Hello! Almost one month ago, I blogged about beginning to participate in International Correspondence Writing Month, or InCoWriMo for short. I did manage to follow through on writing something to someone every day:
- one birthday card
- several Valentines
- several letters to people I know
- one letter to an InCoWriMo correspondent
- several thank you notes
- one sympathy card
- several letters left for strangers to find (fun to do and saved me some postage)
- one letter to myself (yes, this counts as a correspondence, according to the InCoWriMo organizers. I wrote it on the last day of February to sum up my experience)
The letters to people I know took awhile, but that's because they went to folks I hadn't written to in quite some time. It felt good to get those responses out in reply to those who had sent us Christmas cards.
The letter enclosed with the birthday card was a struggle to write, for it was meant for an old friend I'd stopped communicating with several years ago. It was all my fault, not my friend's, and for years after that she would send us a Christmas card stating she would love to see me again. But I never wrote back, and over time wondered if I could even patch things up between us. Frankly, I was afraid she'd be hurt enough to not consider me a friend anymore.
But I took a deep breath anyway, apologized, explained what had caused me to break things off, and then updated her on what's been going on lately. I mailed the card/letter off, having no idea what she'd think of it.
A few days later I got an email response from her, thanking me for the card and letter, and saying that no matter what happened, she would always consider me a friend. I actually cried a little when I read that. She's a better person than me, obviously.
Also got another very nice email response from another old friend, one I only keep up with here and there. She's always been very nice to touch base with though, so I wrote her as well. She said I was the only one of her friends who still writes letters! I replied that my latest letter was in part because of InCoWriMo and explained a bit about it. She said it sounded great and would check out their website.
Because of my husband's Slovak heritage, I sent a letter to someone on the InCoWriMo list who's from Slovakia. Haven't heard back from that person and am not sure if I will. I imagine that those who put their contact info on the list get a lot of letters!
I send out Valentines as a matter of course, so that habit made it easy to add to my daily correspondence count.
The sympathy card went to my brother-in-law, whose 97 1/2 year-old mother had died. I didn't know her really well, but I knew enough to write a letter along with the card that reflected on the many nice qualities she had had. I got a nice email response from him in return that expanded on those qualities I had touched on.
The thank you notes were fun to write, as always. Although most were to people I know, two of them weren't.
I'd always wanted to express my appreciation to the city snow removal employees. Sure, it's their job, but I live in a town where snow removal often seems like never-ending work. And I heard the snowplow going down our street in the wee hours of Christmas Day morning this past year. It's got to be rough, not even being able to plan for a Christmas morning with your family if you have to go out and drive a snow plow.
Since I wanted to bake something for a neighbor who'd done us a favor (and, of course, write a thank-you note too), I decided to find a recipe that would make enough to give to both the neighbor and the snow plow workers. So that I did, which meant hand-delivering both.
The desk clerk who took my humble gift for the snow plow folks seemed surprised but appreciative. She said they generally only hear from citizens when there's snow removal complaints; thank-you's are rare. So I felt pretty good about my effort!
As for the other thank-you note to someone I don't know, I sent it to Chad Salmela, my favorite Winter Olympics announcer, thanking him for another great job. If you heard, or heard of, the guy screaming "Here comes Diggins!" as the US women won their first-ever cross country skiing medal - gold, no less - that was Mr. Salmela. I love his enthusiasm, and from reading online reactions to that gold medal win, I know I'm not the only one.
I also wrote a letter to a local columnist, praising him for the chuckles his essay had given me. I'm not sure that I'd ever even written to a newspaper columnist before.
And lastly, my previous post highlighted another mailing, which was a letter and some vintage photos that went to the archives at the Catholic University of America. I'd been wanting to send those photos to the proper place for a few years now, so I'm glad I finally did it.
So all in all, participating in InCoWriMo took me out of my comfort zone a bit (heck, I even had to look up where to drop the baked good to the snow plow people) and got me to take some actions that I'd been wanting to do for years. Yes, I got tired of writing on some days, but overall I was glad I stuck with it. The positives definitely outweighed any negatives.
And I learned, anew, to never underestimate the power of handwritten correspondence!
Hello! I'm old enough to remember when Paul Simon's song, "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" was a hit in 1972. And having grown up Catholic, I was always amused by this part of the song: "And when the radical priest come to get me released we was all on the cover of Newsweek."
What do these lines have to do with my post? Well, I'm about to show off some vintage photos that represent a bit of "radical" priestliness!
The backstory: my husband was a student at a Catholic high school in the 1970's, and while there some photos came into his possession. He was told that one of the priests in the photos had a connection to his high school, but that's all he was told.
I encountered these pics during a recent cabinet decluttering and decided to find out more about them. Between a close perusal of the photos and a bit of Internet research, I determined that the pictures had a connection to the Catholic University of America, which is in Washington, DC.
The photos appear to be of a civil rights protest. Someone had written "C.U. May 4th 1964" on the back of one of the pics, which led me to believe the protest was related to the ongoing politicking surrounding the Civil Rights Act. It was signed into law on July 2nd that year.
