for new! 

I should mention that the vendors at Mayday have created ridiculously excellent FREE swag bags for the first 50 indie shoppers that arrive! Get there early! There will be a girl fight line!

- Vickie

Where To Start? What To Say?

Hello again. I’ve totally been avoiding blogging. But I’m not avoiding you. I have wanted to talk to you, but I don’t quite know what to write. You see, a lot has been going on. An overwhelming “a lot” to be accurate. An “a lot” that has often defied words. So I won’t mince words because there’s no way to sugar coat it. 

My father died. 

Yep. He did. It’s true. As much as I don’t want it to be true. It is. My dear, sweet, beloved daddy is gone.

I’m still in shock and it has been 26 days. He died on New Year’s Eve morning at the young age of 63. It was sudden and unexpected even though he had a second aortic valve replacement surgery in October. He was healthy and perfectly fine when I last saw him on Christmas. 

I am the one who found him at his house. I was too late. There was nothing I could have done. He had clearly been gone for several hours. But I still tried. I sure did. I called 911.

He had been vomiting for a few days (flu?) and my sister had been bringing him fluids and aspirin. She had seen him the night before. But that morning she had her three year old to get to preschool and her job to get to and she was running late. She called me to go check on him, as he was not answering his phone, which is not really unusual for my dad. So Mr. M and I hopped in the car and drove the ten minutes across town to his house expecting to find him sleeping upstairs where he couldn’t hear the phone. 

But he was not sleeping unless you consider it The Big Sleep. We do not know the exact cause of death. We can only guess. It did not look like he suffered at all. 

I had to make the calls to my sister, brother, my mom (they were divorced), and my dad’s girlfriend. Then I had to call his three younger brothers. Oh, my goodness. Those were calls I never want to make again. Ever.

Family and friends arrived a few days later. My brother, his wife and two kids came and that rocked. My three uncles came and that was so awesome. I have not seen two of them in over 10 years. The service for dad was great. So many people showed to pay their respects. It was so nice to meet his friends whom I had only heard stories about.  

So this is the thing that has me very preoccupied. I suppose it’s not something y’all want to read about a ton. I will try to spare you the grief process posts. But you will be getting a great big tribute to dad post as soon as I can stop crying when I try to write it. 

Dad was also a maker of things – particularly antique cars and hot rods as well as model trains. Much of what I do as a craftswoman I learned from him. He taught me how to use almost every tool I own and then some. So naturally being in the studio right now is really hard for me. Everything reminds me of him. I come in here and just cry if I try to work. Most projects are on hold. (My shop remains open, as everything is ready to ship.) 

I’m trying to stay busy, but all of this has caused a flare in my fibromyalgia and I’ve been in a lot of pain. And it has dropped below 0 degrees F here too much and that isn’t helping. 

My last few posts about taking in the love seem so poignant now, don’t they? So many lessons learned about love these last 26 days. Being able to be receptive to love right now is holding me up through this. But I think that may have to wait for another post by itself.

If you do anything at all today, I highly recommend you make sure to hug your loved ones and tell them what they mean to you. You may only have today to do it. 

My bloggy friends, I love you! xoxo

- Vickie

It Worked!

Guess what. Nobody noticed! Or if they did then they didn’t let on and gave me gifts anyway. They love me anyway – no matter how I feel about myself. And quite possibly in spite of how I feel about myself just to prove a point because they are cool like that.

My last post was about wanting a certain thing for Christmas and how my self-esteem issues get in the way of feeling like I deserve nice things at all. So I set an intention in order to try to enjoy this holiday more and not become tangled up in my own emotional baggage. My intention is:

This year I am going to make a conscious effort to pay attention to feeling good about receiving. *

Receiving is really all about the love. Taking in the love. My family took the time to think of gifts I would like, went out and bought them with hard earned money, boxed them up, wrapped them ever so carefully (my mom even makes her own ribbon bows!), and presented them with this look of hope in their eyes that I would like them. Add up all that effort and love. That is priceless!! Then repeat for each and every gift.

Would they do that for me if they hated me as much as I hate myself? NO. They. Would. Not. So there, self-hatred! Take that!!! You got a big ol’ LOVE whooping!

It felt great! It felt really uncomfortable! I was squirmy in my seat. I had to keep reminding myself to have a good time. Oh, yeah, right, take in the love. That was the plan. I opened each gift deliberately and slowly trying to take in every electron of love I could handle.

The Result: JOY. Relaxation. Appreciation for how lucky I am. Fun. Happiness. Gratitude. My Love Tank filled up.

This little change in my thoughts about receiving made a HUGE difference in my enjoyment of the holidays this year. That’s all it was. A change in my thoughts. I changed “I am doo doo.” to “I am loved.” and it made all the difference. How simple. How completely complex.

I hope your holidays went well!

- Vickie
xoxo

*I’m including 2011 in this intention. 

In the photo above I admit I am not as happy as I look. I didn’t want to have that photo taken, but I needed an image for this follow up post. Yes, I do need a scarf at my mom's place. That's a patio door behind me and the cold blows right through it. It's about 30 degrees where I am sitting. :)

A (Possible) New Gadget For My Old Baggage

I am ridiculously difficult to buy presents for… unless you are buying me art supplies. Then the list of possible gifts is endless and has been known to include power tools like compound miter saws.

I’m not a girly girl so jewelry, make-up, and most fashionable clothing is out. I can’t use lovely scented lotions because I’m allergic to so many unidentified things. I don’t really cook anymore so kitchen stuff is useless, not to mention my kitchen is already well stocked with cookware and gadgets.

