Get Smart!: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and HIghest Paid People in Every Field

Get Smart!: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field by Brian Tracy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Meh... Figure out your goals, focus on how to get there, implement the habits that allow you to achieve them, Change one habit at a time, copy habits of people who have achieved the goals you want, wishing is not working, successful people work 60 hours/week 6 days a week (nope not for me) Invest early - compound interest is the greatest power. Prioritize. Ditch what isn't working. Get rid of the negative influences. Same thing we've all read before, strangely we don't all act on it.

I would however recommend it to young people just starting out. The reason we've read it before is it is true, maybe a younger person would be ambitious enough to act on it. It is well written. I think the complete emphasis is money as the definition of success however.



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Brodeur: Beyond the Crease

Brodeur: Beyond the Crease by Martin Brodeur

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Very well written, it's like you hit a bar for an evening each chapter and Marty just talked about hockey stuff, teams, games, money, lockouts, coaches (serious bromance with Lou) how his personal life fit in, the Olympics, growing up in Montreal, his motorcycles. I've always admired Marty's play, calmness (ok his not mine when he went out of the net for a puck) , his ethics, team play and that only increased after reading the book.

My favorite part of the book?? Him disciplining his son for acting like a Ranger's fan.... just loved it!!!

I hope he someday writes a book on the second half - this book ends before the Devil's moved to the Rock in Newark - he played a lot more big games, broke a lot more records. I'd also like to hear why (I'm pretty sure it was because of Lou - although he was playing less to let Schneider play more - sucks getting old) he broke my heart and went to the Blues, and especially Blues management.



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Before Happiness

If you were wondering about my failed attempts at 21 days of 3 positive things - this book is the cause.  The problem I personally had was losing one of my best friends (no he didn't die) at least for now, and my inability to deal with the sadness that caused. (I'm slowly becoming able to be thankful for all the wonderful memories, and like Garth Brooks says in the Dance- I could have missed the pain but then I'd have to miss the dance.  And I'm seriously holding on to him promising to be in touch at some point in the future, and jealous of his faith that our friendship was meant and will be back someday)  But I can't hold that against the book, although this made it harder to read the last section than the first three I started prior to 3 weeks ago.

Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change by Shawn Achor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A lot of happiness self-help books are basically a bunch of bunk in my opinion. This book actually gives you the tools to develop a more positive approach to life and even more valuable tools to help spread this positivity to those around you.

Simple things - 3 extra smiles per day, use the power lead (speak first not loudest), making stress work for you, map the meaning in your life, spot and stop the hijackers, do something altruistic, identify your x spots, make 70% your goal, keep your eyes on the beach not the rocks. etc.



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I making notes here, so I hopefully don't have to re-read the book when my frame of mind improves.

First - and this is really important - there is a difference between being positive within reality and being a blanket optimist. And positive realism allows you to make changes while pure optimism really doesn't.

The book is split up into five sections:

The Ordinary Spaceman

The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut by Clayton C. Anderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A great read - story of how a kid from Nebraska achieves his goal of US astronaut after 15 years and 15 application tries. How he ends up in mgmts "penalty box" which while cutting short his career after the end of the STS program, did allow him to stay himself. The credit he gives his wife, family and faith, as well as the heartbreaking death of his mom a month after he returned to earth. The amazing experiences he has in space, training for space and life in general are a great inspiring read.

(also as someone who has motion sickness issues - it's great to know that astronauts also have puking issues!)




And I must confess, the Columbia and the Challenger tragedies still make me cry


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Joana Vasconcelos

OMG!  Google her!  Right now!  She's a Portuguese artist and her installations are absolutely stunning! As you know,  I end up using my Google-fu a lot for Nerdopolis and Nerdwars, especially at the end of the month when I'm helping fellow Fraggles work their projects into challenges.  Yarnardent made a doily and this artist was mentioned in the  description so I Googled her.  WOW!  Since it was a doily I found these pictures:

But then I saw all these pictures of giant shoes!  I am so in love!

And my inner Starwars geek squee'd at this:

I want to use this as inspiration for a much smaller project somehow:

She works with wrought iron to!  How cool is this teapot???

 

Was in some Card Swaps

On Ravelry, I'm usually in the monthly card swap on the Tiny Owl Knits group.  It's one card and if you want to add something as long as it still fits in a flat envelope that's a choice. (they had some issues with bubble envelopes not getting to their destinations - especially overseas, and trying to keep costs down.) But for the holidaze, I did that swap, The Cave (group for hermit and recluse wanna bees on Ravelry) had a card swap (just a card) everyone sends to everyone, if someone didn't want to mail overseas they would just get domestic partners, and if you wanted to do it by email, only partners ok with email.  So I think that was 26 cards. 