Above, the "radical priests"and some students carrying protest signs have congregated in front of Caldwell Hall on the CUA campus.(that name was visible in some of the photos, which is how I was able to determine where the action had occurred).
Another view of the gathered crowd.
In the front of the crowd, the priests are playing guitars and leading the singing. I found myself wondering what songs they were performing.
Some of the signs read "Civil Rights - A Moral Issue", "Moral Witness for Civil Rights", "Catholic Students for The Bill" and my favorite, "Come! See The Real Professional Bigot" (the large rectangular sign visible in the lower right side of the photo). Alas, I have no idea who the "professional bigot" was supposed to be.
A close-up of some of the signs.
At some point, the protest moved to some sort of gymnasium or auditorium.
Warning: the next photo may be disturbing to some, but in the context of what was going on, not surprising.
Look at me, I'm waving the Confederate flag in defiance. Yippee! A police officer looks on behind him.
Our "radical priests" have brought their guitars and bongo drums to the locale.
A close-up of the above photo:
This particular photo is noteworthy because of the stamp on its back, identifying that it had been taken by a United Press International employee. Obviously, the protest was newsworthy enough to have gotten the attention of UPI.
I'm showing off this set of photos because of their historical content, and also because they're no longer in our possession. In the spirit of InCoWriMo (mentioned in this post), I decided to mail them to the CUA archives office, along with a brief note. I wrote that I hoped they'd find the photos of interest, and to please contact me if they had information on the event related to them. My Internet research hadn't come up with anything.
The priests in the photos may not have ended up on the cover of Newsweek, but their protest, like others of its kind around the country then, may have very well had something to do with the ultimate passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Hello! The title of this post mentions something called "InCoWriMo" - you may be wondering what the heck that means. So I'm here to tell you.
"InCoWriMo" (I'm still having trouble remembering the name) stands for "International Correspondence Writing Month". Participants are supposed to write one handwritten piece of correspondence a day for the month of February. It doesn't have to be a lengthy letter, a quick note or postcard will do. In fact, today's email from the organization mentioned that you can even write a note to yourself to count as a daily correspondence.
I tend to get the winter blues real bad around this time of year, especially at the moment since the mild weather we had most of January has morphed into a colder, snowier February. That's a drag. So I thought InCoWriMo would serve as a nice pick-me-up.
And truth be told, I always liked to write letters, back when that was an important way to keep in touch (ie before email, texts, etc). I went through a time of living far away from family, and leaving friends behind as we moved from state from state. I valued writing letters and sending cards to loved ones then. As a Christmas "gift" to my mom one year, I told her I would write her one letter a week during the next year. And yes, I did just that.
(After my mom died, I learned that she had seemingly kept every letter I'd sent her from that year, plus those written other years I lived out of state. I say "seemingly" because I've yet to have to heart to even look them over, let alone re-read them. But if I ever do so, it'll be like having a journal of my life for whatever time period in which my letters had been written.)
The InCoWriMo folks explained that they picked February because it's the shortest month of the year, and so it'd be the easiest month for people to handle a daily correspondence. I don't know if I agree with that, since after all it's a month when folks might be sending out Valentines. Thus, they're already doing more correspondence than usual. I typically send out 24 cards for the Valentines for Vets program. Does that mean I'm covered for 24 correspondences? I suppose InCoWriMo could argue no, since all the cards getmailed out at once, to one address (a regional VA facility).
But February is the month they'd chosen, so be it. Thus far I've sent out two thank you notes and one birthday card. Beyond that, there are other Valentines I can send out, besides my Valentines for Vets bunch.
We've slacked off over the past few years with sending Christmas cards, but still have a few stalwarts who sent us Christmas cards this past December. So I can always return the favor by dropping them notes in return.
Closer to home, I can make Valentines for neighbors. It may sound like a lot of card-making to you, but by now I'm an experienced in that craft. I also have a rejuvenated sense of creativity due to the recent relocation of my studio from a drab, dark basement to a sunny 2nd floor room. And I've come up with a simple Valentine card design this year, so there's that.
As for the "international" aspect of InCoWriMo, the website has a link to this year's address submissions. A quick perusal showed that's there plenty of folks from other countries who would love to hear from other InCoWri writers.
If one would prefer to keep postage costs down, there's loads of American addresses as well. But personally, I think I have plenty of American family and friends to write to, so probably not much need to write to my countrymen/women on the list - unless I spy an address from a town or region of particular interest.
I realize that so many folks are extremely time-challenged these days. I happen to be an empty nester who tends to burrow indoors during the winter months, so as I'd said earlier, this is a good project for me. And judging from the long list of address submissions on the InCoWriMo site, I know I'm not the only one!
If this project interests you, go here. The link goes to the website where I first learned about InCoWriMo. There's a link within the initial post that mention the project, links to the InCoWriMo site, and also shares links to other correspondence sites.
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Hello! In my last post I showed before-and-after pics of our daughter's old bedroom, now forever rid of a less-than-stellar color scheme. Today's post will give a peek into how this room's usage has been transformed: it's now a combination small bedroom for a guest, and a studio for me! Both are a work in progress, but so far, so good with the transformation.
