hold the presses ...

tonight i volunteered to produce a fundraising event for the children's museum of skagit county.
this event will take place either in late winter or early spring, soooooooo my driving trip is being postponed now. i'm thinking that fall might be a wonderful time for a driving trip and weather won't be a factor then at all.

stay tuned ...

since that time, a lot has happened in my life. the fundraising event for the children's museum has taken on a life of it's own. the cross country driving trip has been put on the back burner, although I do think about it often.

yesterday, as a matter of fact, there was a gathering of the full cast for
The Housewives of Skagit County! they're absoluetly going to put the 'fun' back into 'fundraiser.
This cast of characters includes 5 fabulous women (the housewives), 1 cutie of a guy, 2 teenagers, an esteemed local Director and Producer (who also happens to be one of the housewives) and myself. i'm serving as Co-Producer and Co-Director of this event. said event will be on stage at the Lincoln Theatre on February 11th and 12th, 2011.

after watching the beautiful, happy women at last year's auction and thinking about the museum always doing little not very successful fundraisers, i thought a production could benefit the museum efforts and create a lot of fun along the way.
one larger fundraisers rather than 6 smaller ones. we'll see about that.

so this being said and a board selection process meeting scheduled for 10:30 this morning, i'd best get to breakfast and a shower.

stay tuned ...

this is sooooo exciting. i have a blog now. i read it. tracy suggested that i create one. he said it would be inspirational. do you think? he also said to notify him. i'll find teesha's email/blog and let him know.

soapboxing is hard to read. it's too small. must edit it. i like the 'dots' template though.
T's allow for font size to be enlarged. that'll do it. this is a process. i'll build on it so that when i leave SoCal in January i'll be more familiar with blogging. ;o))

miles and miles

miles and miles

a random thought has grown. why not? i'll go on a cross country driving trip.

savannah will be my destination. i've wanted to visit that city since steveO rode his motorcycle there years ago and told me we must go. then i read 'midnight in the garden of good and evil.' that did it. i've been thinking about it ever since.
i'll up and go to savannah.

what will i do and where will i go while i'm driving to savannah?

i'll drive through the southern states -- arizona, new mexico, texas, louisana, mississippi, georgia, florida, south carolina. do i have the states right?
the southern states, unless i go into the mountains, should have good driving conditions.
i don't want to deal with heavy snow and winter road conditions when i'm alone.
i'll drive east through southern regions of the southern states.
i'll drive west through more northern regions of the southern states.

about the same time that i thought about location location location i thought about people joining me for bits and pieces of this trip. having companionship would meet my needs. balanced with sweet alone time. viola!
steveO, terri, cory, bonnie, lois, pam, leah came to mind.
i put it out there. cat and sue said they might like to join me too.
sherri mentioned something to betsey about a driving trip. i heard betsey say something to sherri at the sparrow's nest opening. come on sherri! we'd have fun
which means that i'll have to get specific about dates and locations
i can do that.
i will do that.

laredo, texas is where my dad was born.
corpus christi, texas is where hazel/mom was born.
i'll visit those two cities.

oh my gosh...there are a lot of national parks and monuments before i get to texas.
arizona and new mexico are full of them.
get out the atlas and have a look.
pages of stops, routes, directions grew from that.
deb mentioned the guy that does the documentaries and his new one is about national parks and monuments! what do you call that? it's a miracle.
and then within a week it's on tv!
ken burns??? wish i could remember. the series was wonderful. the people who are responsible for this country's national parks were inspirational, dedicated and visionaries. thank you to all of them. thank you to k.b. for creating and recording it all.

so what am i going to record?
what am i going to do?

i've got the car. i've got the time. i've got the interest.
alone for miles and miles of beauty ... that's not a sentence!
alone time and community (villages, cities, towns) time and time for companionship
i don't have to write sentences.

a trip
what will i find? what will i learn? what will you learn?
i'll share what i find with you.
i'll share what i learn with you.
will you share what you learn with me?

mid-january 2010 is my intended time to begin driving east from SoCal.


i must prepare:

car. her name is 'peace,' and she's ready to go.
1. trip to dealership for service
art materials.
2. this list was given to me at journalfest 2009. what do you think? is it enough?

water pens
Peerless paper
scissors
markers
stamp pad
adhesive - EcoGlue, glue stick
water soluble crayons
hole punch

i must take my journal(s), camera and computer.
there is a small printer that plugs into your camera. i heard about it at journalfest. i'd be able to print pictures when i stop for the night.
i could actually put them right into a journal. wowser!
the printer is a Selphy. must Google and buy one.
not on amazon though and not from wal-mart. soapbox time...i choose to use smaller, independent dealers for product and tools. the chains and large guys are putting the smaller guys out of business. that's not a good thing, people. i want to live in a world where there's a place for the little guy to be really successful.
i'll order and take supplies to print the pictures that please me and put them in my journal each night. or often so that i don't get confused about when, where, what.

i need to jump around now.
i've already started doing that with the list of art supplies that i'll take on my trip.

having been to journalfest and created 2 journals i'm really excited about keeping a record of this trip.
i'd like to write about the first workshop that i did with karen michel.
we made fused plastic bag journals. a wonderful item from plastic bags.
plastic bags are doing great harm to our earth and creatures on our earth. they need to be recycled and people need to be more careful and considerate of what they do with them. or i wish that people would recycle plastic bags and be more careful and considerate of what they do with them.
yes, that's what i meant to write.
i love the journal that i made in class on the first day.
i love the process of making the journal.
i love that something wonderful came from plastic bags.
we were asked to bring 15-20 (?) plastic bags, so i choose from a box of special, saved bags the ones that i liked. colors -- reds, blacks, dark greens, orange, tan. phrases, words, graphics printed on the bags.
karen shared the process, and we followed her lead.
i enjoyed karen's teaching style. i really liked karen right away. she shared so much with us/me. thank you karen!
right away i realized that my journal would need more pages. i'd only put one signature into the journal, so i stayed at lunch time and punched more holes in papers for two more signatures.
karen allowed me to use her japanese hole punch. great tool by the way!
that evening when i got back to my room i asked two women who were talking in the hall if either of them had a needle that i could use to put the papers into my journal. kathy gave me one. i talked with them for a bit and then went to work.
karen had suggested a way to put them in that worked beautifully. viola!
the journal now has three signatures and could take more possibly. i'll see what happens as i begin to put photos, memorabilia, etc into it. fun eh?

my next learning step will be to take a picture of the fused plastic journal and post it here. how will i learn to do that? there must be instructions someplace. if i don't find them i'll ask someone. deb said she'd help me.
i shared the journal with many people at journalfest. it was well received!

shall i get back to my trip or write more about journalfest 2009?