Well, if you've read my July 2005 update, you know I've split up with Anna, and moved back to Myrtle Beach SC, where I'm driving taxi and focusing on creating Ojos de Dios in my creative life.
Taxi driving continues to be a great place for meeting interesting people, if not very profitable financially. Details of the most interesting customers are in my blog, which I'm dedicated to updating more frequently in 2006. So check it out if you want more than this update...there is lots there also about my ojo making.
As I write this, I'm in the middle of my first large, in this case, 36 inch, 16-sided Ojos de Dios. Look for it on my Most Recent Ojos page.
Switching over to making 12-sided ojos was a big step for me, and very satisfying. However, just as I have made very few 8-sided creations since my first 12-sided ojo, I may well be stuck on this new form and all its possibilities. Also exciting, in just the last few days, I found some 24-sided Native American ojos for sale on eBay, and snatched up 4 of the 5 listed. Also, the maker, an Apache woman living in Texas, is an active artist, and I hope to get in touch with her and offer her work on a regular basis. They are really fantastic work, with a painting as a circular center themed on a Native American ideal. The first 4 should be up on my website in a couple of weeks.
The other big goal of my life besides my Ojos de Dios creations, is to get back to my writing. My very generous son Daniel sent me a flat screen monitor for Christmas, which makes it much easier on the eyes for writing and all things computer (I rarely write in any other way except keyboarding). Daniel has long encouraged me to finish my long delayed novel, and I think this gift will certainly get me going again.
Also new just now, I'm arranging to start volunteer work on the Meher Baba Spiritual Center. I'm not sure what capacity I'll be volunteering in yet, but giving tours is my ultimate goal. I can't say enough as to how wonderful it is to spend time on the Center, and to be privileged to live so close to it. As things look now, this is my home and likely place to spend the rest of my life. (do I hear God laughing at this plan?) I definitely do plan on an extended trip to out West ASAP (not likely in 2006 though), including visiting the ojo maker mentioned above in Texas....and of course New Mexico and Joshua Tree. I plan a trip to Meher Baba's tomb and center in India this coming summer, like the monitor, complements of Daniel.
So its been a year of heartbreaks and thrills, ups and downs, setbacks and new revelations. Anna and I briefly got back together in November, but it was brief indeed. We spent three blissful days together back again in Wilmington, where we had lived for 3 years. At that time we not only both really felt we loved Wilmington, and would live there again, but that we really belonged together. For a couple weeks before and after our Wilmington visit, we were talking for hours a day by cell phone, and considering ourself husband and wife again. Oh well, did anyone really think I could keep it together with a twenty-something? The good part is, neither of us has any regrets about the whole marriage, and we are friends now, talking frequently, if not daily, with our cell phones.
As for my four boys, Abel is living in a huge house in Asheville, NC, working as groundskeeper, in a relationship with the 40-year old woman who owns the place (and an equally large summer house), and about to start a tree service along with 3 other guys who all were part of the same fire-fighting crew in Washington State.
Daniel is doing great in Southern California, still working in Heating and Air Conditioning, and plugging away at college to end up as a PE teaching and wresting coach. His long term relationship with girl friend Annie, a Karate teacher and website designer, seems to be going well.
Kevin is up in Washington State, soon to start his senior year in college, majoring in History, with the goal to go ahead and get a PHD so he can teach at the college level.
Corey is still down in Northern California, and about to return to college. He's been moved in with his g/f he met online for a year now, so I guess thats going well too.
For more of my life, check out my blog at http://360.yahoo.com/jayfroggy. I've been updating it twice a week or so, and plan to keep it up. And don't just make it a one way blog.....click the little link below each entry, and leave comments of you own, please!
Peace and Love,
Jay
jay@ojos-de-dios.com