This Chapter

the Land of Spanish Moss & Scratchy Grass

2011-05-28T18:03:00.002-05:00

aka, Florida.

the only recent pictures I have are on my phone, so I'm putting in one from December 2011, the last time we took Daddy on an outing to the Nature place.

I have moved in with my 99 year old Dad.

I am settling in. After one week, we slept in hospital for one week. Back home again and doing great for his age. Infection appears to be gone, skin wounds healing. He does not know me wholly, but he knows me some how. Dementia takes your memory a little at a time, which is sad to see, but it has not got all of him.

We play football with a nerf ball and he fakes to the nurse and throws to me. Vestiges of humor. He is aware that I am around.

I am slowly getting more comfortable with helping the private nurses to handle him, move him, roll him, try to calm him when he flails and cusses like a sailor.

It is good to have this time to get to know him even if he is different. I am glad to be here with him and for him.

He knows the nurses though he could not name any of them. He is familiar with them and likes them all; they love him. They cook him 3 meals a day and he eats like a horse. THAT is good!

God is gracious.

Dumpster 2

2011-02-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

Moral of the story first. BE CAREFUL when putting trash bag into dumpster, as sharp things can go through plastic. End of August 2010. It is Tuesday, trash day and the thing is full. We are supposed to toss our bags towards the back so that this does not happen, but alas, I cannot get my bag in, so I put my left hand on it and push. That was it. Sharp pain. Yank the hand back, blood dripping. Wow that hurts. I see the wound on my finger by the 2nd knuckle. It feels like there is another wound at the tip of the finger but I cannot see one. I get the door shut and leave a red trail to my house. There must be a piece of glass in there.

I try a few times to get said glass out. Only more bleeding and no success. So I clean and bandage it and try a couple more times later. After a few days I decide that a doctor may be able to do this. So I go to Urgent Care. He says go to a specialist and he calls and they can take me right now. So off we go.

Dr. says yes there may be glass in there, or not. It feels like it to him. He says the sensation in the tip of my finger indicates there might be nerve damage. He suggests surgery to remove glass and possibly wrap the nerve so that it grows back properly. It is expensive, I complain. He says everything is expensive. Don't remember if I whined about my catastrophic health insurance, but ultimately I decide if I don't have him try to take it out, it will bother me and I will always be thinking there is glass in there and why didn't I have it taken out (and what if it moves around and .....say CUTS the nerve or other creepy things? Surgery is scheduled for next week.

Oh by the way, you have to go under for this and you have to have a check up with your own doctor to see that it's ok to put you under. What? Now I'm really whining. Why can't you just numb my hand and let me watch?

He says the nerve is the size of a hair and the surgery is done with a microscope and you cannot move. So we are set.

While waiting, I keep thinking, hey, people jerk and move while they are asleep, I still am not sure I need to go under. Why can't they just clamp my arm and hand down and I won't watch. Surgery is early in the morning, so I ask to discuss this with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist one last time before they knock me out.

They come in and I tell them my concerns. It isn't that I'm afraid of going under, it's the expense. He assures me that there will be better results if you are out. The anesthesiologist says you are way more still that when you are just asleep. You are so far out that they have to put a breathing tube in to make you breathe. Oh great, they have to kind of almost kill me and then keep me alive artificially. Wonderful.

OK I understand and I agree.

I wake up. They tell me the doctor has come and spoken with me but I do not remember seeing him. They say this is normal, amnesia. My friend Howard has picked me up and taken me home. I take a nap. I have a long list of things to do and not do after surgery, such as keep your wound above your heart and don't get the bandage wet. They do not say do not use your hand. There is a thick white gauze wrapped around and around the palm of my hand. As my mind clears and I am looking at the bandage, it dawns on me, HEY there is no indication that he went into my finger where the wound is. He went in somewhere below the base of my finger or my palm. HUH? Something is wrong here. OK, give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe in this type of nerve surgery, they go in at the base of the finger and follow the nerve up to the wound under the skin.

See, I just can't believe the doctor has made a mistake so my mind is working on why the surgery was not done at the wound site (which had healed up on the surface during the week).

I call the secretary and ask to talk to the doctor. She says he's busy and cannot call you today. I say I do not see any indication that he went in where the glass was. I think out loud at her: maybe they go in at the base of the finger....etc. She says you are just confused and trying to figure out how the doctor did the surgery. The doctor knows what he is doing. He has 12 surgeries today and he cannot call you. She has thoroughly dissed me.

I say (politely) I will wait until all his surgeries are finished, but I need him to call me today, because I am going to Seattle this weekend and if this has to be done over again it needs to be right away so that I can be done with this before I leave.

He calls and I tell him what I see. He says can you come in tomorrow morning? Yes, so I show him at his office. I say here is the wound and I point to my finger and you went in down here in my hand. What happened?

He says I screwed up. He says I am going to make this right and I will do it tomorrow any time you want and will not charge you for either of my surgeries and only one hospital charge.

OK, I am relieved that he has owned his mistake and I agree.
But if I were he, I would pay for every single expense I had in relation to this surgery.

So in the end he redid the surgery. No glass but a badly damaged nerve was found, which he wrapped and then I went to Seattle. My son-in-law talked me into taking out my stitches.

More Maine

2011-02-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

Day One, Week One 2009

Did not like this paper much. Whatman notched post card watercolor paper. Too flimsy. Pigment does not take to it easily. So using it makes me uncomfortable but this is a good thing because a challenge makes you learn. If you are totally in control, it gets boring. The edge reminds me of my mom's huge pinking shears.

Because of sketching small during the demonstration, I had to leave white space between the colors which were not dry, such as in the sky.

Rhythm. John Marin. My baguette with trees looks more like a city off in the distance than Maine. Light, free and happy. A good start to the week, he said.

An Acorn Year

2010-10-18T10:28:00.004-05:00

Acorns, I am told, yield heavily every 2nd year. Apparently this is one of those years. My college buddy swept the deck and next day, behold, more acorns than before. Doink. Are the squirrels discarding the shells? Yes. And are most of them just ripe and falling? We find no recipes for acorn soup. I imagine they must be really bitter, or they'd be popular. It's pretty durn loud when it hits the glass table out there. The ones that go down the chimney are also loud and they echo. Sounds of fall.

The air has cleared and cooled after a long heavy rain. The beach is perfect. Summer crowd is gone. We got our walks in and rode rented bikes on the boardwalk. We ate at Pocahontas so that we could say "I've been there." It was good having her to talk to.

Watched too much TV, but loved the Ladies #1 Detective Agency. I was amazed how the actresses fit my mental image from the book. Stirred by watching the Book of Eli, fascinating and full of truth.

Open windows, cool temps in the night and morning. Perfect.
Lots of talk of renting and selling the place. Decision was made at one point but I am not following through, which means I didn't mean it.

Shall I decide based on money fears alone? How do I know things will not change? Could I not make another kitchen with pretty cabinets and an undermounted sink? Of course I could. I could also be happy with a different sink and old cabinets. I've loved every place I've ever lived and used my creativity to make it my own each time. So what's so permanent about this place? I want a dog and a fenced area for the dog and I will never have that here. I want to be hospitible and I only get 2 parking spots here.

So many ideas I have for this place such as beams across the bedroom ceiling, French doors onto the deck, widening the bathroom door and moving the closet to the opposite corner, adding windows on the east side and making a lofted twin bed in the master upstairs. Would love to hang the porch swing in the middle of the living room. Now tell me that's not out of the box. What box?

Yes, and if I sell it and move elsewhere, I'll think of many more such projects, dream and dream on forever which is my wont, DREAMING.

It is a lot of work to move & it makes me tired just thinking of it, really. God knows. And it is very good that He is God and I am not in charge.

dumpster

2010-02-10T11:59:00.002-05:00

At the party the other night, the neighbor apologized for, he said, the guy who removed his wood floor said he’d "take care of the removal" but neighbor R did not know he meant in our own dumpster until he had done the deed. I dont care, I laughed, as long as I have room to throw my dog's poop bag in.

maybe it did not get emptied last week because of the snow...?

so the top was half up with the excess and the guy dumped it and it just kept coming as one layer fell into the truck and more was loosed which had been packed down into the container. so now the truck is overflowing and the container is poised above it with more stuff stuck and a toaster-oven hangs by it’s cord from the container and i am laughing out loud. zeus the foster dog wonders what is so interesting out there and can I go out and pee now please mommy?

the truck compacts what’s already been dumped and in goes the remainder, toaster oven and all. one bag misses and the good man picks it up and tosses it back into our dumpster before he leaves, back up beeper a-beeping . Good day sir and were we glad to see you!

Tree Removers

2010-01-27T08:45:00.004-05:00

I've seen that gate, that self-assured stride that says I am strong and I can do my job, respect me. Besides that I am cool. The guys were arriving, arranging their 4 trucks in the parking lot, walking out back to size up the job. I moved my car. One had a very long blond ponytail, another was Asian with shoulder length hair. Not big guys but exuding total confidence.

It is sunny and 50-ish. I go out to my observation deck with the dog & coffee. Ropes in the trees, It's futile to try to figure out why they put them where they do; it only becomes clear after they cut the tree. I will not go back inside and work so I decide this is part of my work as an artist: observing. A+ for Rationalizing. Or should I say F-? I love this. I remember the joy of watching guys take a tree down in my other back yard. One had a dog who was crazed with excitement waiting for the command after the tree crashed down... then he tore into the branches looking for squirrels.

Today's tree fell against another during the Noreaster, it's roots half in the water, saturated.

So the top of the tree is secured and a rope is twisted around the supporting tree like a peppermint stick which they can let slack out of with control. The falling tree is now tied by its upper branches and they cut off the bottom of the trunk first. It thumps over, then they cut subsequent pieces of trunk until "she's a-hangin!"

Mr. Burly drives the little tractor hauling off lengths of trunk with claws that remind me of monsters in movies. Is this where they got the ideas for all those movies? I'm wondering how the lawn is going to look later.

He smacks a pile of smaller branches from the top to compact them, then backs up, scoops them up and totes them out to my parking space. They pretty much took over the parking lot. One guy feeds branches into the shredder.

So she's a hangin' and they let out the slack bit by bit. She eases down as they cut pieces from bottom to top.

They trim another tree of branches that hang over our roof. They all know what to do and one pulls this rope and another is up in the tree and a third is moving stuff around on the ground and the huge branch comes down without falling on anything. I think my son would love to be here watching this with me.

The Asian steps onto the shovel of the tractor and it lifts him so that he can grab the hanging branch and keep it from hitting the grill as it comes to rest on the grass. Just plain fascinating. They have done this over and over and they have become a machine.

Here comes the lady from next door cursing loudly. "Aren't you going to remove this branch on my property?"
"No, we are hired by the city to remove THIS tree. Do you want an estimate? You will have to call the city to ask them."
"Ok I'll call them. It was not there before and now it's down and I have before and after pictures". She has switched to her polite voice but in no uncertain terms she is trying to intimidate them into taking care of her downed tree while they are there. Can we say M A N I P U L A T E ?

After she walks back home they laugh and tell each other she was trying to claim they caused the branch to fall but they note how far it was from where they had been working and conclude she's nuts. They laugh at her. Nice try lady.

She waves at me from her deck. Don't try to get me involved in this.

The ponytail has asked for water and I bring out enough for all of them. I take pictures but not for the same reason the nice lady next door is....I take pictures just because you can in the age of digital cameras,. They clean up the parking lot and the caravan leaves in time for the residents to come home from work.

In my next life I think I'll come back as a macho testosterone type and cut down trees with my buddies.

MERRILY'S AFRICA ADVENTURE

2010-01-05T15:15:00.004-05:00

This is not my writing. I asked a missionary if I could put her story on my blog and she said yes:

Africa Adventure

Victoria Falls and Botswana, 21 – 27 December 2009

My holiday was anything but boring – falling trees, seeing hundreds of wild animals, many surprises, beautiful scenery, lost luggage, and many forms of transportation. I’m so glad I had this opportunity before I moved back to the UK. I was again struck by the immense variety in God’s creation. So many shapes, sizes, and colours – just in the bird population.

Day 1: Liz Liebenberg (a widow lady from my church) and I began our holiday in Johannesburg. It didn’t begin in the best way possible as I’d forgotten about the limit on liquids that one can carry on board a plane. Liz didn’t know anything about this from her travel agent and she knew it was Liz’ first flight! So Liz had to do a major reshuffle of her bags at the check-in counter.

Otherwise our flight to Livingston in Zambia went well. Yes, it’s named for David Livingston who ‘discovered’ Victoria Falls. Zambia is just north of South Africa and I’d never been to this country before. (A few words of warning if you would like to visit: $US50 is charged for US passport holders for entering the country and everything around the Victoria Falls is VERY expensive.)

Neither of us had seen the Falls and it rivals Niagara in volume of water, height, and width. Pictures can’t do it justice just as they don’t for the Grand Canyon. Because of its size, seeing it requires quite a bit of walking – the most I had done in months, but my new hip did very well The water falls down into a rather wide fault which has opened up and has a horseshoe shape at one end. We really couldn’t see this bit because the water formed a shroud of mist about it. (The travel agent had failed to mention that this afternoon was our only opportunity to go see the falls, so we rushed off as soon as this dawned on us.)

Afterwards we just happened to be hanging round the reception area of our lodge and were told that we were booked for a dinner/cruise. They were waiting for us! No one had told us about this booking. So off we went on the Zambezi River to see lots of hippos and crocodiles and eat a lovely meal while the sun went down. Fortunately, we weren’t part of the crocs dinner that evening!

I’ve never slept under mosquito netting before, but did so this first night and again the last 3 nights of the trip. This time of year is the peak time for malaria, so I’m taking anti-malaria tablets. However, I never saw or heard one such beast the whole time!! – for which I’m very thankful.

Day 2 & 3: The first morning we were driven to a river that helps form the border between Zambia and Botswana. Normally one would cross a river via a bridge, however there was none! Ferries were taking individuals and lorries (trucks) across. Even this was surprising as the lorry ferry was large enough to take only one at a time!! Our ferry was a small boat for which there was no dock. Our boat just eased up onto the sloping muddy bank. Even the lorries drove off their ferry the same way.

At the riverside we were joined by 5 Japanese folk and they, along with our guide, formed our party for the next 2 days. We were taken to Chobe National Park and began to see animals straight way. The Park is 10,500 sq km and has no fences.

Our camp site was in the Park. By ‘camp’, I mean tents, cooking over a fire, hole in the ground for a latrine, etc. I’d not been camping for decades so it was a bit of a shock that ‘home’ was to be so primitive. However, a man did cook our food for us, there was a shower with a roofless tent around it, and the latrine was similarly ‘tented’ and had a seat. Inside our tent we found foam mattresses and bedding. The feather-filled duvet on my bed could have adequately dealt with the Arctic! I lost a fair bit of sleep just because I was either very hot or too cold.
At night kerosene lanterns were placed on the ground between our 5 tents. Nothing else prevented animals, large or small, from entering our site!! Leopards tracks were seen the next morning, elephants were very nearby when we arrived back at camp the next day, and one night we heard a lion roaring. That’s up close and personal! But all the animals had plenty of food in this very natural setting, so they weren’t likely to be aggressive – for which I praised the Lord.

I went on two game drives both days in a 9-seater safari vehicle. I saw so many animals! Elephants, water buffalo, impala, a pack of wild dogs, black backed jackals, kudu, a sable antelope, water bok, giraffes, banded mongoose (geese, gooses?), kori bustards, vulchers (sp?), red billed hornbills, male lion, zebra, baboons, and monkeys. Several times young bull elephants approached our vehicle and tried to show how brave they were by shaking their heads, trumpeting at us, and one even blew out threw his trunk and sprayed us with mud! It was all bravado. If they’d been the matriarch of the herd or a large bull it would have been a very different and dangerous matter.
The ‘roads’ which we travelled in the Park were just sand tracks and were very bumpy. Our guide tried to go over them slowly as I wasn’t supposed to jerk my new hip. However, by the 4th or 5th game drive the area around my incision was complaining painfully. I decided it needed a couple days rest.

The Park was very hot and sandy, so I gave up on feeling clean or wearing clean clothes. Sand has been blowing to this area for millennia from the Kalahari Desert. Both of us looked forward to the next phase of our journey and to a proper shower.

Day 4: We had to get up at 5:15 so we could catch a 12-seater plane at Kasane. On the way our guide, Leonard, took us the long way so we could hopefully see more animals. I finally got to see female lions up close – right at the end of their impala hunt. The impala won and left the 3 lions panting for breath.

The next stage of our journey took us to the Okavango Delta – a huge area in Botswana that is very flat. It all floods around April and lots of it is a permanent swamp the rest of the year. I had no idea that such an area existed. The plane had 3 stops to make to deliver folks to safari camps similar to that which we were going. These flights were rather bumpy and our landing was well timed as I was getting airsick. Because the Delta is covered by so much water, most camps are accessible only via air. Our camp was called Xigera and is run by Wilderness Safari and is supposed to be their best.

It’s called a water-based camp as it’s surrounded by that material. It’s a government-decreed game reserve and has no fence around it. It is well monitored by the government for its effect on the environment, e.g. no permanent structures can be erected. Xigera could have a maximum of 20 guests.

Using the term loosely, we stayed in ‘tents’. What a contrast to the ones at Chobe. The sides and top were of tent material, but each tent was up on a wooden platform, as were the walkways in between. Inside our tent there was a large bedroom area, a dressing room area, shower and toilet and a balcony outside. The view included two small watering holes surrounded by grasslands. Usually in and around the water were many red lechwes (antelopes) and lots of birds. We even had maid and laundry service each day, so it was all rather posh camping!

The staff was very friendly and helpful. One of the guys is a Manchester United fan, so we had a couple long conversations about our team. The food was top notch. Everything was included in the package we bought, so we didn’t have to pay for a thing once we arrived.

Our schedule was similar to the camp in Chobe National Park: up at 5.30, breakfast at 6, leave at 6.30 on a boat trip or game drive, upon return have brunch, tea at 4.00, off again for another game drive or boat ride, dinner at 8.00, flopping into bed soon afterwards. The animals aren’t out and about during the heat of midday, so safari-ing had to be done in the early morning and late afternoon.
The first day at Xigera we went on a mokoro – a dugout canoe ride which was propelled by a man with a pole. (I felt like I’d been suddenly transported to Oxford, England.) This method of transport is very common in the Delta because of all the water and the shallowness of it. I learned what papyrus looks like and bulrushes, a la Moses. Midway we stopped for drinks and biscuits, which they provided for us each time we went out. This was my first day of rest for my hip from bumpy drives.
That night I heard the red lechwes bellowing and other nights heard lions roaring! The animals were free to visit the camp as there were no fences. An elephant had recently been in the central area of it and decided to push a tree down. That was ok except the tree landed on one of the main walkways and crushed it.
Not to be outdone by an elephant, I watched the wind that afternoon take down a very tall tree, which in turn took down a smaller tree - both landing very near to the newly repaired walkway! Needless to say a significant gap was opened in the walkway yet again and the maintenance men of the camp spent the next 2 days repairing it. One of the days was Christmas! Because of the sandy soil (again from the Kilahari) even healthy trees often cannot withstand strong wind. The gap in the walkway lay between our tent and the Lodge, so we had to go down stairs, walk along the ground (hoping to not encounter a wild animal), and go up a ladder. When it was dark we all had to be escorted to our tents anyway, so we never had to take this detour alone.
Day 5 - Christmas: It was hot!! 30C+ degrees (90F+) today. In the evening we went on another mokoro, but in the opposite direction. Saw a tiny white frog. It was probably only 1” or 2 1/2cm long and habituates reeds. Meanwhile the staff had been preparing a sumptuous Christmas meal for us, which included turkey, stuffing, and Christmas cake.
Day 6 – The camp activities included the option of a motor boat ride. Hoping that it wouldn’t be too bumpy, I went on this in the morning. It was fine. However, to get to water that was deep enough for a motor, we had to ride for an hour in a safari vehicle, which was bumpy! In the swamps we saw sitatungo, which are antelope-type beasties. I’d never heard of them before, never mind seen them. We got very close to a small croc and a large hippo.
This holiday was never dull. When we got back to our vehicle it wouldn’t start. It’d been giving us trouble on the way. It is a well-used starter motor because when we saw wildlife the driver usually stopped and turned the engine off. A mechanic from camp came in another vehicle to rescue us – along with a new starter motor. Two men who were with us had a flight to catch, so we flew over the ‘road’ on the way back to camp. Since my incision area didn’t appreciate that at all, I stayed in camp that evening.
Day 7: departure for Jo’burg day. A little 5-seater plane came to fetch us to take us to the airport at Maun, Botswana. The journey to Jo’burg was in a 2-prop airplane, which yet again to the many different modes of transport we used on our adventure.

What's a mother to do?

2009-11-27T09:40:00.002-05:00

Every so often I get out Henry Cloud's book and open it to the chapter on controlling moms, where I was so shocked to find myself years back. (name of book: The Mom Factor) This time I was trying to explain to one of my kids how I came to realize I was a controlling mom and I could not remember the part of the definition that opened my eyes, so I went back to the chapter to find it. more in a minute.

So thankful there is a cure chapter following the diagnosis chapter.

You have adult children. ADULT I said. You watch their decisions. Your experience tells you that perhaps theirs is not the best decision. You get it that the time for you to verbalize this is past. Well, of course you can pray. And you do know that it is God Who works inside people to grow them. Every day, new opportunities to put this conviction into action, by NOT ACTING (not lecturing, not trying to manipulate, not even saying what you think about things). They already know what you think about it. Some would argue with me about this..." once a mom, always a mom", "you never stop being a mother", "you always love them"right? My challenge is to define love. Is not God's design to grow the kids up to become mature self sustaining adults?

I slip up many times. I apologize for words that come out of my mouth that are in the lecture category. My sweet kids forgive me, and my sweet God, Who is in the business of Redemption, redeems again. We go on.

Car

2009-08-28T22:04:00.003-05:00

Used car salesman. and saleswoman. What comes to your mind. Should I write this? Should I diss these guys that are 'just trying to earn a buck?' They have such ploys. And of course, some will try to tell you to buy a new car. Aresenio. i told him I am not in a hurry. But I AM, he said, thinking he was funny. Not going back there. Search all day on internet....get in and go to some dealerships during rush hour (so logical). Two were Christian. One may be able to get me one like mine at the auction next week. That'd be great. There is one with low mileage and low price but they did not answer their phone. Why does it have to be silver? D hugged me twice when i made jokes with him. I thought it was totally cultural for him and very unprofessional.....llike, you're so funny, I'm just going to fall on you and hug your neck. Go away please, I'm not your best friend. That's part of their training, act like best buds. Then whathisname and I talked about how great XM radio is and he raved about Howard Stern and I thought: I want to go home now. I don't want to buy a car from you. Good to have my son help me decide. I'm paying for my own car rental now. I think of how nice hondas and toyotas and some of the others are but I can't imagine them handling like my vw. I really want to replace that car, even if it has to be older. Then there was Earl with long fingernails and bloodshot eyes. Nice enough, the car I went to look at was already sold. But he did have a vw out there we looked at. And I even searched in DC and Indy in case I could go visit loved ones and drive a new car home cuz there are not many jetta wagons around and the passat is pricey. He gives and takes away. he gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Then we have the girl, who was interested in painting, but my! She told me to come out there and then she had no vw's on the lot. She made me sit down at her desk and talk about what i wanted, which I had already told her on the phone. She was very slow and I heard her discussing unimportant things with her coworkers while I waited to go look at the maybe one car they actually had there. just annoying. don't want to deal with her either. And they have to go and talk to the manager. And the manager calls me into his office and gives me his out the door price. You gotta be kidding. I think you came down a whole dollar. thanks. patience, child, and trust.

Maine 09

2009-08-03T10:37:00.003-05:00

A long drive. Up the Eastern Shore was very pleasant, NJ Turnpike tolls have gone up a lot. Overnight overpriced in Connecticut. Topsham at my sister's. Our kids are married to each other and we don't have a word for it in English, so we have decided on sister. We argue over her desire to be a wonderful hostess, which she is, and my desire not to make trouble for her. Brandy the sheltie is ever beautiful and sweet. Stuffed haddock. Heaven.

I commute to Owl's Head which provides me with 2 extra hours each day seeing Maine from Rt. 1. Second week I am at Lake Crawford, which is mostly hid from me via rain and fog. Cozy cabin of knotty pine that smells like my Grandma's house. My room is very dark at night and makes for great sleeping. An erie owl echoes over the unseen lake.

I never quite seemed to get organized in my car and of course I brought too much, but the second week I settle in better and I like my paintings.

A thumbnail is going into the demo book of my teacher. I am honored and blessed.

He said such nice things about my work, beyond my understanding, as I am pretty uneducated in art history, but I take it as a gift and I want to share it, not hoard it.

There is too much to write & I must move on. What comes to my mind, all those grays and how to make them luminous. Fish every day. Nice people in the class. David gives and gives and gives the entire time, but I wish he would find me every day and comment and help me with my paintings. He said at the end I just get better and better every year and that I should try to enter something in the National Academy. I will.

See Good, Speak Good, Hear Good

2009-06-08T06:53:00.002-05:00

What’s on your mind? asks Facebook. But there is not room there for it all, so I come to blog. Blog. blogger.

John said he wrote so that our joy/ his joy? may be complete, they had some joy and it could always grow until it is full up, pressed down, shaken together and running over. plenty! John emphasized that he heard, saw, touched Jesus, implying those gnostics, those gnasty gnostics, are wrong to teach spirit is good and physical is bad. If so then Jesus would have been bad. They somehow could not accept that Jesus came in the flesh, cuz they were men and they knew themselves and they therefore had first hand evidence that all men are dogs, (sorry guys, I love ya anyway, but it's true) ...so they tried to get their mind around this and couldn’t so they concluded that therefore since Jesus is good, he must not be physical, cuz HE was sinless, as in not a dog, not like other men.

One thing they got, He was not like the rest of us. But John brought us back to reality and said, yes, he is, that’s just it, isn’t it amazing and you gotta get this in order for your joy to be complete and in order for us to have fellowship. if them gnasty gnostics wanna make up stuff like Jesus didn’t have an actual physical body then what was it I SAW and HEARD and TOUCHED with my own two grubby little hands? LOGIC. man! Use your brains. They were using their brains and came up with a fancy idea that was unfortunately plenty fancy and zero true.

Go, John, thank you for writing this down in a letter so that we can still benefit from is all these years later.

To Finish a Painting

2009-05-30T07:45:00.007-05:00

To finish a painting is the hardest part.

I am good at getting an idea.

I am good at sketching out the shapes and getting a great feel onto the paper.

Then I work on adjusting the colors & detail.

I am trying to finish "Boats Docked in Maine".

I am noticing a pattern.

It needs SOMETHING, but can't figure out what.

I like it and I don't want to ruin it. Artists, you know this sentiment!

I am at what I call the pushmepullyou stage, (word borrowed from Rudyard Kipling). I am adding color, taking away darks, emphasizing shadows, erasing mistakes. OK, sometimes I'm fudging.

Here's what I am seeing: The right side of the painting is compelling. It works. And I am trying to make the left side work in the same way, but there are no interesting shapes or colors in the photo to make that happen, so I am trying to invent them. It is not working. My strongest inclination is to crop the left side somewhere close to the mast. I can see that if I keep fudging, it is not going to work, and if I keep trying I will work the left side to death. Now why would I want to kill a nice work like this?

Time to crop, sign and start a new painting.

By the Oaks of Mamre

2009-05-12T07:43:00.004-05:00

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

From Calm my Anxious Heart homework, chapter on FAITH.

Each week we write: What did I learn about God this week?

He sometimes uses spooky seeming things to make His point with us). He sent 3 men to Abraham and he recognized them as messengers from God even though they are not called angels. He treated them as such. Weird, it comes across to me. Now that I have had my own weird experience, I should not see this as spooky, but I do.

It comes across as a oneironaut, a waking dream. It was in the heat of the day--no breeze, all still save the cicadas in the trees around the oasis, resting in the door of his tent, shade and breeze best there. Wavy images over the sand. Is this a heat dream, as compared to heat lightening?

Looking at the context: Abraham, and all his men, had they been circumcised. It comes immediately after in the text, though that is not proof that it happened right then. That just means, this is the next story that is written down. But I am curious.

Are they reeling from pain? Were they on Canaan aspirin to numb the pain? drunk? That could produce some weird dreams.

They had obeyed God. Every male was circumcised. Then God visited them with the specific promise about SARAH, not Hagar, that their son would become a multitudinous nation. After some time they tried to fulfill that promise by surrogate mother Hagar. Then God said circumcise and they obeyed and then God clarified His intent: Sarah is to be the mom.

God still used Sarah even though she laughed in disbelief when she first heard of His plan and then LIED: "I didn’t laugh"....not looking too Godly at that point. But by the next year she gave birth in old age. She had grown in faith. I'm thinking Sarah is blown away by God’s faithfulness.

God has a sense of humor, yes, but he reprimanded Sarah for her lack of belief, her lack of taking God’s word from His messengers seriously. Can you blame her? Yet God blamed her. But He did not punish her, nor did He change His plan.

Companion question: What did you learn about yourself this week?

