adjustment period

i promised myself that i would create something today, since i had the day off, but i don't even know where to start.

my new room needs curtains, but i don't have my sewing machine. i have a painting in my head and heart, and i have a canvas, but it's dark out now and the easel's in the garage. hmmm. restrained by circumstances.

i want to do it all at once. i finally have some time. i want to do it all at once. i'm overwhelmed.

and i'm tired. i've been working so much -- too much. not too many hours, necessarily. i'm young, i can handle 50, 60 hour work weeks. but not having a day off? that's not okay. not having a day off for a few weeks in a row? extra awful.

but things they are a' changing. all over the place, it seems. jenni's gone, i'm settled into my new digs, i've cut back my workload and will now have a whole day off, consistently (thursdays - how random, but still).

so, deep breath, i'm giving myself grace, and time to adjust to all of this. 'cause there's a whole lot of it that i'm not used to.

throwing paint

i made a list today of all the reasons my life is falling apart.

if you are in the midst of a horrible pity party/crying fit/hormonal migraine fest, it might sound like the least healthy thing in the world (which is what the rational part of my brain kept telling me as i wrote), but it was very cathartic.

the optimist in me (fighter, she is) wanted to write antidotes to every statement. but i wouldn't let myself. i insisted that the list could only be bad. this is a list of bad, awful things.

what i wanted to do was paint. i wanted a canvas and i wanted to throw paintballs at Jesus. i'm frustrated, i'm confused, and when i start to feel this way, the darkness of my past creeps up to whisper that i might have been forgotten about. the ever expanding list that i have is overwhelming. i feel like the number of problems i have is ridiculous, and every one of them seems like something nobody's ever been through, and if i were to share my problems with anyone, i'd just be talking about myself, forever. and i just love Jesus because i know He wants me to throw sponges full of paint at a canvas and pretend it's Him, every one an item from my list, a prayer, a plea.

(i'm thinking, when i say that, of the white witch again - who threw that busted up wrought iron lamppost at Aslan's face, trying to kill him. you remember that what happened next is that it bounced off Aslan's forehead, fell into the Narnian snow, and grew into a far more beautiful lamppost than it had been before. that's a perfect picture of God's redemptive power.)

i realize that this list belongs to God, and that He cares about every single thing on it, and that He has a plan of how to work it all out - from how i'm going to make sure i'm getting enough nutrients from a plant-based diet (a serious concern, considering my migraine medication causes me to forget to eat for much of the day) to how i'm supposed to balance my work schedules, since i'm trying to earn serious credibility at one workplace while hanging by my teeth, running from job to job in order to keep gas in the car and groceries in the fridge.

so, thinking of my list - each item a sponge full of paint - like a lamppost- i want to throw it in Jesus' face and see what His redemption can turn it into. take my migraines, Lord. what can you grow that into? my financial brokenness?

i know He's up to something, and i'm really trusting in Him in the midst of this. for me, trusting involves throwing paint.

undone on the road

i leave for my roadtrip in a week!

i just got super psyched because i realized there's room in my car for my box of art supplies and a few canvases. when i stop along the way - at my brother's house, at the ArtChurch (hellooo), and once i get to anacortes, i can actually empty up all my bottled up creative energy into some creations. and i'm so stoked about that. check back to see what comes out of that!

what do you want me to do with this?

it feels good to wrap up a project. this is what i polished off today:



"what do you want me to do with this?" mixed media (spray paint, card stock, toothpicks, paper, craft glue, watercolor, xerox, pencil, found discarded window screen). 2009.

this channeled out a moment a few weeks ago when i felt like Jesus was handing me a proverbial pile of building material with no directions as to what i was supposed to build.

i want to give nick abrams a shoutout, because he came through like a mother freakin' champ, coaching me to "you can draw, stine, your brain just gets in the way," when i told him that i couldn't draw. i insisted, nick, i just need you to draw me a tiny, simple house, and a boat, and a fire. (as it worked out, those ARE his that you see. i shrunk them down, copied them onto cardstock, painted & mounted them, but he tried to make me do them myself. at one point in our lesson, he was being really encouraging to me as i was drawing a super loppy house (that i loved, it was a dejected house - you may see it in the future) - but i needed a perfect house like you see in this piece, so i was frustrated with myself. i said to nick, "stop it. you're just trying to make me believe in myself, you S.O.B." it was awesome. check out nick's artwork at www.nickabrams.com - my favorite of which is located at (i'm not kidding, it's a long story, maybe i'll post it tomorrow) www.nickabrams.com/stine

and if you're stuck in a moment like i was, think about channeling your frustration into something creative. i still don't know what i'm building. but i have decided not to just up and burn all my toothpicks.

you must watch this.

i got it from www.soulpancake.com, a site you must visit, immedeately. it's rainn wilson's brainchild, and an amazing place of creativity & soulfulness.