Standing on the edge of energy's future

Last weekend we made a trip to Kansas City to do a show.

When we travel to Kansas City (as we've done quite a few times over the past 5 years), we drive Interstate 70, right through the heart of the state of Kansas.



We're used to seeing these scattered across the farm fields

pumping away

sucking the oil (or the natural gas, more likely) out of the ground



and we know about this too

a refinery that breaks down all those gallons of oil into the parts that right now we need (this particular one is in Colorado)




to fuel our cars

to heat our homes

to cook our meals


We were in Kansas just one week over a year ago










In that year, these appeared

Giant sentries over the corn and sorgum and sunflower fields

Slowly turning

using the wind (that B L O W S through Kansas)

making power

power for light

power for heat

power for cooking

I am awed by the enormity of these. I am also impressed by just how quickly they were built.

Just over a year!!!!!

And there are a lot of them -- probably at least 100 in this little area off I-70 in Ellsworth County, Kansas

Its a wonderful thing

now we need more of them, and more solar panels

this industry can not only provide heat and light but another extremely important thing right now -- JOBS!!

as I said, I'm mightily impressed

fall's coming -- I must be a squirrel

that feeling is in the air

it's really cool in the morning when I go out for my walk -- I'm back to wearing a sweat shirt with a hood and some mornings I need my gloves

so far not many leaves are turning color or falling from the trees, but it's coming

the squirrels in the neighborhood are making the dog crazy -- they are busy, busy, busy -- yesterday afternoon one was running the fence with an apple as big as his head in his mouth (guess his mama never told him not to eat anything bigger than his head)

something about fall makes me want to work on getting ready for winter too -- aside from the many art projects that are crowding my brain, jockeying for what gets done first, a new list of household chores has joined in -- things like repairing the fence before the cold weather, painting the tool shed so the wood doesn't rot, repainting the master bathroom to take care of the little issue we had there, getting the weather stripping around the front door replaced

I'm starting to think I could use a few more hours in the day!

a bad case of the "I wants and gimmies"

see this book?

I want it!

put together by two bead artists who have inspired me to do some of the pieces I have done -- Sherry Serafini and Heidi Kummli -- it talks about the techniques they use, the process they use in designing a piece and the kind of things that inspire them

in better days I would have just gone to Amazon and bought this, but nowdays, I don't even buy a magazine without serious consideration to the impact that purchase will have on our budget, so I will just have to hope someone takes pity on me at Christmas time -- or that one of the 3 shows we're doing this month actually makes us some money!!

So there you have it

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

a while back I posted something that can only be described as a HUGE whine about not reading someone's blog because reading it made me feel bad

and for the past little while (since I posted that) I have stayed away from the subject blog

yesterday I took a peek

and instantly realized that the entire prior post should have actually been done in bright GREEN letters

here's the deal ---

first off, she has no idea I even read her stuff, so she's not aiming anything she writes at me, so it was stupid for me to think that way in the first place

second, and most important, I realize that I'm jealous of her accomplishments as she has (with seeming ease) achieved awards without being in the field for years and is now doing something else I want -- having a book published

herein is the place that I wonder somewhat if those who say it's all fate might have a point -- those who are fated to succeed will, the rest of us should just suck it up

or not

at any rate, I'm still not going to read her everyday, I don't need to have the jealousy reinforced

but I will acknowledge the issue is mine

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

not so well read

Over at Kay's Thinking Cap she was talking about the top 100 books and how many we've read.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

I'm above average, but not as above average as Kay is!

How about you?

1. Look at the list and bold/colourize those you have read.
2. Post the list on your site.
(This can also remind you of some great books to read.)

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkienn
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - A.S. Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

In Print again - sort of

My apologies in advance to those of you that read all of my many blogs, as I am quite deliberately posting the same info on just about all of them.

The reason? I think it's important to "spread the word" about an effort to raise money for breast cancer research.



The Fall 2008 issue of Art Doll Quarterly is now on the newstands, and I went last night to pick up my copy.