As with Sarah, God is with me, come as you are, imperfect, as is, scratch and dent. I used to pray "I believe, help Thou mine unbelief." I did not believe whole heartedly. And He helped my unbelief. He took my mustard seed faith and made it grow. It is growing into a big ole tree that birds can build nests in. Lord, may my little birdies nest in my tree, which is rooted in You. And I thank You for this. You made me, You redeemed me, You gave me my family, You graduated Rick to heaven and You became my husband. You sent men to help me do things men do best. You made my son Andrew to step up, You made him faithful like his dad. You blessed me with grand babies. You coached me; you sent me Ron Marsh (Christian life coach: purposefilledlife.com.) You gave me a life purpose. Hallelluiah. You gave me my ability to see beauty and the eye-hand coordination to but my interpretation of that beauty on paper. You did this.

And how does it make sense that I still worry about money? (This is the inheritance that my physical father gave me: you need to have plenty of money--- though at age 97 it is about family.)

Given all that has transpired

2009-05-09T07:09:00.003-05:00

Question from study of Joseph: Given all that has transpired in Joseph's life, what do you learn about the process of reconciling broken relationships?

thoughts.....

1. If God is at work, "something beautiful, something good, all my confusion, He understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but HE made something beautiful of my life." (Bill Gaither song, one of my theme songs.) In Joseph's case, he didn't screw up his own life, his brothers did. (Although the author of the study suggested Joseph might have been a spoiled tattle tale making him partly culpable for what happened? I don't assume Joseph was perfect; neither am I convinced he was a brat.) In my case, I blamed myself for my broken relationship, although it does take two to tango, and two to reconcile. No, wait, I went back and forth between blaming me and blaming the other party. I could really write a saga here.

Back to Joseph study...

2. If God's plan is reconciliation for my family, friend or mate, it will happen and it will happen when HE wants it to. Year by year, Joseph must have had a growing question in his mind as to whether his dad was still alive. And how is Benjamin? Is he married? Does he have children? Has he become Dad's favorite as I used to be? Do the brothers hate him? Will they do him wrong, too? Is he safe?

3. It's not over till it's over.

4. The bond of family is almost? perhaps? surely? unbreakable.

5. If there is any rift in a family, one will always yearn for it to be made right. One will always feel it no matter what, even if one is comforted with new family, one will always long for the original one. I would love for my new friend, also named Joseph, to talk about this one.

6. Part of the reconciling process is that the TRUTH HAS TO BE TOLD OUT LOUD with REAL WORDS THAT THE other party understands, such as, "I am Joseph."

6a. Another part of reconciling is a plan of action to make things better.

7. Both sides need to be ready to reconcile. So far, it is all Joseph's open arms and offer to reconcile. The brothers have realized the truth with a mixture of joy and fear, but they have yet to prove they have repented.

8. God humbled Joseph's brothers and brought them to a place where they began to realize God was bigger than they were and they regretted their sin....."this is what we get for selling Joseph into slavery. Remember how he begged us not to?"

9. Wow. What a cool story. Thank You for writing it down, Lord. I can't wait to study the end, even though I know what happens.

The Un-Dog

2009-05-04T07:06:00.004-05:00

I pined for my dog who is now in doggie heaven, if there were such a place, in which she would be either not biting people, or biting them and having it make them laugh with glee, since heaven is a place where God fixes things up, right? No, I don't believe either of those things.

So I searched and tried out a new dog, and yet it is not time to commit, due to more important decisions that need to be made first.

Excuse me, Feelings, I have a surprise for you: being dogless is on the same page as being productive. Feelings said: if I had a dog again, it would ease my discomfort and unhappiness and that that would motivate me to do more and better work. When the yipping and whining subsides, the Truth quietly reveals that doing the work reduces the felt need for that warm, waggy-tailed loyal buddy.

So the work (painting/marketing) comes first, and satisfaction is there. A new dog will be icing on the cake.

I still look at Petfinder. I peek into animal shelters if I'm not too rushed. But it is not time.

It is time to paint.

YOU DESERVE

2009-04-26T06:59:00.002-05:00

Weary of this phrase in advertising. Effective way to get selfish humans to buy more STUFF.

Every time I hear it or read it, I have to ask, how do you know someone deserves something. What did they do to merit a reward? And I looked up deserve and it is about both a reward and a PUNISHMENT. Hey, you deserve to get an F on your homework. You deserve to be in jail. You deserve to get divorced. You deserved to crash your car. Would you hear those words with the same glee? Where did this entitlement mentality come from and how can I make it go away?

To me it seems quite normal to want personal peace and comfort for self, family, and friends, countrymen, and then the world. But to throw around YOU DESERVE this and that......

Life is a gift. I am grateful. I do not say it is wrong to have a treat or buy something you don't NEED. But people who fall into this I DESERVE thought pattern are in a trap of greed, love of money (sin) and insatiable desire.

I think if someone in a third world country heard an advertisement saying You DESERVE this, they would look at you with befuddlement!

Homework

2009-04-13T07:20:00.004-05:00

Assignment: Write a paragraph outlining how you will Search your heart, or cut the ropes, or Submit to plastic surgery, or Share Your Wealth. --page 228, #7. of Calm My Anxious Heart, by Linda Dillow (Women's Bible study I am in at church) I chose

I. Submit to plastic surgery.

A. I do not have credit card debt, but I am living above my means, using up my retirement savings and my kids' inheritance. I have been a hippie-cricket, judging people who live with credit card debt, while I myself have refused to do the math and live within my means. I am not totally wicked and out to lunch, in that I tried to buy a condo that was within my means, I sought counsel, looked far and wide, prayed. But my assumption that I would reach a certain income within a few years without working hard enough to do so and the correlating assumption that I would not use up my savings too fast was inaccurate to say the least. So I bought. Then the economy went South and carried my investments with it.

So just as one who hits bottom, and realizes he or she needs to cut up her credit cards and pay off her debts, I have made a SMART goal on how I might reverse my life style from living outside my means to living inside my means.

My goal is to either

1. sell my condo and/or

2. do these 4 things:

a. get a roommate and

b. refinance

c. get a part time job

d. ramp up painting and marketing; i.e. WORK HARDER

(I.) This most important part of the goal needs to be made into a SMART goal of it's own! I do have a couple of action steps from this already but it needs more work on Specific and Time sensitive.

Most of all self-coaching has helped me tremendously to sort this goal out. However I am very aware of me need for PEOPLE and accountability to reach this goal. That is one reason why I'm writing this assignment right out there in cyberspace. Comments welcome.

May the fog clear as I go forward, one baby step at a time.

yet another silly poem

2009-03-03T20:21:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time there was

a blog of minor note because

unfocused blog it often was;

so let's talk company of Trust.

We want Trust company out, I said it.

That's the truth and you just read it

So the lawyer works upon it

and he maketh progress on it.

I read about the lawyer's call;

it made me happy, that is all.

I hear he's moving wisely forward

Better that than hearing no word

So I rest me in the thought

The Lord is trusted for He's got

all this trust stuff in His power,

And now it is the bedtime hour.

Bird Dog

2009-02-12T08:14:00.006-05:00

Urgent! one year old black lab needs home.

People inquire and I shoot myself in the foot by being honest: she bit me & I don't trust her around babies. Plus she "leaks"and has signs of hip dysplasia. I don't want to waste time with those who will change their mind after they learn these things.

A couple people with dog experience can see beyond the problems ... labs are still a great pets.

So I took her to Florida and posted her down there on craigslist.

Dog Angel wanted to try her out so I drove 2 hours to drop her off.

Here come three dogs down the lane to meet us.

There are 2 horses, 3 cats, and a goose.

Zoie tucks tail while the 3 dogs follow her around sniffing her rear end. Two of them are black labs and one looks just like her.

There is a commotion behind the barn followed by too much quiet. Dog Angel goes off to investigate and I see Zoie running away from her and, oh no, did I see something in her mouth? Oh, please no, Zoie. She will not come to Dog Angel, so I call out: ZOIE! come! She comes to me and drops the shiny black chicken at my feet and looks up at me with a feather hanging off her lip.....Did I do good, Mommy?

That is one very dead chicken, I said.

I say Zoie, no, but I am not very insistent about it. God made her to kill birds and she has not yet been trained. It's too late anyway.

She takes off after the goose. Dog Angel has walked up and she's going NO NOT THAT ONE! I'm after Zoie yelling NO NO NO. She almost had the goose, but she did not get him and it hissed at her and she backed off. Dog Angel says the goose will go after her. Whew! That was close.

Dog Angel picks up the chicken and it's dead neck is hanging from her hand while she says to me, "She's 'a bird dog."

I apologize. I feel awful and I think I've driven out here for nothing.

But Dog Angel says she'd still like to try her for a couple days and that her dogs have done this, too. I used to cry, she said, but they are just yard ornaments. She really loves the dogs.

So I call in 2 days. This is a very sweet dog, she says, and she slept at the foot of my bed. and I love her, but she killed the neighbor's cat.

OH NO! I am so sorry......

I will come get her, unless you know someone who would like her?

So she thought about it all day.

When I call back, she carefully presents the shock collar idea. I sense she is afraid that I will get angry...that I will consider it cruel.

But she would like to try working with Zoie. She calls the collar 'letting God talk to her'. I am very ok with it. Zoie is responsive and it will not take much.

So in spite of Zoie's best efforts to make a bad impression, she has a new forever family. And what could be better for a dog? --life on a farm with a pack of dogs, horses, cats and geese. And a human who will take care of her every need. May they all live happily ever after.

Zoie, a Corny Poem

2009-01-15T07:17:00.005-05:00

Zoie had a bath today.

I took her in the tub.

It's warm. She tolerates it well.

The water drains, glub glub.

She shakes and wiggles, soaks three towels,

and runs about the place.

She's clean and soft and smells so good

So I just kiss her face.

Wishing she were not a lemon

Wanting to adopt her, but

She bit me once and that's enough.

Adoption door is shut.

Here's a myth that needs dispelling:

Certain dogs will NEVER bite.

ANY dog, if scared enough,

By instinct prove that that's not right.

Each dog has a bite threshold

add up those things that frighten.

Push those buttons all at once,

I guarantee that dog's a-bitin'.

For Zoie it was fire works

new place, new people, all at night.

I plop down next to her to cuddle.

She fears sore hips I'll touch, so bite!

Suddenly with hole in forehead,

What just happened? we all said.

Sudden movement to shift over,

final straw to bite has led.

This dog has some pain in hips

Toddlers wouldn't respect this,

So we cannot mix the two.

Could Zo's new human be YOU?

We are down to one more day!

Traveling to see my Dad.

Must give this sweet dog away.

Makes me just a little sad.

2008-11-25T07:09:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving, the most blessed of holidays.

The family gathered. Mom prepared a huge meal successfully bringing all hot dishes to the at table in sync.

In the kitchen, she was in her element. We were dressed up in church clothes and the table in lace. There was an elaborate centerpiece with perhaps a deer, sparkly fake snow and candles hand made each year by my father’s secretary. We were all happily looking forward to Mom's lime jello "salad" with dream whip, pineapple, nuts and cream cheese, and marshmallows in it, which was really a dessert.

The hot home made rolls melted the butter. Add jelly from a pretty little bowl. Mound up the mashed potatoes with more butter and skip the gravy. It was the side dishes that made the turkey taste good.

Thanksgiving foods with sugar:

sweet potatoes
jello salad
pie
ice cream
rolls with jelly
cranberry sauce
sweet drinks
pumkin
apple

High fat list:

gravy
butter in the mashed potatoes
French fried onions on the green bean casserole
butter on the rolls
pie
ice cream & whipped cream
salad dressing
butter in the vegetables
corn souffle
butter on the sweet potatoes
stuffing

Thanksgiving foods that are LOW in sugar or fat:

hmmmm, thinking, um, uhhhhhh, let’s see....Can’t think of any right off hand. Ok maybe the relish tray if you skip the dip.

We 3 girls set the table correctly as we had learned in Girl Scouts. My father, ever the gentleman, pulled the chair out for us.

He would carve turkey at the table with a monogramed sterling silver knife and fork which matched ours. Who wants the drumstick? Would you like dark or light meat? Dark please. Say when.

One of us would sing-song grace:

God is great, and He is good,
and we thank Him for this food.

So we made good memories. We put our napkins in our laps, tried not to talk with food in our mouth, and passed to the left and with pleases and thank you's.

Daddy and my brother would watch football. We girls took turns using the dish master, a hose with a brush that sprayed water and held soap in it. When you wanted soap you pushed the button. This was a modern invention during the days before dishwashers.

I cannot remember what happened after the feast and clean up.

first UN free write

2008-11-18T08:39:00.006-05:00

title: Nov. 17, 2008, Sunday evening

I copied the hymn during the offering because of the verse about art not being only for decorating Christian brochures. I let myself be trapped by that idea for years.

God, All Nature Sings Thy Glory (verses 1 and 2)

God, all nature sings thy glory, and thy works proclaim thy might;
ordered vastness in the heavens, ordered course of day and night;
beauty in the changing seasons, beauty in the storming sea;
all the changing moods of nature praise the changeless Trinity,

Clearer still we see thy hand in man who thou hast made for thee;
ruler of creation's glory, image of thy majesty.
Music, art, the fruitful garden, all the labor of his days,
are the calling of his Maker, to the harvest feast of praise.

Written by David Clowney in 1960
sung to the tune of "Ode to Joy" by Ludwig Van Beethoven, 1824

It's not such great poetry, but I appreciated the affirmation that God made me an artist on purpose and I am now using this gift from Him.

A Trial

2008-11-16T17:40:00.007-05:00

To declutter is a good thing. Now then I have clutter in my Mac. Mac got a boo boo & went off to the Hospital. When he returned what was lost was only a couple months worth of pictures and freewrites. This time I had my external hard drive. Well, that's hugely better than losing a whole year's worth of photos like last time.

That's an interesting place, the Apple store. There are as many geniuses as customers. I ignored all the cool merchandise and went straight to the back. My genius wasn't one and I wouldn't have hung one of those tags around his neck just yet. But he tried and I appreciate their high customer service standards.

So, the "free write" clutter in my computer.

There is a vague notion that someday I will glean something worth publishing, maybe someone will be encouraged by it.

But if the writer is bogged down and isolated, it isn't going to happen.

All those files become heavy and worrisome in the mind. I don't want to go back there and read all that stuff. It's overwhelming.

Discouragement grows.

In the past writing has made you clarify things for yourself, and some of your writing people have enjoyed and been blessed by or at least your words were curious to a friend who enjoys poking around in another person's thoughts.

But freewrite stagnating in the laptop? Hmmm, not good.

So, try this instead: free write directly into your blog for one month. Yes, you will edit it, making it no longer FREE. If you want people to read your words, try it.

Still There

2008-11-06T08:25:00.004-05:00

So - the seas still roar.

The violent reds are still out there backed by wet greens.
Rain still blackens the tree trunks, turning up the color volume.
I am blessed with a bright maple right outside my back door.

So I told my other conservative friend: if our side loses, and it did, the fall colors will still make impact every year and the sand the the waves are not going away.

I went out walking by the waves in hiking boots with an umbrella which I did not use. There was a wind advisory on the bridge. The seas all the way up to the sea walls. I had to wait for the wave to ebb and hurry over to the narrowed beach. My boots got wet over the ankles once or twice.

It is powerful to be by the water when it is calm. How much more so when it is actually frightening. The wind came from behind me so the back left side got wet. Along with crushing waves was light but pelting rain on my hood. I saw one set of dog prints.

The seas were Davy's grey, darkening toward the horizon, and the sky almost the same hue and value with more blue. The breaking waves had some olive yellow in them.

I tried to use the umbrella after turning into the wind, but it was not worth the effort. How did the sailors in old ships hold the sails? I mean I only had an umbrella! Thus the mind of men who engineered ships and sails, created by the mind of God.

I studied the colors for a sketch from memory later in the studio. I should have studied more, I didn't remember what went into the middle foreground where the waves were all churned up.

We sang the Navy hymn in church last week "for those imperiled on the sea". But there were different words.

I would not want to be out there in a storm.

The ships out on the horizon, normally stretched out lengthwise, were facing land. Are they anchored, turned by the wind or are they controlled by people?

I am glad for the fact that we have elected a man with African roots for President.
I am not glad he is liberal.
We shall see how he leads.

My Girl

2008-09-18T17:41:00.005-05:00

On Sunday I had to kill my dog, no, you must not say it so harshly. Put her to sleep, euthanize, put her down. It was so very hard. The pain is deep in my chest. It erupts regularly in tears. Poor animal just does what God designed it to do, and because it bites to protect itself when it is afraid, it cannot abide with humans any longer.
Such a companion. Such a gift God made, dogs. There will be no one to wag her tail when I come home from The Great Northwest. I wish it did not have to be. Now then, if I let her live out her years, she might get sick and be in pain and not be able to tell me she is suffering. So she went out quickly and painlessly, I think. But God, it was so hard. It just feels so wrong, because I loved her like a family member and you don't kill family members, do you? Of course not. We all understand: she cannot be trusted around children (or anyone without monitoring her) and now there are 3 grandbabies. So the decision.
I see a squirrel outside and I think of her.
I hear the neighbor's dog bark and I remember.
I see a dark blanket out of the corner of my eye and I think it is she.
I drew a picture of her from memory because I could remember every curve of her body from stroking her so many times.
I wanted the vet to do me next.
I told her not to bite anyone in doggie heaven.
It makes me never want to get another dog.
Guilty of caring too much about a stupid animal.
I will get another dog but I will be very sure it is not reactive, but calm and sociable.
Right now I think I wouldn't mind if I just died.

Layla

2008-08-24T14:48:00.003-05:00

Born 8.18.08, now 6 days old. seven pounds, 3.7 ounces. 20 inches.
Not much crying but lots of sleeping. The second night, when the mom was exhausted, the friends visited all day and kept her up, the night nurses didn't say much, and she cried because try as she might, the baby did not know how to latch on. I hugged her and tried not to give her too many words...let her cry. She is frustrated watching her baby struggle and I am frustrated watching my baby struggle. I and all the nurses and other mothers told her already it will get better. But it is dark and it is so frightening.

After that she began to be able to nurse. The lactation nurse came in like an angel just as she was getting it. Many positive words and hands on teaching of positions to try and so on.

At home more visitors. Rest. Photos. Letting her lie on my chest while we sleep.

It is Sunday and I did not make it to church. I read to her from the Bible and sang her some songs about God. She rolled her eyes.

How To Ride a Train

2008-08-16T09:07:00.005-05:00

This summer I took Amtrak to my class in Maine. From there I went to North Dakota to visit my father and sister. My father grew up in ND, so now that he is 96, has dementia and my mom is dead, we take him up to ND every summer where he is peaceful and feels at home.

Amtrak DO'S

Do buy all your tickets ahead of time
Do check the discounts, such as the 30 day rail pass.
Do check your itinerary and tickets so that no legs of your journey are omitted.
Do travel light.
Do check your large bags.
Do take layers or blankets or both to stay warm, especially at night. Consider bringing your own pillow and eye shades.
Do visit the lounge car, especially if there is a National Park Service person on board giving details about things you see rolling by.
Do converse with people you meet.
Do take your time in the bathroom and be careful...it takes practice and patience to stay clean on the train.
Do try their Green Mountain coffee unless you only like the dark roast kind.
Do have wheels on your luggage.
Do paint in the lounge car if you paint.
Do remember your camera.
Do bring your toothbrush on board.
Do help someone with luggage.
Do use your laptop if you are going up and down the East Coast. They have internet en route and plugs by each seat.
Do walk around and check out the whole train.
Do try to schedule overnights where you can see your friends or relatives.
Do get some work done while you are NOT DRIVING.
Do expect more room than on an airplane.
Do expect to be rocked constantly.
Do acquaint yourself with all the different stations. They are not as clearly marked as airports.
Do bring your paper tickets. An itinerary is not enough to ride.
Do read the details at Amtrak.com
If you have the money, try a sleeper car.

Amtrak's DONT'S

Don't count on being on time.
Don't be afraid of the others on the train.
Don't plan on changing your tickets at just any old station: you can only change them if there is an agent there.
Don't take stuff to read if you won't read it.
Don't stress; The conductors, the attendants and other riders will answer your questions.
Don't worry; someone will help you with your luggage if you need it.
Don't travel in peak season if you have the choice unless you like full trains.
Don't count on internet on board unless you are going up and down the East Coast. Maybe later.
Don't count on a plug to fire up your laptop or cell phone.
Don't take night trains in coach cars if you want a good night's sleep.

Self Talk about Settling In

2008-07-21T07:08:00.004-05:00

There are an infinite number of ways to arrange furniture in your place, no matter how little stuff you think you have. Such options provide an infinite number of distractions for your mind-- good options, too, for which you can thank God. And you must take yourself by the hand and lead yourself away from going over each and every option perfectly, dragging the decision out.....hoping for the perfect arrangement of your things... You have spent enough time doing that in your life. Put it somewhere and USE it, function, work, eat, sleep, go out, come back in, let the house serve you, not the other way around.

Be ruthless with the paper. Shred it or make a box for a bonfire on your son's deck with his new fire pit.

Good. All good. Good problems to have. A house. Now go paint, Pollock!

sweetness

2008-05-18T07:45:00.005-05:00

Grandbaby 2, born April 5, 2008, a girl, to my second child, a son and his dear wife.

CORE

2008-05-06T08:31:00.002-05:00

CORE

OK, yesterday I was thinking about Rick and the body of Christ and what came to my mind was that if I had to put him as a specific body part, I’d say core.

As children, we were told "lift with your legs." In tennis I learned "use my legs." As an adult I learned that using your legs and proper posture prevents back injuries.

I learned the reverse when my daughter and I carried Margaret’s sewing machine cabinet out of her house, with the old sewing machine in it. She is on the down end and I am at the top of the 2 steps leaning forward and trying to step down....there is no place to bend my knees to center myself under the weight, but I don't think about that because we are already moving. BOING. there goes that sprongy electric shock feeling in the lower back. Uh oh.. Ow ow ow. I try to continue but..... I can’t remember..... did Margaret's daughter carry it the rest of the way? The next few days I was immobile, getting in and out of bed to inch my way into the bathroom ever so slowly and with every attempt to roll over in bed, a reminder from the back NO! Not like that! Pain, that is.

So hopefully I learned. Experience is a better teacher than words.

But CORE. That word became popular when Pilates became the new exercise craze. My daughter-in-law liked her Pilates class. I tried it once or twice and liked it OK, though I preferred the dancing around aerobic tapes. Anyway the teacher kept talking about the core. As in: strengthen this first and foremost. OK so the legs are not your center physically, your abs are. hmmmm

Now then, Rick. No flashy charismatic gifts. Not a great speaker, not a GQ type, not a life of the party, not a brilliant mind. He thought he didn’t have any significant gifts, that he wasn’t really good - better than those around him - in any one thing. He felt less important because he lacked expertise in one area where he could shine above others. Don't most of us want to excel at something?

I would say to him, you have the gift of personal evangelism. You have a gift a lot of Christians would like to have; you present the gospel to people and they come to faith. I don’t know how he felt about my words, but It did NOT make him go: "yeah, you’re right, dear wife, now I feel on top of the world, Praise the Lord."

He was not a hand with intricate ability, nor an eye, to see what other people didn't see. He wasn’t a brain to think up stuff. But he was strong, both physically and mentally, tenacious and faithful to God.

So I see him as a core, or part of Christ's core perhaps a fiber in the big abdomen muscle, or a cell in the fiber.... No one focuses the core when they greet a person. Maybe they felt the heaviness of the approaching footsteps. They look at the eyes, the face, maybe glance at the whole body. They hear the voice and smell breath or soap or perfume. They feel a handshake or a hug, or kiss the cheeks. But they don’t NOTICE the core.

Yet what if it weren’t there? There would be no person. No core, no body.

Rick was solid, plodding, steady. "Faithful," I said and that is the word that best describes him. It is on his grave marker. Faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

His place in the body of Christ was not highly visible, but it is absolutely a must have. God could see this when he gave gifts to the body of Christ, He chose to put Rick and his ilk in as core. He did not want the body to fall apart. You don't build a human from the skin in.

Now when I go to X-biking class and we are in sustain mode, I will work my handlebars to the right and left while trying to keep my core centered. I can line up the center of the bike and I try to keep my eyes precisely above that while pushing the bars to one side. It is not easy as you want to lean with your head and body in the direction your hands go. It requires a lot of my core when I do this. I feel it later in the day.

Someone had to hang on to the essence of Christ when others around him were running off to other gospels, New Age, Prosperity, etc. He kept reading and studying the Bible, kept telling people about Christ and kept seeing results.

It's curious to me that I remember one of the strongest images in my mind immediately after Rick died was that there had been an explosion and there was a giant hole from my chest down to my legs. it was as if I could have looked down at myself and there was no middle, just a hole you could see right through, empty, air. Nothing. That's where a core is, right in the center.

I could also see him as feet. How beautiful are the feet of the one who brings good news. Maybe a later post.

to Wait

2008-04-04T17:23:00.002-05:00

It is ironic. I am the only one of the 5 of us who got any sleep last night and I am the one at home caring for the dogs, and I could rest if I needed to, which I don't.
The daughter-in-love is in labor, her waters broke this morning at 1:30. My son called to tell me and I tossed and turned for a while but did go back to sleep. Her parents got into their car and drove all night. So none of them have slept, but since I am the designated dog-sitter, I came back home from the hospital when I saw that she was dilating slowly. I thought: if I stay and wait, just about the time things start crackin', I'll have to go home to care for the dogs. I want to go and force those in attendance to rest, but I know they won't. And I want to massage my DIL's back and make her sleep but I don't know if she can sleep. Mostly I can only commit her to God.
I know they are all exhausted and I would gladly keep vigil and let them take turns napping, but none of them will, so this is how it is.
A tiny one will soon appear. I hope it will be before midnight, on the same day the little birds hatched on my front door wreath. Little pink fingertips that look kind of like caterpillars with partial fur. Craning veiny necks..."where's mommy?"
I should paint. I should write. I should call people. I should finish my taxes. I should clean house.....I should house hunt. I guess I don't know what to do with myself.

Late

2008-03-01T23:21:00.007-05:00

I forgot to write.
It's late Saturday night and I'm going to bed.
Painting has kept me busy enough not to write. I want to do both, but I need to paint now.
House on the beach. One hyperventilates thinking one may be able to buy it. Savings look good, but one is not a math person, nor is she a financial planner, or even good at budgeting. So it looks like the offer on the house will have to be pulled even though Bank of America pre-qualified me in about 2 mintues on line. I don't have enough money.
The thing is I truly don't want the place unless it is right and good for me and everyone I know and unless it is God's idea.
So I pursued it but now it looks like too much risk. Sink all your money into it and then eat beans and rice and walk to work (you had to sell your car....)
Anyway, it was a sobering day, not only because I withdrew my offer for the house, but because I realized I'm using up my savings too fast and not building my business fast enough.
So I should run and hide and be depressed about it and go to sleep and give up and go on thinking I'm just a dumb girl.
NO!
God gave me a new name:
confidence, faithfulness, overcoming one. those things in that little chorus I love.
Some recent paintings above.

Nanny Annie

2007-12-19T19:55:00.001-05:00

What a huge blessing in such a tiny package.
born Dec. 15, 2007
to my eldest daughter.
rejoicing, enjoying, helping out, cuddling, cooking, burping, changing and all that.
by the way, it's a boy.

No Cussing

2007-12-07T16:24:00.000-05:00

Now it is my turn. I went to help care for my dad who is now 95. We have caregivers 24/7 but the burden is still on my sister, who lives there, ultimately for all big and small decisions. Four years ago when my dad had a stroke and mom was dying, we had brought him home from a rehab center and hired full time nurses. Over the next year he healed from his stroke, but his dementia remains. One thing he has not lost is his sense of humor.
I do not know how this would come across to someone who does not know my dad, but he is full of corny jokes and puns. Clever things, sometimes, like:
PROCRASTINATE NOW!
So I went down in Novemeber to help my sister care for him and I took one turn as the night nurse. I said to him: "Now, Daddy, I'm going to be in this bed right over here. If you need anything, just holler. But no cussing; I don't answer to cussing." And what did he say in response? He said, "OK, no damn cussing."

Abstract

2007-06-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

Good things. Immersion. I painted with about 15 others all day, went home exhausted at 4, slept, woke up and painted for a couple more hours.
This class was for acrylics, but she said you can use watercolors. The technique: lay down a slick medium first so that whatever you paint on from that point on is quite removable. It does not work with watercolor, because watercolor does not dry permanent like acrylic. If you go to add more color on top of yesterday's paint, yesterday's paint dissolves and mixes into the new pigment.

So let's see what happens. It was all experimental for me anyway and the first time learning abstract on purpose. I am not planning to paint using these techniques at this time, but I wanted to learn about design and whatever else might be helpful.

I looked at Carole Barnes' website and saw strong design. I asked David Dewey if he knew of her and he didn't but he said go ahead.

I think everyone enjoyed it. First day our instructions seemed to be to play in the paint. In and out the side door went the paintings, out to dry and back in to layer up again.

Carole is a good communicator and had lots of quotes, books to recommend, pictures to show. She kept moving, no lulls.

