Forward not Backward

My need to look back is in a struggle with my need to create. Is this what happens to others my age? Reminiscing and digging up old memories has taken over and escape may be necessary. I know it is a good thing that my mind is still OK, but my creative juices are struggling to take over. I don't know how or why or where or when this will come to be but I don't think it is too late. I may be wrong. I've been wrong before. Sooooooo........

The next day.........

I'm planning to show some projects I've completed in the past and perhaps one or two will hit the top of a list I'm considering. Actually the list is my second project — after the slide show I'll soon make to show me possibilities. It is still looking back but that is how I may be able to move forward.

The day after the next day......... 

Well, NO I AM NOT! No slide show! I have 369 images of my projects and it is not possible to choose but I did get satisfaction from just looking through them. I will post one (ONE) here.

Feeling better healthwise and now that Spring is on its way I can't wait for the effects of warmer weather like the fact that my daffodils are poking up from the flowerbeds about a month early. 

Carry on, Mother Nature. Thank you for doing your job now and forever.

Think About It...

I stole this...

Too good not to share!   https://www.facebook.com/TheOliViral

"A friend posted this writing today and it struck me that someday EVERYONE will go thru this discarding of “things” that are the memories of one’s life. Sometimes it’s our own and more often it’s the life of someone we love…..

When my mom was cleaning out her house over 23 years ago to sell it, I wasn't very sympathetic over her attachments to things. I would go over on weekends to help her and we would go through things, things for a yard sale, things to donate, things to throw away. I would usually get upset over how long it was taking her to decide. For instance, we were going through kitchen cabinets and she spent 20 minutes looking at an iron kettle with a lid. Finally I said,

“Mom, at this rate it is going to take us another 2 years.”

She told me that her mother used to make meals in that kettle and leave them at doorsteps of neighbors during the depression, mom would deliver them, and then they would reappear back to her with an apron, or a wood carving, something in return for the meal. I realized that everything that my mom was going through was really a reliving of her life.

If you are reading this and are under the age of 60, you wont get it. You haven't lived long enough. Most of you have not had to move your parents into a nursing home, or emptied their home. You haven't lived long enough to realize that the hours you spend picking out the right cabinets, or the perfect tile will not be what matters in the later years. It will be the handmade toothbrush holder, or a picture that you got on vacation.

So, if your parents are downsizing, and moving to smaller places, or selling a home, give your mom and even your dad a break. Those things that you don't understand why they can’t just pitch, and why you think you know what needs to be tossed or saved, give them a little time to make their decisions. They are saying goodbye to their past, and realizing that they are getting ready for their end of life, while you are beginning your life.

As I have been going through things, its amazing just how hard it is to get rid of objects. But, life goes on, and you realize they are just things, but sometimes things comfort us. So give your parents or grandparents a break. Listen to their stories, because in 40 years, when you are going through those boxes and the memories come back, it will be hard to get rid of those plastic champagne flutes that you and your late husband used at a New Years party 40 years ago. You will think nothing of the tile or the light fixtures that were so important then.

As happy as they are for you, and as much as they love you, you just don't have a clue until it happens to you and then you will remember how you rushed them, and it will make you sad, especially if they are already gone and you can't say I’m sorry, I didn’t get it."

A few of mine!

Follow?

Think about how often you blindly follow the crowd, whether that means observing religious customs, conforming to social norms, or succumbing to peer pressure. It’s almost as though we can’t help ourselves. We are like thoughtless lemmings heading for the ocean, exposing ourselves to physical or spiritual danger, and all because everyone else is going in that direction. Think on it!

Tomorrow

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He said, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.” 

I would add, wait for it to happen and make the best of it if we can. We don't get to choose how life unfolds.

See opportunity in everything that comes your way.

"Tickled Pink Ballet"

Sunday Thoughts

"I don't think people understand how stressful it is to explain what's going on in your head when you don't even understand it yourself."  ~Unknown

Well I  snatched this from a fellow blogger. It fits... I'll wear it. 

When I look in the mirror I see my grandmother's worn out rheumy eyes looking back at me. Crocheting did the damage. Lots of eyework. My eyes look the same but because of overuse on my electronic device.

When I  look at the ceiling upon first awakening, I see one of nature's best gifts to man - trees. Think deeply about that gift!

And at 8:00AM I see black ice. Up the road, down the road, in front of the cabin, shiny and shouting, "Danger! Danger! Danger!"

tap on image to feel the cold! 

Different Plates

Sometimes just before I nod off at nap time the mind goes into overdrive and today was no different. This is all about plates and servings. 

