What I found out this year.

I am not as young as I used to be, not as confident, or strong willed.

I am more dedicated, more long sighted and bigger around.

I am not as pretty as I used to be but probably am smarter.

I have decided that becoming "instantly recognized" would scare the beejeezus out of me. I would rather take my art and writing popularity as a slow growth. That way I can be used to the increase of conversations, people, business and other things as it comes. I still am going to try to be the 1 millionth deviantart submission only because it seems kind of neat to win the prize.

I am not as social as I could be BUT I am exactly as social as I want to be. I used to think that having a friend was important, that people like me. I felt I was always either not smart enough or too smart, not artsy enough or too artsy, not nice enough or a doormat. I am starting not to care anymore about any of that, as long as I feel comfortable and am happy the rest of the world can take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut. I kind of hope that mentality continues. I don’t have to fit in with the flock to be head of the herd.

I found out that even though I don’t have everything I want. I do have everything I need and am at peace with that realization.

The other thing is that even though I want to be more than what I am right now, that might not be possible because I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. So it has come to my attention that maybe I don’t get a real physical or mental epiphany about my own future unlike many other people. Perhaps I am supposed to do exactly what I am doing right now. Wandering around tasting several different careers and critiquing the taste of each.

There are a few things I want to accomplish this year and none of them should cost much out of pocket. I have wanted to do these things for a long time. The difference between then and now is that it feels like I will be able to do them this year. Psychic phenomena do do do do- do do do do. (my text version of the theme to Twilight Zone.) The things, materialistic, I want don’t really matter I can and will live without them if that is what is meant to be. If those items suddenly appear within my grasp, hurray!

It would be way cool if I could get rid of every one of those damned zodiac boxes. I am never ever going to do another one of those "labeled" ones again unless someone commissions one. I discovered that just doing twelve images for zodiac means that you are only appealing to a very small percentage of people. Still even though the boxes are already at base price I don’t want them mucking up the agenda.
The ones that are left are:
Virgo
Taurus
Scorpio
Pisces
Leo
Capricorn
and Aries
Therefore I will be dropping the price of them starting Sunday 12-27 [link]

I have done enough journaling today...

Hello Merry Makers, Holiday Happy Hoppers and Christmas Carolers,

Yes I still am alive and functioning. Just keeping it down low and resting as much as I can get away with doing. Still working 40 hours and doing a couple commissions, hopefully get them done before Christmas.

I have a few colored boxes available on etsy. Specifically
"Buffalo Magic" [link]
"Honey Bears" [link]

The rest of the pieces are pyrograph small items. Most under $12 [link]

Yeah I finally got the last portrait box done for this year. Now I am telling everyone no till after the new year. Mainly because I have to buy blanks and wood. I am also purchasing another pattern book, a new sander and a fabric hints book.

In the meantime I am still finding it extremely hard to get in the spirit. Instead of seeing people helping each other out, I see constant whine and victim mentalities. I can't take one more sad puppy or kitty story begging for me to adopt them or give money to them. Bad people, most are not born that way but forced into those situations by poor judgment and even poorer situations. Still I don't know if throwing money at a situation can change those people, problems or situations. It all just makes my head hurt, ears smoke and body twitches.

I think I need to just cut off all contact with the outside world for a while. NO news until I can get myself in a good place.

Happy Holidays.

Hello Merry Makers, Holiday Happy Hoppers and Christmas Carolers,

Yes I still am alive and functioning. Just keeping it down low and resting as much as I can get away with doing. Still working 40 hours and doing a couple commissions, hopefully get them done before Christmas.

I have a few colored boxes available on etsy. Specifically
"The Life" [link]
"Buffalo Magic" [link]
"Honey Bears" [link]

The rest of the pieces are pyrograph small items. Most under $12 [link]

I am really trying to stay positive. The holidays always make me want to sprout gray hair and run screaming in the night. I am not sure why but I haven’t really enjoyed the holiday since I was young.

