Hey there! Did you miss me?

Ok, realistically, I'm guessing not, but that's ok. Ive been thinking a lot about encouragement and what does it really mean? Not in the Webster sense, but in real life. I was watching Extreme Home Makeover the other night at a friends house and a commercial came on for healthy living or something....they had some check list for 5 or 6 healthy choices one could make to be healthier. Every time someone in the commercial made a healthy choice, everyone around them applauded and hugged them and clapped them on the back and other such tokens of encouragement. It made us laugh, it was so cheesy, and yet...IS it cheesy? We're generally so encouraging with babies-all the focus on the first step and how even one little step and we all go wild, etc., but somehow we stop being encouraging at some point, even with our younger children on up, and get more and more discouraging...and with adults-WHEW...really bad! I myself can be and am "helpfully" discouraging more often than not. I dont like that about myself...or in others. So, my thought is, let's encourage the HECK out of each other-like every dumb little thing. not fakely, of course, but...pick up on any little good thing and really compliment the other person, whether kid, grandpa/grandma, self even! that's what im trying to do-not easy for a generally cynical/critical person...but, I WILL change.

so...that's my thought for the day/week/month.

btw...ive decided to back through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron...i went through it once-SO awesome. I was the most focused artistically ever in my whole life! but, that was months ago...so here i am, lagging-freaked out by approaching a gallery with my work/portfolio...totally stalled out! my goal is to get my "studio" put back together and then GET PAINTING and selling. If youve never heard/seen the book, check it out. It's a 12 week program for recovering artists! LOL that me. :)

School's going well, generally, with the girls. TWTM isnt killing us this year, and im glad. My 7 1/2 yo dd is still not reading well, but getting better every day. And my 10yo dd is summarizing paragraphs for history without flipping-a real accomplishment!

Ciao!