Life gives each one of us a different plate. Some have beautiful looking contents but no taste; some have a plain assortment of servings but will both nourish and please. Others contain negative stuff that is really bad for you. Some are empty.

Think of some of the plates that you have been served and what was on them. One portion might be good health. Others might be fortune, love, peace, happiness, OR  pain, disaster, loss, terror; perhaps a combination. 

Throughout life, plates and contents change. Often there is no rhyme nor reason. Plates break - contents spill. Messes are cleaned but the odor remains. Maybe it is the fragrance that remains instead. The stain remains? Maybe no stain is perceived. When the plate that is already empty and is broken, it might be replaced and refilled with something more disastrous or perhaps something new and good. 

What's on your plate? NOW? My concept today is confusing - even to myself.

The nookworm strikes again

Words and Pictures of Today

When I go to bed at night, and before actually going to sleep, my mind works very hard and I just cannot stop it. The wondrous thing is that ideas for a blog come and the actual writing of each thought is imagined and very clear. There are sentences and words in full descriptive forms. Does this make sense to you? Well anyway, to give you an idea of what I'm trying to convey here is that the thoughts and words that come as I drift off to La La Land, never ever come back as good as they are when they are expressed to me at that time. I never remember those words the next morning. They came and then disappeared. I simply cannot pull them up again and use them at all. 

Now for daytime thoughts and words - nothing very exciting, but here I go....

First of all I'm OK. Getting used to being alone and not lonely. It certainly is different, and thought-inspiring at the same time. A lot of the paperwork is done, the private memorial service is in two days, and my lifestyle is undergoing some change. 

For the first time I picked up the camera as the ferns around the flowerbeds in front of the porch gave me inspiration as did the tiger lilies that a neighbor planted by the dam spillway several years ago.

Hopefully my eyesight will remain good, even though my ambulatory skills are diminishing rapidly. I was always told that change is challenge. Yes it is!

please click on image to view larger

COMMUNICATION

Most of my friends and relatives know that I do not like talking on the telephone. Never have. I don't like taking part in face to face conversations that include more that two people. One on one is OK. My main method of communication is the written word. It's how I connect. Way back when I started to blog (2009) I found that I could express myself and communicate best with this venue. I also believe I communicate visually, therefore my "creations" and crafts. I love to share and that is a form of connecting as well.

This is my way of delivering my feelings and thoughts. Most of the time I feel that it doesn't matter at all if anyone reads or comments on my blogs or my artwork. Once in a while I do feel a strong relationship is created and that is what I aim to do - connect.

Yes, I'm rambling.  I'm a dreamer - IF I had a large space with paints and stuff, I know my writings would slow down and I would have a grand time expressing all inner thoughts. You say, this, today, is all about me. Yes. I'm feeling confined. Trapped. It's one of those things and now I'm letting it out. Gotta disconnect once in a while. 

Connections matter.

#1499 Almost at the End

Just some thoughts that keep popping into my mind. 

Share!

Be kind!

Respect and cherish Nature!

Remember your roots and never forget where you came from.

Form more connections - always.

Treasure your connections - they matter!

Older Writings...

Someone once said that writing is a great outlet. I am occasionally surprised at how my brain works. These days, I wake up in the morning or after my afternoon nap and words seem to flow. I feel a need to put them down.

Before blogging, I loved assignments in grade school when we were encouraged to write poems and stories. I  wrote a few short stories and poems and my mother saved them in a folder. I do remember when it started up again. When I was working in a cabinet manufacturing plant and using a knee operated chopper to cut wood in different lengths, words would form in my “other” mind and I would have to repeat them to myself until I arrived home to quickly put them on paper. That was in 1973 through 1980.

Now they are pushing at me again! I think the words just hide and dance in my head until I’m forced to recognize that they are there and then they must be expressed so I put them together and release them. It doesn’t seem to be a thinking process but it’s a delivery. I can go years without the words flowing, but when they do, well…

Probably this doesn’t make sense to anyone except me. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Survival or defeat? 

 Wish I could remember what prompted this one!

Finale - Complete Piece

In tattered sweater with holes and pins, she hobbles from her bed,
The fire is low, she must get coal, it’s out there in the shed.
Her eyes peep through the crusty glass, they see their distant goal…
It once was near but now it’s far, offends her weary soul.
Her man is gone, a fine man too, he used to gather wood.
She does her best to carry on, for once, her life was good.
The milk was sweet, the sun was warm, her children--how they grew!
They’ve left her now, the fondest things, she’s bid them all adieu.
But back to now--with daily chores to wear her strength away,
She must get coal to warm her bones, to live another day.
With strong determination to reach her destination,
The woman struggles on with legs of lead
Through ice and snow, Oh! Lord! the coal is gone!
Her muddled mind can’t comprehend that the final hour’s near.
It just can’t be! She’s ready though…
She’s waited all this year.

