Quote

This New Day

/ Jodi / 23 Comments

January Sunrise – Invitation of Hope – Wexford, PA 1/9/2020 – Jodi McKinney

This New Day.

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day.
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Collected Poems and Translations

This new day is too dear!

Too dear to not be grateful.
Too dear to wallow in negative energy.
Too dear to not see the beauty.
Too dear to not be joyful and kind and loving.
Too dear to be hard on ourselves.

This new day is too dear to waste!

May you own this day…
and all your days…
as the invitation of hope it is.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Becoming

/ Jodi / 34 Comments

Becoming.

“We cannot
become what
we want by
remaining what
we are.”*

A New Year.
A New Decade.
Another Birthday for me.

It is a great time
to remind ourselves…

It is a great time
to remember…

It’s never
too late.

Now is
the right time.

It is a great time
to become…

The “me”
we want to be.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

*Quote by Make Depree
Art by Jodi McKinney – McKinneyX2Designs

An Enthusiast in Life

/ Jodi / 46 Comments
Spring Floral Fantasy Watercolor 11×14

An Enthusiast in Life.

I LOVE this quote by Roald Dahl, and it sparked my enthusiasm to paint boldly and brightly and enthusiastically in watercolor recently.

“Listening to my father during those early years, I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”

Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald

I feel a bit out of practice as I’ve been doing other projects lately, but it was fun to splash watercolor again.

My daughter-in-law, Colleen and I are enthusiastically embracing a new project, which I’ll update you on as we go, but we are expanding our McKinneyX2Designs space at the local gift shop where we display our products, Berry Vine Gifts in Bradford Woods.

For today, however, I hope you will consider this quote, and enthusiastically embrace whatever YOU are passionate about!

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

 

Tiny interesting choices

/ Jodi / 39 Comments

Tiny Interesting Japonica blooms, Mars, PA – April 2018

Tiny interesting choices.

Take wrong turns.  Talk to strangers.
Open unmarked doors.  And if you see a
group of people in a field, go find out
what they are doing. Do things without
always knowing how they’ll turn out.
You’re curious and smart and
bored, and all you see is the choice
between working hard and slacking off.
There are so many adventures that you
miss because you’re waiting to think of
a plan.  To find them, look for tiny
interesting choices.  And remember that
you are always making up the
future as you go,

–Randall Munroe

Isn’t this great advice?!

Remember there is more to life than just working hard or slacking off…. there is so much “in between.”

Cherish those moments!

Look for those tiny interesting choices that are making up your future… your life.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Live the Questions Now

/ Jodi / 67 Comments

Live the Questions Now Rilke Quote – Abstract Circle Watercolor 11×14

Live the Questions Now.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love
the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books
that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers,
which cannot be given you
because you would not
be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then
gradually,
without noticing it,
live
along some distant day
into
the
answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

 

One evening I just felt like painting watercolor in a circle wet in wet to create a fun kaleidoscope effect.  After doing the negative painting I shared last week, I wanted to paint “inside the lines” this time.

And then I heard this quote (which just so happened to be shared by Lendon Noe in that class I spoke about in Sunday’s post), and I had to write it around the circle.

Live the Questions Now.

Don’t live your life waiting for the answers.
There is so much that you will miss.

Live everything every day,
and then, along the way,
you will likely live the answer.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Daniel Smith Watercolors Used:  Cascade Green, Mayan Red, Quinacridone Gold

Don’t Quit Your Daydream

/ Jodi / 65 Comments

Don’t Quit Your Daydream.

It may be just what gets you through the day.

Travel in your mind on sunbeams and moonbeams
to bright and breathtaking destinations of wonderment.

Soar by the wings of your seeking soul
among the twinkling stars and zooming comets.

Give your heart swift, light feet
to scamper through golden fields and slide on frozen streams.

Swing freely in the balmy breeze among blue butterflies
fluttering through clouds made of cotton candy and snow cones.

Some say “Don’t Quit Your Day Job,”
but I say “Don’t Quit Your Daydream!”

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

Own – Embrace – Explore

/ Jodi / 30 Comments

Owning our story can be hard, but not
nearly as difficult as spending our
lives running from it.  Embracing our
vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly
as dangerous as giving up on love
and belonging and joy – the experiences
that make us the most vulnerable.  Only
when we are brave enough to explore
the darkness will we discover
the infinite power of our light.

– Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness

 

One of my favorite Christmas gifts (heck – every gift is my favorite), but this one really speaks to my heart and was from the heart of someone who really gets me.  It is a quote from a favorite book – Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown.

It is hanging in a place where I will read it every day, and this will be my mantra – to own my story, to embrace my vulnerabilities, and to not be afraid to explore the darkness, so I can discover my authentic light.

Will you make a New Year’s Resolution?  Do you have a mantra or a life verse?  Do you choose One Little Word each year?

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

 

Where are you going, leaves?

/ Jodi / 54 Comments

In autumn the leaves come blowing, yellow and brown.
They rustle in the ditches, they tug and hang on the hedge.
Where are you going, leaves?  Far, far away.
Into the earth we go, with the rain and the berries.
Take me, leaves, O take me on your dark journey.
I will go with you, I will be rabbit-of-the-leaves.
In the deep places of the earth, the earth and the rabbit.

Silverweed, Watership Down

Currently reading “Watership Down” by Richard Adams.

Have you read this classic?

We are reading it in preparation for our upcoming book club.

Would love to hear thoughts from those who have read.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi