trying to take the doctor's advice

I made my annual trip to the doctor yesterday ... actually about 3 months late, and I confess I only went because they wouldn't refill my blood pressure medicine without my going....haha to the doctor that wrote that original prescription....I went to a different doc!

Ok, so here's the deal -- I hate going. I don't need the doctor to tell me that I'm overweight and getting older.....all I have to do is look in the mirror-- TA DA, diagnosis complete.

What a difference a different doctor can make. The last one treated me like I was just an after thought.....I don't think so!! This one is SO much better.

So, here's what the doc says:

my blood pressure is under good control -- and we like the nice side effect of the blood pressure meds that make the migraines stay away

we need to do something to make a dent in the cholesterol issues -- the previous doctor had said basically "you're just out of luck"! Not so, says the new doctor, so we have a new 5 step program:
1. increase the amount of fish oil and niacin that I take on a daily basis from 2 to 3 each
2. even though taking aspirin makes my ears ring, we're going to try taking 1 baby aspirin every other day and take it in the evening so the "ringing" doesn't bother me so much
3. every other day 1/2 of a Crestor 5mg tablet (I get to cut them) -- and she gave me 4 packets of these little lovelies, so I have no out of pocket expense while we figure out what works
4. walk the dog -- no we're not talking about yoyo tricks here, we're talking about taking the four footed critter that lives at our house on an outing every day -- not too far at first, we need to work our way up to long distance (and the other projects I'm working on, like moving piles of rock from one side of the yard to the other and sanding and painting the storage shed are good activities too) It was a joy to have a doctor really LISTEN to my issues about exercise
5. drink a glass of red wine -- at least once a week -- hmmmm, this almost sounds like a reward for doing the hard stuff as a glass of wine with a good italian meal is a delight

Of course the hard part of the doctor discussion had to do more with asking for advice on the other issues -- those days when I want to just pull the hole in over me and hide. The fact that its hard for me to even ask is at the very core of the problem -- I have not ever been very good at asking for help or asking for what it is I need. Too many years of being told "you always put others first" -- the problem with that approach is you can mentally and emotionally starve to death that way, you can not give others something to drink from an empty well, and if you never do for yourself you can't refill the well.

(Okay, intellectually I KNOW that, but I still have a hard time DOING something about it -- I also have a problem not feeling guilty about doing anything for me that costs anything)

That said, I am beginning to realize that all of the healthy body steps make no sense if emotionally I'm a "basket case"!

Instruction from the doctor -- keep writing (okay, that won't be too hard), work on asking for what I need, and maybe find a group to belong to where I can share a hobby or something that doesn't require me to pay a big fee or always be the teacher -- and this part will be as hard as the exercise!

more doggie day camp

warm weather is a good time for a little sun bathing.....

Elphie and Soma hang out on the patio to catch some rays.....this was after they had chased squirrels and dumped over the bucket of water (then carried the bucket out into the yard!)

They were just having a lovely time



I guess Soma was in need of some extra comfort last night as she decided that she was a lap dog and crawled right up!

Elphie is in the chair behind them, watching to make sure nothing is happening she doesn't approve of.

doggie sleep over camp

Soma






Elphie







As I mentioned yesterday, we're keeping our daughter and son-in-law's dog while they are off on their honeymoon.

So today's pictures are of yesterday's play in the yard while we were mowing the grass.

Soma will chase a ball until her tongue hangs clear to the ground! We put a bucket of water out on the porch so the two dogs don't have to run in and out of the house to get a drink, and Soma used it to dunk the ball in. By the end of the day there was a layer of dirt in the bottom of the bucket and a "slick" of grass clippings floating over the whole top --- YUCK! Needless to say, we dumped and rinsed and today they started out with a fresh bucket full.

thoughts on being a new mother-in-law....

On Saturday evening, my daughter married a great guy. I know its totally cliche to say, but I do feel like instead of loosing a daughter, I gained a son.

One of the things the pastor said to them during the ceremony was that they would laugh together and cry together, and judging from all the tears during the ceremony, they've got the crying part down already.

Its so sweet that they are both tender, emotional people, and that they also know how to laugh and have fun.

So this week I am doing my first mother-in-law thing, taking care of their dog while they go off to Disneyland for their honeymoon.

sneek peek of wedding cake......

Well, today is the day we take off to Northern Colorado for our daughter’s wedding.

This week we have had two friends here with us from California and have spent most of the week working on flowers and cakes and putting quilting stitches into the quilt I put together for the happy couple.

