Happy Monday my faithful readers! I’m starting the week off happy that a good friend made it through a fairly routine procedure, routinely. Hah. Nice to hear she is home and resting. This person is a go getter so I wanted to encourage her to rest because we all want her at 100% when she comes back.

This post is a day later than usual because my focus yesterday was on assisting with an e-waste recycling event that a friend runs every year and having a nice dinner and dessert ready for my husband as we celebrated 28 years of marriage. We both count our blessings with regularity.

I read an interesting article last week about how our checklists often can change who we are. It’s called How your to-do list shapes your personality – and how to use it to remake who you are. I read it and thought of an old friend who tried to play psychologist with me a year ago (without the proper training). However it came back up, after I read the article, when I was talking with a friend this weekend. It started as a discussion about work habit self improvements, that go against our natural personality traits. So I thought it would be good to share with you all and see what your experiences have been?

I started last week feeling unwell and rested up, while still hitting commitment dates. Last night I slept really hard and this morning when discussing how deeply I slept with my husband, I said, “I just don’t understand why I am so tired! I paced myself this week and rested in-between events!” He said, “You are thinking of energy exertion as only physical. You are processing A LOT mentally now and that also takes energy.” When he listed the things he knew I was processing…. state of the world, state of the planet, finances, parents and child support, institutions support, as well as creative projects and changing circumstances and health for various friends… I saw what he meant. It IS a lot. And I am being more physically creative in my fine art life than I have in decades. So it does make sense. I do often associate energy with physical exertion only. Do you?

Another thing that has occupied my mental energies is the fact that I have not been to the beach yet in 2025. Living in Southern California… this is a rarity. However, I was right in my impulse to stay away from the burn areas to allow people space and time to recover. I also saw with the short sighted plans to rush rebuilding, that we would be saddled with decades of toxic debris. When I saw an article related to that I said out loud, “I KNEW IT!” Leave it to an enterprising woman who cares about children to do the necessary testing. You can read more about it here. So many people think of California as this environmental paradise. However between the Santa Susana Field Research facility that is STILL not cleaned up, The heavy metals from fires and massive amounts of illegal fireworks shot off every year, the number of homeless bathing in the “river”… well you get the picture. It’s no wonder there is a Hepatitis A outbreak. Guess who is washing her hands and filtering her water A LOT! The air purifier won “best purchase” this year.

Los Angeles is supposed to host the world in just a couple of years and so far, the county is having trouble managing their roadways and residents with mental and chemical challenges. So my current feeling is… this is not going to go well. Perhaps they can bring the “magic” with enough investment of funds that don’t currently exist. This seems to be the way American organizations operate. We can’t afford it but we’ll dump it on the citizens/members/congregants anyway. Of course there is always the minority solution of “just fly over the problem” rather than solve it. We saw that in a new start up that does not yet exist but sounds really “spiffy”. You can read about that here. I hope they can figure something out. However when I read about flying robo taxi’s many years ago as a solution to Los Angeles freeway sprawl my first reaction was, “Yes, because traffic is not bad enough, we need debris falling from the sky at random intervals also.” Snarky, I know. Yet not necessarily inaccurate.

Now that I have used the word “spiffy” I have to bring back a very old word that my parents used to use, “Spizzerinktum“. Definition: The quality of having the enthusiasm, drive or the will to succeed. It can also describe having the passion for something or possessing intestinal fortitude. While sometimes used in the chiropractic field, it is more generally understood as representing, vim, energy and ambition. So here’s to Los Angeles getting the necessary spizzerinktum to pull off this global event!

So to that point… I must do a shout out to the truly inventive men (and women) who work within all of the limiting parameters of the delusional men (and women)… yet persist with kindness, strength of purpose and thoughtful follow through while keeping big picture problem solving energy. You are truly the ones with spizzerinktum and we DO see you, even though you are swimming against the tide and under the radar, daily. You are the yellow in the header image above.

I’ll add an article in the Engaging Art News section that talks about designing with natural topography, for your reading pleasure and until next time… stay safe, curious and inventive my friends!