In the bedroom section, white curtains, a vintage plant stand used as a side table, a small bedside lamp, a twin bed, a framed print over the bed and a vintage, unframed oil painting waiting to be hung up.
Another view of the bed and the other window.
Near the doorway, a small wire rack. Our daughter slept here during her recent Christmas break, and so I'd put a small, decorated artificial Christmas tree on that rack.
I "shopped" from our house to furnish most of the room. The only thing I bought was a new set of curtains and a thrifted twin-size comforter. The decor will do for now, but I'd like to find a nicer-looking bedside lamp and a replacement for the beat-up quilt at the foot of the bed.
I was glad to set up this small bedroom area, but it was really the studio that I was looking forward to putting into place! We moved into this house in 2002, and since then my studio had been in the basement. I know it's common to set up studios in that part of a house, and while house-hunting we looked at houses whose basements would have been fine for my studio. But for various reasons, we bought our current house.
Our basement is a full one and so there was plenty of room for my studio. And to help organize my arts/crafts supplies, a number of metal storage racks were already in place, left behind by a previous owner. There was even an unopened box containing the components of another metal storage rack, which I put together in due time.
But I hated working down in that basement, which was dark and was chilly-to-cold much of the year. The addition of several lights barely helped dispel the darkness, although a space heater did make things toastier for me by my worktable.
Actually, it was much nicer working down in the basement studio in the summer; then it was comfortably cool. But the problem that time of year was the trend toward unwanted visitors at night: I'd be happily immersed in collage work or a sewing project, only to suddenly be unnerved by a bat flying by. Yikes! That would send me scurrying up the stairs! We were never sure how the bats got down there; perhaps from the weird outside entrance to the basement. They always seemed to find their way out, and without messing things up, but I still didn't like the possibility of their surprise appearances!
Then, too, there was the general dustiness and mustiness of our old-house basement. I have a dust allergy and so it wasn't healthy for me to work down in the basement for any real length of time.
And so eventually my most-used arts and crafts supplies migrated to several rooms on the 1st floor. And supplies what stayed down - or, in the case of "new" supplies from thrift stores, what went down - to the basement tended to pile up into barely-organized heaps. Needless to say, it was often frustrating to locate a particular craft book or piece of fabric.
But that was then, this is now! I began my studio set-up by putting two work tables into place, one for sewing and one for paper crafting. I was thinking of putting another table in the room for painting, but I'm not sure if I'll have the space, so I'll wait and see on that.
The worktable here is an old metal folding table that had belonged to my in-laws. My sewing machine is a mid-80's Singer. It needs a tune-up now and then, but basically still runs fine. Various containers behind the machine hold patterns, sewing scissors, rulers and other supplies.
For decoration, I propped up this vintage sewing kit box on the window frame behind the sewing machine. The box had been in my mother-in-law's sewing basket, which was given to me after she died.
Adjacent to the sewing table is the papercrafting work area. The table, which had been left behind by a previous owner, has a wood top and metal legs. Certainly not a top-of-the-line piece, but it's perfect for this space! To the right are several small plastic storage units with drawers for small art paper pieces, and to the left are a couple of storage units for storing rubber stamps and stamp pads. More rubber stamps are in a storage container underneath the table, and more stamp pads are in a basket on the table.
Getting ready for doing a spread in my current scrappy journal: the journal itself, a bird I'd made from art paper scraps, small scissors for detail cutting, a glue stick and a stamp pad. The large paper you see underneath these objects keeps the desk surface clean. Over time a paper used as such collects paints, stray rubber stamp images, markers tested to see if they're dry and so on. When the paper gets filled up, another one is put down - and I then have another "art paper" to cut up and use. On the windowsill is a brayer (I use it to press down glued items in my collages)and several small storage containers.
I took these photos last week, when I was in the beginning stages of setting up the studio. Since then I've hauled up what seems to be a never-ending amount of fabrics, crafting books and magazines, ribbons, more art paper pieces, stenciling materials, paints, glues, vintage matchbooks, vintage playing cards/flashcards, and on and on. It sometimes seems like it'll never end! The books will go in a small bookcase our daughter left behind, supplies used the most will be stored on one of those metal storage racks, and other things
are destined for the closet.
I still haven't brought up my felt collection, nor the vintage board games,vintage bingo cards, my bag of vintage rick racks, a basket crammed with vintage jewelry parts, counted cross-stitch stuff, and more.
And then there's the Christmas crafting supplies - books, magazines and vintage holiday doodads like jingle bells and adorable gift tags. Since Christmas crafting is still a ways off, I'm not in a hurry to bring up these materials up just yet.
Yes, I have a lot of stuff! Too much, really, so I'm taking the time to declutter as I go along. But I probably haven't gotten rid of as much stuff as I should.
Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was my studio. In spite of the work involved in setting it up, I'm thrilled to finally get out of that dark, cold, dusty basement!
And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go up to my studio and work on another scrappy journal page! (I have a goal of doing one page a day for the year.)
