My Very First Brush

Okay, so please don't laugh as this was my first attempt at making a PS brush. The banner is my drawing creation that I saved as a brush. Admittedly, not so hot but I really just wanted to see how easy it was to do. Now that I know, I will be making more. Probably I will be making some brushes of Nigel soon. or Ollie. or Henry. or Shoog. or all.

The Puzzled Snake

I have been very busy. This is just a little digital creation that I found time enough to whip up to keep myself from getting extremely rusty.

A High School Musical But Not That One

Hey, I finally got around to working the the board book again! I finished the high school page. Really, there is not that much to it largely because I honestly cannot remember that much about it. Funny, huh? I do remember this much about high school...everything at that stage in life seemed terribly, terribly important at the time. Now, I can barely recall it. Like I said, funny.

But I do remember this much. I remember loving songs very, very much. I remember my 'happy place' was music. I would sit in my room with headphones on and listen and listen and listen. Paul McCartney had always been a big deal to me but he was not "mine". He really was my sister's. He had been a super big deal when she was in junior high school so I sort of 'glommed on' to him as not having any musical person to claim for my own. Then along comes my very own musical man, Elton. He was "mine" and he is still "mine". His music belongs to me. To my time. To my era. When I hear "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", "Bennie and the Jets" especially if I am driving in my car, it takes me right back to high school. It always makes me feel good. It always makes me smile while also making me feel a little wistful.

I do remember getting my very own cat, Andy. He was my first cat since Bobby Jack, the cat I had when I was a very small child. He was my very own pet. Mom made me responsible for him. She said I had to do all of the tending to him and I did. I drove him to his very first vet appointment after school one day. I was just a young, little whipper snapper at that time. I remember being SO protective of him at the vet's office. I was a young 'mom' and had not raised a cat to adulthood before. I learned a thing or two with that boy. He was the worst behaved 'child' I ever had and I have had many 'children'. I learned the importance of a 'good raising' with him. He was a hellion. Being the young mother such as I was, I did not realize the importance of teaching him discipline. Rather I encouraged him to be a wild maniac. It was funny when he was little. It was not funny when he was big though.  People were afraid of him. He was one of those cats that would just about take your arm off if he did not like you. But I so loved him. I still do. Love lasts forever, doesn't it?

Another thing that sticks in my memory about high school was the country's bicentennial. I remember a lot of red, white and blue. And here is my little 70's vignette.

Old Friends

I am very fortunate. I have always been very fortunate to have made all through out my lifetime some very wonderful friends, the best kind of friends. The kind of friends that you can share anything with them and they will understand, relate, laugh, cry, empathize and sympathize. Yes, I am fortunate to have been blessed in this way. I never did anything to deserve such a blessing.

I am discovering at my mother's senior retirement living complex that I can even make friends there. To befriend some of these elderly ladies is a truly, wonderful thing. My latest friend is 95 years young. I love talking to her. She makes a point to ask my mother when I will be visiting so she can stop by and we can talk. I love hearing her stories of what life was like 90 years ago. She talks of the milkman delivering those little bottles of milk on her family's front porch. She talks of the iceman delivering ice for their 'ice box'. It is just a pleasure to talk to her. Plus, she likes my stories too! She often asks me my opinion of what I think about the latest news or fashion. She is really a treasure trove of information.

Last week, she stopped by just to show me her wedding picture of when she got married at age 21. She was gorgeous! The picture had been colorized and she had vibrant red hair and was wearing a brown lace dress with a matching hat. She and her new husband were standing in front of a church along with their closest friends who "stood up" with them. It was a lovely, lovely picture. I could tell as I watched her that the memory of it seemed as if it was yesterday.

It got me to thinking. Life is over so quickly. This is not really "life" is it? We were born into death. We are heading toward death from the second we arrive on the planet. Everything on the planet will ultimately relinquish itself to death. Even the planet is dying. The sun is burning out. Life is not anything we will ever know here. When we die here, we will finally begin to live. Life will be the appropriate word to use then. Then, we will  know the meaning of what it truly is to live.

The Joys of Reading

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." ~Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

My Three Songs

I listen to a lot of music. I love the melody but more importantly to me are the words of a song. The words of a song will make it or break it for me. A song can have a beautiful tune but if the words speak negatively to me, forget it. There was a song from about 10 years ago that had a beautiful melody but the words said "I don't care who you are, Where you're from, What you did, As long as you love me." Excuse me? I might not care who someone is, where they are from but yeah, I do care what they did! What if they behaved like John Dillinger or worse? See what I mean about the words? Words matter. Words are powerful.

Sometimes I will hear a song in which part of the song will speak directly to me. I will think "Sounds like he/she knew me when he/she wrote that." At those times, I know I am not odd. Someone else on the planet felt just like me. Most of us have much more in common with others than we could ever hope to fully appreciate.

