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Color – Such a Pleasant Quality

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

color. such a pleasant qualityColor does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it. – Pierre Bonnard

Happy Color-filled Friday!  For today’s journal prompt, download the prompt below and get out your favorite Friday pen . . . you will be recording five “colors” . . . five “things” that reinforce pleasant experiences in your life.  Yippee!  And yippee for journaling!

For me, the first “color” that comes to mind is helpless laughter — the kind that is snorting, gasping-for-breath, cheek-hurting, and side-splitting.  There is something that is just so enriching and bonding about this kind of laughter.   When I experience helpless laughter, I feel as if my entire system has been rejuvenated, restored, and reset.  It feels so good!  I can remember a time when I was going home after a night of dancing with some friends, and I thought I was going to simply split with laughter.  We were telling stories and just hooting it up and having so much fun.  We eventually pulled until we could get it out of our system.

The funny thing is I can’t remember what it is we were laughing about, but we sure were having fun.  I don’t remember what any of us were wearing that night or who the band was or who I danced with that evening. But I can distinctly remember the moonlit night and the the Joyful White Noise of Laughter that boomeranged throughout the car.

It strikes me that this kind of laughter doesn’t happen nearly enough in my life.  I think about the “features” of this “color” that bring back such happy memories . . . spontaneity, camaraderie, an enormous feeling of letting go.

Here’s the thing . . . one cannot simply summon or command a moment of helpless laughter.  It’s the sort of thing that just happens.  However, I can look for opportunities to create moments that involve spontaneity, camaraderie, and letting go.  Are you with me?  Simply being open to what I value may very well lead me to different shades of happifying.

Maybe I am stretching here.  But this is what I enjoy about journaling:  stretching and growing my perspective in ways that embrace newness that feels good and that enlivens my life.  I am suspecting that the very act of seeking joy in my life is going to bring me joy in return in unexpected and new ways.

Record your five “colors” and let me know what you think.  Click on the aqua-blue link below to download and happy journaling!

Colors. Such a Pleasant Quality. journaling prompt

[Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your journaling binder.   Take the writing journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart.  After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say.  The only one.  Relax, read, think, feel, listen, write.  Repeat.  And enjoy the journey.  It is a fine one, and one that is perfectly-made just for you, I promise.  Life is meant to be grown.]

 

 

 

Best When Fresh

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

best when fresh

Love and eggs are best when they are fresh. – Russian Proverb

If you could hatch one idea or concept or event or mindful change or good habit or new relationship or . . . . what would it be?  Be creative and pick what bubbles to the surface first.  I can think of a few right now that are nest-ready and deserving of some attentive sitting right now.  The secret for me and my sometimes-scattered ways is for me to take a deep breath, focus, and put in some serious incubation time.  Who knows what might hatch as a result of some focused care, attention, and positive intention?

Your prompt for today:

Open your journal and draw a line down the vertical center of your page.  On the left side, write a minimum of three things that you would like to hatch right now.  On the right side, write a brief description of what your hatchling might look like.  Have some fun with this and take a few minutes to relax and to do some nurturing.  For example:

Vision Board 075Playing my mandolin every single day —> Sitting in with that fun Monday band at the book store

Eating more health-conscious lunches —> Create one of those fun salad-in-a-jar concoctions for work tomorrow

Get outdoors more in this beautiful weather —> Take more mini-breaks while working and take some short walks to stretch and to get some fresh air

As you can see, some of your ideas might require some time while others do not require a lengthy incubation period at all.  Some are as simple as going to the produce market, buying some fresh veggies, and washing out a Mason jar.  So simple . . . but a hatchling, nonetheless.

Click here for a fun video on how to make a Mason jar salad the night before . . . we can all benefit from a health-conscious lunch.

Life is a lively event.  Be good to yourself today.  Go forth and nurture those eggs.

 

 

 

Yes, you can go home again . . . if only in your dreams.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment
ardoch II

My Hometown

Last night, I had vivid dreams of my childhood home in the Red River Valley of North Dakota.  The place where I learned to swim in post-thunderstorm mud puddles, to build elaborate snow and ice tunnels, to discover the magic of reading, to try to walk to the end of a rainbow, to revere and emulate Mae West, to respect the wisdom of my older siblings, and to understand that life sometimes deals out unfairness without warning.

