Stan Hywet

In September on a day warm enough to make us sweat, my friend and I went to Stan Hywet.  I told you about it before, but the dividends of that trip keep paying off.  It's like the trip that keeps on giving.

We took photographs -- maybe 37 of them in my case.  They were thoughtfully taken, not helter-skelter but with some sense of balance and color.  Peg took one of the steps leading down into the English Garden.  Then at my class for class she sketched the scene with a lot of care and attention to detail. 

Then she masked in some areas that she wanted to keep white.  This is done with masking fluid that goes over the watercolor paper and seals it.  It's removable at a later time when the artist is ready. 

After that she started on the stairs and then the walls, weaving in purples and greens for shadows and moss.  The final area was in a corner where a large plant dominated the scene.  She recreated the leaves of the plant perfectly!!  When you look at the picture, it takes you right back to the English Garden, but no one would mistake it for a photograph.

Some realists achieve something akin to that -- a photograph.  While it is technically amazing, there is something missing when we don't get a hint of the artist's eye in the work.  Peg's has all of that in spades!  It is a real achievement for her in the painting that we do on Thursdays.  You might say that she has graduated!!

I was kidding the other day when I commented, "We are sure pleased with the teacher that we hired."  Of course, there is no teacher -- it's just us.  But boy, have we learned.  Trial and error sometimes, videos on the Internet, books, magazines.  It is all starting to make so much more sense. 

With acrylics, for example, you move from the dark background to the lighter in the foreground.  With watercolors it is just the opposite.  Light in the background and then successive washes and details in the darker colors. 

The painting I chose from Stan Hywet is Birch Allee.  It is a wonderful scene in fall of the birch trees leaning over the pathway, still mostly green but with dropped yellow leaves built up on the sides of the concrete path.  The birch trunks are very visible among the chaos of the leaves, lights, darks, and shadows.  It's early in the process, but so far I'm liking it a lot.

We have two more classes left before we take a holiday break.  Both of us have the usual holiday preparations to make, including cookies and shopping, wrapping and cooking.  The art work would suffer for the lack of concentration.  We'll start again in January and we can figure out how we will do this to work around the weather and my driveway.

What a wonderful plus the classes have turned out to be!  I have had a great time learning and experimenting as an artist and finally feel some confidence that I can pull something off decently well. 

Here is something really strange -- it wasn't until several years ago that I found out my mother used to paint.  I think she did watercolors too!  Isn't that crazy?  She had done a couple of landscapes and had them framed for our living room, and how I wish we still had them.  For some reason, she didn't continue on with her hobby.  Maybe she was a little like me -- she tried violin, did the watercolors, landscaping, then wood burning, and then she painted on wine bottles.  I could concoct a list something like that, but now I think maybe art will always be a part of my life, as long as I'm around.

God Bless all of you today.  Enjoy the weather.  Say a prayer for our veterans.

Karen

Absentminded

Walked out and left my street shoes at Curves.  That's really not so bad, is it?  Hitched a ride into town to get them with the old man who lives at this address and drives a white truck.  His hair kind of matches the truck, come to think about it. 

A few snippets from a household that has cats.  When your cat is a little "under the weather," and of course, we know already that cats have staff, it's amazing what you will do to comfort the furry little creatures.

My cat, Sassy, is Siamese, an apple-headed Siamese.  What does that mean?  She does not have the skinny body, skinny elongated face, etc.  She has a full face and a nicely rotund body, honed from years of relaxing and lack of exercise.  Her choice.  She gets some when the grandchildren come over and she gets caught in the basement!  Oh, my yes.  Never saw a cat move up a set of stairs like Sassy does when kids come over here.

Well, I figured that Sassy needed to eat.  It's important.  Cats are one creature that without eating for a few days can actually DIE.  They just quit eating permanently.  She's been down this "I'm sick and not eating" road before and needed shots to get her going again.  This particular day she was doing one of her usual things -- she climbs under the Matelassé coverlet on our bed and gets herself as cozy as a cat can get.  Her head is pointed towards the point of exit.  Or I was hoping it was her head.

So I picked out a select grouping of her favorite cat treats and delivered them to her -- oui la -- a cat's breakfast in bed.

She made a little noise to let me know she was still alive and then beneath the covers, I could hear it for sure!  The sound of crunching.  Yep, she was definitely dining on the treats.  Once I knew she was eating, I knew that she was on the mend from her sneezers that she had the other day.  You've got to give me some credit -- didn't I train well?

So she now has her shots current, and her sneezers are gone and her eye is better.  Fred got his shots and his eye is better.  He's very concerned about an interloper on the property -- a dark tabby cat that is certainly male and certainly a predator.  Fred came to an arrangement with him over the spring/summer that he could have the backyard and Fred can have the front.  That agreement was reached after a couple of fights.  I HATE cat fights.

