I hope you have had a beautiful week of life since we last spoke Here are some snippets that I got a kick out of, maybe you will too!

Live Bold List 17: 6 Favourite Moments of the Week

1. Proprioception Moment of the Week. I can do a handstand for a micro second. I am getting to know the feeling of being in the right place. While up-side-down, obviously. Freaky, huh? (In truth this was dozens of proprioception moments over several sessions.)
2. Concert Laugh Moment of the Week. I went to a wonderful concert, by Thirsty Merc. Here’s a song of theirs, called Someday Someday; this is an acoustic style version, the concert was with amplification. Imagine, if you will, the entire crowd singing along perfectly to not only the catchy chorus, but the deliciously insistent wordiness of the verses of this song! Classic.
   
   It was a brilliant concert. I would go again in a flash. (Also see item 4).
3. 2 Parcels Arriving Moment of the Week. Mmmm… parcels! My Guerilla Art Kit (a book by Keri Smith) arrived from The Joyful Girls – happeee! Lots of spreading of art and fun shall ensue. (Also see item 5). The other parcel was… new art cards! Hooray! My new artwork has been printed onto greeting cards. (See item 6). It’s always exciting to see how a new picture looks on a card. The same, but different.
4. Favourite Attitude Comment of the Week: I mentioned to a friend about the Thirsty Merc concert (see item 2). She replied: “OMG! I love that guy! He is so himself!” What better comment could you possible make about anybody. I smiled all day.
5. First Guerilla Art Act Moment of the Week. (Also see item 3).
6. Large Amount of Behind the Scenes Work Comes to Fruition Moment of the Week. My Greeting Card page is now up to date. (See item 3). This took a while, but it is done Wanna see?

Have a week of being as ‘you’ as you can. Have fun. Talk to me in the comments or on my Facebook page if you want
Love Meg x o

I hope you have had a wonderful week (or several weeks as the case may be!). After a technical hiccup that turned into 2 weeks of down-time, I have been happily busy. It’s time to write an appreciative list of Things that are Stripey and fun. This list is going to need to be abundant with pictures, isn’t it? WARNING: Images to follow may induce visual overload!

Live Bold List 16: For the Love of Stripes

1. Black and white striped leggings. My new happy pants An instant mood lift ensues upon donning. How do you like the beautiful matching World Wildlife Fund Tshirt that I found to go with them? I am pretty sure that zebra is smiling.
2. Tops. Oh so many stripey tops. Op Shops are often great places to find them. As with the leggings, wearing stripes is a good way to enliven a drab autumny-wintery day.
   
3. Stripey Cat. I finished painting another 2 prints of him today. Soon his Edition (note: on the Even Better Paper) will be ready for sale – hooray!
4. Scarves. The soft gorgeous stripes of knitted wool.
5. Bowls and plates. Stripes around a circle. If you look into the bowl at the reflections, you can see me taking the photo against the blue sky of this afternoon
   
6. Stripey Socks. Of course! Somedays with sparkly flower sandals and somedays not.
   
7. The song Straight Lines by Silverchair. I am not sure what it’s about – stripes? – but I love having it in my iPod when I go for a run!

This next week I will be having a massive Scanning Fest, so I will get to show you the latest art I have been working on! There are leaves, trees, colour, colour, colour and guess what else …? STRIPES Hooray!

I would like to leave you with my favourite quote of the week (it’s probably last week now, with all that delay due to technology trouble) from Bridget Pilloud (in her post Steppin Out of the Wierdo Box):

… normal stopped existing about the second day on this planet

Whew! That’s a relief, isn’t it?

May your world be enriched with lots of lovely stripes,
Tangerine-striped Meg x o

Whilst you are thinking about comments to leave and friends to invite for my Tangerine Meg Mothers Day Competition 2010 (details re-posted below) I bring you a Live List. Ta-da…!

Live Bold List 15: Some of the stuff Mum taught me

Now I am myself a mother, I’ve analysed many (lets face it pretty much all) the things my parents said to us as children, as I often heard myself repeating them! Turns out much of it didn’t need tweaking! Many of their suggestions I found re-iterated in later reading of child and adult psychology (No. 1 is a mainstay of what I understood of Steve Biddulph‘s book Secret of Happy Children.)

