it's early and the morning sounds are making me murderous.

crows at 4:45am are not fun.
the pyschopath that lives right outside my bedroom window (well, that's where his woodpile is). he thinks splitting wood at 6:30 is cool. i don't. his woodsplitter or saw or whatever the f he uses needs like a pool of WD40.

i'm thankful, really, the sun is shining. just sometimes i want to shoot the damn crows. and i want to blast method man in the dude's window in the middle of the night.
but i won't. i don't know how to shoot the rifle and i lost my favorite method man cd.

birthdays (not mine) and thoughts (these are mine)

it's wierd. i had to write the date a million times today... on all the slips for the lobstermen, the bait inventory; the lobster inventory etc... and everytime i wrote it i thought some variation of "shit, today is jasen's birthday" the wierd part is this morning when i woke up and wrote the previous entry about how happy i am and wrote about jasen, i didn't even know what the date was. i was still half asleep but was compelled to think about jasen. ok. hippie moment but i was feeling some energy vibes or something.
what i thought about was his birthday 2 years ago. we were in maine med. his whole family was there and then some left. his brother bought him this crazy gas powered remote control beast of a car. it cost $400 or something and i remember thinking, damn, we could use that money for the kids, or the bills or something because neither of us had worked for almost a month at that point. he went outside with his brother and someone else, maybe jerad? they played with that car around the maine med parking lot and snuck him beers and smoked a joint with him. i waited in the room with his sister-in-law and other family and was so worried. worried that he would fall out of his chair or get angry at seeing the outside even if it was just the parking lot or have an accident as he had no control of any body function... i was scared for him to return because i knew he would feel sad and i was still unsure wholly how to sit with his sadness and not try to fix it.
what i think now i shouldn't have cared how much the car cost or if the doctors would find out he got high in the parking lot and drank coors light. it was his birthday. and he deserved whatever moments of happiness and normalcy as he could get.
it's strange to be writing about jasen. it is a part of my life i still keep pretty close and deal with frequently. it's nice to feel that i am letting go.

if you need to find me look here.

this has been a great summer for me so far. so much better than the last couple. 2 years ago in june my boyfriend jasen got in a serious accident racing motocross and and we spent over 2 months at various hospitals... a couple weeks at MassGeneral; a few weeks at MaineMed and then 5 weeks at The Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It was the hardest thing i have ever done. last summer was crazy at my job as the director of the rec center here on the island. it sucked in so many ways i don't even want to go there... (however, not nearly as bad as the previous summer)

this summer i have been the happiest i have been in 3 years. most of it has to do with my job. seriously. i deal with smelly bait, grouchy lobstermen and spend most of my time on a float and i love it. i love being outside, feeling strong, and working with my brother in law, stephen and my friend carly. at the end off the day i feel exhausted, i smell like dead fish and my body is bruised, those crates of lobsters feel heavier then 90lbs after dealing with 40th, 50th, 70th of the day. at the end of the day i feel great. like a want to eat a whole cow and run 3 miles and go to bed. who would have thought that happiness can be found on a small float with 50 barrells of dead fish?

i know, enough quotes already.

"those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass."

confucius

"the secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom, courage."
thucydides

friends are fun but sometimes they disappoint you.

its true.

darwin is cool. change is good.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

darwin

cheers for loafers!!

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

Henry David Thoreau

the best kind of exhaustion

ocean air. loading lobsters. steaming to portland. smelly bait. bullshitting with a bunch of bitchy lobstermen. i love it:)

check out tom's website

thomascookartworks.com

have a great day.

back on the family compound... grange road.

and i am sooo happy. i slept in my bed. i woke up and made coffee in the best french press i've ever experienced. and when i take a shower i won't have to do it outside. today that would suck cause its foggy and rainy. frodo is pysched to be home too... last night he found every tennis ball and stuffed animal and stick he has and reveled in them. even his hated santa hat.

ahhhh too long.

yup. been too busy to post my life. plus i've been living in a cottage with no computer, internet access and only an outdoor shower. its been great. plus, i think my mum is the only one who read this anyway. love you mum!

going home

people always ask me what it is like living on an island, if it's hard, if i miss having the freedom to be spontaneous. yes, it is hard. yes, i miss my freedom. but it is worth it. you want to find out? come visit. i like to share. this is what it's like to come home. how can it not be worth it?

shirl

knitting needles that once belonged to shirl, i am a lucky, lucky girl. shirl is my friend caitlin's grandmother who passed away on march 1st and she was one amazing woman. one cool thing about growing up on an island is that you know everyone. and everyones family. so i grew up knowing shirl as cait's grandmother. and as the post mistress. and as a master crafter. i knew to be afraid of her cat (i even had a nightmare about this cat 2 or 3 years ago that is still vivid in my mind) and i knew that she was sharp of mind and tongue and wit. as i grew older i came to know more about shirl and i knew to respect her talent as my understanding and appreciation of sewing painting creating expanded. i know that she was liberal. i know that she was outspoken. and i know she was the sweetest battle axe one could find. i know how to imitate her voice, tone and infliction, as much from listening to cait and sharon imitating it to hearing it myself. it makes me smile. it makes me miss cait. so. back to the knitting needles. i am now the proud owner of a slew of her needles and a bag of her yarn. an unfinished mitten. the beginnings of a scarf in a pattern i do not know but will try to learn in luscious teal mohair. i have fat needles. skinny needles. tiny little ones that i fell in love with. and lots and lots of in between needles. i feel so lucky. i feel so proud. i only hope i can channel shirl while i give her needles a whirl and create masterpieces she would be proud of.

new project

i am a pack rat. i keep everything. and by everything, i mean, i still have my notebook from English class my senior year of high school with Mr. Fischer. and more. this habit is slightly annoying to my friends and family that have to help me move on a regular basis. i have boxes of stuff they see no use for but i see possibilities in. i know i need all the National Geographic's from my grandparents yard sale in the 90's. and the buckets of sea glass. and sand. and fabric. i have been carrying around an unfinished quilt my crafty grandmother gave me A LONG TIME ago. she was going to throw it away. i was going to finish it. it didn't matter to me the fabric was faded in spots, i wanted it. and it has moved with me every i have gone since she gave it to me 10 or 12 years ago. after seeing these adorable mini quilts that soulemama made i became inspired! i have decided to make a series of mini quilts with the old quilt. this is a perfect plan because the quilt is all squares and lends perfectly to a 3x3 square. and i embellish in all the ways i love, applique and embroidery. this is going to be fun.

a sunday of thoughts, memories of sadness.

it is sunday, another rainy day and a day for contemplation for me. and what does one crafty girl do on rainy contemplative day? sew of course! i knew i needed a small project as i did not have a lot of time... i had a party to attend in the afternoon... so i came up with this small applique project to keep my hands busy while my mind wandered... last night there was a serious car accident on the island involving, of course, young adults and drinking. everyone turned out ok, this time. but it brought me back to a dreadful night 10 years ago when on this island we were not so lucky, and the victims were my friends. i could not help to reflect on that dreadful accident, the loss of life and visiting my friend in jail for driving the car that killed his girlfriend. why does history have to repeat itself? why can't we learn from our past? i don't have the answers. so instead of dwelling, i create. and this is what i created today while i grieved for the loss of brooke, the time lost to jeff and scott while they were in jail, and rejoiced that these kids did not suffer the same fate. no one died. no one will be spending years in jail. but i hoped and wished with every stitch that those kids and their friends understand just how lucky they are on this rainy, gray sunday. i hope they realize that this day is the first day of the rest of their days. a lucky day to be alive, a day to be thankful.