Lord have mercy.

Pray.  Pray for the children.  Pray for the parents.  Pray for the families and the community.  Pray for all of us.

Sandy Hook Elementary School; one that will go down in history because of the enormity of this heartbreaking and gut-rending tragedy.

Lord have mercy.

What Can I Do?

Do you ever wonder if anything you do matters?  Do you sometimes feel small and insignificant?  I do.   I feel like there's so much I need to do and not enough time in my day in which to do it.  I tell myself I need to do this or that and, unless I write those things down, they're gone.  Generally my reminders to myself elude me like steam from a kettle.  One minute they're there and the next they're not.  So I sometimes (a lot) feel like I'm just spinning my wheels trying to keep myself on track for everything I think is important.

Actually, though, what I may think important, isn't always that crucial.   There is something, though, that I can remember to do which is important.  I'm just one small person in a great big world . . . but I CAN do something.  I can pray.  When a situation or a person pops into my head, I can pray for them.  When I wake up in the middle of the night, I can pray.  When I'm cruising through my Facebook news feed and I see something, I can pray.  I can do this even though I may not personally know the person/s for whom I pray.

I have to wait until I get to Heaven before I no longer feel frustrated, forgetful and a failure.  When my wheels are spinning and I'm feeling at a loss because I can't keep track of all those "important" things that "need" to be done, I remind myself what's important . . . and I pray.  Some day I won't have to deal with this human condition, but, for now, I'll make do and carry on.

Carbon Monoxide, Katie and Emma and How We Dodged A Bullet

or  How God Was Watching Over Us And We Didn't Lose Loved Ones

A reminder for me to write this . . . another "stay tuned."  This one's important.

Things I Want To Write About . . .

But Have A Hard Timing Doing Because I Lose Focus and Forget And Maybe This Will Help Me To Remember and no, the oatmeal isn't in the pantry.  It's above your head in the cabinet.  Yes, right there.  Yes, that's them in the glass jar.  No, I didn't cut the recipe off the box.  Oops.  Sorry.  Husband asked me a question and I had to get up and now he's pointing a laser on me and the dogs are going bonkers and I'm going to have to finish this in a minute.  Dogs and lasers can be very entertaining.

Quaker's Best Oatmeal Cookie

•  

• 1-1/4  cups (2-1/2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
• 3/4  cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2  cup granulated sugar
• 1  egg
• 1  teaspoon vanilla
• 1-1/2  cups all-purpose flour
• 1  teaspoon baking soda
• 1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2  teaspoon salt (optional)
• 1/4  teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3  cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked

Oooh! Oooh! Ooooh!

I just had the coolest idea and I'm going to give it a try; maybe even this evening or tomorrow.  I noticed this project here http://rustyroostervintage.blogspot.com/2012/12/ornaments-from-trash-and-scraps.html.  Then I found this one a few days ago here https://www.facebook.com/SouvenirMagazine.  This is a project contributed by Sadie Olive to Souvenir Magazine.

I'm going to see about combining the two projects.  It looks cool in my head.  We'll see how it looks in real life.  Off the top of my head, I'll use a mini canvas, tiny vintage buttons, antique book pages, antique lace . . . and . . . I'm not sure what else.  Maybe some old glitter?  Stay tuned.

Dec. 14 --- Turns out I needed to make some things for a school fundraiser.  This is on the back burner for now.

Benson!

My puppy is 9 1/2 months old!

October in Oregon

I was up in Oregon a couple of weeks ago, visiting my folk, sisters, niece, daughter and grandsons.

One of the days we took a drive up towards St. Paul to take some photos of growing trees.

These are trees in a nursery in the area.  Their colors really were beautiful.

On the way home, I stopped along the coast in Humboldt County to take some photos.

This is one of my favorite photo sites there.

I haven't had much of an inclination to write much in the last six months or so.  There are some health issues going on with my mom so I've been trying to get up there more.  It's still not as much as I'd like, but it's more than it has been.  I'll TRY to be better.

Letter Writing

      I've been going through boxes of old papers recently, sorting everything by year.  In doing so, I sorted 30 years worth of family birthday cards.  I pulled all of those out and sorted them by recipient.  They're all in separate containers now while I think of some artistic way to display them and then give them to the girls.  Card with notes on them are the best.

    I miss receiving cards and letters.  We all stopped sending cards when we started sending birthday greetings via email.  It's just not the same.  Letters are like a diary, historical documents.  You can read through them and piece together what was going on in the writer's life.  Yes, you can do the same thing with regular emails, but they lack something by not being in the author's handwriting.  I can't see anyone printing out their regular emails, tying them up with pretty ribbon and storing them away for their children and grandchildren to read.  Maybe I'm wrong.  It's really not the same though.   

    Email is nice for its' immediacy and volume, but, to me, there's nothing like a newsy letter that you can read over and over.  It doesn't even have to be anything exciting.  I have letters from my Grandma that just talk about what she did that day or that week; how much she canned, how the gardens were doing, who she visited, how my Grandpa was.  The mundane details of her life were interesting, even if it didn't feel like it at the time.
    While sorting all of those old papers and cards, I read letters from Mom and Grandma.  Those letters from Mom are especially important to me now.  

     I know that we're all still loved even though we don't receive cards or letters any more, but there will be no written record  of the bits and pieces of our lives to pass along for future generations.  I miss that.  I think they will as well.

