Gratitude Journal

So I've been keeping my Gratitude Journal in an actual leather-bound journal, but it's at my mom's house and I'm at my Dad's house, so I wanted to make a few short entries here before I forget to write them down.

1. Dads who, without asking why, will happily drive their daughters to Rite-Aid at 9pm on a Saturday are the best dads. I am lucky to have one of them.
2. This particular Dad is also the sort who will make bread pudding for breakfast and Yorkshire pudding for dinner. I am grateful to have experienced this today, and grateful that I do not eat this way every day. It was delicious but my body is full of too much oil. On the other hand, that leftover Prime Rib from Christmas was just what my body needed today.
3. I am grateful for the heated blanket my stepmom gave me for Christmas last year. It makes it much easier to be grateful that my family is energy conscious and refuses to turn on the heat until it's literally freezing, which, in Southern California, is never.
4. I am grateful for 24-hour pharmacies. When I was in the Netherlands I really needed one and all the pharmacies were closed at 1am on a Wednesday for some reason, but in the U.S. (at least the parts I've lived in) that particular aspect of life is better, I think. Dutch breakfasts are something else, though.

These are just the few I was itching to write down. You may hear more gratitude later. 

Also, if you are considering keeping a gratitude journal, or even if you aren't, do it. It's one of the best things I've ever done. It has made me much more aware of all the wonderful things I have to be grateful for, many of which I could easily take for granted. This isn't even about God or anything, although it could be if that's what you're into--it's just about really appreciating every moment and living it to its fullest potential, and realizing how amazing this world and our lives are. More than once since I started this have I found myself breaking down in tears of joy and gratitude that I just can't hold in. Even if all I am is alive, I have more than someone else, and I have that much to be grateful for... and every moment, I am so much more than alive. It's amazing, it's just amazing.

Best,

Lovely

Rainbow Spirit Academy

Hello, everyone!

I am embarking upon a grand journey with some very close friends and some unbelievably wonderful children.

We are opening a Waldorf-inspired private school in Lorena, TX! I know this probably sounds pretty crazy to most of you, and it still sounds crazy to part of me--but I know it is the right thing to do. We have a lot of interest from students, parents, and potential teachers. We have a location, and we have a lot of volunteers who have offered to help this vision become a reality. This is all great--but it's not enough.

As I mentioned, we have a WONDERFUL location where we're about to start renovations to turn the building into a really wonderful schoolhouse. Ideally, the building will house four classrooms including an arts & crafts studio and a science lab; a library; a main meeting/assembly room; a small office and administrative space; a kitchen and a lunchroom; at least two restrooms; a large outdoor garden space with a chicken coop (Hey! That's already there!) to teach gardening and livestock skills; and a large outdoor playspace. We plan to be handicap accessible.

The House that will become Rainbow Spirit Academy (photo by Brooke Hampton)

The School will be open for classes following our curriculum (in development, heavily based on Oak Meadow and similar Waldorf-inspired curricula) four days a week, Monday through Thursday from roughly 10am to 3pm. In the afternoon, we will be open for extra-curricular classes and activities. The current plan is to open for afternoon classes only in Spring 2016, continue on to summer sessions and a week-long solstice camp for Summer 2016, and have our grand opening in Fall of 2016 where we would be open full-time for M-Th classes and afternoon sessions.

The Rainbow Spirit Academy is meant to be the perfect happy medium between public/private school and homeschool. RSA is for children who want to learn with other children, but want a serious hand in their own education. RSA is for those who love learning but hate the systematic approach that most schools are forced to take these days. RSA is for the teachers who wish they could change the face of education and help students actually get EXCITED about their subjects, but have found that there just isn't enough wiggle room when "the system" has laid out so many musts and can'ts. RSA is for the parents who want to give their children the best and freest education they can, but still want a little time to themselves. RSA is for the families who want the flexibility of homeschooling, the expertise of private school teachers, and the peer socialization offered by public school. RSA is the best of all worlds.