 And then I thought the Card Swap concept was such fun - that I ran one on Backstage Team Fraggle (the group for the Nerdwars/Nerdopolis Fraggle teams). 

 Then at the last minute Team Iron Throne (another Nerdopolis team) decided to do one - only it was three partners and each partner had a secret word  that you had to put in their card.  When you received your cards - your code words spelled a phrase from Iron Throne.

 My phrase was "Words are Wind"

I have a thought... I'm going to use christmas cookie cutters and cut out the images on the card. Use crochet thread to crochet (hopefully - never crocheted with thread before) a "frame"  then use  Christmas coloured fingering weight yarn to attach them all into a garland for next year.... eventually I WILL have a handmade tree! (well not tree but decorated tree)

A Finished Knitting Project!!!

Curt has something we call Vacation Brain.  His frontal lobe seems to shut down, along with much of his higher cognitive functions.  I am not looking forward to his retirement...  Anyway,  recently the Angie keeps saying he's on the Struggle Bus.  I thought this was funny - then I saw this pattern and had to make it for him!

 

Infinite Worlds:

The People and Places of Space Exploration.

 

Michael Soluri had an amazing opportunity to take pictures behind the scenes as NASA prepped, launched and executed STS-125 the 2 week shuttle mission that serviced the Hubble Telescope for the fourth and final time.  (OK I'm the geek that gets teary eyed thinking about the slow freezing death that the Hubble will experience when it's power packs are depleted) Some of the amazing pictures can be seen here. The book also showcases many of the incredible images taken by the Hubble.  (I'm going to need a thesaurus by the end of this) 

The book itself was larger than I thought it would be- would make an awesome coffee table book, and when I started reading it the pages were like this:



Sorry for the bad picture - I took it with my phone. I started getting nervous.  A picture book, no matter how good the pictures with a sentence a page was not going to entertain me for long.  Fortunately this was not what the rest of the book was like.  

There were essays, by all of the astronauts on the mission, by many of the people behind the scenes, the launch director, the EVA director, the guy who serviced the heat shield tiles, the guy who maintains the airplanes the astronauts use to get around.  Many of the essays were about what drew these people into the science/engineering/tech jobs that eventually led them to NASA and this mission.  John Grunsfeld takes you from his Childhood in Chicago, his adolescence in the suburbs, leading to his scientific education and pursuits.  Many describe how the early space missions of the 60's inspired them as children.  Soluri's pictures go with the essays, brilliant color and dramatic black and white.

The section that most  touched me however, was in an essay written by Launch Director Michael Leinbach. 

" A final thought.  My wish is for future policy makers to adopt a long-term, sustainable goal for manned spaceflight. ....... Accept no long gaps in manned spaceflight missions, such as the one we are experiencing now.  The team dynamic is lost; the people move on.  To rebuild a team on paper is easy, but to make it happen in real life takes years.  The shuttle launch team was together for thirty years.  The relationships established, the trust built, the in-depth knowledge of the hardware gained , and the earned efficiency of the team cannot be dictated.  It is nourished and sharpened over years.  That is all gone from manned space flight right now....... America's manned spaceflight program is in a hiatus that grows longer and longer. Sad."

The only thing  I disagree with in that quote is the use of manned.  I think enough women have flown that they should change it to crewed. (some say peopled, I like crewed)

If you get the chance to read this book, read it.       

I Dare Me

Finished reading : I Dare Me, How I Rebooted and Recharged My Life by Doing Something New Every Day by Lu Ann Cahn

I think a lot of people can gain from reading this book.  It's really easy as adults to fall into a rutt, for everything to be stuck, and wait for something BIG to pull you out.  My great-grandfather used to say the reason time goes by so much faster for adults than for kids is because everyday starts looking like every other day, so they all blend together.  And to make matters worse, we all start looking for the weekend at 8am on Monday morning - so we blur through the week, the weekend can't live up to our expectations every week,, so we're looking for the next weekend.  When you're a kid everyday has something new, or different or unusual - good or bad.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure today's couch potato/ never set foot outside in the sunlight have that, but when I was a kid we did.