But the interloper doesn't respect the terms of the agreement and keeps encroaching.  Fred is aware of this and is hyper-vigilant these days, especially since Blackie isn't around.  He's been looking for her, but as I mentioned, she was buried last weekend. 

The interloper is really afraid of people -- he runs even if all I do is open the sliding glass doors in the backyard.  So this might be good because I don't really want any more fighting around here.

Why don't we just keep Fred indoors?  Oh, yes, in theory it sounds good.  We did try.  It was a terrible experiment and didn't work out well at all.  Fred's temperament hit an all-time low and he was taking out his frustrations on everyone. It was most unpleasant.  So the logical thing was to allow Fred to be the cat he came as -- an indoor-outdoor cat.  That costs at least $20 a month for flea treatments, but he is in a much better mood.

Well, have a good Saturday.  The last of the leaves are being removed as I speak.  The "old guy" doesn't do too bad and I kind of like him.

Take care, friends.

Ben Carson

Have you ever heard of Ben Carson?  He is definitely a person who is worth getting to know something about.  There is going to be an ABC special paid broadcast of a new documentary -- Ben Carson:  A Breath of Fresh Air.

Ben grew up in a city environment where a lot of the kids in his neighborhood were getting into troubles of all sorts.  Ben's mother wanted more for her two sons and so she set down some rules.  Only one hour of TV per day.  And after school, homework, reading, or going to the library.  The boys thrived in the library and both excelled in school.

You may know Ben Carson as the brilliant surgeon who became Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the famous Johns Hopkins.  One of his specific skills was in separating Siamese twins.

A movie was made about the life of Ben Carson and my husband and I were lucky enough to come across it one night on TV.  At one critical juncture in Carson's when his temper flared up against a kid on the streets, he chose to try and stab him.  One might say that God intervened that day because the boy's belt buckle prevented the knife blade from puncturing the skin and preserved Carson's spotless record.  It was a lesson that he never forgot. 

Carson is affable, interesting, and very conservative.  He also has that rare quality that everyone admires -- common sense.  He also has a sense of humor and he NEVER loses his cool.

He does not want to run for president, but as he stated recently, there are those who are "clamoring" for him to do so.  And he just might decide to enter into the 2016 race as a Republican candidate for President of the United States.

Currently, Carson is working towards modifying and rectifying all of the errors that were made in creating the Affordable Care Act.  He has a political action committee that was formed for that purpose.  When you hear him talk about what could have been in this program and how it can be bettered, it gives a person hope that we can turn all of this mess around.

If we happen to be one of the 22 states where the documentary is being aired (we can't seem to find specific information right now), you should check it out.  This guy is the real deal.

Well, that's about it for today.  Got my license plates.  GIU3717.  So using one of my favorite tools for remembering things -- mnemonics -- I have come up with something that is a sure-fired way of spitting out my license #.  "Girl in underwear."  My husband is such a guy -- he says he will remember it too! 

Wrote to Toyota about the RAV4, not that it will do the least bit of good, but it made me feel better.  So lately I've been on a careful crusade to see if I can spot any other 2004 RAV4s out there.  So far in the past week or so, I have seen exactly ONE.  So my mechanic's suspicion that this was a fairly universal engineering flaw is holding water.  I used to see them all the time.

The sad thing is that for you or me, there is no way that we can know something like this going into a purchase.  Absolutely no way.  It's like a spin of the wheel of fortune.

I've been working on a project that is begging for my attention.  It involves an Irish angel.  So wait until you hear this -- I went to my holy hour at the chapel last Friday and I walked over to the bookcase to get a book.  Lying on top was a white/blue book, very inconsequential looking.  I didn't think it would amount to much but I opened it up and glanced at the page.

It was about an Irish woman who from an early age saw angels.  No kidding.  I know now that I've got to finish this project and take it much more seriously.  God wants me to write this!

We only have so many chances to bring hope to the world through our own actions, using our own talents or whatever we happen to have.  Use yours!!

Dreary

It's a gray, dreary day so far.  The leaves are all down, some still in the backyard but my husband got most of them in front.  I can look through the woods and see the edge of the neighbor's pond again.  The colors went from verdant green in summer, to the reds/yellows/oranges of fall and now we are in the between time.

That is, between fall and Christmas time when we bring green back and pair it with maroon or red.  We must just love color; it is inherent in us.  Every holiday has a color associated with it.  In March when we long for the spring, we have the shamrock green of St. Patrick's Day.  In the throws of winter, we have Valentine's Day and enjoy the brightness of red.  And then just before we really feel the warmth of the sun again, we enjoy the pastels of Easter.

Colors mean a lot.  The experts say not to paint a room with too much yellow -- it' makes a person uneasy and a bit agitated.  And they warn against too much yellow in a restaurant; you want people to feel calm and rested.

