Some days all you want to do is walk around the yard with the dog and sit and absorb all the sun you can.
Kali and I had a lazy day enjoying the sun!
Category: Gratitude
When I was young and spent the night with my grandparents I felt so lucky. First of all, because my mother’s parents and my father’s parents lived two doors down from each other. Even my other cousins weren’t this lucky. And on this road, I had a great aunt or two. The second fun part of this convenience was that if my folks were visiting the one set of grandparents I could run and be at the other grandparents’ home.
Both of my grandfathers were carpenters. Mom’s dad was more of a cabinet maker. But when mom was young he actually built a wooden roller coaster and a Ferris wheel. There were pictures in the local paper with mom and my aunt as girls in these rides.
My dad’s dad was more of a home builder. When these two close families moved from ‘back east’ they bought land near each other and mom’s dad copied nearly every nail strike from my dad’s dad. Thereby their homes were very similar. I can still see and smell those two homes. Mom’s parents’ home smelled of cedar. Dad’s parents’ just smelled clean like wind-dried laundry. Mmmmm!
That doesn’t include all the food smells. Mom’s mother specialized in pies and cakes. Dad’s mom was best at meats and dumplings. Not to say they both weren’t great cooks! My mouth is watering at this vision.
But back to spending the night. The walls of both grandparents’ homes were textured with stucco, a kind of relief feeling and then painted. I remember laying on their beds and finding pictures in the textures.
As a mom of four, we had a house that had a bathroom with fake marble lined the wall. As you would sit on the ‘throne’ you could see ‘angry dad’. Beard, mustache and all. Yes, he was an angry cuss at times back then. (Not my current husband.)
Here in this house, I have found another set of Rorschach tests in this bathroom. One in the fake wood panel of the door. The others are from spackle patches that we still need to paint over.
Anyway, here are cell photos of the muses.
The only picture with true color is the wooden door one. These other two are white on sky-blue. I don’t know why they turned gray.
Anyway, do you see pictures? I have been meaning to capture these by drawing and seeing what characters I feel as I draw. Here are my first renditions.
Those were only quickie sketches. But for some reason, I felt nearly obligated to draw them out. It is like they want to be in a story or something.
Does this happen to you? Do you see pictures in tree-bark or leaf patterns against the sky? Do you feel they call to you to be represented? What do you suppose it means?
Well, today was fun and different. My honey and I got to go to the senior lunch in the little town of Summerlake. Town? Well, maybe smaller than a hamlet. It is only half an hour from our place, and it is beautiful. The ride itself is gorgeous.
Though this isn’t our bus. It is similar. We have a couple little busses like this to give rides to “town” an hour and a half to two hours from here for doctor appointments or grocery shopping. These busses are for seniors or the poor or disabled. Our town is small and comes under the county rule. There is a lot of political garbage that goes on that seems to imply that Christmas Valley is nothing but the red-headed stepchild (cliche –I love red hair and stepchildren are valuable people!) that shouldn’t have the significant needs we have.
Still, we do have the busses, and many of us enjoy the driver and her husband and consider them our friends. They help the people getting on and off the bus. That care goes far beyond driving. Once, they even helped us get a television when ours gave out. They help with food and clothes for those in need when they can. Good people, ya, know? On the bus, they get the conversation started on the long rides and keep us all light and comfortable.
My own disability makes the rides so painful I rarely go. The seats have such little padding that every bump is jarring. I know I am not the only one that finds the ride painful. By the way, on other trips, our driver tried everything she could to help me get comfortable. That touched my heart. I have brought pillows and blankets and my coccyx cushion. But the ride is so long that I just can’t get comfortable. I prefer to drive our truck when we can afford to take it. It seems our driver’s side is the softer of the two seats. Even still, I have to take pain relief and play my music loud to get past the bad roads our county doesn’t find it necessary to fix.
Ah, but I stray from the point. Today’s ride was bearable partly because of the company on the bus. (And did I mention it was a short trip?) Our driver was fun and kept the conversation going. The lunch itself was exceptional. I am the only vegetarian, and the team that set up the lunch made sure there was food just for me. Wow! I was so touched!
We didn’t know most of the people at this lunch. But everyone was friendly and fun. At the end of the lunch, when we thought we were going to get up and ride home, a guy got up and made a loud whistle. That got our attention. What a fun speaker, this character with a long beard. The bin held the items of his stories.
Okay, don’t judge. From this angle, I can see how it sounds a little hokey. But we do live in the country so… The bin contained furs. The vegetarian in me just shuddered. But it was more like the informative campfire talks we used to go to on our family camping vacations. I loved those. I learned a lot about nature’s fauna and flora from those talks. Our speaker made it a bit of a contest as to who’s fur is this. He’d hold up the coat and treated us like he did the school kids where he did the same talks. There were stories included to keep it going. He was delightful, and it made a fun day even better.
Because this restaurant was so close, my pain levels weren’t nearly as high. It helped to get out and enjoy our beautiful scenery and camaraderie.
And when we got back, I got to go to my favorite place in town, the library. I renewed my card and turned in my knitted donations and yarn cakes. That was the icing on my day. I couldn’t say cake because they were yarn, you see?
I wish good health to all my friends!
Just Jot It January and One-Liner Wednesday are brought to us by Linda G. Hill.
via Working On Us- Passive Suicidal Ideation
This is worth the read. If my computer were less glitchy I’d add to the responses. Meanwhile, read my friend, Sadje’s response.
My favorite day of the week, month, year, is the day I get to see my family and friends!
That’s my one-liner for One-Liner Wednesday.
It is 9:08PM. Until two minutes ago I had no idea what I had to offer you for today’s blog. Then I looked out the window. Here is what I captured west to east and west (trees are in the west) again.
And the sunset is still beautiful at 9:30PM. I love Summer for this beauty! And the sound of the frogs outside.
Oh, and I finished this little guy yesterday:
If you want to learn how, head over to LoomAHat.com or watch this YouTube. I use a much smaller loom and short row the arms so I don’t have to sew them on. And this time I used safety eyes. I think they’re cuter!
Per Linda G. Hill: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “open book, point, write.” Pick up the closest book to you when you sit down to write your post. Close your eyes, open the book, and place your finger on the page. Whatever word or phrase your finger lands on, write about it. Enjoy!
From Zen Doodle Mindscapes Tap Into Your Emotions by Carolyn Scrace :
Page 98/99 Joy and Happiness
“Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew,
and does not patter down like a hailstorm,” Jean Paul
This is a book about Zen Doodling. I don’t have a lot of paper books close at hand to grab so this is what I did grab. The two pages were beautiful showing ways you can get to the emotion of Joy drawn, expressed in your artwork. I haven’t read to the page. I am still at the beginning of the book learning about the Zen Doodle rather than what I thought it was, the Zen Tangle. Not sure what the difference is. It seems from my newbie point of view that the doodle is a freer art than the Tangle. When I finish this book and the other I nabbed a bit ago, I might be able to answer that question.
I’m not sure I agree with Jean Paul about Joy. I think Joy is a state of mind we can have even when all seems bad. For me, it seems Joy is a product of gratefulness and knowing you are living your best life. Not that life is all good but that you realize you have a love for life as it is for there is hope for what feels wrong and you are giving what you can for others. Joy isn’t giddy like getting on a rollercoaster. It’s a midline that if you breathe and get calm you can find it.
It’s going to be interesting to see if I can express it in my art.
Have a Joyful Weekend everyone!
What comes after Z and April 30th? Nap Day!
Thank goodness and Linda G. Hill for this fun–and easy–challenge!