The process: play with the paint, put down the first washes of color. Let it dry. While that's drying start another. Begin to add more, lift off. Lifting methods included scraping, wiping, stamping, brayering, scratching, rolling a toilet paper roll over it. Basically adding texture of any sort.

The idea then is to add design elements to it all. I think I stayed in chaos and just kept playing in the paint in some of my pieces. She works on several at a time. Not my goal, but it is what I do at home, too.

But at least you have something to do while the paint is drying.

One of the nice women announced that there was a daddy long-legs in the bathroom and that she had named it Charlotte. I wonder if she would think less of me because I sent Charlotte for a drowning lesson - after she was already squished. Am I bad for not letting all God's creatures cohabit my space? I didn't tell her. The little brat in me wanted to tell her just to see if she'd report me to PETA.

Lots of red-rusty-orangy brown came out in my paintings. I put cerulean next to it with Verditer blue in it. Yum. I covered up the bright yellow and opera pink she started with. Nor did I favor any Thule blue. I kept trying to do what she was doing as much as I could without acrylics but it finally hit me it wouldn't work the same way, just do something in the abstract realm. When you put transparent watercolor onto the sealed surface, it beads up and won't stick.

What happened on several paintings was that I would see a form and get an idea and follow up on it. Then I would build the image around that idea.

Example, at one point when I was lifting color in swirls off my page, it looked like a fetus, so the painting ended up being of my pregnant daughter. I found it emotional to work on. I painted out the alarming red background and put in a soft blue cocoon around her to protect her and cushion her from harm. I felt like crying at times...the joyful excitement of her becoming a mom, and the knowledge that she will have pain, not just in delivery but in raising this child. I wish I could shelter her from the pain.

Another one, again begun the way Carole showed us on the first day with bright yellow and pink. I added in shapes around the edges and at one point it reminded me of my walks with the dog out in my old neighborhood, through the very dark woods and out under the power lines. Early after my husband's death, I would often come around a corner and be hit by a big yellowy glowing sunset and it would make me gasp, because it reminded me of what I saw when he died. I would immediately start to cry. In those days I used to always cry, yellow sky or not, when I got to the path where there were no neighbors to see me.

So hmmmm, that painting became the point at which we'd walk out of the woods into the open area and in this painting there is a beautiful yellow sunset. What surprised me is that it is emotional to paint such things.

I will to go back to painting the way I have been, recognisable, but with economy, trying for beautiful color harmony and learning to design the space on the page.
But this experience will affect my work. Possibly the most valuable part is being with other artists.

The second painting posted is IKEA on a Saturday...don't go there unless you love mobs and chaos. What a fun place. I miss it. I laughed a lot working on that one.

Don't Know Nothin'

2007-06-21T08:58:00.003-05:00

Lake Wobegone ND

My sister, father, cousin, nephew, nephew's girlfriend, nurse and nurse's son were all there when I arrived. We had the run of the Inn right downtown, Victorian charm.

We were on the third floor and took our suitcases up the outdoor steps in back because it would have been pretty hard to get them up the circular stairwaay inside, probably 18-20 inches wide, hardly room to put a foot onto it.

So Father's Day weekend was supposed to be Rally in the Valley. There were pictures on the front page of the paper and captions, but no schedule of events or where or what about anything. don't know nothin.

Apparently they had been trying to find out where things were happening since they got there a few days ago, but no one seemed to know. After a while they suspected that it's a insider event and that we from outside were not wanted there. very strange.

I came on Saturday evening and had been up at 3am and 4am the past 2 nights, so I fell asleep with my clothes on up on my bed....I heard the fireworks but was too tired to go watch. I think they viewed them from the landing at the top of the outside stairs. After that there was apparently a thunderstorm. I heard some noise but I was too tired to care.

We took Daddy to the house he grew up in. He gets energy when he is here. He walks and does not faint. If the nurse says, are you tired, do you want to rest, he says no are YOU tired? She took him to the park and was a LONG way from the Inn and said we can take a taxi for $3.00. He said no, we can walk a little and rest a little, walk a little, rest a little. At home it's once around the circle and he's done, bored.

So Valley City. I woke up early and searched everywhere for my coffee and tried hard not to wake my dorm-mates (5 of us in the upper room sleeping) but I had to unzip my suitcase in more than one place. It was scissors I was looking for and finally went all the way down to the kitchen and found a plastic knife and took it upstairs only to learn I could pull the coffee open with my fingers. No one else got up except nurse for 2 hours. I read my Bible and prayed and then walked around the neighborhood. Such a tiny town, NO CARS; I could have walked down the middle of the streets and not bothered anyone. Many charming old houses, my favorite was painted light blue-green.

Long about 11am it dawned on me that it was Sunday, and I wished I had gone to church. I saw people coming out and even if there were a later service I would have wanted to have gone home to change clothes.

I have never lived in a small town really.

Nurses son attracted the popular girls in the front yard of the boy who apparently was not friendly with these girls. So they are hanging around flirting with him and the dad comes out drunk and yells at them to get out and throws a rock at nurse's son. We think we'll be front page news tomorrow on the police blotter, since that surely tops "snapping turtle reported in middle of highway; officer removes it."
Poor kid ... the police came by to interview him. Apparently he was here last year with my dad and his mom the nurse and made friends with the kids here and had been emailing with one of the girls. Interesting.

Well, we didn't see ourselves in the Dont Know Nothin Journal but neither was the police report in it, so maybe they only do it once a week.

There was a house a couple blocks over for sale by owner dirt cheap so we looked at it. Sister and nurse were ready to sign but all I could see was that every surface needed replacing and it was ugly and not that big. price was too good to be true. The idea of having Daddy up there every summer, though, now that's a good one...get him away from the monotany of home. His wife and all his siblings are dead and only his kids remain. I told sister I could never get my older kids to spend their precious little vacation time in North Dakota! No mountains.

So Binford, tall graineries, and cement factories, a ball park? No, a bull riding ring. Small houses and a neighborhood around Daddy's house. Oh, he says, Uncle......long pause.....I can't remember his name, lived in that house. The owner is there and lets us look inside. The kitchen cupboards made by my Farfar (father's father in Swedish) are still funcioning like new, precise fit and original hardware still working. Two other built in cabinets in the living room made my him.
'
Daddy cries a little and says this is the best part of the trip. We drive up and down many of the streets in the neighborhood; I stick my camera out the window and snap more charming pictures.

Apple Boats

2007-03-28T07:47:00.000-05:00

Now really, is it that hard to slice up an apple? Yesterday I made my way as fast as possible through Costco's refrigerator room. Grabbed some carrots. The weeds did not look fresh enough. Weeds are my daughters' name for Spring Mix Salad Greens.

So now they have a package of apple boats, apples that are already cored and cut into slices. Well, I never! (As Mom would say) I was almost tempted to buy them. 8 packets all ready to stick in your lunch and go. Then I thought, how brown and mushy will they be by the time I eat them all?

My husband liked apple boats. I learned early on in our marriage that he was used to having his apples cut up for him. Personally I eat my apples with my teeth and throw the core out when I'm done. Don't you? So I remember the tiniest glimmer of annoyance upon learning that he wanted me to cut up his apples for him. And that man loved his fruit.

I'm wondering if it had anything to do with his mustache. But I think it had to do more with the way his sweet mom served him apples. He liked his orange slices with the points left on so he could pull the flesh away from the peel and somehow it kept the juice away out of his mustache. How would I have known? Do I have a mustache?

It is another little ripple in the ever widening circle which started when his death made a big splash in my lake. Huge boulder crashes into the water. Giant cannon ball splash and big rocking waves. Years later the rings are almost inperceptible but they are there and I suppose they always will be. It made tender thoughts come up, that ripple.

Finishing Ship 2

2007-03-15T10:36:00.002-05:00

For lack of a better name. After my first painting en pleine aire in Maine, I took many photos of the scene, different angles, different compositions. So I did a 16 by 24 version on drawing paper in about an hour. The French Ultramarine was too bright and thick and the shadows in the water were not correct, but when I stood back across the room, the painting had a powerful impact. The water moved, the values were there, you could move into the space with your eye. I had turned the photo and the painting up side down to paint the water and the reflections in it....to discourage getting fussy about accuracy.

so that spurred me to get a piece of good paper, 300 pound Arches cold press. I lay in the water and the basic shape of the ship and its baby boats hitched to its side. Learning: the key to my loose style is using brushes that are bigger than you think you ought to be using. don't downshift to smaller brushes until you must. To release excess pigment, touch the sponge or the paper towel.

I did a lot more lifting and changing of colors than I wanted to, to the point of losing the sizing, which takes away the ability to get that nice crisp edge. But I will learn from practice how much value to lay in the first time so that I won't have to lift and repaint. Now to finish: move the black water shadow over to match the ship so that it doesn't shout DRAWING ERROR. Even if you lift it again, there is such darkness in this part of the page that I don't think it will make a difference.

Questions that come up while painting. What does he mean about keeping the colors balanced the whole time in the painting? How do you do that? How does he know WHERE to put that touch of color. And how do I place the colors on the plane so that they lead the eye intentionally around the picture. I know there are answers to this question.

Where to sign? Finish the shadow around the pontoon, and define the motor on it just a bit more. Frame it and bring it to the Gallery next week.

How to Finish a Painting

2007-02-09T08:29:00.000-05:00

On February 1, 2007, Kathy's House was pronounced done. Left on the table, I would go downstairs daily making changes, adding colors, lifting shadows, reworking. People think you can't change watercolor once it's on the paper. That is only partly true. This painting is worked to death. I didn't like it much and midway, I wanted to put it in a drawer and forget about it. But I chose to finish it on principle. I do not feel confident in what it means to finish a painting. I want to learn, so I made a commitment and continued. I did like it better as I worked on it, but the style I want is fresh and simple. I want to put down the layers the first time and be done with only minor corrections. This work is nothing but one big correction!
It was hard to leave it alone once declared done. I removed the tape. Note: do not use that kind of tape, it leaves a layer of glue and is very hard to remove. I think I like the edge to be drawn, not made with tape.
Having declared it finished I am glad the burden is off my back. I think Kathy will like it and I hope her sons will as well. I'm wondering if John Q. Public would be drawn to it at all.
The main thing I know from doing this work is that I will not choose this type of project if I want to use my gift and get the best to come out of me.

MAC Attack

2007-01-30T15:48:00.000-05:00

As in new computer. Yes. Oh, yes!!

Weeks ago I contacted my patient nephew, who helps people with their computer problems for a living. He was kind enough to spend at least an hour on the phone with me trying to get my Y2K Gateway to boot Windows. .....Maybe the hard drive is on its last legs. OK, I told him, I have already decided that even if I can get this computer fixed, it is probably time to buy a new one and I'm thinking I probably want a laptop. So I said fast, reliable, easy. He said MAC.

Here we are, day one, fingers flying. I apologized to the Lord for getting so cranked about a material thing. Then I say no, I don't think I mean to apologize, no, just thank You, Lord.

I took pictures of the parts out of the box on my clear desk. I think the net thing is to load up my digital camera software.

So check in soon.

state park swamp

2007-01-08T17:40:00.000-05:00

Looking for the Beach

2007-01-07T23:03:00.001-05:00

Trying to find a new beach on which to walk with the dog, the state park entrance appeared, so we turned in. Trails. A nice couple told me the less traveled one was 3.1 miles, perfect. On the pine straw path I don't think I could really hear my hiking boots hitting the ground. It was hard to tell if I could hear my footsteps or whether I was just feeling the vibration in my body. I wondered if that is perhaps like being deaf, but still having a sense that is close to hearing..... I could hear the leather creaking a little when the wind was still.

The park rangers cut pieces out of fallen trees and put them aside in order to keep the path clear. Hey, if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one walking there, is it blocking the path?

I talk to myself sometimes, but I forced myself to shut up. A quiet place is an especially good place to listen. My present worries calmed considerably as the walk continued.

A boardwalk traversed the mucky places, slippery with algae. The cypress trees come up out of the swamp on either side and the surface of the water reminds me of oil on puddles, all colorful. Made of kooties, I think, but kind of pretty.....and kind of spooky looking, all orangey, pinky, purple and bluegreen all blending into one another. Spanish moss was dangling off the trees. Then there were little trees trying to sprout up that reminded me of crocuses coming up in spring, only bigger. This secret forest hides right near the ocean. The path was narrow but we only passed about 7 other folk and went home duly exercised and thirsty.

mystery house with red lantern

2007-01-03T00:12:00.000-05:00

the red lantern and sign are cut outs I've been messing with, trying to decide where to add red in the shadow...

Home

2006-12-23T09:53:00.000-05:00

He has been home 4 days. It seems longer. The last week was like waiting for a baby to be born. There's a due date, but it's an estimate. We got word from him and others where he was and what route he might come and when he might show up, but nothing was 100% for sure.

When he called in the morning and said he was in his house, I made a lot of noise when I got off the phone. Woo hoo and yippee and thank You, Lord type noise.

His wife had to work, so we hung out. The dogs played together. He looks good, lean and strong and healthy. He says it feels weird, probably like you felt when we moved back from West Africa, Mom. From poverty all around you into the lap of luxury in the USA.

Yes, yes, the relief is settling in and it feels really, really good.

We talked about the war. My observation is that no matter how it looks now and how hopeless it seems, we do not know what tomorrow holds. We cannot see the future and things quite outside our imagination can happen that would change things. I do not expect this necessarily, but I have learned this from my own little life. It adds a higher perspective to all the political arguments I listen to all the time. Not to be fatalistic. Make good decisions that will strengthen my family and my country and the world, but do what I can, and leave what's out of my control right where it is: out of my control.

The Extrovert that was Always There

2006-12-11T11:18:00.001-05:00

Being in Seattle I cannot scan paintings. But I am studying the painting called, let's see... Don't know. The next step is to darken the porch shadow, but I cannot find the photo, so I don't want to do that until I get home. Other things I want to adjust:
remove purple shadow of wire on left
remove part of siding detail, as much as possible
bring more pigment into the left yellow to match the center yellow?
put blue, or something else, back into the sky by the roof, where I lightened it
leave a few bits of orange or red in the porch shadow when you darken it

My dear son-in-law said you should have a theme, like hang some buoys on the porch.
I said, I see what you mean, but this is more about design than describing this house in Maine.

Buoys would give information: this is a coastal house, could be Maine, here's a hint of what goes on around here.
But what I like about this work is the brilliant sun on the face of the building and how the colors work with each other.

What made me think of extroversion was the sky, I really laid in the pigment on the first wash, no shyness there. I remember my woodcut teacher and how he noted that I wasn't afraid to just put my knife into the wood. No perfectionism there. No drawing minute details and having them all in before you start. I think I have a hint of what David Dewey means when he talks about drawing and painting. You draw in your basic shapes, lay in your foundational washes, and as you proceed with your painting, you stop and draw certain parts. Not everything has to be accurate, but he says: every so often you have to draw really well.

I still love this picture.

We went to a small gallery here. I looked at some of the not very good paintings and saw the prices and wondered if they could sell. Who would want them? I thought, if they can get $400 for that painting, I'm in good shape to get paid for mine.
But different people have different tastes. Some will like those paintings and won't like mine.

So I think about how working for the public for 2 years uncovered yet more of the extrovert, plus being older, plus mellowing out with antidepressants and possibly more than any of it, working with my coach, building my confidence, seeing what the Lord has put in me. What does that have to do with art? It's just that I think I see a pattern. I have always liked to just get in there and put the thing down on the page, use the 6B pencil and make the shadows deep and dramatic. I hate H pencils; they are like trying to draw with a fork.

And at class this summer, when Christie told the guy near me to look at my painting, it was because I was not shy about making my darks really dark and showing the contrast with the bright kyaks, which were in the sun. The same thing when I took pottery... I loved wrestling with the clay, leaning into it, forcing that lumpy blob into a smooth sphere.

I was pretty shy in those days, until I got to know people.

Even then the part of me that was willing to put myself out there existd. I wasn't aware of it.

Just a thought. It's interesting to me how we grow.

Back In the Great Northwest

2006-12-07T11:32:00.000-05:00

I am visiting my daughter and son-in-law. While they are at work I paint.
Strangest thing: the paintings named Kathy's house 2 and 3 are not her house at all. My son-in-law said that's my mom's house, but moments later he said but my mom's house doesn't have a peaked roof. I said yes it does; it's in the photo I took. We looked at the other photo of her whole house and there is no peak. It was such a close-up and so abstracted that I didn't notice it's a different house! First he was freaked out....like he would know his own house he grew up in....then I was freaked out.....whose house is this then? All this time I thought I was painting Kathy's house. They have a similar look. Is this an artist thing: so caught up in the designs and colors and shapes that I did not know which house it was?

He looked at my paintings and said you should sell these things. My daughter said, she is. (Mental note, he said I should sell these things...that is good!)

So on the plane I did a drawing for Kathy's house 4. I guess I can call it Kathy's house 2 and rename the other 2 Mystery house 1 and 2, oh dear.

Last night at the dinner table SIL was telling funny stories about cats. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. You have to have a Far Side sense of humor to laugh at his stories; they were not nice stories for a cat to listen to. We all traded stories. So fun to be with them. So fun to be with my family and sit at the table after we eat and talk. No jump up and turn on the TV. Great stories. He has had a life full of adventure and since they have been married (7 years) they have had many new escapades together.

They analyzed what this dear young father, Mr. Kim, might have done right or wrong to avoid dying lost in the snow. They found him today. Even the news people seem close to tears. I appreciate this. I like them to not be so ultra professional that they just report story, change to a cheery voice and go on to the next story. If I were reporting death, I think I would lower my tone, slow way down, and leave lots of space for contemplation.....then get fired.

I feel it when the traffic reports are about a terrible crash and there is a medivac landing. It's all about how far it is backed up and what alternate route to take for your commute. But my mind always goes to the people in the wrecked cars. Someone is hurting really badly, maybe several people, maybe someone is dying....and the announcer's voice is high and fast and has no sadness in it at all. Would I ask the listeners to pray with me for those involved? Now there's a concept. Many listeners would indeed pray and prayer united in appeal for those injured would make a difference. I don't expect to ever see it happen. I lost my husband suddenly. There were sirens involved. Even today when an ambulance screams by, it can take me right back to that moment. So my heart goes out to people in trauma.

Now my SIL also told me of how he fell into a tree well. I had to ask what a tree well was. Snow piles up around the tree but the snow from the branches sloughs off to the sides, but there is a deep hole under the tree. He fell backwards into one and was stuck, sprawled out and up-side-down. He described how he inched his poles out of the snow so that he could manipulate them, and put them under himself so that he could right himself and then stomped around in a circle, packing a path to spiral up out of the well. Fascinating.

We talked about how my injured and arthritic knee means no more skiing for me. I am not a skiier but it has been fun to be out there with family, laughing and learning. Last time I actually succeeded in controlling myself. We can try snow-shoing though, and go tubing or sledding.

There are many distractions here, including Terrell S. Lester's beautiful book on the coffee table, Maine, with 4 award winning authors' Maine stories added in. I read the whole thing. I wish we could buy a place together there. I think of spending a year there to experience the long, hard winter and survive. To paint and write. Some of his photos look just like a watercolor. There is one I want to paint and hang in my house. I could never sell it, because it's his photo. He started at age 32 and taught himself. Anyway, that is a good distraction, quite related to what I'm doing.

Kathy's house 2

2006-11-18T11:14:00.000-05:00

Still learning how hello, picasa and bloggerbot work. Tried to post the first washes of this painting, but didn't click enough times I guess. At any rate, here is the more abstracted version of Kathy's house. The photo I took made it easy.

Things to adjust: roof color & shadow color.
Definitely want to paint this again and try:
1. large size version
2. realistic colors
3. corrected drawing; I made a major drawing error.
4. add some more red?

I loved this immediately. It has what I love about many of David's Maine paintings, the brilliant sun on buildings.

Doing the color work that has been done so far made difference between this painting and the first one of Kathy's house because of the fact that I did TRY to make the colors balance. Though I am not yet satisfied, the initial color group works a lot better than the first painting. I'm anxious to get back to it and see what it takes to finish it and then do another version.

When I scanned it in black and white, I was surprised that the bright yellow looks the same value as the shadows. Hmmmm.

Being New

2006-11-13T21:42:00.000-05:00

People are friendly here and I can tell I'm back in the South. It is nice to have polite people in stores. No one seems in a hurry or stressed out. In the art center people make eye contact and say hello, even if they are just walking past you. I could get used to this. Sales clerks are nice and there are hardly any lines to stand in.

It takes time to make new friends, especially when you get poison ivy on your face and skip church. But the artists I have talked to have all been nice. Seems to be a lot of built-in comeradery. Nice. I don't know what I expected. People all on drugs and into weird stuff?

Artists I've met seem to assume we are all poor and are generous with hints of where to find deals on supplies and services.

All you see are strip malls, gas stations, grocers, apartments, condos, wide streets and lots of parking space. Where is everyone? Surely it gets busy in the summer.

At one church I tapped someone's shoulder and introduced myself on the way out. I'm new. Most churches ideally want to notice and welcome strangers, but many have trouble with this. We are happy to see our friends and get into conversations with them immediately and do not notice the new-comer.

Platform with Crane

2006-11-10T23:18:00.000-05:00

So the place was begging to be painted. I don't know yet what it is, but there were great shapes and colors.

This is what I learned:

--bad dogs must be blinded from viewing other dogs who are merely walking by with their humans, unless you want claw marks on your legs and large amounts of sand in your paints.

--choose your colors ahead of time so as not to go looking for them in the middle of your painting

--too many lines on the crane, too thick , too dark

--don't try to paint every wave you see when a painting can only represent one instant in time.

--you needed your Viridian green

--the lavendar wet sand reflection is there, but not for very long, and it is worth recording

--bring lunch and coffee

--you don't need your camera every time...less is more

--buy a small butcher's tray pallet

--pack up the day before

--it can be warm on the beach in November

--parking is free and dogs are allowed during off season

--it's a couple miles farther by the Southern route

--surfers face the sea and get psyched before they surf

--there are lots of trash cans so I don't have to go far to discard the dog's poop bag. LOL

--the shadow of the rail cars are not clean enough

--the platform and pilons need to be unified

--the pilons need to be more rusty orange and varied

--I could use a tie out stake

That's all I can think of and I'm too tired to think any more.

The Plague

2006-11-03T07:51:00.000-05:00

Time before last my skilled coach asked me what is this other mind set that plagues you? He referred to the idea I have firmly ensconced in my head that I will be successful IF I make a living painting and writing and can support myself all the way through old age, not being a burden on my children but leaving them a comfy inheritance. Where do I get this? From my Dad and Mom for sure.

Now then I am in a totally new place that my childhood values did not prepare me for. I grew up with this: the Dad makes a living and pays for the wife and children. The mom stays home and cooks and cleans and cares for the kids. The kids go to school and learn and come home and play and do chores. The girls will grow up and marry and keep house like their mommy. The guy will marry someone and provide money and security for her.

These things did not all come true. The guy only married once and for less than a year. No permanent relationship has come for him. The girls married, some divorced and remarried and as for me, I lost my husband through death.

What is that Helen Keller quote? security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a great adventure or nothing....

But he has a different outlook on success and I am glad to let him try to improve my thinking about success.

Are you successful only if you get money?

Or are you successful if you take the gifts God gave you and use them and share them with your family and then with the world?

I will remember

2006-11-01T10:59:00.000-05:00

View from my former bedroom window.
Name: Old Gnarly

Reconnected

2006-11-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

Little by little things are getting set up. I almost have money to spend. The bank says come in again and prove I am me. Then I can write my first check.

The sky here is cleaner than in DC. I don't know if being near the sea makes a difference. I should think it wuould feel more humid all the time, but so far I have not noticed that. Just the incredible strength of the sky, especiallly in late afternoon and evening.

Hmmm, there is my neighbor throwing something. He really should have a shirt on if he has any self respect. Ew. Throwing rocks at a pesky muskrat or fox? No, looks more like bread to geese in the way he's tossing, not pelting.

It will be warm again today and we really must get to the beach to paint.

It was lovely to have my 2 daughters come see me over the weekend. I put out the pumpkins we carved but no one came trick or treating. I'm glad, because all I had was fireballs. I don't know how many kids would want fireballs! They'd probably say what are these? Halloween is a holiday I could do without.

So I wondered, did they come to see me or the dog? Yes, the dog, but still, I think they would have come to see me even if there were no dog. I think.

Hugs, laughter, relaxation, trying to eat our sandwiches on the beach without eating sand. Windy. They still like each other and they told me their throats were sore from screaming all the way down. Can't make it 2 weeks without their mom, they said. Well, I love them too and I'm glad they came and yes, it was hard to say good-bye again, but as daughter the third said: It will get easier each time, right? Yes, it will.

We visited their brother's church again. We ate lunch with his sweet wife and the grandpuppy and the girls got to see the house now that it's finished. And a lovely house it is.

There goes a school bus and Mr. Michelin tire man is STILL feeding the birds. He must have quite a supply of bread or maybe he went to the Farmers Market and has a bucket of Indian corn. OK, my curiosity got the best of me. From the bedroom window I confirmed that it's geese he is feeding. I bet they come every day. Now then, those geese. I'm glad they are here because I miss seeing the ones at the lake a lot. You feel acquainted after 11 years.

And the little birds in the tree outside my window. It is warm enough to leave the window open. I like to sleep in pitch dark, but if there is the option to hear the night sounds, that wins over darkness.

This place is far more luxurious than any place I've ever lived. I would never go looking for a place like this. But now that I'm here, I am simply blown away by the presence of LIGHT in this place. Full sunlight indoors, like being outside as much as you please! An artist's haven.

Yes, I think my son has a good point, if you are going to make a home improvement, you may as well do it now while you yourself can enjoy it. So I'm thinking hardwood floors, get rid of the carpet. The carpet is nice for lying on the floor with pillows and dogs and falling asleep in front of the TV, but that is not why I'm here. Hardwood floors would mean, no worry about spilling paint on beige carpet, and dust mop easy clean. Yes, it would add significant value to the place when we sell too.

Anyway, I am glad I'm doing color charts even though no one is going to pay me for them. I am learning about my paints. Transparent. Opaque. Intense. Chromatic. Saturated. Unsaturated. Why didn't they teach me anything about color in my so called great art school? These are basics, for Pete's sake.

I shall visit a new church this week and I shall try to go to the Thursday evening group at Cathryn's. Curious.

It feels great to finally have email again and be able to communicate with my loved ones. We get so used to the way things are. I felt so detached with no email and even no phone for the first week. I am anxious to catch up with friends.

My sister sounds much better and that is like a drink of cold water on a hot day.

I told my other sister I moved. Have not told my brother yet.

Oh, yes, I wanted to scan my latest work of Kathy's house and publish it. Now I understand why I don't like the colors in some of my paintings. I had NO REGARD WHATSOEVER for which colors looked harmonious with other colors. I want to paint the house over, once in values only, then choose specific yellows and purples and blues from the color wheel and see, yes, that's much better. Her painting is definitely overworked now. Seems I've been doing a lot of that lately.

On one of my color wheels I made a mistake and made 16 slices of pie instead of 12, so that when I went around about 2/3 of the way, I realized I didnt have enough colors. Oh brother. I should do that one over. There are pigments in David's book that I do not own and since they are not on his Maine Masterclass list, I don't want to go buy them just to make a color wheel. I probably will in time, use lots of different colors. I wonder if he chooses those colors because it's Maine in summer and whether his classes during the year require different colors.

So far, it is working somewhat. I have been able to spend hours every day painting. I started keeping track by making squares and setting a timer, but that means getting up every hour and resetting the timer and I got lost in my work and forgot at times. Did I paint 8 hours yesterday? Probably more like 6. And I wrote, which counts. I need to make my SMART goals and send them to Ron. Oh dear, my excuse was I had no email, but that is not an excuse not to do it. I did type up my notes and highlight things which needed attention.

Moving is like dumping out all the puzzle pieces and starting over putting them back together. The more careful you are when you "undo" the puzzle, the easier it is to put it back together.

Where's the Stress?

2006-10-27T12:38:00.000-05:00

The week following pack-the-POD-day went fast. Different friends came each day to help me and I had time to say good-bye.

Daughter The Last and her boyfriend helped me get the rest of the stuff into the POD. It was dark and it was raining. Oh brother, what a mess. She got really tired and just started shoving things in. I didn't care; I was so grateful for her help. When we finished my knee was really, really paining me. I thought it was about midnight but the clock said almost 2am!! No wonder she was so tired.

The last week was not stressful, but the last day was chaos. The final walk through at 10 am: still a lot of boxes, cardboard, papers and bags all over the basement floor. The buyers had their list of things I was selling and looked at each one and bargained hard to reduce the price. I did not fight very hard. It did not seem worth it in light of the big fat check I was going to be walking away with. They wanted me to clean the oven and I said I can't. Can't you hire someone to do it? No, I'm sorry, I can't. The contract said "as is". I am going to sweep the whole house, as the contract says. I wish I could scour everything from top to bottom but I cannot. She reads to me from the contract:"free from debris". I say that means all this paper and trash. The realtor tried to claim that when they looked at the house before the oven was clean. I said no it wasn't. It has been like that a long time. Guilt trip bubbling beneath the surface for leaving a dirty oven but they relaxed when I said it's a self-cleaning oven.

