Red Dirt Farm and Studio

Exhaustion. I haven’t slept well in over a week now and it is really catching up with me. I’m really feeling worn out.

What are you feeling these days?

A goal I am working on is decluttering. I am trying to work towards less is more. That’s really hard for me, I am not a minimalist. I love stuff and stuff that holds memories – I am a total sucker for. I am a collector of many things.

Starting a new painting.

Boxes of stuff ready to be donated to a thrift store.

I somehow managed to distract myself or get off track if you will.  I pulled a handful of items out of my thrift-store donation pile and repurposed them.  Eek, I guess I am going to have to work harder on the decluttering thing.  I put flowers in the creamers and glued a nest I made to the mini-tea pot.  I painted bees on one plate and butterflies on another.  I did all this because I have been going through a very difficult time with creative block.  I had a couple of commissions that I needed to complete and send off.  I just could not get my head in the right place to paint and when I would try everything came out awful.  One of my favorite things to paint is bees, so I used that as an excuse to get back in a rhythm and it helped quite a bit.  I was finally able to finish the three paintings that I had been struggling with, and mailed them off to their new home.

Sadly, sleep remains elusive, I thought perhaps once I finished the paintings my mind would relax and I would sleep.  So far the only one sleeping is That Cat.

Soon the summer Olympics will be happening in Tokyo.  I thought what a perfect time to introduce Connie, she is a German-American married to a Japanese man living in Japan. We met through blogging, several years ago and have kept in touch and have formed a friendship.  While on the surface it seems our lives are quite different we also share many interests and have been going through some similar life events  – like we both lost our mothers recently and have found ourselves on different life paths than we thought we would be on. I quite frankly had been uneducated in Japanese culture and had no interest in learning. Therefore, it has been surprisingly fun exploring this country and their customs with Connie and experiencing her life through her beautiful photos and videos and stories.   You might enjoy meeting her and learning about that part of the world that soon will be front and center.  She is tech savy and I am not, but she is going to walk me through the process and we will “meet” for the first time through Zoom, sometime in the near future. She is my unexpected friend.

Blog:  Making the Best of It

Be well everyone.

Until next time,

xo, Kim

#Sunnysgardenofhope – Sunnys Garden of hope is the name of the garden where I grow flowers that I donate to cancer patients at our local hospital. The garden is named after Sunny Beecher.