cliodhna’s wave

… is a long slow messy process. Once again I am cleaning up piss at 3 in the morning and getting all stupid and baby talky when he actually does it outside.. who’s the good little puppy wuppy!!

I am of the stick their noses in it, shout NO and throw them outside school. As he gets older a slap on the but gets added. It seemed to take ages with Cubo until he quit doing it inside. I tied him beside the bed at night to teach him to ask me if he needed to go out. They don’t like doing it in their sleeping area and he would whine until I woke up and took him outside. I have to start doing that with the puppy but I am afraid Cubo might step on him (which he does frequently and the puppy squeaks, I was joking yesterday that he is Cubo’s squeaky toy). Cubo is like an incredibly clumsy enormous older brother but the puppy has incredibly sharp teeth which he uses on poor ol Cubo. They play and either Cubo is whining or the puppy is squeaking.

His name actually means ’stick’ not ’spade’ Pala is a spade but that ends in ‘a’ so it can’t be a boys name. Well, it could but I actually thought palo meant spade. I get confused sometimes!

We have moved house, away from all the spiders and alacranes living in all the cracks of the brick work and away from the pond and the frogs to the civilisation of tarmac and a shop just a block away. I did see a big Black Widow spider living in a pile of bricks right outside the house. She can stay there.

Scorpion Charm….. catch the scorpion/alacrane in a jar or something with a piece of paper underneath. Take it outside somewhere dry (they like dry places with crawly spaces) and explain very carefully that it has to tell all its friends to stay away from the house. That they will probably get squished if they come in. Then let it go (carefully.. sometimes they get a bit pissed from being caught) step away and leave it alone. Sometimes you have to do it a few times but they get the message and stay away. This works with all insects, bugs, vertebrates, and all sized shaped wonderfully coloured creepy crawly things.

rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain

did I mention it was raining?

the rain starts at approx four o clock every day, the roads turn into muddy rivers, muddy rivers occupy any available downward trajectory. Its cold and wet and the thunder and lightning complete the picture.

All the creepy crawlies are coming into the houses to find dryness. Paul got stung by a scorpion. It fell from the ceiling onto his head. He sits up in the darrkness saying ’something just landed on my head’ and then OWW, something stung me, man that stings, $%#@#$, Light goes on and there it is, an alacrane, pale brown, bout an inch and a half long. Two of us sitting in the bed at four in the morning wondering was it the really dangerous kind or not. He was fine after an injection. He also saw a huge centipede in the sink and there are spiders everywhere…..

I finally saw a whole turtle today after days of just heads dissapearing under the water.

A swallow, who has a nest beneath the house, drinking water sitting on a wire.

A wonderfully coloured beetle. I actually thought it was a fake one until I picked it up. There also dung beetles with big horns on their foreheads a beautiful iridesant blue. as long as your thumb.

There are loads of lizards here, tiny small and so fast you rarely see them. This guy was doing a chest stuck out thing and I wondered what he was doing until I caught a glimpse of smaller brown one dissapear beneath a rock and this one after it. So I guess rainy season is courting season for the lizards.

Another picture of Cubo and the newly named Palo. Palo means spade and Cubo is bucket so I have a bucket and spade, perfect for the beach! Actually they both have the mange and I have stuff to inject them with for the next seven days. I tried to do it but the needle looked so big I chickened out. Paul can do it, he has emergency medical training, he has actually done injections in the past. I was feeling slightly guilty about giving Cubo mange by bringing the puppy home but the vet said he had it for longer than I have had the puppy. All the dogs here, or at least some of the scrawny ones that skulk around my house have it.

I am currently living in Temoris. Its in the middle of the mountains in Chihuahua and I love it. Its on the train line for the barrancas del cobre which is a huge canyon range strtching from the coast up to chihauhau city. In some places bigger and wider than the grand canyon.

Anyway its rainy season here at the moment and the land which was arid and dusty and bone dry before has suddenly sprung to life. At night the house is surrounded by fireflies and frogs creaking in the grass and crickets out making their song also. I painted a picture about it.

The nearby pond which honestly was a cracked brown piece of earth has turned into a bog pond. I went down at night to look at it and there was a frog singing beside my foot. A tiny green frog making a huge noise. I had a torch but couldn’t see him for ages because I was looking for a big thing not the tiny greenness the size of my thumbnail.

