Water, milk, juice, eggs, various and sundry breads: check. Radios, batteries, shovels, charged cellphones: check.
Wine, cider and spices for mulling, pasta, good assortments of fruits/veggies, fixin's for soups, Trader Joe's macarons: check. Salt, food set out for the birds: check. Wood for the fireplace, warm sweaters, cozy blankets to curl up in: check. Paints/papers, books, music, movies: check. We're ready and good to go: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...
Particularly when my son Eric was small, the two of us would head out to local farms where we lived in Virginia, to go strawberry-picking. It was great fun; a ritual for us for a number of years. I always used to think the farmers should have weighed him as we entered the fields, and then again as we left, because God knows he ate so many more right there in the fields than ever ended up in our buckets. I'm sure they could have charged me far more than they ever did for the pints we picked.
"Strawberries that in gardens grow Are plump and juicy and fine, But sweeter far as wise men know Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon, Sugar or spice or cream, Has the wild berry plucked in June Beside the trickling stream."
(from "Wild Strawberries" by Robert Graves)
"Doubtless God could have made a better berry (than the strawberry,) but doubtless God never did." (--William Allen Butler)
There are some days when it just makes no sense to get out of bed at all, does it?
Well,...:of course, you do get up, but it's definitely on the wrong side of the bed...
...those bitter winter mornings when it's still dark outside, and you face a cruel chill the minute you set your delicate toes on the floor. The shower needs time to warm up, and you stress because you know you have to bundle up and rush outside for a minute, just to warm up the car so the windows can defrost while you're drying out your hair and choosing what to wear for the day, right?
The traffic is crazy, now that you've left a few minutes later (because of the defrosting,) and then, the minute you get to work, watching your breath curl around your face, and open the doors to head inside, it hits you that the fire alarm is sounding, and a very robotic voice is instructing you to "please vacate the building," only to leave you again out in that wretched cold air.
Aaaah, it's a harsh world, in this wintery time of the year...
"I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day."
Eric had me laughing with this facebook post and image on his site today, with this note: "If I had to pick a single animated gif to represent most of my days, this would be a pretty solid choice:"
My thoughts are with all those people who are suffering so terribly in Haiti .
For anyone who is interested, here are a few links to relief organizations who could really use our help in their attempts to aid those victims of the earthquake. Certainly here in our own country, many people are hurting in our difficult economy right now, so not everyone can donate money, but the Haitians are really desperately struggling right now.
I made a donation to UNICEF today. If anyone is able to think of things they can do to help in any way, at all, I hope they will try:
Perhaps because both sets of my grandparents were immigrants to America, genealogy has always been a very strong interest for me. My maternal grandparents were from Scotland, and my paternal grandparents were from Romania. (Below is my Great Auntie Katie in Carstairs Village, Scotland.)
Growing up as small children, my siblings and I definitely experienced what would be considered an "extended family," as we saw our grandparents constantly, and they had a huge impact on our lives. I was very much aware of their immigrant experience through my exposure to them and their worlds, and I've always been acutely aware of how fortunate I am that I had them in my life. (Below, l-r: from my paternal side of the family, my Aunt Rose and Uncle Cas with another relative, Teresa.)
Some years back, I spent about six years doing a lot of research on our family's ancestors, particularly on my maternal Scottish grandparents' side. (My father has generously amassed a fair bit of information about our paternal Romanian grandparents' history, but as anyone who's done genealogical research knows, the work is never-ending, and one day, I'm sure I'll be picking it all up again.) I have collected passports, ship manifests coming through Ellis Island, letters, photos, books, and all sorts of anecdotal stories that I hold dear.
As a tiny child, my mother traveled back to Scotland by ship with her brother Edward, and they both lived there for several years, while my immigrant grandmother was ill here in America. There was no one else to care for the children here in America, since my grandfather worked, and so the children were sent overseas to be with aunties who nurtured and coddled them until they could return and be with their parents again. I often think how hard that must have been for my grandparents to be separated from their tiny children and for the children to be uprooted and sent to Scotland. Thankfully, my mother always had happy memories of that period, and shared much of her experience there with me. (Below: mommy and Uncle Ed's passport for heading back to Scotland:)
I'd initially become interested in doing research on our ancestors because my mom had MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and I had read that Scotland had the highest number of cases of MS worldwide. I was curious if any other relatives had had it in the past. (Supposedly, MS is not hereditary, but there is most likely a genetic predisposition to it.) (Below: l-r: my Grandmother Susan and my Great-grandmother Mary:)
Even as a child, I would marvel at Grandma Schmidt, who left Romania as a young teenager, and traveled by ship to America, barely speaking a word of English, off to make a new life. And Grandma and Grandpa McClafferty taught us things about life in the old villages "back home." Grandma often created entertaining stories that undoubtedly involved people from her past as she wove tales for us as children. I remember thinking, even as a young girl, that my grandparents were "neither fish nor fowl;" not exactly like other Americans, but no longer exactly like those they'd left behind, either. The struggles they faced in their homelands, and the difficulties they faced in a new land, enriched my world probably more than it ever did their own. (Below: Grandma Schmidt's wedding: sadly, I never knew my paternal Grandfather, as he died when I was about 2 months old):
I recently discovered a hauntingly beautiful song that I'd like to share.
It's about the whole immigrant experience, and it struck such a chord with me. A man in Washington, DC, of Irish-American descent, named Peter Jones, discovered a stack of old letters written by his Irish ancestors back home in Kilkelly, County Mayo, Ireland, to his family, and the letters tell the tale of the lives and struggles of these people: those who were left behind and those who went off, emigrating to new lives elsewhere. He put the words in these letters to music, in a beautifully melancholic ballad called "Kilkelly:"
Over New Year's break, I was browsing through old photos, and found some photo images I thought I'd put aside to use for practice sketching. Like everyone else, I feel like I've been so busy, and I haven't painted for a bit, so I am really out of practice,... and confidence, too.
My insecurities emerge when I attempt to draw, since I honestly can't draw, but I find that if I just pick up a paintbrush and sort of loosely sketch out shapes with that, and not with a pencil, I'll tend to be loose, because I feel like I'm just playing then, and I'm more relaxed.
It works for me--I'll never produce a masterpiece that way, but it gets me feeling like I'm having fun, and I'm more likely to keep trying if I do that.
And after all, fun is what it's all about in the first place, isn't it? (These were done in an old, small Arches HP block. It's always interesting to me to see the differences in HP paper vs CP.)
"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." (-Dale Carnegie)
Water, milk, juice, eggs, various and sundry breads: check.
Wood for the fireplace, warm sweaters, cozy blankets to curl up in: check.
Particularly when my son Eric was small, the two of us would head out to local farms where we lived in Virginia, to go strawberry-picking. It was great fun; a ritual for us for a number of years. I always used to think the farmers should have weighed him as we entered the fields, and then again as we left, because God knows he ate so many more right there in the fields than ever ended up in our buckets. I'm sure they could have charged me far more than they ever did for the pints we picked.
"Doubtless God could have made a better berry (than the strawberry,) but doubtless God never did." (--William Allen Butler)
For the apparel oft proclaims the man."
I recently discovered a hauntingly beautiful song that I'd like to share.
It works for me--I'll never produce a masterpiece that way, but it gets me feeling like I'm having fun, and I'm more likely to keep trying if I do that.
And after all, fun is what it's all about in the first place, isn't it? (These were done in an old, small Arches HP block. It's always interesting to me to see the differences in HP paper vs CP.)