Some of the stuff Cahn does is just crazy,  I'm never going to zip line through the Mexican jungle.  I never plan on BEING in the Mexican jungle.  I think what I'm attracted to is the inspiration of the little things she does in her book.  While we all wait for something BIG to happen, we bemoan the fact that we don't have the time or money to make these big things happen, and we dig the rutts we're stuck in even deeper.  SOme of the things she did takes no money and almost no time.  I know that I personally can find things in my life everyday that I can try to do differently,  and I plan on trying.  No, you aren't getting a video blog like she did for a year - I may mention them from time to time.  And no, those of you who know me personally already know, I really don't care if people around me think I'm nuts.  Most people do anyway.

Altruism

There's a guy at work, nice guy, mid 60's, works in garden, not really in my social group, but we talk once in the while when he comes over to use the computers at my desk.  He got a kidney transplant 25-30 years ago (don't remember exactly) now that kidney is failing. Some important number is really, really low, and he's been really feeling poorly for months now. He was on the list for a donor kidney.

There's a woman at work, works in kitchens, about my age-ish so figure between late 40's early 50's.  I really don't exchange much more than basic pleasantries with her.  She knits, but one project at a time, and has no stash - buys yarn for a project, then knits it repeat. weird, I know. No idea if she's married, if she has kids, I know is she loves Cooper Mini's.  Apparently she is a good match for Lou.  Since she is, she decided to donate one of her kidneys to him.  

They weren't really friends or anything, just two people that work in the same building, and speak when they bump into each other at work.  When my friend Chris asked her - she just said he needs a kidney, I have two.  I'm kind of (not sure of the word I'm looking for - confused? maybe?) at the (motivation?  reasoning? logic?) of her decision.  I'm 100% sure I wouldn't make that offer. (pretty sure that mine wouldn't pass anyway, with my health issues but still) I'd give one to Curt, or the Angie, or my brother without a second thought.  I'm not really sure if I'd even give one to family outside of them.  And friends?  There are maybe two I might consider... maybe....

It's hard to say exactly ( mind you I can't even donate blood for three different reasons on the blood donor form last time I checked)  I am puzzled?  One of my friends donated bone marrow  - twice - to strangers, but other than being sore for about a week, he grew more.  

I did donate to the fund the store is collecting for them ( the company will match what we collect) and I will say a prayer next week when the surgery is scheduled. 

Doodling! I can get behind this idea!

Since I gave up my Creativity class, I found this book:

I like to doodle.  I don't really draw - most of my doodles aren't pictures of things they are usually geometric shapes that kind of grow outward.  I'm only on page 7, but Ms Brown makes some really good points in the first 6 pages.  Little kids don't draw well, but they enjoy doodling.  We're born knowing how to doodle.  We start to give up doodling as we get better at words and numbers.  Her thought is we gave up visual literacy when we acquired verbal and numerical literacy.  Her point is also with the data revolution and the sheer amount of data raw and analyzed, and needing to be analyzed, we can't afford to continue to be visually illiterate.  

I was drawn to this book, after taking the learning to learn course.  Doodling, abstractness and art help take your mental processes from focused thinking to diffuse thinking.  I have the perfect example from earlier today:  I saw a tweet which stated : There are 4 and only 4 countries on the planet whose name is only 1 syllable long.  It took about 5 seconds to come up with Spain. maybe another minute of mentally scanning the globe to come up with France.  both of these answers came through focused thinking.  I then had my attention drawn to the NASCAR race on tv, it took about one lap of the race for me to come up with Chad being a country in Africa. More laps went by, no idea of the 4th country.  I even tweeted that I was stuck on 3 countries.  I then made the bottom doodle, as the first exercise in the book.  As I started coloring Greece popped into my head.  Chad and Greece as answers ere both achieved through diffuse thinking.

Here is a TED talk - it's only about 5 minutes - that the author did a few years ago:



The bottom two figures are the doodles I did for the first exercise on page 7.  There were only 2 directives.  First, draw a continuous line without lifting your pen, that crosses itself occasionally for 10 seconds.  Second - shade sections that were enclosed shapes by these lines.   I chose to color them with highlighters, part of me is still 8, I like coloring.  The bottom doodle was done during the race, where Tony was running poorly (although before he got caught up in the big wreck) I was kind of stressed.  Drawing the weird shape did relax me - especially when Greece popped in my head.  Coloring it in really did lower my stress levels.  I did the top figure a couple hours after the race.  I had gone outside to clear the snow off my car for tomorrow morning (it is still snowing, but I figure this will be less snow tomorrow morning, I need to be at work at 530am)  So I was less stressed when I drew it. None the less, I could physically feel calmer, and less stressed  while I drew it.  By the time I got to color it, I was actually feeling happier.