Pink is soothing and quieting, which is why that color is used in places that require all the help they can get -- for example, prisons or jails.

Red is rich and warm but too much and it is also uncomfortable. 

When we went through the green and gold era in the 1970s, it just seemed like the world couldn't get enough of it and then all of the sudden we came to our senses -- but not in time to prevent the green and gold appliances unfortunately.

What we don't necessarily have to put on the walls, we can add with pillows.  It is used over and over again in decorating -- a neutral pallet with splashes of color in the artwork, pillows, rugs, and lamps. 

What color is your world?  Sometimes a splash of color in a room you use a lot is a great way to get perked up.  Scent is another one.  Personally, I love natural fragrances like pumpkin, apple, vanilla.  And then there is music -- again, it has an effect on us in a variety of ways.  The producers of Hollywood movies have been doing that to us for a long time.  Remember the movie, Dr. Zhivago?  That movie was as much the music as it was the unbelievable scenery.  The sound track sold very, very well.

So when things get a little dull in your life, spice it up with color, scent, and sound and have it at the ready!! 

Well, here's a tip from a lady who doesn't like to clean sometimes.  When her house is starting to look really cluttered and it needs a good going-over, she turns on an episode of "Hoarders" and boy, does she get a jolt of energy.  She said after watching just one episode, she can go for hours!! 

Well, I am off to Curves this morning and then we have our makeshift art class this afternoon.  I get to enjoy again the colors of the seasons anytime I want in the art.  I think today I'll work on a watercolor of Birch Allee, from a photograph I stood at Stan Hywet in September.  Hope it turns out decent.

Take care, and keep praying!!

Results

So apparently the people have spoken; they are not happy with the direction that the country has been taken. 

Now it is SO important for all of those who were elected to listen, to be active, and to engage in the process of leading.  It is important for them to have a clear idea of what voters were thinking when they cast their ballots.  It is important for them to stick to their values, their beliefs, their honesty.  And they all need our prayers.

This past year, and we're not over with it yet, has been a trying one.

I'm very concerned at this point about the president's announcement that he is going to do something major in terms of the illegal persons residing in the United States.  All this does is put out a blanket invitation for everyone who isn't happy where they are living to cross the border illegally and come here, waiting for their own stay to become legitimized.

There is a front door and my grandfather used it.  My husband's father used it.  Almost everyone I know could point to one relative or another and say that they came in the front door.

Times might be different, conditions might be different, but there is still a front door to gain access to the United States.  Our soldier Tahmooressi took a wrong turn and ended up at a Mexican checkpoint.  He was jailed for close to 300 days.  He was probably ill treated and possibly beaten.  So this is how Americans can be treated for an illegal entry; Tahmooressi had firearms with him.  Not against the law in the U.S. but against the law in Mexico.  Thank God he is out now and can get the psychological treatment that he needs for his PTSD.  Meanwhile, we are handling the situation of a porous border by not manning it well enough, a border that can give entry to people who have nothing but hatred and ill will for America.

If the president goes through with his plans, I think that it will cause a much greater divide in the U.S. on a variety of topics and will likely cripple his party for years to come, if not generations.  One thing for sure, only American citizens should be voting!  This appears to be a move designed expressively to gain votes, whether legal or illegal.  It's wrong for America. 

The best way to help people who are living in poor conditions is where they currently live.  The United States has been incredibly generous with foreign aid for a long, long time.  Countries expect it, and unfortunately much of the aid never reaches the people for whom it is intended.  I am one who thinks that either the money is used to alleviate suffering or no more money goes over there.  Otherwise we are just padding the pockets of people who don't care about their own poor and suffering and what kind of message does that send?

And talk about the environment?  Apparently the pathways taken by those seeking illegal entry into the country are littered with all sorts of refuse.  It is a terrible mess and who is going to clean that up?

Yep, it bothers me.  I am not insensitive to suffering, but there is a way to go about helping and opening up our southern border is not the way.

So I will be praying for those elected yesterday, that they  keep their promises and not succumb to Washington pressure.

Take care, and have a great Wednesday.  It's chilly but not raining at least.

Say Goodbye to Blackie

I've told you about the feral outside cat we called Blackie.  He came to be a special little creature for my husband and me, and we fed him for more than two years.  The regular feedings saw him through two injuries, one serious enough that the cat dragged his back leg behind him for about a month.  Last winter he used our heated cat bed to survive the brutal weather, and it was in that same heated cat bed where he died on Saturday afternoon.

We had gone to my grandson's 7th birthday party which was great for kids but kind of mass confusion for adults.  There were about 16 kids there!!  Thank goodness for the garage and a space heater or two.  Along with the sixteen kids were at least 12 adults.  My daughter-in-law had really gone all out with party preparations that included a pot of chili, sandwiches, dirt pudding, snacks, games, prizes, decorations, and music.  The kids ran around the cul-de-sac in a wonderful game that worked a little like musical chairs except that the safe places were driveways. 