Yesterday was especially hectic in that there are certain things that simply cannot be done until the last minute. So, yesterday morning at about 10 we started in on the final decorating of the cakes. We had so issues with frosting texture and these cakes being so moist and very tender, so a lot of time was devoted to just getting a clean layer of frosting on them. Decorating was easier, and they look pretty nice. I think they will look even better when we get them set up on the stands with the lace and the flowers.

We had just enough time to have a quick bite of lunch before it was time to head off to pick up the flowers. We decided to rest a bit and have dinner before starting into the flowers.

At 7 we began cutting and wiring individual flowers, and by 10 we had completed the bride’s bouquet, flowers for 4 bridesmaids, 10 boutonnières for various men to be honored and 9 corsages for various ladies. We also had a bucket full of flowers left that will be used as decorations on the tables, around the cake, etc.

So today, we’ll be packing up the van and heading off.

There will be lots of posting about all the festivities next week – with pictures!

OUCH!

Yes folks, that's my foot.

Don't you love the delightful blue at the base of each toe?

And then there is the puffy little knot just below the second toe.

mmmmm, note to self: do NOT set the leg of a heavy antique dining room chair down on a bare foot....it hurts!

Ok, so right now I'm really glad that my daugher's wedding (on Saturday --- THIS Saturday!) is not of the very formal kind that requires me to wear heels.....my lovely new white Crocs will be just fine, thank you.

Deja Vu of a different kind.....

I spent some time yesterday afternoon writing addresses on the envelopes that I will send wedding announcements out in.

Since this is going to be a small wedding, my daughter invited mostly just her very immediate family that lives in our area, and I am sending out announcements with a photo of her and her soon-to-be-hubby to the rest of the family and friends that are scattered about the country.

As I sat and addressed I had that odd sensation of "I've been here before", thinking about similar August evenings 24 years ago when I was writing many of these same names on announcements -- announcements of her arrival in this world.

Its been a very fast 24 years -- probably more so for me than for her.

As I recall there were a few tears spilled then too --- maybe not as many as our "love affair" was just beginning then -- I can tell that I best have several hankies in my pocket in 12 days -- I'm sure I'm going to need them!

its that feeling of deja vu

as I sat and watched, fascinated, horrified, at the pictures from Minneapolis.

Its been almost 18 years since the Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, and those pictures last night were all too familiar.

It was made even stranger as I listened to Keith Olbermann describe the event in words that were poetic, beautiful even, regardless of the terrible situation.

Weirder yet that his was a voice we heard that night in October, 1989, as he was a sports caster then, in the Bay Area for the World Series games that were interrupted by the quake; suddenly turned news caster, describing the destruction around him.

And the reports of a hundred little miracles --- the school bus that didn't go over the edge; the Red Cross facility practically at arms reach; the Red Cross official that was ON THE BRIDGE and helped those kids get out of that bus as it lay at an odd angle; the whole class of student nurses in the Red Cross building to aid all those kids as they came off the bus ----- no sir, it was not any of those kids day to die.

Then the stories that rip your heart out as one young man described his last words with his fiance as she was on the bridge saying to him "the bridge I'm on is collapsing" and then the awful silence. I wonder if he has found her yet, I wonder if she survived or if she is one of the bodies they are searching for this morning.

And finally the anger at a political situation that has continued over the past 6 years to drum the word terror into our ears over and over until one of the first questions out of our collective mouths is "Was it an act of terror?" And yes, it was terror for those people on the bridge, but not THAT kind.

more thoughts about Harry Potter (SPOILER ALERT!)

As I said in yesterday's post, I'm going to talk about themes in The Deathly Hallows, so proceed at your own risk.

Over on her blog, novelist Erica Orloff has been talking about symbolism in her work and the work of other writers.

The symbolism in Rowling's work is pretty clear -- to me anyway. If ever there was a symbol in a modern day novel of Christ, Harry is it. He walks willingly and without fight into what he sees as his death with the idea that he will be saving his friends. Greater love has no man.....

The power of this final book continues to grow in my mind as I continue to consider all its meanings days after finishing it.

I finished reading The Deathly Hallows

last night. Ok, it only took me a week longer than all those kids that started reading as soon as they got their hands on it and kept reading until they were done, but I've had to do a lot of other stuff too!!

If you haven't finished and don't want it spoiled, STOP READING THIS NOW! I'm not going to spoil it for you on purpose, but I am going to talk about story themes!

In the area I live in, there is a large group of folks with a well know leader of their group that thinks they need to tell us what we should read -- a fact that annoys me not a little.

I think he could do with reading the Harry Potter series. One thing I have noticed and adore about Rowling's books is that no matter how dark things may look, good always triumphs. And at the base of that good is always love. If every kid that has read this series would be as willing as Harry is at the end to do the right thing our world would be a much better place.