These dreams of last night involved highlights of childhood that were happy, peaceful, and creative.  They were moments that contained laughter, bliss, and sibling camaraderie.  It was a rare gift of benevolent recall via slideshow with me starring as my own little-girl self.  The dreams allowed me to visit with my father, who recently passed over in December, and he took me by the hand and led me on a tour of highlights that reminded me that my early life, indeed, offered shouts of joy that have somehow become strangely muffled in the memories of my adulthood.

Life is what I make of it.  And so is fun and my sense of playfulness.  This past weekend, while writing out my to-do lists on my wall-mounted white board, I caught myself wondering,  This is nothing but work and chores and items of destined procrastination . . . What happened to simply having fun?  I wrote “HAVE FUN!” at the bottom of the lists for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday going forward.

Still, I started to wonder: What has happened (!?) to me and my life such that I am having to start prioritizing fun?   What happened to getting out there and having some good ol’, mud-puddle-stomping, spontaneous fun?  

In an effort to re-gain spontaneous Fun in My Life (back to that concept of planning and prioritizing again!), I am going to try an experiment.  As I seem to need the reminder, I am going to write on my list of to-dos everyday for one month:

Have some fun . . . 

And cross it off my list.  And just see what happens.  And enjoy life.  I want to move out of my current state of Get-‘er-Done to a renewed paradigm of Have-Some-Fun.

Anyone out there want to join me?  And keep me posted on what you do?  For me, it’s time to re-claim that girl who liked to sit on the front porch rail of our house, swinging my legs, and belting out Mae West quotes and tunes (C’mon up and see me sometime!) to any passerby who traveled through our tiny town.  It’s time to start having some Fun!

Mae West: You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

ardoch

Main Street, Hometown

The Bigger Picture

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

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I was out walking the beach today at that time of day when the very last winter light is slipping behind the islands across the water.  I spied this last little bit of sunlight hidden away on the beach.  It felt as if the sunlight wanted to linger just a bit longer on this gorgeous winter day.

Sometimes it feels as if my ideas, hopes, and fantastical schemes are sinking beyond unknown horizons along with the sun. But I know that nature has a way of keeping me both humbled and blessed.  There is nothing like solitude and tranquility and beauty to discover and re-discover who I am and what I am capable of and how much I want to be part of the larger whole that brings peace to my part of the world.

On days when the sun is setting and it feels to be a daunting effort to keep on the sunny side, my memory harvests sunsets like this.  Takes it in and tucks it away.   I am reminded to keep sight of the bigger picture.  And to not let go of the beauty that graces every single day.  Every single day.  Like the aperture on my camera, I have the ability to make it very very tiny and block out the essential parts that add to the beauty and to the panorama of Hope that feeds my desire to grow and to contribute.

Every day I pray for a little miracle.  And today this sunset was it.  It reminded me to appreciate the quiet and to still the voices that do not feel to have my better interests at heart.  It reminded me to be in the moment and look to the present — which is my true daily miracle — one heartbeat at a time.

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Life in 3-D TechniLove

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

 

 

 

 

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beautiful leaves. positively positive. self love.

 

 

 

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Color.  Gorgeous vibrant messy color.

Google’s “define color”: the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light

Love this! “different sensations . . .” [Yes!]  “. . . as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light”

Isn’t this just the best definition of life?  We experience different sensations as a result of the way we reflect or emit light and darkness; happiness and sadness; laughter and anger; love and fear.  So much of life is defined by how we reflect or emit our essence.

Love is the ultimate reflection.  It is eternal.  It never wanes.  It grows before our very soul’s eyes.  We are so richly blessed to be able to reflect and emit love. toaster oven Wow is the ultimate understatement.  Love — like a Jackson Pollock painting — has the power to not only Wow! and to draw you into the details of texture and color, but it also holds the magic to reflect the most intricate designs of light and contrast.

I love color.  Who doesn’t?  Although my closet is full of black, gray, and black-and-white-polka-dot dresses, I do love color.

My favorite color?  If I were to describe the color of love, I would say Sky Blue Pink.  What color would you say describes the color of love?

This video by OK Go is a celebration of fantastical color.  So fanciful and creative and beautiful and just plain fun.  It is my wish that your day today be replete to the brim with TechniLove.

. . . and for those of you who like to understand the technology and background behind fantastical magic:

 

 

Expectation . . . Reality

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

expectation vs reality larger imageI can’t think of anything to add to this image.  It is just so darn cute.  And true.  And real.  We dream and aspire, we work it, we achieve, and . . . we relax into the bliss of reality in those moments of vulnerable self-acceptance.

I just love this.

 

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