M is for Mill Avenue

My mind is a mad jumble of a myriad of marvelous ideas! OH YES! I am totally fired up! I might as well be wearing a pleated mini skirt, letterman's sweater and shaking some pom poms! Are you excited yet?

*Deep BREATH*

I am feeling inspired by the letter 'M' today and I want to tell you all about it! Are you ready?

Here WE GOOOOOOOOO!

One of my absolute favorite places to go/things to do in Arizona is the Mill Avenue Arts Festival. It comes around twice a year and it takes place in downtown Tempe. I have been going to this festival for about as long as I can remember. Sadly, due to my constantly changing state residence, my visits have been less frequent over the years. When I was in my early 20's I landed a job with the non-profit organization that plans the event, and even though I was a lowly administrative assistant it was one of my favorite places to work. I got to be front and center during the planning and the reviewing of the various artists who had applied for booth space at the event. Over the years the festival has gotten very large and features artists, musicians, fabulous culinary vendors and all kinds of other amazingly talented individuals.

I discovered one of my favorite artists at the festival. Her name is Ora Tamir and over the years I have collected quite a few pieces of her art. I have also given the prints as gifts to family and friends. Here is an example of one of my favorites:

(from Ora's Art website)

I love the fluidity of her work and the colors are so full and rich I feel like I could walk right into her fantasy world.


I was thinking about all the million or more things that I could tell you about the Mill Avenue Arts Festival...and then I thought about a post I wrote a few letters back, which featured a giveaway of an independent folk musician that I enjoy listening to, Michael Salazar. And then it dawned on me, supporting independent artists isn't just about supporting the artists I like, it's about learning about the artists that move you, as well.

You all learn about me on a daily basis, but what opportunity have I made to learn more about you? Not enough I think. Not only will learning about your favorite artists help me to write better for you, but it will increase the audiences of the artists that you support. I have said before we are a community of writers, but we are also a community of readers, listeners, watchers and thinkers. As members of this community we network through each other to get our "stuff" or the "stuff" (highly scientific terminology) of those we admire supported.

And then my brain really started revving up. I thought about my blog friend Sheila at Sheila Scribbles and how she had hosted a "Blog Yard Sale". A brilliant and fun idea! And isn't the A-Z Blog Challenge all about supporting our fellow bloggers and diversifying our experiences? I think yes! How many of my now 50+ followers (still get excited about that) found me through A-Z and how many have I found? The answer is, A-LOT!

And then I had my own stroke of brilliance...what if...I could create my own online Mill Avenue Arts Festival?! And in doing so I could support some of my favorite artists AND yours.

You're still with me right? Because here's where it gets really good!

Here's what it all boils down to, I am changing all of the giveaway rules and beefing up the now named, "Indie Artist Prize Pack"!
What on earth could be in this new brilliant new prize pack you may be asking yourself? Well, that's the beauty of this new game, my hope is that the more people that participate the bigger the prize pack will get! These things are guaranteed to be in the prize pack however;

-Signed copy of 'stories in my head' by Michael Salazar.

-A copy of one of my all time favorite books, The Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari. This book was published by Tor, so it's not "Indie", however, this was Ferrari's first novel and it's such a beautiful story that I think more people should read it!

-A 6.5 X 7.5 lithograph of Aquarius by Ora Tamir.

I have a few other ideas for some bonus prizes and if you would like to promote your own or someone elses work by adding it to the prize pack let me know and we can make the prize pack even more fabulous.


This is how it's going to work:

First, the contest is going to last through the end of April, the last day of the A-Z Blog Challenge will also be the last day to participate in the Mandi's Online Art Festival

Second, you don't have to follow the links of the artists I've mentioned here, that would be nice, and I hope you do, but it's not a giveaway requirement. Since this is about me getting to know you and spreading the word about your favorite artists, authors, bloggers, musicians etc., I want to hear about your faves!


So how do you participate to win this fabulous prize pack?

-Leave me a comment with the name and if you can a link to one of your favorite artists, doesn't matter if they are a musician, author, culinary artist, blogger...whatever, and yes you can promote your own work as well.

That's it.

At the end of the A-Z Challenge I will hold a random drawing of all of the participants Wicked Stepmom style, ie I will make my little steppie draw the name out of a hat. In the blog where the winner is announced I will also compile a list of all of the artists and links to their sites that are mentioned as part of the contest.

And remember...You can't win if you don't play! So leave a comment, and spread the word about Mandi's Online Art Festival and help me give some fun stuff away.

