Tasha Tuesday

Tasha greets you today in splendid color and...

a little sass

How about a closer look?  The pattern of her blouse reminds me of those twirling machines they had at the carnival when I was a kid.  We paid a nickel to squeeze different colors of paint from a tube onto a piece of paper with a small hole in the center.  The booth attendant would put the paper on a wheel, kind of like a turn table of an old time record player.  He or she would line up the hole in the center of the paper with a small nipple in the center of the wheel.  The lid would be closed and a button pushed and the wheel would spin, sending the paint in all directions, creating a design much like the one on Tasha's shoulder.  I thought it as so cool.  I guess I still do.

For Miss Tasha, nothing goes undone... from the sweep of her bangs to the 

sparkle of her toes,

Tasha is polished and perfumed to perfection.  She even sports her name on a gold ring.

Not a bad idea. I have always had a difficult time remembering names.  Faces I seldom forget, but names I botch up consistently.

If everyone would just wear their name on their finger, it would really help me out.

Oh, and we can't forget the do.  Can you guess how she does it?  All I can say is don't try this at home.







May your day be fun.  May your eyes take in some splendid color, some sparkle and some sass.  Enjoy each other.  Celebrate our differences and the ways we uniquely present ourselves in this world.  Judge less, love more.  This is my prayer.

Letters Are Not a Thing of the Past

I got a letter from Puppet (grand daughter # 6) the other day. 




I had sent the three Wyoming grand daughters a package containing note books envelopes, stamps and sticky notes.  I went to the UPS Store to send it off and paid more for the shipping than the contents.  Guess I will ride it out and stand in line at the Post Office next time.  So long UPS!

Puppet wrote the letter entirely by herself and for a three-year-old it contained some good-to-know details.

I'll post a few lines so you can enjoy her message as well.

It began:  Dear Yaya,  All is well with the Wyo Fiveo.  My sisters do not go to school anymore.  They are on summer bacation and  mommy doesn't teach at school either. She is on bacation too.   Next year I am going to Puddleducks while mommy works all day at the school.  Puddleducks has fun toys in the basement.

Thank you for the notebook and stamps.  I like to write.  I like to draw.  I like to play with puzzles and stuffed animals and babies.  I love to play outside and I really like to read. 

You have tormatoes at you house?  Mommy said it was very, very windy.  Did you hide?  Did it leak on your onions?  (I think she was a bit confused between tornadoes and tomatoes)

I love you.

Signed (and signed and signed), "Puppet"

And I thought the art of letter writing was dead.  Honestly, I am grateful for Puppet's letter.  The three grand daughters in Wyoming do not like long phone conversations (a sentiment their Yaya shares), so I don't get the current scoop on things like I do with the grand children who live in Oklahoma.  A letter now and then makes the distance seem shorter and I also get to read it again and again whenever I find myself missing their special flavor.

Puppet keeps me laughing most of the time.  She dives head first into whatever is going on with her two older sisters.  She doesn't know that she is not old enough to do what they are doing.
As far as she is concerned age has no limits. 

 
She has a large vocabulary and understanding of words and concepts (her mother is a teacher, after all) but delivers them in a three-year-old brogue that is captivating and fun.


I don't know what news will come to me from Puppet's next letter.  All I know is she is growing fast and furious and I am grateful to catch a glimpse of her playful, confident spirit whenever I can.


I hope you get an opportunity this day to be in touch with someone whose personality makes you smile.  I hope you get to be in the presence of play and even join in yourself.  Life travels swiftly and slowly, depending on where you are in its journey.  I hope you are in it fully, whatever it's pace, and that you find an unexpected joy in your mailbox.

Now that the our large dinning table has left our home we have been discerning what to do with the empty space.  We didn't want to buy something new to fill it because we have enough "things" already.  We had a leather sofa tucked away in the bow-window area of our new dining.  I know, sounds kind of weird to have a sofa in the dining, but it worked.  He-man didn't want to give up the comfortable leather seating that lived with us in our previous smaller home so we moved it with us to our current place and used it in the small den that eventually became part of the new dining.

Ah hah!  We could move that sofa to the vaccant area where the big table used to live.   I  wasn't sure how this would look because the old dining area is completely open to the living area and I didn't want the space to look like a furniture showroom. 