In my opinion, though, there are still other books that could spring out of this series, even though Harry is no longer a student at Hogwarts.

I am awed as an aspiring writer by Rowling's ability to keep track of hundreds of characters and make each and every one of them a fully rounded persona....no flat cardboard cutouts here....she must spend hours writing back stories on every one of them.....no wonder she says she has lots of material that didn't make it into the books.

No matter what she writes next, I'll be lining up to buy it!

Odder and odder......

most peculiar things -- after posting last week about looking for a friend from high school maybe I'm just hyper-aware, but last night was WEIRD!

We watched a new show on TV called Saving Grace. While I would not recommend this show to any household with kids (WAY too mature subject lines), it was odd beyond belief.

For one thing, the actress that plays the lead role (Holly Hunter) reminds me a lot of my missing friend -- the body build, hair color, the "in your face" attitude. Then during the episode there is a scene where she's interacting with this black and white cow (which made me think of the seat covers in the '57 Chevy)

YIKES!

ok, I'm still trying to get someone to answer on that phone number in So Cal that's listed to Catherine Russo....so far it just rings and rings. I'll keep trying tho', after all, its summer and people go on vacation.....

looking for "closure"

Closure is a word that has come to mean something more than just to reach the end.

People who have had loved ones murdered look for "closure" in a death sentence for the one found guilty of the crime as if that will bring their loved ones back.

Certainly there seems to be a human need to "finish the book" and find the answers for mysteries unsolved. It is almost as if we are hard wired to keep searching for whatever it is we have lost.

As I wrote about yesterday, for some reason this case in Grand Junction, CO, where the mother of 3 children (Paige Birgfeld) disappeared has set me off trying to find an answer to my own "unsolved mystery".

This is a mystery that I have been puzzling over since the late 1970's. During those times when my life is crazy hectic I don't think about it as much, but it is always lurking in the back of my brain.

I understand to a degree the need to find even the body --- at least then you know the answer to the puzzle --- its the not knowing that makes you nuts.

So, in an attempt to help myself make since of this puzzle, I've decided to talk about it here. Who knows, its a World Wide Web, maybe by putting all this "out there" someone will know someone that knows something.....stranger things have happened!

My ongoing mystery has to do with the "disappearance" of a woman that I had known since childhood.

We were introduced by our school district in the fifth grade. I was transfered into the "smart" class (I hated how this was classified in the early '60s -- like we needed to be labeled?!). Like being the new kid on the block, I was a little lost and she was willing to be my friend.

We were an odd pair. She was the tall, thin, blonde and everyone in our little suburban town knew her mother. I was the scrawny, awkward, brunette that no one knew. Behind our respective pairs of glasses we saw something of a kindred spirit, and we just "clicked".

So it was from grade 5 through junior high school. We survived "Slam books", PE and not being invited to the dances together. Our first 2 years in high school we went to different schools, but as soon as we were in the same school again, we were together a lot.

She learned to drive and had her own car, (a 1957 Chevy - RED - that she recovered the seats in with unborn calf skin --- very interesting black and white "fur") and during our junior year in high school, we cut a lot of classes together. (Something that I'm not particularly proud of now, in fact I now consider it to be the reason I didn't find any direction for going on to college, which I think now was a serious mistake.)

She graduated in December ahead of me in May back in the day when girls who were married and pregnant couldn't stay in school.

Through the years she married a couple more times, and both of us moved to California, and we kept in touch until 1979. Then she just disappeared.

The last time I saw her was over Halloween of 1978. We drove to Simi Valley where she and her 3rd husband lived at the time. Her son had gotten to be a good looking 9 year old, and her mother (who's husband had died a year or so before) was living with them too.

At Christmas a year later I got a letter with pictures of her new baby and that picture of her dressed in a belly dancing costume. She said she was using the name Sheherazade and doing some dancing in a club.

That was the last letter. Later someone told me that her husband had said that she just walked away. I just can't believe that.

So, yesterday I spent some time on line looking in any place I could to try and find any record of her or her sons.

Among the many records I found a possible clue, and I'm still trying to follow it up. There is always that chance she did "walk away" but to another husband, and what name would that be? One record yesterday gave me hope that might be true, but so far I can't confirm anything.

So, here are the names, and if any one knows anything about these folks, I'd really love to find some closure here.

maiden name: Catherine Lillian Wilson
first married name: Bliss
second married name: Greening
third married name: Popp (husband's first name: Bruce)

sons: Edward Bliss -- I believe was adopted by Bruce Popp, so his name would be Edward Popp -- he was born in August, 1969, would be almost 38 years old now

Bruce Robert Popp (born in 1979, he would be about 28 years old now

the other clue found yesterday: there is a Bruce Robert Popp, age 28 in Southern California listed as having a relative named Catherine Lillian Russo, age 57

Yes, that sounds like a match, but so far, no luck locating a phone number for Bruce Robert, and no answer at the phone number found for a Catherine Russo....