In this issue (starting on page 50) is the write up about the Pink Artist Doll that I donated two squares for earlier in the year. We got top billing on the cover and an amazing write up in the "from the editor" page of the issue as well as the article that our leader, Monica Magness, wrote about the project.

For more information about a chance to win this beautiful creation (and have your money go to a great cause!), use this link to get further information from our project leader.

Mammy

I've been working on family history for a couple of weeks, trying to apply the same semi-disciplined approach that I use for my artwork projects to actually get this project done too

(Ok, I know that family history is never really DONE, but I want to organize it, get it recorded on CDs that I can share and get rid of anything that I don't actually NEED to keep)

In the mornings, when I'm at desk top my computer, I've been scanning old photos and using my photoshop software to clean them up and save in several formats so I can share them. Working with these old photos makes me think of the people in them, some of whom I never met, and some of whom I remember well.

This is my grandmother.

My mother's mother.

This picture was taken in 1921 -- the year she married my grandfather.

From the time I can first remember, I called her Mammy. I have a couple of letters she wrote to me when I was in junior high school where she actually signed them "Your Mammy".

I remember her best, of course, through a child's eyes. I actually have earlier memories of her than I do of my own mother (who was a working woman in the 1950's).

Mammy taught me a lot of the things that are the foundation of the art I do today.

She taught me to sew -- first by hand, then (very carefully) on the old sewing machine (not a treddle, she had an electric one). I learned how to make clothing first from her, and how to be very frugal with the fabric. (I actually know how to turn a collar and a cuff on a dress shirt, something that nobody does any more) When a dress or skirt or shirt was considered at last to be beyond wearing, we removed the zippers and buttons and snaps and saved them to be reused -- something that was useful to me again recently when my daughter needed zippers replaced in a skirt and a summer dress, and I had something right on hand that would work.

She taught me to knit -- my grandfather brought home all of the string from the post office (back in those days they still tied packages with string), that we tied together, rolled into balls and used for "yarn". My first knitting was to make dish clothes out of that cotton string -- all those knots made extra texture that was good for scrubbing with.

She taught me how to make tatted lace edging (and I was thrilled after she was gone to be the one that inherited the little case she had made out of an oatmeal box and some brown herringbone tweed wool fabric (probably from an old skirt) to carry her tatting shuttles and thread in)

She taught me to love the sound of words -- a passion for poetry that carried over into song lyrics -- I remember her pushing me in the swing that hung from a tree in her yard and the words of Robert Louis Stevenson

Oh how do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall
Til I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside -
Til I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown -
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

It is odd to think that I am now nearly the age she was as I first remember her.

Now there are a lot of questions I would like to ask her -- about her life before I knew her, about her life with my grandfather, about her family and the places she had been

perhaps it is that wondering that leads us to do family history!

History Lesson for today -- The Bonus Army

It's funny how things you haven't ever heard of can become important to you in odd ways.

Last night as I was watching Keith Olbermann, he mentioned briefly that yesterday, July 28, was the anniversary of the burning of the tent city of World War I veterans in Washington D.C. by the army (under the command of General George Patton) at the command of Herbert Hoover.

I heard him say it, but it didn't fully "click" until later in the evening.


We've taken to watching a show on PBS on Monday evenings that's called The History Detectives. Last night they did a whole thing about The Bonus Army.

The federal government had promised them a bonus -- the crash of 1929 and the depression that followed left many of them jobless, homeless and penniless -- they wanted to be paid

So a group of them traveled from Oregon to Washington DC to lobby congress

Hoover considered them to be a threat to public order, and when 2 of them were shot in a "riot" on July 28, 1932, he ordered his active army to evict them from Washington (no wonder Hoover was so soundly defeated!)

The fellow on the right side of this picture is my grandfather.

He was a World War I veteran. (this picture was taken after the war when he was in college at John Brown College in Arkansas)

Suddenly, I'm interested in that bonus those veterans were supposed to be paid.

Was he entitled to it (I'm thinking he must have been)

Did he get it?

Did it make a major difference in the lives of my grandparents?