The yesterday I went out in the rain to look at the water and there are turtles in the water. I was so suprised. They must bury down deep into the mud for the rest of the year and just sleep until the water wakes them up and they emerge again. Today the purple dragonflies have arrived.

All is sunny and hot and swealtering until a rumble in the distance announces a storm is on the way. Clouds gather behind the mountain, dark and looming. Piling high with windows of sunshine coming through.

They work their way around and through the mountains, gathering behind peaks and then spilling over.

And look at this wee thing I found tied to a tree. I asked at nearby houses and they said he had been left there. Poor little squidge. They don’t look after animals very well here sometimes. I think a lot of time the poorer families are on survival for themselves and don’t have energy left over to look after dogs. Also there doesn’t seem to be any laws protecting animals or sterilization programs for strays. I found him only two days ago. He has been sleeping a lot and eating a lot and I have been bathing him to get rid of the fleas. I am worried about him today though, his nose is very hot, I hope he isn’t sick.

This is him waiting his turn at the food bowl. He will get his own bowl soon if he stays with us. He is feisty though, Cubo doesn’t know what to make of him. Two seconds after this photo was taken he pushed his way in past Cubo and growled at him! Cubo actually looked surprised and got out of the way.

I want to go back to the river beside the train station soon. I bet theres loads of water to go swimming in now!

I was on a yoga and meditation day on saturday down in Claire just beside the burren in a place called the Holywell. Amazing place. I said to a friend, the grass is so green here in Ireland! and she smiled and said You sound just like an american. I laughed, its true, americans generally when they come here at some point will say exactly that.

But it is true about the grass,, coming from where I have been living in mexico, high desert, where the plants struggle for water and the cattle and horses are bone skinny and are constantly cropping close little brown spiky tufts of grass, to come here is to marvel at the greeness and the softness of the ground. I was scrubbing for wild garlic in the wood yesterday and was amazed at the depth of the moistness and softness. Old leaves and moss and returning to earth mulch. In mexico I learn to see the subtle colours and little signs of life and signs of water and new buds on a tree stand out from miles away. Here there is no stopping it.

On the car front I bought a 1998 Ford escort, metallic blue, reaaaaalllllllly cool! the first day it was home I kept taking sneak peeks out my window just to look at it. Insurance was bought yesterday and I am collecting the owners papers tomorrow so i can tax and register it. and then there will be no more excuses!

On an art front, not doing a whole lot right now, I am missing some permanent studio space what with coming here and then for the last while in mexico being in transit between old guanajuato and new chihuahua. (more about that later) But I have one commission from the parents for an embroidery for a 50th wedding anniversary, a commision for a childs mural that needs to be discussed and talked about, a craft competition to enter for and a gallery to find. Lots of doing things in front of me. Ok, off to bray to apply for a new passport and call into the fabric store and oohh and aahh over their wonderful things…

love and light ya’ll !

…who of course both know sooooo much more than me and can’t agree about anything.

Conversation example

Dad, can we go and test drive a few cars today? Daughter, wait till next week until Mr Driver is back so he can vet them. Son says, I don’t trust Mr Driver.

Dad, They are all NCT’d and taxed and there are six in bray I would like to look at. Daughter dear why would anyone nct a car, tax it and then try to sell it? I don’t know dad, can we just go and see them. They will sell you a pig in a poke says he.

Eoin at this point is still asleep being a nocturnal animal generally. I see trouble when we actually go to test drive these cars. Eoin figures he knows more than anyone else about anything and so does my dad. Sigh

I really just want a really cool car, an old one like the ones I see around mexico. From the 70’s, a big wide ford, or one with curvly shaped body bits and old wooden dashboards. Cars are really boring these days. There is a volkswagen beetle for sale here for 7000 euro. My god, they are two a penny in mexico. Everyone drives one. They are amazing little cars, they just go and go and go and go, up mountains and down hills and still keeping on going.

I had a dream years and years ago and I was sitting beside a canyon looking at an old leatherbound book which had the words “Where dragons be and how to find them” written on the front cover. I was looking at the index page because of course I wanted to know how to find them when up the canyon a huge bird came soaring. It dissolved into a thousand pixelly parts and then reformed facing towards me and took off past me with such power. I was left sitting there with my mouth open but no-one else saw it in the dream. I never did find out how to find dragons, guess I wasn’t supposed to know that information at that time.

