Back....finally!

[ love this photo I took of my daughter and a surprising gourd from our garden ]

My computer, it seems, is somewhat of a senior citizen in the technology world. I could no longer blog as I once did. I could not install the needed updates that Blogger required to play on my own blog. Sad, really.

I had a lot to say. I wasn't sure what to do. When in doubt, and you are of a certain middle age, what should you do?....Ask the advice of a teenage offspring, that's what!!

Now it is all fixed and well, and now I am back. With a lot to say.

[ my stack of antiques travel cases filled with special keepsakes, I have since this photo ditched the one in the middle with no handle. ]

Things I have Been Up To:

* I lost 50 lbs in 5 months, my first goal, and so far a total of 54lbs

* loving my new job of about 7 months!!

* not getting much of anything done around the house

* learning to say "no" to things and people

* severing the umbilical cords to my children so they can become more independent

* surviving somehow on less than 5 hours of sleep every 24

* enjoying my new car

* trying to enjoy every minute of every day, as life seems to be racing past

* reading an interesting book

* celebrating another birthday

* feeding a bit of shoe lust with some purchases, I was very long overdue for a turn (life of a mom)...usually the kids get all the new shoes!

Things I want To Do:

* work in my gardens

* rearrange the furniture in my bedroom

* paint in watercolors

* draw my favorite birds in colored pencils

* achieve my next weight loss goal by August

* get rid of "material things" around the house with emotional guilt attachments

Things I Need To Do:

* sort through stuff around the house

* redo my filing cabinet

* detail the inside of my cars

* clean out my closet, lots of things are WAY too big to fit anymore!

* take stuff to the Goodwill

* take donations of books and videos to school

friend

To A. H., my best friend through thick and thin since the first day of kindergarten back in 1968. Our last visit, when you were home, was the best in years. I treasure how each hour together was the creation of memories filled with laughter, tears and triumph over life and what it hands us. Your home now in the N.W. is the place you love, but your first home in the mid W. is where you are loved each and every minute.



I selfishly wish you could visit more often and for longer stretches of time. It is important to have at least one friend in your life who sticks with you. You are that kind of friend. We have different lives and responsibilities but we will always have the most important thing in common... we know most of each others flaws, history, family... and love each other in spite of it all, that's pretty special!!

teenage invasion

I am one of those moms that loves to have the kids (teenagers) gather at my house. That's what happened again over the weekend. Oh the roller coaster ride that is daily mom-to-teens life!

So this was the scene when the old gang was all back together again. Forget what you have heard about baby proofing a room, that's easy. The room that is teenager proofed is much more thought-filled on the part of a mom. You learn these things after the pop is spilled a few times. I wouldn't have it any other way though as I love the noise and laughter that comes with this group. First up was playing Rock Band. Loud. Is there any other way? It is fun to see them sing and play the songs from my teen age years which this Rock Band thing has made cool again! If not for that the teens would say, "Oh that old song. YUK!" But instead "my music" is on their good music list.


Amazingly A. even managed to get some reading time in, and Cali the cat and Jewel the bird looked on as the noise continued. Notice the covers on the furniture which were still trying to come off and have potential pop spill area revealed.

Throughout the night they ate and ate and ate. This goes along with teens and noise. I think teens have a missing switch which tells a brain and stomach "you are full". They went through 3 bags of pizza rolls, most of a 12 pack of pop, chips and salsa, snack mix, chips and a box of cream puffs. So good that the kids always show up with food to share. They have smart moms!! Actually they brought more food than that, and they would have easily eaten it all if it had just been put in front of them! It will be saved for some party to come soon at whichever house they gather. There are plenty of gatherings when food makes things more fun.

N. came home from a day at Scout camp and was thrilled the whole gang was there and stuff was in full swing.  N. loves to hang out with the teens --and what 9 year old little brother wouldn't? Luckily the teens happily allow him to hang out with them. No problem.

After Rock Band time was done it was time to bring out the karaoke machine and everyone got super silly!! And did I mention the noise level? Loud!

Friends hamming it up with the microphone.

Once again, a modern invention makes the old songs from my time seem cool!

It cracks me up when the teens think a song is new when it is used in a current movie or is done by a new artist as a remake. I always have to be a lame parent and say, "Hey that is actually from the 1970s and I was in (fill in the blank) grade in school during those years, and my friends were...Blah blah blah..."

