Joe is retiring next week. Wednesday to be exact. My life will never be the same.
I used to look at people my age when I was in my twenties and think, "Well, their heading for the dirt nap." Now I'm there. I don't feel like I thought I would. I feel like I'm stuck at around 33. Then I walk by a shop window, see my reflection and shock myself.
" Who the HELL is THAT!?" Or when I head back UP the hill I just came down and I'm gently reminded by my heart and lungs. Sigh.
Joe will have a lot of time on his hands. Like he has never had before. He has lived an amazing life and I can't imagine what this transition must feel like to him. He asked me today as we were looking around the yard, "What will I tell people I do when they ask?" Good question. He'll be working on that. Perhaps he'll spend more time collecting rocks. Joe is called the Rock Man around here. He loves rocks! He'll see a rock on the side of the road and we'll have to stop to collect it. See these? In the picture above? Yep, you guessed it. He seems connected to them like he used to be a rock. Except the pebbles. He got these at Home Depot and scattered them amongst his rock relatives.
It was a glorious morning. Look at the way the sun's light shines through the leaves of this wild violet. It spang from amongst Joe's rocks. It's quite at home here. I can't wait for it to bloom.
Have a great week.
Love,
Ronnie

Tagged

I've been tagged by Rosaria at Sixty five what now, and have been asked to share 6 unimportant things which make me happy. :0)

I'm happy to play along, and here's my list:

1. I try to be spontaneous and silly and laugh at something every day, no matter how difficult or stressful the day has been.

2. I love walking barefoot, and wear shoes only when absolutely necessary.

3. I love the smell of chives early on a warm humid spring morning.

4. I love planning day-long walking or hiking trips in mountains and wilderness, small towns and big cities, followed by a simple meal with someone dear to me.

5. I like solitude and rarely feel lonely. I sometimes wish I could spend a summer all alone in a cabin in the mountains, with no electricity or running water, and just some basic supplies, books and art materials to see me through until fall.

6. I enjoy gardens that someone else has weeded, planted and tended, and buildings others have built and maintain. I enjoy spotting beauty wherever it may be, but don't feel any need to possess it.

I'm supposed to tag 6 other bloggers to list 6 unimportant things they enjoy, but instead I leave it up to any and all who want to be tagged to list 6 things on their blog. Just leave a comment on this post to let us know you have played along, so we can visit your blog and get to know you better, too.

:0)

A Good Memorial Day

Monday is Memorial Day in America. It's a time for family gatherings and backyard cookouts. A time to visit a military cemetery and perhaps leave a token of thanks and gratitude to a fallen soldier, sailor or airman. Joe and I will travel to St. Marys where on Monday a wreath will be placed on the St. Marys river.

I grew up the daughter of a US Army aviator. My dad was a member of the Army Air Corp, a veteran of the Korean War and Vietnam War.
I cut my teeth while watching young soldiers, paratroopers in training, jump from the mammoth jump towers at Fort Benning. I adored military parades and the music of John Philip Sousa.
I also loved planes, helicopters, anything that flew. And my father was a pilot. I mean PILOT! When he smiled, I swear little stars flashed from his snowy white smile. He was my personal hero.

When I was nine years old my father took me flying over farmer's fields. Dad was attending flight school at Fort Dix, NJ at the time. Illegal as hell, he had my mother bring my older sister and me to a grassy field where he landed an Army L-19 Birddog. Picture a light weight, army- brown, highwing, two-seater aircraft, it's wings painted with the star and stripes.

It was a beautiful day. As the three of us stood in the tall grass of the field, Mom pointed toward the sky. We watched as a tiny plane grew larger, then landed. My hair whipped against my face from the rush of the propeller, then with all the trust in the world for our handsome young father, my sister and I climbed aboard.

I had flown once before on a long trip across the breadth of America and up to the Aleutian Islands and then across the endless Pacific to the island of Japan. It was 1952, the airliner was not a jet, but a propeller driven plane! But today was different. It was filled with spontaneous spirit and that touch of danger that my dad embodied.

As Dad motioned to us, and with Mom's help, we jumped into the single seat behind our dad, sharing the harness intended for a backseat observer. Within minutes, Dad opened the throttle and we spun around to take off. The plane felt as light as a balloon under us. With each bounce across the grass it seemed to want to leap into the air!

