A video to melt hearts and bring tears

I just saw a video on the Today show that melted my heart and brought tears to my eyes...

Go to this link... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12065856/
and scroll down to "This Week's Highlights"...
Click on the video that's listed as "Daddy! Tearful surprise homecoming"...

WARNING!!! This is NOT a video to watch without kleenix... unless using your sleeve to wipe tears and snot is something you prefer.

That little boy's face... so much emotion. He missed his Daddy so much.

Spring is here... and already...

There are little purple flowers blooming like crazy in the front yard. Rain over the past week has turned the back yard into a swampland. But that rain has that nice spring smell to it. Weather has been warm enough to go without a coat... in fact it's colder in the house than outside... so a coat or sweatshirt inside is nice. The grass is a bit greener than before and soon there will be yellow daffodils all over the yard. This morning... before the sun rose, I could hear the birds... chirping away... if they were singing they need to find a better choral director though. Yup. Spring is here and I like it.

This morning, I've been watching "Breakfast with the Arts" on A & E. My favorite episode covering the South Pacific... with lots of island dancing. It's awesome to see - espeically as in the cultures shown, drumming and dancing are ways to tell stories. And I like stories. (And next on the travel channel is "Passport to Europe" - and it looks like this episode is about my favorite European city... Athens, Greece.

Oh, it's starting. With the Acropolis!!!! I remember my visit to the Acropolis. Standing in front of the Parthenon. In awe. And an annoying professor saying "Jeffrey, come back and listen to me, I'm telling you about the Parthenon". Not taking my eyes off the immense and ancient structure, I walked backward toward the sound of his annoying voice... thinking... "I'm standing in front of the oldest building I ever saw and he wants me to listen to his lecture... yeah right."

An update on what's no longer missing in my studio space

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how my studio space was missing a place for current projects or works in progress.

It is really cool to have that in my studio. I've been doing stuff. Just a few minutes ago, I put together a collage of a bunch of paper money & coins I saved from my 1990 trip to Italy & Greece. I'd been wanting to do it for ages.

Over the weekend, I finished a project I started at Christmas. I took some clear flat marble like "stones" from a hobby store... and glued Christmas pictures on the back. The glue dries clear and voila... a neat bunch of Christmas "stones". (Okay... I've got to get a camera to show you all what I did).

I also fixed a yarn doll I made that had started coming undone.

I wet the back of a watercolor I painted 2 years ago to flatten it out. When I initially did it... I forgot to wet the back, so it ended up curling lengthwise. Now... it lays flat.

I'm happy to be creating things again. The "Works in progress" zone is really helping.

Did you hear about Captain America?

He was killed off this month. It made national news - actually spoiling things for fans as the comic book stores hadn't opened yet to sell the current issue of Captain America.

Google it and see the news reports... Or click this link (hope it works)
More about Cap can be found at Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_America
And here's a statement that Marvel Comics put out... on Newsarama.

I don't read Marvel Comics much beyond an occassional X-Men trade paperback or graphic novel. Still... as a comic book super-hero fan... this is pretty big. DC Comics killed Superman in 1993 and brought him back to life in 1994. So... super-hero deaths... not entirely permanent. It will be interesting to see what develops. Especially since there's a rumor of a Captain America movie to join Marvel super-hero movies like X-Men, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four.

What was missing from my studio space

A couple of weeks ago, it hit me. My art studio/office space was missing something very important. I had artwork on display, sacred mementos on display, plenty of storage for supplies, and a good table (an old computer desk) to do projects on in the center of the room so I could walk all the way around it. But a couple of weeks ago, I realized I didn't have any place to put works in progress such as projects I was working on or that needed finishing. So, I went through everything, moved stuff around, finding several unfinished projects in the process. And now... I have it. A space for unfinished projects or works in progress. Now I can see what I have to work on. As I finish each project and empty that space out ... I also get a visual message of completion.

Instants

In the news today and yesterday... the tornadoes in the south - one struck a school full of teens, killing several. A bus crash in Atlanta, killing 4 college students and 2 adults. Two separate incidents... and in an instant... life changes for many parents... many families.

News like that always takes me back to my "instants". One of those was on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2000. I was preparing to leave for a night class. I checked my e-mail. One from my brother. Our mother had a stroke and was in the hospital. She did not survive. In an instant... my life changed.

My heart goes out to the families and friends. These kinds of instants are impossible to prepare for let alone predict. Even expected things can be difficult to prepare for like a loved one dying of cancer (my father).