I do not like other people spending money on me. I really truly do not like it. In fact, I really dislike spending money on myself, too. So when it comes time for Mr. M to ask me what I want for Christmas, I get hung up in The Spending Money (On Me) Spiral. He is spending money on me. But it’s OUR money. Therefore it’s partly my money being spent on me. Double whammy.

The double whammy causes me to be completely, totally, cripplingly indecisive if I happen to (rarely) want something that is a little expensive. This year’s indecisiveness is brought to you by our friends at Apple because I really want the new iPod Touch.

“But, Vickie,” you say. “You already have a perfectly good iPod Touch.” Yes, I do. I know. I love it. It works just fine. It has brought me countless hours of joy.

But last week my twin sister, Valerie, got an iPhone. This was the first time I had a chance to play with an iPhone. The screen is amazingly gorgeous. I can actually read tiny lettering on web pages on the iPhone that my failing eyesight can’t read on my Touch. Then I played with the camera, the video camera, FaceTime, and then all the other cool stuff that my Touch doesn’t have.

My brain began to scream, “WANT! WANT! WANT!” My brain began to show me in rapid fire succession all the fun projects that I could do with a new Touch like make stop motion animations, pepper Twitter with photos, make video tutorials, FaceTime with my sister and far away friends, and finally have access to things like VoiceOver so I can have the web and Twitter “read to me” when I need to rest my eyes or cannot tolerate light anymore.

I have been going back and forth with “yes” and “no” to Mr. M on this for weeks, even before Valerie got her iPhone. He has not enjoyed my dance with The Spending Money (On Me) Spiral. Today he required an answer. I balked. I stammered. Both “yes” and “no” fought to come out of my mouth at the same time. So I completely gave the decision to him. Now it’s going to be a surprise if he buys it or not. I am quite sure he will buy it because he is so super nice to me and totally spoils me at Christmas all year. But I am not going to be disappointed if he doesn’t buy it either. Like I said, I have a perfectly good iPod Touch already.

So where lies the rub?? What is my damage?

This is not about the iPod Touch. This is not really about the money. This is about my self-hatred, which lately has been off the charts as I struggle to be productive through excruciating pain and fatigue trying to be “good enough” and never getting there.

Inside, I am being torn in half.

One side really wants the iPod Touch and is excited like a gleeful 6 year old about it. This side is jumping up and down inside my head and squealing right now about playing Angry Birds on that clear new screen.

The other side is just doom doom doom. “You don’t deserve it. Who do you think you are? You have a perfectly good iPod already. No one should ever buy you any gifts because you are a piece of doo doo. No nice things for you – especially nice things that will bring you untold, incalculable hours of fun and joy and let you spread untold, incalculable hours of fun and joy to the interwebs!”

I really need to work on this self-hatred problem. It’s sneaking its way into everything. I deny myself so much good because of it. I deny myself happiness, success, comfort, and the list could go on for quite some length. What ends up happening is that I am also denying you - my family and friends - the gifts I have been given to share because this self-hatred makes me isolate and not share my love/joy/art with anyone. This self-hatred makes me feel like no one could possibly ever want to see what I do or spend one second with me. I fight tooth and nail with it just to post what I do on the web, like this post for instance.

New iPod Touch or not, receiving gifts at Christmas taxes my self-hatred significantly. As the pile of gifts with my name on them grows, so does my anxiety. If these people really knew how horrible I am they would be giving me coal like I deserve!

This year I am going to make a conscious effort to pay attention to feeling good about receiving. I’m going to listen more to the gleeful 6 year old in me. I’m not going to listen to doom doom doom. Receiving a gift is about taking in the love from the gift giver. It’s not about me and my cr@p unless I choose to make it about me and my cr@p by listening to the doom. Doom, you shall have Christmas off! I’m going to keep reminding myself that if I really were as horrible as I think I am, then these wonderful people who love me might have noticed by now and wouldn’t be giving me any gifts at all.

As part of my plan for 2011, the word I have chosen to focus on is HEALING (more on this soon). Quite near the top of the list of things that need to be healed is my self-hatred. I think that might clean up some other messes lurking in my baggage, too.

If you are suffering from the “self-hatred doom doom doom” this holiday season let me know in the comments and we will pull each other through this together! If you have a case of the “I’m not good enough”s this year, I got your back, too! If these are things you have worked through and have some solutions to offer I welcome your thoughts!

Please have a happy and safe holiday!

Love,

- Vickie

xoxo

Customer Action Shots: Kitty Ornaments

My friend Sandy, of PunkyJane.etsy.com, was kind enough to send me a set of dominoes she thrifted for a mere 20 cents last year. I made her two domino ornaments as a thank you. She requested that I put her new kitties, Muppit and Licorice, on them to mark their first Christmas with their family.

I have not done pet portraits before. She sent me photos of the cats and I did my best. She says they really do look like her cats! Yay!

This year she is using the ornaments to mark their stockings. How clever! I asked her to send me some action shots of my Tiny Works of Awesome in use! Are these not adorable with all the Christmas decorations around them?!

I hope you are having a fantastic holiday time with good food and fun with loved ones. I still have gifts to make and gifts to buy! We have not even put up our tree yet. That simply must happen soon. I adore Christmas trees! I could sit and stare at a Christmas tree all night.

But not tonight... for tonight we party! Tomorrow is my birthday, and I intend to spend it sleeping off tonight's festivities. Then a trip to the craft store, of course.

Have a happy happy merry weekend!


- Vickie