You never know who's listening

A few months ago my husband, Mr. C, received a coupon in the mail for a free hearing test at a nearby clinic. We are suckers for coupons for almost anything free, so he made an appointment. Not wanting to go alone, he generously made one for me, too.

:0)

We went together and took our tests, which included being hooked up to all sorts of contraptions and even being put in an isolation chamber. They had tests to determine levels of ability in hearing as well as listening. As all women know there's an important distinction between the two.

:0)

It turned out that my husband's hearing was very good, it was his listening that was less than perfect. On the other hand, I had quite a bit of scarring in both ears from childhood ear infections and a bad case of the measles at 18, which had taken some of the hearing in my left ear. Anyway, my results were that while my hearing wasn't as good as his, my listening skills were much better than his. Perfect, in fact.

Is anyone surprised? Is anyone with a husband, son or significant male in their lives surprised? We women have known for years that men don't listen as well as we do.

Ha! I've had scientific proof ever since we took that test. And, yes, I mention it to my husband on ocassion. Can you blame me?

Don't get me wrong, though. I love the man to bits. He's my one-and-only and my very best friend. (I just tend to repeat myself when I talk to him, sometimes!) I wouldn't change him for the world!

:0)

In my last post I mentioned that I might be looking into working with children with autism. A few years ago I had looked into the possibility, but wasn't able to follow through because I ended up needing a total hysterectomy, which meant I had to be very careful with all lifting and sudden movements for close to a year. During that time, an acquaintance and I talked about how we both were interested in this kind of work.

Well, this lovely woman and I don't really see each other very often, but just the other day I received a call from her. She had just started working with autistic children and the organization she works for is looking for more therapists. And she thought of me! So, of course, I contacted them right away and now I have an interview!

I am approaching this with an open heart, and if it is what I'm meant to do, it will happen. What a privilege it would be to help an autistic child reach his/her potential in life by being a small part of an early intervention of this horrible affliction.

One more thing while I'm on the subject of listening. When my daughter was a very little girl, she spent a lot of time playing outside with her little brother. They especially loved playing among the trees behind our house. Her bedroom is located along the back of the house, too, so she loved to listen to the sounds of the crickets, birds, squirrels and cicadas. She always said it sounded like a jungle at night, and I guess it does.

One breezy day when we were all outside, she looked up at me and said, very wisely, "Mama, when the wind goes through the trees it always sounds like the trees are whispering something to me."

Isn't that something? Maybe they were whispering to her. I wish we could all hold on to that innocence of childhood, where everything is magical and anything is possible.

An open heart is a good thing. I hope you listen to the whispers in your life. I know I'm going to try.

doodle/scribble/color

The kitchen table is my “studio” for many of my creative efforts, so while I often have the urge to create something, I often don’t have a place of my own to follow through on these urges. Lucky for me, doodles are not too particular about where you create them. :0) This is a doodle I did over the rainy weekend. I also included some stream of consciousness scribbles:

with my own hands
I will create a new life
with my own hands
I will learn to fly
with my own hands
I will create a life
of purpose
and meaning
and beauty
with my own hands
I will create
and learn
and teach
and savor
and know what to do
with my own hands

I feel I’m on the verge of something, but I don’t know quite what yet. I’m having that familiar love/hate relationship with the Internet and blogging again. Some days I’m just ready to delete my blogs because the whole concept of blogging seems so self-centered. Look at me! Look at me! Other days I see the important connections, though fleeting and ultimately superficial in many cases, that can be made with complete strangers. I’m just looking for more.

It’s not that I'm becoming an empty-nester, really. At 52, (ha! I’m burying my age in here, hoping no one will see it! :0)) I’ve got two teenagers still at home. But I’m ready for something else. I’m just not sure what. It’s not like when I was young and the path into adulthood was clear. I graduated from the university, established a successful career, finally decided to marry and start a family, etc. Simple. But now what? I’m not needed in the same way I have been for the past 19 years. It’s up to me to choose the next fork in the road that's right for me. But what if I choose the wrong fork? I feel like I don’t have the luxury to make the wrong decisions anymore. I feel like time is running short and I have to make the right decision NOW.

I know I want to do something with meaning and purpose, and I’m looking into the possibility of working as a therapist with autistic children. I also know I need to work on creative/artistic things, and educate myself further about environmental, social and humanitarian issues, learn a few more foreign languages. And travel travel travel!

