A Funny Thing Happened On My Way to the World Today.

 So, my awesome-sweet-wonderful friend and mentor Maria bought me a copy of Rhonda Byrne's The Magic. It's all about gratitude. Now, if you're a hippie like me you know all about the magic of gratitude and the wonders it can do in your life.

BUT!

Life often has a way of making you forget that. Like for instance, when you go to log onto your faithful old computer with all your graphics programs to do some work and find that the last power surge the frequent storms in your area caused it to not want to come on anymore.

Now normally this would be my typical reaction to something like this.

But today I think all the gratitude work is finally kicking in. My first thought was "oh holy shit, is the laptop OK? I still need to play wow!!" and yes, the laptop (and therefore my much more awesome digital life) is still intact. I am grateful. 

My second was "well, damn, all my work was on there. The adobe programs I purchased were for a mac and incompatible with the laptop" But then after a whiny Facebook status update, I found a free basic digital program I am testing out. For all the developers who create open-source programs I am grateful.

So I decided to try a self portrait. 

Ooooo concentration face!

Now, the interesting thing is many of the tools were ones I was already used to but the layout and mechanics of them all just different enough to be frustrating. Then, as I was muttering in my cantankerous way, I realized I was fascinated again.

You know when you start to learn something you become absorbed in it? You are fascinated. When you are more intrigued by the process than the outcome. It was really nice to again look on my own face with renewed wonder and ( *gasp*!) appreciation as I tried to make the curve on my nose in pixels or using the right size eraser to get the weird shade of my irises.  

It's funny when you let go of things and let it be what fun you can have. So today I am grateful to be led back into a sense of wonder with the art I love so much.