Wait I will take that back I am sure there was one or two in there that were pretty decent. There was that one year before I was married. I bought candy-canes and taped them into a pattern that read Merry Christmas on the side of a guy’s house. Did it while he was away at work.

I am honestly trying to save money to try and build a shop/garage/apartment err something. Anyway I need to draw up building plans. So if anybody knows a cheap/free architecture program that isn’t too difficult to use... Link me up.

That’s all from me for now. Going to go work on portrait box.

Happy Holidays.

T-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads and other gifts [link]
Hand painted or wood burned keepsake and music boxes [link]

Well the one show I prepare and prepare for every year is over. I do have items left over. I would list them all but I am just making a quick note here. I have 8 out of the 12 zodiac boxes left, a few necklace boxes and about 3 colored boxes. I also agreed to help out my sister in law and try to sell some of her miniature landscape paintings on ceramic ornaments.

If you want please do come and check out whats left at
[link]

T-shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads and other gifts [link]
Hand painted or wood burned keepsake and music boxes [link]

I am without my home. I have a home, my teepee, and the Crows let me walk among them, almost as one of them. A ghost among mortals is all that I am. Because I am Blackfoot. I should have been killed along time ago during the Crows first raid into the Blackfoot hunting grounds. Perhaps it was because of my education among the whites the Crow elders decided not to take my hair. Or maybe it was because I managed to lay out two handfuls of their best warriors. Then a stone thrown from an overhead cliff took me down.

I managed to run away a couple years after my capture. Encountering some of my own people they called me Sta-Ai-Tsi-Nix-Sin, ghost story. The girl I was going to marry had found another. My own Father spat at me, turned his eyes to the hills. It was his way of saying that I was no longer part of their world. I stayed for many days and eventually gave up. No one would offer me shelter, talk, or accept me again. I went back to the backlashing Crow nation.

Then when the murders began eventually they came to me. Who better to talk to a spirit than one who was considered a ghost by his own people.

"Sta-Ai-Nix-Sin come and see hurry." The little Crow buck grabbed me by the hand and pulled. When I had returned from my Blackfoot brothers, I kept the curse they had placed on my head as my Crow name. "Feathered Deer is dead in the gully. He was one of our best scouts. You must talk to his spirit and find out who killed him." The boy grabbed my horse. So I rode and let him run ahead for a time to wean out his excitement.

"Ghost Story it is about time you showed up. Didn’t Barking Dog tell you that it was a time to hurry?" The senior Crow scout gruffed at me. "Such a man would know a murder is important but you feel more important than Crow?" Coyote was never fond of me and still throws insults at me randomly.

"I commune with the spirit of the dead as he raced past us to bid farewell to his family."

"Then you would know who was dead and who killed him!" Coyote spat.

I ignored him and went to climb down into the gully to examine the body. The young buck was still not even in his prime. Lean legs had twisted in his death throws. I turned him to see his face. The front of his scalp gone, several holes with blackened flesh on his chest and a long deep cut in the upper right side of his abdomen. The dirt, dried grass and sage was soaking in enormous amounts of blood.

"Feathered Deer says that a white man killed him in revenge for a wrong the brave had enacted against the white man’s family." I said slowly.

"Barking Dog told you the brave’s name! You are always a fraud!"
"Feathered Deer echoes that he is sorry for putting the liver-eaters revenge out upon his friends. He is not the first act of revenge nor will he be the last. There are at least four other braves going before him into the other world." I pushed my fingers into the boys death wound to feel his insides. "Perhaps you were with Feathered Deer when he created the offense, Coyote!" I could feel the cut on the boy’s liver, sharp and hard along the protective outer coating of the organ.

"No the Liver-Eater will not come for me. My eyes will be as the birds and I will see him long before he becomes visible. I will kill the Liver-Eater just as I cut out the heart of the Flathead squaw he claimed as his own." Coyote was visibly excited now.

"Get my horse Barking Dog."

"Yes Sta-Ai-Tsi-Nix-Sin."

I walked past Coyote and made a finger mark in Feathered Deer’s blood on his cheek.