They tried every window and every faucet and I thought didn't you check these things out before you wrote a contract "as is"?

They are nice people. But I was not sure if they were playing up their refugee status for all it was worth, working on my sympathy, or whether they were totally sincere. Every time I agreed to his low price offer he thanked me over and over. He told me how they came over after the Viet Nam war and how it hard it was, etc. Priming me for the next bargaining session? I don't know. When I found out later that she is a realtor herself and he a lawyer, I have to wonder. They know all the ploys of bargaining.

He tried to hurry her up. I said you can have the brand new stove if you will quit bothering me about not cleaning the oven. The realtor said she's taking it personally. No, I said. I simply cannot clean it today.

She said we'll have to do another walk through at 3:30.

I finally broke down (figuring I needed every second the rest of the day to clear out). I said if you'll let me leave everything on the list here in the house, you can have it all for free; I will just get all the trash out. They were thrilled.

One more thing I needed to do: go to work and say goodbye and turn in my card. So Patsy dropped my daughter and I off and we ate there while she ran to Costco. I said quick goodbyes. The store manager did not know I was leaving. H.R. took my picture for the Wall of Fame, co-worker of the month, which was 6 months ago. Limped as fast as I could down to my boss, sat down, "I have 30 seconds to say good-bye to you." He looked kind of shocked... thirty seconds? I said I always wanted another son. I said how is it going? Different day, same ---- he said. I did not tell him he really needs to clean up his language. I wish I could have been working these past few weeks but I could barely walk. We stood up and I hugged him with best wishes in his upcoming marriage. And I zipped out.

Met Child the Third at the exit and Patsy picked us up and we tore into the house. Stuffed everything into my car, dragged things to the street. Swept. They came at 3:15 "you can't come in yet, I'm still sweeping." They pulled lots of things out from the junk on the street "for the renters".

After the walk through, I locked the door and followed Joanne to the Title Company. Princess was in a little pocket of space in the front seat. It was cool, comfortable for her in the car.

Closing went very smoothly ... Joanne and I chatted and ate chocolates out of the big jar in the middle of the huge, glossy table. I had a view of my car from the window, so that if anyone tried to get into my car..... well, Joanne assured me no one would try anything with Princess in there.

Done.

At the girls' apartment and had my diet-to-go meal with me and we ate together. It was quiet. I mean their TV was on but there was no easy conversation or jokes.

When we went out to the car, they said good-bye to the dog first and then we hugged each other. Child the Third was crying a little and I was surprised at the strength of Daughter the Last's hug. She wouldn't let go. I felt awful. I did not expect that. I figured she'd be thinking: Yea! Mom's gone. We can do whatever we want!

I was sprinkling a little and getting dark. The whole drive down I kept thinking what have I done? What have I done? What have I done? It's final. Am I crazy?

It was 11:15 pm but I took 2 hours to unpack the car, because if I didn't, the POD would trap the car in the garage for 5 days. When it was empty I parked down by the pool.

So apparently the stress was all compressed into the last day. Every other time I've moved was hugely stressful for weeks prior. This time I only had one day of it. That's much better. If I had it to do over, I'd make my goal 3 days before closing and I'd move completely out and stay with friends the last few nights, as several of them offered.

Oh, well, next time.

The House is Echoing

2006-09-30T20:09:00.000-05:00

The POD arrived yesterday--the way it came off the truck was a fascinating bit of engineering. I won't even try to describe it, but if I have my wits about me I'll take some pictures when they pick it up.

There were about 10 of us, with Alec as foreman. Thank you, Katie, for sharing your DH, especially on a Saturday. He did an excellent job putting things in efficiently and tying them up as we went. I was mostly indoors limping around answering questions about which things went, which things stayed, and where the tape dispenser was. Patricia brought her big flask of coffee and some doughnuts. My house is dirty, but I have given up my perfectionism, now haven't I?

A neighbor came by who said she knows about the people that bought my house and she looked very sour-faced. These people have been buying houses in the neighborhood and renting them out. Well, if I had my druthers, the house would go to a family, but my realtor says "their money is green."

I think of how I wont be able to walk in my neighborhood any more and see people who have become part of my life (and their dogs). Last night Buddy and his human came by right when I was taking Princess into the house and I had to quickly put my bags down and make sure she didn't make me hurt my knee again. Buddy is a barker and though his human and I try to have conversations, we never can. There's another person I won't see walking by any more.

I didn't carry much, just limped around, up and down the stairs without bending my knee. I am anxious to find out what the MRI reveals. If I do need surgery, the sooner the better.

When everything was packed that could be packed, we pulled the plastic table into the living room and ate our Boston Market meal.

It is good to have friends. Each day last week someone came and helped me pack, and today, these came and helped put the things into the POD. If I were not half lame, I would have tried to do it all myself.

This is a big relief to have it all packed in. Now to clear out the rest, room by room and clean up the place for the new owners.

The off and on sprinkling didn't interfere with being the work. The grass is long, looks really lush, it's hiding all the weeds! The colors are starting to show up in some of the trees and the acorns are making noises on the roof, but I shall not be raking leaves this year at the condo.

Another neighbor walked through to 'get ideas for her house' which is just like mine. She asked if I were taking all my furniture and I said no, so she told me a couple things she'd like if I didn't take them.

I like my Parish group and I will miss these young people and P and P who have been good friends all this time. This is the first time I've moved somewhere all alone. Even when I went off to college, I roomed with my best friend and 3 girls from our High School were in the next rooms. I'm excited about it all, but it just seems strange.

David Critiquing

2006-09-18T22:28:00.000-05:00

Mostly finished painting of David critiquing our art.

A Unique Day

2006-09-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

I don't like to call out at work, but I went the the doctor and requested a note saying I must rest, since I stand up all day when I work. I sat on my bed with ice under my knee and ibuprofen in my bloodstream. OK, it seems to help a little. But I cannot bear to leave my people in the lurch on Saturday when everyone and their uncle shows up at the store. So I decide I'll go work. It's not too bad the first few hours but I trip ever so slightly on the entry mat and turn my knee again. Ow. As the night wears on it hurts more and more to walk. I do my closing duties and cannot wait to get home and OFF my knee. Same thing happens in the nursery in church. The tiniest wrinkle in the play rug catches my sandle and there goes my knee again. So I guess stay off means stay off.

One problem: I have a ticket to contest downtown and you are only allowed to reschedule your hearing outside of 5 business days and it's past that deadline. I call for directions and they say 'Oh it's right across the street from the Metro stop.' Yes, it is, but my address number is one numeral off from the one I see on the building, so I think: Maybe it is the one "next door" and I walk down a half city block, go in and find out that the entrance I need is BEHIND the one I just saw across from the Metro, so I ask for directions, the shortest way, please.

My knee hurts very badly. I am thinking I should have just paid it. It's not worth $50.00. This is not worth it.

Meanwhile, it's a Federal Building, you see, so they have taken the blades out of my utility knife which I am embarrassed to discover is in my tote bag. I use it at work and had forgotten in was in the tote. The nice man has his back to me and is fiddling and fussing. What is taking him so long? About 10 minutes go by and apparently he has a problem. I start saying Just keep the knife, I don't need it. Finally I say I need to go to my hearing now and he comes to me with my knife in pieces. Apparently he didn't know how to remove the blade so he unscrewed it and cannot figure out how to put it back together.

The other nice security man told me how to get to the other building going through the hall in the basement. So I go downstairs and proceed down the hall and get about halfway, limping more and more.

Suddenly there is an obstacle. I ask a nice woman how to proceed and she said you can't go through right now because of construction. Are you SURE there is no way through?! She is sure.

So I head back, Ow, Ow, Ow, now I have discovered that it helps to lean against the wall with my hand, taking some of the weight off my right knee.

I see a room number that matches the one on my paper so I think, Oh here it is and I go in. But I'm wrong. I have confused the street address with this room number. I finally make it to my room. One or two nice gentlemen and a lady have offered to help. Do you have wheelchairs? No, they say.

I sit for maybe 45 minutes and I'm called for my hearing. Of all days to forget my ibuprofen!

I am called several doors down in the other wing. She says take your time, whenever you get there....

Basically it is a problem of giving me 2 tickets for one speeding infraction. The photo is exactly the same and so are the cars in the photo passing me on the other side of the raod. So if these tickets are both accurate, it means I got off the beltway and drove around the block and went by the same camera 10 minutes later and at that exact moment, the two vehicles passed by going the other direction at the exact spot...not likely...

Only the times and speeds are written differently. So I suggest that...I don't know how these things work, but perhaps the person recording it decided he or she made a mistake and wanted to do the ticket over, but failed to delete the first record....I don't know.

She said I'm going to cancel BOTH tickets and refund you the money you already paid for the first one. My mouth drops, Thank you! (MAYBE it was worth coming down here, but I don't know .... to avoid all that pain MIGHT have been worth $150 plus Metro fare, Metro parking and hours of my day.)

I ask for the shortest way back to the Metro and wonder out loud if they sell advil at those little kiosks. She says she has Motrin and she shares two with me. "Bless you!"

Between the exit and the Metro there is a kiosk and I decide to eat a hot dog and chips for lunch. I'm expecting high prices but it's cheap. I guess it's because it's not tourist season. I sit on the stone wall and eat.

I'm thinking of how people do it who are chronically ill. I think refugees being forced to walk long distances, hungry and cold, no bathrooms available. I think of soldiers who must keep marching no matter how badly they are injured. I think I'm not very strong. When I'm sick or injured, these thoughts always come to me. I feel guilty for feeling my pain sometimes. Right now I think that's silly.

[[Once when I had minor surgery I was a young Christian and prayed that I might have more pain so that someone else might have less pain. Now that was downright goofball thinking. But interestingly enough, the anesthesia had not reached part of the area they were working on and I could feel it! Please don't make too much of this theologically.]]

But I have an awareness that God is with me and that He is looking at my life from a higher pinnacle on the mountain range. I am trekking up and down and get a glimpse of a panorama now and then and it takes my breath away. But He can see the whole thing all the time. I am aware that He is aware of me and I am amazed at Him again.

As I leave the parking lot I think I'm in good shape because I have not one but two smart trip passes to pay and get out. But alas, neither has enough money to open the gate so I have to repark, WALK back into the station, put more money on my card and WALK back out to my car. Ow, the pain with every step.

Finally I get out and driving home I just have a sense that this day is significant though I don't see why. I'm wondering if my coach's baby is being born, that would be hugely significant.

I get my ice pack and get on my bed. After 20 minutes of napping, I get my coffee and my paints.

The doorbell.
Uh, oh, I'll bet it's potential buyers. To save steps I open the window and talk to them. Yes it's a realtor with a couple. The wife is saying "I told her I wanted to see the candle house again! The candle house." I guess they've already been here and it must have been the day I knew I'd only be gone a few minutes so I left all the candles burning. I say do you want me to light them for you?

I get the dog leashed and turn on all the lights on my way to the back yard where I sit on my weathered bench and look at my trees. "MY" trees, right. I am grieving giving all this up. It's so beautiful. Why am I doing this again? OH, yes, I need the money and the house takes too much effort and expense...time... I need to spend time painting.

They are on the back porch now; I try not to listen. The realtor comes out and says I'm going to talk them into writing a contract. Well, that sounds great, but I don't let myself get too hopeful because they might change their mind at the next house. They ask a few questions about the roof and the new gutter and the property line. They love the color, not all white like all the others.

So the next day I had a contract and the following day they had my signature on it. And now that I have news from my life coach, I find it interesting that his baby boy was indeed coming into the world that very day!

nearing completion

2006-09-13T17:21:00.000-05:00

I tried to get these scans of my painting to come up side by side. At least they are in the same plane this time.
The project is put aside while I finish a book for my friend Faye. I like my painting of Bill Cosby, even though I cannot quite get the expression on his lips.

Working from a photograph

2006-09-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

There is so much in the way of subject matter to paint up there in Maine. On the day at John's, several classmates painted a ship that was being worked on near John's. I wanted to paint it too, but I wanted to paint water that day, so I took lots of pictures intending to paint the ship when I returned home.
Once I had the photos, I chose the one to work from that had the most interesting composition.
The thing I've noticed is that the contrast is very strong in my photos. The dark buildings are all one value and I keep having to hold the photo up to the light to see the details within the dark shapes. I know this would look totally different if I were sitting right there. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. You want to be able to see the lights and darks, which is harder to do in person. But you also want to be able to see subltle colors inside the shapes to use in your color balancing act.
Oh my, I have so much to learn.
I spoke with a friend a church who told me she is taking a photography class and she said you can control that and she kindly sent me a copy of notes about aperture settings and I need to learn how to use my manual setting on my camera and get photos that bring up the colors in the shadows.
It is a perfect fall day and the hawks are announcing that school has started. Some one is showing the house this afternoon.

Tuumble might be interested

2006-09-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

I have been painting a picture of the ship at John's for about 2 weeks. See two halves above and good luck connecting them with your eye. It's too big to scan. The copy above is from a few days ago.

I've decided it may help to write about trying to make it work. Within the first couple days I wanted to quit. I didn't like it. But David said finish the painting. So I stayed on the project.
It is two ramshackled buildings on the Maine coast with a ship in the background between them.

I saw improvement when I painted in the dark behind the fence which links the two buildings. That gave me the architectural footprint I meant to start out with but
got distracted from.
The fence became a challenge which I did not draw correctly and had to go back and erase and repaint parts. Then there was the window with the odd post in front of it.
The ship looked nice in the background but I didn't like the surface of the two buildings.
I wanted color and shape balance, but all I could see was a lot of gobbledy gook and tons of fussy details. Fussy is not one of my values in painting though lots of average people love fussy details in watercolor and would pay for it.
Once I had a significant amount of fuss in the painting, I decided I could not hurt it by finishing it with more fuss.
Now it is almost done and it's too big to scan. Actually I can scan about half of it at a time and I did at a certain point.
I would have liked it better had I stopped and not put in more lines and wires going to and from the ship.
Soluntiions:
The red building looked awful. It had a dark green accent on it which made it great fodder for a painting, but the paint job I had done looked sloppy and flat and boring. I added dark shadow under the eaves. I kept looking at the photo. Finally I decided to try putting in the details of the boards that made up the side of the building. What have I got to lose. So I mixed up more red brick colored paint and took a flat brush and made strokes leaving a tiny lighter space between strokes. When that was dry I put some dark marks where the boards met the corner of the building. Then I did the same with the wider boards of the open door. It is looking more realistic all the time. If I cannot finish it in suggestive shapes and balanced color, I may as well finish it in fussy detail. At least it will get finished.
My pallet looks a mess and my paints keeps trying to dry up on me because I keep jumping up to do this and that (eat lunch, let the dog out, let the dog in, make coffee, answer the phone, go to the bathroom).
There is dog hair everywhere including in my paints. She lies at the end of the bed and often takes my spot when I get up to do an errand. She wants to know why we haven't been out for a walk for a week. I tell her I'm sorry but I hurt my knee and doctor says rest.
There are places where the edges are crisp and the detail is correct. And there are places where I had to much paint on my brush and the lines are wobbley. There are place where I erased by lifting pigment with water and paper towel.
I have a post card sized version of this scene and I like it a lot, but I have not been looking at it for several days. Yesterday I found my online copy of it and doctored it up -- experimenting with lines, paintbrushes, erasers and airbrush. I saw some interesting effects and tried to save it but it did not save.
I want to get out books and look at landscapes and find what I could do to my painting that would redeem it.
I darkened the fence with cerullian and Verditer blues to tone it down. It was too white for a rainy day and a dirty old fence. The blue tied it in with the blue of the window in the red building.
Then there is that white board in the front and center. Would the picture be better if I totally painted it out? It is interesting to me that the paint I put down was minimal, but now I can tell it's a dirty old white board hinged to the fence.
What's next? What do I need to do to finish it? If the texture of boards helped the red building, then will texture help the green roof on the left side? Again it can't hurt to try because this painting was long since given over to fussy detail.
I keep thinking of the critique at which Christy said "I am trying to dig myself out of a very deep hole." I did not see what the hole was that she was digging out of, but I observed that though she did not like what she had started in her painting, she was staying with it and finishing it.
I just know that the average joe might look at this work and like it BECAUSE of the fussy detail. It does not hurt me to practice this skill of accurate copying of what I see. This makes me remember again my teacher's words: Every once in a while you have to draw really well. He said that a few times this year in class.
I know he's not referring to fussing, but still I need to be able to draw really well, so on we go, finishing this painting with realistic touches. At the same time, I keep looking for color balance and I think I need another master class or two to understand how David does it. I look forward to finishing this picture and not having to look at it any more. I think it will look better framed and on the wall.
10 a.m. Time to get back to it.

midnight editor

2006-08-31T08:19:00.001-05:00

Flylady talks about the Midnight Editor. I have been writing on my prayer book this morning about a thought that came to me.
My coach asks me "What has helped you in the past?"
I was thinking about this question with regard to my present challenge of not being able to get myself to work 9 to 5 as if I am a paid artist. Another of his questions goes with: What is it going to take?
I listed things I have succeeded at before:
motherhood
marriage
graduated from college
superhero job at work
AIT
IBS
USPTA certification
working as a tennis professional
playing on a USTA team
working for BI for 4 years after my husband died
my first commissioned art project
D.Dewey's watercolor masterclass
11 years as a missionary, 31 years on staff of a mission organization

Here's what came to mind: all of the above had tracks to run on except marriage and motherhood.

Then I imagined my distance runner coach running in a race with no path set out for him, out on some hills and plains looking left and right, running this way for a while and then making a right turn for no reason whatsoever, his head going back and forth trying to think of which way to run, all the while running and spending lots of energy. There are weeds and rocks and uneven ground under his feet in this mental image. This makes me laugh. It is so absurd and it looks funny in my mind.

But truly, what makes it funny is it's absurdity. And it is way too close to the truth of what I have been doing. So why do I run around like a chicken with my head cut off?
And why am I trying to reinvent the wheel?

Next to each accomplishment on the list, I wrote what made me succeed? What made me get to the finish line?

Each time THERE WERE TRACKS TO RUN ON.
USPTA certification. I had a big fat notebook to study, hours of classes to teach (practice) and a pro to teach me how to teach.
college degree. It took 4 years, someone else decided the requirements, someone else gave the assignments and the grades; it was all planned out before I got there.
AIT (training to go overseas as a missionary) 3.5 months were set aside and we went to CA to sit in class, do assignments, play psyche games, study the Bible, turn in homework assignments and build team skills.
my first art commission. There were 30 pictures to paint. Each poem provided the idea for the painting.
Marriage--this one did not have specific enough tracks to run on, but the basic thing that made it successful was that we were both committed to making it work for the sake of honoring Christ, and I was committed to following my husband's leadership, so that I was not making up my own life route, that was decided by my husband (yes, I had input.)
4 years working after my husband died. I chose to help a specific person and just showed up and did what she wanted. There was no deciding on my part.
superhero stint. same thing, I showed up and did what the big managers asked. I was paired with a young woman who had administrative and leadership gifts and I said I don't care if I'm twice your age and then some, you decide, I'll help you do whatever.
D.Dewey's Watercolor Masterclass. I showed up and painted every day. He decided where we painted and using watercolor was a given and I tried to do what he told us to do.

So back to the coach running a race. No, he is not looking around wondering which way to run. He is on a specific track and you had better believe he's on the inside of the curve taking the shortest route to the finish line!

Then I wrote down: If you don't want to do the marketing part of your artist job, look for a gallery who will put up your work or hire someone to market your work on line and/or get a SCORE mentor who has done this before and ask him or her to do it for you.
Next I wrote: You know you are going to want a website.

Ron has said many times without a vision the people perish. It is scripture and the principle applies broadly to life. I am like that fire hydrant that has its cap off and the water is gushing out but there is no hose or nozzle attached to point the water at the base of the fire.

Why, I ask myself, have I gotten up and dinked around things at home since my mate died? I have given myself permission to grieve, that's a good thing, but not to the extent of allowing laziness.
I was overwhelmed and that was on top of already being a SHE (side-tracked home executive). So what I was dealing with was 30 years of living in Quadrant One (urgent plus important) as a mom, doing whatever seemed most pressing at the time to keep my family alive and well. Being in the helper role as a wife, almost 30 years of that. Suddenly he is gone and now my kids are almost grown and I'm not living to keep them alive moment my moment any more, they are almost independent.
When I was stressed out with fighting fires, I'd escape into Quadrant Four, time wasters like too much TV, sleep, and although I do not think tennis was exactly a time waster, yet I played any time I could because it was good therapy to crunch the fuzz right off the ball and get out all my frustration and hostility by getting physical on the court.

Now since I quit my BI job, and am about to terminate my present job and launch into full time writing and painting, it sure looks to me like I've been trying to reinvent the wheel.

I am making up a path for the first time. Others have had careers writing and painting and there is a way they have done it. I have a life purpose statement and I have made long term and short term goals but I lose sight of them (which must be why I paddle out a few feet from the dock and then stop)

Last thought: I have a love hate relationship with being single. I love the freedom and the thought of being someone else's follower is very unappealing to me now, but I realize that along with my freedom, only I own the responsibility for my life. If only I could find someone perfect who was doing exactly what I want to do and I could follow him. There is no such person.

I want to stay free and independent, but I am not yet able to lead myself successfully. I don't want to follow any more.

Well, none of this is really new. My coach and I have discussed these things, but the image of him running a race with no track....that helps me understand a little better why I am not winning my race yet.

Time to paint. I think I have more to say about this but not now.

To Tuumble

2006-08-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

How did you find my blog? Tell me more about what you are up to. I presume you said your comment was spam because you sent it to lots of people.
Annie

Sandbox

2006-08-25T07:25:00.000-05:00

I remember the big sandbox down at Mr. Neil's at the end of the street. All the kids in the neighborhood played there. Now my doctor has a tiny sandbox in her office for patients to mess with while they wait. It is about 10 by 10 inches and maybe one inch deep. It has two little wooden rakes, one with thick straight tines and one with longer, curvy spindley ones, a broom and several little rocks. She says it's a Zen thing. I usually clean up the spilled sand on the edges and on the table. I like the stones to be out from under the sand. I don't like the sand to be up to the edges spilling out. Then I just play with the rakes and make patterns in the sand.

And?

Why sandboxes? Some people play in them for a living and it's hard work.

When I played in the sandbox, I felt safe. Not even a problem with cats using the sandbox as a toilet. Well, possibly what we didn't know didn't hurt us....

Those who play in a sandbox in 2006 may or may not be safe. There are THINGS in the sand. Your job is to look at them and make sure they are not going to hurt you or your friends. If they threaten, your job is to neutralize them, or direct your party elsewhere. You couldn't pay most people enough to take on a job like this.

So I am going to get through this day and encourage my sandbox hero to do the same. One day, this one, this moment, actually, is all we have. We don't have 4 months. We have this moment. What are you going to do with it? Worry about how long 4 months is? Do my work the best I am able. Trust God. Smile. Paint pretty pictures and sell them. And sleep with a clear conscience.

last day

2006-08-16T15:04:00.000-05:00

Day Five Year Two

I forgot that if it is raining by 8:30 we are to call David and get instructions. A few of us turn up at the assigned place but no one is there. Last year we painted at this spot and it was raining. So we go to David's and get directions. They are in one of the local's studio. What a great place, windows on all sides and tables all around and a big center island. David is showing his book from Europe. It's wonderful to see and to hear him talk through his paintings. The owner has a yellow lab puppy named Lucy. After the class we look around the owner's home and see paintings everywhere and lots of windows looking out onto the water.

It's time to have lunch at David's house prepared by Kathy and her friend from NJ. Again I look all over the house at all the paintings. I hate to think of leaving and I'm disappointed that we did not get to paint. Two women come and ask me if I'd like to paint with them after lunch. YES! Perfect. We say our goodbyes and David is planting "mwah!" type kisses on our cheeks. I am surprised when one of the men doesn't want to let go of my hand when we are saying goodbye, and he wants to know if I'm coming next year.....yikes.

At Thomaston Harbor there is lots to paint. The nice young ladies at the restaurant make us coffee even though they are closed. Joan decides the umbrellas will look good opened, so she asks and we go open all of them. We think Susan is painting the umbrellas and we think she will be happy, but apparently she wasn't painting the umbrellas at all. She didn't even notice.
She has her big ole lab with her and he's been swimming. I try to teach him to drink water out of my camelpak.

I think I'll paint something realistic, but my painting turns out primitive looking, something that doesn't look like my work. I paint another post card sized picture of a white house peeking over some tall grass.

Before driving back home, I spent an extra day with my hostess, my daughter's mom in law. She takes me all around and shows me the area. It is a perfect day and we eat lunch outdoors by the water. I can't get enough of fish sandwiches. On the way home we stop to buy lobsters. The last man in line pretends we are his good friends and asks the lobsterman if he will get us some lobsters. I don't think he fooled anyone but the nice young man goes out in his boat and pulls some right out of the water for us. He only has soft shell, so we get 4. Two each. Now that was a satisfying dinner! I used up all my melted butter too. Ahhhhh. Maine.

John's

2006-08-07T18:46:00.000-05:00

I think his name was John. Day Four, Year Two

He has a place out on the water where he tinkers. He has a very slapped together, very OLD group of buildings and lots of airplane parts, airplane photos with history in them, and other odd pieces of art and photos. He is there welding a bike part. Next to him is the body of a small plane. He has a little room where opera music plays. Going into the building where the bathroom is smells just like my grandfather's garage. I think it's the wood, plus the humidity, and all the STUFF, there is lots of stuff... and age of the place. Smells are so powerful to the memory. But he is David's friend and says we can come out there any time and paint. David likes places where there is ample stuff lying around to paint.

He paints a dock with an aircraft carrier and a lighthouse off on the horizon. On the shore near where we sit, it looks like someone has dumped bales of hay into the water and they have become all soggy and are rotting. But on closer observation, I see that they are Maine rocks covered with some kind of sea weed --- something yellowy brown and stringy looking.

I consider trying the same scene he chose, just to see what would happen. I had tried to copy a couple of his paintings out of his book the week before I left.

It takes me a long time to settle on an idea. Using my camera lens, I finally decide, but I think I have decided just because I feel pressure to get going, not because I like my idea. I use big paper today. I know I need to learn to work bigger. I prop my new board up on my knees and use my rolling backpack to support the other end. Big sketch. It's gray and overcast again. I lay in my big washes. After several washes the paper will start buckling, but I can't get what I want. I mix too many colors and it look muddy to me. I paint a dock and a tugboat as one shape. I have poles framing the sides leaning into the picture. The water gets muddier. I put reddish brown into the sky to balance the dock and it looks awful. One of my classmates had told me he liked the sky right before I did it and he said "I'd leave that sky alone."

While waiting for my washes to dry, I paint a little sketch of the cement silos, one square and one round. It takes only about 5 minutes. They are HUGE and they are fascinating, especially since we are situated right at the base of them, making them all the more dramatic in size. There is a ladder way up there leading from the top of one to the other. I wonder how you get up there. I paint some very small windows in the sides of them. I take some photos.

Several people walk by and comment on my dock painting. I say I hate it and want to rip it up and start over, but I must keep going and see what happens. This is another thing David has taught us. If you have an idea, and it doesn't seem to be working, keep going anyway.

David comes by and I say go away. He makes some helpful comments and I am sorry that I am being childish and letting myself get upset with my work. I brought a sandwich today so I don't have to take time off to go buy food. But it starts to rain a little. In fact it dripped all over David's demonstration and he talked of some artist who has a painting in a gallery in ...was it San Diego? and the painting has spots like this all over it.

I put all my things in a little carport like shelter that has a lawn mower in it so that I don't have to pack it all into my car and I drive off to find Dunkin Donuts. When I get back and drink my coffee the rain is over and we resume painting. Some are finished. I still don't like my work, but it did improve. People said they liked it. It's hard to accept a compliment when you yourself don't like it. I guess it was mostly the muddiness of the color that I disliked. And to define the pier supports, I had to go darker and darker till there was no darker left to go.

My 2 poles on the sides like parentheses look dumb to me.

One person who is not in the class this year came by and told me she thought it was David's demonstration painting. Now that is a high compliment to me and a grand insult to him.

It's Lobster Pound night and we all go out. I bring my Red Truck wine and share it with my table mates. We drink out of little paper cups but I see someone at the other table has brought wine glasses. I have on my plastic bib and someone must have gotten my hard shell because she comes out with only one lobster left and it's soft shell. OK I say and they refund me the difference in price which I put into the tip jar. It's good but it seems like I only get about 6 or 7 bites. The corn is not very good. But it's lovely sitting out there by the water and there is a beautiful orange lambswool sunset over the heads of my tablemates. One guy says hey we should rent one of those boats and go out on the bay. I say yeah, but we don't do it. Everyone breaks up and I drive home.

Day Three

2006-08-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

Day Three, Year Two

We go to Drift In Beach. It's supposed to be 98 and extremely high humidity but the clouds keep us comfortable until at least afternoon. It's pretty stifling in the port-o-potty. I stay under the pine trees because I know the sun may come out soon. I am working on two trees making a shape with the shore rocks. He had painted a beautiful buttery yellow shape in the sky and the blues and grays framing it, but I didn't really see it until he said buttery and put it into his painting.