The great thing about the old dining space is that there are large floor to ceiling windows across one wall, which we can take full advantage of now that the table is not standing in front of them.  At any rate, we moved the sofa and it looked better than I expected.  Not designer Wow!  Not infused with color...but good for us and the way we live.  It created another conversation area and a wonderful place for me to read, meditate or knit and look out at the roses growing in our tiny courtyard on the other side of the windows.

 In order to use this new space as a conversation area we needed to have a place for people to sit other than just the sofa.  Talking with someone right next to you on a three-seater sofa is not the most comfortable scenario. 

I thought two occassional chairs opposite the sofa might add the seating we needed.  And like I said earlier, our goal in redoing anything is not to accumulate more things.... but we didn't have any chairs hanging around the house. 

Oh, maybe that's not entirely true.  We had two chairs in our master bedroom suite... one was a small slipper chair that a bag-lady gave me years ago and one was a wicker patio chair.  They didn't seem to be the most comfortable choices for completing the furniture grouping in the new space.  And to be honest, I really wanted two matching chairs. 

I know... Television designer, Nate Berkus, says that chairs don't have to match, and I agree.  But since the area rug in this space has a bold pattern, I wanted matching chairs to create a calmer atmosphere.  When our eyes take in a view they instantly move from one object to another when those objects differ.  But if they are the same, the eye rests for a while.  I wanted the new seating area to have movement, but also rest.

So last week He-man and I jaunted off to the Salvation Army Store to see if anothers trash could become our treasure.  And we hit pay dirt! 








We bought two chairs for eight dollars and twelve cents.  They were marked $4.99 each, but since it was 25% off day we walked out of the store with the deal of the year. 









The upholstery needed replaced and the wood spruced up.  But to our eyes and experience it looked like a fairly easy job.  But the difficult part for me is deciding on what fabric to replace it with.





Should I go with a print or a solid or a bright color or bold texture.  I love them all, so it makes my decision challenging because I want whatever fabric I use to last for a while.... not only with its durability but also with its decor.  While I certainly respond to trends in fashion and home decor, I want the basics to be a timeless classic to build upon.  You know, like the little black dress as backdrop to a delicate string of pearls or a bright trendy necklace...  or the neutral wall color as backdrop to graphic drapery or bold colorful pillows.
 
Since I have already rambled on for far too long .... I will save the fabrics and finished chairs for a later blog.

Combine my love for making something old feel like something new and my obsession to adjust, improve, create, or artistically express -  and what do you get?  A Crazy Lady! 

It amazes me that He-man has endured it for over thirty years.  He is a good sport and I am not only a crazy lady but a super lucky one as well.

Have a good weekend!  Thanks for visiting.  Hope you come back and have a seat in our revamped chairs.

Under A Pile of Debris

While pruning the roses last week I uncovered a sweet gift.  It was tucked deep in the center of our overgrown Knockout rose bush.





I was focused on some serious cutting and didn't see it until I reached for what I thought was a dried maple leaf.

What I actually touched was a tiny bird's nest woven within the braids of several thorny stems. How did momma bird build her intricate home in such a prickly niche?


I gingerly put the little nest in an empty flower pot and continued to clean up the rose garden.







While clearing out a pile of dried fallen leaves beneath the newly pruned rose, I found another surprise.... a teeny, tiny, perfectly sound egg.  I wondered if it had fallen out of the nest I had found earlier.  It was so tightly pinched inside the rose bush I don't know how the egg could have fallen from its fortress..... but I guess it did and because I left the pile of leaves for longer than I wanted the egg had a soft landing.








Immediately I took the little egg to meet its nest.  I placed it within and gently carried them both inside our house where they now live on our mantel.  It reminds me of the fragility of life.  I feel honored to have the wonder of mother nature in my home.  The funny thing is I had been trying to make a nest for one of the many ceramic birds that I have collected.  But guess what?  I couldn't create anything that felt right.  Wow! Now I have a nest made by the real thing.... an actual living, flying, singing,  bird.


