Bits and Pieces

Now that I have your attention!
Ha so good and soo bad... this was taken at the Chickenburger in Bedford. An institution that's been going strong  since 1940! I love onion rings but try my best to stay away:)

Next up is this!  A Show of COSTUME in Honor of His Royal Highness Prince Arthur, The Military Ball of 1869. Tickets available HERE It is my daughter's graduating class event! She chose to create a gown for Fanny Westphal McNab, who married Sydenham Howe (Joe Howe's son). They had to research the person, write a paper and create an historically accurate outfit from undergarments outer garments using historically accurate materials. She had to make the patterns too! They each model the gowns they created and......with their partners they will dance a Viennese Waltz for us! Exciting!

These two paintings of mine are available at Made in the Maritimes Artisan Boutique  in Bedford. I will be switching them out soon so if you are interested, pop out and see the shop, it is full of gorgeous things! (in Sunnyside Mall)

I've been reading a lot about happiness and focus lately. Alan Watts argued that the root of our human frustration and daily anxiety is our tendency to live for the future, which is an abstraction.To be truly happy,we have to live here and now because that is all that exists. We all know this, don't we. He writes:

The “primary consciousness,” the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and reliable (e.g., “everyone will die”) that the future assumes a high degree of reality — so high that the present loses its value.

But the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made up of purely abstract and logical elements — inferences, guesses, deductions — it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard, or otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness, then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and assurances.

The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the “I” (ourselves) out of the experience. We pretend that we are amoebas, and try to protect ourselves from life by splitting in two. Sanity, wholeness, and integration lie in the realization that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate “I” or mind can be found.
To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening.

The photos are all taken by me unless otherwise credited....