I went to the General Store at Port Clyde and have a sandwich and I find another bottle of Red Truck wine. A new tradition has started. It is for Thursday night at the Lobster Pound.

We comment to each other how much information comes out of David as he teaches us. It feels overwhelming. You want it all. I take notes. Others do too, and some are sketching or painting while he demonstrates. But I realize that although he gives out more than I can understand, more than I can assimilate, he goes over some things many times, and that eventually I will learn if I just listen and watch, and then try to do it. I realize I understand better this year than last when he talks of building a painting from the back forward. I get his "architectural footprint" a little more this year.

When the sun comes out in the afternoon, it wants to change the look of my painting. David can remember the look and keep to his original plan, but I am a novice, and I want to keep changing my picture as the light, colors and shadows change. Again I do a tiny 3 by 5 painting while waiting for the bigger one to dry. There are lots of people on this small beach, lots of kids. I want to paint them but they are wiggley. David says make them wiggle, but the day is almost over and I finish my painting.

At critique many of us have tried to do what he is talking about rather than just going on painting the way we always do. I see more economy in others' paintings. He says mine is like yesterday's in this way. He talks about the negative space and shows how he would draw the painting outlining the negative spaces. I think, yes, that is how I did draw that painting, so I guess I did something right. I put buttery yellow in my sky too, but I think I was planning to go and add something else when it dried, but I never did. The water was too dark, but people still like it. They comment on the composition and tell me they like the one I did yesterday a lot.

The Lobster Festival started today, but I have no desire to go this year. Too crowded in the midway.

Collective Sigh

2006-08-07T17:04:00.000-05:00

Day Two, Year Two

We went to Fisherman's Pier with the smell of fish and the air full of gulls. This is where I painted a lobster boat last year, the first painting I liked, the one David said I should frame and put on my mantle.

His demonstration is of a red building that seems to be in a lot of his paintings. The sky is gray and he makes the window seen through the open door effectively part of his composition. He is so good. I forget to take pictures of his demonstrations. My camera battery is unreliable too. While he is painting someone comes and tells him that we might want to move...they're bringing in a truck to pick up a huge mast. They offered us 20 minutes. 20 minutes was ok anyway. David handles pressure well. I think he likes it. But I never did see them come get the mast.

I paint a small ship head on. I don't know what kind it is or what it is used for. The air smells like dead fish and I want to go near the lobstermen and listen to them sounding like Mainers, but I go to the same spot I was in last year. The boat is attractive and is painted dark green and red, my beloved Seattle colors.

It takes me a while to decide how to set up my composition. Composition, that is what I really wanted to learn about this year. I cannot remember anything I may have learned about composition in art school. Perhaps I should have played less frisbee and done more homework. To frame pictures I look through my camera lens and move it around until the grouping pleases my eye. I have learned that you can move things around any way you like when you are making art.

While my big painting dries I do a sketch of the same scene on my post card sized paper. While that dries I go back to my big painting. I like my ship but I'm not done when it's time to go to critique.

I talk a little with some of the other class members.

He goes through all the paintings and I like a lot of them. When he gets to mine it is the last one and when he holds it up there is a collective audible response. I am shocked. They really like it, I guess. I do, too. It is totally different from the bright and primitive work of yesterday.

He says he hates to use this word, but this is an almost perfectly painted picture. I am shocked again. I know I am trying to get a basic shape to make a piece of art on the paper, and I feel I understand a little better what he means when he talks about this, but wow. He uses the word economy, which means I am not overpainting and being fussy. Good thing I ran out of time, I may have gone there.

I decide I'm not touching this picture, lest I ruin it, though I decide I must try to repaint it and finish it with just a little more 'information'. David tells me how HE would finish the bowsprit (or whatever it's called, the thing coming up off the front of the boat like a trumpeting elephant) and I make a mental note. I think this class is a little better than last year.

No Disappointment

2006-08-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

Year Two of David Dewey's Watercolor Masterclass Workshop.

Since last year, my first experience, my feet hardly touching the ground all week, this year I was trying to keep myself from being too psyched up, lest I set myself up for a feeling of let down.

Ah, no.

I drove up to Bath to stay with my good friend, the mom of my daughter's husband. It takes about 12 hours. Next morning I'm up very early to make the hour plus commute, but I'm still late. I misjudged how much time it took for the commute to Owl's Head, forgot about the slow moving trucks on the two lane road, and did not remember to review the details to David's house, and I couldn't find 73 at first.

So I felt badly because he held off starting until I arrived. Although I saw many familiar faces, they didn't seem all that welcoming. He says we were just chatting. I apologized sincerely.

We stay right there in downtown Owl's Head and he does a demo of the back of the general store. I paint two kyacks on a rack and it looks like a banana and a frisbee. Very bright. He says it's hard not to like this painting at the critique. (My subconscious is wondering, is this a way of saying, you shouldn't like this painting!?) He says that my painting says: "I'm up in Maine having a wonderful time."

Christie, his assistant, had told one of my classmates nearby to come look at my picture. I'm not afraid to use my darks and make my shadows deep. That is why I chose to paint the kyacks, the drama between the garish yellow and red and the deep shadows. But again, just like last year, it looks like 6th grade prang paints to me and it is bloppy and full of too much overflowing paint.....

I am not so concerned about the critique this year though. I am here to learn.

Celtic Woman

2006-07-24T14:33:00.000-05:00

After 11 years I finally got myself and my girls to the outdoor theatre. "Where the arts come out to play." I've always wanted to go there and all 3 of us like the music of "Celtic Woman". Perfect.

We didn't know how early to go, but we packed food and my camelpak with a little bottle of wine inside the ice water pouch. Alcohol is permitted. Parking was free and we hiked up the hill. It was a warm summer evening and we were one of the first to arrive. The others arriving looked like they'd done this many times. They planted their coolers and packs by the gates. So we did the same.

The late afternoon sun created high contrast between the dark green pines and the white tent. I pulled out my paints and painted a little sketch, writing in colors since I thought I would not finish. We waited by the gates for about an hour. I had a travel pad of watercolor paper and a tiny paint set with one brush. I used a few drops of water from the camelpak and mixed colors in the pan lid.

The gates opened 90 minutes before the show and we hustled along with the veterans down the hill to get a prime seat on the grass, spread out our blankets and pulled out our food.

DD the elder had brought a book of Mad Libs. Each page has a story with blanks. She asks for a noun, a verb, a name of someone in the group, an adjective. When the blanks are filled she reads the story and it comes out non-sense. We laugh at the funny ones.

My sandwich wasn't that good, but I didn't really care what I ate. They had bought 3 pounds of macaroni salad, yeah, I'd say that was a bit more than we needed! We ate about 1/10th of it. She bought chicken, too. It was a happy place to be, on the lawn, looking around at all the other picnickers. What a great family outing.

It was still light when the show began.

They come out. We cheer. They sing. Their voices are high and clear and feminine and they are in beautiful dresses. We have 2 sets of binoculars and they all look beautiful. The backgroud visuals are waves on a sea. They sing of love and of Ireland. Some in English, some in fairy language. The girl with the violin IS a fairy, I'm sure of it. She is barefooted and she dances around flinging her long blong hair as she plays. Her skirt is like a fairy's skirt. Her ankle is wrapped. Their voices blend. There are 8 or 10 back-up singers, both guys and girls, and they are dressed in black. We have heard many of the songs before. We have seen this show on PBS and my youngest has the CD.

At intermission, I roll over, the pressure on the tailbone gets to you sitting on a slope. When they begin again it is dark and their visuals change to moon and stars. I love the dress that is deep blue with red-orange trim at the top and bottom. They each dress in different colors.

I love the flute, and the flute player has a rack with about 6 different flutes in it and he changes them out and also plays bagpipes and mandolin. The 2 drummers use drumsticks that I have not seen before, but I cannot remember the last concert I went to so what do I know? The two drummers have one piece they play with a drum in one hand that looks a little like a tamborine, and some sort of sticks in the other and they walk around taking turns playing with the fairy and her bass violin.

It has cooled off and people are covering up. I have on 2 long sleeved layers so I'm not cold but we put one blanket under us and cover up with another.

They end with You Lift Me Up So I Can Climb on Mountains and we all stand up for them.

We would do this again.

For Sale

2006-06-29T16:25:00.000-05:00

Apparently I have someone interested but my realtor sent him off to the lender to see if he can handle it. I'm not getting my hopes up yet.

I hated to trash the trampoline, it being such a source of joy. But the girls both said they probably wouldn't have a place to set it up - wherever they are moving - and hauled it to the street. I am looking out the window at a man unfolding the jumpy part. He puts it into his truck and proceeds to the driver's seat. I go out. Aren't you going to take the whole thing? No, I just want to cover my fire wood. I say I have a friend who is interested in it for his kids. He gives me his cell number and we agree that if my friend wants it he can call. My friend does want it, so I hauled it back off the street so he can pick it up. The trash guys are coming today.

We slept on the porch again. I was planning to anyway, since it is so nice and the insect orchestra is playing nightly. But I had extra incentive in that my "to sort" box got sorted all over my bed, but not put into files yet!

In the morning the orchestra of bugs is taken over by birds. I watch the changes of the light behind the trees. At night they look like dark masses and you can see all sorts of creatures and objects in their shapes if you have any imagination. In the morning, the shades of green start to appear and then the oak branches.

I have my coffee on the porch swing. Lots done yesterday in the category of "puttsing around". I like puttsing around if I'm tackling things I've been wanting to do for a long time. I was looking for my ticketmaster gift card in my box labeled "to sort". It's a pretty white box, a convenient way to stash low priority mail and odd paper projects. It is sorted now, thus the piles on my bed. DON'T YOU LOVE THROWING AWAY PAPER?

So while this guy was looking at the house, I went with my daughters to look at a basement apartment. She is miffed that the guy doesn't want pets, 'who can cause damage and leave little presents behind when you move the sofa', while the place he is offering stinks like smelly basement and seems kinda hard to damage in her opinion. I say landlords make blanket rules like that because they've had bad tenants in the past. I waited my turn in the car with the dog, but they both got the creeps in there and said I shouldn't bother going in. However the guy called twice and said when can you move in? He wants her of all those who came to look. Apparently he rents out the other parts of the house to other folk. I'm more concerned about who this guy is and who else lives in the house than the stinky basement issues.

I called my in-laws to tell them I'm selling the house. Grandpa sounds old, slower in speech, but he appreciates knowing what we're up to. My son will be with them tomorrow and they're excited. Grandma says we can't travel any more and when are you coming to see us? An email to friends about moving produced MANY responses - all positive, very affirming. It is good to have friends.

I need to find that ticketmaster card because we are planning to go to see the Celtic Women and they might be selling out. Not finding it is at least getting me to declutter yet more paper in the search.

It is a good feeling getting caught up on all the things that need to be fixed in the house. And it's only getting done because it's for sale.

The decision to sell was a long time coming but there is no turning back now. I have so many pro/con lists I could wallpaper my house with them.
Pro/con: move or not move.
Move to the village or rent? Rent or buy?
Move to a place my daughters can live with me, or move by myself?
Rent out the basement or move?
Pay a realtor or let my son do for sale by owner?
Rent out the downstairs for studio space or move?
Get out of bed or stay in bed (ok, I didn't make a pro/con list about that...)
Move to the village or to the beach?
Move to the beach temporarily or move straight to the mountains?
Move to Seattle or Colorado or N.C. or the beach? yikes!

This is an adventure for sure. Scarey, and also exciting.

The realtor, J.D., has been over here several times in the past few years discussing the possibility of moving. This time I was ready....um, I think.
Yes, I am sure. No turning back. I'll grieve and move forward.

-- off to the flower nursery to get lots of red, fuscia and blue flowers with little accents of white. I lose my good sense in that place. Too many gorgeous colors! I bought pre-planted containers, which I never do but I wanted instant garden. They were all so beautiful gathered in under a little awning with bubbling fountains. A soothing sound that drew me in and slowed my pace. I guess that's why people put fountains in their gardens. I loaded up my cart and went home $140 later. An investment in the sale of my home. "Spend money to make money."

Bit by bit the long wooden planter by the side of the house sank into the soft earth the past couple of years, neglected. My daughter and I moved it so that it would be in view when you come out of the screened porch. Her end lost its two iron legs, rotted right off the bottom. But we propped it back up on them. I put 6 potted plants down inside, hiding their pots and had an instant planter. Looks wonderful. Vincas, begonias and impatiens in red, fuscia, pink and white.

Out front I set everything down and schemed. First the hanging basket went up: voluptuous red begonias and those hanging up-side-down purple and red flowers -- I have no idea what they are called -- and some brilliant pink geraniums. I extended the chain hanger so that it hangs just above the porch rail.

Then on each side of the sidewalk, oh boy, this is where I spent more time than I wanted to. I kept moving and rearranging until I felt the colors were balanced. In the end I needed more red.

My back is being iced. My right elbow feels tennis elbow-ish.

Anyway it was threatening to rain again that night. We were soggy from storms and they evacuated a town to the North of us due to the weakening of a dam.

I ask my youngest how she is feeling about moving.
It sucks, she says. (sorry)
She will have to grieve too.

I moved the books to my car, the ladder to storage artwork back into portfolios behind my new art storage chest.

My weeding method: Make sure the ground is wet. Take a flat shovel and slide it just under the soil loosening the weeds' roots and then grab them. Shake off excess dirt and pitch into a pile.

The dog went out with me but she ran and hid when I got out the hose to do the back windows with outdoor Windex, the one you attach to your hose. It works pretty well.

I took the storm window off the front and washed both sides. That is a big one and requires a screwdriver and a little wiggling of the exacto knife between the cracks to get it off, then somehow wrestling it back on because the black rubber rim is coming off making it too wide. But I won and the windows are clean.

There is such a long list of things we COULD do, but I know certain things are more important than others. And I know that my front storm window is cleaner than it needs to be. It's hard to clean half-heartedly.

I've had a ton of exercise but I still would like to walk the dog.
When I stand up after gardening and feel the stiffness in my back, I always love looking over the transformation that has taken place. I really like digging in the dirt and yes, I tell the plants they will like it here though in truth, they are potted and I intend to take them with when I move. The hostas are starting to bloom.

I didn't feel very happy finishing putting all my husband's books into my car. The last of his ministry and I'm just giving them away. I pulled out a few. It's good I didn't have my glasses on or I might have started reading one of them. Now my car is loaded up I'll have to find out which church might want these books for their library.

I'm not looking forward to telling my boss I'm leaving. No, that will not be fun. I have started feeling the loss at my job, too.

A Dream

2006-06-11T16:44:00.000-05:00

We were a group somewhere working at some sort of conference. My dog was there, as were other peoples' dogs and they were all in soft sided crates put right next to each other in one area of a room. Uh oh, will she be able to bite through this fabric?

We talked amongst ourselves as people do when they work together. My best friend from High School was there and we were laughing. Our projects took us from room to room. Were we carrying and moving things? Setting up as in where is everyone going to sleep? Was it like camping only indoors? It was a temporary situation, but was it because of terror threats or loss of electricity? Something was going on, but all I remember is that we were in a group.

(This is one of my recurring dreams, traveling and working in a group. Most of these dreams I've had are about everyone else seemingly knowing what their place is and what they are supposed to be doing and I am sidelined trying to figure it out.)

There was a man there who spoke with me and others a few times and I found him interesting. I don't remember what he said, or even the topic, but he caught my interest. Our conversation was brief but I was able to talk to him and respond to his comments with something he apparently found interesting in return. He was nice, he was intelligant, he was funny and he was somewhat tall with a medium sized build. I think he was blond. He was I think from the U.S., He was educated well and listened to what I said. I also do not remember what I said. Later we all needed to go somewhere and I discovered I only had flip flops that were shrunken to about 2/3 sizeed. I was laughing and wearing them anyway. I said something about my daughters putting them through the wash. They were tight on my feet, but the place was cluttered and things were all out of place and it didn't seem safe to go bare foot.

We were lining up for breakfast, French Toast? I could not see the whole picture in my mind, only the people immediately around me. Did I have money? Did I need it or was it already paid for? Can't remember.

So somewhere in this event, this man, who remained nameless, asked me out. He asked me to go to Kosovo with him. He said there was a nice place there where he loved to go dancing, and he described the feeling of the place. Kosovo?! Do people fly over the Atlantic on the first date? Weird. I was shocked and I said something to him about what would I do with my dog? But I wanted to go. The dream went on. As he was going into the other room, I overheard him....say to his companion that I would have a good effect on him. I felt flattered and surprised. But shocked at the invitation to go out 'to Kosovo'. Now then by this time in the dream he was either turning into the star of the Gods Must Be Crazy or he reminded me of that guy. I was thinking Wow, he's a movie star and he asked ME out. I was working and he was behind me and I was aware that I was not in my nice clothes but in grubby jeans and not conditioned and feeling fat and wondering whether he was checking me out physically and finding me unappealing and changing his mind. If he has seen me and still asked me out, then maybe physical conditioning is not so important to him at our age.

My girlfriend came to me later and said that guy wants to know if you want to go with him, he was serious. Without a moment's hesitation I said YES emphatically and we were together again and I was apologizing for not giving a clear answer to his invitation. Suddenly he was a potential new husband not just a date and again I was amazed that he valued ME. He and I were both older and I realized that you kind of look at people more realistically if you've been married. In my dream I thought of him saying "Ay yi yi yi yi" like the guy in the movie. It made me laugh, it attractcd me to him for him to identify with the guy who was clumsy with women, but this man, I don't think, was uncomfortable with women. It was something else that reminded me of that actor, maybe his looks? His work as a scientist in Africa? I don't know. For him to take me to Kosovo to dance meant he had money. It also meant he knew how to dance and liked to dance. I began calculating how fast I'd have to take dance lessons and practice! Answer, you really don't have time to get dance lessons...he doesn't mean next month. But I have always wanted to learn to dance and I was thinking maybe he could teach me. I know I CAN dance, I just need lessons before I'm too old. How did he know Kosovo? Was he an intellect, a scholar, a diplomat, an international business man? He is a traveler. I want to travel. To ask someone to Kosovo definitely means he's adventuresome. He definitely thinks outside the box. My best friend didn't try to come in between me and him either. She didn't flirt with him and try to divert his attention from me to herself (not how it was back in the days...)

I woke up sighing.....a romantic person to release me from all my present worries and take me far away to dance in Europe. Someone who is smart and yet still finds ME interesting and values me the first time he meets me. As I was waking, I was thinking: I think this was a Christian gathering, but I'm not sure. Was this guy a believer? He did not say anything about it, nor did I. I would in real life have to find out before I said yes. And besides, even if he were, how do you go to Europe on a date requiring overnight stay and avoid the appearance of evil? Ha ha. I'd have to ask him outright: we're in separate rooms, right? and you are not planning to come into my room, right? Why do you want to take me out?

About dreams, all my dreams are weird, but for some reason I wrote this one down. Since I've decided to move, I'm having even weirder dreams almost every night, some are frightening but not exactly night mares. I guess I find this one a little humorous.

King

2006-05-30T14:41:00.000-05:00

My son came again this past weekend, Memorial Day weekend. He came 2 weeks ago and cleared out all my big items, sofa sleeper, dining room table, stereo system, huge file cabinet and on and on. (See previous post)

They arrived at 2:30 am because he had driven himself to put in his flower beds and finish his patio. We all slept in. By the time we were up and fed, it was after noon.

He started with a little pep talk. We were going to attack the job, room by room. He cleared out the shed, heaving heavies over the fence into the yard, from where we dragged them over to the trash pile. I had to pull him away from that project since the shed is not even on my property and cannot be inspected. All sheds behind my house and the neighbors' houses are on the university's property, but this is just a piece of their woods and for now, they do not mind. But the main thing was to make room for the lawn mower and yard tools. There were ants and mice and a huge spider.

Next the work room, full of half used paint, out of place tools, mini-blinds, old electrical odds and ends, a drawer full of toilet fixing things.....pieces of wood and glass and screening,etc.

He made me sort paint. The touch-up paints for the next homeowner went on this shelf. On the other, paints I intended to use. The rest went to the hazmats pile to haul off to the special recylcing place. Even now as I write I am remembering one of his mantras: Is it worth enough money that you are willing to haul it and store it? like my extra cans of paint in colors that I want in my ideal office. Five or ten dollars for a new can when I'm ready...I think I'll go and add those to the hazmats. The silly voice in me is protesting: but I got such a good deal. It was only a dollar and it's the exact color I want.

We installed the drawers of my beautiful new IKEA drawer unit. I used my new power screwdriver, woo hoo! Since I'm not going to rent out my basement any more, I don't need it for the kitchenette...we put my art supplies in it. It has 12 drawers with glass fronts, very nice looking piece with a butcher block top.

The biggest relief is that I sorted my husband's books. The King put a stack in my lap and walked inside to get another with these words trailing off with him: "by the time I get back I want those gone. Left side is give away, right side is keep." He comes back and finds me opening and looking through one "No, mom, you cannot look at them. If you aren't sure, put them in the keep pile and sort them again later". OK OK, I say and I start flinging books. "Yes, that's it, he says, good. That's what I'm looking for." I don't know how long it took, but I was amazed that I actually got done with all the books.

That was hard, actually, just like going through his files. So many years of collecting books for his ministry. Books about missions, theology, discipleship, God's character, God's holiness, prayer, family, support-raising. I planned to give them to my church until I came across one that he had bought from our church library when they must have been culling their books....oh, well, that's just one book. Someone will be interested and helped by SOME of them at least. I wonder if they have room for them in our little study building. Or if they'll have to store them. If they don't want them, now, I shall have to offer them to a church with room for them.

I don't remember which ones, but I think I hugged a couple of them to my chest and sighed. Then there were our marriage and family workbooks, I had to peek in to see if they were leaders' guides or our own personal copies. If they had our hand-writing in the blanks, they got thrown away. A few years ago I probably couldn't have imagined I'd want to throw them away, though why I'd want to go through them I wouldn't know. Still, I did picture myself reading through them again one day. Tossed.

While I was sorting the books, he was organizing the bedroom downstairs. We stored the blankets and pillows in the wardrobe that used to be in my daughter's room.

We had eaten Chipotles, a very late lunch at dinner time. After all the rooms were done but one, most of us were ready to quit.....except the KING. He said we are not done. We attacked the laundry room. He made me throw out all my emtpy milk jugs which are supposed to be filled with 3 days of drinking water and 3 days of washing water for 3 of us in case of emergency. He said there are no hurricanes here. I whined it's not hurricanes, it's terrorism, and they tell us on the radio we are supposed to have this. (Of course I had the jugs but they were not filled with water. And the crackers and tuna and non-perishable food has long since been eaten.) Out they went, being rudely kicked and thrown towards the back door.

The dog cousins were underfoot at times "What's happening? What's all the excitement about? Do we get to do anything? Anyone want to play? Oh, there's the neighbor's dog! Let's go out and bark at him!" A few minutes later you'd look over at them and they'd be stretched out on their sides in identical poses enjoying the coolness of the basement floor.

The laundry room. Lots of "someday project" material went. The T-shirts I saved from the King's and my years as tennis players, which I was going to make into a quilt one day. There was a discussion about the reverse osmosis water filter. He said what's wrong with a Brita? I'm considering that one. I asked him to install my 3 new filters, but he did not. It is a nuisance to have to hook it up and I expect I will not have space in which to park it at my smaller house. It's probably time to give it up.

I tried to by-pass the cedar closet, that's just my winter clothes I said except I think my wedding dress might be in the bottom. He starts holding up things and putting the keepers on hangers. I ended up throwing out a lot of things and finding a few of my 'lost' summer clothes.

He kept saying, "holy schmokes and a pancake." and then he'd laugh. I finally asked him what movie is that from? He said an Austin Powers movie, that I don't recommend you go see....it was a Dutch guy who said something about smoke and a pancake and he added the holy to the smoke. Now I'll be saying it and I haven't even seen the movies.

Under the stairs, the last place, out came the suitcases and Christmas decorations and large pieces of art boards. Back in went the suitcases and a few sleeping bags.
My dear daughter-in-law swept everything as we went.

Then we all stood in the middle of the main room and the King said, "Now, Mom, how do you feel?" I said If I had finished only Dad's books, I would have felt I had done a huge thing, that in itself was huge, but we have done the whole basement. It feels wonderful! He said I know I pushed everyone, but I knew I was the only one who would keep us going and if I stopped everyone would stop.

I'm tired, he said. I intended to go upstairs and finish the mia and make rice or fu fu yam, but no one was hungry and I was shocked that it was midnight.

Why did we call him KING? In case you didn't pick it up, he was bossing us all around and we were jumping at his command. Long ago I remember a Christian speaker saying that the best government is not democracy, but rather a benevolent dictator. That is how he was functioning. He was unquestionably boss, but he had my best interest in mind, not his own selfish comfort.

We had to call the daughter in Seattle and discuss July 4th plans, so I called her and he lay down on the kitchen floor and was asleep within about 5 minutes. His wife had to wake him and get him to go to bed.

I am so blessed to have such wonderful children, including my son-in-law and daughter-in-law. My son has his father's drive and ability to focus on a project. He is distractable, but you wouldn't know it when he's helping me declutter and organize my house for moving. After all that physical work, I made him talk through options for paying my bills between now and when I have cash in hand from the sale of my house.

Next day we talked for a while over breakfast and then they left with the partially cooked mia, my kids' favorite meal from Africa. He deserved so much more than that. I told his wife how to finish it up. He will enjoy that. I just shake my head in disbelief at how blessed I am to have children that are so fun and make me laugh and help me and return love to me as adults! Thank You, Lord.

How Blessed I am

2006-05-16T18:24:00.000-05:00

My son and his wife came for Mother's Day weekend. I'm selling my house and he helped me declutter any BIG items that I will not be taking with me. My realtor said you are not ready to put your house on the market.....get all your excess things out.

We walked through the house and every single thing I am not moving, he hauled out to the street. We put out a huge FREE (Gratis) sign and watched people come and take things. Thanks for showing me, Flylady, that it is not worth the time or effort to set up a garage sale, just GIVE IT AWAY. He had his truck and if you lived in the neighborhood, he put your couch on the flatbed and hauled it to your house. This was not just because he's a nice guy, but to make sure that if they wanted it and had no way to get it home, it would indeed be removed from Mom's front yard.

He did in one day what would take me 10 years to finish. I let go of many sentimental things. He helped me decide how to get rid of his dad's files. We did not take time to sort small things. That will be in the next give-away. A neighbor is coming to get my extra freezer and fridge when he gets a way to get it home.

What a blessing! Then we went out to eat. We were going to have a bonfire and burn stuff, but ran out of steam. He took each of his sisters out, one before church and one after. they came home with flowers and cards, including one from the dog, after which he showed me a picture on his cell phone of my dog with pen in paw and a card on the floor next to her! I told him he cannot leave. He does not want to leave because he wants to finish the entire house so that the only things left in the house are things I will take with me when I move.

We drove through the neighborhood I plan to move into and he did not like it. I think he got a superficial impression. There was one woman having an open house. Her place had only 2 bedrooms and was expensive. I loved it. She had opened up the floor plan and put in beautiful wooden windows and high quality detailing, very simple and very much my style. But I know there are no others like that in that place. And the reason for my move at this time is not to find a wonderful place, but rather a small CHEAPER place to live while I focus on my work. The son has come up with yet another option: if you are planning on getting to the income you need in about 2 years, why not just rent? Why make a down payment? Why pay closing costs? So now I have to talk this one over with my realtor.

Wow, all I know is that when he comes around, things happen. I invited him to help me and he loves to declutter and he's strong as an ox, so we did it.
Things I let go of:
gas grill
good quality sofa sleeper
my husband's dresser
large steel file cabinet
2 small file cabinets
sewing machine in solid wood case
matching lamps
kids' table and chairs
dining room table
2 captains chairs
oak coffee table
end table
tea cart
4 lawn chairs
badminton set
whatever else

I felt for my daughter-in-law because this probably wasn't her idea of a great time, but our beloved dogs, the cousins, played together and provided entertainment for us. She is courageous and supportive.

So I thank God for my children ALL OF THEM and I marvel at the strengths of each of them, and this time, the decisiveness of my son which he got from his dad and his drive to keep going and finish. My daughter far away wished she could have been there to help because she is also good at such things and keeps a clutter free life.

In the process of talking about their own stash of garage sale items in their garage, they decided NOT to go to the group yard sale and set up a table next weekend but to take the full trailer and haul it to good will or Salvation Army. Neither of them even enjoy it and they don't need the money. So that decision gave them their next Saturday free to do something they enjoy.

My house almost echoes like an empty house and I can no longer sit on my couch for my one TV show per week, The Unit, and pet my dog. I even gave away my stereo system intending to get a Boze when I sell my house.

God is good and I am the most blessed of mothers in all the world.

Time Out?

2006-05-16T17:54:00.000-05:00

Today was a women's business seminar at my workplace. I signed up because I am the creative type who is clueless about business. If I am going to make a living being creative I NEED HELP in marketing. It was very good.

Now I plunked myself into one of our brand new wheelchairs and everyone kindly tried to push me, but I said it's good exercize to walk myself around--I have to wear my air cast for 6 weeks and I don't want my muscles to atrophy. I could feel it in my hamstrings.

First, making a business plan, which is what my realtor told me I needed the last time I talked to her: I want to downsize and use the money from the sale of my home to live on while I build my new career: writing and art (and always on the back burner...life coaching).

