Cold Water

When we lived for a short time in wild, wonderful West Virginia, the little farmhouse we rented in the country had well water. In the middle of the summer when I would mow the yard, I stopped to use the outside spigot and hose to fill a glass of water. The water would be so cold it would make the glass fog. Very refreshing. Down here the water is never cold. Which isn't surprising when you realize it's piped in a hundred miles from the mainland, and the pipes are mostly above ground in the Caribbean heat. When I was a girl doing my “outdoor education” week in a camp in the mountains and forests of California, we had to take cold showers, there was no hot water. It was freezing! Summer before last Big Daddy nearly killed me when he took me on an 8 mile hike at a state park. On our way back we headed straight for the spring which is 72 degrees year round, and we peeled off our shoes and packs and jumped right it! It was delicious. Down here, though, you could bathe using the “cold” water only, and I’ll bet you wouldn’t even muster a goose pimple! Even the beach water is warm because it is so shallow. It’s odd, but I don’t mind.

Old Friends

This past June we celebrated our wedding anniversary. We didn’t do too much since we were gearing up for our move, actually we were right in the process of moving and it was also the last week of school for the children. Once we got to our new home, and were a bit settled in, my husband did something very sentimental that we hadn’t done in about 17 years. He cued up our wedding video on the VCR, and we all watched it. How young and happy we all looked! How bittersweet to see our dear loved ones that have since died. Our kids were delighted to see it. This got me thinking about our old friends who were such an important part of our big day, and our lives then. I was able to find a few that I had lost track of, and sent an email to the ones I haven’t contacted in a long while. The wonders of googling and yellow pages dot com, because I was able to track them down without much trouble. I love and miss them and this poem is for them:

New Friends and Old Friends
by Joseph Parry

Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.
New-made friendships, like new wine,
Age will mellow and refine.
Friendships that have stood the test -
Time and change - are surely best;
Brow may wrinkle, hair grow gray,
Friendship never knows decay.
For 'mid old friends, tried and true,
Once more we our youth renew.
But old friends, alas! may die,
New friends must their place supply.
Cherish friendship in your breast -
New is good, but old is best;
Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.

For those that have left this life, Daddy, Aunt Dolly, Aunt Teresa and Johnny you remain, forever to stay gold in our hearts.

The Upside of My Clutter-Procrastination Problem

Well, really there isn’t much of an upside to clutter or procrastination. Seriously. But here is one of the quirky by-products of my clutter/procrastination problem: I tend to put aside rolls of 35 mm film I have taken, and place them in a drawer somewhere rather than get them developed right away. Big Daddy will come across them, usually years later, and get several developed al at once. Then it was like looking at a time capsule and very fun! In the course of our move, we came across some of these, and one roll was from 9 years ago when we lived in Apopka!
This was from my garden back then:

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This...

In honor of my darling babies who are visiting their Granny, I post this which they inspired. I wrote it sometime in April of 2008.

Warning: This post is sick. Vomit is discussed. Stop here and read no further if you have a weak stomach.


My morning (yesterday):

Get everybody up and moving for school. That means dressed, fed, & groomed (hair, face & teeth is my morning mantra). Adam had an 8:15 am doctor’s appointment for his Franken-finger (Frankenstein + finger = nasty bacterial infection). Calvin has to go with us, because Big Daddy is back to work (Thank God!). Big Daddy can see Flora off on her school bus, though. So we are on the road to the clinic which is about 15 miles away, and about 5 miles before we get there, Calvin lives up to his nickname: Up-Chuck. He has motion sickness. He has improved so much, and it’s been awhile since we had an episode in the van, so I didn’t have the towel and cup handy… Most of it got on his jacket. Adam rushes into the clinic to sign in on time. I clean Up-Chuck-up as much as possible. He is feeling fine and sits still for me in the waiting area. Thankfully we don’t have to wait too long. Perhaps the smell of our little group was instrumental in expediting our visit. I decide to stop at the pharmacy nearest to the clinic so Adam can get a dose of meds in him before I drop him off at school (he can’t miss anymore school). I pick up a few grocery items while I wait and write a check over the total amount, so I can have a little cash on hand. I pick up the prescription and head out. On the way to Adam’s school, Calvin throws up a little again, but we were prepared with a cup this time. After I drop Adam off I realize that the cashier never gave me my cash back. I get my receipt and call the number. I cannot drive all the way back there with a pukey child, in pukey clothes that I will have to load and unload out of his pukey car seat. At least when I was there earlier, Adam could sit with him in the van. I explain this, the lady from the store says she’ll count the cashier’s drawer to make sure, and call me back at home. I get home, clean out all of the pukey stuff from the van, you know you have to practically disassemble the car seat to remove the cloth covers, seat belt straps, etc. I get what I can into the washer. I run a bath for Calvin, who is very hungry now, of course. Bathe him, feed him, get him settled, resting and watching a movie. He is fine now. I am exhausted, though, and it‘s only 11am. My day begins at 6:30. Yesterday was quite similar to today. Yesterday was Flora having a melt-down. She was crying and freaking out before her bus came. She walks the dog in the morning and we play fetch with him a little while we wait for the bus. The dog got away from her, chasing after a bird and getting filthy in a muddy retention pond. Guess who had to catch the dog? Guess who had to wash the dog? Guess who got painfully scratched by the dog? Guess who was tempted, right then and there, to take the dog to the humane society? Then I had to rush off to a full day of errands with Calvin, rush home to plan dinner, do a few chores, and then get ready and go to my evening job. I was home at around 9:15pm which is surprisingly early.