I think Dad took that little plane through every maneuver he'd learned and knowing my dad, probably more. We dove and climbed and rolled and did gigantic loops in the air that made our stomachs float into our chests and I heard myself yelling a squeeky little girl Whoaaaaaaaa! in unison with my sister. We looked at each other in wide grinned joy and we both knew we were the luckiest girls in the whole wide world.

Have a good Memorial Day folks.
Here's to my dad and all the other veterans who have passed on. Thanks. Thanks an awful lot.
Love,
Ronnie

Some things I try to remember every day . . .

The happiest people don't have the best of everything,

they just make the best of everything they have.

"With our thoughts we make the world."

~Buddha

“With a few flowers in my garden,

half a dozen pictures and some books,

I live without envy.”

~ Lope de Vega

(1562-1635)

Evolution, Birth and Growth

Blogging is an interesting phenomenon. It attracts both people who keep written paper journals and diaries, as well as people who don't. I'm one of those that eagerly starts a new journal with the best of intentions, only to stop a few days later. I put the book in a safe place, thinking I'll get back to it again, but I never do. I've done this about 10 times, and have 10 beautiful little books containing a few pages of frantic scribbles, the rest of the pages remain blank.

The photo at the top of this post was my original blog header. It's interesting to re-read early posts in a blog, and I find my own very interesting. It's been about eight months since I started this blog, and in a way it's been like waiting the nine months for a baby to be born. In the beginning, this blog was all about me. Who was I? Where was I going? Who did I want to be? I've never indulged in looking at myself this way before.

It was a very personal blog, very few people found me and read my words, and it was OK. I was writing mostly for myself, anyway, and I was too shy to leave comments on other blogs and bring attention to myself.

As I became more comfortable with myself, and the idea of baring my soul in a blog, or anywhere, I began to look outside of myself more and more. I began to see the possibilities available to me in my own future, and the possible directions my blog could take. This blog was like a baby in a very basic sense. I had an idea of what it would be, but it seemed to have a mind of its own and was taking a direction I never anticipated.

And with my blog, my life was changing and growing and reaching a new phase, as well. In the eight months that I've had this blog, both the blog and I have evolved from something that was primarily introspective and self-centered, to something that looks outward and eagerly anticipates what is ahead in the world outside.

The next phase of my life and the life of my blog are almost ready to be born.

In past posts, I've often been so eager to post an idea, that I often quickly slapped together an illustration for my words. Well, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm really capable of better "art" than I've been showing here. There will be no more excuses that I don't have the studio or the time to create what I want to create. I will have a renewed emphasis for quality over quantity, in all aspects of my life.

I've mentioned in past posts how Mr. C and I decided to embrace a more simple life when I decided to give up my career to be a full-time mom. It meant twice as many people were going to live on half the income we had made together. I can't complain. It hasn't been easy, and I've had to be creative and thrifty in many ways. But, it's worked out well for us. We have always had all we needed, and many luxuries besides. Currently, all four of us share this very slow, tired, old 1998 computer, but I am truly grateful we have a computer with internet access, and a comfortable chair to sit in while we use the computer.

I'm also grateful for the opportunity to work with autistic children. It may be a while before I'm assigned to work with a child. These agencies like to use college students and grad students for these line therapist positions, so I'm up against ageism. But I'm up against that almost everywhere I go to look for employment at this point, and this type of postion is worth fighting for. In the mean time I'm reading a number of recommended books about autism, learning Spanish, and becoming a better photographer and, hopefully, a true artist.

Anything that spurs you on to grow and keep learning is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. I hope to keep growing and learning and finding new ways to be a productive member of the human race, and the blogging world. One day at a time.

I'm so happy to be here. I'm happy you're here, too!

Reverse Gratitude

I heard something on public radio last week which you might find interesting. The discussion was about expressing gratitude and how it can sometimes be difficult to list all the things we're grateful for.

For some time now, we've been encouraged to keep a gratitude journal of some sort, where we should list all the things we're grateful for. We're told to do it daily. I don't know about you, but I always have a difficult time keeping up this sort of thing. It becomes tedious and repetitious, and I tend to stop after a few days because I'm listing the same basic things over and over.