I'm still searching.........

it reads like a mystery novel -- I think I know how it ends

the local papers have been full of articles about a Grand Junction woman (Paige Birgfeld) who disappeared the end of June.

She was working a dozen angles to stay at home with her kids and hang on to the big house she was granted in a divorce settlement....selling kitchen goods and maybe herself to do it.

It really does read like a mystery novel -- she visits with an ex-husband and never gets home; her cell phone goes right to voice mail even though she would never turn it off; her car found burning; then the discovery of the business no one knew she had -- yes, all the elements are there for a very bad ending....

It also reads very like a story I know from my past. I had a childhood friend that disappeared in the late 1970s. Supposedly just walked away from her husband and her 2 sons. Trouble is, I have never believed it. I just have never been able to find out much about it because we lived too far away from each other and we were notorious for not writing regularly.

I still have those last pictures -- her sons -- one as just a baby and one as a 10 year old in a Dracula Halloween costume she had made him -- and one of her, in her belly dancing costume, her blonde hair hanging loose below her waist, looking like there was no way she could be almost 30 and have had 2 kids.....

It is this huge unanswered nagging question......WHY? or maybe who? If I ever fall into some money I'm going looking.......

What I did on my Play Day

I have been fascinated by Artist Trading Cards for a while now, and I recently got a book that talks about a variety of techniques for creating special papers, etc., for them.

So on Sunday, I spent several hours working on different techniques and ideas.



This is the first one I did. I had scanned a map of the area of California where Nevada City is and printed it out.

Next I brushed a thin coat of gesso over the top, leaving the area that says Nevada City uncoated.

Then I glued the picture of the Miner's Foundry across the bottom and the little bear cutout (with a layer of torn tissue paper under it) in the top corner.

Finally I used silver gel pen to letter at the top.



The back ground of this one is a piece of paper towel that I had used colored markers on then sprayed with water to "bleed" the color. After I dryed it with the hair dryer, I used a rubber stamp of a bear.

The bear and the letters are highlighted with a glitter gel pen.



This one is my favorite of the three.

I used a rubber stamp of 2 bears sitting back to back. Stamping on black construction paper with bleach created the orangy looking back ground paper.

After the bleach had dried, I brushed gesso over the top to create the shadow effect.

Then I used a gold gel pen to do the drawing and lettering over the top.





After working on the art cards, I spent some time working on the altered couture project I have going. Having finished the bottom band and the neck band, I finally decided what color and pattern I would use on the button bands for the front.

This is a coffee colored yarn and I'm working a knit 2, purl 2 ribbing with an extra knit 2 in the center which will be where it gets folded over to make a double layer.

I'm working the button side first so I can keep track of how many rows it is then I can work out the right placement for the button holes on the other side.

It was nice having a play day and experimenting with new ideas. Now I'm ready to go back to work on the other projects!

Play Day!

Visiting the Art Festival

In the time we have been back in Colorado, we have made it a tradition to visit an area in Denver twice a year.

The original reason for this visit was that it is one of the few places in Colorado that has a specific restaurant that reminds us of where we called home for 30 years in California.

And so we make the treck to Cherry Creek at Christmas time (to look at the decorations, do a little shopping and eat lunch in that restaurant) and around the 4th of July when they hold a nationally known arts festival (and of course eat lunch in that restaurant!)

This year this trip had even more importance to me than usual. I had applied to the show this year -- and been turned down -- and I really wanted to take a good look at who my "competition" was.

For those of you who are not familiar with how this process works, when you apply to an Art show, you must submit photos of your work -- usually between 3 and 6 pictures -- and the "jury" (love the sound of that -- are you "guilty?" or not) determines from those few pictures rather or not you will have the opportunity to display and sell your work on the street for 3 days. (Oh yeah, and they charge you a fee to "judge" you)

Without sounding too much like I'm bragging, I'd like to say that I've concluded that my work is good enough to compete with the people that were judged "good enough". No one else in the entire show is doing what I do with the same materials, and my craftsmanship is absolutely as good.

The question then is, "so why didn't I get in?". And I believe the answer is that my photographs are not good enough.






These are the pictures I have taken of 5 of our pieces.








These are scans of the pictures of work from the artists that got in to the show.

One of these artists was willing to share with me who does her photographs. In fact, she gave me her card, wrote the photographer's name on the back and told me to tell him she sent me.