Hello! I admit, I've come late to house redecorating (we've lived in four houses during our married life thus far). In part, this was due to years of not staying in a house long enough to get tired of the previous owner's choice of paint colors or wallpaper. (One house in particular had been tastefully done over shortly before we moved in.) And in part it was due to general laziness on my part - and a bit of fear too, I think. I had visions of upending a opened paint can or something like that and creating a huge mess all over the place. (Don't know why I thought that, probably read that somewhere.)
Well, my hand was finally forced a few years back when a burst pipe caused water damage to a few rooms in our house. Insurance paid for a painter to redo ruined walls, but this included only portions of the kitchen and dining room. And of course, the walls and trim that were freshly painted made the undamaged, unpainted sections look bad by comparison. So I had no choice but to start painting.
And like with every new task, I learned by doing and got better at it as I went along. By now I've repainted about 2/3 of our interior, but had never gotten around to doing any before-and-after photos. Until now.
Our daughter moved out of our house for good this past summer. She'd already gone away to college, but she'd always lived in furnished rooms while there. Her bed, dresser, desk, chair and other belongings she had no room for stayed put in her bedroom here. But then came time to move on to grad school and move into an apartment. So of course her bedroom furnishings moved with her, leaving an empty room.
I had plans for that empty room, but first had to get rid of the less-than-attractive color scheme:
A weird shade of blue was on the walls, with apple-green trim. The white you see to the right of the window frame is the result of some wall patching.
Another view of those colors.
The door had a rough appearance, especially the upper right panel. I think someone had made a stab at removing the paint, but gave up rather quickly.
Thankfully, those colors are now a thing of the past! Here's how this room now looks:
This is the window you see the full view of in the second photo from the top. The colors look more muted than they actually are because it was an overcast day outside.
The wall color is the Sherwin-Williams version of Behr's "Swiss Coffee", a warm white. The Behr color was picked through a misunderstanding with the painter who came in to redo our ruined walls, but I ended up liking it fine. The paint trim is Valspar's "Ultra White" - again, due to the painter. I wanted to continue with the white trim that the dining room and kitchen had been painted with, so he picked that paint to redo the damaged trim in those rooms. I figured if it was good enough for a professional painter, it was good enough for me!
A much-improved door:
You would hardly think it was the same room! It never ceases to amaze me how much bigger a room appears when the color scheme changes from dark to light. I've seen this in other rooms in the house already: I've taken them from brown, dark red and purple/green/lemon yellow/turquoise (the latter was another unusual bedroom decorating scheme)to the same brightening tones of warm white/white (yes, I've been using the same paint colors throughout, the better to show off my eclectic decor).
I should add that I've actually shown only half of our daughter's old bedroom above. The other half had already been painted; I just hadn't taken any "before" photos of it. I say "other half" because it's almost as if her room is two rooms in one. The other half is slightly larger because it has a closet. There's a wide doorway that leads directly to the second half, the portion of the room I just finished painting. Each section has its own door leading to the hallway; that's why I think of the entire room as two sections.
And from now on, that's how this room will be treated. In my next post, I'll show off what I mean by that!
Hello! I picked this book up recently at a thrift store:
I'm a sucker for book compilations that contain stories of "...Eternal Love, Powerful Connections, and Divine Signs from Beyond". And perhaps the main reason for this fondness is that I have a "Divine Signs from Beyond" story of my own.
It occurred in early March 1998. My older sister, Ellen, had died of cancer less than two months before, and my husband had come up with an idea for honoring her memory: a family outing to a Detroit Tigers game. She had been a huge Tigers fan.
Having grown up in Chicago, my husband is a Cubs fan, so he found the perfect game for the outing: the Tigers were playing the Cubs at Tiger Stadium on June 24th. Ellen had liked the Cubs as well, and had attended one of their games at Wrigley Field with us years ago.
In 1998, my husband and I were living in suburban Philadelphia, but were planning on visiting my family later on in March. We would bring up the baseball game get-together then.
Shortly after my husband and I discussed the game outing, he got a piece of mail that struck us as unusual: an envelope from the Chicago Cubs that enclosed a copy of their season schedule and a form for ordering game tickets. Now, my husband had been to many Cubs games in his life, but the last one he'd attended had been well before we'd moved to the East Coast. It seemed very strange that the Cubs organization would send their schedule to someone who now lived nowhere near Wrigley Field. He hadn't gotten mailings from the Cubs before this.
But what was even stranger was the piece of mail I got just a few days later: a brochure from a sports souvenir shop located a short distance away from Tiger Stadium. "Come see us on the way to the Tigers game!" the brochure copy exclaimed.
Good marketing copy to be sure, but I'd never even heard of the shop, and I'm not in the habit of buying sports souvenirs. So how and why did they even get my name and address? I had been away from Tiger Stadium even longer than my husband had been away from Wrigley Field, so there was no reason for the shop owner to think I'd be passing by anytime soon.
And, as with my husband's mail from the Cubs, I wasn't living anywhere near the shop. How on earth could I have been considered in its target market?