There will be more updates on my doodling in the future. 

Nerd Wars

I've talked about NerdWars before.  It's a 3 month long knitting/crochet/weaving/spinning game/contest.  It's actually helped me come closer to my knitting goals, because when the end of the month looms, I pic up my project to finish.  It has been great helping me finish projects - both because of the end of month deadlines, and because so far, every round three has had a finish a WIP challenge.  Since every month includes a "giving geeks" category- it has given me new places to donate my craft.  ( I should say I love to knit, but socks, fingerless gloves, some shawls and bags are all I keep for me.   I don't really wear hats or gloves or sweaters,, and I have enough throws to last my life - so most of my knitting gets given away) Plus, I have made a bunch of friends in the group. Second only to my NASCAR knitting friends.

Some people get confused when I tell them about NerdWars.  They think for instance if you are on the Star Wars team - all you can make is lightsabres and deathstars and yoda hats.  Or if you are on the Harry Potter team - all you can make are owls and brooms and golden snitches.  That isn't really how it works.  There are 6 challenges every month.  You can do one, you can do all - While there is a badge  for "melting the cube"  doing all 6 projects it isn't necessary or expected. There is also a badge for insane over achievers like your's truly for doing all 18 -

But really the challenges are sometimes simple sometimes not.  There was a square challenge under giving geeks.  I put together a lapghan - not in time for the original charity I had in mind- so I donated it for Christmas for a local nursing home to give to a resident who didn't have gifts or visitors.  Some people just made squares and donated them to warm up america or other put squares together charities.  One person made rectangle kitty toys for a local shelter.  Another challenge was for the number pi.  Some people knit/crocheted pies, one person spun a yarn of beige, red & white - the crust filling and whipped cream of a cherry pie.  I made a tea cozy with stripes of 3,1,4,1,5 (pi in stripes) and fastened it with a pie shaped button.

You get extra points if you tie it into your team, but that's like extra credit when you were in school.  For example - the lapghan was the colors of the stripes on Ernie's shirt from Sesame St.  I made the tea cozy when I was on Team Bazinga for the Big Bang Theory - and Sheldon has been trained by his mom to offer tea or a hot beverage to people.  Really they are quite liberal with what they allow as  a team tie in.  Multi colored stripes were tied to the rainbow Connection from the original Muppet Movie.  Fingerless mitts were perfect for Scooter - the backstage manager to wear at the Muppet Theatre.

There is also a dissertation.  This is a larger project which is going to take the better part of three months.  Again this is optional.  Some people do a dissertation but none of the monthly challenges, some do a few challenges and the dissertation. Some (yeah there goes my type A personality) do both.  I like doing a dissertation because it gives me added incentive to avoid the startitis I can sometimes get and actually finish a larger project.  For example, I don't think I would have finished my Hey! Teach sweater in three months other wise.  And believe it or not - the wedding dates of my sister and brother wouldn't have been enough for me to finish the wedding shawls - they would have gotten them by their anniversaries ( the 8th is shawls right? LOL)  And like other things - we so love out badges - and there is a silver participation badge for getting over 50% and a gold one for finishing.

Last tournament I volunteered to be the manager of a team.  I'm pretty good with behind the scenes stuff -  even at work I make the most awesome of support staff.  I had told the captain that the end of November beginning of December would be kind of tough because of said weddings - but other than that I was there with her.  Unfortunately real life and internet issues kind of took her out for the second half of the tournament.  I didn't realize how long she would be gone - and how much a void that created until I think it was a bit to late. Some of the team splintered off to form a disney team - and some seemed to wander away entirely.  Those of you that know me well - know this sort of thing causes me to go into an analytical, fix it, better plans for next time mode of thinking.  I stalked the more successful teams to see what they were doing.  And I have a plan.  ANd I inherited the captaincy, and I have a awesome co-captain to help keep the tram chatting and happy, and there.  But for this I need a team.  As of Monday, our team still needed a nudge to get enough players to field a team. Not an all out panic recruitment, but a nudge.  This is my real issue.  I suck at recruiting.  I hate recruiting.  (almost as bad as I suck at & hate fundraising) That's what our old captain was great at - recruiting.  I am trying, but I hate and suck at every minute of it.  We have a great team concept.  Jim Henson.  There is so much to tie into -

I really hope we can field a team.

Congratulations Jerry!

Congratulations Jerry Rice #80!!