All the details were there -- more than she could cover but we have the hand-out. Many there were already in business and a good number of us want to start one.

Next was I forget the name, but the presenter was just a delightful person, someone I'd love to be friends with, a lady, a sibling of 8! She talked more in a fireside manner of speaking. She was slender and lovely and sat still. I wished I had a sketch-pad to draw her right then and there. You build relationships and it's not all about getting stuff from others, but about giving and sharing.

Third I went to was about the who, what, when, why, where and how of business. I think it was about continuing once you've gotten yourself started up. You wake up in the morning and ask yourself why am I doing this? She told us you will be all excited at first with your new energy but when it gets tedious you will ask yourself why in the world am I doing this? And you must keep going.

Lunch -- I ended up sitting with 3 other co-workers and one I did not even know worked with me though she has been there longer than I. Ooops.

Then I chose to attend 'how to get capital'. Informative. I intend to use my profit from my home, but on down the line they say you may be needing more and so I took notes on where to get it and what the risk factors are and the advantages of the different sources of capital.

5th was about balance and spiritual stuff. Felt very, very new agey, but I agree with the positive impact of love and the dissing of fear factors in your heart. Did not agreee that we are all connected and have all we need. At times she sounded like she could be a great African-American preacheress in a prosperity theology church....but she had ideas I agreed with: It's about love and giving not material hoarding.

So the entire group gathered again and more prizes were handed out. I had met one woman who sells art but I think only African-American art. I made a mental note to get myself a SCORE mentor and hire my artist life coach...it makes a lot of sense now.

I recalled my last conversation with my daughter far away who actually said out loud the 'starving artist' fear. She does not believe. But I shall ask her to believe and I shall not listen when she says no.

I wonder what my true dream is. If I am not painting, why? Do I really want to have a mountain retreat house and keep painting on the side? Do I want people? I saw my young single mom friend today at a traffic light. I honked gently but was unable to get her attention. I care what happens to her. I worry when she calls me. I sense she needs professional help, which I am not.

I went away with a 'free' business bag full of office type gifts and pamphlets with lots and lots of information. I am happy I went and sorry my daughter could not get off work to go with me. She would have been the youngest there I'm sure. Maybe next time.

It was a great success. I look forward to succeeding as artist and author and coach.

I dont think it has sunk in yet

2006-04-20T08:36:00.000-05:00

My son is home with his wife. She sent email photos of him with their dog. I wonder what he thinks about as he looks back over the past months. I wonder what it feels like for him to have been where he has been. I wonder if he will want to talk about it when I see him and whether there are things I should not press him to talk about. I will want to know everything and that may not be the best idea.

Outside it's all pastelly. Spring is here and today it is supposed to be 80. These colors do not inspire me to get out my paints and copy them, but I sure enjoy looking at them.

At work I complained that there is often someone else in my co-worker of the month parking spot. The duty manager acted immediately and now they give tickets to whoever parks there. Now I feel like a pruney faced old fuss-budget. I hope no one slashes my tires in retaliation.

It is tomorrow and cloudy. I ran with the dog at the lake and hardly saw any pastels at all. Lots of green and the water was dark with light gray sky reflections. Don't feel like painting that either.

Most of the time these days I don't run before breakfast, but because of my bloodtest, I did not eat and I realized again how much easier it is to run on an empty stomach. I pushed myself to keep running however slowly for the benefit of building my emotional confidence. It will help me physically, but as I ran today I was thinking of how it would help me in my tenacious category more than the physical. I stopped and walked about 5 times but made my self start again within about 10 paces. Once I had to stop and make the dog lie down while a field trip full of 10-11 years olds went back to where they came from. I don't know how many of them said 'Look at that dog' and 'roof,roof' but it was a lot. I kept popping kibble into her mouth saying see? children! treats. good girl, you are being polite. I have learned that with a reactive dog, you keep them away from potentially upsetting situations and reward them when they are calm around people they will be prone to reacting to (like anyone). The first priority was to stop at a good distance. And it takes many, many such successful experiences to build the dog's confidence. (Read Jean Donaldson: The Culture Clash. She is a genius about dogs)

While waiting to have my blood drawn, I looked over my coach call notes and transferred things into my palm in the form of tasks.

Why am I contacting any particular artist or writer?
Because I want to know how they earn money painting and writing. How did they start? What was absolutely necessary? What was extra? How do they keep customers? Did they do this on purpose, or are they just gifted and walked into it serendipitously?
Ron reminded me of this: some will say I can't help you but I know someone who can.

What can I offer them?

I was thinking about how I want to help good people get hired at my store (so I won't have so many slackers to work with, and for the overall good of the company). I have thought of several people and 2 got hired but only for summer. I have realized that I need to talk to maybe 10 or 20 to get one hired, especially older people who want a job year round. Anyway we used to have support parties when we were in ministry, and we were told to invite 40 people if you wanted 10, or some such ratio. It is the same thing Ron is trying to get across about contacting these people. If I keep at it I will find the ones with the answers.

This post started out to be about my son being home and how I don't think it has really hit me. I felt just a little sad the day after he called from his house, and I think it was just a bit of sorrow that his dad couldn't be here to see him come home and be excited for him just as I am. Maybe sad that there has to be war. I see people come into the store in cammies and I want to talk to them and ask them about their service to the country and thank them. Sometimes I do end up in conversations with them.

Someone at work was indicating that I should still be his number one in my son's heart, and that after one day with his wife he should come see his mama. I argued No, he belongs with his wife first. I will never come between them or try to stay in first place in his heart. Leave your father and mother and cleave to your wife.

OK my cereal is gone, time to get going.

Dear Coach

2006-04-09T15:13:00.000-05:00

Talk to me, then. Do you think I did not know I was giving only partial effort to my new career? You have said you are not an edgy kind of coach. You are nice and you are very good at emphasizing the positive and helping me to do that. So I noticed that it was very difficult for you to say the words. You said it yourself, that it was a very hard call for you. The one where you told me from your viewpoint that I had not determined to go for it: art and writing (and always the maybe coaching) as a career. I wonder what you thought my reaction might be. Breaking down in tears? Anger? Being insulted? Withdrawing? Maybe it's exactly the way I feel when I do not want to confront my daughters and I see things that are foundational in their lives that I believe need to be changed. I don't like to hurt their feelings. I don't want them to be unhappy because of me.

But you are right. If ever I have been a loser in my life, it must have had it's tap root deep in fear. And where fear ruled, I did not put my heart, soul, mind or strength in. The side roots attached to the tap root are laziness, love of comfort and leisure, being the baby of the family, being accustomed to having enough money and not having to work for it, ... maybe other stuff.

I think of my years competing in tennis. I never got over the fear of losing, and so I lost most of my matches. I TAUGHT tennis as a certified professional, for Pete's sake, and knew the mechanics. I was very fit and stronger and faster than my opponents and I had shots and spins they did not have. I practiced hours and hours.

But when I walked out onto the court, in the back of my mind was ALWAYS "you can lose, you might lose". Once I was up 5-2 in both sets and lost the match to a woman with very little skill. She said to me when we shook hands, YOU ARE SO GOOD. And I was, compared to her. I gave her the match because I was afraid of the momentum shift (at 5-2, the winning player can relax and the losing player makes changes and digs in. You see it all the time in sports) She did not beat me, I beat myself. I never really got over that mental hurdle when I quit playing tennis.

What did I want to write about? I needed to hear you say it, I guess that's what it was. I needed to hear: You are not going to get there unless you get serious and put your heart, soul, mind and strength into it, Annie. Up till now, I've done a lot of work, exploring, investigating, meditating, thinking, mulling over, rehashing, discussing, writing, praying even....but I have not decided to do it.

By the way I liked what you shared from your wife's thesis about building confidence and efficacy. Efficacy isn't in my pocket Oxford American Dictionary. But efficacious (adjective) means producing the desired result. So efficacy must mean the production of the desired result. Reaching your goal. Getting there. Standing on the mountain top.

Once I asked my tennis coach to be really tough on me; I wanted to get good as fast as possible. He said go out and play in tournaments. Months later when I was licking my wounds and whining to him about how hard it was, he reminded me of how I had stood right there and asked him to be hard on me. Oh, yeah, I said that, didn't I. So this is part of it? Duh.

Jumping out there, no matter what the outcome....including losing all my savings and my house....is that the fear I have to overcome?

And oh, yes, my new theme song from Josh Groban's album
Let me fall
let me fly
There's a moment when fears and dreams must collide.
Someone I am is waiting for the courage
Someone I will become will catch me
So let me fall if I must fall
I won't heed their warnings
I won't hear them

Let me fall, if I fall
All the feelings ? may or may not rise? (cant hear words clearly on this line)
I will dance so freely holding on to no one
You can hold me only if you too will fall away and let.....
.....all fears useless fear and shame? ...(can't hear words)

Let me fall If I fall
there's no; reason to miss this one chance, this perfect moment
just let me fall.

This is my trapeze song. I believe it is from the Cirque de Soleil (circus).
When I left a secure salary for NOTHING, and living off my savings, I was letting go of one bar flying through the air knowing that I would catch the other. But in the mean time I was flying through the air.

There are nay-sayers in my life who say "it is hard to make a living painting", or maybe art will be your "hobby" while you get a real job. It makes me want to run back and get a real job and make enough money doing (whatever) and then in my spare time, develop an art/writing job. Be sure first. Be safe. Don't be foolish and waste all your money; you will be so ashamed. It will confirm the fact that you are just a dumb girl, unable to handle finances. Then where will you be? Still no where and broke.

Let me fall. I won't heed their warnings. If they don't think I should put all my effort into being an artist or a writer, or a coach, they are entitled to their opinion.

The line:
"someone I am is waiting for my courage." NO. This is not going to cut it. You don't get courage by waiting for it or even praying for it. You pluck it up. Pluck up your courage. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. So the idea is someone I am is depending on my courage. I am choosing to take my courage and go.

If I were not convinced God has led me to this place, I might agree with the nay-sayers.

Enough for now, that brilliant blue sky is waiting for the dog and me.

Dear Coach, you surely know that you have plenty of relational capital to spend. The truth may hurt, but I want it.

such good news

2006-03-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

My passion is percolating and I feel the need to write. One that I love called last night and told me of very positive changes in her life. Relief. Joy. Strength. I could hear it in her voice. Hope. I won't say her name, but I don't want to put other peoples' lives on my blog without permission.

So I will put MY stuff out there: my stuff is that I was very worried about this person when she was sick in mind and body and spirit. Exhausted, weak, unable to function. In the past I personally felt the need to change her life. But in recent years, through reading books about Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, I grew. I cannot "make it all better" for someone else. I can't fix other people, only myself. I can only do the best I can to grow myself. I can be there and try to help, give advice if it is asked for, be supportive, listen, do things I am capable of for the person. But I cannot make decisions for the person about what to do with her life. That was growth for me and I noticed that when I was with her, I grew less tense and worried inside and more relaxed: make good decisions myself about things that are MY responsibility. Other people are responsible for their own lives.

Then I have antidepressants which have made it easier for me to think more like a normal person and not get all tied up in knots of frustration and anger when things go wrong.

I voluntarily subitted myself to brainwashing by flylady (see flylady.net). The most helpful aspect of her email deluge for me has been fighting the perfectionism in me. There is nothing wrong with doing excellent work, but being a perfectionist is delbilitating and leads to depression.

My church and my pastor have given me layers and layers of teaching and living out of GRACE that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last and most definitely not least, I hired a Christian life coach. (See purposefilledlife.com) At a time when I felt excited about the future and keen on finding my new niche, I was also very frightened, and felt very, very alone.

I had whined: I don't want to do this by myself! That is, make the big decision about what to do next? God cares and He was listening - even to my whining - and then I got that email from my former tennis coach saying: 'You'd be a good life coach.' And I thought, What's a life coach? But the link to Ron's site and his 30 minute free coaching session convinced me to try it.

Someone to walk with me on this journey. I know I was growing before, but I am sure that having a coach has multiplied my growth. I would have tried new things and gotten a job or two and moved forward, but without a coach, I would not have moved at the pace I have. Well, it's kind of silly to play the 'What if?' game. 'What if' (what if I had not hired Ron as coach) does not exist. Ok, so this is what I know. God graciously led me to a fine coach, suited for me, and He has used Ron to ENCOURAGE ME, SUPPORT ME and keep me ACCOUNTABLE.

So what does this have to do with the phone call last night? In the past, I think I would have gotten all upset, experienced a lot of anguish in my soul, feeling the whole burden of "fixing" another person's life, not my own life, you see. But this time I sat by the person, prayed with the person and for the person, listened to the person, encouraged her to talk, admitted to myself and to her I DO NOT HAVE THE ANSWER and not only that, but it is OK that I do not have the answer. All I had was a caring for her, and a willingness to be with her and the faith of a mustard seed that she could take steps to make her situation better.

Something that helped her tremendously was not my idea. It was her own idea. She was able to get away from her present load of stress and have time away, time outdoors, time with fun music, time with relaxed people. Lots of rest and healthy food.

Now then at the end of the day (this day only) I could hear the difference in her voice. Her voice was louder and clearer. She was enthusiastic and sounded happy! God, you are so good. Thank you. I expect more encouragement and grace from You for today, and I thank you in advance for that too.

relecting on the superhero thing

2006-03-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

A week is past back in my old position, the managers are asking what I think of the experience. I tell them how excited I am for all I've learned and that the job has really just begun. My partner and I are thinking to continue to help make the store better not just for our 2 week test but long term.

Big manager says why don't you write an article? We did, my partner already submitted it. But it was her article mostly and I didn't really express myself. Sometimes it takes me a while to mull things over .... Maybe I'll do a freewrite and then edit it.

I had mixed emotions. More comfortable to be back where I know what I'm doing, but as the old song says: "how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree"?

It was so interesting watching people work, those who are in control, how they interact with each other and how things get done. And we had the authority in their names to go and get things done for them, use their names and watch people move. Fascinating.

One manager pointed out that everyone knows who I am now. Yes, not that I care about that, but it's true. And I have met many co-workers and know their names as well.

They are looking for us to take our pictures in our superhero T-shirts. My partner says we already took pictures, use those. I say we are being reviewed today and I have to be in uniform and I'm not leaving my post! Oh, yes, she agrees.

Then a note has gone up on the bulliten board that they want people who will do comics and write for the newsletter. I will have to do that. I have no choice.

determination

2006-03-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

On one side are real tangeable goals, something you can touch and see. On the other side are ideals, ideas, dreams, wishes, desires. I live mostly on the dream side. I am trying to move toward the reality side. So this week I did a word study to draw my mental energy into this process. Still dreaming? Probably. But it helps me to think on paper. And if I get a better grip on what the difference is, I hope it will prepare me to act more decisively. Hope. Learn. See those words? Dream side of things, they are. But prepare and act, those are on the goal side of things.

Determination: I thought about the fact that I am a "flaming P". (ok, this is from the Meyers-Briggs types, P is the letter a person comes out with if she likes to keep her options open as long as possible, does not want to commit.) I suppose I get this from my Dad. When they asked him to work at AUL, the guy thought the phone had gone dead because of the long silence. Daddy would not go, Uh, um, hmmm, let me see, he would just be quiet while his brain wheels turned slowly. Whatever came out would be a good decision, but you had to wait for it.

A flaming P wants to keep her options open as long as possible. Another way of putting it is that she is afraid to commit and get stuck. Up to now, I have not made that determination: ‘I am going to do this thing’. My coach said he would fail as a coach if I never took a step toward making my life purpose a reality.

I have grown to like the song on 'Awaken' CD by Natalie Grant, the last song which she sings with Wynona Judd. He’s gonna bring it all together for good. He’s gonna make you happy. He’s gonna make you laugh out loud. Yes, it’s true, God is ultimately in control of the outcome, whether my dream comes true or not. But that does not mean that I should just wait for it to come together, piddling around without a goal. I can make a specific goal and work towards it...

My entrepreneur friend is willing and happy to have lunch with me so that I can pick her brain. She is a go getter, a plan an doer and she has come all the way from sick and broke with an injured and broke husband to owning homes and having successful businesses and she is not finished by a long shot. She says it's a God thing, and it is, but I still want to be around her and learn how she works.

So my "reason" for not being determined is that I’m afraid that if I invest money in making a career painting and writing, I will lose in the end and wind up broke, or at best struggling financially.

Why don’t I believe I can be a NOT starving artist? My coach gave me a lot of ammunition to believe with and he said “you will say he’s just saying that because he’s my coach” and he is partly right, but no, I do believe I am marketable. So do I need to make a goal and be one of those crazy people who puts signs up all over the house and car about what my goal is?
determination n. = firmness of purpose
focus = a center of activity or interest v.
3. to concentrate or be concentrated or directed (on a center etc)

I think I've been taking steps toward a goal, by saying yes to things that pertain to art, writing and people (life coaching) but those are just areas not goals they are too big, too nebulous, too braod the target is not pin pointed.

Speakimg of nebulous, when I went out for our walk tonight the clouds were cumulous, big, warm and stormy looking, not warm in color, they were mostly deep blues, but the weekend brought warm weather and they seemed warm. I tied my jacket around my waste half way down the street. It seems like winter is over so suddenly and that in a couple weeks all the trees will be budding. Already some are dressing up with reddish purple.

The big heavy clouds were moving slightly. They dropped a little rain on us as we walked, but not enough to make us wet. I turned my ankle and thought Oh no not again! but decided it was the pain-for-one-minute variety and walked home, and even ran part of the way and it did not hurt. The last thing I need is to be injured at work tomorrow when we are being reviewed and they asked me to come in for the morning shift so that if they ask me security questions, they will get a good answer. The new person might not know the answers, and the old person may know some of the answers but never comes in on time and won't be there whent they come through.

I met the guy who is building an arts community South of here. I had read about him in the newspaper's Sunday magazine and made a mental note that I should check it out. Well, they paged him in my store and I thought, hey, that's that guy in the magazine.

I call up to the department to which he'd been paged and say: ask him if he would stop by the entrance on his way out, I want to meet him. After about 10 minutes I see a guy going upstairs and I think it is he, but I don't chase him because I'm not sure... meanwhile a rumor has started in the department to which he was called that he's some famous person, because Annie said he was in the magazine this week.

Well, they call back and want to know who he is and is he famous? and they say that he just ordered something and went downstairs. So I go looking. Hmmm, I think he's the type to just make his purchase and leave; he's not going to browse; I think I'll go down to where he will be picking up his order.

Sure enough there he is and I introduce myself and ask him about his project and tell him I'm interested, that I'm starting to paint again after 35 years of mothering and ministering. He is renovating a place where artists can live and work all in one place. It sounds cool. I ask about a waiting list, yes, he expects there will be one and he gives me his email address. He says he's gotten more responses from that article than any previous ones about similar projects in other cities. He is wearing the same jacket he was photographed in. He is an architect.

In a few years time, when his project is up and running, I may be ready to sell my house. My girls will be out on their own I hope. I may want a small artist's apartment then. Hmmm, I do not know if this is something the Lord put in my lap or not. The little red brick storybook house, (see post "love at first sight") was not for me, but it still had a reason for me to look at it.

Oh yes, this is supposed to be about determination, and yet I am allowing myself to free write, so now I need to determine that I am going to make a living painting and writing. Why do I feel the need to be so darn sure before I jump in? Is it because I felt sure before, and jumped in, and in the end did not feel I succeeded in my first career? Success breeds success. (So does a sense of failure breed failure)

I did not feel successful then, even though my outlook on all of what I did has changed and I value it for what it was: me trying, struggling along while depressed. I think I am way over the line guarded against failure. It comes back to what I am learning about fear, a perfectionism, and all that. To be continued, I have to go to work.

superhero job finished

2006-03-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

Yea. It's over. My old manager says "you're mine now". Other departments (2 to be exact) have offered for me to come work with them. The man whose idea it was to do the superhero thing, well, I don't think he's too enthused about what we did. But superhero 2 and I are going to have a talk with him about it. For one thing, we do not know what he thinks, in spite of the fact that he's pretty much ignoring us and gave us a funny look when we showed up in our costumes on the last day. (He wanted us to be in costume every day from day 1). I know that we did not do all that he expected, and I can only guess that he is dissappointed that we were not successful in generating a high energy level at the store, but we did what we could. We got a lot out of it. I would do it again for that reason... I learned TONS: like how to order something for the store, how to look up products, how to put up displays, how to make a video, where to get tools, how to order things, how to get reimbursed for store purchases, how to climb up the escape ladder to the roof (oops, don't tell) how to make signs in the graphics department, which was my favorite part.

Our first job in graphics was "weeding". That involved removing the surroundings from white sticker letters so that they could be applied to a blue board. Tedious, mindless, but relaxing, after you've been running around for several days. Takes a lot of time. The store is going bililngual and there are many, many signs to change.

Good things happened for me personally, though that was not the purpose of being a superhero. I tried. Perhaps it would have gone better to have a superhero with a strong ability to focus.

The last day we ended up in graphics and I was pleased to be able to do what they asked: applied a giant sticker on a giant board without making bubbles in the vinyl. My teacher was good and had no problem with saying 'now you try it'. There was NO sense of "Oh be careful, if you mess up that will cost us x amount of money..." Then she bragged on me to the director. I see it more clearly every day. I guess I am better than average working with my hands.

The many other jobs, from making newsletters, to designing T shirts (a dual effort) and building furniture and removing heavy things from high displays, finding people to finish assembling the rest of the new displays and someone to put new pieces back up again, borrowing the right tools from the people who do this every day, making transfers from one department to another and getting the right signature, calling other stores, marking down what customers looked at, recording wait times in different departments, listening to frustrated co-workers and trying to encourage them to keep making their concerns known to their managers and the managers above those managers.....on and on.

My favorite part at first was surveying the co-workers, getting their feedback.

The other thing I appreciated, not one of my jobs, but a by-product of the assignment, was watching the big cheeses at work, scurrying around, calling each other, listening to their conversations, following them on a walk through the store and hearing how they presented things to the co-workers. I will never look at my job the same way again. I realize how much better I can be at my job now that I understand how much EVERYONE has on his/her own plate. I knew that, but now I know many of the specific tasks they are working on each day. I also have a bigger picture of how the entire store and its system works and how my little part fits into it. No more tunnel vision.

My partner and I think that our job as superheroes is really just beginning. I doubt we pass the review this year, but I could see us making huge strides by next year if we carry on with a sort of permanent superhero attitude all year long. I wish I could work full time and also have time for my at home job. But I will figure out a way to keep my old job at least for now and add in one day in graphics, and/or general purpose superhero stuff (which kind of amounted to super-gopher by the end of the 2 months).

People in my department kept telling me they missed me and when was I coming back. That was nice. Someone is sales asked me if I was coming to their department? I said I had thought about it and 'maybe' and he said Yes!!!

My partner told the biggest cheese that we could do a show and display my artwork in the restaurant. Yikes. I was scared. No, let me hide out on the web, not put my things in front of real people, and much less people I actually know. Fear, get lost. If she agrees, I will do it.

Well, more details may come out later. In 2 weeks when the review is over, maybe an update on whether we passed. Maybe an update on how our talk with our superhero boss goes.

Smell the Salty Air

2006-02-19T16:04:00.000-05:00

I have only 3 pictures left for my commission. It is encouraging to realize you are near the end. It is like driving towards the ocean and at a certain point you can smell the salt in the air. I am close and it is uplifting. I've enjoyed it, I've learned tons, I look forward to my next commission, but it is good to have an end to things.

I went to Kinkos to print the last 8 pictures and mail them by Fedex which is now right in Kinkos. The self copier didn't get the color right and I don't have time to mess with fixing it so I went to the other side where they do it for you. Our color copiers are both down, she said. And she told me how I could use the machine I just came from. I talked out loud and said I don't have time to mess with fixing the color and spending money on each one, but I made sure I didn't "take it out on her". I am much more sensitive to that now that I work with John Q. Public myself.

And Zips is closed so I could not pick up my slacks. Oh well, a wasted trip. Off to visit my sister and my Dad in one hour.

The superhero thing. It is great to have a week off from that. But I have learned so much and ENJOYED learning. And I have enjoyed watching movers and shakers move and shake. People that are leaders and love the marketplace and the high speed, high pressure world of business. It fascinates me, and I observe the difference in them and myself, and I see why I am not a mover and a shaker. But I do have my own gifts to give and I am happily learning to give them.

So Far Not So Good

2006-01-21T22:41:00.000-05:00

the Superhero job. It was delayed 5 times and then Mr. J was over 2 hours late for our first "start up" meeting. There are only 2 of us whereas they were hoping for a team. Our first day I enjoyed going around the store surveying our coworkers, the personal interaction with individuals with a goofy survey. I could not believe some of the coworkers were actually worried about getting the question right: How far can you toss a meatball? But I did not make fun of them.

But the rest has been reading a boring book by Ingvar, planning and strategizing, none of which I am good at. Mr. J is soft spoken even when he is in a quiet room with us and I do not follow him easily. My managers are excited for me, but so far I am not excited for me. I find myself thinking when do I get to go home? This is exactly why I hesitated taking this on. High stress and no recompense.

So far it has not entailed what I was told it would be. And the girl who is young enough to be my youngest daughter and I are not working smoothly together. She's nice, but there's no click, click. I think it will get better in time. We both support children through Compassion International and she went to visit hers in Peru and it changed her life and has given her a passion for the homeless, hungry and poor.

They have asked repeatedly if I can work full time during these 8 weeks and I say not now. I said yes after the art project is done, but wait a minute. For no recompense, will I spend all my time at the store and not get things done at home, and also slow myself down on my REAL job OUTSIDE the store? Hmmm, doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Besides, I'm dying to go to the Northwest and see my DD. And I need to visit family in Florida.

work

2006-01-02T20:52:00.000-05:00

Painting again. It is hard to get going sometimes.

What I am learning is that I don't know how the paint will react. I don't know how the paper will stretch, how it will rumple when loaded up with water and how much water to use for which type of effect. I don't know my colors. There is no automatic here, it's all a slow process. I have to think and test on scratch paper to try out colors.

I stand up and walk away for a minute thinking: If I painted it over and over I would make improvements and after about 20 tries, I might like what came out. I don't have time for 20 tries.

I need to call my commissioner and say: You should pay me less because I am a student not a professional.

And so as I go on trying to complete this project for which I am being paid, and which I do NOT want to look like practice in its finished state, I am, as a matter of fact, practicing. I have just painted a matador. I am happy with the legs, but not the coffee cup. Don't ask, the poetry is clever and full of puns. The hand holding the cup is incomprehensible and will need to be fixed. But I need a break.

The light and shadow is not dramatic enough for me,though I like the detail in the embroidery. I had to go searching for faces of typical matadors because the image I used for the body was a photograph of one of those statues that you can stick your head into and have your picture taken, so that you look like you are the matador. The guy in the picture looked very blond and touristy.

There is a blob of gray that came off my finger unintentionally that I cannot get off the paper. I will try painting over it with white but only if I cannot erase it with water. I like the steam coming off the coffee.

I used the colored pencils that turn into paint when you wet them. Mostly I colored onto the page and then added clear water to blend it. I am learning that for detailed finicky work, these pencils are useful. They get the job done faster than brushes.

But I didn't get going on it in earnest until afternoon. I had an appointment in the morning and then ate lunch and felt my coffee wearing off but could not nap, so I got up and went to work. It is raining and has been all day so the dog (and I) don't get our run today.

I had to call work to see if I am on schedule any time soon. Superhero is put off till next week. Only 3 applied. I wondered who, but did not ask. I did not want to have that to think about today. If I had known this would happen, I could have bolted off to Florida to spend a week with my dad.

I want to attach a tag to my paintings that says "Little slubs and splotches are part of the character of this work and are in no way a sign of imperfection or sloppinness, rather they increase the value of your purchase." In other words: "I meant to do that!"

held

2006-01-01T18:59:00.000-05:00

Held. A song by Natalie Grant.
While I was working on the illustrations for my poet friend, he asked me to go out and buy Natalie Grant's CD called Awaken. He mentioned 2 songs in particular: "make me over", and "held". I ordered it online and when it came, I listened to the songs.

The words to "Held" made me cry instantly. I had heard the song before, in spite of the fact that I hardly ever listen to Christian radio any more. I recognised the tune. But I had never paid attention to the words.

It was about death, a mother losing a son and how wrong it was. I have never lost a son, but I have lost. This is what it is to be held, she sings. I know this. I know what it is to be held by God. I know his presence. I understand what this woman is singing about. When I lost my husband I was flattened. But God was holding me and I knew it. I didn't feel it immediately, but I had seen evidence of his presence at the moment of death. Day by day, little by little, with only a tiny mustard seed of hope and faith, I walked through the following days. It's been over 6 years and now I can almost feel God's arms around me. "This is what it means to be loved", she says, "and to know, that the promise is when everything fell, we'd be held...."

Christmas goose

2005-12-23T17:08:00.000-05:00

Will things ever slow down? I took the dog running at the lake. Little groups of geese were landing silently, totally opposite of the other night when every single one of them must have been honking at once. I suppposed they were arguing over water-space. Most of the lake was ice and all several hundred geese were in the unfrozen center. Hey, move over. I can't... there's only 1 square foot for each of us. That's my fish! Well, you took my algae. Leave some for my kids, for Pete's sake. Shut up, I'm bigger than you.....Hey, y'all, stop arguing!

