I rinse my paint brushes well after each session, and frequently as I paint. I don’t always remember, though, to clean them in soapy water afterward. I seldom have an official “end” to a session, I tend to think I’ll come back and finish up a few more things first.  At 3:00am this morning, I discovered that paint had built up in my favorite No. 8 chisel blender.  I used to toss them when that happened, but discovered an easy fix and some helpful links are below. Basically, after each session I clean the brushes in soapy water. If paint is built up, I can soak them a few hours in either Murphy’s Oil Soap or hand sanitizer, then rinse well.

Helpful links:
How to Get Dried and Hardened Paint Out of your Brushes
How to remove dried acrylic and oil paint from brushes
Clean Stubborn Acrylic Paint out of your Paint Brushes

A friend complained she had been “trying to discover who she was” but kept getting knocked off her spiritual path by well meaning family and friends who won’t leave her alone.  “How can I discover who I am when they keep bothering me?” I had to smile because that’s HOW we discover who we are, by how we interact with those closest to us.  Especially those who rub us the wrong way. That IS our spiritual path.

RELATED: When we fail to recognize who our spiritual family is

A friend emailed me and told me when she went to one of my websites, she got this warning: “Malicious Web Site Blocked!  This is a known malicious web site. It is recommended that you do NOT visit this site. For your protection, this web site has been blocked. Visit Symantec to learn more about phishing and internet security. ” I just discovered that –> Norton/Symantec is notorious for false positives. What I’d do is not continue on to the site at this time, but come back to it later when the warning hoax has moved on to another random page.
I had my hosting company check the server and they reported back: “We couldn’t find any issues from our end. We checked your domain “horizonsmagazine.com” in chrome, firefox, IE . The domain was loading without any warning.”

Ch-ch-changes! We don’t always think change is good but we can be pleasantly surprised.  In a recent reading, Domino lamented there’s no passion in her relationship.  She loves her husband of three years, but they don’t share the same interests and seem to be roommates more than anything.  They don’t fight and, while they do laugh together, each does their own thing, has their own job and keeps to themselves after work, he in his workshop and she in the den.  Neither is particularly interested in what the other is involved with.  There is no physical or emotional intimacy, they don’t even share meals.  She doesn’t want a divorce and she doesn’t want to date or seek a new man, but she misses having an intense interest in — anything.  Oh, she has her hobbies, she crafts and paints, but she hasn’t even felt like creating art the past year.  She feels if he showed an interest in her work, she’d be more encouraged and feel he was a part of it.  But she shows little interest in his work and when she does, he’s not into discussing it.  She doesn’t feel she has any friends.  She’s not a computer person, so she doesn’t do Facebook or belong to any forums that might help her feel supported.  Continue reading →

Meow!  Pffftt! RRowwlll! I could hear two cats screaming half a block away just before dawn.  Benny the marmalade ginger was at my elbow so I immediately wondered if it was YinYang, my 14 year old bandit-masked harlequin.  I ran out of the office in a flash to go outside and Benny ran right after me.  Entering the living room, I spy Yinnie sitting atop her box.  Too late, Benny runs across the room at her and, for a moment, everything went slow motion.  He stopped short, they bumped noses and did a quick mutual sniff of faces. Then he strolled over and hopped up on the couch to lie facing her.  She went back to sleep.   I see that even though YinYang is territorial and bitchy, making Benny run the gauntlet every time he comes in the house, deep down their first instinct after hearing the two cats fighting outside was each making sure the other was ok. What someone does in a crisis shows you who they are.  These guys will be fine.

October 17, 2014, Masaru has passed away peacefully with his wife by his side.  His last word was “Arigato”. (“Thank you” in Japanese) We believe his last word was to you, everybody. He was so grateful for you and thanked you all so very much. He used to say, “Life is LOVE which is a gift from God and parents, and DEATH is gratitude for going to a new dimension.” So now he is in another dimension and continues to look over us warmly with love and gratitude.

A friend is looking for make up ideas for a clown face for Halloween. I like a cute and sweet clown face, am not a fan of the scary zombie killer clown look.

Life has taught me that in real life, the scary dudes are always the normal looking ones. Be very afraid.

Thanks to my new Bissell steam mop, I’ve been cleaning the floors like crazy this week and it tickles me to see the reflection on the floors again. The lights reflect all over and it’s a delight to watch it dance around. I forgot that about a dull floor –> no reflection!  I’ve been moving furniture to clean the floor beneath it, taking everything away from the wall and away from the corners to steam the entire floor’s surface.  My typical floor show is a quick sweep, vac and swipe with the Swiffer wetjet.  But this week, thanks to the new steam mop, I’ve had fun cleaning the floors repeatedly.   I don’t know why it’s suddenly more important now than it’s ever been to get the floor clean, but it is. During meditation on it, I reflected that so often in the past I’ve made do with a surface clearing of my thoughts and behaviors and beliefs.  I’d make room for something new, but not completely replace the old.  I’d let myself walk between the worlds, so to speak, until I got used to the new ideas and until they ultimately replaced themselves.  Now something is clearly happening, and being reflected in me being obsessed with getting my floors clean.  I have something I want to strip away, to get at the bottom of, to make new and fresh with a clean start, to get in on the ground floor with.  I’m also on a kick washing all the fabric in the house. I look forward to the unfolding.  When I get to the bottom of it, I’ll let you know.

RELATED:  My first ever Steam Mop — A Bissell PowerFresh

A friend wrote on Facebook “I got an angry email from someone today who has been wanting to talk with me for the past few weeks. I’m in the middle of  many projects, and I’m supposed to drop everything to call her to chat? Keep in mind that this “chat” would be at least an hour of my time – if not more – and I just haven’t created that space for her. Now she’s pissed and wants me to remove her from my list.  Seriously?  How do you deal with unreasonable expectations of people? I know this is her stuff being projected onto me; I get it. And thank goodness it is an incredibly rare situation. But I am sitting in this question tonight, and exploring my own integrity in this, because I feel disappointed … and sad.  I truly believe that if I’m triggered, then it’s an opportunity for me to learn something about my own beliefs and even heal something from the past. The same is true for all of us – total responsibility for one’s own “stuff.”  Continue reading →

UPS just did a weird thing. I saw the truck leave out of the corner of my eye from the office, but didn’t hear my giant loud Green Man door knocker. They left two big boxes of supplies in front of the door. I have a bench at the front door to set packages on. They set it on the ground. It’s raining. Had I not walked out and got them when I did, they would have been sitting in a puddle. What a brat I am for having attracted that out of them! Well, I have been scattered and unfocused much of the day… that’s what I can expect…