1. Frame instructions to children (and others) in the positive. A friend who studied child brain development later told me this matches with the way young brains work. For example, if you say “Don’t touch the flame”, they hear “…Touch the flame”! “Don’t” doesn’t register. This is particularly for Under 10s, I think.
2. Cool down before acting or speaking when riled or upset so you don’t do or or say something that you’ll regret later. Step back from a challenging event to give yourself time to think things through. Write a letter to the person if there’s something you can’t say to them calmly but that you think is important.
3. The concept of “Clean Dirt” I think came from Mum. Perhaps it was dirt/soil or perhaps paint. Often these things were messy, not disastrous, and could be cleaned up in due course!
4. Think about the other person’s point of view. If you were in their place you might well behave in the same way. This, too, is reiterated by many a psychologist to bring understanding of the actions of others. The wonderful Patty Newbold at Assume Love asks “If this were the same wonderful person who loves me just as much as when we got married, what could explain their (apparently non-loving) behaviour?”
5. Use manners. Please, thank-you, excuse me and proper placement of knives, forks, spoons, during eating and after, etc, etc. Remember to say “Thank you for having me”! These are handy little habits.
6. Be true to yourself no matter what everybody else is doing. This is a great one! To ask yourself what is right for you, rather than what is the popular thing, in any given situation is actually quite a powerful tool.

I realise now this was quite huge:
I decided at 18 (and still living at home) that I would become vegetarian. Mum took this in her stride, researched a bit, borrowed some books and respected my wishes. That can’t have been particularly easy. I even overheard her tell a friend that it had been a good learning experience to find some new recipes!

If you like for your competition entry you could make a small list of what’s great about your mum. Or just recount a memorable event. All wonder-Mama comments welcome!

Here are the competition details again:

The Prize

A hearty (haha) zipped leather bag and a luxurious scented soap (both of which are Fair Trade and Made in India) which I purchased on Friday from the wonderful Oxfam shop, and 3 of my art greeting cards. You can choose which card will please your Ma the best and keep the other 2 for friends or family another time. Or you can simply keep it all for yourself!!

3 Ways to enter:

1. Suggest my Tangerine Meg Visual Artist page to some of your Facebook friends – please, only those you think may be interested!
   How: Under my profile picture on the page click on the option ‘Suggest to Friends’. Click the friends you’ve selected on the list, and click ‘Send Invitations’. To let me know you’ve done this, leave a comment either here or at the Tangerine Meg Visual Artist page on Facebook. This will give you 1 entry into the competition. Whilst you’re there writing, do No. 2 or 3 for an extra chance if you like!
2. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me just a little of the wonderful person that is your Mother. This, too, will give you 1 entry into the competition.
3. Leave a comment at my Tangerine Meg Visual Artist page on Facebook telling me a little about your gorgeous Mother. This is the third way you can get 1 entry into the competition.

So it’s possible to do all three things and get three chances to win. I am ok with you combining way 1 with way 2 or 3!

Entries close on Monday 26th April (that’s tomorrow) at 6pm, Australian Central Standard Time. This will allow the best chance to get the parcel to you in time. Then everyone will be collected into a computer spreadsheet and I will select a winner using a random number generator.

Extra Details

I will email (or FacebookMessage) the winner to get their postal address so I can send the prize; and will let you know here who won.

I will post the prize to the winner anywhere in the world. The lady at the Post Office said that mail is disrupted because of the volcano/planes situation, but normally it takes 2 to 3 days to Australian destinations, and 5 to 10 days to the US and Canada.

By the way Mothers Day is on May 9 this year in the US, Canada and Australia. In the UK the equivalent Mothering Sunday was back in March. UK Bold Souls can of course still enter!

Take care my Lovelies,
Go forth and write beautiful things about your Momma.
Love Meg

Excitement, dearly beloveds! Click over to Operation Beautiful to see my You Are Beautiful ‘set in concrete’ photo (5th picture down)! I posted it here a little while back and also submitted it to the Operation Beautiful website person. Now it is up on their site as you can see! I wonder who emblazoned this positive message in the wet concrete?

I hope you are well and happy. I am quite thankful and relieved that I am SO much better now that I can even dress up as Alice/Dorothy and pose with a goddess statue. Isn’t she gorgeous? She is adorned, too!