 Jerry Rice is being enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, OH tonight. He totally deserves it.  Thanks Jerry for my best football years ever!! Jerry is Angie's all time favorite player ever.  She actually followed him to the *gasp* Raider Nation for his brief time there.  If she didn't return I would have had to hunt him down to beat him upside the head.  Fortunately for Jerry, She did return to the ultimate team.  And yes, I'm a horrible mom, I forgot to tape it for her while she was working.

Annoying Designers!!

I was looking on Ravelry for tea cozy patterns, because I wanted a tea cozy that I could use from now until I make a red/white/blue one for Memorial Day til July 4th. I love my march cozy, but am kinda over the shamrocks until next year. So I found a really pretty pleated cozy in dark and light pinks. I did not want pink, but the beauty of knitting is you can make a pattern any color you want, if you can find the color - I guess dyers have a slight advantage here. I wanted yellow and green with some white. Kind of inspired by :



When I went to click on the free pattern I discovered that the picture in the pattern is a cozy the designer made from an old vintage pattern. The pattern she had available was her "version" of the cozy. IT REALLY WASN'T CLOSE!! It had a checkerboard bottom, then the pleats, then instead of a nice round top the top looks loke a paper bag tied shut with string. Not saying it wasn't a perfectly nice cozy. But that if you see the picture of one cozy, that same cozy is on the top of the pattern page - you do not expect to scroll down to find a completely different looking cozy and the pattern for that second cozy!!

I started using the pattern figuring I could just skip the checkerboard and shape the top when I got there. Well I obviously can't count while watching a race because I cast on 2 few stitches. And knew the number I cast on - maybe it's reading not counting that is my issue. So when I got to the striped pleats I didn't have enough stitches. Frog. Take two - correct number of stitches, but using three colors was becoming a tangle in back and the strands were too loose on the bottom. Frog. Now anyone who knows me knows that after 2 trips to the frog pond it's a 50/50 proposition as to whether it gets frogged or trashed. But I want this cozy. So I cast on for a third time. This time I tossed the pattern and grudgingly realized if I wanted to have the tea cozy in my head I would have to do it myself. I would like to say here that I am not a designer. I have no desire to ever be a designer. I do not have the insight/creativity ot be a designer. I get really irritated if I feel pressured to do something I don't want to do ( not just crafting - life in general)

So I started with a ribbed bottom- why? because that way I wouldn't have to worry about the cozy fitting the bottom and still getting over the belly of the pot. I then started the vertical stripes. Realized then that my white is completely a different size yarn than the yellow. Realized after I did a few rows - frogging is not happening here folks! So after growling a bit, I decided that I liked it. The yellow stripes are a really pinched pleat while the white is just barely pleated. The yellow literally pops. I like it. Then I started getting bored - short attention span remember? So I started a cable in the center white stripe. I love cables. Cables make me happy. I now realize it will not fit my teapot. Too small. But that's ok. I have a smaller tea pot. Here's what I have so far:



Now, before anyone comments ( yes I am still grouchy) I am not going to frog again!! I am not currently mentally stable enough to frog this project again. So - no suggestions!! If you don't like it ok, you can say that. If you like it ok you can say that. But no comments along the lines of - maybe if you used less white stitches more yellow stitches or maybe you should try garter stitch etc etc.

tomorrow, hopefully I will be less grouchy and I will be taking a road trip with a knitting friend. Don't know if we are going to Montclair or Martinsville or just to lunch yet. The store in Montclair will be closing. The sale starts on 4.20. So I may want to go before everyting is picked through. And they have a really cool t-shirt I want. The store in Martinsville gets some really good comments from people on Ravelry, and would have different yarn and hopefully stuff I haven't seen/pet before. Ok - if you want to leave a suggestion when you comment - here would be something I need help deciding. New store or closing store before stuff goes on sale?

New Recipe!!

Ok, did you ever have one of those nights when you have absolutely no clue what you are in the mood to eat for dinner? And if you are like me and have an entire bookcase (not bookshelf) of cookbooks, but looking in them is too much work? As is looking in the little file box of cutouts. So after working 12 hours ( I have mentioned back in December how it seems like going on vacation always results in a couple 12 hour days before I leave and another couple when I return... why do I go??) I found myself staring in the refridgerator for the dinner gods to drop some inspiration on me. And I came up with an AWESOME (if I do say so myself) recipe. Requiring only stuff I keep in my fridge. ( I never got the hang of making a menu and then shopping. I mean what if I don't want spaghetti 3 days from now. And if I'm making fish I go back to the store that day anyway) So I end up with weird assortments of food in my fridge. ( you should see what I come up with when I have 3 or 4 unrelated ingredients approaching the end of their shelflife.) Well, enough - here is the recipe. I do apologize, my daughter and her friend scarfed up the extra one I was going to photograph. Also another apology - I never measure, even when using a cookbook recipe. So this is as close as I can come up with.