Like I said- lame parent.

The singing continued until about 10:00 and then they settled in for some movie time.

And more food.

The gang all left about midnight and I sent the leftover and unopened food and pop back home with them, along with their imported entertainment devices (karaoke and Rock Band). I love that they have so much fun, and how lucky am I that all I have to provide is the home (with covered furniture) and the electricity (for all the loudness)!!

I hope they come back again next weekend. 

creating...

I needed to make a gift tag for my niece for her baby shower

and so I gathered some supplies...

and ended up with this...

(The baby image is on one of the collage sheets available in my Etsy shop, my handmade quilled paper posies are available there too)

My dear hubby gave me a great compliment and said,"I don't know how you come up with these things (tags/cards) so quickly!"

This is on the back of the baby shower tag I made.
It is a vintage flash card. Perfect, don't you think?



Then I made a card for a birthday...

I used more of my paper posies. I printed and cut out one of my colored pencil art birds and attached it with some foam tape to give it some dimension.

(The bird is included on one of the collage sheets available in my Etsy shop)

Lastly, I made small tags to attach to some little giftie bags I gave her...

The Canary is another one of my colored pencil art endeavors.

I am considering offering prints of it in my shop as well. What do you think?

Are you lookin' at me? -part II

My buddy the squirrel was back at it again while I sat at my computer. He likes to come and visit me. He is a real comic, this one! He has a wonderful mischievous personality. He is convinced he needs to find a way onto the bird feeders. Eating what the birds knock down to the ground is apparently "below" him!! (bad pun)

Maybe he secretly imagines himself as a bird, wanting to fly to the feeder and sit daintily upon the peg at the cylindrical feeder.

Yesterday in the garden outside the big window I had (all at the same time for about 5 minutes) 3 Purple Finches, 2 Wax Wings, 1 Hummingbird (isn't it now waaaay too cold for the hummingbirds in northernmost Ohio??) and another unidentified- until I look in my Ohio bird book- beautiful black with white spots size of a Blue Jay bird. While the birds flitted from the feeders and flowers to the porch roof and back again and again, 2 squirrels played on the fence.

My comic squirrel waited for the birds to eat (nice of him to use his manners) and then climbed the roof. I think he is more like a circus performer than a bird! But we will let him have his little fantasy.

Here are other silly photos of my squirrel buddy.

sweet chirping.

I was writing to a friend who has had lately had a lot of grief in her life and I told her a story about my mom.

It's a story that makes me get shivers and at the same time makes me smile- each and every time I think about it or tell it.

I have decide to write it on this very windy, spring day, when the birds are struggling to hold tight to the branches outside my window. It's great to see the springtime robins back again!

This story isn't about robins though. It's a story about death.

Wait! None of us likes death, I know. Before you decide not to read it- let me assure you it is very inspiring beyond the death part. 

                                        


First, you need to know that I took care of my mom through about 7 years of chemotherapy and many surgeries and radiation treatments. We lived together, along with B and eventually our first born, E., too. Mom died in 1995 after a long brave struggle to beat the cancer that started in her breast and spread immediately to her lung and then eventually to her brain.

My mom always told me in the weeks before she died that she would fly to heaven on the wings of an every day bird. Not a fancy one.

She knew I loved birds as she did. She had grown up with pet canaries.
I had grown up with many kinds of pet birds.
I have had lovebirds, parakeets, finches, cockatiels, parrots, and canaries.
I still keep pet birds.

Two weeks before Mom died at home she started talking about again wanting a canary. The visiting hospice nurse knew a canary breeder and was able to arrange to have one come to be at the house on loan for my mom as a companion.

Two days before Mom would die (of course we did not know that at the time), the hospice nurse brought the bird to the house as promised. As she set the cage on a table next to Mom's bed, she apologized that it was "a rather ugly canary , as canary's go." I assure you her comment was not meant to be rude or unfeeling. It was true that it was not the prettiest canary I had ever seen, but I hoped the song the canary would bring would brighten my mom's room and her days. Canaries have a soothing song unlike many other breeds of birds that can be loud or squawk at times.

That canary sat in that cage for 2 days and not one song came out of its beak...not even an ugly squawk!