I have changed a lot since that time. I lived in my dreams back then, It was quite cool for a while, I could dream on order and I had all sorts of mad strange lessons and journeys and I think looking back I was learning a lot on a level I didn’t know about. Time came though when I realized I wasn’t capable of holding down a proper job or manifesting all these dreams I had into reality. I was so afraid of failing (or succeeding) or making mistakes or not being able to live up to my own dreams and my knowledge about myself that I was stuck in this world and so I made the decision to come out, to quit obsessing about my inner world and start manifesting in my outer one.

The thing I know about myself is that I always get what I ask for.. always.. and this is not from an ego point of view, it amazes me sometimes when I look back and remember ‘Oh yeah, I asked for this, cool, thanks universe’. Of course this cuts both ways, I remember being frustrated with myself that I wasn’t in touch with my negative emotions, I was living on the surface all the time. Boy oh boy did I have a doozer of a year and a half after that wish but I came out the other side wiser and more in touch with myself and more accepting of my negativity and smarting from a few painful lessons.

So to come to place I think of as the Jonathon Livingston Seagull place. To learn how to ‘not ask’ but to stand so still you can traverse time and space. To learn how to be in that precious space of peace where creativity flows without hindrance, without judgement or comparison or fear or dissaproval. To leave ‘trying’ behind and just be. To let myself do that with my art and my pictures but also my life. Let it flow to where it needs to go so always I am in the right place , and the right place is always here.

I feel right now I am on the beginning of a cycle, cool feeling, I am planning work, wanting to get down to it. more oil pictures, these pictures I’m doing for threadless will get turned into embroideries. Patience, plant some seeds and see what sprouts. I said to someone recently my lesson is slow development and patience with myself is something I have had to learn. Let things develop slowly, don’t rush, don’t push, I will get to where I want to go to eventually with my stuff well learnt and well prepared, with calmness and in heart.

I am settling with Paul also, wonderful feeling of deepness that I always just accepted I would probably never find and of course scared the shit out of me when it arrived . Just to make ya’ll jealous here is a picture of the swimming hole we were in recently and I was swimming in a looking around at where I had found myself in my life saying “Cool! thanks universe”

So, its sunday morning and we are going to a water park today!! with slides and thermally heated water.. very exciting.

I decided its time for some pictures of where I live, I have been here in Guanajuato for on and off about two and a half years and it is such a sweet little town. Its safe to walk around in and its got wonderful reastaurants and some wonderful bars and a lack of good dancing places (unless of course you like salsa or rave, I like 70ties funk and good popping disco for a fun everynow and then and in general just a good mix of good music. The salsa thing is fun for a while but… I actually bought a cd so me and Paul can practise.

Guanajuato was built on gold and silver from the mines here, which have been mined for centuries. It has been the focal point of various uprisings and rebellions notably the one lead by a man named Hidalgo against the spanish who were taking all the silver and gold out of the country. Of course now its canadian and american companies taking all the mineral and paying the miners terribly, but now its legal.. go figure

I love guanajuatos winding streets and old colonial buildings, it has such a grace to it. It is snnuggled into a valley and the buildings wind their way up the sides of hills and then down the other side.

Good leg muscles from living here, most directions are either up or down. You can’t get lost really, just follow the flow of the hills down and you will end up on the main way that meanders through the town. If in a car and you want to go back you have to follow the circle until you can access an underground tunnel.

The view from our house up the hill. I take the dog for a walk up there most days.

My puppy!

not so little anymore, he is a big slobber monster and loves to bark at passing motorcycles and bicicles. People are scared of him because he is a rotweiller but really he is a big mush. There are a lot of strays here and they are all savvy street dogs wanting to defend their turf, and Cubo of course just wants to play, most of them are ok but there are one or two whose aim is to fight and I drag Cubo away from them both dogs barking furiously at each other with people screaming and scrambling to get out of the way!

A square with two great restaurants on it, a crepe place and to the right and french salad bar, mmmmmm, so good..

