A Great Gift

Altthough I am not as good a photographer as Alissa, I just had to take these shots out our windows at the birds in the yard chowing down on these wonderful bird feeders. The pictures aren't too clear because the windows are pretty dirty from the winter rains. Anyway, Drew and Nick made these bird feeders for us for Christmas, and I waited until Nick could come up and help me hang them before we put them out. We had four, and we put out two. They were so popular with the neighborhood birds that they were used up pretty quickly, so I have hung out the other two. It's amazing how fascinating it can be to sit and watch the birds work at these feeders. The cardinals attack head-on, while the littler sparrows and juncos hover like a hummingbird would. It seems that we have created a routine, and now we will have to keep it up. After all, the birds are now depending on us for easy meals, and the weather is cold enough to warrant it. Either I am going to have to slather peanut butter and birdseed all over these cones again, or I am going to have to recruit the boys to come up and do it for me. That seems like the best idea to me! I know I could buy a traditional bird feeder, but the birds seem to like the peanut butter, and it does make them work for their meal.

Anyway, thanks, boys, for the great gift! Grandpa and I are getting a lot of pleasure from it!

Which Do You Prefer?

Not the pictures. The seasons. You can see that the color of the sky is virtually the same in both picures, but everything else is different. I am trying to branch out and paint out of my comfort zone, which is warm and sunny locales. And, while I like the picture of the Colorado snowy mountain, my heart is with the sunny Miami beach scene. I am a summer person. I do not like cold weather at all, and I would gladly live with the beach at my doorstep all year long. Unfortunately, that is not to be, so I paint pictures of it.

Most people I know like all the seasons and love the changing temperatures. While I can appreciate the fresh air of spring and the crisp air of fall, I find nothing to like about winter. Snow is pretty for about 10 minutes--make that 5--, and then I want it gone. I do not like being cold, and the weather the last few weeks has been cold clear through clothes, muscles, and skin to the middle of my bones. I must admit that we in the Ohio Valley have been spared the worst of winter so far. Until nearly the middle of January, temperatures were mild at worst and balmy at best. We were spoiled, I guess, as that is not the norm around here. However, it seems that our luck has run out. The forecast for the forseeable future is unrelenting cold. Even in the house, I am bundled up and spend much of my time huddled under an afghan. My mantra this time of year is, "I hate winter!" Most of my family and friends have heard me say that often enough, but it bears repeating. Spring cannot come soon enough for me. Everything outside right now is dreary, drab, and muddy. While there is no grass to cut or flower beds to weed, there isn't too much beauty to be had around here right now. Yuck!

I hope the late advent of winter isn't a harbinger of a late spring, but we'll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, I will stay bundled up and keep painting the beach pictures and scenes that remind me that it won't be winter forever. I'll save the winter scenes for if I ever get too warm, so I may never paint another one!

Another Better Thing to Do...

...than clean house is reading, my all-time favorite pastime. I have been a reader ever since I learned how. It's such a great way to explore new places and have new experiences vicariously. I imagine I come by this passion honestly by the fact that both of my parents and my maternal grandmother were avid readers, and there was always reading material around my house. My dad still reads a lot and is the source of much of my reading material. Therefore, I am one of those people you see who carries a book most places that I may have to wait for something, like at the doctor's office or the hairdresser. I LOVE to read! And I thank my parents for the great example they provided me when I was growing up. Now I don't want to give the impression that I read a lot of deep and learned works. I am mainly a reader of light fiction, mostly mysteries with some historical stories and biographies thrown in for variety. I am not big into poetry, philosophy, short stories, or self-help books ( unless I am researching something). My all-time favorite book, political correctness notwithstanding, is "Gone With the Wind." It is one of the few books I have read several times and enjoyed each time. Usually, once is enough to read a book. There are far too many books out there to waste time reading the same one twice! For this reason, I am one of the library's best customers. Right now I am reading my way through several mystery series. I try to read them in order, but that's not always possible. I have read several Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, and I am working my way through the alphabet series by Sue Grafton starring Kinsey Milhone. I am up to K in that series. I am also working on the "Prey" series by John Sandford. I'm also a big fan of the Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell. I have also read most of Nora Roberts's work and lots by Debbie Macomber, Mary Higgins Clark, and Liz Curtis Higgs. I guess you can see a pattern here. It is easy to overlook the clutter on the kitchen table or the dust on the living room furniture when there are other worlds to explore. I can totally tune out my surroundings while I am wrapped up in a story, and that is pretty often, I'm afraid. Terry sometimes gets understandably frustrated when he is trying to talk to me, or he wants me to see something on the television, and I keep pointedly looking back at my book, not appreciating the interruption. It has been a bone of contention throughout most of our marriage. He is not a reader, and he can't understand my fascination with the written word. We have worked out a compromise, for the most part. He gives me uninterrupted reading time before bed, and at other times, I try to make myself available for his conversation. I love reading to children, and I like to employ different voices for the different characters in the stories. I got a lot of practice reading to kids while I was teaching, because I made a point to read to the class every day after lunch. It was a sacred routine in my classroom, and the kids would never let me get away without the reading time. I didn't get as much experience reading to my own kids, however. Alissa loved being read to until she could read herself, and then that's what she wanted to do. She is still a reader, reading me under the table, so to speak. Chip didn't really want to be read to, either, but he did grow up to be a reader. Doug did like to be read to, and we continued it until he was through elementary school, partly to help him improve his skills and party because he enjoyed the experience. I miss having the chance to read to kids now that I am retired. I look forward to having more chances to read to grandchildren, though! Well, Stephanie Plum is calling. She is in big trouble and less than 70 pages from getting out of it. I'll know pretty soon how the story ends!

