It is written, so shall it be!

Maybe I'm a rebel without a cause but a part of me just wants to take the advice of Ray Charles and "just make it do what it do" and roll right along with time, taking opportunities as ways and means allow and not set or overthink on goals. 

The goals I set for myself in 2006 I achieved 75% of them...joining organizations and submitting to shows.  I have basically the same goals for 2007 with the addition of attending IQA Festival...attend LAFTA and Sankofa meetings and maintain memberships in organizations, submit to 4 shows, make 4 quilts with dimensionals 36 inches or more, attend 2 major workshops, attend IQA-Houston, and at least one month of studio time at MACA.  These are the biggies for me. Going to Houston is my moutain, the rest are hills that will stretch me but goals that say "managable" if I stay focused.  What really helps me (and I use to teach this in workshops) is to ask myself each night, "what am I going to do tomorrow?" and then upon awaking "what am I going to do today towards my goals?".  Its when I don't ask myself these questions that I allow too many detours with my time. Asking these 2 questions also keeps my goals active in real time versus "far-off" time. 

I've already registered with a weekend workshop with Hollis Chatelain that is being sponsored by the state quilt guild.  The other workshop I want to attend is in Durham, NC and is being taught and organized by Juanita Yeager and although it too will be more involved for me to make it happen, last year's symposium was such a halleluia baptismal experience for me that I just cannot imagine not going again.  It was shortly after this that I rented the 2 months at MACA where the knowledge crystalized and rooted and I created Negotiating Territory which was accepted into Form, Not Function. 

Paducah was ex-nayed off the list.  This one was difficult.  Its become an annual retreat for me and my sister Deborah but this had to go if there was any chance of getting to Houston.  She plans to make the drive with me to Houston and hopefully our other sister Jackie will join us.  A few years back Deborah and Jackie wanted us to take a cruise.  I didn't and still don't have an interest in taking a cruise...I just don't see the fun in it but Deborah was teasing me a few months back that  I'd probably go if it was a quilt cruise. lol...it would still be a hard sell, I think.  I keep looking at QSDS workshops or something at Arrowmont...but I'm thinking for 2008 these will be on my list.   

On the lighter side of goal setting I want to master Photoshop (which I abandoned last year), keep altering books, (I had to take down my makeshift studio, a fold down table, to allow for the Christmas tree but tomorrow my table goes back up!), doodle in my sketch book daily, continue to understand colour, and do several dye weekends at MACA.  Thats really it but that is really enough...but I still want to let life "just do what it do" day by day and roll along and hang on and be happy.   

Ahhh, speaking of happy, we went Christmas day to see The Pursuit of Happyness and although it is a 2 hour film I think Will Smith and the actress that played his wife (I believe she was the actress who played the ghost in Beloved) did an excellent portrayal of day to day "struggle" and it was refreshing that it wasn't glamorized or stylized in contrast to Hustle and Flow.  I liked Hustle and Flow, but it was much more poetic.

But life is good and no matter what, I'm going to keep hanging in! Peace.