Heading back stateside!

It seems that this is going to be more of a weekly shindig than a daily... Too much of the same stuff over and over...

Seriously, I have been busy with work and family in preparation for my first getaway- to meet my best pal in Boston for a long weekend. Yes! So it is 11pm now, and I have to leave the house at 4am latest. I planned to colour my hair, cuddle my husband and get a few winks before then, but I am not even fully packed. As usual, I am packing WAY more than I need, especially since I will buy more stuff as soon as I arrive at the airport, but old habits really DO die hard. In this case, they don't die at all.

Terrible Tuesday? Not really, no.

Well, another week has started, and it has been a busy one so far. My school days have been very full lately as I am trying to motivate my (art) students to create more unique and interesting work and to really improve their skills. This isn't easy. They are generally lazy teenagers, who, nice as they are, have taken art because it is fun and 'easy'.
At the same time, I am trying to improve my own skills, to reignite MY imagination and find a niche for myself.
So, my days range from creating wire armatures for ballerinas, glazing clay pots, building paper maché dogs, drawing fashion illustrations, doing digital photo editing, 35mm film developing and photo printing in the dark room. Today I also had a professional sculptor come to help plan and build an outdoor sculpture/ seating area with a group of the kids.
My brain feels overstimulated.
I got home at 6pm to make dinner and entertain my kids. My primary creation for the day ended up being turkey enchiladas. spicy.
Once I got the little one to bed I was too tired to do anything more than look at other people's creative endeavors on Flickr. It hasn't been a terrible day, not at all, but a very full one. Just as the moon is nearing fullness right now... so am I. I couldn't take in much more, and most certianly can't put anything out. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

my secret's out!

Today I decided to tell my husband that I am writing/making this thing, as well as working on the flickr site. Why am I doing it, and for who? Both reasonable questions, but my only reply was 'I don't know yet'. I just feel like I have to do something. But here I am at 1:30 am again, and god knows what I am saying at this point. I have to wake up in 6 hours, so I really just need to go to bed.
I am hungry for some creative experiences. I am tired of talking about being an artist, showing teenagers how to make art. I want to start creating my own work, again, or finally. I feel like someone who had so much 'potential' (a word us teachers love) when I was in highschool and my first attempt at college... but I was young and afraid to take risks. I was worried about being cool, or not being accepted, or simply not having anything original to say/do.
Today the last concern is still there, but the others won't hold me back. In recent years it was work and family, but I am aiming for 2008 to be the year for my creative growth.
So maybe THAT will be the subject of my blog.
2007 was my year to let go of things, and to really get organized. Still working on that one, but I am getting there bit by bit.

The lost day off

It is Wednesday night, which is usually good for me as I have had Thursdays off for the last 3 years. Since my 2-year-old started daycare this has meant I had one day a week to clean, go shopping, run errands, schedule appointments and work on my masters dissertation. Well thankfully I got the masters out of the way in September, because as of tomorrow I am officially teaching five days a week.

This may sound like a step up the career ladder, but no, I still have the same number of hours and therefore the same paycheck, so it's simply bad luck for Michele. Boo-hoo.
I realize that I have been lucky up to now, and still am lucky in the sense that 'lucky me, I have a job!' but it is still a perfectly valid loss to mourn. I just hope that next schoolyear either allows a rebirth of the day off, or full time hours for this art teacher, who frankly needs some time to make art.

(photo above shows me hard at work in my school, with the visiting Minister of Education, Mary Hannifan)

Tuesday

who actually thinks that sunday is a day of rest?