I Told You I had Better Things to Do...

..than cleaning, didn'tI? One of those things is painting pictures. I have been interested in art since I was a little girl. My mom was a very good artist, and I wanted to be like her. I had a Jon Gnagy "Learn to Draw" set, and I drew a lot from that set. I can still see some of the pictures in my head. There was a head of a dog and a couple of scenes that are a little more vague in my memory. As I got into junior high, I had concentrated my landscape drawings to beach scenes (because that was always where I wanted to be) and my people drawings to fashion models, almost always in the same pose, just wearing different clothing. At one point, I painted an acrylic still life for a school project, but then I kind of got busy, and the drawing faded to the background of my life. Studies and basketball games and parties replaced the drawing. That remained the case for MANY years. I got married and my artistic tendencies turned more to crafts such as embroidery, crocheting, sewing, and knitting. You can tell I am a Gemini. I did many things adequately, but none expertly.

My mom continued to draw and paint, and it was still fascinating to me. I loved the impressionist paintings she did, but I never felt I was as good as she, so I concentrated my activities elsewhere. Finally, about 15-20 years ago, fabric embellishing became the fad. I picked this up right away, faithfully cutting out flowers, affixing them to shirts, and embellishing them with paint. I grew tired of this, and began using iron-on transfers, which I painted myself. This became too much like coloring in a coloring book, which I enjoy, but it didn't seem to show any talent, so I started doing my own designs on fabric. Everyone I knew received shirts and tote bags for gifts for a few years. I found I was pretty good at this, but my job as a teacher kept me too busy during the school year to do much. My hobby became a summertime pastime. And then I lost my biggest fan and cheerleader. My mom died about 10 years ago, and with her, my muse disappeared just that fast. Mom was my artistic partner and my inspiration, and without her encouragement, I simply didn't feel creative anymore.

Over the next several years, I made sporadic attempts at painting, but I was never satisfied with anything I did. Then I retired after the 2005 school year. Serendipitously, there was a notice in the local paper about watercolor classes being offered at the public library. My husband suggested I sign up, and I did. I have now been to several watercolor and acrylic classes there, and my muse woke up. I have found that my favorite subject matter is still landscapes, and beach scenes are the best things I do.

I tend to paint from photos and other pictures rather than real life, and I really like using Alissa's photos as they are so striking. I'm sure you can tell which image is from her work. We make a good team. She takes the beautiful pictures, and then I paint them. I will just have to get her to the beach so that she can shoot me some beautiful sunsets from there! Meanwhile, I have sent for a bunch of travel brochures from different parts of the country for inspiration.

I have found that I really enjoy painting again. My mom surely sees the pictures from her vantage point, and I have new fans, who seem to keep appropriating the pictures I paint, which is fine with me. Maybe I'll start a picture right now!

Let Me Clarify...