It occurs to me, this is the kind of day they should use as an example for abstinence and birth control education. I’ve had many days just like this one, I'm sure most of you have also! My advice for the teen kids contemplating sex - don’t do it until you are READY for it, because it will lead to a life like mine. Smelling like puke and not enough sleep. Smelling like a wet dog and not enough sleep. And cleaning up the puke.
"Nausea, bloody red eyes go to nausea, bloody red eyes go to sleep...."

Sigh.

At one time I smelled like cloves and marigolds and cinnamon.

Songs for today:
Mama Said, Nausea, Middle of the Road, Once in a Lifetime

My mama, bless her heart, really never told me there would be so much puke. So I am telling you: you teens, you youngsters out there contemplating sex (I mean coitus), which leads to babies and children, realize there is a lot of puke that goes along with that!

I have been in my new home for almost two months now and so far, I like it. Some observations. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of dog owners here. Almost everyone has a pet dog, or pet of some kind, with birds and cats in a second place tie (?). I have found the people to be very friendly. I am putting off a job hunt until school resumes in August. I had some wonderful alone time this week, and really enjoyed it. I was able to visit a prayer garden at a local church.


I fixed some of my favorite foods, that only I like to eat. Penne with olive oil and garlic!

art and life

Picasso's Woman With a Crow
journal entry from 6/24/07

It occurs to me I have lived in my own kind of prison, in one area of my life, for many years now and I’m ready to come out of it. The source of this trouble goes back to my last year of college. I was so stressed out, guilty and ashamed of myself the last year of college, over 15 years ago! My school work suffered as I agonized over my Mom and Dad’s situation, the stress of finances, working and keeping it all together. I felt guilty for being a “lousy artist.” I still feel sadness mingled with embarrassment when I recall a horrible memory of an evaluation talk with one of my instructors, figure drawing, as he criticized my work. I never told anybody - teachers or classmates- all of what was going on, with the exception my roommate. That was a rather large factor in my less-than-spectacular quality of work. I look back now and the biggest impression I have of that last year of school is STRESS and WORRY. Stress and worry about my parents and their legal and financial problems. Stress and worry about doing my school work, meeting deadlines and balancing that with working as much as possible to support myself and pay for it. We lived somewhat of a double life because my Mom did not want us to tell anyone what was happening with my Dad, and you can still see my reticence in this to spell it out exactly. I remember a time a few years later, when I became a stay-at-home-mom(SAHM) after having Adam how relieved I was not to have to get up and go to school or work and be so engulfed by the stress of all that. I still felt enormous guilt for not pursuing an art career or even doing any art on my own, for pleasure or passion. I think all of that was wound so tightly into the way I was dealing with my family problems. I’d associated art and art-school with such negative feelings because it was the goal I had to slog through when my heart wasn’t in it for worry over my parents; and the huge financial strain it was to keep it going. Then it was the strain of continuing to pay for it in the form of student loans after graduation. I was growing and changing as a person with new priorities: motherhood and Christian Faith. I was resentful and embarrassed that I could not afford it. I was still dealing with the blow to our family in the form of my Dad’s tragic circumstances. Having to be there for my Mom and him, and even bear some of the responsibility of helping them, and feeling at times guilty and resentful (and feeling guilty about feeling resentful!). Then there was the worry and concern over my brother’s problems with addiction at that time and the way that touched our family. I was privately torn with guilt and vacillating over mine and my husbands’s passion for me to be a SAHM and our assurance of it being the right thing for us to do as Christian parents, and the fact that I was not contributing to our finances though the loans and other bills were my debts. We had severe financial problems due to stupid mistakes we made, and some even from my parents’ situation. I can’t tell you what a heartache and despair my Dad’s situation caused. It was the dark cloud that hung over all of our lives, effecting us in various ways. I can’t even go into all of that here. When my Dad passed away in 2000, there was no more carrying that burden, and grief runs it’s course. It was a sad and unfair situation, but there is no more to be done about it… The victim of the cruel circumstances, my Dad was gone, and the situation that ruled our lives for so long, went with him. I suppose there was a returning to ‘normal’? Big Daddy & I finally paid off my student loans, and that was a relief. I no longer lived in the state of guilt and anxiety I once did. I am ready to be free and do art again. Lord, help me start.

The Highwaymen of Florida

Landscapes by Harold Newton

There is a group of artists here in Florida known as The Highwaymen, or The Indian River School. You can read more about them here and here.
I think their story is worth reading and their work is amazing. Check it out. There will be a show and a mini-festival of their work beginning August 1st in Mt. Dora, Florida. Details here.