When I showed my find to Bluebird (grand daughter #1) she wanted me to put it under a blanket.  She said that if I would get the little egg warm then maybe a bird would hatch from it's polka dot shell.  She told me that in her school they had a light hanging over a little pen of eggs and that they hatched into chicks.  I tried to explain that the egg had probably been under the pile of leaves for too long to warm it up again.  But Bluebird desperately wanted to try.  She pleaded, "Yaya, just try.  You never know until you try.  My dad told me never to give up and I don't think you should give up hatching this egg." 

I felt like Dr. Seuss' Horton.  Maybe I should try.  Hmm.. Really?  Should I really try?  I knew the egg had no life in it... but Bluebird had planted her seed of hope in me.  And she seemed to have enough faith for the both of us. 

I didn't cover the egg with a blanket.  I let it be where it was on the mantle.  But every time I look at it I am not only reminded of the glory of nature, I am reminded of Bluebird's innocent trust that all things are possible....most especially when we respond from the deep center within us where our original Child-Nature lives. Long, long ago I read this phrase in Christian scripture, "a child will lead them."   I understand it differently now and I sense its truth in many circumstances.  Could it be that our original created child-nature is what our world needs?  Could this trust-filled, hope-filled, wondered-eyed Being lead us back to the garden of peace?

I hope you uncover an unexpected glory today.  Maybe it is covered by the debris of your schedule... or the debris of regret.... or the debris of lost innocence.  Whatever its hiding place, I hope you find it and hold it gently in your hands, giving it the wonder it deserves.

Most of all, I wish you joy and a child like sense of possibility.

Momma's A Poppin'

Daughter-in-law is scheduled to have our tenth grand child by C-section on June 16th.  She was having some significant contractions a couple of weeks ago (think I blogged about it), but they subsided and she rested and all was well.

Yesterday afternoon more contractions started.  Once again she stopped moving, laid down and they stopped.



I am now wondering if she will make it to her scheduled C-section????  Doc tells us the baby would be fine even if she decided to come early.

I think mom might be okay with it too.  She is ready to bend over without busting her seams... I mean it...she is literally busting out at the seams....

Don't you think it's time to say hello to grand child number 10?  I do.  Wonder what I will call her?

....besides her birth-given name, I mean.  I try to name each of the grand kids something that signifies their true essence as I experience them.

Maybe grand daughter number 10 will be "Thunder" so she can keep up with her brother, "Little Tornado".  Or maybe she will be "Moonbeam" to compliment her older sister, "Sunshine".  Mom is hoping she might be "Serenity" so she can rest a bit.  And big brother, "Bubba", wants her to be "Fun".

While her name remains undetermined there is one thing we all agree upon... that she be healthy, happy and SLEEPS ALL NIGHT!

Hope your day is as it should be.    But if turns out differently than you expected, take a deep breath, bend over and touch your toes, and be happy you are not bursting at the seams.

A Wild Night

Oklahoma was hit with a oober-high winds, rain, hail and in some unfortunate places, tornadoes.  Our local television station preempted all programs to keep us informed of the path of severe weather.  Which meant that I did not get to watch the last two contestants preforming on American Idol.  "Oh man!" (as Clone would say) that dog-gone question of "what do you do when you don't get what you want?" is visiting again.



I kept looking out our windows to see if the wind had haulted because I have heard that it becomes dead calm before a tornado touches down.  Cautionary forecasts began at 5:00 p.m. and were still being forecast when I decided to go to bed around 8:30 p.m.  Yes, this is my bedtime.  Yes, I am officially an elder.

A half-mile-wide tornado moves north in Canadian County after having just crossed Oklahoma 3, the Northwest Expressway, west of Oklahoma 4 moving toward Piedmont 

As I was making my way down the hall to our bedroom, the sirens sounded and I turned on my heels and went to our guest bathroom instead.  It is in the center of our home with no outside walls and is located  on the Southeast portion, which we have been told is the best place to use as shelter.

A storm chasing vehicle heads east on I-44 toward a severe storm north of Stroud

I had already stocked the bathroom with blankets, pillows, water and flashlights.  I had also piled a few of the things I chose as important... my computer... my camera...my cell phone.. flash drives which store 1000s of pictures and a few file folders containing hard copies of documents not downloaded on my computer.  I just realized that I did not take my purse with my drivers license, car keys and credit card.  Hmm...