I told my husband these mailings had to have been Ellen's doing. She was letting us know she wanted us to go ahead and plan the baseball game outing in her memory. He's not into such "life from beyond" stuff, so he poo-pooed that notion. But we did get the rest of my family on board for the event. Enough of us would be in attendance to get a group rate and our group name on the scoreboard during the game.
And it turned out to be a quite a game! The Tigers came from behind to beat the Cubs 7-6 in 11 innings. Everyone in the family was happy except for my husband.
But as he admitted later, he wasn't surprised that Tigers ended up winning. As they were beginning their rally, he claimed that suddenly he saw Ellen's face clearly in his mind. This dismayed him, as he interpreted it as a sign from her that the Tigers would win. So much for not believing in signs from the deceased! But he was right - the Tigers won, just as he had interpreted they would.
By the way, we did the Tigers game family outings for a few more years after that, until it got to be too much of a hassle to arrange it. But my husband and I never got those game-related mailings again. I guess my sister just wanted to make sure it happened that first time!
And here's another freaky thing: I didn't remember the exact day of that game in 1998, only that it had happened in late June or early July. So I consulted my journal from that year - and learned that it had happened on June 24th. And I'm writing this blog post on - June 24th.
Perhaps I got a nudge from Ellen to write up this post on the anniversary of that game! If so, well done, Ellen! We miss you.
Hello! Spoiler alert: if you're full of holiday cheer and want to stay that way, then stop reading. But if you're an animal lover, pet owner, feline fanatic, etc, then you'll understand.
We had to have our beloved, nearly 14-year old calico cat, Beauty, put to sleep less than 48 hours ago. She developed a sudden medical emergency, and although it was after hours on a Saturday evening, our vet said she could meet us at her clinic in 20 minutes.
The vet's assessment revealed a condition with an uncertain recovery. We had to decide whether we wished to go ahead with treatments that might not help and watch Beauty suffer in the meantime (it might have taken up to 2-3 months before we'd even know if such efforts would have worked). She was clearly in great discomfort already and we did not wish to prolong her misery.
But it was a very hard decision to make, as pet owners who've been through this know. I'd already experienced some sorrow in beginning to watch Beauty's decline, but had blithely thought she'd still be around for another 2-3 years. To have her end come sooner than expected, and so suddenly, was devastating.
She had come into our lives nearly 14 years ago, a gift to our daughter, who was 7 at the time. But somehow, in rather short order, she became my cat.
Reflecting after her death on what she had meant to me, I realized that she had come at a very low point in my life. A number of upheavals that had begun more than a year prior to her arrival - and had kept on coming - had left me feeling very uncertain about the world and my place in it. Mid-life crisis? Dark night of the soul? Whatever you want to call it, it was pretty bad. I wouldn't have wished it on my worst enemy (and I don't even have any enemies).
But six-week-old Beauty arrived, clearly needing love (she was taken from her mother too soon, I think). She latched upon me as her mother substitute, to the point of sucking the tip of her tail while lying curled up next to me - an obvious nursing holdover. This became a habit she continued up to her very last day.
Perhaps because of this habit of hers, I showered her with love and affection, figuring she needed such attention. And she returned my devotion with love and affection that matched mine. She became a great source of comfort.
A few months after she joined our family, while petting her I suddenly had a deja vu moment: I realized I had dreamed about petting her, just as I was doing that very minute in waking life - and I had had this dream about her before she had even been born. I have had deja vu moments all my life. And somehow I know that these deja vu moments are because I'd dreamed about the event prior to its occurance. (Often I don't recall the dream until the deja vu moment happens.) So to me, that was a clear signal that she was meant to be in my family.
We have but one child, who of course grew up and has been off at college since the fall of 2013. In the years since then Beauty and I became even closer. I knew she couldn't take the place of our daughter, but I'd been in the habit of saying I had two girls, my "big girl" (my daughter) and my "little girl" (my cat). I missed our daughter when she went off to school, but at least I still had my little girl to mother.
And now I don't have my little girl, Beauty, anymore. I have to remember not to clean a litter pan at night, not to check food and water dishes, and no seeing her head peeking out from around the 2nd floor hallway as I begin to climb the stairs, waiting and hoping I'd join her on the bed for yet another tail-nursing session.
Will we get another cat? I know that Beauty can never be truly replaced, and I'm not ready to try to do so just yet. But last night we were at a neighborhood gathering, which took place in a house I'd never been to before. The owners have two cats, who were locked up in a bedroom when we first arrived. After things had calmed down and people were seated, the cats were let out.
One of them climbed up to the back of the chair one of his owners was sitting in and settled in for a nap there. The other kitty jumped up onto my lap and curled up to sleep there. The other owner said this cat didn't typically stay in strangers' laps that long, but this furry guy seemed as content as could be with me.
Perhaps this cat sensed I needed some comforting, or maybe Beauty's spirit was there, giving me some comfort through another feline. I don't know, but it was very nice. I hated to get up and leave when the party was breaking up.
I'd emailed my brother shortly after Beauty's death, for he was the one who had given her to our daughter. Within his reply were these words: "She lived a good long life and was well loved and that is pretty good for any animal."
