My brain is not centered

some more of my art ......

Digital Art

I used to create a lot of digital art.  It has been a while.....here is my "I'm on holiday break and fooling around piece".....It is one I would like to use as a design on cloth.....if I ever find the time.

An easy way to support Middle Way House

Hello family, friends, and supporters of Middle Way House,

 

As many of you know, I work for a wonderful nonprofit organization called Middle Way House. Middle Way House is a domestic abuse shelter here in Bloomington, Indiana. Even though many of you may not be able to support the shelter in any other way, there is a very important grant we could receive with your assistance.

Middle Way is currently in the running to receive a $250,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project. In order to receive the grant, however, we need you to vote for our project every day in December.

 

Voting is easy.

 

1.) Visit www.refresheverything.com/middlewayhouse

2.) Click the Vote Button. A box will pop up for you to sign in.

3.) Create an account. The first time you register you may have to find your way back to the Middle Way page, but it shouldn't be an issue after that.

4.) You can find us by typing "Middle Way House" in the search box in the upper rght hand corner.

5.) Once on our voting page you can press the "Vote" button for the day.

 

You can also text "104741" to Pepsi (73774) (standard text messaging rates apply.)

 

Please remember to vote every day from now through December 31st! Feel free to send this message to all your family and friends -- the more people voting for Middle Way, the greater the chance we have of receiving this much-needed grant.

 

Thanks so much for your support!

Distorted Chagall

Several years ago I played around with a Chagall image to use in promotions for Food Work's Valentine Cookie Sale .....here is one of my collage results. We are considering going with the "Share the Love" theme again in 2011. In the past we have also made vagina cookies for the Vagina Monologues held each year at IU.....looks like we may be making chocolate vagina pops this year.....hee! Life is fun. Sometimes.  Nothing like making vagina cookies or pops to get a cackle out of the women in the kitchen.  

now

looking upon the moonlit sky
as though never seen before....
clouds wrap a hard heart softly

 ~donna

Trees

Anyone who knows me knows how much I require being around trees.  I remember when I transferred to Purdue starting the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college.  I had started at Hanover College, a very pretty, 650 acre wooded campus but wanted to consider Speech and Hearing so off to Purdue I went.  I know it wasn't the only reason I didn't stay there, but back then that campus had almost all of its trees shaved away, the town was ugly concrete, and I truly just couldn't handle the lack of nature in the environment.  It cost me money, and set me back a bit in graduation time, but I didn't stay for the fall semester, scrambled to re-enroll at Hanover until I figured out what to do next. I had get back to the trees. I had spent most of my youth walking the woods around my folk's place, hiking at Clifty Falls Park and the State Hospital in Madison.  I'm odd.  I really need to be around trees.  I transferred my junior year to Indiana University in Bloomington, and have been in this area ever since.  This is an area where the people tend to honor trees, talk about them, fight for them if need be.  I belong around an area like that.

Mark and I have 55 acres of woods.  Hiking is something I do almost every day year round, and this is coming from someone who often works ten hour days. The forest and the outdoors are my sanity.  They are what ground me.

We have quite a few pieces of stick furniture we have built and one of my favorite plant stands is a beech tree that frankly looks like a mans legs and crotch area.  I will try to post a photo later.  This entire blog post started because that plant stand came to mind after I saw a page titled 11 Trees That Look Like Genitals.  I think they have cheated on one of them....its simply a picture turned upside down.  But a few of them are pretty neat.

Following Tracks

This message has been sent using a phone camera.

Brown County Barn Photo

On the way home from home(town) I drive on old Helmsburg Rd. A small detour brings one to a set of barns. I've accumulated a lot of barn shots through the years.....plus I live in one. Someday I plan to put all the shots together. I am always thankful to have my phone camera with me.

Hiking in Madison Indiana

Hiking old railroad cut in Madison, Indiana

I was in Madison to say my last goodbye to someone I have been friends with since I was 14. I pretty much find places to hike or walk wherever I am and hiking brings peace to my mind.  I'm from Madison originally.  It is a beautiful town. For years I have just walked the river road. This morning I hiked the railroad cut that goes from downtown up to the upper part of Madison.  It was pretty, quiet and required mindfulness as you have to pay attention to your step.....lots of loose gravel, uneven and missing rails.  

When you hike along the old rail road there are these very steep old steps branching off to the west.  I had never followed them before....hadn't even noticed them (I'm lost in thought a lot I guess). They were great exercise.....I climbed them all but had to turn around without completing the trail.  I believe they end up at the Madison State Hospital.  I have yet to hike the Heritage Trail in Madison, so little time!  I will have to do that next visit.

"Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. " ~John Muir

an evening scene in Bloomington

Yearning

A melancholy desire

stakes me to the ground.

Such babbling tales the river sings
.