But today I learned what a goose sounds like when it is crying. I went down by the water and the brush. Usually the geese are well into the water before we get anywhere near, but we must have startled one, or else it was weak or injured already. All of a sudden the dog was in the water and had a goose in her mouth! I yanked the leash and shouted no, pulling and yelling. She switched grips and then had it by the wing and it was fluttering --trying to get away. NO!! NO!! Bad dog! Yank. Pulllllll.

Luckily I yanked when she shifted grips again and the goose got away, but it was hurt. The dog came out of the water spitting feathers. The goose sat in the water yeeping and dazed. After a bit it flew off about 20 feet and 2 other geese came up to inspect it. I was relieved that it could fly. But it was so pitiful. You could see a chunk missing out of the sillouette of its neck. I hoped it was feathers, but I could not tell. I don't know what kind of things I said to the dog. I was too sad to express anger at the dog. She was just doing what dogs do. I wondered if I should call the park police or animal control to come put the goose out of its misery, or whether it was not hurt that badly and it would recover on its own. All I know is that it cried and I could still hear it when I got to the other side of the water. Was it going to die? What do the other geese think about it? The two geese stayed nearby but stayed a couple feet away from it. This is normal in the wild, but I grew up in civilization with tame animals and it was hard to watch in person, no matter how many maulings I've seen on nature programs.

As we ran the rest of our lap, I thought of Jesus saying that a sparrow does not fall to the ground without the knowledge of God the Father. Here is part of the context. He said: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

chosen

2005-12-23T07:50:00.000-05:00

I got my application in 12 hours late... scribbled and tossed on Mr. J's desk. I went to work the next day expecting that, if they wanted to interview me, they would call me up to the offices.

No call. I went about my business. It is quiet in there pre-Christmas, a lovely reprieve from the crazed malls. [[[I have not set foot inside a single mall to "get ready for Christmas". It is Christmas Eve EVE and I'm not "ready". But my heart is always celebrating Christmas. I'm laughing at all the arguments on the radio about political correctness and the grinchy side of liberalism stealing Christmas from those who wish to keep it for themselves (and be permitted to say Merry Christmas out loud in public.) I say Merry Christmas to customers if I see them carrying out decorations or wearing Santa hats, or if they say it to me, first.)

I went through my stage of grief over the fact that the world stole Christmas. And at the same time, I pined away wishing I had enough money to "do" Christmas the way my parents did it, heaping lots of nice wrapped gifts under the tree for all 4 of us kids and the dog (who could pick out her own toys.... we thought she was a genius dog, but think about it: dogs can smell a hard rubber jingly ball through the paper.)

I went through the depressed stage, the martyr stage, doing Christmas for my kids and husband because I loved them, but having an emptiness in my heart about what a game it was.

In the film Out of Africa, Barkley told Karin that Dennis "likes to give gifts...but not at Christmas." I think that's how I am. I resented at times that I had to play the game at this specific time and my part done on time. The pressure was tremendous.

I could never quite get into the church's version completely. I do love the music, the hymns, and the reading of the true story of how Jesus came to us.

I now laugh at all of it. Not the story of Christ. But our frenzy over buying gifts for one another and decorating and making cookies and eating lots of chocolate (guilty). We so miss the joy of knowing God Himself when we focus on the decorations we have inflicted onto this event.]]]

Anyway this post is not about Christmas. It is about being picked as a superhero, whatever that is, at work. Mr. J came by yesterday, 2 days past the day I turned in my application. I said (hoping) "Did you get my application? It's too late, right?" He said, no, it's not too late; we're still taking applications. Almost indecipherable earth tremors rippling in my tummy.

Mr. J is from Jolly Old England and I love to hear him speak the Queen's English. But it's a little noisy in the entrance and he is soft spoken, so I am barely hearing him. I tell him I'm not sure I really want to do this, because it's still pretty vague in my mind what my resposibilities would be. He tells me more about it.

Part of it is that I get to call the store manager to account if she doesn't do what she said she will do. You mean I get to boss her around? I'm smiling. Yes, and me, too, he says. We will make goals and we want you and the other superheros to follow up and see that we are doing what we planned to do.

I make jokes about getting lazy people fired. (But I'm not really joking.) He talks about how the store has so many areas to grow in. I tell him the store is young and that hopefully we will weed out the bad workers and bring in better ones.

He also tells me that he spoke to the 2nd in command. Annie will not be in the entrance for 2 months. Are you OK with that? And, he tells me, she said yes. I joke while telling the truth: this place falls apart when I'm not here. He says, you are the first person people meet. I am, I say. I know. And I am very good at this job, but at the same time, I am dispensable. When I need to take a break, and no one can cover for me, my managers always say: just go. The store functions without me. Kind of a mixed message I say. And he says he thinks there should always be someone in the entrance and I agree with him. But another note is taken in my mind: Ms. 2nd in command KNOWS how valuable I am in this place. I wonder if they'd be willing to prove it by paying me more than the warm body salary I get now.)

We are interrupted by several customers so that our conversation is in pieces, but finally he puts the ball in my court. I say, you want me to decide right now? Yes. I mumble about not liking to make decisions and think out loud. Oh, OK, if I hate it, I can put up with it for 2 months. I won't die. So yes, I'll do it.

Now what have I gotten myself into? As I'm closing, the duty manager says "Superhero" to me. Someone knows already. ....what does this mean? I have periodic fits of panic and I have to talk to my scared self and tell her that she can do this. She can reread her life coaching book and listen to her CD's and lean heavily on her coach, if need be, to use coaching questions to motivate and encourage the big cheeses and the little cheeses all over the store. It's just that I want to be focused on painting and getting my project finished and what painting I will do after that...that is, my job OUTSIDE the store! I have another commission waiting to be written and illustrated after this one. I don't want stress on this job, this is my relaxing job. So I tell myself, ok, learn to do this without stress.

I am pretty sure God has his fingers in this.

fear

2005-12-20T09:48:00.000-05:00

I should be dressing to the shoes. I am dressed and I have shoes on but I'm not dressed to present myself at work. I drove over and applied, late, for the superhero position last minute. Now then I have done a pro/con list. On the pro side are growth and networking opportunities. The store may benefit from gifts I have that have not been used before. The cons include no additional compensation, possible high learning curve in areas I may not want to learn about and lots of additional stress, when I like my job in that I'm used to it and it is easy and low stress (leaving energy for my "real" job...working at home on art and writing and coaching). My heart's desire at the moment is NOT to be chosen. I think that they may call me at any minute and say "we want to interview you" and I am not ready to jump in the car and go over. However I am working today, so I shall be ready to go while at work.

too much to tell

2005-12-19T10:59:00.000-05:00

My life is so full, I do not have the slightest idea how to tell it all. What is interesting to other people about my life, if anything? I picture reading about someone else's life and getting bored with all the rabbit trails and details....

And yet I just read an article about a bipolar person person's manic experience and reading her description felt very much like my own freewriting. Not being manic, but the writing style...present tense, just stating whatever was on her mind, going from one thought to another distractedly, only with her, she acted out her thoughts and followed them and got lost and had to be rescued. She works on the editorial staff of the magazine. I know somone who is bipolar and I want to give it to him and express my sympathy and see how I can be a helpful non-judgmental friend to him as he lives with his disease. It had two nice paintings with the article as well. I put it into my work notebook with his name on it.

Last night Betty called. She and her husband supported me and my husband for years with their money and their love and prayers. She is a caring person and still calls me occassionally. She always apologizes that she has not kept in touch better. I always say you don't need to apologize. She asks all about how I am. I ask all about her. She asks if I need money.

She is not writing a Christmas letter because the year is too depressing. She is going around in a wheelchair with a broken hip.

Her husband's knee needs surgery but he is waiting for her to get on her feet so that she can take care of him when he is recuperating. Oh my. It's hard to be old.

The devastating thing is that their son's marriage is falling apart. And he is in ministry. The wife went off with his best friend. I listened, I sympathized. I feel awful with her. I verbalized how very sad this is. And I gave her my coach's web address for her son, because he, too, has been a youth minister and I told her how much coaching has helped me and she said I can hear it in your voice, you are a different person. I said I am, I am a different person. (I am not, but you know this is a way of speaking.) I am so deeply contented I am about to burst. I have everything I could ever want. I have wonderful children. I have a house. I am moving into my new career, getting paid to do what I love to do and what I'm good at and I also have the freedom of being single (now that I've adjusted to it!

There are papers askew on my desk. There are uncut coupons in a paper bag with handles. The pile is getting thicker. More by the printer on the dresser, more printed images on my temporary "art table". I have set my timer a couple of times today to work on clearing and filing this stuff but it's not finished.

I need to make a few phone calls and apply for superhero temporary job at my workplace. Maybe "I can do anything for 2 months", as flylady says: I can do anything for 15 minutes. I was reading the job description and I can see me doing this and using all the coaching skills I have acquired so far (one teleclass's worth) and getting creative over there. It would mean I would be going around the store learning new stuff and meeting new people and getting out of my place of expertise. I must do this. The deadline to apply is today. I was reading the job desciption. With each section, yes, I could do that....until I got to the part that said you will wear the superhero costume the whole 2 months while they had clip art of batman and wonderwoman on the bulliten board. I said out loud no thank you and went home. So I guess I was tired...visualizing myself going around the store in wonderwoman costume. I'm pretty sure the costume is not going to be wonderwoman but something specific to our store.

Then I read 2 newspaper articles this morning. Two elders in my church are in a book club. A while back they had told me that the paper had come and taken pictures of them and interviewed them. I was weeding out the recycling and there was a picture of a stack of books with the same titles that my friends had been reading.

How I would love to be able to just go to that group and sit in the corner and listen to men discuss books.

My girlfriend has invited me to her Victorian book club -- women. I would probably love that too, but this men's book club intrigues me. I could observe how men think and how they interract and how they process their reading and how they verbalize it all. I could do like I used to do before I had children and take my sketchbook and draw them while they talked.

Anyway I am not invited and it would put a big kabosh on the spirit of the group to know that there is a woman they know sitting there listening.

The other article is about my new acquaintance, the artist/professor. He has a show in the town next door. COOL. I am on my way over! I have gone to visit his class at the University to see if I could audit or even take it for credit. He had told me on the phone I can be first in line for the January class. I had thought I am not sure this is what I want, but he is very enthusiastic about art. His T.A. told me he's brilliant and that you have to let him know what it is you want to learn.

I was not sure I could picture myself going forward with David Dewey's techniques in a classroom with a bunch of kids who are not even art majors and popular music in the background. Some of his work is in the permanent collection in the National Gallery of Art. Impressive. And I have the opportunity to audit his class. I feel like I should take advantage of this and see where it leads. How can I not learn some important things from a master?

So why am I here blogging? So much happening. Yesterday my DD's bought and assembled a fake Christmas tree and decorated it. It looks great and I didn't have to do any of it. One of the advantages of having adult children. Now I just need a few pine scented candles to burn. I invited them to watch the Griswold's Family Christmas movie. We also had a little time discussing Family Meeting issues. They both have colds and don't want to talk about it. (Not because they have colds, but it makes it harder to face tough issues when you are sick.) One says I don't want anything for Christmas.

Sunday school was good. I thanked them for praying about my cute little storybook house that I am not buying it but that lots of good things happened through the process of deciding, and that I believe the Holy Spirit indeed led me to drive by the house that day. For the sake of time, I left out details about good things that happened through that process of deciding whether to buy the house.

Later the teacher used my expample to talk about something out of the chapter they were discussing.... Then he said to me after class is it ok that I shared that about your example? Of course. I was puzzled that he even felt the need to ask. Why would that not be ok? I just shared it very openly (and joyfully). And the lawyer in the class was laughing at me when I shared. I want to ask him why. You think I'm a little kid, don't you? I am childlike, I know this.

Anyway I'm scanning the articles to my coach.

Onward.

Something to Say

2005-12-16T08:35:00.000-05:00

Sitting in my bed with my coffee. Ah, after 2 days of instant, the real thing tastes especially good. I am reading in John again. Peace I leave with you. Not as the world gives. There is peace that the world gives, mostly through surface comforts and a sense of well-being that comes from feeling safe. Henry Brandt used to say that alcohol gives peace. or when your work is done and you have some money saved up and everyone in your family is healthy, peace.

Boxes. I don't remember exactly when I first heard the phrase 'thinking outside the box'. But I liked it. Yes, outside the box is where the truth is. Boxes can be very sneaky. You can be in one and not know it. I have broken out of a lot of boxes and I think that is where some of my own sense of well-being comes from. There was a book about finding your niche that had something to do with being outside the box. In our culture we must go to college after high school and pack a bunch of knowledge into our brains and then get a job and use all that knowledge. The time in school is strictly separated from the time working. Was that book where that phrase came from? Who wrote it? What was the name? I think the name was about the box. My memory is not so hot. He suggested there might be other ways to go about it. Working and education being more mixed up. My oldest did a work study program to help pay for college, alternating semesters of school with semesters working in her field of study. She learned by working as she was learning in the classroom. It worked very well.

So, boxes. I was a young Christian and I hated legalism. But I became legalistic myself. It's insidious. [spreading or acting inconspicuously with harmful effect] "Christians do this, and they don't do that. Christians think this way. Really dedicated Christians priority is that, not this." Etc. I inflicted these values on my children. No one is perfect. There were a lot of good values that came from me to my kids. But as they became adults, if they don't know how to think outside the box, they will only have those values because of tradition, not because Jesus Christ is real to them personally.

One of my boxes was thinking that I was not the best Christian I could be unless I was always making talking about Jesus to non-Christians my number one priority. And as a mom, I was not really the best mom unless I was also teaching my kids to have the same priority. But I did not take every opportunity to tell other people about Christ, nor did I try to turn conversations to Christ every time I was with someone. Just writing about this makes me feel waves of guilt lapping at my feet. Go away Guilt Trip!

But here's the thing. Maybe I believed in Jesus because I grew up in America and learned in Sunday School that "Jesus died for our sins." So one of my boxes would be my upbringing. My mom took me to church where they taught me about the son of God. Then there was Weekday Religious Education. At my grade school, a trailer used to come in once a week and most of us went out and had a Sunday school lesson for an hour. I sat in the back and did not pay attention. It was EXTREMELY boring. I got in trouble for not paying attention a couple times. After that I paid attention outwardly but my mind was anywhere and everywhere else except on that religious lesson.

Then I went to a ranch in Colorado at age 15 where they told me about Jesus, only this time the context was FUN and the kids there were COOL and the singing was outrageously enthusiastic and we sounded GOOD! The speakers at the evening Round-ups were mesmerizing and the counselors in the cabins gave real answers. This was NOT Sunday school.

[[Aside: I had a grumpy old lady Sunday school teacher whom I could not stand in about 6th grade. I had a hamster. I had a little purse that was shaped like an oval bucket and it had flaps that folded down to close the top. Once I put my hamster, Pooty, in my purse and took him to Sunday school. While the teacher was trying to teach I was showing my friends what I had in my purse. The teacher noticed and came and asked what was in there. When I showed her, she jumped. (Think cartoon lady up on a chair screaming about a little mouse on the floor.) She got really ticked at me. It delighted me inside that I scared that mean old lady. What an evil child. It still makes me laugh.]]

I think it was the founder of Young Life who said it is a sin to bore a child in the name of Christ. So I was not bored at Young Life camp in Colorado. We got to ride horses, climb mountains, play Wells Fargo (cowboys and Indians: each person had a "scalp" -- a bandaid on the forehead. The goal was to take as many of the other team's scalps as possible.) Four or five girls ganged up on me and I fought with everything I had. I think I may have hurt one or two of them, but they got my scalp. It was such an emotional experience, my first and only real fight, using elbows and thrashing around for all I was worth. I went back to my cabin and cried.)

The camp was divided into teams and each team had a queen and I got to be queen of the "Stogies". they put me in my bathing suit and made me ride a horse and rolled up a brown blanket so that it looked like a big Stogie and made me carry it. Our team ended up winning the week's competitions and that made me queen of the camp. I had to go up front (thankfully not in my bathing suit!) I was shy. This was very, very embarrassing. I did not know what to do. Although I felt honored to be queen, wow, PLEASE let me go back to my seat and dissappear!!!!

We got to take open jeep rides along steep mountain roads, and they would back the jeep up to the cliff and make us all scream with terror. They took us down a silver mine in the dark each of us holding onto the person in front of us. When we were all deep down in the mine they started screaming about bears and made us all panic.

We got to eat great food cooked by Goldbrick, we got to swim at the pool, buy Bibles in modern English that we could actually understand. We met kids from all over the country, got crushes on cute boys from the South with thick Southern accents that charmed the heck out of us. OK, me, I got the crush on the Southern boy, just me.

Anyway, this context .... not to mention the 3 days Tex spent driving us from the midwest to Colorado in an un-air-conditioned van in mid summer....the noise he put up with, the roudiness, the impertinence of teenagers.........he had a special gift.....then he drove us 3 days home as well. (At least we had "gotten holy" during the week.) .... this context of love and fun and caring was the right context in which faith could be born inside me.

FUN. The people who worked at the ranch loved us and gave a darn whether we heard the truth about Jesus or not. And it worked. I heard that Jesus death paid for everything I had ever done wrong. I heard that it was not about "do this and do that and God will approve" (like my parents, maybe). It was more like God loves me and cares about me and is reaching out to me and all I have to do is say yes. So I did. Yes, I believe Jesus, a real person in history, came and lived a sinless life, died to pay for my wrong-doing, rose again from death (impossible) and went up to heaven to live forever, where he is, incidentally, making ready for me to join him. Wow. Yes, who wouldn't want this?

So boxes. This wonderful thing, this birth of Annie into God's family led to me wanting to pass this on to other people. This is not bad, but over the years, especially after I had children........

Oh, there is too much to go into. Legalism crept in. Do this to be a good Christian, don't do that. I didn't use bad words, didn't smoke, didn't drink except for a glass of wine with dinner at my father's house. I didn't lie, didn't steal, I was faithful to my mate. But I think the box that I didn't fit into was the one about make it your priority to verbalize your faith in Christ to everyone you know. Try to convince them to become Christians. Study the best ways to do this. Meet people with the express purpose of telling them about Jesus. The goal is not bad: to share with others the best thing that has ever happened to me. What became bad in my life was the use of formulas, rote things to say, cliches. I began to feel like I was trying to trick people into believing in Jesus.

Jumping to the present. God draws people to himself inside of people where we cannot see. Do you want truth? Do you want integrity? Here I am. Come to me. People who believe in him work on the outside, telling others about God and living a life of integrity in front of them so that they will be drawn to the person. Now I am geting acquainted with the artist and writer and coach God made me. How good He is.

The thought I had while I was sitting in bed reading John: Jesus said "I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe."

The thought was about the boxes. There are boxes and we all are in them. Boxes made out of cultural beliefs, our parents' values, then our friends' values. But Jesus Christ is not a box. The nice little story about a baby in a manger is not all there is to Jesus. He is real and He is God. I have seen his glory and I am sure of this. I have seen his light and only because He chose to give me a glimpse of it.

Jesus also told Martha such things when she complained to him after Lazarus died ("if you had been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died", like, "why in the world didn't you come when we called you?" Mary said the same thing.) When Jesus got around to approaching the cave where Lazarus was entombed, he told them to take the stone door away, doors made of stone designed to be permanent. Martha protested that it would smell. Perhaps she wanted to retain Lazarus' dignity in his death. These are real people with real brains that work just like ours. Martha -- the practical one. Jesus said to her "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"

We want to see the proof first, and then, we think, we will believe. Well, these people had been watching Jesus prove he was the son of God for a few years. He had been going around validating his words by his actions. Miracles to be specific. They had their proof. They were his closest friends and had seen a lot of miracles. Martha believed that Jesus was God's son. Jesus said to her "Your brother will rise again." Martha said, Yeah, I know when the last day comes, he will. Is she thinking: is this what he means or is he going to raise him up now? She had already told him "I know that even now God will do whatever you ask."

Jesus did what he so often did, and focused her attention on himself in the present. Who He was, not whether Lazarus was going to be saved right then or not. The bigger issue. He said I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies: and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? Yes, she did and she told him so. You are the Christ, she said, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.

As I am sitting here writing this post, which has gone places I never expected, I have become overwhelmed with emotion several times. I have shed a few tears. Now that I've looked up the verse I wanted to talk about, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" I read on to check the details and Mary has arrived along with the mourners who were hanging around "weeping with she who weeps".

John writes: When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled, and he asked them where they had laid Lazarus. They said come see. and Jesus started crying. The Jews decided this meant that Jesus loved Lazarus a lot. Jesus was a man like us, too, in that he got emotional. And, yes, I think Jesus loved Lazarus a lot. He hung out with him and the 2 sisters in Bethany. They were supportive friends. They had been there for him.

Except some of the Jews said "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind have kept this man from dying?" Again, real people with brains that actually work. Logic: he does miracles, why didn't he do one for Lazurus so that he didn't die? Something is wrong with this picture.

John says: Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. Crying again? Is his face contorted? Is he moaning? How do they know he is deeply moved? Doesn't say, but there was apparently some sort of evidence.

When I came to write today, the only thing I knew I wanted to say was: Jesus Christ is not a BOX. We who follow him, believe in him, are given to getting into boxes, most of the time without knowing it. We are "vicitms" some may call it of our cultures and our families. But Jesus is real and He is God in the flesh. If you will, His work involved going around crushing the boxes of the Jewish leaders and teachers, their traditions for tradition's sake, their dead laws and holidays and rituals.

I can't write any more. Now I'm crying again and I have obligations to meet.

I did not intend to be so preachy, but I do not apologize. God is great.

Getting the rust out of my fingers

2005-12-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

I have a commission. I love saying that: it makes me feel significant.

When I sent out my newsletter about writing, art and coaching, a friend asked me to illustrate poetry he had written for his children. I said yes. He wants to give it to them for Christmas. There are 25 poems.

I am trying to do watercolors for as many as I can. I will not be able to paint for all of them. Some will have to be simple drawings. The poet and I agreed that I can send watercolors next year as they get finished. He has a book with acetate pockets and he can slide the new ones in when I finish them.

The process is exhilarating. I love working with the paint and the high quality paper. I have tons to learn, but after a few weeks of working on this, I can see that my later work is getting better than my earlier work and I feel more confident. I like some of my pictures and I can see how to fix some of the ones I'm not satisfied with.

I am using photos from the web mostly. Thank you, google. Then I draw my idea. Some are fun. Some are a serious rendering of an animal, for example. I have to force myself to speed-draw to get going. I learned this in a life drawing class. We had to draw an entire person (naked) in 15 minutes. The next time it was 10 minutes. Then 5. We went all the way down to about 30 seconds. It was a very helpful exercise, which forced us to resist the temptation to get all bogged down in the details right off the bat. Instead we had to get the essence of the pose down. Maybe I did learn something in art school.

After the layout come the colors. This is something I learned from David Dewey's class. "You don't want to go looking for your colors while your paper is drying." --or something like that. You have to waste lots of paint (mix up plenty of color before you lay any down on the paper. I am not good at this. I want to mix my first color and start putting it onto the page.

I have decided to use watercolor colored pencils on some of the pieces, because it is easier and faster and suits some of the brightly colored pictures very well. Like flying froggie. But the reindeer is done in natural, more subtle shades.

When I get done, I'd like to put some of them on my blog, but I'll have to work it out with my poet friend, since his poetry is copyrighted.

I made my daughters look at everything I've done so far. They like the realistic ones best. I do too.

I know this: when I first started I liked the work, but I was frustrated over spending so much time on one picture and not being satisfied with it. I felt panicky about being able to meet the deadline.

But now, I am making progress, the finished products are better, and I am just enjoying working with my hands.

walking away

2005-12-04T18:05:00.000-05:00

OK, it's been several days and the ones upons ones of readers are checking daily dying to know if I'm am buying the cute little storybook house. No. My realtor and our handyman added up real numbers. More cold water was thrown on the idea and this time it had ice in it.

I already knew that a whole lot of money would be necessary to move... way more money than I would have thought to add the bathroom and kitchen to the garage loft, and even more to make changes in the rental house. I whimperd a bit, but gave up and went home, thanking them for their patience, and happy that it was resolved.

I still think the Holy Spirit blew me by the house, just not so that I should buy it. The pro/con list brought out the good things about staying put. The pro/con list made me realize I do want to move in some ways.

When I started hyperventilating, I asked my coach to calm me down, because I was distracted from my job, making illustrations for my friend's poetry...which has a deadline.

It made me verbalize issues to my co-inhabitants, (my daughters) the issue being RENT. They are getting to be adults who "should" be out on their own soon, and now I have actually told them how much I need to get from the space downstairs and if they want to live in it, they can come up with the money. Otherwise, move upstairs. The thing I need to verbalize next is when they must start paying. Probably the new year would be a good place to start.

While I'm trying to learn to be a better mother and require adult behavior from my adult children, at the same time I see my managers at work struggling with letting my coworkers get away with cheating and laziness and I can't help but see the similarity. I had a chat with my manager who is probably half my age, and told him that by not firing the girl who sleeps on the job and gets into f-word shouting matches and has to be restrained from fist fighting, he's hurting the store, the customers and the girl herself long-term. He is nice. Yes, I would much rather work for a nice manager than a mean one, but leaving her on the payroll teaches her she can get away with bad behavior and still get paid. She's gone and her coworkers are glad. Though I had grown to dislike her, I sincerely hope she will wake up and grow from this experience, even if it's 10 years down the road when it dawns on her: "Hey, there was a reason I got fired. I was a whiney self-centered little twit."

Love at Second Sight

2005-11-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

I drove by the cute storybook house on my way to run with the dog, just to look again. Am I crazy, maybe I'll come to my senses. I saw a person walking from the house to the garage. I got out of the car....hello?! I called out two times and the owner came back out. I asked a question or two. He said the realtor was there and would show it to me. Ok. I'm happy. I want to see this how the studio is set up even if I don't ever live here. Ideas, ideas for building a studio onto my house, if nothing else. A train load of ideas.

The realtor remembers my name from when I called her as good realtors do. She shakes my hand firmly and we go to look at the house. Definitely charming and all artistic looking. The owner's mom paints and the owner (female) writes. The workshop has dog doors through which the dogs come in and out at will and the floor is heated. It is not as big as I envisioned it. But it's only me. How much space do I need?

The owners collect antiques and it reminds me of my own house; there is even a table downstairs - (have you noticed realtors do not use the word basement?) - a table just like the one Rick and I bought together in the last months before he died.

That reminds me of how it was when we looked at the house we live in now. She had baked bread on purpose right before we walked in and her house was done in my colors in oak antiques, our style. It already looked like my house.

And I had to ask these nice people where they were moving to. The realtor had only said cross country. Why I had this sense that they might be headed for the great Northwest, I do not know. In fact they are moving to Bend, Oregon. To a house with a horse included. Stables. She showed me pictures. For them, it was a surprise too. They went out thinking they would take 5 years and eventually build a place out there. But the first place they looked at they bought. And there is no great rush to get out there, they can do the same business they do here out there.

The woman said more than once, seeing the excitement in my face. (I know you are not supposed to let them know how much you like it, but I wasn't house shopping, and so not really playing the cool game yet) she kept saying: I am only the 2nd owner and it breaks my heart to leave this place, it is important to me to see it go to someone who will love it the way I do. I'm thinking to myself: HOW important to you? Enough to lower the price a ton so that I don't have to take a huge risk moving in here? I was also telling myself: don't get attached, don't make a big deal of these details.

The zoning issue which seemed impossible to my realtor is just a matter of paperwork to the owner. And the possibility of selling a sector of land is almost a ready option. Red tape involved but it's worth 1/5 the price of the home.

wow, i'm tired. I am going to sleep on it.

Love at first sight

2005-11-25T11:14:00.000-05:00

After jogging with "bad dog", (see post "Untrained Animal") I took a different route home and saw an adorable little storybook house in my colors. Right after I fell in love, I noticed it is for sale. So I stopped and wrote down the realtor's number, studied it for a few minutes, and turned the corner so that I could drive back home. Oh! A detatched 3 car garage, and a studio/office built over it with lots of windows. Swoon, swoon. How much does this cost? I'm sure it's a lot, probably more than I could sell my house for, but I could live in the detatchment and rent out the little house (all 3 levels) to lots of folk and get lots of rent out of it and have space and privacy, an office to write AND paint in.....my mind is racing. If I could get paid for manufacturing ideas, I'd be rich. Mind you, they might not be good ideas.

OH! There is a 6 foot fence behind the garage! It's dog ready! I want it. I don't need a 3 car garage, I can put a little kitchen and bathroom in and have room left over to store stuff. How soon can I move in?

I had just decided to rent out space in my own house on Monday and this cute little place is so much more suitable and rentable and I would not have to give up my privacy -- one of the things holding me back from renting out part of my house.

I'm calculating where I am going to take the money from to accomplish this. I get out my cell and call the realtor. Yes, it costs more than my house, but I wonder if the money I would lose in moving could be made up in rent and she tells me there is land that might be subdivided and sold on the lot.