Jardin de La Union.. with teatro juarez to the left there, its a beautiful old theatre, all plush and gold and carvings of cherubs and things inside. On the top are statues representing al the arts, painting, music sculpture, etc

I am missing certain pictures, like a view from above and a picture of the purple trees in bloom, they come out every year this time, so pretty. We are in high desert here and the surrounding hills are brown now but come the rainy season in july and august then the thunderstorms come rolling in and the hills turn green and the Nopal cactus starts flowering and other plants I have no names for send forth colour. The cattle and the horses start looking sleeker and in every tiny pool and puddle tadpoles swarm.

Ok I am going to go make some more coffee and some breakfast and then off to swim!!

I have a new obsession.. it makes me go rummaging through my piles of fabric and hold two of them together and think, and then two more, and ponder, and then oooooooo this looks really cute and if I put this on it too! wow.. super cool

The object of my new craze? the wee tiny change purse. I posted a picture in the previous post of one I did and I have been making two a day since for my etsy shop.  Its since I discovered the utter simplicity of zip insertion.. its like discovering the wheel (or sliced bread) all over again. I love when I open them and there is a differant colour inside. Its like chocolate sweets with raspberry filling.. now there is a concept to apply to a purse

I bought linen with sparkly bits in it yesterday (fabric stores are the new second-hand clothes shops…. don’t get sucked in cliodhna! do you really need this fabric?.. answer? yes, yes, whatever, just buy it and worry about it later) and also some shiny blue satin and some red zips and some dark purple zip. There is a place in India I want to go to where they sell silk. A whole gigantic market full of silks and saris.. drool……

My problem is there are too many things I want to do and not enough time in which to do them and being a very typical gemini I get distracted by the latest pretty shiny thing and flit from idea to idea until my head feels like its going to burst and I get a panicky feeling that I will not get any of them done. Deep breath and one thing at a time.. I have to balance fun things like bags and purses and cute illustrations with exploring what I want to paint or pictures I have that I want to do. I had a realisation last night that I actually wasn’t 100% sure who I am exactly.. I am all these things and sometimes I try to be other than who I am  which confuses the matter again.

Its ok to be confused, worried, intense, self absorbed, shy, retiring, reclusive, and also at the same time be outgoing cheerful, happy, flighty, slightly batty. Maybe thats where the conflict comes in, my art has two sides, one more serious when I paint and try to reveal truths and explore meaning and then the other side where its just fun and hey little silver fishes and embroidered hearts look great on red felt..

its tuesday.. reminds me of Popeyes friend.. can’t remember his name.. “i’ll gladly pay you tuesday” hey that would be a good slogan for a t-shirt. I am a bit obsessed with slogans for T-shirts at the mo.. heres one I made up

I don’t give a fork about spooning

and another

I am really a child-eating reptilian bent on galactic domination (david ike inspired that one)

The first one is getting a better response, though I would definitely wear the second one. Threadless is my new toy until I find another.

I have been messing with oil paints and changed my way of painting with them. I think I have actually gone backwards a little to when I first started painting with oils and I was messy and used the paint straight onto the canvas with swirls and lines and patterns. I got more refined in the meantime and was using layers and small brushes and the proper proportion of oil to spirits and all that and now I have come full circle back to straight from the tube onto the surface. So much fun! Here is a painting I did recently. Paul asked me to do one with lots of hands and it was easter to the two combined in my head to a spring growing picture

What else, I got some more funky mexican oil cloth and am starting to make some wee change purses with it. I have for sale on my etsy shop. 8 dollars each which is approx 5 euro. I was very pleased with myself though, I have finally conquered the dreaded zip insertion, its actually very simple, if anyone wants to know I could post about it, with pictures. I have been putting this off for years! always using some other way of closing my bags but now!!! aha! took me two tries.. you should see the first purse I made. It works but the seams are all over the place. here is the front of one of them. I love this fabric.

Ok, I have a list of things I want to accomplish today. I am going to buy knitting needles and some more zips, paint a picture, make two more purses, do some more photoshop work on a design, learn to scuba dive (I wish) and …….

x clio

this is a amazing give-away/meet new people happening that I discovered through Fanciful Twists blog. The closing date for comments is February 14th which is very soon but hey, better late than never. Go here and see a list of all the blogs who are participating, leave a comment and your blog site or email and explore. Its for getting to know other bloggers out there. I have seen a few of them, there are so many cool sites.

This is my give away, a shopping bag made from mexican oil cloth. Strong and durable and fun colours. I had them for sale at a recent craft fair in Ireland. There are so many wonderful colours here in Mexico..

Happy February y’all!