Hooray!  I am so glad to read the joyful news you're all sharing here.  I want to add a piece of my own, especially because it connects directly to Artella, and to our dear Constance. 

Today I used a power tool.  As you know, I am a poet and singer, and power tools don't play a significant part in my daily life.  You could even say I have a phobia of them - as well as furniture which you must assemble yourself, peering all the while at a diagram that bears little resemblance to the bits and pieces spread out before you. 

But this was a necessity.  I've been having trouble with my hands and arms for a few months and in order to protect them and safeguard my career as a musician and writer, I needed to set up a proper workstation and commit to good posture for a change (rather than my usual act of sprawling on a cushy chair and typing in pretzel-form).  I bought a cheapy desk and decided NOT to ask my true love to put it together; why should he have to do these jobs every time?  And so the afternoon found me learning the difference between Philips and Allen screws, and how to drill forwards and backwards!

 What helped me most during this little ordeal was Constance.  I listened to her beautiful, beautiful poems in her 2007 audio presentation, "Moving, Losing, and Moving On," and felt first of all just delighted to hear the voice of this woman whose words I have read so often:  a rich, warm, lovely voice.  And her poetic voice!  These are poems to break and heal your heart, to show you the darkness and give you a light to walk through it.  I was deeply moved by what she shared of her own experiences, but also by the poems themselves, so full of insight, compassion, and hope.  They are both rigorous and highly crafted AND intuitive and whole-hearted.  If you haven't listened to this yet, check it out on the Membership listening page.  I guarantee you'll be glad you did.

Tonight, I'm typing at my new hand-supporting workstation and I'm glowing with pride because I did what I didn't think I could do.  Thank you, Constance, for your excellent company, inspiration, and help!

KateSinging 

Wow! I would love to listen to Constance's poems. Whereabouts do I find them? 

~sooz

 Hi Sooz!

Go to the Membership and then to the Listening Library.  Constance's presentation is in the 2007 page - somewhere around May, I think.  I KNOW you will love this!

KateSinging 

The actual URL of Constance's recording is: http://www.artelladailymuse.com/members/ListeningRoom7.html#moving 

You should be able to click on this link and go directly there.

Hugs ~~ Aunt Bobby

This is a touching recording and I am fortunate to have heard it! I recommend it to anyone here.

The other day we had golf-ball sized hail with about an inch or so of rain and violent winds. Nothing was damaged!!

We did happen to get a roof estimate about the same time (unrelated), and we are within a couple months of being able to afford it! Yes!

My cosmos just began blooming today - beautiful small purple petals. Never planted cosmos before (and from seed), so I breathed a sigh of relief that they really do bloom in my own pots!

A sense of peace coming "here" to Artella - a gratitudinous plunge into the refreshment that is all of you!

Gentle hugs,

Copper Cat ~*~

 Bless you Kate, and Sooz, Bobby, and Copper Cat... thank you for your bouyancy -- that is, your prayers, and the privilege of hearing your own burdens and allowing us to support you in prayer and positive thoughts.  I love cosmos -- the name, for one thing, but the flowers themselves!  I'm understanding that peace, too, amongst creative, articulate friends.

  Constance

 Good news from this quarter:

~ I finished making a new song yesterday and have nearly finished a setting for Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty," which is so truly gorgeous - a rose of a poem - I swoon thinking of it

 ~ loving EnvelHopes and the chance to sit at the art table every day and go into a sweet meditative state, cutting, folding, pasting, thinking good thoughts

~ planted more herbs yesterday: cilantro (yow!), spearmint, lavender, rosemary, and lots of basil

~ eating said herbs all the time!  Insalata caprese, anyone?

~ have done a KateSinging version of FengShui on my study, lugging out cartons of old stale paper and projects, sprucing up with new pictures, a cool clock with a swinging pendulum, and a greater sense of spaciousness.  Makes me feel like work is really play.

~ using Goalar Energy principles to work on my novel again.  20 minutes every day is adding up!

 Hoping you're all blooming, my friends.  Share some good news when you get a mo -

KateSinging

PS - Or, share news you'd like to make better.  Or even fantasy good news which is great fun and amazingly powerful, too, I believe.

OK, I'll take a stroll in the Good News Garden...

~ Our heat wave is OVER and we survived without much apparent garden damage. 

~ I have not seen any mice in the barn!

~ The heat wave was over in time for me to do a marathon cleaning of the guest house AND I had enough energy to do that, before guests started arriving this weekend.

~ The guests arrived and it was great to see them and be with them.

~ We got to host an adorable brand-new puppy for an overnight stay.

~ I've been able to take some group pictures of company, now that I have a really cool little tripod that will grip any available surface (and I have delayed shoot, so I can be in them). 

~ I have a good relationship with Beloved Hubby, which I stopped to appreciate when x complained about y and y complained about x. 

~ I communicate well with people and can voice things that need getting voiced. 

~ That I don't have a problem bottling up my emotions these days, like I did a decade or so ago. 

~ I finished another sweet little quilted decorative pillowcase: they bring me so much joy not only to stitch on, but to look at afterwards. 

~ I finished reading "The Pillars of the Earth" and also "Water for Elephants" and am now starting "East of Eden" (Steinbeck!...yeah!)

~ My job! Oh, my job! I'm the luckiest person ever to be able to work from home, be very well appreciated, deal with upscale clients, and have a great benefit package. 

~ Little baby birdies, all over the property, and mommie-and-daddie birdies protectively singing or squawking near the nests. 

~ Lastly, for the past month or more, I've been power-walking, around and around our country block for an hour, saying hello to neighbors, listening to music for a fast beat, and feeling terrific, every 3-4 days!  Yeah! 

OK, who's next??  Anyone going to take a spin on the Good News wheel?  Let's count up our successes. 

Sooz, I always love your good news which seems to me to be solar-powered, smiled-upon by nature goddesses, and be-sparkled with fun.  Thank you for all that good feeling!

Good news here:  a great day of work!  It feels wonderful to be challenged and immersed in a delicious project.  I stayed in my study all day, working in great contentment with nervous cats all around as the lightning flared and the thunder rolled and buckets of rain splashed down on our hot little world.

Other good news:  a happy and loving visit with my mother and my big brother, Dan.

And finally:  I learned to make a delicious white bean spread tonight and served it to my true love on crostini with a nice red wine.  Yow!  Thus ordinary life offers up a small bouquet of romance...

 Happiness to all of you, friends -

KateSinging