Maxie's Life Unfinished

Embarking on a Third Year of Blogging

2012-01-01T22:48:00.000-08:00

"Blogging is an art, same as any other method of self-expression. Some are better at it than others." Hugh Mcleod
"Your blog is your unedited version of yourself."

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to look back and reflect, and I am pleased to say, I've had a very good year, in regards to improvement to my health, outlook, and social life and, most importantly, in the area of art.

I started this blog December 28, 2009 and the purpose of it was to break an artist's block that seemed to have a grip on my life. I could analyze how I got into such a state-- listing the difficult circumstances of the last few years, but I think the real reason is that without vigilance, we can let what is important to us slip out of our grasp. Creating seemed easy when it was part of my life and daily routine, but when life's circumstances interfered on a regular basis, sitting down to paint or draw became more and more difficult, until I found the drawing table piled with items that had nothing to do with art.

So the blog was my jumping off point. I wrote about my accomplishments and struggles, and the process inspired me to create a portfolio; by browsing through earlier and recent works, I developed a picture of my skills and successes. I posted art in photo albums on Facebook and 3 other websites; the comments they've generated are wonderful and encouraging; I've made friends with other artists and people began to follow the blog. As I thought about creating, talked about it and wrote about it, I became more focused on what is truly important to me.

Essence of Tree

I often doodled, and began carrying a small sketchbook and pen with me. I just draw whatever comes in to my head or more correctly-- out my pen. Some of the results are stunning, but they are all valuable to the process of improving my craft.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and took my work to 4 art shows in 2011 and exhibited some paintings in the local gallery. Not only did I sell work in the shows but people contacted me afterwards wanting something they had seen. This year, I had an opportunity to paint on the pots of my potter friend. I also began beading.

I found people to be very generous, with their praise and encouragement. Several people--who tried the hobby and found it wasn't for them-- gave me their beads and equipment and others passed on art supplies and magazines. I am deeply grateful to them.

My Poppy Oil 9 x 12

2011 was a productive year, I completed 4 canvases, numerous drawings and painted on pottery-- some in acrylic and others in glazes. I sold 15 paintings. I didn't get rich, but some of the paintings I've had a long time and it was time for them to go to a new home, It was fun to see people happy to have original works of art. I have a couple of commissions in the works, and some canvases underway.

Swallowtail Oil 8 x 10

So the blog achieved it's purpose--to break the artist's block, yet I found I enjoy writing in it and plan to continue, even though some days I might write about what ever strikes my fancy. Thank y'all for your support; I can't begin
to tell you how much it's meant.

Magic of the Pen

2011-10-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

With French easels...there are these "wing nuts" and after setting up and taking down 3 or 4 times a day, those little nuts become 4 letter words!! Betty jean Bullips

After ten days of battling the elements in the Florida heat, a veteran studio painter was asked 'so how do you like painting outdoors?' The response was, 'I realize now that I prefer painting in Plein-Air Conditioning!' Mary Erickson

One of the techniques taught in art classes is "en plein-air," --painting out of doors. I have read books, magazines and listened to professors on the subject and the consensus is that plein air is the very best way to paint landscapes, the studio being a poor second. Working from photographs is frowned on. Plein-air painters are considered the elite of landscape artists. I read an ariticle about an artist who specialized in snow scenes; she painted en plein-air. She sat cross-legged in the back of her station wagon painting while looking out the car window. If it was too cold, she'd take photos to use as a reference to paint in the studio. Huh? Why not do that to start with?

Plein-air was a tool developed by the French Impressionists in the 1870s and 80s to create fresh bright paintings, different then anything seen before. However the French Academy of Art, with their rigid standards in painting, rejected the Impressionists' work because it didn't fit into the traditional norm of art of that time. The outlaw painters broke all the rules and only much later were they were applauded for standing up to the establishment and creating a new form of art. However the modern establishment teaches the Impressionists techniques as rules in creating art and rules were what the original en plein-air painters stood against.

While some people enjoy painting outside--I wish them great joy in it, I have problems with it. One-- I am too slow. I can't rush the painting and the light changes and my leg cramps...it is not fun. Two-- The landscape out doors has too much information for me to process. If I look at a tree, I have a hard time deciding what shapes to include or which to leave out to suggest the tree. Three-- After being led to feel guilty for working from photos, there is nothing wrong with using reference photographs. Certainly I don't want to COPY the picture. A good artist can take elements from several photos and put them together in a composition.

Essence of a Tree

An art teacher once told me that the key to being an artist is to train yourself to see. So I look. I study a tree or a barn or clouds--I never stop looking, whether riding in a car or waiting somewhere--and somehow this magical gift from God comes out when I need it. When I start moving the pen around on the paper out came this tree--not any particular tree but the essence of what I have seen, and I did it inside while listening to people speak at a meeting. Who needs plein-air?

Confessions of a Wife of a Redneck...5. The Food we et.

2011-10-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

You might be a redneck if..
..you have filled your deer-tag on the golf course.
..the main course at potluck dinners is road kill.
..you think that potted meat on a saltine is an hors d'ouerve.

Once someone gave us a bunch of canned chicken and the kids wouldn't touch it until my husband told them it was buffalo meat; then they scarfed it right down--eating it right out of the can. You see my kids were used to eating weird things.

Like I said in earlier posts, I was a city girl--raised in the North and everything I had eaten came from the grocery store or garden or Grandpa's farm. The first odd thing I notice about my Hubby was that he put peanuts in his Coke. That didn't make sense to me. If ya want peanuts why fix it soes ya have to chase 'em around with yur tongue? And he called 'em goobers. I don't know about you, when I thought of goobers, peanuts didn't come to mind. It went down hill from there. I don't just mean things like head cheese and grits and okra and squirrels and coons and sech... it's worse 'n that.

The first odd food I encountered was frog legs. Southern men love them and go off in the night with lanterns and frog gigs hunting big croakers, and all that can be used is the back legs. I had a policy-- I didn't eat anything that I couldn't stand to look at when it was alive.. and that purdy much leaves out reptiles. The first thing I noticed 'bout frog legs is that they jumped around in the skillet when my mother-in-law was trying to cook them and that sealed the deal for me-- not only would I not eat them things but there was no way I could be talked into cooking them. One Sunday Hubby and the boys went out and shot a big mess of legs and for the first time I was sweet-talked into cooking them. Hubby told me that he cut the tendons so that they wouldn't jump in the hot fat. I knew he was lyin' to me but I agreed anyway. I had a big ole mound of them on a plate covered with flour and remembered I hadn't salted them. So I liberally sprinkled salt on the mound. One thing I've learned bout frog legs--the nervous system dies 5 days after the frog does. Once the salt hit the meat the legs started quivering-- the whole plate of them was moving. I woke up my napping husband and told him they were going over the back fence in about 60 seconds and if he wanted them, he'd better rescue them. He did and he cooked them his own self.