It’s up to me to choose the direction of the rest of my life. I wonder what's just over the horizon. . .

Poodwaddle

Happy Earth Day!

Here's an interesting link you might like to check out: Poodwaddle Earth Clock. There you can see real-time statistics for things like world population, malnutrition, HIV infections, CO2 emissions, extinct species, desertification, ocean oil spills, an oil depletion timer, US garbage production and recycling, etc.

Fortunately, Poodwaddle also has a Meditation and Relaxation Timer, complete with a selection of relaxing music, in case all those statistics get you a bit worked up.

(Haha! Poodwaddle - funny name, serious information.)

Three bananas and a metaphor walk into a kitchen. . .

As I was looking at these overripe bananas over the weekend, I started to think about how they reminded me of myself. No longer green, showing some of life's bruises and age spots, no longer possessing the firmness of youth, a bit on the soft and dimply side, but full of life and flavor and potential. And I thought - hey! what a great metaphor for life! When your life starts to make you feel like an unappreciated, overripe banana - make banana bread!

So here's how it's my metaphor for life: Everyone will at some time feel like an overripe banana. It's your choice to stay a banana, or to choose to become banana bread or a banana split or some other wonderful goody. Everyone has a slightly different recipe for banana bread - and everyone has a different recipe (or path) for life.

You may choose a healthier recipe, like adding some whole wheat flour or ground flax seeds. You may decide to add a dash of spice, like cinnamon. You may enjoy adding some nuts for texture and interest and added flavor. A few chocolate chips are one of my favorite things to add to my recipe!

Whatever your recipe for life, or banana bread or a banana split, be sure to enjoy the natural sweetness that comes from ripening. Some things only get better with time, and you are one of those things!

And one last thing. It never hurts to serve up your delicious new life (or treat!) on a beautiful platter. You are worth it!

I busted outta here!

The Dogwood Festival, held in beautiful Piedmont Park is the oldest and best arts festival in Atlanta. I first visited 30 years ago pulling my young sons in a wagon.
My sister called and said I needed to join her for the day, that I could probably use the inspiration. So, I did!
A bit of Midtown through the trees. Piedmont Park is like Atlanta's Central Park. About a 45 minute drive from my house on a really good traffic day.
Sheep Incognito! The booth on the right. What a hoot. Cute work and sells brilliantly! Boy, that lady is happy to have her picture taken.
There was good food here, but this was the most visually interesting. It was the forks that got me!

Brilliant artist here. My favorite of the show. And I forgot to get her card! Her husband takes all the photography of her work in preparation for making prints of her originals. He said she paints everyday. Click the pic for a close up!
This guy paints on black roofing paper. A long skinny 10" x 46" is about $4oo!!!
Perfect weather and a great artist break! I wish you could have been here!
I'm back to work now and humming along pretty well.
Switching gears, some of you are asking about the owl chicks. This is the last picture I took of the little one. He was posing for me, but his eyes are closed. If you're interested in some amazing professional pics of these owlets. Go here... JCKnoll.com and click the owls. He's been watching them since they hatched.
Have a great week, folks!
Ronnie

Sassy Cows

Yesterday, one of my doodles started to look a little like a cow, so I finished it with a little body off to the side and two circles of "moos" around the poor little dear. :0)

The doodle reminded me of the cute tags a local dairy/creamery puts on their gallons of milk:

The Sassy Cow Creamery puts these tags, featuring one of the lovely bovine ladies and an occasional bullish gentleman, on each gallon of milk. They don't inject their ladies with bovine growth hormones, so I really like to support them when I don't want to spend the $6 or $7 for a gallon of organic milk. Aren't they cute?

I'll have more time to visit my favorite blogs, leave comments, and e-mail my peeps next week. This week has been very busy, with my son on Spring break! I hope you all have a great weekend! Moo!

Serious Hair on Fire Mode!!!

Okay, today is the day that I begin in earnest to prepare for the Indie Arts Fair called HatchMarket.
I'm about two months behind, and if there were trophies for procrastination and quadruple tasking with disastrous results, I'd have a full shelf.
So, suffice it to say I need praying and good vibes sent my way. I'll probably head to Walgreens today for a stash of Valerian and maybe some Celestial Seasons Calm the Crazy Person Tea.
Yeah, that's a plan.
Sleeping last night was an Olympic sport. Imagine a sea bass out of water.
Yesterday was spent pushing the reset button on the youngest son.
Lord have mercy! Does parenting ever end!!!