~Hip HIP HOORAY~

~M

Kathmandu and Laughter

I'm starting to have a habit of being always one day behind in my letters. I'm sure this wouldn't be such a problem if I would just keep my blogs short like the A-Z Blog Challenge suggests. And yet...I continue to do it my way, I like my way. What's that saying?

"The definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

And still, I see no future changes. I like to refer to myself as adorably stubborn rather than stupid. But then again referring to myself as adorable kind of negates the adorable and just leaves me with stubborn. Here's to stubborn!

I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends for places that started with the letter K yesterday because I was having a hard time deciding what K place I would like to visit. Ironically, it was the very first reply that I got that reminded me of someplace that I have had a fascination with since...well a long time.

My fascination with Kathmandu was propagated by the watching of a very cheesy but totally endearing movie called, "The Night Train to Kathmandu". Haven't heard of it? That's not all that surprising although Milla Jovavich was in it. The movie is very sweet and full of all sorts of adventure that as a tween seemed entirely plausible and not the least bit corny. The movie involves a prince, an invisible city and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't remember. It was kind of like Brigadoon (another one of my absolute favorites) without the singing and dancing and set in Nepal instead of Scotland. Oh and filled with teenage angst instead of adult angst. I don't think they offer this movie on DVD or I would totally subject my little step-tween to watching it with me! I have to give the little one credit here, she is really good about watching old movies with me. I love Hayley Mills Disney movies and she patiently sat through every single one of them with me, and made me feel good by telling me how great they were. So kudos to the little one for having good taste in movies.

So to wrap up the letter 'K' - Kathmandu, I would like to go there based solely on the memory of a movie that I watched as a 12 year old. Just between you and me, I'd probably spend half of my time there looking for the invisible city...or at least making one up in my head!

And L - Next year whether I'm in Disneyland, Jamaica or Kathmandu I hope I am laughing. And in honor of laughter I would like to share this very funny story with you.

I went to the gym today. It was the first time in 3 months. I was excited to get back and to feel strong enough to get in a good cardio workout. I was going to a writing group at the Starbucks next door after my workout so I showered at the gym and this is where the fun begins.

I get a little weird about bacteria and germs, I'm fairly certain that this is a result of one too many Microbiology classes in my 7 years as an undergrad (that's right I said 7, and nope not a Dr.). So anyway, I have a habit of checking out a couple of shower stalls before choosing one, because I want to have the cleanest stall you know!? I pick my shower stall, it looked pretty good (not that any of them looked bad..it's just I like to have the best). I turned on the water and let it run to warm up while I set up my stuff.

Everything was going fine and then I got into the shower. I hadn't been in the shower for more than a minute and a half when the trouble started. I had shampoo in my hair and then out of nowhere the water turned FRIGID, not mildly cooler, not a little cold, like shards of ice flying out of the shower head at my body. I immediately grabbed the shower head to direct it away from me when it POPPED OFF and flew at my head before landing in my hands. SO now the water is jetting out directly at my face in a solid stream of ice, I've got shampoo running down my face into my eyes, I'm holding the shower head in my hands and blindly trying to turn the shower off, while trying not to scream in pain and frustration.

I finally get the water off, I put the shower head back on grabbed my towel and immediately turned on and jumped into the next shower stall without checking it first. As soon as I got into the shower I was in more trouble, the water which had started to warm up was cooling down and forming a small lake at my feet. SO GROSS! I hate standing water, but I'm trying not to be freaked out I just want to get clean, but the water was getting colder and the pool at my feet was getting deeper and all I could think about what the kinds of things that are attracted to standing water. What do I do? I of course turn off the shower jump out and immediately jump into the next stall where wouldn't you know it the hot water works great, the drain is draining and me...I've got no soap, no conditioner, nope not a drop of cleaning solution within 3 shower stalls of me. On the other hand I had hot water, hot water and clean hair. I guess it could have been worse!

Happy Thursday my wonderful readers ~ May your showers be warm, you soap dish be full and your cities full of invisible wonder!

~M

G is for Gardening

I got a treat today.

Not the chocolate covered kind.

Not the kind that's alcoholic and comes in a box.

Not the kind that fills up my bank account (speaking of which...cross your fingers and toes that all in D.C. goes well tonight or my bank account will have no presents going into it on the 15th)

Nope, I got the wonderful shiny gift of sunshiny shininess.