Then there was the Rocky Mountain oysters. Not really oysters. In West Texas they called them "calf fries." When I worked at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo I had to explain to customers what they were-- well... when you turn a bull into steer, you have to, uh, remove something. And the oysters, which aren't really oysters, is a bi-product. The women would turn pale and the men would order them. When Hubby explained calf fries to me I was outraged! I wouldn't touch them things!! I was taunted with them by Hubby and the in-laws. What kind of family did I marry into anyway? Then one day I visited my mother-in-law when she was frying some up and there the calf fries lay all hot and golden brown on a paper towel. I don't know what came over me... I ate one. Oh my, them things are good! I became an immediate fan. Anybody know where I can get any in Northeastern Washington? It is the only weird food I'll eat. Nope won't eat the tongue, or heart, or brains but..

Then there was the road kill. Armadillo. When we lived in East Texas, Hubby wanted one but they are a protected species in Texas. We'd be camping and hear rustling in the bushes and he'd take off hoping to catch him an armadillo but those suckers are fast and he always came back out of breath and empty-handed. Late one night him and his buddy were out drinking and on the way home they hit an armadillo with the car. He was so excited--he finally got him one. The two of them spent the rest of the night in the shed drinking and singing while they cleaned it. By daylight he was frying some up for breakfast (by then he knew that his wife wasn't gonna cook anything suspicious.) "Get up kids," he shouted, "we're havin' us some armadiller for breakfast!" The kids got up, like I said they were used to eating weird things.

(I know that I used improper grammar and spelling, but this is a redneck story and my writing teacher said you can do that as long as it is on purpose. ;o)

Confessions of a Wife of a Redneck...4. The language we spoke..

2011-09-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

You might be a redneck if...you have moved your refrigerator and the grass underneath it has turned yellow or if taking a dip has nothing to do with water or if your hood and one door is a different color then the rest of your car.

I first noticed Hubby and I had a communication problem not long after we were married. We had just moved into our apartment and I was busy scrubbing cabinets; he came into the kitchen and asked me something. I thought he said, "how much do you like doing that?" Oh, I thought, he wants to help!! I told him I didn't like it very much at all. "No," he said, " I asked you how much you lacked." As in how much did I have left to do. He wanted me to finish up so we could do something fun. And he weren't gonna help.

He married a Yankee city girl and immediately set about tryin' to change her and he started with the language she spoke. I annoyed him to no end how I pronounced words, and he would correct me. Like the word "pecan." I pronounced it like it is written, "PEE'-can." That was wrong, he told me, "that sounds like yur wantin' to pee in a can," he says, "It's pronounced, 'puh-KAHN.'" I still pronounce it that way to this day--I was a very obedient wife. His correction was especially harsh when I asked him if he wanted Vienna sausages. I said, Vee-EH-na --isn't that the way they say it in Austria? No, he insisted, it is Vie-EEN-nees. "Fetch me up some vie-EEN-nees," he'd say. What? there is no "s" on the end of Vienna!! I still refuse to use that pronunciation-- he had a very stubborn wife.

So in this post I giving some words I learned during my transformation into a Southern girl. This is an incomplete list and I am sure I will think of more later. Enjoy.

Y'all. Y'all can be singular or plural. I could be addressing every one in the room or only one person and use the same word. "All y'all" is definitely plural jus soes there's no confusion that I am speaking to everyone. It is part of my Southern up-bringing I refused to let go of when we moved North.

Plum. It's not referring to fruit or something in alignment. It means complete. "We done run plum outa butter." Oh yeah, notice the use of "done."

Tickled-- Pleased or happy. "I'm plum tickled ya bought some butter."

Sugah. Sumpthin ya put in yur iced tea or plant on someone's lips. "Honey, give me some sugah."

Munts - noun. A calendar division. "Bubba got six munts in the slammer."

Over Yonder. Not here but in the general direction of there.

Whistle britches - noun. Someone who is not highly thought of. A doofus. "Where's ole whistle britches?" The origin came from when boys wore corduroy pants which was totally not cool.

Britches. -noun- the garment with two legs that ya wear on the lower part of yur anatomy. This word applies to all kinds, including diapers. "Honey, Sissy needs some clean britches."

Horny toad... No....it's not what you think. It's a reptile --a horned lizard.

Them there.. "Gimme some a them there grits."

Fetch-- go get and it is not referring to the dog.

Idinit: (Isn't it?) Term employed by genteel Southerners to avoid saying "Ain't."

Ast--to inquire.
Dayam--a cuss word.
Muchabliged--grateful.
Whup-- beat up or spank.
Squarsh -- a vegetable or "to flatten."
Yaller-- a color.
Fixin' --about to.
I reckon -- I suppose.
Goobers--peanuts.
Rile--make angry.
Tarnation-- a nice way to say damnation.
Tore-up --hurtin or sad.
Druthers --preference.
Varmint-- a pesky critter.
Hankerin-- yearning.
Heap-- a lot.
Liked to --almost.
Piddlin' --insignificant.
A toad stabber, or Arkansas toothpick-- a knife.
Bowed up --bristling for a fight.
Burnin' daylight --sleeping in way to late. ( I do that a lot. :o)
A tank -- a pond usually man-made for watering cattle. And it is usually stocked with catfish to keep the miskeeters down.

I'll let y'all figger these out: everwhichaway, cattywampus, good ole boy, hunkeydory, likety split, sho'nuff.

Law enforcement officer: PO-leece, Johnny Law, Polecat, shuruff. These are the polite ones

I hope this post plum tickled ya. Y'all come back, ya hear?"

2011-09-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

Locust Trees

I have been writing in my blog since December 2009, uploading pictures mostly of my art and old pix of my family. One day recently I went to blogger and found that all the photos are gone. I have been so busy that I haven't had time to deal with it, but last night I researched it. It seems that all the photos on all the Google sites --of which blogger is one-- are stored at a site called... picasaweb. If you delete any photos on any site, they are removed from picasweb. If they are removed from picasweb, they are removed from all the sites. I can't remembr clearly but it seems that when I signed up for Google+ a bunch of my photos appeared in there and I didn't want them on that site so I deleted them. Who knows what really happened but a warning box saying that they would be deleted out of blogger would have been nice! Like how I was supposed to know that????!!! I didn't even know that the photos were even stored on picasweb!!! Now this whole blog is hard to understand without the pictures since I discuss the dang things in my posts and the only way to get them back is to upload them one at a time--on 158 posts! Most of the photos are stored on disc, and since my computer crashed, I haven't gotten them all installed on the reformatted PC. But I have started. If you read a post with a black picture on it check back later to see the photo that goes with it.