Here goes! LiveBold List Number 14 has to be the 8 Things that seem ridiculously obvious now, that I would have done well to realise whilst healthy, but that I got sick & then remembered. The following is new to me (again):

1. Rest and sleep are magical, healing horizontalness. Like powerful medicine, but cosy and warm and don’t make your mouth taste like metal.
2. Facebook, my (probably too) constant companion, gets by perfectly well without me. Alas – my unrequited attention!
3. The first thing I wanted to be able to do when I had enough energy again is make pictures. Oh yeah, and run. And get strong again, but gradually & gently, with enjoyment not stress.
4. Parenting does not stop when you are sick. Carry on.
5. I am grateful to my dear friend for recognising I was too sick to function and taking care of me. You saved my sanity there, Sister S. Thank you x o
6. Repeat to self: I must not go right back and start overbooking myself again, now I am getting a little better. I have decided the positive way to say this shall be: I will choose how to spend my time and say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as appropriate to my state and ability.
7. Good food is not optional and sugar is not required! Diet is surprisingly powerful. What can be caused by bad habits, can be supported, improved or maybe even cured by changing those habits. My energy is so much more constant without sugar. There are a plethora of ways to sweeten foods that don’t mess with blood sugar. Random additional symptoms have simply disappeared, in addition to my diagnosed, doctor-treated issue.
8. I’m conscious of being lucky to be living in a country where plentiful fresh food is available in many varieties. If I need to stop eating wheat and nuts and sugar and chocolate all at the same time I am still not going to go hungry. [Later: I am also avoiding rye and red meat. Still not going to go hungry. Extremely lucky.]

Funny how when you have no energy and feel rotten the basic things can be drawn into focus. Now the trick will be to stay well AND remember =) Do-able right? Do you eat sugar or not, and how does that affect you? I would love to hear in the comments section or on Facebook!

Coming soon: Mothers Day competition – stay tuned!
Here is another lovely reminder to just be.
Take care, lovelies, and REST!
Meg

Whilst Work in Percolation is brewing on the other end of this multi-purpose gigantic table at which I sit, I offer a list themed on Beauty and Truth. I have been thinking about that quote:

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
-George Keats

Live Bold List 13: Beauty and Truth

1. There’s great site, Choosing Beauty, where you will find extra story to this cool video of a mural being painted as well as the story of a coincidental connection. I love art on walls!
   
2. This link is worth taking a look just for the cool illustration. In “Happy Healthy Boobs”, Christine Kane frankly talks about how she managed to set herself up to have positive surroundings and useful feedback for her process.
3. Are you ever mystified by teenage behaviour? This article, an interview with Frances Jensen (pediatric neurologist) gives some clear scientific insight into what is going on! The graph is interesting, it seems the white connecty stuff that makes our brain more ‘adult’ diminishes again later on. I wonder what that implies for older folk! Let’s face it, we’re all heading that way, Universe willing!
4. I adore Sesame Street. Have been slowly making my way through their 40 year anniversary book. How cool would it be to make an animation for Sesame Street? ‘Twould be a beautiful thing.
5. Want to take It IS Easy being Green to a whole new level? Even using 1 or 2 tips from this thorough list of 17 easy alternatives to everyday disposables would make a difference! My next step towards the Beauty of Reusability is to add to my collection of reusable glass containers. Some creative op-shopping is in my future I see!
6. The wonderful WOMADelaide (World of Music and Dance, Adelaide) is here in only days. You can download some of the WOMAD artists’ music for free and start getting yourself ready for the beautiful chilled extravaganza of sound.

Have a beauty beautiful day,
Meg

Work in progress: Hooray! Here’s a shot of the partly-carved lino for my next print. You can see it will have little squares making up the border, and some leafy goodness.

In between the doing of the carving (and the running of the errands!) I have been gathering little goodies for you from the internet. I must be in a phase of needing / enjoying life lessons this week, as that seems to be the theme. This could probably even come under the category of Live Bold List! (spoken in a resonating, deep manner + echo… echo….) Ta-daaaaa…. The first Live Bold List of 2010!

Live Bold List 12 : Collected wisdom

1. Wisdom from an 11-year old at All I Did was Listen blog. It’s short; I thought you might like the picture there too. Ummm….
2. An astute and lively list from the lovely Meg Fowler, listing some of the life lessons she has learned from Gradon. How awesome: “Music is a vitamin.”
3. There’s food for thought in Jonathan Fields’ 8 Timeless Rules for my (his) 8-year old daughter. I specially liked numbers one and two: 1. Never get a tattoo you can’t see, and 2. Never get a tattoo you can see!
4. One of my favourite comedians is now blogging. Meshel Laurie says she started blogging because she can’t get a paid column… Her cheery signoff: “…I’ve decided to blog as no one can stop me and if I’m not going to get paid, I don’t expect to have to follow any rules either. Let’s go bitches.”

I enjoyed the comment made at the market last weekend, looking at my cards and choosing. I think this one… with it’s “generalized butterfly goodness”.

Have a great Friday, Lovelies; with plenty of Generalized Lifey Goodness!
Meg =)