It was determined yesterday that he'll begin the 2009 race season as a V W TDI Cup race car driver. This is the first and only Green (Diesel) racing series. Green? Auto Racing? Auto Racing! Green! Humans will try anything. First race is held at the beautiful Virginia Internation Raceway. Paul Newman called VIR heaven on earth. Wish the boy luck.
And his mother and father too.
I'm off now to chain myself to the art production room. I will check in later with the results.
Love and hugs,
Ronnie

Serenity

This was the view out my kitchen window as I made coffee and fed the pets this morning. Isn't the sunrise glorious? These colors lasted less than a minute. Most mornings I look to see if I can catch the sunrise at its colorful best, but I've only stepped out (OK, run out!) to catch it with my camera a few times.

My parents recently celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary. I've been married 20 years, and the day my husband and I were married, my mother gave me something she had taken the time to embroider just for me. This was especially touching, since she never really enjoyed or did much embroidery otherwise. At the time, though, I found the gift a bit strange, because she had embroidered the beginning of the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

At the time it seemed to me to be a bit negative as a wedding gift, but since then I've come to see what she was trying to tell me. I remembered all this when I wished them a happy anniversary recently. She said she was astounded, herself, when she looks back and realizes it has been over half a century since she married my father. When I asked her how she was able to stay married so long, she said,

"You have to close your eyes to a few things,

forget a few more,

and learn to forgive even more."

She's always been a feisty, strong woman, but she figured out a long time ago that some things are worth fighting for, and some things can be worked out in more quiet ways. A wise woman, my dear mother.

As a final postscript to my last post, I just want to add that I'm not someone who looks at life through rose-colored glasses. Far from it, I'm afraid. But I have learned that the choice to be happy and to forgive ourselves and others comes along every day. It's not something you choose once and forget about it.

It's like the sunrise, every day there's a new opportunity to get it right. Pretty wonderful, isn't it?

Who Hooed?!

See those two little bumps in the middle of the tree?
Two owl chicks! Waaaay up in a Live Oak tree. Nesting in the resurrection ferns.

This one is chowing down on leftovers left by mom the night before. I know! But that's what owls do.

Way up there. The tree is on a corner next to the elementary school on the main drag in St. Marys. I took these pictures the first week of April when I was down to do the Spring cleaning.
Younger one on the left, still quite downy. Older chick on the right. A man told me they can hatch several weeks apart. Explains why one is so much bigger. This is a good one to zoom/click on. You can see big one's yellow eye and the little one is napping leaning on his sib'.
Little one's face. Big one's bum. Looking for more chow.
I wish I had better camera skills. I walked here several times and was always surrounded by Owl Chick Fans! Tripods. Long lenses. Lots of chatter and pointing.

They never peeped that I could hear. One guy told me the mom owl (a great horned owl) came around only at dusk with a nice juicy meal for her chicks. He said he'd seen the bigger chick fly once, but not very well.
If I'd had the sense to take a shot of the scene below, you'd see lots of folks with their hands held above their eyes and pointing. Four of five tripods with cameras and traffic stopping to look.

I came back as it was getting dark, but didn't see their mom.

Look like two teddy bears.
Joe and I are going back today to stay for the Easter weekend. I'll bet they'll be flying by then.
Have a great weekend, folks!
Ronnie

Daydreams, doodles and the power of forgiveness

I have been seeing lots of information lately about the importance of daydreams. I wish I could remember where I read this, but one source even said that the brain is actually in creative overdrive while daydreaming. How great is that? I'm not sure I've ever managed to meditate, but I know I can daydream.

I have always enjoyed daydreaming – it has helped me get through many difficult times. Back when I was in the corporate world, it also helped me come up with some of my best ideas. Now daydreaming helps me come up with new and interesting ways to serve my family lentils and leftovers. :0)

While daydreaming a few days ago, I found myself doodling and decided to try to capture it in a circle, since I’m increasingly drawn to the look and purpose of mandalas. I used to doodle quite a bit, but like so many other things, I gave it up along the way. I really like the way I felt totally at peace while doodling. And I didn’t even notice that I was creating a little yin/yang symbol in the center of this mandala until I was finished. I am in search of balance right now. I think I’ll be doing more mandalas and doodles from now on.