The core curriculum will include studies in English Language Arts, History/Social Studies, Science, Math, and a vast expanse of options for Outdoor, Physical, and Creative pursuits. This vast expanse of options will be determined by what the children want to learn. We've asked them, and their learning wish lists are beautiful and inspiring: they want to learn how to build houses, grow mushrooms, and read stories; they want to learn about world religions, the stars, and why leaves are green. These children are eager to learn--as are most children! How many times have you heard a child say, "I love learning, but I hate school?" RSA is here to remedy that.

Rainbow Spirit Academy is going to be a wonderful, magical, fantastic place for children and adults to come together and learn from each other--and we know we can teach each other wonderful things with just ourselves and the world around us, but we believe that the education of the member of RSA will be greatly enhanced by the introduction of additional resources. It's free to tell someone how to grow a garden, but it's not free to grow a garden. It's been said, "Tell me and I forget; Show me and I may remember; Involve me and I learn." We want to involve these kids, and for that we need your help.


I would LOVE to be able to do this for free, or totally out of pocket, and not have to ask for help--but that is not a reality. This is not something we can do alone, and we need your help. If you can give a hundred dollars that's beyond awesome, but if you can only give one dollar? That's great too! If you can't give any dollars at all, but you can share this blog post or the fundraiser on social media, the students and I would HUGELY appreciate that. 

Maybe you can't donate financially, but you have a bunch of excess art supplies or house paint or a microscope or some used books lying around that would have a better home in RSA's classrooms or library, please contact me at lovelywednesdaymusic (at) gmail (dot) com and we can work out direct supplies donations! We appreciate any kind of help you can give--it means the world to us.



Thank you so much for any donations you can give, and for any awareness you can raise. The World needs this right now.

Wishing you all the best that the world has to offer,
Erica Heath (Lovely Wednesday)

The Infinite Library

This was originally posted on my other blog, Notes on Books and Other Things, on January 12, 2013. That blog still exists, but I'm trying to condense all my blogs here because I like this one best and it makes sense to me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I should probably tell you why this blog is located at myinfinitelibrary.blogspot.com, why it is my infinite library, and what an infinite library is.

I don't have all the answers. That's what an infinite library is not.

In fact, my infinite library is very different from other infinite libraries. It's a concept that was introduced to me by a professor from Germany who taught a course called Modernism and Beyond in European and World Literature to me when I studied abroad at Universiteit Maastricht in the Spring semester of 2012.

I liked this professor because he knew we would not like everything we read in his class, and he did not ask us to like it or even try to like it--he only asked us to try to appreciate it and learn from it, and to try to understand why we did or did not like each book we read. What all did we read? Gosh... Demian, Nadja, To the Lighthouse, Heart of Darkness, "The Wasteland," "Waiting for Godot," Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man... perhaps something else. That sounds comprehensive to me. Perhaps I'll talk about those books later. Demian in particular changed the way I look at the world, and it was fantastic. I regret that the books were provided by the school and I did not get to keep my notes.

In any case, the professor presented in passing an idea he called the infinite library, and which I have probably revised since hearing it. This idea is the biggest thing I garnered from this class, and has changed my world view more than anything we read or anything else we talked about. I vaguely remember him crediting this idea to T.S. Eliot, but have found nothing to support that. There is apparently an infinite library concept introduced by Terry Pratchett, but it is rather different insofar as I can tell. The infinite library as I think of it is this:

When you are born, your infinite library is essentially empty. It is an infinite room full of infinite shelves full of no books at all. From that point on, every single thing you hear, taste, smell, read, touch, or experience becomes a book in your infinite library--but each book is not free-standing. Oh, no! Each book is affected by every single other book already in your infinite library, and as your infinite library grows, everything you experience thus become deeper and more multi-layered and more meaningful, more connected. In the physical world, a poem is the same every time someone reads it. The words stay the same in spelling, meaning, order, and juxtaposition; the punctuation is constant; the number of lines is unchanged; and so on. But the infinite library is another matter! In the infinite library, every time you read the same poem, an entirely new book is added to your infinite library, because it was an entirely different experience for you. Even if nothing else has changed, the second time you read it you already know how it is going to end--and more than likely, other things have changed. You may have undergone more and more varied struggles, you may have fallen in love, you may have read another book--and so this new experience of reading it is separate from the first and any other previous times you may have read it.