Today was another one of those days that goes on forever, yet I seem to get very little accomplished. And accomplishment is a big thing with me. What I did do was this: swept piles of poo out of the garage and swished disinfectant around. Our new puppy, Shadow is restricted to the garage at night and when we are away. Yes, we are cruel, but obviously the mutt is NOT housetrained, so what do I do?
What else? I dropped a big, hot bowl of stuffing on my mother-in-law's floor, and broke the bowl into three parts. She wasn't pleased, as this happened just after she had drop the bowl, and I had then scooped most of the stuffing off the floor and said it would be fine. Being a lover of stuffing, I still ate it and so did my devoted (to stuffing) husband and daughter, but the m.i.l. was sure she would choke, so went without.
Finally I held my crying, teething daughter from 7pm until just after 1:30am-- and now my back and arms are killing! I better hit the sack, as I have to get up earlier than usual tomorrow and be told that my car is not roadworthy at the NCT (National Car Testing) centre. Then I will have 30 days to fit in an expensive trip to the mechanic and pray for luck.
For additional joy, I was told that I will now have to work 5 days a week instead of 4, but will be given no additional hours. So the one day that I had a bit of freedom to bathe, clean, run errands, attempt art... now belongs to Lanesboro Community College. (which is a highschool in Ireland)
Great.

One of the things I am trying to stir up my creativity and examine my life, is a project on Flickr called 365 Days. I am taking a self-portrait a day for a year. I turned 34 this year, and find that I am looking and feeling older than I think I should. Like all the women who appear as guests on Oprah, I feel like I have lost my spark, physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

After only 13 days, I feel that my self-awareness is growing, and I am haivng fun (gasp!)- could changing my life really be as simple as holding up a camera and making faces?

We'll see.

what to do?

I am totally unsure about this blogging business, but I want to write. One of my life goals has always been to write a novel. I also grew up loving journalism, and find that blogging is it's newest form. So, here goes...

I moved to Ireland from my native Illinois during the summer of 2001. After meeting my eventual husband in an Irish pub in Chicago, I found myself loading a container and heading to a country that I had no interest or connection to, but was ready for the adventure of it all. I had a 5-year old daughter at the time, and since then she has become a real caileen-- totally Irish, in other words It was meant to be for a year, but my mom had died the year before we left, Bush was president and then 9/11 happened.

Suddenly, or not so suddenly, I was happy enough to keep my distance. In this new life it was easier to forget that my mom was gone- since I was so far away from home. It was a fresh start, a new life.

Well, a lot has happened between then and now, but recently it has just seemed like 'more of the same'. It is feeling stagnant and boring.

Back home I liked to think of myself as a traveller, somewhat nomadic in my settlement. I have always loved starting over-- I have had countless jobs and a very long list of addresses. But now I am a wife (yikes!) and a mother of 2. I have 2 dogs, 3 cats and 4 hens.... a mortgage and a very big back yard.

I regularly feel as if I'm living that Talking Heads song-- 'this is not by beautiful house!' 'how did I get here?' ...... Now, don't misunderstand. My husband could not be better, really, besides his lack of tallness, and being able to eat ANYTHING he wants and not gain an ounce, he is a dream. But my life is not as I had dreamed.

First of all-- take away said husband and kids-- they weren't in my plan. (Correction, they were both planned contraception-wise, but growing up, I never thought I wanted them) Same goes for marriage. Both of my parents were divorced, and seemed fairly unhappily married to eachother when my mom died, and she was only 45. It isn't as if that got bored of eachother in old age- but anyway, my point is that nearly everyone I grew up with came from divorce, and it didn't really appeal to me.

I THOUGHT I would grow up in rinky-dink Urbana Illinois, get away asap, preferrably to NYC- become a professional photographer and/or journalist (either National Geographic for travel and sites or some political watch dog for action and controversy) No ties, only adventures.

Well, I must say there have been some adventures, but now it seems I get up tired, go to bed wired, feel annoyed by students and co-workers during the day, and generally live a whole different life that just happened.

I am itching for change, which brings me back to the whole traveller idea. See, here in Ireland, there is a sub-culture of 'travellers', a race of gypsy-types who once travelled around mending pots and pans or doing odd jobs. To be called one is generally considered derogitory, as they are seen in modern times to be lazy, uneducated and somewhat inbred characters living off the dole.
Right now I would take either-- the travelling life, or the lazy one.

There is too much activity in my days, but so much of it feels meaningless. In the past that has meant I should move, get a new job, or acquire another pet. Today, it means to write, to paint, to take photgraphs and to recognize that this life is an adventure too!