By Geraldine, November 1977

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Death and dying thoughts........

Exit - Complete Piece

He doesn’t know the time of day, the season or the year.
His kin have done the kindest thing--that’s why they put him here.
With inner anger, outer calm, he’ll show them all--you’ll see!
The plan is buzzing in his head, he ponders it with glee.
What matters when the meal is served, what hour he goes to sleep?
What matters if his socks don’t match, or if the snow is deep?
He soars above these lowly points to witness from afar,
His body crumpled, all askew, the doors are left ajar.

By Geraldine, November 1977

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A woman's right to change her mind.

Contradiction - Complete Piece

Don’t enter my castle! Don’t tread on my land!
Don’t breath my fresh air! Don’t reach out your hand!

Don’t bother to trouble! Don’t take time to care!
Just leave me alone! Stranger, beware!

Now see what you’ve done! Now look how you’ve meddled!
Now go along home! Now I’m unsettled!

Now where did he go? Now why did he leave?
Stranger, come back! I need a reprieve.

By Geraldine, August 1976

!!!!!!!!!!and there are more, MANY more............

After all, It's Only a Table

But…it's also the activity hub of the cabin. It's the main place where we work and eat and do so much more. It's the nerve center, the core of living here.

It's a bench for making small repairs and sorting everything that's moveable; a worktable for craft making and handmade creations. This table is a desk where mail is read, important papers are signed, letters are written, bills are paid. It is the point of attraction for visitors as they seem to always gravitate to it without being led; a social centerpiece for conversation, discussions and game playing. It's a place for common daily happenings such as dispensing pills AND dealing with spills!

We sit here to watch television, look out the window at weather conditions, and see various walkers and vehicles approaching. Binoculars are kept handy on one of the nearby chairs to observe unusual or rare wildlife appearing on or around the lake.

Now I know that a kitchen or dining room table is a staple in almost all homes. This one is special to us. It used to belong to my husband's mother. She gave it to us about forty five years ago when she moved from New Jersey to Michigan to live near her eldest son as she was aging. To the best of our knowledge, the table and four chairs have been moved to four or five different homes throughout its 71 years. That number of its age is assumed by a stenciled stamp on its bottom with the date of 10-20-41. There are no manufacturer labels located anywhere on it and I can't tell you what kind of wood was used for its construction. I can say that is a tough table although some of its screws work loose every few years. Most older things have a screw or two loose, don't they?

Yesterday we bought a new piece of clear vinyl to recover the tablecloth. The old covering was getting lumpy with age. (Another feature of older things.) This entails a two "man" effort so I helped and then a light went on! Take pictures of the naked table! It was the perfect opportunity to observe and preserve its underside. After tightening all of the screws and nuts and flipping it back up on its legs we viewed the pictures. It was only then that the very dusty cross braces were revealed in their full beauty! I quickly ordered it to vamoose and now proclaim them free of the stuff.

Our office and workplace and television lounge and place for sustenance is back in good order.

CLICK on photos to view in larger format.

Fresh made warm meat loaf sandwiches are now being served..........

Have a seat on a chair with a 70 year old original patina!

Winter Contemplation

Thoughts of an Older Lady

Fourteen Things I Like About Winter

• Seeing sparkles twinkling on fresh snow
• Hearing the ice on the lake moan, groan and snap
• Having a hot spot to stand in front of when I'm chilly
• Watching heavy snow falling
• Breaking icicles from the gutters
• Not sweating
• Looking out the window over my bed and seeing the moon through the barren tree branches
• Feeling confident that Spring is coming soon
• Smelling a pot roast cooking
• Not leaving the house often
• Watching the dog romp and tear through the snow
• Knowing it not as risky to burn papers
• Dark short days
• Snow covering the ugly to hide it for a bit

Fourteen Things I Don't Like About Winter

• The geese taking so long to leave the lake
• The cold toilet seat
• Static electricity in my hair
• The propane bill
• The electric bill
• Electric power going out
• More laundry
• Constant company
• Slippery footing and driving
• Dry skin
• Melted muddy snow
• Wearing heavy clothes
• Voles and mice finding a hole to enter
• Whipping wind sneaking in the cracks