Driving home I try to calm myself: hold it loosely. If the Lord thinks this is a good idea, it may work out, don't force it. I call my own realtor and leave a message. I want to go see it.

Hmm, was I distracted from my painting? Yes, I came home and looked it up on line and saw a few pictures of the inside. I loved the sun coming in the windows and doors.

The realtor told me there is also a huge workroom behind the garage with a heated floor, as the owner does carpentry there.

OK, I have been telling my friends that I don't plan to retire and settle down in this state, but this place is so perfect for what I am trying to do NOW, write and paint (and coach?). It seems ideal for what I want right now, a separated place to rent out to others and a space of my own with provisions for dog...a studio, an office, plus room to store things for my mountain retreat house which I will fall in love with next.

As I feared my realtor called me back later and said I cannot have it. It would cost too much to get in there and I'd not be able to get the money back by renting to numerous renters. Worse than that, the garage is not zoned to live in. Sigh.

I did a lot of bla bla to my daughters about the place. One said, just take the money you'd use to move into that place and build your studio here. Yes, but....but....but....
(Irrational love trying to take the reigns) My realtor doesn't understand....whine, whine. It's ready now and there is land that could be subdivided and sold, and I can be physically separated from the renters. I don't know why that seems so attractive to me, but it does.

untrained animal

2005-11-25T10:55:00.000-05:00

She tripped me and I went down but I held on tight to the leash since there was a woman and her boxer right there (the dog being reason my dog went nuts and landed me on the grass).

Another day jogging at the lake and feeling so happy...no one deserves to be as happy as I ...cold air, leftover autumn colors, 200 geese taking off en masse and landing over by the shore when they heard us coming, deer, surveyors and 2 lone joggers.

As I looked up the woman and her dog were standing still and her dog was seated quietly by her side. I suppose she wanted to make sure I was alright. Or just wanted to take the opportunity to put another nail in the coffin of HER dog's instinctive bad behavior by giving him the opportunity to sit and wait, while all of his inner being wanted to come over and greet this other dog, play wrestle, or maybe even fight.

Honestly! So I'm stretched out with my hands on the leash and my dog is pulling toward the other dog and might have dragged me right over there if I had been a little lighter. Without saying anything, they walked on and I got up and continued my run saying things I should not say to my little "pet". I made the dog heal the whole time.

I was angry at her but before I even got off the ground I had decided to order a gentle leader on line as soon as I got home (for non dog people -- a gentle leader is a different type of collar than the traditional choke collar and puts pressure in a different place and everyone says it's much more effective in controlling the dog. While I was still on the grass, I was thinking about how I knew this did not happen because my dog is bad. She doesn't behave because I am not diligent enough in disciplining her. So let's go forward from here.

At the same time I thought this is why my girls are somewhat spoiled and my older kids think they are getting away with murder. I don't discipline decisively, consistently or effectively. I feel sorry for them which leads me to not discipline them well, and that is often fatal to raising up a child in the way he should go.

Untrained animal. This implies that the animal could be trained. I've done quite a bit of training with her, but not to the point at which I am comfortable with her in public.

My dog is untrained because I have been sloppy with her training. When you see the results in worst case scenarios like yesterday when she laid me out on the grass, it comes home. I ordered a gentle leader, a collar which I know is better than what I am using. I made her heel all the way home and I committed to returning to The Culture Clash, by Jean Donaldson, a brilliant book about dogs to help you understand how they operate. It includes lots of training instructions.

bird by bird

2005-11-24T11:37:00.000-05:00

It was my coach's idea to get a blog. I only knew it was vaguely about the internet. The word blog was in the news and I would have deduced it was about politics. But my coach said it's a free way to try putting words out there where people can see them, I went and got one.

Why "Annie"? There are on line predators... I'd just rather not openly invite cyber-prowlers over: If I give lots of specific details about who I am, especially since my posts have a lot of personal stuff in them, I may as well say: bring your perverted self over and attack me and my girls. Thus, "Annie" and vague geographical info.

My published author friend suggested I read Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamont. I am enjoying it immensely, mostly because she is a very funny little smart alec! Her ideas are much more useful to me in the area of painting right now than writing.

I have added up the number of hours it will take to complete 25 illustrations for a book of poetry. I have looked at the hours I have in the week which are available to work on it between now and Christmas. If I give in to the temptation to go at it every waking moment, I will set myself up for a 'crash and burn' experience (one of flylady's terms to describe what perfectionists do to themselves. You get all psyched up about a project and go great guns until you burn out and then you don't have any energy to come back to it for a long long time. This not to say one should not work long and hard on something.

Anne tells a story of her little brother sitting at the kitchen table with a report on birds due next day. He had had 3 months to work on the report. Piled on the table were paper, pencils and unopened books on birds. "Immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead" Anne writes. "Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

The perfectionist in me is easily overwhelmed and therefore frozen with fear and discouragement. The growing me says bird by bird. Painting by painting. Drawing by drawing. smile.

I don't think I have the problem Anne Lamont is talking about in her book so far. Anne Lamont is coaxing her readers to just start, just pick a topic and write something down about it. I have been writing since I started with my coach and he said "freewrite". I am not lacking for ideas or energy to write. I am pretty sure I need to learn editing and reducing the pieces so that people won't be put off by all the words on the page.

Anyway, I was up late putting another layer on my lightning painting and the last layer helped it a lot. I was feeling discouraged in that it had started to look too overworked like the first sketch, and it had taken so much time and I didn't want to start over a third time. Now decide whether to paint the ground on the bottom of the page or just let the whole painting be sky. The perfectionist in me is not satisfied, but I am deciding it's done and going on to the next piece.

So much rust in my fingers! Not to mention the injured thumb caused by my untrained dog at the lake yesterday. (see post called "Untrained Animal".)

Anne Lamont also mentioned Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Now then my art teacher had mentioned that book. [I had also asked him to talk to me about writing since he too had published a book.] He is not a writer like that. He is a painter. He needed a kick-start because he paints and writing a book was new to him.

Which am I? Both? Neither? I am not sure but I am having a blast finding out.

Yesterday was very unusual. I tried to paint all day. I spent time cutting pieces of paper and trying to stretch them so they won't rumple when I paint on them. Standard procedure. I stuck them to various surfaces with tape and/or staples and set them out to dry. Some rumpled when they were supposed to stretch. I got out the Watercolor Book and read "how to stretch paper". It was not clear how long to soak the paper, but I tried various lengths of time.

More time was spent looking for images on line to work from. Now you know how easy it is to be distracted that way! Google will find you way more photos of rainbows than you will need! I chose the simplest photograph, knowing that a rainbow was going to be difficult enough to paint without other things in the composition.

What else yesterday? It snowed! The trees aren't even bereft of their leaves yet; that was weird.

Oh yes, the other odd thing: I fell in love on the way home from my jog. See post called "Love at First Sight".

I made myself paint and work. I printed the poems in about the size I will need to hand print them once I've done the pictures. I taped them onto the paper to see how much room they'd take up so as to paint the picture in the remaining space. That takes time, too. I am learning what is involved in doing a commissioned piece of art and that is very valuable. I have NEVER done this before.

My brother in law said today something about painting being relaxing. No, this is not about relaxation. It's about making a living and it's about sharing something good with others and it gets me excited to work on it, but no, it does not relax me.

Drinking the Colors

2005-11-07T20:33:00.000-05:00

It was only about 3.30 when the dog and I went out to jog today but it felt like it was about to get dark, which it actually was. Sundown was 5pm. Perhaps the colors have peaked here, at least the yellows and oranges, though I know that after that there are a lot of Bradford Pears and others that give lots of brilliant reds. Yesterday when I got up and looked out it was snowing leaves. Today my grass turned mauve with oak leaves. Mauve is the color on the underside of the leaves. Not my favorite color. You look down and think, that's a lot of leaves. But if you look up -- 80% are still up there. I found my rake from last year and it has about 5 tines left on it. I hope that I get a strong wind from the West once all the leaves are on the ground. One year that happened and blew all the leaves out of my yard and down the street. I figured they may have ended up in the Atlantic. Saved me a lot of raking. I love raking though, I shouldn't worry. And I have 2 able bodied helpers with me.

The sky was thin blue and the colors were not as brilliant as yesterday. Some trees simply make me gasp. I felt energetic and we ran the route around the lake. My camera was in my trunk. Last week when I ran with my camera while stopping to take photos at the same time, I lost my lens cap.

The dog is comic relief. When we finish running, I make her go down the slide with me. She does NOT like this. So I'm trying to build her confidence with the easy ones and give her treats afterwards. Once we go down, if I try to lead her anywhere near the steps to go up again, no way, Mommy, I am not doing that again!

Should I get my camera and walk the lake a 2nd time and use up my film? Instead I decided to go home. I drove through my neighborhood and finished the roll on every bright tree and bush I saw, plus the street that is like a tunnel made of overhanging trees. They are not in color, but it looks great all year long because of the trees. I hoped people were not uneasy with me taking pictures of their houses.

The other night, there was a very dark blue sky with a spotlight from a baseball field illuminating a yellow tree. Now the mind knows that it is yellow, but I studied it and thought about how to paint it. Lots of red to darken the sky and tree. The value of the tree on the shadow's side was the same as the sky. And though I knew that the leaves were yellow, I would try brown madder or yellow ochre for the lighted side of the tree. I carried this mental observation with me and three days later I opened my paints and tried to capture the colors I had seen. I used a red background and painted over it with the blue, green and tan and .... it worked! Those are the colors. I was amazed.

I cannot count how many times I have walked at dusk or at night with the dog in the past few years and thought "It is impossible to paint that. Those colors don't exist in paints. But that was before I had a good teacher. Exciting.

Olivia's flower arrangement for church was fall foliage. What she does with flowers is a combination of painting and sculpture. She is so good at it. I remember when she did the flowers for my husband's memorial service. I just stared at the pink roses thinking: those can't be real, they have to be fake.

I am so happy to be connecting with the artist in me again.

A Well-Loved Child

2005-11-02T23:18:00.000-05:00

The timer says 5 minutes. What's on your mind? Sun is shining in the east window but the old roller shade won't go up all the way so I cheat myself out of 75% of the sunbeam. Didn't sleep that well, a tickling cough. The remedies are available to zap colds these days...if not preventing them altogether, at least shortening them from 2 weeks to 3 days, and keeping them from turning into full-blown head colds. I blast my symptoms from the earliest moment with Vitamin C, garlic, ecanacea, Coldeeze, gargle, extra fluids and rest. Since I have used this method, I either get a short, mild cold, or the symptoms dissappear completely by day two.

The tall lovely young woman came to me last night in Smaland and asked my opinion about why African American women are so attitudinal with each other. She says many times people have said to her, "Are you from North Carolina?" because she and her mom are nice and friendly and smile a lot. She says women who grow up in our area are looking at each other in a judgmental way and are quick to fight.

I gave her my theories, the first being that with the history of oppression, and not only being oppressed and enslaved because they were black, but because they were women. OK, so they are at the bottom of the totem pole. Now then historic events have given them the opportunity to be free and have 'success'. I wonder if in their present freedom, they have adopted the attitude: By golly, nobody is EVER going to put me down again. (Can't you hear the feminist song: I am woman hear me roar....no one's ever gonna take me down again!) I wonder if African-American women have built their fence up thick and strong and you can see them peering over the top with their shotgun aimed saying to anyone on the other side of the protective fence, you take one step towards me and I'll blow your head off. I told her when we clocked out that some other time I'll tell her why I came up with that theory. It is from my own experience of coming to a place of learning about boundaries and putting up my own protective fence. It is normal to over-react when you are learning to keep your boundaries firm. Instead of just erecting your fence and going inside and enjoying your house in peace, trusting your fence, you peer over the edge and yell at people who even look towards your property: You had better not be thinking about trying to cross this line!

But there's a major flaw in this theory. It might explain attitude towards white people, or towards men, but not attitude BETWEEN African-American women, which is what she was wondering about.

The second part of my theory follows:
She described how some younger girls were looking her up and down at school and how she had to walk by them and could feel them looking critically at her. And she described how quickly a customer lashed out at her when she asked an innocent question. She thinks of the words The Angry Woman often.

I was thinking out loud and not putting a lot of stock in my own theories, just sharing them, since she asked me to: There is the breakdown of faith and family.

But here's my 2nd theory. OK, once you get out of oppression and you have freedom to work your way up towards power and "success", maybe there is a strong competitive drive: I'm going to establish myself (above you if necessary) for me and for my family. I am NOT going to be on the bottom any more. Do these women see each other as threats to their own success? If there is any validity in this theory, then being in a highly populated metro area like ours would ratchet up the competition all the more. More people, less resources, less opportunities...."if I'm gonna get mine, I had better grab on tight and not let go."

I love to analyze people and make guesses as to what makes them do things, but a much better source of information would be the young woman herself, and her African-American friends and family. I think I'll practice my listening skills on her and see what comes out of her mouth.

Oh yes, why did I title this the A Well-Loved Child?
Because after I started to get to know this young woman and observed her confidence and the appearance of being "comfortable inside her own skin", I remember thinking, "She must have been raised by parents who really loved her with lots of healthy love." Not doting on her, not disciplining her harshly, but healthy love, giving her affection, no doubt, but also freedom and encouragement to take responsibility and work hard and grow as a person. What a gift she has been given. She is such a contrast to some with whom we work, those who whine about every single thing that happens in the store, drawing attention to themselves. They may as well hang a sign on their shirts that say "Please feel sorry for me; my problems are significant, (but yours aren't).

Yes, I think she is well-loved by someone for sure.

Coaching

2005-11-01T16:16:00.000-05:00

My profile says my blog is about coaching and I have yet to write anything about it. I wrote "That (coaching) will be an interesting post. Check in later."

It's time to do a post on coaching:

Having a personal coach is a great new thing that God has brought into my life. Why struggle alone? I like having someone encourage me. I have lived with a lot of DIScouragement over my whole life, criticism, judgment without help, shame, rejection. To have someone who is on my side and whose purpose is to watch me succeed and be happy about it, not competing with me, but supporting me, feels really good. I am thriving in this atmosphere.

In the days after I had left my former occupation, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I am good at and what I could do for my next career. Thankfully I had savings to live on while I looked for a career. That is huge and I do not take it for granted! Get as much life insurance as you can for your loved ones. Don't think you won't need it. You don't know.

One day I got an email from my former tennis coach that said "You'd be a good life coach." I had only heard of a life coach once before in a conversation with some intelligent ladies. I was whining about not knowing what to do in life, and one of them said "Sounds like you need a life coach."

OK, so one person says I need one, the other says I should be one. Hmmmm, what's a life coach?

My tennis coach had sent 2 links to coaching websites. The woman's site gave me the impression it was for corporate executive types; I could not identify. The second was www.purposefilledlife.com. The title did not really appeal to me, because it sounded like the title to Rick Warren's book. I was rebelling a just a little at the popularity of his book, Purpose Driven Life, which I had been reading with a friend. I was distrustful of book simply because it was TOO popular, which made me suspicious. Oh, brother. Lots of good stuff in there, but all I remember from it is the first sentence: "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!" that is profound. If you get that, you probably don't need to read the book.

At any rate, Ron Marsh offers a free trial. I'm thinking one could really get ripped off by some stranger out there is cyberspace, who could take your money and give you a bunch of hooey. But, I thought, during the trial appointment I can discern whether he is for real. If I get ANY negative vibes, I won't do it.

So we had our trial call. I was favorably impressed and decided to try it. Again after one month, if it's not helpful, I'll quit. Ron makes a point that the coaching he does is subject to God's guidance. I did not fully understand what he was saying until I got into the process. Jesus said My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. I recognize God's voice in this coaching relationship. I do not mean that Ron says: Do something and I obey. That is exactly what coaching is NOT. But his skill in asking questions causes me to discern what God is leading me to do.

Life coaching is not mentoring, not consulting, not counseling, not psychotherapy. It has some elements from these things. But it is encouragement and accountability. Now I have nice friends who love me and say sweet things to me to make me feel better when life is hard. A coach doesn't do that. He is not a soothsayer.

And I've had a Christian psychologist who listened to me and asked me hard questions to help me understand my unhappiness and how to get out of it.

And I've had a pastoral counselor who listened for long hours and gave me books to read and gave me tools to communicate with people I loved. All those stood by me and all were valuable and sent by God at the right time. All of those I am very grateful for.

At this time, it is a coach I need and a coach I have. He is more skilled as a listener even than the counselor and the head-shrinker. His listening has a different purpose than therapy. He asks hard questions too. He cheers for me when I do things I say I'm going to do. He prays with me and for me. He is God's chosen person for me at this time of transition. The hesitancy is gone. Coaching works.

I'm excited about coaching and want to go into all the details but I won't. Ron would say: not everyone feels the need for a coach, but everyone can benefit from having a coach. I know what he means now.

When I had a tennis coach, I needed specific tennis expertise. Though I could say: 'I want to work on my backhand!' it was up to my tennis coach to tell me what I needed to change and how to do it. But my Christian life coach lets me decide pretty much everything I want to change and how to change it. The Lord and I.

Bottom line, it works. I am sure of this: before I hired a life coach, I was growing. Since I hired Ron, my growth (and the joy that comes with growth) has multiplied a hundred fold.

More about this later.

Mama (about grief, partly)

2005-11-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

I wrote this title several weeks ago because I want to write about my dear Mom. She has been dead one year plus. Daddy was here last week and he is still missing her terribly. I found a picture I had taken of her that was so typical, and a good picture it was, too. In the picture she is sitting at their kitchen table in those comfy padded chairs with wheels on them and you can see her African violets in the windowsill behind her. She is wearing her pink tinted glasses. I did not like them, but she did. She had caterac surgery and after that she could read without glasses but she still preferred to wear them. My guess right now tonight is that they diminished her wrinkles. She didn't like looking old. I gave the photograph to Daddy.

Now then, Mom. Mom. My dear Mom. We would sit at that table and have long talks with many cups of coffee and their itty bitty county newspaper in the mornings.

She stayed active. She was a PEO. She worked out at Curves. She danced in a line dancing group that performed in public. She went out to eat with her lunch bunch. She sewed clothes and was in a club in which they modeled their own creations. She did ceramics. She took an oil-painting class. She read. She stitched many many quilts, some for beds, others for wall hangings. She made me a plastic bag holder out of quilting -- a thingie you stuff grocery bags into the top of and pull them out of the bottom. She made me a quilted yardstick holder. She learned a Swedish embroidery stitch when they visited Sweden and stitched a rust colored Afghan out of it. When I admired it she made me one in blue. It took her 45 minutes to go across one row and there must have been several hundred rows of stitching.

She always had a project in her hands while she and Daddy sat in the living room after dinner with the TV on. I don't know how much they watched; Daddy would be reading his financial magazines and the Wall Street Journal.

She was a very good golfer in her day. She was beautiful. She had dark curly hair that didn't gray till very late. She never got fat. She slowed down, but always walked around the circle every night when I was there. In their neighborhood there are lots of circles at the ends of the streets, like cul-de-sacs, except they are big and have a large wild green area in the center and about 10 or 15 houses around them. A fox lived in the wild part in their circle. The Florida stars are very bright, not dulled by city light.

Mom, she always wished she had gone to college, but I think she had a lot of wisdom that "educated" people missed out on. She was practical. She and Rick used to talk about current affairs, politics. She had an opinion and let you know if she thought something was wrong.

After Mom's death, I found myself saying "Mama". I never called her that, but that is what comes to mind now. Mama.

It was so hard to watch her die. That strong beautiful woman, though old and wrinkly and slowing down, always hospitable, always compassionate. She lost hope and the doctors said "this is it, we cannot fix your problems any more." She did not hesitate. "I want to go home. I want you to get Hospice and I want lots of morphine and I want to go fast." I said, "Mom, I don't think that's legal," but that is pretty much what we did.

Hospice was absolutely wonderful. We made her as comfortable as possible. She wanted her special oatmeal with milk. She asked for peanutbutter on graham crackers. I slept in the twin bed next to hers. I heard her with my mothers' ears at night, the ears that hear the baby's slightest whimper. I gave her sips of water and bathed her face with cold water and a tissue. She had strep along with her other ailments, and we had strict instructions to keep ourselves from catching it. Hurricane Charley was barreling towards us but turned and hit farther South.

One day Mom said I think this is the day. When I woke up this morning, she said, I felt something prodding me in my back and I think it's time. She was wrong. She was a tough old bird and did not die for four more days. The hospice nurse said "She is actively dying".

I miss her. Your Mom and Dad are just always there, and that's how it is. How can she just quit like that? If I had not lost my husband, this would have been much more of a mystery. Yet at the same time, each death is unique. It is hard. I want to see her walking into her beloved kitchen....now that brings me to her claim to fame, her cooking. She was known for it.

When we returned from Africa after 11 years, I said to my husband, "what do you want to eat?" and he said, "Whatever your mom cooks." She grew up with 2 sisters and her parents owned a restaurant in their tiny town and they did all the cooking. She used to show us an old menu. T-bone steak for 75 cents! Mom.

I miss her. She would come out in the morning in her silky flowered robe and at breakfast she would already be planning dinner. I love fish, but my kids don't, so I don't cook it at home. Mom would cook fish for me. I am infamous for overcooking it, but she had the touch.

And that ugly coffee mug that had "Grog" written on it and had newsprint stains on it and she loved to drink out of it.

I wished I could take her weak, wasting body in my arms and hold her, cradle her against my chest and stroke her hair and cuddle her, comfort her. Let her sleep in my arms. But because of the strep I couldn't even kiss her. Mama.

She gave me life. She taught me to sew. She took care of me when I was sick and comforted me. She is MY Mom.

She is in heaven now being comforted by the Lord Himself. No worries about strep. No contageous diseases in heaven. She and Rick have the full picture now and don't need to worry about politics any more. Her suffering is over. She talked of her own selfishness while on her deathbed. We talked of Jesus and how he had prepared the way to heaven for us because of His death in our place. She believed in Him.

She asked me about praying out loud: How can you do it? I said it's not a performance; it's just talking to God. He doesn't care if it is polished or sounds like a speech. After that conversation she prayed out loud with me. I told her I loved her so many times and she told me the same.

Those days of turmoil and mercy. In the afternoon the clouds would roll by and sometimes drop rain. Usually they would rumble softly. Thunder without a storm. God lining up his bowling balls in the rack. The skies are so dramatic down there in the tropics. Big cumulous clouds that get drenched with color as the sun goes down. Anyway, each day I was barely aware of that rumbling thunder, though it did register in my subconcious, because I remembered it later.

I had been trying to get in touch with my coach to set up our next phone appointment. I had left him several messages asking him to call at my parents' home. Then it dawned on me: we are on the phone all day long. He has probably tried to call. So I left him a message to call my cell phone.

My sister and I and Daddy were sitting by Mom's bed. She had been asleep a long time. The hopsice people said death was imminent. I was exhausted and went to take a break and fell asleep on my parents' bed. My cell phone woke me up. I thought it was my coach and it was. Yes, he had been trying to call the house and yes, the line had been busy.

I took the phone outside and sat on the little bench by the front door. That thunder was gently rumbling. My coach asked about how it was going and I told him. Then we scheduled our appointment and he prayed for me. He asked that God would end Mom's suffering and that He would take her. When I went inside the nurse said, they have been looking for you; I think your Mom is gone. I cried to see my Dad sitting by her bed looking at her. I told him I loved him.

The thunder. When I thought about it later, I remembered that song: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, comin' for to carry me home.... the image in my mind was of an angel coming down in a chariot on that afternoon in Florida, stopping to pick up my mom, and giving her a ride to Heaven. The sound of that soft thunder was the chariot wheels.

Running away from Hurricane Wilma (about growth)

2005-10-28T10:06:00.000-05:00

My Dad and sister live in Florida. Having gone through 3 hurricanes last summer, I'm glad my sister chose not to face all the preps and disruption. Last year, hurricane Charlie threatened while Mom was dying and Daddy was recovering from a serious stroke. They were both at home in hospital beds. So when Wilma threatened, my sister was considering driving North. I said "You can come to me" and they did. They caught the non stop flight the next day and were here in just over 2 hours.

In the old days I used to fuss like crazy when company came, no matter who it was. The whole house would need to be cleaned, all the furniture arranged, nothing out of place and last -- and definitely least -- food purchased.

There was no time for fussing. But the thing is I don't fuss like that any more anyway. I love to have the place all clean and comfortable and inviting, but I'm not driven by that standard the way I used to be. Just come, we'll make do. (Flylady is one of my new best friends. See flylady.net.)

I put Daddy in the sofa sleeper so that he would have no stairs to deal with and since he might need his feet to hang over the end of the mattress. He is very tall. There is no footboard on a sofa sleeper. It has a decent mattress. I turned off the cuckoo clock so that it would not wake him up every hour at night. The nurse had to be near him so we put a twin mattress on the floor. My sister slept in my bed; I wanted her to feel my Select Comfort mattress. I went downstairs and slept with one of my daughters. Ok, everyone's in place.

I never thought I would ever have my dad in my home again, since he doesn't travel any more. The hurricane made that happen. We had a very nice visit. I took him to my place of employment and put him in one wheelchair and my sister in another and the nurse and I walked the entire place with them. It was fun. I wanted my sister to see the place. We ate Swedish meatballs and lingonberries and bought more Swedish food to bring home. The nurse is an excellent cook and when she baked the meatballs and made the gravy, they were very good, unlike the time I threw them in the nuker.

I rented Winged Migration for Daddy to watch -- a beautiful film of migrating birds with haunting music and few words. He likes birds. I think he liked the film, because he stayed awake looking at it. I have an old cookie tray in my fireplace filled with fat candles. I light them all and get the feeling of having a fire burning. I also lit lots of other candles to add to the warm feeling while the cold rain was outside coming down sideways.

I read The Bear Story to him and asked him if he remembered it. "Yes", he said, "I read that to you when you were a little kid." And I said, "Yes, and you gave me this book of James Whitcomb Riley's poetry. I have read this story to my kids and other people's kids.....that Alex ist made up hissef".

We took him for a walk in the park in my neighborhood. He uses his cane and is very slow, but it was good for him to be outside. He said he had to pay such close attention to where he put his feet that he couldn't look up and see the scenery very much. Another frustration of being old. It was very cold and windy. One day it rained all day.

I showed Daddy my paintings from my Maine Watercolor class in August. I wanted so much for him to be happy for me, because his father was the artist in our family and he, Daddy, paid lots of money for me to go to college and get a degree in fine arts, which until now, I never really used. I wanted him to be excited that I am painting again, but, alas....it is not to be. His short term memory is failing and he looked at the pictures and said "I've been there. This looks familiar." When he saw the photographs of my classmates, he'd say, "I know him."

It is so hard to watch that brilliant mind in its crippled state. He tries so hard to remember.

I am grateful that he has recovered physically from his stroke. Last year at this time he was in bed unable to move or walk or take care of himself. Since we took him out of the "rehab center" he has rehabbed, thank you very much. Some say that if he had stayed there, he would have died. It's a great case for investing and saving money for your retirement. He has the funds. He invested wisely and was frugal. He has social security and Medicare, but he'd have enough money for good health care without it.

After dropping them off at the airport, I did my usual bustling around putting things away, washing towels, and so on. I feel happy.

One thing is noteworthy to me: I had the choice to throw my entire schedule out the window and spend all my time with the family. That is what I would have done in the old days. I could have called out at work (everyone else does) and I could have postponed my telephone coaching class and I did consider that, but that is the old me: drop everything, my family is here. I thought about it carefully. This was not about dissing my family. This was about staying on track with my goals and letting different things go in order to be with the family. The things I let go were obsessing about housecleaning and food preps. It's ok. I went ahead with my coaching class. It was important to me to keep my mind in my priorities. Staying on track is where I am growing right now and I do not want to go back to my old ways. If necessary I would have dropped everything and spent 100% of my time with the family, but I did not choose that. It was not about being selfish, as in "This is ME time." It is about growing toward making goals, and staying on track to reach those goals. We had lots of relaxing time together and it was a true blessing.

Day 5 (last Maine Watercolor Class)

2005-09-19T14:27:00.000-05:00

The last day it is so foggy that the sky and sea are one shape and one color. David does his demonstration under dripping pine trees. We're not quite sure if it's raining anyway. One of the guys holds an umbrella over David, but the drips off the umbrella seem to land right on his paper. David can paint anywhere and has chosen paper that dries quickly because of the wet weather. He comes up with a piece of art. Some of us take pictures of it. I set up shop out of my trunk today, which keeps my paper dry. At the critique, all the paintings look like a foggy day, but I guess the sun was shining where I was. I laugh to myself. I'll learn. Give me 40 years and I'll be as good as David.

There is a wonderful lunch prepared by David's wife, Kathy, back at the house. We are free to look around. I go looking at every painting in every room. Some are David's. The house is a big old Maine house. Simple, pleasing, but not like a magazine picture. Real. I discover a third floor with a bedroom I like. A white room with a quilt, paintings, small rugs, old painted furniture.

I meet friends of theirs from church and talk with the wife. She does substance abuse counseling and she tells me great stories. More email addresses exchanged. I notice that the other students have gone and I decide I must leave too, though I don't want to. I know these couples are old friends and David and Kathy's daughter has arrived too, so I'm gone.

The drive home is relaxing and my mind and heart are full. What a gift this week was. I am so thankful to God for this.