And he was right. Rest in peace, dearly beloved Beauty. Thank you for your love and what you meant to me. I will never forget you.
(If you'd like to read a happier, earlier post about Beauty, go here.)
Hello! In the US, at least, it's been a rather unpleasant year due to all the election rhetoric we've had to endure. But I know people in other countries have had their share of problems too. It's been a challenging time for so many, for so many reasons.
What to do? It may sound simplistic, but at times like these I like to spread a little kindness around where and when I can. Occasionally I'll do something like stick a dollar bill where it will discovered by someone else, but more often I'll leave something that I hope people will still enjoy finding - an item I've made that has an uplifting message.
I'm deliberately being vague with what I make to leave around for others to pick up, since part of the fun is others not knowing who left the item. (I sometimes leave things around the town where I live). I do stick with things that are portable so that I can take them along with traveling. Thus, I distributed my bits of creative inspiration on a summer road trip from Denver to West Michigan, and more recently did so from West Michigan to New York and back.
And in my previous post, I mentioned that we'd been "booed" by a neighbor in the form of some Halloween treats. Each household that has been thus gifted is supposed to hang a sign in their window, and so as it gets closer to October 31st, it's fun to see the spirit of the holiday going from block to block. I don't know who started this "booing" in our neighborhood, but it was a kindness begun by someone.
Of course, there are so many ways to spread kindnesses; I've just mentioned a couple of small examples that I've done lately. If you'd like to focus on spreading kindnesses where and when you can, just do what works for you!
Hello! Just last Sunday, June 5th, my husband and I paid a late-morning visit to my dad. Since he's been on hospice care since last November, we weren't exactly surprised to see his frailness. But although he was agitated at times, he did seem to recognize us, and was strong enough to hold his water cup and sip from it by himself.
I told him "I love you" several times, and each time he responded with his usual reply: "Naturally." That's my dad!
Six hours later, he died, less than one month from what would have been his 94th birthday. Apparently my husband and I were the last ones from the family to see him alive. He went so quickly that there was no time for anyone to be at his bedside. His heart just stopped.
It seems sad that he died alone, but as one of my sisters commented, maybe he wanted it that way? Some people do seem to wait until they're alone to die. It happens.
Since my dad lived so long, he had outlived many of his contemporaries, so we weren't sure how many people would show up for the visitation and funeral. We were uplifted by the number of family, parishioners and other friends from the area who were there with their presence and sympathy. And of course, we also appreciated the support given by those who weren't physically present as well - flowers, charitable donations, prayers and other expressions of sympathy.
True, my dad had lived a good long life, had assisted countless people during his long career as a social worker, and had had hobbies and interests outside of work. But as a widow since the end of 2010, he missed my mom terribly. We kids tried to take care of his physical and emotional needs after that, but of course we couldn't make up for the loss of his helpmate of over 55 years.
Now they are together once more, so even though the 4th of July (his birthday) - and a lot of other things - will never be the same I take comfort in the rejoining of their souls.
Now, about the card seen in the photo that opened this post:
Being a greeting card designer, I had crafted the above for my dad for Valentine's Day 2013. I found it among some of his things when we kids went to his room at his nursing facility to gather up mementos of him. I don't think many of the cards I made him were kept (which of course they didn't have to be), so I was glad this one was!
I do recall that he seemed pleased with this card, for he sent me a note thanking me for it and said he'd passed it around for his friends at the facility to see. I felt good about that!
In case you were wondering, the photocopied pic is of my dad, from his WWII days in the Army. I always liked that photo of him.
Goodbye, Dad! I love you - naturally!
Hello! A year ago I declared February as a "use-it-up" month, which I detailed in this post. It worked so well that I've decided to do the same thing this year.
As I'd done last year, I'll try to do as much "shopping" as I can from our pantry, refrigerator and freezers. That pancake mix my husband got as a gift? Time to get out the griddle. That farmer's market winter squash I'd cooked up and frozen? Time to get out some cookbooks and look up some recipes for using that stuff. Maybe I can add some to the pancake mix pancakes!
And it's a good time to focus on using up some of my art and craft supplies, rather than cruising the aisles of thrift stores in the hopes of picking up yet more fabric remnants and back-issue craft magazines. (Admittedly, I made purchases from both categories at thrift stores this past weekend, but hey, it wasn't February yet.)
Last February I labored over a relief-effort flannel quilt as a way of using up some fabrics (mentioned here). Since I have some big interior painting projects coqing up, perhaps I'll use some of my fabric stash for other relief efforts, such as the ones discussed here.
And of course, February means Valentine's Day, so I will dig into my card-making supplies to craft greetings for families, friends and the Valentines for Vets program.
Sounds like using up, instead of buying, will keep me plenty busy this month! But I think of it as another form of creativity, which makes it fun!
Hello! I don't know if it's just me, but seems like everywhere I turned online last month into this one, there was some sort of self-improvement activity in 2016 to sign up for. Juicing challenges. Green smoothie challenges. Goal-setting planners. Fitness challenges.