One such song like what I just described is called "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon. The part that speaks to me says "He's everything you want, He's everything you need, He's everything inside of you that you wish you could be, He says all the right things, At exactly the right time, But he means nothing to you, And you don't know why."  Yep, that is me. There are somethings that I feel oh, so passionately about but then, there are others that should be important, that others deem important but that I simply do not. I just have a 'whatever, dude' attitude. This is me and I have always been this way and I always knew I would be this way and it is okay.

I know this next song not only speaks to me but to many people as we get older. It is called "Viva la Vida" by Cold Play. I love this song so much because the words are so beautiful. "I used to rule the world, Seas would rise when I gave the word, Now in the morning I sleep alone, Sweep the streets I used to own, I used to roll the dice, Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes, Listen as the crowd would sing, "Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!" Isn't that how it is when you are young? Once I felt invincible as if life would last forever but sadly it does not at least in this form. Suddenly there is one day when you turn around to see yourself in the mirror and find you have grown old. My glory days are behind me now. There are fewer days ahead than there are behind.

If those two songs are like the details of a canvas making up a painting of myself, then the broad strokes of the canvas are described in the song by One Republic called "Good Life" because it all seems good to me even if there is less ahead than behind. Maybe that just makes it all sweeter. The older I get, the more I appreciate this planet and all of those that have gone before me. Life is beautiful. All life is beautiful. "When you are happy like a fool, let it take you over."

Good Life

A Painful Case

"Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from himself." ~James Joyce

Thirsty Birds

Remember how I said the mockingbirds like to tease Shoog? Well, I think Bodie has developed a tactic of his own. When the birds come for a drink, he will be waiting.

Bodie awaits a thirsty bird.

The 'ownership' of these feral cats is a funny thing. I have '1' and my neighbor has '6'. Honestly, they claimed us. That is how we determine who 'belongs' to whom. Shoog claimed me. Bella, Puff Daddy, Bodie, Blue, Patch Adams, and Davidson claimed my neighbor. However, we both feed them all. But when night comes, Shoog stays here and the others mostly go back home unless they are sleeping over with Shoog. There is another that has been coming around lately that I have dubbed Chesterfield. He seemingly wants to be mine but we will see.

First Steps Into Motherhood

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers out there!

Earning Stripes

You can earn your stripes or you can buy them.

Motel Guests

The new sleeping arrangement for Shoog seems to be going over so well that he invited a couple of his friends, Puff Daddy and Bodie for a sleep over last night. Of course, I had to provide them with some 'sleeping towels' to keep them warm. Shoog still took the prime location as his own.

Inside...Only Different

It rained for the past two days. I tried to make Shoog an inside cat but needless to say without going into the details, it did not work out. So here he is being as close to an inside cat as he can be. He sleeps in that chair drawn up to the back window almost all night and lots of the day too. He has pretty much learned not to leave the back yard. Yes, we are making progress eventhough it may not appear as much.

The Almost Forgotten Board Book

Remember my little autobiographical board book? Well, I almost do not. I started out with a lot of steam where it was concerned just like a full on steam locomotive but dwindled quickly just like a full on steam locomotive with one single, tiny, lump of coal. I am still working in it but here is the problem. I did not do any 'planning' when it came to the number of pages in it. That is me. I am not much of a planner and honestly, that should be reflected in my autobiographical book, right?

Oh, I am a big 'thinker', 'analyzer', 'ponderer', whatever you wish to call that but planning? Not so much. Therefore, the past 3 decades of my life will be confined to three single pages in the book. That is okay with me. I have made some backgrounds for it but have not filled in any details yet with personal pictures and what-not mainly because I do not have many personal pictures of myself.

My mom has an entire box full but I really do not wish to go rummaging through her stuff just to make a book about myself because it would solicit many questions from her about what I was looking for and why. If I said I was making a 'craft book' she would want me to explain that. In the latter years of my mom's career life, she was one of the 'teachers' at a church school. I put 'teacher' in quotes because that is what they called her job but she mostly did what I call 'babysitting'. She kept the 3 year old children. They filled part of their days with what mom called 'crafts' and boy, did mom ever complain to me about those crafts. She would tell me about how uncrafty she was and about how the three year old kids were all little Picasscos compared to her. She said she did not have a crafty bone in her body. I know that is not true because I had witnessed mom's craftiness before in my life such as her mad sewing skills but she did not view sewing as a craft. It was more of a necessity.

Do you see from my digression what my true craft is? I have a love affair with words. Yep. Words. Me. We were meant for each other just like two peas in a pod. However, I do enjoy other 'crafts' unlike my mom did. So I keep giving them the old college try. And I will use what I have and that will have to do as far as my autobiographical board book goes.

In the mean time, I have begun this little 'custom' book that I made with embossing. I love to emboss but never know what to do with it. I never know what to do with things I have made other than give the occassional card that I create for someone's birthday. I am not one to place a lot of frivolity around the house to catch dust. But still, I am embossing some book pages and am unsure as what to do with them. Any ideas? I wish I could turn it into something about England. I am making a long list of places I have to go next time I am there. If I could incorporate that here on these pages, I could create something pretty and useful at the same time.

I especially love the page with the owl.