So, before we are again sending in applications to this kind of show, I will be trying to find out how much it will cost us to have this guy photograph a few of our pieces.

Meantime, I came away from the show with some ideas for some designs that are quite different that the last few pieces (which are of course quite different from what I was doing a year ago, or two years ago).

I also decided that I'm making myself a little crazy by working on things that are for sale 24/7. Hence forth I'm going to try to set aside one day a week to "play".

On "play" days, I will experiment with new materials, try different things and in general try to step away from the part of my art that I attempt to make a living from and enjoy different things.

I encourage all of you to try this too!

not knowing what day it is......

The confusing part of being at home during the week and working the weekends is that sometimes I forget what day it is!

This is especially true in a week that has a holiday in the middle! So, yesterday felt like Sunday to me, today feels like Monday, then I'll be totally confused until next Monday.....AAACCCKK!!

Oh well.

Hope you all had a Happy 4th of July and you don't have to work too hard today!

Off setting messages from the mail box.....

back in the middle of June (ok, so that was only 2 weeks ago) I had gotten a standard rejection letter from a publication in response to a picture I had sent of one of my pieces of jewelry. So, I sent off another picture shortly after that. Well, yesterday I got the same standard rejection letter for the second submission {sigh} I can't seem to finish the pieces as fast as that publication can reject them....nuts!

Think I'll send pictures of my newest piece to one of the other magazines.

Meantime, in the same batch of mail (along with the junk and the cable bill) was an invitation to participate in an indoor show aimed at professional women (much more the right customer for my work!) The show takes place in St Joseph, MO, and I'm thinking I got the invite because some of the University Women saw my work there last summer when I did a show in the park. Unfortunately, the show is the same weekend as another I show I have already applied for....well, guess I have a "back up" plan for that weekend, and maybe this one would be a good idea to try for next year.

My cousin called me yesterday afternoon to let me know his mother (my dad's sister, who just lost her husband on Good Friday) is having heart valve replacement surgery on Tuesday. After the testing was complete, the conclusion was that her blood vessels are in great shape, but she has a valve that is not working correctly, so they will replace it. She is 84 years old, and I was glad to hear that she wants to have the surgery as there are (in her words) "still things I want to do"!

Anyway, could all of you add her to your prayer lists for this week? Thank you so much!

feeling like an old fool.....

do you ever run into someone that just always seems to make you feel foolish?

You know the kind -- no matter what it is they do (even if you've been doing it longer), they do it better --

and when you say something, they have some more witty/insightful/eloquent way of saying it that makes everyone turn and look at them like you're not even in the room

you know, THOSE kind of people.....

just saying

The 10 meal chicken -or- using everything but the squawk

Part of the daily challenge for us is to eat healthy (one of us being a diabetic and one of us fighting high cholesterol) and still stay within a reasonable budget.

One of the ways that we try to do this is by shopping smart. We almost never buy any kind of meat that isn't on sale (we refer to this as buying "used meat" -- you know the kind, its within a day of the last sale date so the store marks it down by 50% so they don’t have to throw it out).

We recently were able to acquire a very large whole chicken on that kind of special. We paid about $6.00 for the chicken, and this is how we used it:

Day 1 – its to our advantage that we know how to cut up a chicken ourselves because its usually even less expensive to buy a whole chicken than one that has been cut up (after all you have to pay for the labor of the meat cutter if they do it)

On the first day we cut the chicken up into frying size pieces. That leaves 10 pieces of chicken: 2 legs, 2 wings, 2 thighs and 4 breast pieces.

I oven fried those pieces for meal #1.

The backs and all of the giblets and extra skin go into a bag in the freezer for making into soup on a cool day. That will be meals #2 and #3.

Day 2 – the lunch meal for both of us was a piece of chicken with macaroni salad. Meal #4 from Ms. Chicken

Day 3 – lunch meal for DH was a piece of chicken with veggies and fresh fruit, making meal #5.

Day 4 – lunch meal for DH was chicken and macaroni salad, meal #6.

Day 5 – We picked all of the meat off the remaining breast pieces and made 2 pans of enchiladas. We ate half of the first pan that night for meal #7.

The second pan of enchiladas went into the freezer and will be meals #8 and #9.

Day 6 – Finished off the last of the first pan of enchiladas for meal #10.

By my figuring, that means each of those meals cost about $0.60 for the protein source.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to get a chicken that cheaply since the rising price of corn to the chicken ranchers will likely raise the price of chicken (and a lot of other groceries – like cereal, milk, beef and corn on the cob!) . But we’ll keep on searching out those used meat bargains!