When you practice reverse gratitude, you look at your particular situation at any given moment, and your thinking goes something like: "At least I still have a job." or "At least my car is paid for." or "At least we have a roof over our heads and enough to eat." or "At least I have comfortable shoes that keep my feet warm and dry." You get the idea, right?

(Or it's like last year, when I took the photo of the roses which I posted above. I looked at the garden I had so lovingly planted and tended, only to see that deer and rabbits and birds had enjoyed feasting on most of my beautiful flowers and herbs. I looked around and thought, "At least the little bastards didn't eat these roses!" :0) . . . )

You are comparing your situation to one which is worse, and are grateful for having more than some who are less fortunate. It's the concept that no matter what you encounter in life, it could always be worse. You learn to become truly grateful for the most basic things.

With reverse gratitude, you think about things in a slightly different way, but the health benefits, both physical and psychological, have been shown to be just as positive as for someone who is successful at keeping a gratitude journal.

So if you have a difficult time keeping a written gratitude journal on a daily basis, this type of thinking can help keep your body, mind and spirit healthier than it would be otherwise. The power of the mind is amazing, isn't it?

7 blogs, 7 things, and 15 beauties

I've finally gotten together the list of blogs I'll be passing the One Lovely Blog Award and Kreativ Blogger Award to!

What a challenge it was to pick only 15 beautiful new blogs for the One Lovely Blog Award, which was bestowed on me last week by Cheryl at Lizzy Frizzfrock. Each blog I selected is beautiful in its own unique way. While these blogs might not all be the newest blogs in Blogland, many are new to me, and I hope you take a look at them, if you haven't already.

Jan at awake is good

Diantha at living your potential

Marissa at Welcome to Marissa's Flower Patch

Rachelle at The Mirage Writer

Juliet at Crafty Green Poet

Lisa at Creating Art in the burbs

Michele at Artistic Buffet

Gina at Artistic Dreamer

Angela at Letters from Usedom

Carolynn at A Glowing Ember

Delwyn at A Hazy Moon

Sarala at blogaway

Lynda at Peripheral Vision - Inner Sights by Lynda Lehman

Joanne at Whole Latte Life

Beth at Tangled Sky Studio

For the Kreativ Blogger Award, which was presented to me last week by Jan at awake is good, I needed to choose seven creative blogs/bloggers and list seven of my favorite things. First, I'm happy to pass the award on to these wonderful bloggers who continue to inspire me with their creativity:

Paula at self taught artist

lulu at my pink turtle

Liz at cherokeefox

Susan at . . . A Walk In The Park

Rosaria at sixtyfivewhatnow

Flor at Flor Larios art

Martha at An Artist's Journal

Please feel free to do as you choose with these two awards, pass them on, keep them, or just know that I have bestowed them on you because you and your blog are special to me in some way!


Finally, seven of my favorite things:

1. SPRING - I love to see and hear everything coming out of hibernation after the long Winter. I especially enjoy seeing the first tender green shoots of plants against the dark soil. . . and the smell of mud! And the robins, I always listen for the song of the robins.

2. NATURE - I love everything about being outdoors, including taking long walks in a warm, gentle rain shower.

3. TRAVEL - I love to travel, especially to places with natural or historical beauty. I really like anything that's very old, like Roman or Native American ruins, structures from the Middle Ages, rock carvings, worn cobblestones, rugged mountains and any wildlife. I also love to go where the locals congregate and try local foods.

4. ART - I love art of any kind, from primitive rock art to the most modern experimental art, from miniature paintings to huge metal sculptures.

5. MUSIC - I enjoy many kinds of music, from classical and opera, to jazz, to dance music, to contemporary and alternative music.

6. BOOKS - I LOVE BOOKS! Our two children thought they were growing up in a library when they were little, we have so many books. As a literature major in college, I always loved short stories and classic literature, but I also have amassed a collection of hundreds of cookbooks. This passion of mine to collect and read so many books started when I was very young, and I still have many of my German and English children's books, as well.

7. MY FAMILY - I never understood just how much you could love another person until I met my dear Mr. C and we had our Little C and Miss Kat. They mean the world to me.

Hugs,
Angela Y

A Parallel Universe!

