m.o.M - mother of Michael

The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.

Except that Einstein probably didn't say that. Who cares. I hope when I'm dead and gone, I am misquoted in such fabulous ways!

Every time I take a trip, I grab the same zip-lock bag containing the same yellow moleskine journal and the same mini-sharpie set in the same pencil bag that's contained the same colored pencils for approximately four years. Based solely on "as the crow flies" mileage between Titusville, Fl. and Guyaquil, Ecuador, not including driving within Ecuador (which we have done a tremendous amount of over the years) and assuming that no additional trips were taken with this bag (which I doubt), this bag has traveled over 17,000 miles.

The pencils have never needed sharpening and less than one quarter of the journal is filled.

Yep. The definition of insanity.

This time I'm doing something different. I made a book based on the travel journal I saw here. A combination travel journal, smash book and art journal. The only item that is a hold over from the old zip-lock bag is the pencil bag. That now has my zentangle pens in it.

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Inside are pocket pages, kraft paper, and scrapbook papers. I fully anticipate that by the time the trip is done, the cover won't look like what it really is - a cereal box.

I'm really looking forward to adding to this as we go and coming home with a keepsake full of those papery bits of goodness that I love to accumulate on trips. Not just another bag of ephemera that gets thrown in the box in the corner!

Here's to breaking the cycle of insanity!

At least in one area of my life!

We'll Always Have Paris

Week 2 of The Documented Life Project has to do with gesso. Using it as a base, using it as an element...using it.

I now have the beginnings of a background for this. I stenciled with the gesso and then turned the stencil over to tamp it off, creating the reverse pattern. I like this stencil that really isn't a stencil, but a sheet of metal from a kit to make a candle cover. It looks so Moroccan to me.

There's a Moorish tower in Guayaquil, Ecuador that has a design very similar to this at the top and when you look through it there is a hill in the distance with houses of the most amazing colors. It's called Cerro Santa Anna.

I was trying to get the sense of looking through those windows but was about as successful in achieving this as I was in getting a good photograph through them.

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Oh well. We'll always have Paris.