The current medium I am using in this busy summer is pen and ink. I carry a small sketch pad and pens with me everywhere and doodle where I have to be in meetings, campgrounds or where ever I might be sitting. I am in a tree phase. This picture was drawn on a camping trip. I will be back with a new post soon. Stay tuned...

Confessions of a Wife of a Redneck...3. Birdseed

2011-05-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

You might be a redneck if the taillight covers of your car are made of red tape... or if people hear your car a long time before they see it... or if you think the movie Mechanic is about somebody who repairs cars...

Once when I did stand-up comedy, someone asked me how I did it. Two things are important to work as a comedian: you have to be able to laugh at yourself and not worry about what others think. The one person in my life I had the hardest time making laugh was my husband--he'd laugh at others but not me. I'd make myself crazy trying to impress him with my wit. I imagine that on judgment day, God will explain to him one of his sins, "I gave you a funny wife and you didn't laugh." He never laughed at this story, but I am telling it anyway.

Hubby often worked as a mechanic. When he worked all day under a hood of a vehicle, he hated to work on his own car, or more specifically he hated to work on mine. At one time I had an Audi. I loved that car, but Hubby always put off repairing it. He said he didn't work on "furrin" cars. My youngest son and I did minor repairs using the owner's manual as a guide and we did a pretty good job. It developed a problem we couldn't fix, though, the headlights wouldn't shut off; even with the engine off and the key pulled the lights stayed on; the fuse box was a mess. I temporarily solved the problem, by raising the hood and unplugging the lights, every time I shut the engine off-- of course I'd have to plug them back in when I got ready to go again. Eventually, I left only the high beams plugged in and turned the dimmer switch to low to turn off the lights. I thought I was pretty clever.

When I was in college Hubby had an auto repair shop and he sold used cars on the side, he often drove home one of the vehicles for sale and I never knew what kind of car I'd find parked in the drive.

One night I drove the Audi home and unplugged the lights--that was before I figured out the trick with the high beams--and went into the house. My oldest son was sitting on the floor with the parakeet crawling all over him. "Look Mama, this bird is acting weird." It was odd since the bird was standoffish and didn't like to be touched. I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to feed it and I had been out of birdseed for a couple of days. I couldn't even remember the last time the parakeet had eaten. I felt like a murderer. I freaked out and ran out the door intent on getting to the store before it closed at 10. I didn't want to bother with opening the hood and plugging in the lights of the Audi so I jumped in the car Hubby had driven home from work and raced to the store. I parked in the parking lot and hurried inside just before the store closed. There were a lot of people in line and I impatiently waited clutching the box of bird seed, praying the critter wouldn't keel over before I got home.

I finally got checked out and the manager opened the door to let me out. This store was not in a good neighborhood and I had just stood in line with some scary looking people. I went straight to the car, got in and put the key in the ignition and tried to turn it but it wouldn't work. As I was frantically trying to start the car--with a starving bird on my mind--I glanced over to the passenger seat. "Funny," I thought, "I don't remember that junk there." Then I turned and looked to the left and saw the car I had driven parked 4 spaces away. I don't even know how I'd made that mistake because I had driven a dark green car to the store and and the one I was trying to start was white. I felt like a burglar caught red-handed in the bank vault. And the owner of the car was one of those scary looking people still inside the store.

I jumped out and ran over to the green car, relieved that I hadn't got caught in a stranger's car, and as I was getting in, I realized I had left the bird seed on the seat of the white car. If the store had been opened I would have just bought another box and left the owner of the white car to wonder where the bird seed came from, but I had no other choice. I wasn't going home without food for the parakeet. I hurried over to the white car, jerked opened the door, grabbed the box of seed and ran back to the green car driving out of that neighborhood like a bat outta hell. Sometimes things that happen to me won't seem funny until years later, but that night, once I was sure no one was in hot pursuit, I laughed all the way home. The parakeet survived-- I can't remember if we gave it away or if the cat ate it but I assure you I never forgot to feed it again.

Source of redneck jokes: http://www.lilligren.com/Redneck/300_reasons_redneck.htm

Confessions of a Wife of a Redneck.... 2. The Hunt

2011-05-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

You might be a redneck if you have the local taxidermist's number on speed dial. Or you've ever hit a deer with your car... deliberately. Or your mother has "ammo" on her Christmas list.

It was a tradition in the family I married into that only men hunted. A woman could go fishing--as long as she didn't out-fish the men. I would like to say that I could fish--I especially liked to catch wide-mouth bass. But this story is about hunting--I'll talk about fishing later.

Many times during the hunting season when the family gathered at my in-laws the scene was always the same. All morning the men hunted while the wimen folk prepared dinner. Dinner in the South is the noon meal--the evening meal is supper. There were no shortcuts allowed, we cooked from scratch--Southern fried chicken, biscuits, gravy and mashed potatoes we peeled--not from a box; we were allowed to get our green beans out of a can, though. Then the men would come in all tired and hungry from their hard day at hunting and devour the meal in 5 minutes flat and leave the table and go relax in front of the TV. They didn't help clear the table or even rinse their plates and put them in the sink; after all that was wimen's work. So us gals spent the rest of the afternoon clearing up the meal and cleaning the game the men had so thoughtfully provided.

I thought that was just wrong! I was the first city girl to marry into the family and they thought my ideas were a tad progressive. I wanted to go hunting. I thought it would be better'n being stuck in the kitchen on a Sunday.

I pestered my husband until he bought me a gun. It was a 410 Shotgun; he thought the light gun would be easier for me to handle and I bristled because he thought a girl couldn't shoot a 20 gauge. I burned off a lota ammo annihilating stationary targets. I could hold the gun against my shoulder so it wouldn't kick, sight down the barrel and fire without closing my eyes. I was ready to HUNT. Hubby took me hunting trips to the barn to shoot pigeons. Then he insisted I clean them, cook them and taste the meat. I think it's an acquired taste.

Then the day arrived that he took me hunting with his brothers. My father-in-law wouldn't had stood for it but he wasn't there that day. We were hunting quail. If my husband really loved me I think he could have chosen larger game for me on my first expedition--like a mule deer... with a target painted on its head ...previously shot with a tranquilizer gun. But, nooo! it had to be quail--little bitty birds hardly worth bothering with. I was gonna show 'em, though. I determined that I would hunt so well they would realize that women could be good hunters and I'd be able to go all the time. I would liberate the Simmons women from the bondage of the kitchen!

Hubby showed how to find quail and sent me off to hunt on my own. I tiptoed through the underbrush like Elmer Fudd. I'd approach the thicket where I knew quail were hiding--I knew they were in there, I knew it, I knew it! I'd get closer and closer tightly gripping my four-ten shotgun and ..whoosh! The birds would explode from the thicket, scaring the daylights out of me and by the time I recovered from my heart attack they were gone. This happened over and over-- even knowing they were gonna do it, it still startled me so bad I couldn't get a shot off.