I don't know if 2016 is a particularly noteworthy year for this sort of thing, or maybe I didn't pay attention to these web offerings other years. Since all the activities I noted above have freebie options, I signed up for a few.
I'm sort-of doing the 30-day green smoothie challenge, which is suggested as a drinkable breakfast/pick-me-up. What I discovered is that the smoothie I'd made for breakfast didn't give me enough fuel to shovel a half-hour's worth of snow in single-digit windchill temps. I was so famished I had to come in and make a bowl of oatmeal. For now I think I'll stick to a regular breakfast when winter weather is harsh, and make a green smoothie for a post-shoveling drink. (I signed up for this challenge here.)
I checked out a couple of goal-planning programs, and eventually printed out the one here.(it's labeled "New Year's Revolution.)There's a good deal of thinking/writing before the calendar pages can be filled in, but of course all that work is meant to set the stage for planning the year.
The goals I've set for myself will keep me pretty busy, but I also signed up for two more 30-day challenges. One is from a positive- thinking website and can be found here. What I like about this challenge is that it's relatively quick to do each day and is pretty fun too. I certainly enjoyed doing yesterday's exercise, which was to perform a random act of kindness.
And speaking of exercise, the second 30-day challenge is from the folks at Canyon Hoops, the company from which I'd ordered a fitness hoop (I discussed this purchase in this post). This challenge only occurs every other day so that one has ample time to complete it.
Yesterday's challenge instructed one to do a round of Andrew Weil's 4-7-8 yogic breath technique - while hooping. This turned out to be a bit tricky, but I made it work, and continued on with 15 more minutes of hooping (without the yogic breathing though!)
So, it looks like I've got a lot of ground to cover in 2016 - yep, it's a year of challenges, all right, but in a good way!
Hello! June is usually one of my favorite months, as it's typically associated with pleasant summertime activities like gardening, going to the beach and bike riding.
Alas, June hasn't been quite as pleasant this year as I'd like. Oh, nothing earth-shakingly terrible has happened, but it's been mostly cooler and cloudier than normal in my neck of the woods. A check of our thermometer a few minutes ago showed that it's about 64 degrees - almost 20 degrees cooler than it should be!
Not so nice for going to the beach, and the below-normal temps and lack of sun have meant slow growing conditions for warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers.
And I sprained my ankle three weeks ago, which meant no bike riding - and not much of anything else in the way of physical activity the first several days of my recovery either. Again, there are physical injuries and ailments far worse than a sprained ankle, but it was still no fun being sidelined.
But here's to July, which starts tomorrow. It's supposed to feel a bit more summer-like here by the end of the week, and of course there's the 4th of July on Saturday. It's an extra-special day for my family, as my dad will be celebrating his 93rd birthday then.
The festivities continue the next week with our daughter's 20th birthday. Gee, how did she get to be that old?!
To help celebrate the month of July even more, may I suggest the Hallmark website, which can be found HERE.
Yes, good ol' Hallmark, the greeting card (and more) company. As a greeting card maker, I have no need for theirs, but the lifestyle component of their website has lots of fun ideas. When you're on their main page, click on the "Ideas" tab. Once you do that, you'll be directed to the "Ideas and Inspirations" page that currently highlights 4th of July recipes, crafts and free printables - and something called the "30-day chill out challenge".
Hey, chilling out for 30 days sounds fine to me, so I checked it out. Day 2 is a winner: "Treat yourself to some ice cream!" I can go for that. Not much of a challenge there!
However, Day 13 will indeed be more of a challenge: "Try to go the whole day without hearing or reading any news - not even the headlines." Now, I'm not a news junkie by any means, but we do subscribe to the local paper, and I follow certain websites for statewide and national news as well. But I can try to do without any of them for one day.
For more summer fun, scroll down the "Ideas and Inspirations" page, click on "
seasons" and then click on "summer". There, you'll see headings for party foods, crafts and more.
I'd seen a display of adult coloring books (a recent craze) at a Barnes and Noble a few days ago and had been tempted to buy one, but I passed. But the folks at Hallmark.com have obliged by supplying downloads for six adult coloring pages - and yes, I printed them out. (They have six pages of kids' coloring pages there as well.)
So, there's lots of ideas on the Hallmark website for making July an even better month! Now, if the weather will only cooperate...
Note: now that I think of it, July has 31 days, and the chill out challenge has only 30 days. Maybe this activity had originally been posted for June? If I'd followed it, maybe June would have been a better month for me. Oh well, better late than never for a chill out challenge!
I'd recently posted about a batch of art postcards I received through iHanna's swap, as seen in this post.
Since then three more postcards from the swap have been delivered to me, so I thought it was only fair to show them off as well.
I'm sure there are some people who disdain Hershey's chocolate in favor of some artisanal or imported chocolate, but I still think it's just fine. And obviously the postcard artist from Florida who created the above piece agrees as well! "Can you guess what candy I love?" she wrote on the back. She said she crafted her postcard by sewing the wrappers to a piece of heavy interfacing, then sewed the interfacing to a piece of cardboard. I've not done much paper sewing, so I liked her efforts very much.