I recently took a little break from blogging, but it didn’t turn out to be the long, or even total, break I originally thought I was going to take. For a while I was ready to delete my blogs. I even deleted quite a few posts that I thought were too negative or were going in the wrong direction.

A new blogger friend, Mermaid, left a sweet comment asking if it was perhaps a Sacred Pause I was taking. I had never heard of it before, so I did some research. This was just the breakthrough I needed! I had a name for what I was going through and direction for how to get through it.

From what I understand now, a Sacred Pause happens when we are about to make a monumental breakthrough. We can look back and see everything with total clarity, and most importantly, we can forgive others and ourselves, and finally be at peace and move forward. This is where I was, and this is what I did. Finally choosing total, unconditional forgiveness for all the crap that has been done to me, and all the crap I retaliated with, has made me feel incredibly unburdened and hopeful.

Forward is a good place to be moving. I’m looking forward to the journey. (Thank you Mermaid!)

Gone too soon

photo from Wisconsin Humane Society/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Just this afternoon I finally had the opportunity to read Sunday's newspaper and sadly found the obituary of a woman who touched my life in a profound way. I didn't know she touched my life until today. Victoria Wellens was Executive Director of the Wisconsin Humane Society and passed away from cancer March 28 at the young age of 58. I never met Victoria, but she is the reason we have our beautiful Beau.

We adopted Beau when he was around 6 years old, and we only knew that he had come to Wisconsin from Kentucky. For a long time I thought the name listed on his rabies immunization as his previous owner was someone's last name. One day last year I came on the idea that it might have been something other than someone's name, and it turned out I was right. It was BRAWA, not Brawa, and referred to the Glasgow Barren County Animal Shelter in Glasgow, Kentucky, which had been listed as Beau's last home before he was transported to the first of two shelters in Wisconsin.

Victoria Wellens and the Wisconsin Humane Society, in 2004, became the first partner of PetSmart's Rescue Waggin, a program based in Phoenix, Arizona, which transports adult dogs and puppies from shelters where they are likely to be euthanized to shelters which can find them homes. Our Beau was one of the 25,000 dogs which have been transported for this wonderful purpose so far. When we adopted him he was very submissive and obviously traumatized by events we will never know. He came to us with hind legs that have frequent tremors, and he eventually needed two surgeries. I'm so glad there were people who thought he deserved a second chance, and this wonderful program, which brought him to us.

As Beau rests here by my feet, as he usually does, I want to thank Victoria Wellens (with tears in my eyes) for our entire family for saving our beautiful, gentle dog so that we could spend whatever time he has left together. Rest in peace.

Picture perfect weekend

These days are just flying by! Here it is Monday again and it's been almost a week since I posted last.

Today I have some photos to show you that you may find interesting. On Saturday my daughter and I needed to go to Milwaukee, and the art museum (which is located right on Lake Michigan) looked especially photogenic. This 2001 addition to the museum was designed by Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned Spanish architect, engineer and sculptor. The wings open and close to control the light and temperature inside the huge pavilion underneath. The wingspan spreads 217 feet at its widest point, wider than a Boeing 747-400 airplane, and weights 90 tons. I believe this was his first U.S. project.

This view is from the downtown area looking east to the museum and the lakefront.

Looking west toward downtown

A foot-bridge passes over the street below, connecting the downtown sidewalk to the museum.

I believe the addition was designed to mimic the sails of the sailboats and tall-ships that frequent this part of the lakefront.

It was such a nice day, I decided to stop by some parks in our community to look for signs of Spring. The rabbits ate all my crocuses to the ground, so I went in search of colors other than gray and brown.

This time of year I look for the golden shimmer of the weeping willows. You can see them in the center of this top photo. I really liked the way the sky, water, bridge, willow and red bush looked together in this shot. I never really noticed this view before.

There are a few old cream city brick buildings in town. Here's one of them seen across the pond, as well as a picturesque gazebo on the left.

In a different part of town, here's a stream with a small footbridge. I liked the way they looked together with the rocks and tree.

I found some more willows with their golden shimmer in the distance.

My mother always looked for the first shimmer of the weeping willows when I was a child. I remember how she would almost sigh with relief when she began seeing that little bit of gold amidst all the gray and brown. Spring was near. It really does look spectacular on a sunny day - the clear blue sky and the isolated spots of gold - after the long winter. I pointed this out to my children, too, every Spring, when they were younger. Maybe they'll have fond memories of that someday when they are older, too. I hope so!