When it was time to head back to the cars, I dejectedly trailed behind the men. I never even fired my gun. Then the worse thing possible happened--I tripped; with a loaded shotgun in my arm and my brother-in-law right in front of me! As I fell I turned the barrel down so the gun wasn't aimed at Hubby's brother; he was a nice guy and I didn't want to kill him. Why I was so quick thinking then but not when I flushed the quail, I don't know. When I fell I rammed the gun into the ground driving dirt two inches up into the barrel. It was God's grace that it didn't go off. Right then I had what 12 Step Recovery calls a "spiritual awakening." I knew I had no business run around with a gun and decided never to go hunting again. I no doubt kept hunters everywhere safe. The game was never in any danger.

Confessions of a Wife of a Redneck.... 1. Culture Shock

2011-05-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

You might be a red neck if you mowed your grass and found your car. Or if you've ever filled your deer tag on the golf course. Or if you've ever bar-b-qued Spam on the grill...

I was a city girl. I'd never been hunting and I watched my dad clean a fish --once; it grossed me out. My only experience with a farm was at my grandparents' place where I played. I never mucked out the stalls, milked cows, bucked hay or gathered eggs--Grandpa did all that. I didn't even ride the horses or the tractor. We lived a few blocks from the grocery store and gas station and I lived near a wonderful downtown area where I could seriously shop or go to the movies. If I wanted to talk to a friend I just called her on the phone or walked the short distance to her home. I was definitely a city girl.

Then I married a redneck. Oh, I didn't know he was one-- I'd never even heard of the term; I thought he was a cute charming ex-sailor who was going to be my prince. In time, being a redneck has become a status symbol-- a fella wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, jeans with a Skoal ring on his back pocket, and of course cowboy boots. He drives a bad-assed pick-up truck with a couple of guns in a rack on the back winder. And somewhere on his person, pick-up or in his home you'll find a Rebel flag. Always country music is playing somewhere in the background, like Charlie Daniel's The South's Gonna do it Again. His lady calls herself a redneck woman. I never used that moniker in reference to myself. I was raised better'n that. I was always quick to point out that I was married into that family, not born into it.

I grew up around the forests and waterways of the beautiful Pacific Northwest, but I let myself be talked into moving to West Texas and Oklahoma. The culture shock was beyond belief and I was extremely homesick. The Plains were flat and treeless; the fields of grain moved with the incessant wind like waves on a green or gold sea. It took me years to get used to the wind. The family we initially stayed with didn't have indoor plumbing and for the first time in my life I had to use an outhouse. Hubby scared me with tales of rattlesnakes making trips out to the privy terrifying. After hearing Hubby's tales of twisters, storms frightened me as much as the snakes. We we lived in Tornado Alley where the storms are violent--wind, hail, nasty lookin' green clouds-- it was like nothing I had ever seen before. Almost every home had a storm cellar, often inhabited by snakes and spiders, so when we heard a storm warning, I'd have to decide which would be worse-- encountering a tornado or a snake. It was a tough choice but in the end, I'd go into the cellar; I'd stand smack dab in the middle of the room not touching the dirt walls, checking out every crevice. While I never really got over my fear of snakes--I still have it, it diminished to manageable levels and I eventually grew to love storms.

We lived in the country with no phone and the mailman became my best friend as he was my contact with the outside world---him and the one or two TV channels brought in by an antenna. Going to town for groceries was the high social event of the week. However I didn't have to do much farming. I flatly refused to learn to milk a cow--cattle scared me-- and the one time I tried to drive a tractor was a fiasco. Hubby was moving equipment from one field to another and thought it would be helpful if I could drive one of the tractors. It was his way to rattle off directions and expect the listener to understand immediately what he said. He fired off instructions on how to operate the tractor, telling me to follow him and he strode off to the equipment he was driving. I did OK until we arrived at our destination and I realized I didn't quite get the part about stopping it. There was no brake pedal, I had to pull a lever or some thingy, but which one? I went barreling through the gate screaming "I can't stop it!" He chased me down and jumped on the tractor to stop it. He did not think it was funny. That was my last tractor driving lesson, which was probably a pretty smart move on my part.

I married into a family of hunters, and I learned how to clean game and fish against my will. A redneck rule-- and there were lots of those-- was that if you bagged it you cleaned it... unless you were married, then you made your wife do it. And she had to cook it too. Not long after I had my first baby, we had just settled into a farm house and I was happy being the little housewife. One afternoon Hubby opened the back door and tossed a couple of cottontail rabbits on the floor that he'd shot from the tractor. He said, "You need to clean these and cook them for supper," and he hurried back to his plowing. I approached the rabbits and one of them moved. I jumped back. He expected me to clean it, but did I have to murder it too? And rabbits didn't have the decency to closed their eyes when they died, and how was I to be expected to dress out something that was looking at me? That night Hubby found the rabbits right where he left them and he was not pleased--he had his mouth set on fried rabbit. I didn't get away with that behavior very long. I was soon skinning, gutting and scaling with the best of them. I never got used to it, though, especially not the big soft brown eyes of the cottontails.

I know I wrote "winder," and a few other words--trust me, the spell checker was all over them with red squiggly lines, but the language is appropriate to redneck stories. I have much more to tell.. stay tuned...

Part of a Wolf Pack--Repost

2011-05-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

The wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone. Christian Lous Lange

I was thinking to day about a wolf I once knew. No, not the two legged kind, though I have known those too. I mean a real wolf.

I know that wolves have a bad reputation, maybe justly so, but I became friends with one. In a small town in N E Washington, we moved into a house that was next door to a man who owned a wolf--there was someone in the area who raised and sold wolf pups. This wolf was no longer a cute pup but a grown animal who was chained in the neighbor's yard.

The guy told me that the wolf's name was Buddy and not to approach him.

I will never forget my first encounter with the animal-- there he was standing in a classic wolf pose with his head lowered, looking at me with those incredible eyes which seemed to look into my soul. Then he snarled at me. That is when I started talking to him. Every time I was in the yard, I spoke to him and he started to settle down. He spent his time pacing as far as his chain would let him or sitting on top of his dog house, staring off towards the woods that were only a block away. I thought he lived a cruel existence; since wolves are pack animals, he must of been lonely. I got permission from the neighbor to feed him table scraps and started sharing our meals with him. After that Buddy was always happy to see me. I still never approached him--I couldn't imagine petting him like a dog; I respected his wildness. As I went about my business in the yard, carrying on one-sided conversations with him, I enjoyed knowing he was there.

