RevGals Ask ... Where is its home?

Today I am playing the RevGal Friday Five: Where is its home?

Tell us your favorite homes for five things, the places that you can always and reliably find them. 

1. a few years back a friend gave me the above handmade pouch, it hangs in my studio and it where I keep my scissors that is made to cut out stained glass pattern pieces.
2. A drum that Mosaic Woman gave me sits by my chair of contemplation. Lately it has a new role in my spiritual life, but that is for another post.
3. I never wore a pendant around my neck until a friend gave me cross she made based on one of my designs. It's second home is on the door knob next to our bed.
4. Wallet, keys, phone, iPod, all goes in a tray on a bookcase by my bed. Only problem is all the papers I stuff in my pocket at work that also ends up in the tray.
5. The pizza wheel is found in the same drawer every time we have guests over.

Vase, Weller Pottery ~ Glazed Earthenware decorated by Jacques Sicard 1903

as seen at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
photo by Wayne Stratz

Looking for super powers ~ Southern Fried Science inspires this week's homework

I came across this blog post that matched five organisms with comic book characters who have the same super powers.  The creature in the video is one of the five, which character can do this?

Thought it would be a fun homework assignment.  If anything I want my students to be amazed by life and learn the state assessment vocabulary along the way.

So here is the homework, after reading the blog post and answering some questions about those organisms.  Come on people, really the life form that emerged from Chernobyl, check it out.  Here is the part I hope to see some creative juices flowing, even if it doesn't flow from all of them. 

1. pick out five comic book heros and/or villains and find an organism with the same super power.  
2. choose a character and imagine up an organism that has the same power.  Write a paragraph describing the organism.  Or draw it and label its power.
3. find an organism that can do something which the average human cannot do and imagine a comic book character.  Write a paragraph describing the character.

RevGals got me thinking about 2013

recent date at the Philly art museum

Resolutions:

1. Start by sharing your success stories with us: In the past, what resolution has been your most successful? What change have you made that has been the most beneficial, to your mood, health, finances, or other way of being in the world?

Making pizza for friends.  We ended up hosting 22 gatherings in our house and made pizza for friends in 2012.  A ritual formed where Margaret would greet the guests bring them to the kitchen, then take them to see our studios as I got a pizza baking.  Then we would sit, converse and eat for a few hours.  
2. What is one thing you hope to do differently this year with regard to health, either physical or spiritual? If you are satisfied with your current status in both areas, perhaps you would be willing to share something you've already done (or regularly do) to care for yourself.

I need to exercise with my free weights, for who knows it may snow this winter and it always helps when I reenter the garden in the spring.  I return to practicing the Examen prayer would be most splendid for my spirit.
3. What is one thing you hope your family (of origin, of choice, however you define your primary place of mutual emotional sustenance) will do differently this year? A new tradition for birthdays? More vacation time? Game night? Feel free to really dream about ways to deepen your connections with those you love. 

More dates to get out to do fun things other than eating out.  Live music, museums, movies... , these activities have slowed as our mosaic and stained glass business has grown.  But, it is where we find joy and peace and inspiration.
4. What is one thing you hope your community of faith will consider doing differently this year? New music? Different approaches to preaching? Rearranging the furniture? If you are in a position to try to introduce change, share some of your enthusiasm and/ or anxiety with us!

The vestry of my church met this morning.  I sent a link to our rector and our rector's warden to achurchforstarvingartists post about church bucket lists because the idea of random acts of kindness done by a congregation caught my eye/spirit.

Absolutions: 

5. In what area would you most like to learn to be gentle with yourself? For what would you most like to forgive yourself? Share your ideas and strategies for extending yourself the kind of grace we know we are assured of. 

on a spiritual note... a general lack of prayer though I have shared with many my desire to set up a daily routine.  No daily routine has formed and very little prayer is happening. 

see other responses here 

2012, just thinking about it tired me out

The year began doing a bunch of special pieces for our exhibit at Pebble Hill Church

The other day we were driving to my parents and we began thinking about 2012.  I thought, "I should be exhausted."  The next morning I woke up sick and am still recovering.

some of the highlights from the first half  of 2012 in no particular order except how blogger chose to do it ~ 

my first and currently only Hex sign mandala,
inspired on one of my silent times with the Jesuits

I set up a place on etsy for my cards of Hope.
The commissions that flowed in have been amazing.  

My parents commissioned
peace, hope, and love
from us and it looks great
in their living room. 

Margaret was commissioned to make
another bowling ball 

In June we stopped at The Corning Museum of Glass
 after several nights of jazz in Rochester with our friends

crazy early tulips
after a crazy warm winter
which left us crazy gardeners
wondering what the heck is going on here

The Hippo Project ~
it sounded like a practical joke
but it emerged from the studio and is in California 

The Angel Wings ~
another of those places
only clients could take us in 2012

Margaret started collaborating with
our friend, Suzanne Halstead.  

 

We celebrated our 20th anniversary with a trip to see
Jane Ira Bloom, a favored sax player

Wordless Wednesday ~ Leopold Forstner(1878-1936): Mosaic with Fish

Leopold Forstner(1878-1936): Mosaic with Fish from the Corning Museum of Glass
photo by Wayne Stratz

A Few of My Favorite Things 10 ~ starting afresh

Collaboration by
Margaret Almon andWayne Stratz

New years, new places I called home, new friends, new hopes, new colleges, new jobs, new faith, new glass, new students, new genres of music, new bird sightings, new types of food, new understanding, new color pencils, new ways to cope, new designs, new scientific discoveries ... 

to live an unfolding life is the best thing of all.

and really how better to end this string of posts, with a man who was hanging out in my parents' album collection when I emerged into this unfolding creation ~