Or was it just a nice "bonus" since he was a civil servant all through the depression (he worked for the post office)

So now I'd like to know how to find out

I'll be starting by asking my mother

Why is reading blogs like a watching a train wreck?

I know, it sounds like something out of Lewis Carroll "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

Fear not, unlike Carroll, I will give you the answer to this riddle

I've been out and about on the "blog scene" for a couple of years now, and for most all of that time there has been one that I have read regularly.

and it never fails to make me feel diminished

perhaps it is because I have actually met the person doing the writing

perhaps it is the "tone"

perhaps it is all in my head

at any rate, reading it for me is sort of like watching a train wreck --


I

just

can't

look

away

{C R A S H}


starting today, I'm going to try to limit my exposure -- I think I'll feel better for it

added afterwards: If you have EVER commented on ANY of my blogs, I'm NOT talking about you here!! All of you who comment are greatly encouraging and I appreciate each and every one of you.

You've got to be carefully taught

Over at Kay's Thinking Cap she talked about a new and totally outrageous thing going on in Great Britan.

It seems that some government study has decided that toddlers who turn up their noses to foreign food are exhibiting RACIST behavior!

Say WHAT???

(Like Kay, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, so I read the article about it which she provided the link for -- here)

I have to admit that this right away brought 2 song lyrics to mind.

The first is from Martina McBride's song In My Daughter's Eyes where she says (speaking about her infant):

In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal
Darkness turns to light and the
world is at peace


The second is from the musical South Pacific where Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to Year
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
To be Afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught


Children are not born to hate -- the "adults" teach them that -- to the detriment of us all

The triumph of the squeeky wheel

Back the end of June I posted a bit here about a very scary experience we had in our local emergency room.

As I said then, it was our intent to send off letters of complaint to the hospital, the insurance company, the compliance board, etc.

I can report that we have received (to date) three letters in response to our incident.

One from the compliance board, one from the insurance company and one from the hospital -- the latter of which indicating that as soon as the insurance company pays the rest of the claim the hospital is going to reimburse us for our $50 copay.

What I find most disturbing is that the company that the emergency room physican works for has not responded in any way -- guess that tells us what the real issue is here

I just hope our making a fuss about this will put some changes into place that will keep someone else from a similar experience

Finding "purpose"

Before you think that I've gone off the deep end again, this whole post is in response to an ongoing thread from one of the email lists that I belong to.

There has been a lot of discussion there lately about what your "Purpose" is.

Let me say first off that this is a demon that I have battled with off and on for quite a while, and how I respond to this question is dependent in large part to my state of mind at the moment.

Back in the dead of winter, this would have sent me off mumbling and fussing for days, but this week it produced a whole other response.

I think that saying we have only one purpose in life is a little nuts. Back when my daughter was small, my whole purpose revolved around her and her needs. Now days my purpose is more about creating art.

Each stage of our lives leads us to different things that are the most important. We can do it all -- but we can't do all of it all at once.

So, I'm back to my favorite "music pusher" who put this great song from Avenue Q on my MP3. It expresses my feelings quite well on this subject (note, the song is sung like a dialog between several characters, just read for content here!):

For Now


Why does everything have to be so hard?

Maybe you'll never find your purpose.

Lots of people don't.

But then- I don't know why I'm even alive!

Well, who does, really?
Everyone's a little bit unsatisfied.
Everyone goes 'round a little empty inside.

Take a breath,
Look around,
Swallow your pride,
For now...

Nothing lasts,
Life goes on,
Full of surprises.
You'll be faced with problems of all shapes and sizes.
You're going to have to make a few compromises...
For now...

But only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)


For now we're healthy.
For now we're employed.
For now we're happy...
If not overjoyed.
And we'll accept the things we cannot avoid, for now...


But only for now! (For now)
Only for now! (For now)

Only for now!
(For now there's life!)
Only for now!
(For now there's love!)
Only for now!
(For now there's work!)
For now there's happiness!
But only for now!
(For now discomfort!)
Only for now!
(For now there's friendship!)
Only for now (For now!)
Only for now!

Only for now! (Sex!)
Is only for now! (Your hair!)
Is only for now! (George Bush!)
Is only for now!

