New Year and Calender choices..............

(Sunday Morning Calender that my kids gave to their grandmother)

Christmas was nice and I stayed home this year with my children and some of their friends hung out with us. Spent New Year's Eve in church this time. Last year I was tired and went to sleep before 11 pm. Despite the snowy and slippery drive home this year, I enjoyed myself and felt really blessed. The pot luck was nice, with some amazing bread pudding, which is something I rarely touch, but enjoyed the little bit I tasted. Although it was supposed to be a joint effort with all the choirs, my choir was the main choir singing to my surprise. I had missed the rehearsals due to helping out with my sister's wedding reception. I mentally kicked myself as I winged it along on several songs, and promised myself to try to make the rehearsals in the future. The guest speaker, a minister who got his start in our church, gave a very inspirational message that provided us with food for thought. He is also a handsome man that reminded me of an old boyfriend, but he had much more charisma than my old beau. As we left, it was so nice to see folks wishing each other a Happy New Year. I was able chat more with folks that I rarely talk with and felt really hopeful and good inside.

Since it is a new year, I went through the house pulling my old calenders. I have one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, one in the dining room and one in my sewing room. My son already has his, a video gaming calender, and my daughter has her puppy calender. At this time I have not bought a new calender, although I did receive some from my local grocery store and drug store. Usually I get the Quilting Arts Calender for my bedroom. I love waking up to the vivid artwork of the selected winners of their annual calender challenge. Last year I bought the Joann Fabrics calender for my sewing room and later came across Mary Engelbreit's 2007 calender, “A Little Piece of Quiet.” I had enjoyed the quotes along with the artwork and promptly purchased it for my dining room.

As I took that calender down today, I considered getting another ME calender for 2008. I love Mary Engelbreit's work. I have two of her crafts books, and a small collection of ME teapot ornaments. I was going to toss the calender, but decided to first cut out the monthly quotes for a decoupaging project. I have an old box that been sitting for a while and I want to make it into a jewelry box. As I went through the pages, I noticed something that bothered me. While cutting out the quotes, I realized that there were no Hispanic or Black/African-American images featured in the calender. I used to have a subscription to her Home Companion Magazine and remembered that she had featured two Black artists. However as I browsed again through the year of magazines issues that I kept, I only found an occasional ethnic character featured on pages of an occasional issue.

As I went thought those past issues, I could not help but wonder as a black woman, do we really exist in her world? Her art images to me, inspire simple peaceful moments and times which we all crave, and that is why I think she is such an successful artist. However, I question if her imagination also includes Hispanic and Black/African-Americans? I know that I can not dictate what images to produce to a person who has channeled their art into a major enterprise. Ideally, it would nice to see the entire spectrum of races represented in her work. But as a consumer, the allure of Mary Engelbreit's work lost its luster for me then and after I checked out her calenders online. So I have been checking out some alternatives online and may go with some of these:

Classic Jazz 2008	Annie Lee 2008		Keep It Simple 2008

I have not settled on those options yet, but I am still looking around (this one too!) and hope that I find some that I can enjoy every day..........