Aquarians

While I am not a big believer in astrology, I remember a co-worker who was heavily into it many years ago, who was excited to draw up an astrological chart for me.  She got the information she needed and worked on it, then reported that she was very excited to show me her results.  I met with her and she explained all of her findings, most of which I couldn't understand at all, but the only thing I remember from that session is that in every critical point on the chart, "writing" came up.  Apparently it is written in the stars that I was to do something with writing, which is interesting because I come from a line of writers.  One of my great grandfathers founded the newspaper in Santa Rosa and was its chief columnist for many years.  And those old farmers who stayed behind in Iowa were copious letter writers to their offspring who moved to California.  

Everywhere on the family tree--at least my mother's side of it (the only side I really know) there are people who wrote, whether casually, like letters or journals, or people who did it professionally.

The two big things I have read about Aquarians is first, of course, their "untidiness."  I remember years ago when Walt's mother (a tidy Virgo) was talking to his sister on the phone.  She is far from untidy, but she is an Aquarian and her mother said that she had just read that Aquarians were likely the ones who never quite closed doors or drawers completely. At that moment, Alice looked around her and realized that all of her cupboards and drawers were just ever so slightly not quite closed completely.  Definitely one of my many failings!

But the other interesting thing I read sometime awhile back was that Aquarians tend to jump in whole-hog into activities, immerse themselves in them, and then just as quickly walk away.  I mentioned that to Peggy, an Aquarian, once and she scoffed that she never did that.  I reminded her that at one point she decided to take up rubber stamping as a craft, bought tons of stamps, ink pads and other paraphernalia and then one day just decided she was tired of it and gave it all away. She agreed with me (perhaps "friendships" work that way with her too...one day you're all close and then next day you're finished....)

I frequently relive old entries of this journal when I'm writing today's entry; I click on an entry under "Today in My History" to see what I was writing about x years ago.  And I find things I had forgotten...things I'd been heavily involved in, but are no longer a part of my life.  The other day it was a couple of entries about volunteering at the homeless shelter, which I did for about a year.  I enjoyed being there, enjoyed interacting with the men (we had no women in that shelter) trying to get their lives back together...or just have a place to sleep before they moved on, but I quit when the leadership changed and the new person in charge was so impossible to work with that I decided I didn't need to put myself through that every week.  I haven't been back, and only rarely think about it, when I see someone on the street with a sign asking for money.

Many, many old entries remind me of the dogs we fostered, especially the puppies and how involved I got in that, but don't do it any more (thank you, Polly).  Another phase of my life I've left behind.  I suppose some day Funny the World will be in that category too, but no plans for that in the foreseeable future.

In my never-ending attempt to "clean up" I came across one of those portable file boxes that was labeled "Scrapbooking."  Inside it is a treasure trove of background papers, stickers, die cuts, and pictures to use for embellishment that I collected when I started to make fancy scrapbooks.  I really got into the scrapbooking craze, like Peggy did with rubber stamps.  I made some really nice books I'm proud of, but it all came crashing down when David died, and especially after Paul died.  I had this box of photos that I was going to get into books and realized that I just couldn't make happy pages with happy pictures of people who were no longer here and whom I missed so much.  Fortunately that kind of coincided with the rise of the digital camera so it would soon have become a moot point anyway.  So this box of scrapbook supplies has been sitting here gathering dust for about 20 years now, since we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of David's death next month.

Now the new craze is pocket letters, which I am having so much fun creating.  I signed up to do one on Swap Bot with a music theme and really liked how it came out.  This one had a back page (most don't).  Most of the pockets contain little "gifts" behind the pictures, like a package of glitter, some stickers, etc.  In the pocket with the singers collage, I've included three Forever stamps -- one of Elvis, one of Sarah Vaughn, and one of Ray Charles.

I also did a book-related page that I like too.

I am learning my own style.  I won't be doing all the fancy frou frou that the real artists do, but I enjoy what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.  

With all the scrapbooking stuff I found in that old box, I have a whole new supply of things to use for other pocket letters, two of which I am working on now.  I intend to enjoy this new craft as much as I can until the interest wanes and I move on to something else.

It's what Aquarians do.