     A couple of other interesting stories on the same topic; A Bag of Letters Tells A Personal Story and The Vanishing Art of Letter Writing.

Take pains ... to write a neat round, plain hand, and you will find it a great convenience through life to write a small and compact hand as well as a fair and legible one.  Thomas Jefferson
     
In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.  Anatole Broyard
     
When he wrote a letter, he would put that which was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a by-matter.  Francis Bacon
     
The word that is heard perishes, but the letter that is written remains.  Proverbs
     
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls; for, thus friends absent speak.  John Donne

     

We lay aside letters never to read them again, and at last we destroy them out of discretion, and so disappears the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life, irrecoverable for ourselves and for others.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

     
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.  Mother Theresa
     
Or don't you like to write letters.  I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.  ~Ernest Hemingway

     

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Grandma

So . . . remember back in January or February when my 96 year old Grandma was in palliative care in the hospital?  She'd fallen, shattering her shoulder and breaking her arm and, while in the hospital, was found to be suffering from congestive heart failure, with her heart only being about 12% effective.  Or something like that.  The doctor gathered the family up there together and they had a meeting and she told them that she wasn't God, but . . . that Grandma had days or weeks as opposed to months or years.  Guess what.  Grandma got out of the hospital and went home back in March.  She's doing great, for 96.  She's walking around, taking care of herself and generally hanging out.  The doctor was right.  She wasn't God.  Grandma's still ready to go, but apparently it's not time yet.  I love having my Grandma around!

I think I like

Sherwoodshire Cottage Workshop. That way it can apply to any type of necklace or art or photography or whatever. At least for now. :o)

It's time

It's time to try to sell some jewelry. I've got photography listed. Now it's time for some necklaces. I need a FB page, though, and, again, need to come up with a name. I've always liked the French version of Grandma's workshop, l'atelier de la grande mère. Not sure if that's too uppity for this area, though. L'atelier de la GreatMother? Melodee's Art Workshop or Atelier de l'art des Melodee? April Atelier? Atelier d'April? I'll think on it.

An Open Letter to the Drunk Driver that Hit My Husband

I received permission from the writer of this letter, An Open Letter to the Drunk Driver That Hit My Husband, to repost it here. To quote her, "The more we share, the more likely we are to get people to understand the bad choice drunk driving is for all involved."

Forget 'don't drive drunk.' DON'T DRIVE TIPSY. We don't all know when we're over the legal limit, but we certainly all know when we're tipsy. When you get to that point, DON'T DRIVE.

I thought this was definitely worth sharing.

Teacup Tuesdays

Today is the second teacup giveaway over at the Pink Rose Cottage. I think this one is particularly appropriate for me. Note the name of the pattern. :o) If you like teacups (like me), then check out the site. Remember, teacups are not just for tea.

Here are a few I have around the house. Ones on display are ones given to me when my Grandma died 32 years ago. I'm not sure how long she'd been collecting them but she had a bunch. Others are ones I've picked up along the way.

Grandma and Emma

This is my favorite photo of my granddaughter, Emma, and my Grandma. It was one of those fortunate serendipitous moments that I was lucky enough to catch. My Grandma is 96 1/2 and currently in palliative care in a hospital in Oregon. It's ok, though, because she's ready to die. She knows where she's going and she wants to be with my Grandpa and the rest of her loved ones. She's an amazing woman.

This photo was submitted to the I Heart Faces photo challenge – www.iheartfaces.com

A Glimpse Into My Journal

This is my most recent journal/keepbook/inspiration book. It starts in January, 2007. I don't write in it nearly often enough, which is why I'm still in the same one 5 years later. This is a plain brown craft-type paper ringed blank book. It's about 9x12 so it's big enough for magazine pages. That's because I like to go through my favorite magazines, calendars, books, etc. and cut things out that speak to me. Then I put them in my journals. I go back all the time and look at old ideas for inspiration. This is the cover.

I have a trunk that Mike built for me for my 35th birthday. I realized I could set it on its' front and take the top off. Then I put the all of the audio/visual stuff inside on a couple of old fruit crates. I still have to make doors for it. I think I'm going to make them from some old knotty pine moulding from our old house and then use chicken wire rather than glass.
Mike and I visited Cherlyn in Okinawa in October of 2007. We're at the botanical gardens here, where they had a GREAT play area.

I LOVE this craft room setup. I'm just not organized enough to be able to pull it together . . . yet. I'm working on it.

These are some wonderful sayings/thoughts/bits of wisdom.

I wrote a little book for my sister and her kids. These are some of my drawings for the illustrations. No, it isn't completed yet. The words are and the contextual drawings are. I just haven't put the two together yet.
Can you tell I'm a pretty visual person. It's the way I remind myself of things.
From wayyyyy early in this blog. Emma is nearly 7 now.
I'm married to an unsung hero.
I have my own collection of old suitcases and always keep my eyes open for more. They're great for storing old letters, journals, negatives, etc.
I want to do this but haven't yet.
This is pretty cool. I have a lot of old buttons. It would be a fun project for the grandkids.
I love this. My Grandma and Uncle have something similar that they put together in their garden.
Roma.
Paris.
Yes.
I got this little poem from a woman who used to live in our town. She was the "town grandma." Rest in peace, Grandma Mavis.