One day, while working in the garden, he broke his chain and got loose. He didn't run for the forest down the street as you'd think he would, or run anywhere at all, except over to me. He raced around me like a frisky pup and then snatched up a glove and ran off with it dancing about out of my reach. I told him to bring it back but he dropped it and raced in to grab a plastic pot and took off with it, then he dropped it and came back to where I was standing to steal something else. For the first time ever Buddy looked happy; he was playing with me and I realized then that he had made me part of his pack, and he wanted to be with me more than he wanted to be free in the woods. His owner noticed him loose and caught him and our game was over, but I was deeply moved by this animal, and sad that he had to go back on the chain. He seemed to become distraught after that and started howling at night, and the neighbors complained, so Buddy went to a new home, but I still wonder about him; I hope he was happier.

I would like to draw a picture of a wolf. Someday, I hope to show you a picture of a wolf titled Buddy.

Smashing an Artist's Block

2011-04-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. ~Josh Billings

A friend told me that she hasn't found any recent posts in my blog, suggesting that I have had a lot to write about lately in regards to my art. She is right. The purpose of this blog when I began it, was to overcome a gigantic artist's block so I could start painting again. Getting from there to here has been a long process involving much more than just writing about my struggles in a blog.

I sit here at the keyboard inhaling the scent of oil paint; I seemed to have wrestled down that block and beaten it to a pulp. How I managed that is to think about, talk about and pray about ---art. The unused drawing table--indeed the whole studio-- had become a dumping ground so I first had to clear out the room because clutter creates chaos in my mind. I involved friends in conversation about art, posted comments about it on Face Book and other sites; I exposed myself and my work to new situations and new people. I stretched myself beyond the limits of my little studio and I took risks.

A friend brought me an application to the art show at the local college and on the day of the show he helped me unload and set up; he cheered me on and told anybody who'd listen about the exhibit. I met a lot of people in those two days and I sold 3 pieces at modest prices. In talking with other artists, I learned about a special show at the local gallery "Everything Blooming" and I took four paintings to exhibit there. The painting of the goldfinch was placed in the front window glowing for all passing by to see. I also donated a couple of pictures to fundraisers and was surprised to find at one event that someone had placed next to the painting a copy of a post from this blog as a bio. My pictures always bring wonderful comments which makes me pretty happy but I know the ability to create comes from the Creator of the universe and I am deeply grateful for that gift, and I give Him the credit every chance I get.

So now I have two paintings underway and had decided to record process of them in Face Book to keep myself accountable. I am excited to be back on track again and I am planning on a bigger and better studio when I get another house. This is what I am supposed to be doing. This is what makes me happy.

I want to thank those who have been part of this recovery process, by reading, following and commenting on this blog, by checking out my other sites and by loving and encouraging me. This is your victory too.

How to spot an Internet Dating scammer.

2011-02-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

I met a couple of men in My Space and learned a lot from them as they were dating scammers who were intent on making me fall in love with them and send them money. The first one actually asked me for money, which he didn't get, and I found out the second guy was fraudulent, when gave he me enough information to Google him. In fact I found his profile on a scammer watch dog web site where I discovered that he had many aliases and email addresses. I did a lot of research to arm myself against these people.

You may think you are writing to a beautiful woman in Russia or a handsome man in Henderson NV, but the truth is that you are most likely talking to a man in Nigeria, Russia or even in an Asian country. If a picture is used, it is stolen from the Internet. The profiles are fiction. Dating scams aren't the only kind of messages you can get. I have received messages and friend requests from teenagers living in Africa or Eastern Europe who want friends to "practice their English with," which seems innocent enough, until some (fake) catastrophe hits the family and the kid starts asking for money.

There is no dating site, or social networking site that is completely free of scammers. So those using the sites have to be wary. However the sites do work hard to eliminate them and the good news is that scammers are fairly easy to spot. Following is a list of things to watch out for.

~The scammers usually say they are new to online dating and in their profile says they have just joined the site and have no friends yet. I don't even trust those who have few friends, or those who only have friends of he opposite sex.
~99% of the scammers have a Yahoo email and chat. They don't want to talk to you in My Space, Face Book or the dating sites even though each has it's own chat system, but they want to get you to talking in Yahoo chat because the sites are on the lookout for scammers and the phonies are at risk of having their account shut down. I would say this is the biggest read flag.
~Their email address often reflects their pursuit of relationships, like "richeartlover," "lookinforlove," and "rickhasit4u".
~The big red flag is they write as if English is not their first language. Odd use of words, and backward phrases. Scammers don't talk quite as well in chat as they might in email, relying on copying and pasting when they can.
~Scammers seem to have trouble with grammar, capitalization and punctuation. Most all the emails have sentences with no spaces between the periods and the next word. The spelling might be OK as they have spell checkers, but they mix up words like, "there, their and they're." Of course I know they're a lot of people are not used to typing and don't it perfectly, but this still can be an indication something is not right.
~Their stories are similar. They generally say they are working overseas as contractors, engineers, or in construction. That is where the scoundrels live, so they need a plausible reason for using an international phone number or for you to send money out of country. In regards to male scammers, they almost always say they are widowed, or divorced because of the infidelity of the wife. They nearly all have just one child--usually a daughter who is usually around age 19. If he says he has a son the boy is generally 11 or 12 years old. They often have a tragic story --one man wrote he lost his family in Katrina, another said his son was killed in the Fort Hood shootings. Loved ones lost in car crashes are scammers favorite stories. The intent is to tug on their victims heartstrings.
~They are lavish with their compliments on your profile picture and use sweet terms of endearment. They say things like, "I got attracted to you," "I am blushing already." or "God must be missing an angel in heaven because I am looking at her right now." Cutie, pretty, gorgeous, beautiful, sweetie, baby, and so on. These men will say they like your profile but make no comment about anything specific, since they don't bother to read the profile
~They usually fall in love quickly, immediately talking about relationship and marriage.
~All of the scammers make similar comments like they are all reading from the same manual-- things that women are supposed to want to hear like-- they like to walk on the beach, watch a sunset, look at the stars, sit in front of the fire, hold hands, cuddle, dance, cook (oh yeah--bring it on!). Or they say they have a sense of humor. Or they are sincere, caring and honest. They often say they don't want someone who plays games. (sheesh-what are THEY doing?) "Age is only a number" is a favorite.
~They make big mistakes. Sometimes they give their weight and height in the metric system even though they say were born and live in the US. And one guy's profile said he didn't drink, but he had a picture of himself with a beer in his hand.
~They all say they are Christian or God fearing. Once they realize you are religious too, they pepper their conversations with reference to the Lord. This is the sad part.
~They use fraudulent Photos. Photos are stolen from the internet. There are all types --snapshots and professional pictures from modeling agencies. Since the scammer is often African, he (or she) has to have an American photo to convince you he is really from Henderson NV, or where ever.