I took my happy little errr...big butt outside and I gardened and pulled weeds like it was going out of style. It wasn't particularly warm, but every so often I would sit in the same place long enough that the sun's warmth would build up to a nice little kiss on my cheek or my back. I felt the earth between my fingers and inhaled all the wonderful scents that only come from being close to the earth. It reminded me that there are good things in Washington (aside from great friends and super Starbucks dates).

I've rambled about the wonders of Arizona, but there is one thing that sometimes feels impossible to do in AZ, and that's grow something!! OH don't get me wrong things will start to grow, but halfway through a beating summer all of the leaves on the plants have pretty much fried. It doesn't really seem to matter how often you water, it's just never enough. Here in Washington however, EVERYTHING grows. I can't stop things from growing! And for the most part it's pretty awesome. I love watching the leaves of plants push themselves out of the ground or unfurl on the long branch of my blueberry bush. I love the way the air gets so fragrant with blossoms that I could just sit outside and breathe deeply getting lost in the colors of everything I smell.

There is a very real possibility (assuming the government wheels can manage to keep themselves turning...which I know they will) that next year I won't be living in Washington anymore. I don't know where I will be, but wherever it is, I hope I can still find a patch of earth to grow things!

A-Z Oh the Places I Might/Should/Could/Will Go!

I spent a great deal of time at the airport yesterday. This is a reality of having kids with parents in separate states. Kid exchanges are overcomplicated and expensives. Yesterday we sent one kiddo to visit grandparents in the A.M., then had to leave because the next kiddo didn't come into town from their mom's house until four hours later. We could have wandered around the airport for 4 hours, but the parking fees are atrocious.

As a side note, we went to the mall and after reevaluating the financial damage from those 4 hours, it might have been less costly just to stay at the airport.

So anyway, back to the point. Aside from the outrageous parking fees, I actually love the airport. I love the feeling of people moving all around me, everyone is going somewhere. Most of the time if I am at the airport I am going somewhere that I want to go to do something that I want to do. There are a lot of great memories at airports picking up loved ones, being picked up by loved ones, landing in Jamaica for a fabulous week of sun, food and drinks. You get the idea.

I have been thinking a lot about what I should write about during the A-Z blog challenge and I was having so much trouble finding and idea that really fit with me. I even asked for ideas in an earlier blog. BTW - Thank you Sheila Siler for your ideas! Bottom line I felt like a sinking ship before I had even gotten the ship into the water. BUT...the airport, my shining beacon of happy thoughts got me thinking....Just where might I be in one year. Where could I be, where do I want to be, what might I be doing a year from now? And voila! My A-Z Blog was born, a list of places I could be, things I could be doing, events that might be happening one year from now.

I am super excited to get started and I have already started listing some of the ideas in my head. I need to get started on them before they escape and leave me forever. Ms. Shirley gave me some great ideas and one of them I actually really liked and had already come up with some ideas for, I am going to pepper my A-Z with "Excuses from my kids and husband", because really those are just to priceless not to commit to paper err...digital media.

Looking forward to a month long celebration of blogging with abandon! If you haven't already check out the A-Z monthlong blog challenge here!

M

Next Months Challenge

I have things to do today, but all I seem to want to do is play with all of the blog features, most of which I have no freaking clue how to manage. I find all these nifty widgets and I want to play with them, but I can't seem to figure out even the most basic copy and paste actions. I mean I get the whole, copy this code then paste it, but seriously, where exactly do I paste it??? Maybe I'm just a tech-reject I don't know, but I have now spent three good writing hours attempting to add things like my Goodreads.com bookshelf and all I've got to show for it is ...well nothing. I managed to tweet a few things and found some new blogs to follow, because you know I need more distractions.

I did find a cool April blog challenge that I plan to participate in during the month of April (you know in April...loving my genius sentence structure). It should be pretty interesting finding a topic for each letter of the alphabet on everyday of the week except for Sunday's. It's a bit of a commitment and you know how I feel about that, but I guess we will see how well I pull through. I made it through NanoWrimo in November and surpassed the 50K word mark so I think I can pull this off. That's all for now, though if any of you can send me help on how to improve my blog and how to add widgets without totally screwing up the code I'd be oh so grateful!! And by help on improving my blog I really only mean the widgets...ha...just kidding. All suggestions and criticisms are welcome!

Link to the blog challenge if any of you are interested!!Click here

http://www.tossingitout.blogspot.com/2011/01/very-special-and-exciting-announcement.html

~Cheers~
Mandi