Chicken pesto pockets

1 can of Pillsbury Recipe creations crescent dough ( you can use regular , but this is not cut into triangles)
A handful of leftover roast chicken from Saturday(yours can be from anyday you want doesn't have to be from a Saturday - or you can buy the packages from Perdue of pre roasted chicken shreds) diced up pretty small.
A handful of shredded pizza cheese. (you know in the bag has like 4 cheeses mine was sorrento)
half a handful of parmesan/romano ( I buy it pre-grated in the cheese shop at Shop Rite)
5 baby portabellas destemmed and sliced
A teaspoon ( like you use for tea/coffee not a measuring spoon) heaped diced garlic
A soup spoon of butter
pepper ( I used white because I didn't know we ran out of black peppercorns)
3 soupspoons (heaping) of pesto sauce - the kind in the refridgerator section. the only jarred pestos I like was MC at A&P but I haven't seen that in a few years or one kind of jar you can get at WHole Foods. But really if you're game to try this use whatever kind you like.

So first in a little pan melt the butter and brown the mushrooms and garlic adding a bit of pepper. After they are browned dice them up. Add them to a bowl with all the other ingredients except the dough and mix up. Cut the dough in half ( if you have a larger cutting board than mine you may not have to do this) roll it out until about twice the size. Cut into six squares. Put a soupspoon (heaped) of mixture in the center of each square. Bring opposite corners together and pinch then pinch the 4 diagonal seams. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Put on baking sheet lined with foil ( ok foil probably unnecessary but it makes it easier for hubby to clean the sheet.) Bake at 375 for 12 minutes or until the dough browns. I warmed up some left over basil garlic tomato sauce from friday ( again leftover from any evening would probably work as well) to dip them in. I made salad and couscous( boiled chicken broth with some browned onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes diced small and basil - added the couscous covered off heat until done) it was yummy.

Inspiration

Yesterday I ran into a former co-worker and stopped to chat for awhile. As someone who knew me almost 20 years ago, she knew me not as a knitter (I have only been knitting for 5 years) but as a watercolor painter and ceramic/glass mosaic creator. ( I had made for her housewarming a large abstract watercolor and a co-ordinating mosaic top cast aluminum side table, which she apparently still uses as I saw them in the background of the pictures on her i-pod of her daughter's bridal shower) She was wearing a GORGEOUS beaded necklace/earring set. It turns out she turned the beads herself and then created the necklace and earrings. ( I knew her as an amazing embroidery/needlepoint/cross stitch artist) She will be coming for dinner in 3 weeks and I can't wait. In the midst of our conversation the topic of colors came up. And how she decides on the colors of glass she blends for her beads. What inspires the choices. She always wondered about my color choices especially with my mosaics. Most of her inspiration comes from the world outside her windows. She retired to a cabin on a lake in Colorado. (seriously jealous) she takes slide pictures of sunsets over the lake, the trees and mountains, deer in meadows etc etc. As you can imagine she is in no short supply of amazing photo-ops. She then pics things from the pictures. Clear blue glass for the lake, an opaque brown for the tree trunks, sparkling green for dew on the leaves a spot or 2 of red for birds or flowers etc. Sometimes she projects the pictures blurry on purpose so all you get is the colors.

When I was in high school and college I was a serious space geek. really. I had the walls of my bedroom painted an almost midnight blue, the trim in chrome. vinyl floors that looked like diamond plate metal. I had all kinds of space shots and posters framed in the same chrome painted around the trim ( my portholes) Yes serious space geek. A lot of the pictures from Astronomy, and Sky and Telescope, as well as the prints and posters I had served for my color blends and inspirations.

When I got home, I was telling Curt about seeing B. and our conversation and I realized that many of my current color choices and mixes as well as the handpaint/handdyed yarn I just have to have , are in the same color blends that inspired me almost 2 decades ago. Here are 4 of my favorite nebulae courtesy of various NASA telescopes/sites.



The Eagle Nebula



The Pillars of Creation ( a serious hotbed nursery where new stars are being born)



The Orion Nebula ( my personal favorite, as on a clear winter night away from city lights you can see it with the naked eye)



The Horsehead