Donna Storm

July 2010

Pet Products that are poison for your pets

The Natural Resource Defense Council has a request for all pet-owners: go to your nearest PetSmart or PETCO and see if they’re selling flea collars with propuxor or tetrachlorvinphos. NRDC has typed up a handy check-list with all the products to look for. All they need from you is 15 minutes of your time and an email to greenpaws@nrdc.org with the information you gathered.


(this is a picture of my sweet dog Sophie by the way)


Here is the list:

• Adams Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs (Large and Small)
• Adams Flea and Tick Collar for Cats and Kittens
• Adams Plus Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs (Large and Small)
• Bansect Flea & Tick Collar for Cats
• Bansect Flea & Tick Collar for Dogs
• Bio Spot Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs (Puppies, Small, and Large)
• BioSpot Flea and Tick Collar for Cats and Kittens
• Scratchex Color Full Formula 5 Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs
• Sentry Dual Action Flea & Tick Collar for Dogs
• Sentry PurrScriptions Dual Action Flea and Tick Collar for Cats
• Sergeant’s Double Duty Flea & Tick Collar for Dogs & Puppies
• Sergeant’s Dual Action Flea & Tick Collar for Dogs
• Vet-Kem Powerband Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs
• Zema Dual Action Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs
• Zodiac Featrol Flea & Tick Collar For Dogs
• Zodiac Fleatrol Flea and Tick Collar for Cats and Kittens
• Zodiac Tick Collar For Dogs
• Americare Rabon Collar
• Hartz 3 in 1 reflection Control Collar
• Hartz Ultra Guard Plus Flea and Tick Collar for Cats and Kittens
• Pet Principles by Hartz Collars
• Longlife 90 day Collar

opened my mouth again (actually ran my fingers on the keyboard)

Well have you ever "over-commented" back on a string on Facebook?  You feel sheepish afterwards but just had to say it.....

Just did it.  Thought about deleting.....rewording....oops too late.  Its not that I don't believe in what I said, its just that I shot a cannonball against a fly.

I won't divulge the chain leading up to it, and here is my post......like I said, I believe what I say but I should have saved it for elsewhere.  Like here.

Never claimed to be smart.

Comment

re: the racism comments: Wouldn't it be better if we sought common ground?   Jeff at least admitted that their might be some racism leaking out.....a rarity... and there is often no admission or recognition of the racism that has the face of a patronizing attitude. What Jeff expressed is what is broadly taught about the poor and those that receive government aid.  The truth is too inconvenient.

When you work with people at or below poverty level as often as I have day in and day out you are well aware of the racism in this society . What we are even more aware of is how much pain is inflicted upon the poor by the immediate polarization and name calling the right and the left resort to on issues that are really life and death for many people.  I'm sick of it.

An underclass has been required by our economic and political structure for many years.  Ever since Ronald Reagan made up the story about a Chicago welfare queen ripping off 150 thousand dollars and driving a Cadillac this urban legend fulfilled a craving by the non-poor to be able to look away without seeing. No matter that the story was proven to be totally false.

Ever since, somehow a mom with three kids to feed is worthy of scorn for receiving aid even though we glorify and promote an Ameican dream out of getting rich quick (so you can be lazy and do nothing) ...often on the public dole via sweet deals in the banking, mortgage, military and other industries, or by flipping property, or any other get something for nothing scheme. Do any of you out there claim you have not dreamed this dream and attempted to find some way get on easy street?

Insert into this dream-scape someone who hasn't got a job and has no milk in the fridge for their kids to drink in the morning and a disconnect notice on their electric bill (for what ever reason and I swear it is not always due to laziness or lack of foresight....middle-class and upper-class folks have more than their fair share of laziness and lack of foresight, btw) well many a person who is broke is going to feel totally stupid to not take up what looks like the best deal available.  And often it is the only choice available.

Our courts have recently decided that corporations have the same rights as a person.  They also ruled that money has equal treatment as speech.  It is not just the poor who are not equally spoken for anymore.  We are not a republic any longer, nor a democracy. We are a corporatocracy.  We had a revolution accomplished without a shot fired....it was handed to them on a plate. The immediate polarization resorted to in this comment chain is what allowed corporatocracy to assert itself and is what has killed the spirits of many beautiful people.  If we don't start seeking common ground now, not later, than we have killed our own hopes.

Core

phantom memories

taste like scorched dust sprinkled red
on dreams sucked inward

heat upon my tongue
gives way to a dark yearning
that won't show its face.

.......................................Donna Storm

Paintings and Opening of "3 Painters" at Lennies

Paintings by Jamie Combs, Patricia C. Coleman and Anna Witte
April - May 2010 at Lennies Resturant, Bar and Brewhouse! 1795 East 10th Street, Bloomington, Indiana

The Opening Reception is April 13th - 6:00pm to 8:00pm in the bar
Bloomington Artist on Smaller Indiana - come join the new group at http://smallerindiana.com/group/bloomingtonartist