We had a great time at Hatch Market!

The Scoop Magazine/Hatch Market team worked hard tying up loose ends after months of planning this first time event. I imagine this would be a tough thing to do the first year.
Things were a bit hectic as we set up. I didn't get the spot I imagined, which was a 10x10 spot covered by a tent they would provide. Once we got there I realized that the space I was given was not going to work. A six foot table connected to a long line of other tables covered by a HUGE tent. Sadly, no place to hang my art.

It looked like this.

So, Joe and I found a spot under a tree and next to a stretch of fence and were given the okay to set up there. We hoped it didn't rain (no tent) which lucky for us it didn't. Staff did offer to go buy a tent, but it could be an hour or so til they did.
A few things seemed to fall through the cracks, such as SIGNAGE! None on the surrounding streets to attract impulsive, looking for something to do, weekenders or for people intentionally looking for us. I believe that oversight kept the crowd a bit thinner than we'd expected. You live and learn.
BUT, I was very much humbled by all the creative people and true Indie stuff!

Click the pic and you might see something.

One of these days I'll remember to take great close ups for you!

The best part was meeting people like this. Jessica of ButterBeanBabies and Jodi of JodieMO
First craft show for them. What a dynamite job they did!

Here's Joe, my dear husband/pack mule, chatting with a customer.
This is not his thing but he hung in there to the end!

This is Anne Elser. Hey, did you notice! They put her in front of the Air Conditioner!

She makes THE most beautiful handmade journals, one of which I bought for Joe.
His birthday was Sunday.

These two talented ladies are best friends. Joyajewelry and Linwood Avenue. They too were rerouted, but lucked out with this great space in the garden under a vine covered arbor.

So She Sews and her very sweet significant other. I love her recycled creations. Check her out at SoSheSews.etsy.com

I met so many other great artists and crafters,
but no time to run around with the camera.

Bede Sisters Kay and Lori Shumpert make beautiful market bags and I had to have one!
E! La La! makes luscious soaps which Joe and I bought for Mother's Day gifts.
And I met Lolly of Lolly felt like it! Enjoyed talking to her lovely mom too.
It was great seeing all of you!
Great first try Melanie and Jessica! A good learning experience for all.
Love and hugs,
Ronnie

For everyone who mothers

More than an expensive card from the store,

more than a bouquet of flowers from a florist,

I will always treasure those bouquets of dandelions,

chive blossoms, wild violets, parsley and mint.

(And a handmade card drawn in crayon.)

Y

Y

Y

I wish all the mothers, surrogate mothers and other nurturers out there in blogland a very happy and blessed Mother's Day!

Surprised by Awards

This week I was totally taken by surprise by two of my dear blogland friends who presented me with these awards:

Thank you so much Jan, at Awake is Good for the Kreativ Blogger Award. You are such an inspiration to me. Your wisdom and insight have helped me in innumerable ways. And your posts always give me just what I need, before I even know I need it. How do you do that?

And thank you Lizzy Frizzfrock, (I love that name!) for the "One Lovely Blog Award." You have such a wonderful talent for finding the most interesting subjects for your beautiful photographs. I do so envy your talent!

I will be passing on these awards soon.

Angel Love and Little C

This latest doodle started to look like an angel to me. Do you see it? So I called it Angel Love, because we can all use as much love and all the angels we can get.

Which bring me to another angel. Little C, my son. Wasn't he cute? He still is, but now he's turning 18, graduating from High School, and 6' 3" tall.

He is, these days, a powerful rugby and football player. But when he runs, I still see the little boy he once was, the one who used to break into a run every chance he had, throwing back his head and pumping his little arms and legs so hard, I thought they'd break off. After a day in kindergarten, he'd run toward me and throw himself into my arms so enthusiastically, he'd almost knock me over.

It's been many years since he has done that. Now he's more likely to bend down and give me a quick kiss on the top of my head, but a mother's heart never forgets the baby her grown children once were.

Here's a close-up of another thrift store angel I found recently. I love the face, don't you? And I also found this quote in a second-hand book about angels:

"Everyone,

no matter how humble he may be,

has angels to watch over him.

They are heavenly pure and splendid,

and yet they have been given us

to keep us company on our way."

Pope Pius XII