Don't stress,
Relax,
Let life roll off your backs
Except for death and paying taxes,
Everything in life is only for now!


Each time you smile...
It'll only last a while.
Life may be scary...
But it's only temporary

Everything in life is only for now.

Enjoy where you are, make the best of it! Everything in life -- is only for now!

Hey, do you want to come out and play the game

My daughter, my great "music pusher" filled up the little MP3 player I use when I walk every morning.

Now I've been listening to the "scramble" rotation for over a month now, and every now and then I'll hear something I didn't hear before -- ok, maybe I was looking at a bunny or a bird or some new flower along the way and I wasn't really Listening, which (as we all know) is not the same as hearing

anyway

one of the songs is Century Plant by Victoria Williams. Here are the lyrics that really caught me this morning:

Outside my house is a cactus plant, they call the Century Tree.
Only once in a hundred years, it flowers gracefully.
And you never know when it will bloom.


Hey, do you want to come out and play the game,
it's never too late.
Hey, do you want to come out and play the game,
it's never too late.


Clementine, honey, was fifty-four,
'fore she picked up her paint.
Old uncle Taylor was eighty-one,
when he rode his bike across the plains of China, u-huh.

And the sun was shining on their day,
just like today.


Do you want to come out and play the game,
it's never too late.
Do you want to come out and play the game,
it's never too late.

Reminder that its not too late to try new things no matter how old you are!!

I've spent some time the past week wondering just what "Mixed Media" art is, and have decided that its what ever mixture made into what ever form I want it to be --

Hey! Do you want to come out and play?

I don't get it

There has been a big uproar here in Colorado about the lyric of a song that was sung by a local jazz singer

Just because I didn't really understand the uproar, I went and got a copy of the lyric so I could read it

Here it is:

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

(James Weldon Johnson)

I find nothing offensive here.

I'm not offended by the fact that it was sung to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner -- after all, Francis Scott Key appropriated that tune from a commonly sung English drinking song (ok, maybe that explains why its so difficult to sing -- you need to be drunk?)

maybe I'm missing something -- but I still don't get it!

a digression from the plan.....

We had great plans for yesterday -- a bit of working in the garden, reading the paper at a leisurely pace, a bit of sketching and graphic work on a new quilt design and the web site then a nice dinner of chicken and fresh veggies from the farmers market

Alas, it was not to be

Instead we spent the entire afternoon and well into the evening sitting in the emergency room of our nearest hospital -- and it was far longer than we needed to be there

Shortly after breakfast the DH said he was having pain under his left arm that sort of wrapped around to his shoulder blade and a bit toward the front. He had taken Tylenol (the only over the counter pain killer he can handle), and it hadn't helped much.

So I called his doctor's office and had a chat with the urgent care nurse who suggested (after asking a lot of questions) that I should take him to the nearest emergency room to be checked out.

Off we go to the ER

The intake nurses were great -- no sooner had I started writing the information on the card at the desk when the nurse came with a wheel chair and whisked him into the room to take readings, put him on oxygen and quiz us about his medications (he carries a laminated card in his wallet -- thank goodness!), his symptoms and especially his allergies -- they gave him the usual id bracelet and TWO red bracelets with his allergies on them

The nurses on the emergency ward were great too -- checking his vital signs, the lab testing done promptly, the x-ray department taking a chest x-ray with their cute little portable unit -- all with normal results, except for one blood test that indicated that he MIGHT have a blood clot somewhere.

So the doctor in charge in the ER tells us that they need to call in a technician to do the special scan to see if there is a clot (usually this is done with a CAT scan, but that involves using a dye that he's allergic to), and they are calling him in. That was at 1:30.

Then began the waiting --- and WAITING --- and WAITING!

Around 2:30 we asked for the doctor to come back in because the pain level had gone back up

Around 4:15 I was back out wanting to know just how long he was going to have to wait for this test, and voicing concerns about the fact that it had been such a long time since he had eaten

By 6:00 he was at the "mad as hell" stage and ready to just sign himself out when they FINALLY came and took him for the test.

