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Have a Real Merry Christmas

December 8, 2011 - Posted by PattiAnn

Friends are God’s apology for relations.

— Hugh Kingsmill

This is the time of year that is supposed to be about getting together with family and friends. I don’t know how it is for other families, but in my family, Christmas is like a fairy tale. Good children get everything they want. There are no bad children. There are unlimited funds. Everyone loves everyone. And we all live happily ever after – just as soon as we Continue reading » Have a Real Merry Christmas

Shake It UP!

October 5, 2011 - Posted by Ellie

Photo credit: Song_sing

Are you locked into the same ol’/same ol’? Maybe it’s time to shake it up!

Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.

— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Kaleidoscopes are some of my favorite toys – I have a modest little collection, nothing too special but very fun! Some of them have “stuff” that gets re-scattered with every turn, one has fluids that move and change. But the ones I like the very best are actually inexpensive plastic, fist-sized toys with prism lenses that refract the real world into crazy mixed-up images – with every turn, my world bends into hundreds of tiny daffy images – very cool!

Recently I heard about an “artist and Dad the second time round,” named Raghava KK and his new iPad app for Continue reading » Shake It UP!

How to Unfuddle Your In-Betweens

August 2, 2011 - Posted by Ellie

Photo credit: subarcticmike

Feeling frustrated with the in-betweens?

We are a goal-oriented people, and we like to know “where” we are headed–whether it’s by the end of the day or the end or our life. It’s just the in-between that befuddles us.

— Terry Hershey

Today is a “moodling day” in which I get to do some enjoyable tinkering and, hopefully, arrive at some creative insights about the “in-betweens,” AKA the “not quite there yets,” also called the second stage of a transition: The Neutral Zone.

I’m starting my moodling session by playing with a silly little prefix named “Peri” – and just in case you wondered, I’m not referring to the mythical and possibly vengeful sprite named Continue reading » How to Unfuddle Your In-Betweens

Waking Up to Possibilities

May 24, 2011 - Posted by Ellie

Photo credit: eflon

When you woke up this morning what did you most look forward to doing?

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh.
“What do you say, Piglet?”

“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.

— A. A. Milne

On a recent yardsaling excursion I came across a family game by Food for Talk. Their company tag-line reads: Bringing families together one conversation at a time. Food for Talk Games contain a deck of cards and each card is inscribed with a thought provoking question to be answered by either the individual who drew the card or the entire assemblage. What a Continue reading » Waking Up to Possibilities

Waiting in the Wings

April 13, 2011 - Posted by Ellie

Photo credit: Paul-in-London

What great possibilities are waiting in the wings for you to discover?

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.

— J. B. Priestley

Orchestra conductor Benjamin Zander and his wife, teacher and family therapist Rosamund Stone Zander, wrote a fascinating and entertaining book about “the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of our lives.” In their book, The Art of Possibility, they tell of a violinist who “led as a peer with so little fanfare that no one actually noticed him. They just heard the Continue reading » Waiting in the Wings