The world is full of nice people, but also the unscrupulous, so we have to be as the Scripture admonishes: wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

Settling...

2011-02-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. —Wayne Gretzky

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. —Will Rogers

A man looked at my house who is an investor. While he never actually made an offer, his agent is in the same office as mine and they were discussing what he wanted to offer. When my agent asked me what I thought, I told him I couldn't go for it. After two price reductions a 14% cut was too much. I was miffed at the buyer, that he thought I should take that kind of loss so he can make money. The truth is that it is my house and I can do what I want with it, and I have the right to make sure I can afford a decent home with the proceeds of the sale of this one.

I have settled for less so many times in my life while others who are bolder and aggressive get more than their fair share. I have let my needs be subordinate to the wishes of others. This has been a pattern of behavior for me, which I am shedding like a ragged old garment.

I was thinking about an old boy friend today. I have remembered him fondly, saying that he never mistreated me. I suddenly wondered why that was good enough for me ? Simply that he never mistreated me? There was so much more I wanted from that relationship that I didn't get and while he didn't abuse me, he did mistreat me. He didn't want to date me exclusively, and he decided when we would see each other. His mistreatment took the form of unavailability and control. And I accepted it. I wanted to be with him so much we met on his terms. I was settling for less than the best in a relationship. I have done that in my marriage and other kinds of relationships. I have made others my priority when I was only an option to them.

Now I am single again, and being alone is hard. Valentine's day is excruciating without a sweetheart, but maybe I will always be single, because in my new life I don't intend settle for seconds and thirds. Not on the price of my home, not in my personal life, not in friendships, and certainly not in any potential relationship with a man.

Still, I have great hope--that I will receive the best in everything I desire in my life, simply because I won't accept anything less.

The lilies are from my garden. I can't see them now because they are in frozen ground under the snow but they are there--they come back faithfully every year.

The Great Chicken Experiment

2011-01-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along. ~Hugh Allen

Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards. ~William Arthur Ward

When I think about writing in this blog, I believe I am required to illustrate the post as I have in the past, but can't think of a piece of art I haven't shown before, so I don't write. It occurred to me tonight that such "shoulds" and "haftas" have always dogged my life; I can be governed by rigid thinking patterns. Who writes the rules for me anyway? Moi.

I remember a story about a dog we had named Ginger. My husband and I bought 5 acres of dirt in western Oklahoma, with great expectations of it being a nice little farm. I never worked so hard in my whole life with so little results . We planted a huge garden but it was wrecked by drought and a grasshopper plague; the only thing that survived was okra. We ate it stewed, fried and pickled. I hate okra.

We also launched the Great Chicken Experiment. We decided we were going to raise chickens to butcher and sell. Actually my husband decided, and I go "oh, OK." So we had a garage full of baby chicks, which immediately fell prey to raccoons. Raccoons may look cute but they can be mean when you try to take away their dinner. We put the half-grown hens in the chicken house with a sturdy fence to keep the varmints out and kept the light going all night, but we were still were mysteriously losing chickens, until I discovered owls were flying over the fence into the coop for a midnight snack. I sat up one night with a shotgun scaring the birds off. The next day we had to modify the pen. We finally did manage raise some chicks to pullet size and sold some, and ate some, but we didn't come close to breaking even; I hated the chicken business--specially the butchering part. Chicken don't like to turn loose of their feathers.

Ginger was a wired-haired terrier--a wonderful dog. That little farm was her personal responsibility and she watched out for the kids, the cats and Ahab the goat. When the goat got into stuff he shouldn't or started pulling clothes off the line, Ginger would alert me with her barking. Ahab couldn't get away with anything.

We started letting the surviving chickens out to scratch and at first they didn't know they were free and stayed huddled in the pen. But when a hen started to venture out, Ginger chased her back in, then another would leave the pen, or two or three, only to be pushed back in by the dog. Ginger spent a whole day herding chickens until she wore herself out and had to be satisfied with lying on a rise watching over the hens outside the pen.

I am trying to break free of old ideas--rules I have set down for myself in the past that don't have anything to do with reality--just rules. And sometimes I still feel very married and sometimes I let well-meaning people tell me what I "should" do. I am free, and I am single and I can do what I want. I know there are owls and raccoons out there. And wolves and sharks. (I have already encountered a few wolves but I came out unscathed and very much wiser. :o) I know I will make mistakes, but there is also freedom for me in the wide open spaces and opportunities if I am not too scared to try.

Writing this blog has been a way of sneaking out of the pen. In fact, if you google me you will find me. Not only this blog, but in my Face Book art page, and at Deviant Art.

I have gone dancing--I even danced with a cane before the surgery. (Dance like nobody's watching...) And bowling (maybe I should bowl like nobody's watching. :o) And I rode a snowmobile. I not exactly ready to bungee jump, but I want to be alert to opportunities outside that chicken pen--chances to have fun, try new things and to be creative. Maybe I'll try karaoke--the dog doesn't howl when I sing. :o)

I actually did find a drawing I haven't posted before. I titled it Emily's House. It is the Victoria home of Emily Carr, (1871-1945) a Canadian artist and writer who lived and worked in B. C. She lived a non-traditional life for a woman of her time; she explored and recorded the world around her. She made it out of the chicken pen.

Extraneous thought.

2011-01-22T23:07:00.000-08:00

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~Hans Hofmann

Eliminate physical clutter. More importantly, eliminate spiritual clutter. ~Terri Guillemets

When I posted art on Deviant Art.com, I found that the photos I uploaded were such low resolution, they couldn't be made into prints, so I have been rescanning the pictures at a higher DPI. Because some of the paintings are larger than the scanner, I could only scan part of the picture. I discovered that removing the extraneous parts of the painting actually made a better picture. I recall that the struggle with some of these paintings wasn't creating the subject, but with filling in the other areas of the composition. This is something to keep in mind for future works. Simplify.

The same works for my personal life. Clutter makes me crazy, but I have been tolerating a lot of it since the death of my husband. That is because I was spending too much time thinking. It is like my thoughts were sucking up all my motivation and energy--and confidence. And not much of it was productive thought, either.

One of the signs that I am getting better is clearing out the physical clutter in my home and the clutter in my thoughts. I am feeling more like my old self; the energy and motivation that I thought were forever gone are returning. I am pleased that I have cleaned the studio of the clutter that accumulated while I was laid up--unused places tend to become dumping grounds. This week I cleared the drawing table and arranged the supplies and it is ready for me to use. I am proud of the simple things I have accomplished and now I am ready to go onto greater things. And maybe this blog will become what it was originally intended--about my journey in art.

