GOT MY TWO OWOH WINNERS!!!

I have my two winners: They are Jenny R.D. who owns the blog ARTISTICALLY DESIGNED DIVERSIONS (which, by the way is a great blog!) and Beth ???? who I have emailed to let her know!

Congragulations ladies! Your goodies will be mailed out to you on Monday!

THE JOURNY BEGINS FOR OUR CIRCLE JOURNALS!

Late last year I was invited by Allison Brandst - a beautiful person and artist - to join her in an ambitious long term project she called a "Circle Journal". As part of this project, which involves wonderful artists from the U.S. and the U.K., we each prepared a 4x4 art journal with enough pages so that all members of the group could add their art. We each chose a stamp as the "theme" of the journal. Every artist would add their art using this stamp. We were told also to do an ATC using that same "theme" stamp. The art page is sent along with the journal to the next artist; the ATCs are sent to Ali so that she can hold on to them while the journal travels from place to place (like those wonderful jeans!!!).

I received a beautifully done journal from KAREN MERCADO. Her stamp was so pretty and I had NO idea what to do with it!! This is such a wonderful project that I wanted to make sure that whatever I did for her book would be something she would love. I finished my page and my ATC last night and they are on their way to England (yes, I am VERY jealous of this journal right now!!).

These pictures show the page and the ATC. It will take 8-10 months for these journals to make their rounds and I can't WAIT to get mine back. In the meantime, I am so excited about working on other journals!!!

This is EXACTLY it Alex!

My wonderful brother-in-law Alex sent this video to me this weekend after reading my "mid-life-crisis" postings! I belive it's a commercial somewhere but it is EXACTLY what I've been talking about!!! I have no problems with aging - I just want to do it on my terms and in a way that makes ME happy!!!

Thank you Alex. Somehow you manage to understand me when so many others don't! That is just one of the reasons I adore you!

SO MANY KINDRED SPIRITS

Wow!! I am stunned by the amount of pesonal email I've received regarding my post of January 26th, 2009. I shared with you how I felt, well, "suffocated" right now. Wishing I could do and be someone else.

So many of you have shared those same feelings with me. So many of you feel "suffocated" in your lives.... It's not that you (or I) don't love our families, our husbands, our children........... It's not that you don't want to be a mother, a daughter, a wife.... It's just that sometimes you just want to be a WOMAN - an individual with personal goals, needs, and dreams.

At least for me, that is where my dissatisfaction and need comes from. I've always had and always lived up to my "labels" - a respectful and dutiful daughter, a sister who adores her younger brothers, a wife who loves her husband, a mother that would give her life for her children, a grandmother that sees through the eyes of a precocious two year old.... But I've never had a chance to just be ME - just be a woman without all those labels... to just BE. I don't feel guilty about it. I have no reason to - and either do any of the wonderful woman who have written to me. I'm just finding my way around the solution - because there HAS to be one. None of us should have to settle for what everyone else expects of us.

Why is it that when we reach a point in our lives that we've given all we can give - a point where we want to take our life back from the hands of all those who pull at us in a million different directions - there is guilt involved? What in the WORLD do we have to feel guilty about? Why are we sentenced to a life of living for everyone else but us?

Thank you so much for sharing such personal feelings with me. Your stories, your fears and confessions have validated everything I've been feeling lately. But most of all, thank you for the hugs --- for every email has felt like a hug from a dear friend.

We'll figure this out........... at least for me, I know I have to.