We had just been talking about whether this weekend we might open up the gates (aka the big TV box) and let the kittens explore an enlarged portion of the house and they must have been listening because within minutes they had squeezed through and started the next adventure.
It won’t surprise you to know that Shibumi was the first through.
And that Scout searched the farthest afield.
Or that Escher, perhaps after last weekend’s foray into the basement, wanted none of it!
When it was late night snack time, they rallied back in the zone and we took the opportunity to re-establish the door (in a new way though because Scout had figured out he could actually jump over ‘the wall’). We know this is a temporary peacekeeping attempt and that soon kitten chaos will reign!
Stay tuned!
Taking in three abandoned kittens came as quite a surprise – as does three vet visits, three sets of vaccines and three spay/neuter surgeries! So we’re getting creative and relaunching the Sparkles e-course in support of these much-loved rescues! We’ve even made the registration fee adjustable in case you want to add a little extra to their care package. We know they’d appreciate it. Sign up for Sparkles – LIVE and bring your creativity to life in just 5 minutes a day. Your heart will start sparkling right away with doing good!
“Whimsical art maker” Joanne Sharpe is a colorful mixed media artist and enthusiastic teacher with a passion for art journaling, lettering, doodling and illustration. Joanne’s playful art has been featured in the popular publications Cloth Paper Scissors, Studios, Somerset Studio, Somerset Art Journaling and Somerset Apprentice magazines. In addition to teaching nationwide, she has been licensing artwork to the craft, fabric and giftware markets for two decades. Joanne resides in Rochester, New York.
Taking in three abandoned kittens came as quite a surprise – as does three vet visits, three sets of vaccines and three spay/neuter surgeries! So we’re getting creative and relaunching the Sparkles e-course in support of these much-loved rescues! We’ve even made the registration fee adjustable in case you want to add a little extra to their care package. We know they’d appreciate it.
Sign up for Sparkles – LIVE and bring your creativity to life in just 5 minutes a day. Your heart will start sparkling right away with doing good!
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You may know that my sister is Suzie the Foodie, a flavour fiend who is always both creating and looking for awesome tastes. She recently explored Salad Love by David Bez, testing severalof therecipes in her own kitchen with varying results. On her recent visit, she passed this book along, thinking we might get good use out of it – and boy, have we!
After many indulgences when Suzie was here (it’s bound to happen!), our household thought it would be brilliant to focus on salads for the season by working our way through the book. Salad Love made it easy because it’s organized seasonally. We started with spring and haven’t looked back. Every day we just go for the next recipe, unless for some reason we’re sure it’s not for us (We’re not seafood eaters, for example). We haven’t made a single salad we haven’t enjoyed, though I should mention we use our own dressings (Suzie was rather critical of the ones in the book).
Not only are we relishing the recipes but this approach has made the answer to “what’s for dinner” so easy because it’s always whatever is on the next page! It’s also been simple to adjust for personal preferences – a little more meat for Justin, a lot less meat for me :) Plus, it’s been a treat to end up having several salad-friendly ingredients prepped and ready to go.
Salad Love has brought us ease, taste and healthfulness this spring and summer and we’ve enjoyed every moment! Tonight: goat cheese, lentils and pine nuts – yum!
If you’re interested in this book, you might enjoy Suzie’s unboxing. It gives you a good look at what’s inside.
Every weekday morning I invite you Behind the Scenes at my studio.
Today: Noticing that life feels full of ease even though I’m deep in the doing and the power of sticking with our creativity no matter what’s up. It’s where our magic lives.
Our biggest worry when we took in three abandoned kittens was that they would never be interested in or even be truly able to connect with people, that they would always be wary, aloof and untouchable.
For the past 11 days we’ve seen them move forward so much. (Follow their daily progress on Chronicles of the Triplets) Slowly they moved out of their hiding spot beneath the piano. Warily they began to eat, stretch out and even sleep with us near by. Shannon, Justin and I spent as much time in the Kitten Zone as we could. We got down on the floor with them. We threw paper balls. We doled out treats. If we reached out our hands, they bolted.
We learned, instead, to sit close by, to sidle up inch by inch and be patient. (I can barely describe how badly we all want to reach down and pick up these little boos and hold them to our hearts!) The more we spent time with the kittens, the more we became aware of their signals. If there was any tension at all in their body, any wariness in their eyes, we moved away.
In the past few days something started to change. For me, it started with Scout.
Scout has been the most terrified of the kittens. It took days for him to even look at me. And now when he does, it’s looks like this – full of soul and… something. It’s as though he is longing for something but has no way to ask for it.
It isn’t food because, trust me, they’ve all learned how to ask for that.
I’ve spent hours sitting quietly next to Scout. I’ve counted it a success every time he hasn’t moved away. Then, the other day, he surprised me by shifting and coming in a little closer. I was amazed when next he reached out his paw towards me. I gently moved in just a little bit. He put his head forward. Emboldened, I gently stroked his paw, just once, twice, and then, heart full to bursting, I let the moment go.
Soon Shibumi showed signs of a similar longing. As I sat with Scout and Escher, she trotted over and curled up near me too and started to purr. Gently, I reached out and touched her side. She startled and then came back and looked at me. I tried again. One stroke. Two. She moved away and returned. This time I tried petting her head, gently rubbing around her ears, and she sat there as though on a precipice of longing, on one side the familiar, on the other side love.
That’s when Escher became curious as well.
His desire was clear, as was the fact that he didn’t know what he was longing for, how to ask for it or how to receive it. I reached out gently. He pulled away. I tried again, approaching from a different angle. He stayed very, very still. I rubbed his head and up around his ears and watched. It was like he didn’t quite understand what was happening but he couldn’t walk away.
It was in that moment that I started to understand is that we are literally teaching the kittens how to receive love. The desire is there but they have no experience with it at all. They have never been touched kindly, never stroked until they fell asleep, never picked up with love or kissed on the nose.
And though love is a wonderful gift, for the kittens, just as it has been (and may still be) for many of us, learning to receive love and affection is tremendously uncomfortable while being magically magnetic.
Love is vulnerable. It’s a risk. A risk we need to keep on taking if we want to feel loved and at home.
photo by Shannon
Taking in three abandoned kittens came as quite a surprise – as does three vet visits, three sets of vaccines and three spay/neuter surgeries! So we’re getting creative and relaunching the Sparkles e-course in support of these much-loved rescues! We’ve even made the registration fee adjustable in case you want to add a little extra to their care package. We know they’d appreciate it.
Sign up for Sparkles – LIVE and bring your creativity to life in just 5 minutes a day. Your heart will start sparkling right away with doing good!
Every weekday morning I invite you Behind the Scenes at my studio.
Today: The kittens have been a great inspiration this week! Not only have I taken a bazillion photos and videos but they also motivated me to relaunch my Sparkles e-course with a new twist – we’re going LIVE in August! I hope you’ll join me. Plus, my sisters and I are hosting a LIVE show tomorrow to celebrate our 50th episode of stART: Creating as we go.