The picture is part of a larger painting but it looks complete the way it is. It is titiled Sunny Day on Cape D. The light is Cape Disappointment on the Washington State side of mouth of the Columbia River.

Unwritten stories

2011-01-20T23:52:00.000-08:00

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~Sharon O'Brien

I just finished a book, Homestead, by Jane Kirkpatrick who wrote about her and husband's adventures in building a ranch in a remote and rugged part of Oregon; the story also chronicles her journey into writing. Jane writes about women who have made their mark in the Pacific Northwest but her books are written as novels. These are real women and the stories are based on facts, but the author takes the accounts further into "what might have been." The lives of these women may be fictionalized, but who knows, maybe it did happen that way. At any rate I enjoy Ms. Kirkpatrick's books very much.

My grandmother sitting on left.

I have made family trees for myself and my husband and I am intrigued by the lives of these people I never met but who passed their DNA on to me. My paternal grandmother, Gertrude, was born in Winnipeg. Her father, Reinhart, immigrated from Amsterdam and her mother, Elizabeth, from Scotland. The 1910 census said that she spoke English and he spoke Dutch. I wonder how they worked that out and how they met? Elizabeth traveled from Scotland with her sister Margaret and records showed that their father was a miner and later loom operator in a mill, harsh occupations in that era. Elizabeth died from a blood clot shortly after the birth of her sixth child. Reinhart later married a woman who mistreated her step children. She refused to learn English and forbade it spoken in her home though the children all learned their mother's language, and even after the family moved to the US. I wonder what kind of story Jane Kirkpatrick would write about them?

My Dad on his way to school in front of the farmhouse.

Gertrude married Hendrick who was born in Amsterdam where his father, Jurgen, operated a canal boat. Henry's mother, Jantina, was one of two surviving children out of seven pregnancies. The other 5 were stillborn. The Dutch are generous people; they offer their genealogical records--birth, death, marriage, online for free. They are also meticulous record keepers--the mother's maiden name and the grandparents names, and often the occupation, are on almost every record, making searches easy. Henry traveled with his parents and siblings, at age 4, to Washington state in 1904. They sailed aboard the Majestic, which was piloted by Captain Edward John Smith who later commanded the Titanic. The family settled on a farm on Whidbey Island amidst a large Dutch community. My dad was born on that farm.

Family tradition states that the 17th century Dutch painter, Jan Steen is one of our ancestors. I have not proved the connection but there is enough information to make it fun to think about. Could it be where our family talent came from?

Another situation that set me awondering is that my husband's ancestors and the ones on my mother's side, who came to the New World about the same time in the early 1600's, lived near each other in Connecticut and on Long Island. I lay awake at night speculating that these men might have met and wondering what they thought of each other. I found a document that states one of my ancestors was actually hired by the brother of one my husband's ancestors to construct a parsonage on Long Island. How exciting is that?

My mother's ancestor, Daniel Kellogg is one of the founder's of Norwalk CT. It is said that he was a very tall man, but peaceable. One story relates that when a couple of drinkers were fighting, that he grab them by their collars and knocked their heads together, calming them down right quick!!

There are so many stories that stimulate my imagination, civil war soldiers --on both sides, journeys across the Atlantic, a witch trial, love stories, western adventurers... yes, I wonder...

One year of Blogging.

2010-12-31T13:33:00.000-08:00

Snowy Day

"May I look back at this past year as a good one, in that nothing I did or said was wasted. No experience--however insignificant it may have seemed--was worthless. Hurt gave me the capacity to feel happiness; bad times made me appreciate the good ones; what I regarded as my weaknesses became my greatest strengths. I thank God for a year of growing." The Little Brown Book--A Day at a Time

I started this blog one year and 3 days ago and it has been a wonderful adventure. I was actually inspired to write it by the move Julie and Julia, and I discovered that if you do write a blog people--even those you have never met--will read it. The original purpose of this forum was to explore art--especially mine--and to overcome a serious artist's block. I discovered much more than that. I learned that blogging was an effective tool in healing from grief, a way to get to know myself a little better, and that I had something to share with others.

In tandem with recovery from emotional pain and grief came physical pain. My hip troubles started a year ago. I went to the local orthopedic and he scheduled surgery for last February. A few days before the surgery was cancelled because the doctor got into a squabble with the clinic and he went on administrative leave. They brought in a man to fill in for him, but I didn't trust him--by this time I didn't trust any doctor. I hesitated to let him do the procedure so he suggested physical therapy. PT helped but I still limped through the summer and I lost interest in doing a lot of things that I loved--like gardening, especially as the pain increased again. By autumn I was back where I started and I could barely walk with the cane. I actually started using the walker in the house but I had too much pride to take it anywhere with me so I just hobbled around. I found a doctor in Spokane and scheduled surgery for November 8.

I am very grateful for a new hip and the amazing recovery I have had. The first time I went out of the house--with the walker; had to swallow that pride--I looked down as I walked and noticed that my foot was straight--it had been crooked for a long time.   I was pain free and driving within 3 weeks; I gave up the walker shortly after that and the cane a couple of weeks later. I still need to do some work to retrain my body to walk right--limping is a bad habit--and to build up endurance, but I am very pleased today to be on the road to recovery.

I am also extremely grateful for my friends and family who helped and encouraged me throughout this year. People who would wait on me so I wouldn't have to get up, my daughter and daughter-in-law who took care of me after surgery; grandsons' who helped with heavy things and shoveling snow. I also appreciate the ones who visited me in the hospital and at home or sent cards. I have a princess balloon from a friend who said it was for the little girl in me; he also gave me a ballerina figurine so I would remember that I would dance again.  I am amazed by people who celebrate my progress with me. The first time I went to a recovery meeting--with the walker--everyone cheered. I have never been cheered before. Who Hoo!! I am looking forward to being more active in 2011.

In regards to the art, I did 4 drawings and finished 2 paintings this year. I also did 6 sketches for my grandchildren for Christmas. Not a great body of work for the year, but it has turned my head and heart back into the right direction. The goal is to think about art, not critically, but to encourage myself and let others to encourage me. And to encourage others in finding and using their talents. I have an art page on my Face Book account where I sold 2 paintings: Art of Maxie Lee, and I also found a sight where I can meet artists from all over the world and create a collection of my favorite works and also display my own: http://artofmaxielee.deviantart.com/ I am working on my setting my studio in order so that a real artist can work in it; funny how something that is not being used gets piled with stuff.

The other significant thing I did this year was put my house on the market. It hasn't sold yet but nothing else in town has either--it's just a sign of the times. It has been an adventure getting it spiffed up and I couldn't have done it without help of family and friends. Having the house for sale has been good for me forcng me to keep the house tidied up every day, as I had been letting things go around the house--more bad habits. One day my home will sell and I can get the kind of house I really want; I had placed the matter in God's hands, though, and it wouldn't do for me to get impatient.