This can be applied to anything, not just literature--when I rode carousels as a child it was for the novelty alone; now it is for the novelty as well as for the nostalgia, and when I do I think of the carousel I rode in Paris and how it was next to a beignet stand and it was a foggy day; how all the horses on the Disneyland carousel are white so children don't fight over them; how Griffith Park refuses to accept help to refurbish their carousel; how I used to be a member of the Santa Monica carousel when I was very little, and once met Sean Penn and his kid there; what my own carousel would be like if I had one--you can have your very own for just over five hundred thousand dollars! (I know, I know... I can't afford that either)... and so on.

Anyhow, that is that. I don't know how much I'll talk about the infinite library on this blog, but I talk about it a lot in real life, so there you have it.

Happy New Year!

How Do You Get To Wonderland?

I said I'd do a compilation post of outfits I have pictures of that were clearly in some way inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Without further ado, here it is.

This one is the most recent. It's from my last post, from August 29th, 2012.

These two are from the summer of 2009. Alice was a conscious goal here. I wish the photos were better, but they're not. They were taken at Broughton Castle in England, on a field trip from my time studying at Oxford. I still own and wear the light pink satin bow headband and the corduroy miniskirt. The coat was my favorite, but has now faded beyond recognition, and I have no idea what happened to the shirt. That's STILL my favorite purse, although it's almost dead now. I wore enamel clock earrings and blue and gold eyeshadow with my white tights and mary-janes, because I wanted to get as close to Alice as I could without wearing a costume.

Man, I even still had braces. This photo was also pre-jaw surgery, in case you're wondering what looks so different. The jaw surgery actually took place about a month after this photo was taken.

Here comes the blue again! I was mostly just feeling very little girlish, but I think the Aliceness is evident here.

This is Alice all the way for me. Taken my senior year of high school (I'd guess about February of 2010?), and I was wearing a Victorianesque corset underneath to help me feel in character. You can probably tell. The dress and bolero are vintage, and belong to my mother. Love my off-white tights and Victorianesque boots.

It's mostly the line here that is Alice, but again the blue and the headband seem relevant. You can't see here, but I was also wearing blue tights as well as mary-janes.

Mushroom nails! Need I say more? This is one of the first nail art designs I ever did, certainly in the first five sets.

The next four photos are from a photoshoot I did with Liam Roisendubh of Blackrose Photography: Alice, the Hatter, the Queen, and the Rabbit.

 

 

These two are from senior year of high school. 

Look, I'm even falling down the rabbit hole! That was the idea, anyway.

Also senior year of high school:

This is what I wore to the midnight showing of Tim Burton's Alice, and I believe I also wore most of this ensemble to an Alice-themed Rocky Horror. My mother made this for her sister for a set of Alice Halloween costumes.

This was taken at my 16th birthday party, all Alice-themed. 

AND That's all she wrote.

<3LW

In Need of November

This is what I wore on Monday. 

I made the shirt from a pattern my mom had when she was in high school. I had to alter it significantly to fit me, but the pattern is technically still the same. I don't remember the number or the maker, or I'd list it. The pattern was for a skirt and blouse, and from the 1970s. I got the fabric from Michael Levine in downtown LA.

Check out that pocket! Have you ever SEEN such beautiful print matching?

Actually, you really can't tell in that picture, because it's all folded up right around the pocket. Check out two pictures later.

Used a nifty set of shoelaces for a belt.

Hey. No making fun of my makeshift belt. It even has skulls on it.

Standing in front of the fridge, lookin' all dramatic and badass. (NOTE: I am making fun of myself in this post, feel free to chime in and make fun of me as well. Or of yourself. Or of anyone. Making fun is good, as long as it's all in good fun and you don't hurt anyone's feelings.)

More standing in front of the fridge. Hardcore, check it out.

Oh hey, look: magnets from Amsterdam!

Also Coke postcards from London.

I spent all last weekend cleaning up the new apartment after move-in, and then decorating. You'll be happy to know that Theo Bird is back in his rightful place, domineering over the whole dining room, including Jesus.

