Failed Experiment and Inspiration

The insides of the kitchen cabinets are even cold. I've learned to warm up the coffee cup with hot water before pouring coffee in it, otherwise by the time I add milk to my hot coffee it is lukewarm. When it is really cold (below 20 degrees) I leave the cabinet door under the sink open to keep the pipes below the sink from freezing.

Cruiser was overweight, now he is just plain fat. I have to admit that he is really whiny about the cold and I tend to feed him to shut him up, but that is going to have to stop soon. The idea of Cruiser whining through a diet while we are all cooped up from the cold is pretty daunting, though.

I stole a half used watercolor block of 140 pound hot press watercolor paper from Dad and tried an experiment with it this week. I had somehow intimidated myself with the idea, so I finally had to start it firth thing in the morning this week before I could think about it too much. I made good progress on it yesterday, but I just hate the result. I tried doing a painting of my cats as kittens for my possible children's book and I don't know if it is the terrible composition, the leaning towards sentimental fuzzy kitten illustration, or my dislike for having to work differently on hot press paper. On hot press paper I can't work wet to wet, the water just beads up, and I can't layer like I usually do, so the color looks too flat to me. I went ahead an finished the experiment this morning, but I do not fell like I have time to experiment right now and I feel discouraged. Or maybe I already feel discouraged and that is reflected in the painting. I am moving on to something else today, getting back on the horse after being thrown, so to speak.

Every once in a while I check my blog stats. I was a bit mystified that my post with the 2nd largest audience was "Light Bulbs" and the only post commented on by someone I do not know was "Chaos is almost here." The post with the largest audience was "Registered to Vote." It was October and I can kind of understand why people cared about registering to vote, but why did so many people care about light bulbs? Why did someone comment on a post on my blog that had not much to do with what I usually write about and how did he find the post? (It's not like I have a huge readership.) So, I learned the other day that people have reverse searches set up on-line. They set up the topics and the search engine sends them an email of the link for everyone that posts anything on that topic. Then they must go in and check up on what you wrote and try to discredit anything they don't like. Pretty creepy, eh?

The next enlightenment topic is Inspiration, with a poem called IF by Rudyard Kipling,

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

I guess Kipling wrote poems to his son, but I'm having a bit of trouble with all this good information leading me to be a Man. Otherwise I am surprised at all of the inspiration in this poem, that I have never read. I am also surprised that I like the author's suggestion on using this poem in your life. (I usually don't.) He says, "keep your head, trust yourself, be honest, be a dreamer, be detached, be a risk-taker, be independent, be humble, be compassionate, be forgiving." Many of these things seem impossible to do simultaneously, but I think that is the point, you need to be all of them.