He-man-hubby and I spent a short time in the bathroom as the storm quickly moved up to Kansas.  I went to bed listening to thunder booms and wild winds churning outside my window.  I silently offered prayers for safety for those in its path.

This morning I awoke to hear reported on the news that seven people had died in last night storms and many, many more had been injured... some in critical condition.






I went outside to see what the wind had left us.  There were a few scattered branches on the drive, dirt washed out of the garden beds and a pile of soggy leaves to clean off the patio.  Nothing like the photo above.  How does one clean up such massive destruction?  

I will gladly remove the slight signature of mother nature's furry from our play things...

...and our walkways

...and our drive.

 

 ...and our lawn 

Our newly formed lake, where torn branches now swim will dry up soon.  But grief will not dissipate soon for those where tornadoes have taken their homes, their livelihood their families and pets.

Today, may you be safe... may you spend time with those you love.... may you honor mother nature and her tremendous power... and if you are able, may you give hopeful thoughts, dollar bills, water jugs, clothing or shoes to those who woke up in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma without any.

Tasha Tuesday

I am feeling a bit frustrated about my Tuesday posts.  Tasha has such fun, flare and color about her and I am simply not capturing it on film...  Oh my.... (there's that "what do you do when you don't get what you want?" question again).


I wanted to express that before you view Tasha today.  Hopefully, I will learn how to program my camera for the inside light at Clarehouse and deliver you a truer view of Tasha next week.  She really is a doll.

My first image of Tasha was of her preparing breakfast for a guest at Clarehouse.  She told me that she does not cook. Her husband does all the cooking.  She said, "I went to the grocery store once and could not decide what to buy.  "There were so many choices, I didn't know which to choose, so I called my husband and he told me to come on home.  He would find something in the fridge to fix for dinner and go shopping himself later."

"And dinner was really good,"  Tasha exclaimed.  "I would never be able to do what he did - fix something so delicious from a nearly empty refrigerator."

Tasha listens intently as the Clinical Director goes over medication schedules.

I just love that little flip of her bangs.  Some days Tasha has bangs.  Some days she does not.  Some days her bangs are blonde.  Some days they are brunette.... some times curly.... sometimes straight.

I never know what look to expect and it makes Tasha the unacceptable joy that she is.

Just look at that face!  Sometimes her eye shadow is purple....sometimes green....sometimes sparkly....sometimes creamy.  She must be an artist with a make-up brush.








Today we have purple sparkles.  And get a look at those lashes.

Got to have the bling on the ear too.... a little diamond.... a little emerald and a lot of amethyst.










Even lunch time has to give way to taking care of business and making Clarehouse available to those who need its care.

It looks like everybody listens when Tasha talks.  What she says is worth listening to, but the way she says it makes it so fun.  She has a lovely southern drawl laced with her own unique phrases and exclamation points.

"Ta ta" Tasha.
As always, you have made Tuesday special.

The Good Life

Following are a few of Yaya's suggestions for building a good life.

  SMILE WHEN YOU GET STUCK

BE PREPARED

GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR ALTER-EGO

EAT PLENTY OF FRUITS AND VEGGIES

EAT WELL, REST OFTEN

INDULGE YOURSELF EVERY ONCE IN  A WHILE

THINK GOOD THOUGHTS

BE GRATEFUL FOR THAT WHICH CLEANSES

TAKE A RISK

DISCOVER THE JOY OF READING

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOURSELF FROM TIME TO TIME

SNUGGLE WITH SOMEONE YOU LOVE

MAKE SOMETHING WITH YOUR HANDS

SPEND TIME WITH A BUDDY

INTERACT WITH MOTHER NATURE

EXPRESS YOURSELF

LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

FOCUS

TAKE A BIG BITE OUT OF LIFE

HONOR THE HOLY SPACES

DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN

LOOK AT THINGS FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

BE A MENTOR

STICK TOGETHER

SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE YOU TRUST

"HE AINT HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER"

HAVE FUN

USE YOUR TALENTS

PAY ATTENTION TO DETAIL

LOVE ONE ANOTHER