Oh hey look, a Van Gogh print from Amsterdam! The Courtesan is possibly my favorite Van Gogh painting ever. I kind of wish I'd gotten it in a bigger size.

There's that Jesus I was talking about. My friend Dagmar thinks the green robes under the table look like pot leaves. I think she just wants to think that Jesus condones the use of marijuana.

Hey look, my face.

Hey look, my feet.

kbai.

<3LW

Gibson Gal

I'll save you the speech on Charles Dana Gibson and the Gibson Girl, and you can look them if you don't already know and are interested. Suffice it to say that the image below is one of Gibson's Girls, and the images after that are me, doing my very best to emulate one of Gibson's Gals.

Homemade 1970s pseudo-Victorian/Edwardian blouse, presumably made from a Gunne Sax pattern. I got it for $15 at the PCC Swap Meet in Pasadena, California. I'm absolutely crazy about it, despite my mother saying "Aren't you just horribly offended by the ZIPPER showing in the back?"

Um, no, I'm not. I mean, I wouldn't reenact in this, but it's too turn-of-the-century for the Civil War, anyway, so no worries there.

I find it entertaining that this next one looks like I'm green-screened onto the background, when I can guarantee you I was actually there. It's just my college campus, after all.

The enameled teaset ring is Betsey Johnson, but I got it cheap on eBay. :)

The bronze-tone teaset ring, however, I ordered online from Forever21 about a year ago. I've since repaired it incorrectly, so the teapot is not facing the wrong way, but I'm not too miffed about that.

I picked up the pseudo-Victorian/Edwardian boots in Tombstone, AZ, a couple years back. They're probably my favorite shoes that I own.

The cotton skirt was my grandmother's, given to me a few Christmases back. I LOVE this one. It's extremely comfortable (although honestly comfort was not a factor today, I'll talk more about that later) and cute.

This is the pose that reminds me most of an actual Gibson Girl.

So what happened is this: Last night, I thought it'd be chill to lounge around in Victorian-esque lingerie (namely split-panel drawers, which I made; a reproduction corset from eBay; and an ankle-length chemise), which I just happen to have kind of laying around my closet, so I did. I ended up sleeping in that (yes, even the corset, and no, that's probably not a good idea), and so this morning it seemed like an even better idea to go out in full pseudo-Gibson Girl regalia, so I did.

In other words, I went out into a late-August Texas morning/afternoon wearing 1) Bloomers, 2) a Corset, 3) a Chemise, 4) Socks, 5) leather Boots, 6) a long-sleeved Blouse, 7) a heavy cotton Skirt, and 8) Jewelry. Thank the gods I at least had my hair up, and the weather was more manageable than usual (not terribly humid and a somewhat reasonable temperature in the shade).

But, seriously, I'm not complaining. This is something I legitimately enjoy, and I brought it entirely upon myself. I knew what I was getting into, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I haven't changed yet, so that's that.

OMG I'm showing leg. Send Godey's a telegram, quick, this is a serious offense.

Wishing you all the very best,

<3 Lovely Wednesday

Je ne sais quoi

Alice in Wonderland is absolutely a fashion inspiration to me, and always has been. I should do a compilation post about that. I think I will. When I wear headbands, especially headbands with bows, I tend to think about that, especially when there's something blue in my outfit. Today, it's a blue headband with a bow, blue and gold eyeshadow, and blue/green/yellow hair.

I got these soaring sparrow earrings on clearance in a shop in the mall that houses the train station in Utrecht. That was kind of a long sentence, but that's that. I really like them, and they were really cheap. I hope I don't develop an allergy to cheap jewelry, because I do love it so.

This picture seems especially evocative of Alice to me.

The dress is either from Ross or Marshalls or TJ Maxx, and I got it in Carson City around Christmastime last year because the sleeves reminded me vaguely of Morticia Addams. The Addams Family is kind of close to my heart (hence my alias Lovely Wednesday).

There's something about overexposed and oversaturated images that I can't resist.

<3 Lovely Wednesday