While the technicians were doing the test (a wonderfully pleasant husband and wife team), we found out from them that even though we were told at 1:30 that they had been called, they weren't actually called until 4:30!

After the test, they came in and asked him if he wanted something to eat, but they didn't offer to get him his medication (for diabetics that are treated with medication, meal time means the right little pills too)

Finally at about 7:30 the nurse came in and told us that all of the tests were normal and probably he had just strained a muscle in his side. The nurse brought in the doctor's follow up orders (note: from the time the doctor told us at 1:30 that the test needed to be run we never saw him again!)

There on the follow up sheet it said: "Ibuprofen 600-800mg every 6-8hrs as needed for pain"

HELLO! what part of anaphylactic shock didn't this bird brain get? This is why all the RED allergy bracelets -- he's allergic to this stuff, as in, he stops breathing!! We obviously will NOT be following those orders.

and I will be writing a letter to the hospital's administrator about the very poor way this was handled (I'm off now to mix up a batch of "poison" to load my pen with)

geesh!

Writer? Blogger? Both?

I have a "favorites" list that includes a pretty diverse group of blogs that I try to get to at least a couple of times a week.

The subject matter on these is fun, serious, artful and personal. Some of them make me laugh, some make me cry, some make be cheer and occasionally one will make me angry, but they are all interesting.

Over at Travelin Oma's Library and marta writes (a delightful mother/daughter pair of blogs if ever I saw one!) there has been some thought provoking discussion about why folks blog.

There were a couple of things they said that really got me to thinking about my blogs.

1. In Marta's post she says: "my main blogging goal is to write it out, find my voice, being true to myself, to whatever is whirling in my mind and just write. yet, i also want to make you love me."

2. Oma has this to say: "I blog the way I used to write in my journal. ... I kept my journal, imagining the people who would someday read it. It wasn't ever meant to be totally private. I'm an audience kind of writer. For me, writing doesn't feel complete unless someone reads it."

To each of them I want to say a loud, resounding YES!

I actually write several blogs, and each of them has its own purpose. The first one I started was because I wanted to keep in touch with people that had purchased a piece of my artwork, and to let them know what I was working on next.

This blog has always been intended to be a much more personal one, but like Oma, my writing doesn't feel complete unless someone reads it.

Maybe its the little kid in me that ALWAYS wants your attention, I get so excited when I get a comment on anything I've written.

This is the place that the whining and ranting goes on. It is the place that I feel safe in saying things that are difficult for me to say to myself and I am always touched and humbled when someone out there in the big wide world "hears" it and reaches back to touch my hand and my heart.

Oma asks in her post if we journal too -- I don't.

My blogging is my journal.

I have a friend in California that fills several 2 inch binder notebooks every year (I always see to it that she has the first one to start in as a Christmas gift). She carefully writes about what she has done and where she has been, she keeps letters and cards and children's art work. She is building a treasure for her children and her grandchildren in the future -- I hope they will appreciate it.

So, I don't hand write -- I blog and I put in lots of pictures -- and I have folders where I have printed out each entry.

And then there is the question of "is this writing"? It's sort of like asking "is it art"? Could we say that writing, like art, is in the eye of the beholder? Is what we write in our blogs more or less likely to be "writing"? Is it only writing if it gets published?

I don't know.

I only know that most days I feel better for the experience. And better still if someone reads it and comments -- yes, its the exhibitionist side of me -- because someone has "heard" what I had to say

If we didn't want someone to read it, we wouldn't put it out on the web

if there is no one to hear it, does the falling tree make a sound? yes, but no one cares

we blog because we want to be heard

Happy Anniversary

Today is our wedding anniversary.


We got a card in the mail from our daughter earlier in the week, which was cute and really sweet.

And this afternoon we'll be off setting up a booth for the art show we'll be doing tomorrow and Sunday.

No fancy dinner for us -- just working together on displaying the art jewelry we both work on.

Frankly, after the past few months, its a marvel that he hasn't "done me in" -- as I've been negotiating a roller coaster of emotional upheaval, trying hard to figure out the "now what" of being the mother of an adult child that is now married and really doesn't need my constant attention.