Mom had always made me promise her that she would be allowed to die in her own room in her own house. When the time came, she died in her own room in her own home, just as she had wanted.  I was at her side holding her hand and stroking her bald head, where in her youth she had naturally wavy strawberry-auburn hair. Also at her side were-  my little E. and my brother M, and her son-in-law.

Her canary nearby.

And the bird sang.

The bird sang the most beautiful song.

Sweet and happy.

The bird would not stop singing!

I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but...I swear I saw her spirit lift away from her body while the little canary sang a beautiful song from within its ordinary looking body.

Until that very moment, I had forgotten about what she had said=

"a bird, not fancy" and "heaven".

(In 1991, I was also with my mother-in-law at her bedside 

when she died of cancer, at a hospital a few short months after I was married.

That was the first time I thought I saw a spirit lift away from a body.)

We soon gave the bird back to the breeder and thanked them sincerely. The bird needed to go sing for someone else that needed a beautiful song from "an ugly ordinary looking bird".

Another bird story connected to Mom is this one ....Mom wanted a canary that would sing a beautiful song to brighten her sick chemotherapy side effect days. So after researching breeders for many months she purchased a brilliant orange shade of feathers male canary.
At the time of the bird adoption Mom had her hair grown back in from what would be a pattern of growing hair and going bald during so many different rounds of chemo medicines and radiation treatments. The bird was named Marmalade and sang beautifully each day. As time went on Mom went bald once again and Marmalade began a routine molt as birds do with their feathers. Marmalade only lost his feathers on his head!! He never grew them back for nearly 6 months and that was a weird thing. Did Marmalade have sympathy molt?!

During the winter, as always, we were so careful to keep Marmalade from the drafts and keep his cage covered when he slept, especially when he had a bald head. Marmalade died one night and when I uncovered his cage and saw him I was sad to have to tell Mom. I also was superstitiously afraid it was a bad sign for Mom. She lived on a few more hard years, and she was a fighter. She missed the bird. We all told the story so many times (and still do) of bald headed Marmalade, Mom's chemo buddy bird who still sang the most beautiful songs for her daily. He just needed a feather wig!!

A peek before the snowmen invade-

I took pictures of the kids'/guest bathroom with a wine, sepia and roses theme. It is time now that it be transformed into snowmen and will remain so until probably the end of January. I had shown you a project that kicked off this theme and you can review it by clicking here, and here.

The metal candle holder and plate rack were a great clearance buy from Hobby Lobby at the end of the summer season.

Vintage dictionary and sheet music pages rolled with ribbon. All the pink pottery pieces (say that 3 times fast!) were discovered over many years at garage sales for cheap!

Nope! She's not one of my relatives; only a smiling face I adopted from an estate sale once upon a time. I felt like her bobbed hair, pearl necklace photo would tuck nicely into this vignette of roses and such. Did you ever think that the first thousand women that bobbed their hair were rebels and the next hundred thousand that did were just copycats?!!

I like the old, stained, crackly look of the glaze on this old pitcher. It is fun to stack the china items in a layered fashion.

Metal bird hook from Hobby Lobby clearance sale. The silhouettes were from my neighbor's garage sale, given to me free since I admired them for so long. They have that great kind of convex glass with reverse painting and once hung over his sister's bed as a child. I asked why his sister didn't want them. He said "Why would she?" I was shocked but I guess I am just too sentimental compared to other people! The bird shadow box frame was found at another garage sale and has real twigs and feather covered birds.

Nope! I don't know these wedding people. They are just people I have adopted into my family because of their great taste in wedding finery!! 

A second candle holder from Hobby Lobby clearance sale sits atop the 1950's chrome soap holder.

I scanned a piece (I couldn't bear to use the real piece)
of vintage sheet music and wrapped it around a plastic cup that the kids keep their battery operated toothbrushes in. The toothbrushes don't fit into the 1950's chrome holder. The music is held in place with some twine. The mirror is from the dollar store and allows the kids to see themselves easily -as the big mirror is too high. 

Metal candle stand is again from HL clearance. It's hard to see but there are little candles shaped like roses on it in two places. I like the little metal bird on it. The pink tin bucket usually has hair brushes.  The doily in leaded glass was a wedding gift. I hung it from iridescent ribbon.

The next decor theme of this room will be snowmen.