"I took a walk and gathered bits of nature for you" this postcard artist commented on the back. Now, the butterfly is actually a sticker, but the leaf, pine needle and squiggly green stuff between the leaf and the butterfly are the "bits of nature".
As the artist lives in a community along California's Monterey Bay, I wondered if that green stuff was actually seaweed from the waters of the bay, but didn't ask.
Last one to show off:
Also from California (near Oakland) is this very fun postcard. It's literally see-through since the artist laminated her elements together. The combination of scrapbook paper, origami paper and three kinds of cancelled stamps (two from foreign lands) made for a very appealing work of mail art!
I thought it was cool that the scrap of purple and white origami paper in the lower right-hand corner was identical to some origami paper I'd once had. What are the odds of that?
The artist commented that she wasn't sure if this type of postcard would go through the mail, so she sent one to her granddaughter first to see if it'd get delivered. It did and so she continued on with this style.
The arrival of these three postcards means that I've now received 9 out of the possible 10. I'm hoping that the last one is still on its way - a little slow due to international mail and not because someone had procrastinated. I'd sent out 2 postcards to other countries (Norway and South Africa) so it would seem logical that I'd get at least one postcard in return from another country. Time will tell, I suppose.
It'll be a delightful surprise when #10 shows up in my mailbox, just as it was fun to receive the other nine. I would be willing to do the next iHanna postcard swap, whenever it might be! After all, who doesn't like a delightful surprise in the mail?
Hello! Last week I showed off the postcards I'd made for iHanna's Spring 2015 Postcard Swap, so now it's time to show off the ones others made for me. So far 6 out of 10 have shown up in my mailbox, which is a good rate of return considering it's been about a week since the postcards were supposed to be sent out.
Delivered from Colorado. The book text and Paris image are cool, but I especially liked the pictures of the two women. The artist said these were from a 1940 woman's magazine. Just the sort of thing I would have used!
Didn't take a pic, but the back of the postcard was decorated in a dazzling burst of colorful markers. The artist also mentioned that she'd made an extra postcard to mail to herself. I hadn't thought of either of these ideas, but now I know for the next swap!
Sent from Maine. The pale tan on the postcard is actually birch bark. It came from from trees the artist and her family cut down to build their homestead. How cool is that? Have never used birch bark in crafting myself!
I couldn't read the postmark on the back, so all I know is that this postcard came from somewhere in the US. Nice combination of colors and images here! The spiral image is on top of book text - can't go wrong with that.
The artist that created this postcard lives in Minneapolis. It's quite complex in detail, but since the designs are somewhat subtle, this art piece lends itself to closer examination. I got a kick out of the rows of numbers, though I don't know what they came from.
It definitely did not feel like a summer morning yesterday when I received this postcard: cool and rainy. Therefore, I appreciated this bright colors and the thought of summer that this postcard conveyed! It came from Mississippi, where undoubtedly their mornings feel more like summer.
Last one:
This postcard has a San Diego postmark, so perhaps the use of bright colors ties in with that southern California locale. The artist explained she had made her own stamps out of foam, then added the black marker doodles and added definitions for the word "psychedelic". Very cool and colorful!
I now eagerly await the remaining four postcards. Makes a visit to the mailbox more fun than usual!
Hello! In years past I've often purchased an amaryllis bulb from a local nursery to enjoy as a Christmas time bloom. Well, I don't know what happened this past December, but I never received the nursery's usual email letting customers know the bulbs were in. I'm guessing they had them for sale but the email list got messed up. But without the reminder, I never stopped in to buy one.
However, I spotted a display of amaryllis bulb growing kits (bulb, soil disk and plastic pot, all boxed up)at a Chicago-area Trader Joe's December 18th. I knew, of course, that it wouldn't bloom in time for Christmas, but thought it'd still be nice to have "fresh flowers" during the winter.
I didn't even look to see what amaryllis varieties were available, I just grabbed one of the boxes from the display. I studied the box more closely when we returned home later that day, and learned I had purchased the bi-color variety called Minerva.
I've been burned in the past by dud amaryllis bulbs from chain stores, but took a chance on this one. It was about 1/3 the cost of the nursery's amaryllis bulbs, so I'd see if it was only 1/3 as nice.
The box indicated the amaryllis would bloom in 6-10 weeks. Naturally we were hoping for the earlier time range, especially when winter turned so cold and snowy this month, but the waiting period was longer. Exactly nine weeks after I potted the bulb up, it began to flower:
Above, two of the four flowers on the stalk have opened, and there's another flower stalk that will bloom later.
Another view:
A close-up of one of the blooms. Isn't it pretty? So nice to have such color this time of year! Indeed, it was worth the wait.
So, is it as least 1/3 as nice as the much more expensive amaryllis bulbs from the local nursery? Yes, I'd definitely say so - this amaryllis bulb kit from Trader Joe's was a bargain!
Now, I do prefer to buy local, and I'll visit that local nursery as usual this spring to buy annuals and perennials. But if I happen to be at a Trader Joe's again when they're selling amaryllis bulb kits, I wouldn't hesitate to buy one.
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