We're adjusting to the health concerns as well, and I'm trying to stop being so self centered as I make myself do things that are "good" for me (even when I don't want to!)

And so, we've survived another year --- and hope for the next one to be better!

the way into print.....

appears to be through letters to the editor!






















Early last week the Denver paper ran an article about the people that live in an area that has been called The Hayman Fire -- a massive fire that happened 6 years ago and was accidently set by a woman that was burning a distressing letter from her husband.

I was so struck by the hate that seemed to flow out of the page that I wrote a letter to the editor about it.

Mid week I got a call from the editor's office to get my permission to print it.

It will be interesting to watch the on-line forum to see if there are any responses to it.

one of life's random experiences.......

This morning's usual routine was interrupted by a a trip to the local DMV that was not planned until yesterday morning.

It seems when my husband went in to have some blood work done yesterday, they asked him for his photo id. When they handed it back to him, he looked at it (who knows why) and realized that it had expired LAST AUGUST!!

Needless to say, he forked over the keys and we decided that a trip to take care of the issue would be in order post haste!

(we were used to living in a state that sent out reminders in the mail -- I guess they don't do that here)

Anyway, this morning, we went over to the DMV, and as we're standing in line we were talking to a lady that was there with her son who was taking his test for his first driver's license.

As we talked, she revealed that she moved to our state from New Orleans after Katrina -- they lost their home and every thing in it, having lived in the St Bernard Parish (right next door to the 9th Ward, which has gotten a lot of press).

The only thing they were able to later retrieve was a gold ring set with little diamonds that she had left sitting in the window sill of the kitchen that Sunday morning before the hurricane. When they were finally able to get back into their home, it was still sitting there -- a real strange twist considering that everything else in the house was so turned upside down.

She also told me that in the last 6 months as they were on a family vacation back to that area, her husband died while they were on the road.

I was stunned. I would never have guessed she'd seen all that trouble.

A true testament to the strength of the human spirit.

My grandmother used to have a little frame above her desk that had this saying in it:

I used to complain because I had no shoes, until I met a man that had no feet.

Ok, I get the message -- time to quit whining --

Looking back another way.....

Over at Traveling Oma, Marty was talking about having credentials to do things.

Now days, folks are pretty hung up in this idea. You practically have to have a degree in everything.

I never did get that college degree -- got busy with living instead I guess, and then there was the whole "what do you want to major in?" issue. If I had it to do again, I'd go major in art and writing.

But I also believe that what you learn along the way as you're living is worth while too (remember: life is what happens while you're making other plans)

So I've been thinking about all the things I have developed the ability to do, and figured it would help me to recognize those things.

Here then is my list:

* I know enough about remodeling to be the General Contractor on a major project -- I have personally done these things: paint a room (and clean up!); lay ceramic tile on a floor, a counter and in a shower; install an electrical outlet, an exhaust fan and a ceiling fixture; replace a washer in a faucet; hang a drapery rod; hang, tape and seal dry wall; install kitchen cabinets

* I can pack a whole household of stuff and have everything arrive at its destination intact (oh yeah, I drove the truck and towed the car too)

* I can organize a large event involving many other people

* I can bake and decorate a wedding cake

* I can create a teddy bear, a doll and a quilt from idea to finished item

* I can sew clothing (every formal my daughter wore in high school had my designer label in it)

* I can create a web site (taught myself HTML code when I had a back injury)

* I can cook a meal reasonably well, and I make a mean pot of apple butter

* I can supervise an accounts payable department in a large corporation

* I'm a good listener for an adult daughter (guess I did a good job listening from the time she was real little!)

* I can change a tire, check the fluids and know enough about auto mechanics to keep the repair shop from ripping me off with stuff that isn't true

* I can knit a sweater, a scarf, a vest, an afghan, a pair of mittens, and a variety of animal toys (just don't ask me to do socks!)

* I can write a reasonably clear business letter


I'm thinking there are probably a lot of other things I haven't thought of to put on this list -- I may add them as they come to me

So, what can you do?