In rereading yesterday's post, I believe I may have given the indication that I am a real mess as a housekeeper. While I am not really neat, I am not like those people I see on the television shows that have so much clutter you cannot get through their houses. Most of my house is reasonably neat. My bed gets made most days, and the dishes are done daily. You don't often have to move piles of junk from the furniture in order to sit down. However, I do have a "nest" around my recliner chair with things I want to do (crossword puzzles, sketch pads, magazines to read) on the left and things to throw away, like the daily newspaper and catalogs, on the right. I throw those things in the garbage can every morning. I do keep piles of books to read or projects to do on my desks, and the kitchen table seems to be a repository for everything that comes into the house, where it stays until I get around to putting it away. Clean storage dishes sit on top of the counter because it is difficult for me to access the cabinet where they are supposed to reside. I am going to use them again soon anyway, so it's not worth the effort to nest them neatly in the cabinet. I am pretty good at overlooking the clutter in my house. I simply don't notice it most of the time. However, after a while, I suddenly see it, and it seems I can't rest until I clean it up. I'm always really proud of how things look when I clean up and put things away, and I vow to keep it that way. That lasts until the next time I get busy and don't take the time to file things or pack them up, and so the cycle begins again. One of these years soon, Terry and I will be preparing to downsize our living space, necessitating getting rid of a lot of our 37 years worth of accumulated stuff. Maybe then I will become a neater and more organized person. Nah--I don't think so. I simply don't care enough to worry about it. There are a lot more fun things to do!

Let Me Clarify...

In rereading yesterday's post, I believe I may have given the indication that I am a real mess as a housekeeper. While I am not really neat, I am not like those people I see on the television shows that have so much clutter you cannot get through their houses. Most of my house is reasonably neat. My bed gets made most days, and the dishes are done daily. You don't often have to move piles of junk from the furniture in order to sit down. However, I do have a "nest" around my recliner chair with things I want to do (crossword puzzles, sketch pads, magazines to read) on the left and things to throw away, like the daily newspaper and catalogs, on the right. I throw those things in the garbage can every morning. I do keep piles of books to read or projects to do on my desks, and the kitchen table seems to be a repository for everything that comes into the house, where it stays until I get around to putting it away. Clean storage dishes sit on top of the counter because it is difficult for me to access the cabinet where they are supposed to reside. I am going to use them again soon anyway, so it's not worth the effort to nest them neatly in the cabinet. I am pretty good at overlooking the clutter in my house. I simply don't notice it most of the time. However, after a while, I suddenly see it, and it seems I can't rest until I clean it up. I'm always really proud of how things look when I clean up and put things away, and I vow to keep it that way. That lasts until the next time I get busy and don't take the time to file things or pack them up, and so the cycle begins again. One of these years soon, Terry and I will be preparing to downsize our living space, necessitating getting rid of a lot of our 37 years worth of accumulated stuff. Maybe then I will become a neater and more organized person. Nah--I don't think so. I simply don't care enough to worry about it. There are a lot more fun things to do!

Vindicated!

Anyone who knows me knows that tidiness isn't my strong suit. I am a messy person by nature. I tend to dress fairly neatly, and my thoughts are usually pretty organized, but the space around me is pretty cluttered. It seems it has always been this way. Even when I was a kid, my room was always a mess, and my closet floor was full of junk. My mother was always making me clean my room, but the lesson never really stuck. I was a mess in my college dorm, but my roommate kept me cleaning and straightening, mainly because there wasn't enough space to be messy. Then I got married, and my husband was a former Marine. You know I became a spiffy housekeeper, right? Wrong--he tried to reform me (and still does when he is up to it!), but it was a hopeless task. There are piles of paper on my desk, stuff on the kitchen table, storage dishes on top of the counter instead of in the cupboard, socks on top of the dresser instead of in the drawer... I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I used to hurry around and clean up when people came over, but I don't do much of that anymore. Everyone knows I am a mess! I was going to try to get organized when I retired, but I don't seem to have made much progress at that in the last year and a half. Of course, January is the time that you read all the articles about resolutions to get organized, and you see all the ads for storage containers. That means it is time to seriously start cleaning up, and I usually do make a stab at it. However, when reading the Sunday paper, I noticed a story about an author that wrote a book that states that neatness isn't all it's cracked up to be. It seems a messy area really is the mark of a creative mind. Apparently, smart and creative people are too busy doing these types of things to worry about the mundane issues of cleaning and organizing. This author states that neat and organized people simply don't have anything better to do with their time, and that they are humorless and boring people( he actually called them prigs). I don't know that I would go that far, but I do like the part about being creative and smart! Evidently all those piles represent ideas and things the creative and smart person needs to remember. I tend to agree in part with this. I am always tearing out pictures I may want to paint or recipes that I may want to prepare. I set them on a table, and then more things get piled on top of them. So I am done feeling guilty because I am such a slob! I'm just creative! Life is good!