Drew loved his party!!

Well, the party was supposed to be from 5-7 p.m. and right around 7:00 p.m., I saw that look of tiredness on my husband's face.  We needed to get home to check on Blackie anyhow because she wasn't doing well at all.  Over the course of the last month, her health had taken quite a tumble and she was drinking an excessive amount of water -- a sign of either kidney failure or diabetes. 

We tried to catch her later last week in order to take her to the vet's office to have her put to sleep.  But she mustered enough energy to outwit us and went under the deck.  She last ate on Thursday, I think.

For Friday's trick or treat night, we barricaded the front door with porch furniture and a sawhorse, and set the candy out on a lawn chair with a sign for the few that usually make the trip down our hilly driveway.  That way Blackie could stay in the heated house and wouldn't be frightened or upset by the strange voices and noises.

When we started down the driveway Saturday evening at around 8:00 p.m., Eric noticed first that the lid of the Styrofoam cooler that held the heated cat bed was ajar.  He had been worrying because we left food out and he was afraid that a raccoon had come along and bothered Blackie.  We went into the house through the garage door and then both of us headed to the front porch.  Eric lifted the lid and called out to Blackie a couple of times.  I didn't hear anything and Eric said she was gone.

I'm sure you know the book and movie, Heaven's For Real.  Well, in that book the little boy who had a near death experience of some kind saw lots of animals in heaven -- wild ones and tame ones both.  It says in the Bible that the lion will lie down with the lamb.  All will be at peace with one another in heaven.  So I believe that Blackie went there.  It didn't matter that he only felt the touch of human hands for the last week or so before he died or before that the only affection he knew was the sound of gentle, kind voices speaking his name that he knew.  It didn't matter that he lived outside.  He belonged to someone and he was loved by someone.  And he was aware of it. 

I told my husband that when our time comes, we will be surrounded by cats who have been waiting for us and Blackie will be there among them. 

If Blackie had made it through the weekend, we were going to find a way to get her to the vet's office today.  They knew about the situation and had been very kind and accommodating for Blackie.

Blackie was buried on the little slope on the other side of the driveway, the last place I ever saw her walking from towards home, the same slope where Puddin'Head, Shimmer, Girlie, Ugly and Tigger are buried -- the Nelsen pet cemetery.

So rest in peace sweet Blackie.  Your pain is over and your time to rejoice is here. 

A Grand Parade

The best things about life in a small town are the traditions that carry on from year to year.  One of them is SS Philip & James School's costume promenade.  The kids put on their outfits and at 2:00 p.m. head out the front doors of the school class by class. 

They head down High Street and walk all around the little downtown area.  Isn't that neat?  A couple of outfits that caught my eye were two little ones wearing policeman uniforms.  These weren't just your run-of-the-mill police uniforms; they were authentic looking with the proper hats and badges.  The first boy was maybe in kindergarten and he passed by the intersection where I was waiting (my holy hour starts at 2:00 p.m.) and then straggling along in the back with the dad was another little policeman, this one around three years old.

Really cute!!

It's obvious that the kids are in their element and having a wonderful time, and the adults who go along are also enjoying every minute of it.  The rain held off for them to finish the event and then the classes went to their rooms for their parties.  You could hear the laughter of children out into the street by the school.  How neat is that?

As the children are walking down High Street, they pass lovely old homes that have been there for probably close to a hundred years old.  In the downtown, they pass buildings that were built in 1845.  History is alive in Canal Fulton and if you just took away the cars and replaced them with carriages and horses (and covered up the tattoo parlor signs), it could pass easily for a late 19th Century village.

These are the kinds of memories that the children will carry with them, that sense of being out among the town, walking free and entertaining virtually everyone whether watching from the houses or in cars.  You could NOT see them go by without smiling.

My holy hour yesterday was very special.  A lady who I've known for many years now came by to replace the water in the holy water container in the chapel and we talked for a bit.  You aren't really supposed to be talking there, but this was a special conversation punctuated at times by prayer. 

Well, I promised to write a little more today and I kept that promise.  A little later it will be time to head to church again for the All Souls Day Mass where we remember all of those who have died in the past year.  My friend, Peg, and I are playing for the Mass.

Hope you have a good weekend.  It will be cold and possibly wet, but weather doesn't have to be the determiner of time well spent.  We're going to my grandson's 7th birthday party this afternoon and it should be interesting.  He's very excited, but not so much so when I told him that I know what his dad is getting him.  He said, "You do?"  And I said, "Yes, and it's red."  "Well, what is it?" he asked.

And I told him the same thing I told my own two sons a bunch of times; "It's a kick in the butt machine."

He laughed.  His dad's already been using that line on him and sometimes in good fun pretending he already has one!!