I have been thinking about the new year, not making resolutions, but thinking on new directions. A friend suggested that I make a list of what I really want to do. I think one thing I'll put on that list is to draw a self-portrait; maybe I can learn something new about myself. I am optimistic about 2011.

The drawing is one I did a few years ago but I haven't shown before. It is of a house here in town.  I took the photo on a snowy day, so that is the title.

I hope everyone has a good year.

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions....

2010-11-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

Proud to be American

...one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination. Christopher Columbus

Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions. Saul Bellow

I guess I haven't had the same focus as that of good ole Chris, as my attempts at creating art --or doing anything for that matter-- have been hit or miss. I still haven't found a way to get my old task-oriented, success-driven life back that I had before the death of my husband. When that life left, it also took my confidence and motivation with it, leaving me with inertia, insecurities and (gasp) procrastination. I seem to have lost the ability to study, and to pray and I have lost the joy of reading--which has been with me since a little girl. I have filled the gap with social networking both face to face and on the internet--good things but insufficient.

However, I am convinced, that I won't be able to live in the old life again as it is impossible to return to yesterday and we only have today; I am in the process in building a new life--some days I participate in that better than others. While I am not pleased with the procrastination and I miss the motivation, it is all a part of the transition. I have learned a lot in the last 16 months about myself, God and about other people. The dust is still settling, and we will see where Maxie will be when it does. Meanwhile I am getting a hip replaced. My first hope was that this would help me to get part of my old life, but I realize that this hip has been has been impeding my ability to move freely for some time, even before I noticed the pain, so in that respect I want my new life to be better than the old. I do want reading part of my new life so I am ordering books by my favorite authors to read while I am laid up. All I can say is: hide and watch and see what kind of Maxie emerges....

The drawing is titled Proud to be American. I found a website that provides a gallery for my art and where I can create a gallery of works of other artists. I am enjoying it very much. http://artofmaxielee.deviantart.com/

Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.

2010-10-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Kayla on Sun

Once you choose hope, anything's possible. ~Christopher Reeve

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. ~Emily Dickinson

All of sudden I feel hopeful. I don't know where it comes from, why it comes or why it leaves, but I am going to cherish it tonight.

Maybe it is because I sat down and drew a picture. I have had such an artist block, just getting to the drawing table has been difficult. I say I will do it and then get distracted. This week I just did. I may do it again tomorrow.

Maybe it because someone looked at the house. The housing market is practically dead here so the showing was a surprise. And the family is interested. And if it sells I have a wonderful home to buy since the owners, my friends, insist that they want me to have it.

Maybe it is because I am finally thinking positively about getting my hip fixed, believing that by spring I will be free of the pain and immobility. I think that up til now I couldn't see the possibilities.

Maybe it is because I am getting a little of my old life back--being task oriented, and taking care of chores, taking care of business and helping others.

Maybe it is simply because God loves me and He wants His children to live in hope.

The drawing is a study for a painting I plan to do. It is titled Kayla on Sun, a picture of my grand daughter. I am pleased with it even though I am not an expert on horses and tack (even though a son and grandchildren are cowboys/girls :o). I just drew what I saw in the photograph, I am hopeful that I will be able to do the same for the painting.

Redecorating, Comic Relief

2010-09-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

It has been almost a month since I have posted here. I have been too busy being stressed. :o0

My real estate agent asked if we could have the downstairs painted before an agent showing, and I said, "Oh, sure!" Not clear thinking. Then I told my daughter I would drive her across the state to Seattle for a doctor's appointment--being gone 4 days. I also promise to participate in a recovery event. I did not take into account my room mate Mary Rose would be gone 5 days when we needed to be painting and she was the number one worker downstairs. I did not take into account that we'd have to leave 2 days before the showing to get my daughter to her appointment, and would get back just in time for the special event. But we got er done. I started painting walls during Mary Rose's vacation-When Mary Rose returned--using one of her days off, she took over the painting, I concentrated on making chair covers and curtains and cleaning the rest of the house. A grandson spiffed up the yard. So things were under control when we left for our trip. The trip was long coming and going because of road construction.

I was able to spend some time with my sister and to meet up with a couple of friends I went to high school with. I have not seen them since graduation day, we had so much fun as we always do in Face Book.

I got back just in time to attend the Recovery event which was great fun. I had promised that I would be part of Saturday evening's entertainment. I would have loved to been able to sing, but I doubt that would have been entertaining so I just did a comedy routine. And I got laughed at!! Imagine that. People said I didn't know you could do that. I told them I didn't know either until I did it. The trick is to not be afraid to laugh at yourself and not be afraid of what others think. I just talked about some of my adventures living for 25 in West Texas. I even beefed up my Southern accent. I related about my job at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas and how I served delicacies like Rocky Mountain Oysters and rattlesnake. It was all too funny and I loved doing it and I am apt to do that again. I certainly have lots more weird stories to tell and I believe I will keep the Southern accent--I kinda like it. It was like I let out part of my personality that I have been suppressing-- as my friend said, it was Maxie Unleashed!

So this week I have been very lazy--decompressing. I am sad about the change of the season-- I am not ready to let go of summer. But it is part of the stream of life. I am feeling very blessed with the friends and loved ones I have.

Housework is something you do...

2010-08-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

White Rabbit

...that nobody notices until you don't do it.
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. ~Erma Bombeck

August cranked up to be a pretty busy month. Since the house is on the market, I have been having to tend to household duties, like making the bed and making sure there are no dirty dishes in the sink--it's like housekeeping boot camp --or retraining. I have also been doing some thorough cleaning, sorting and packing and I am pleased to say that I have been able to stay on task. I even cleaned the oven--which was pretty scary, but while I was polishing the stove, I imagined how nice it would be for the new family to have a sparkling clean stove to cook on in the first day in their new home. Maybe I was being a little too idealistic, but it helped me to push on with a thoroughly boring chore.

August is fair time and I normally enter a lot of items from my garden. This year my garden suffered from neglect and I had fewer things to enter. I felt guilty, like I had abused my own little family. However, I am happy to have entered some art.

I have also been looking at homes to buy which can be an emotional experience, but I am trying to just have fun with it and trust that when the time comes to make a decision, God will help me make it. My normal mode is to lock in on scenarios like a heat-seeking missile and decide how these situations should come out, so I get flustered when things don't work according to plan or if I am offered a whole new set of options; I have trouble making a plan "B".

The painting, White Rabbit, is one I finished 3 years ago, but it never got photographed. There were some things about it I wasn't happy with but I solved the problems by adding the foliage, which I did in one painting session. Voile! A new painting to show in my blog and at the fair.

Home...

2010-08-09T22:09:00.000-07:00

Victorian II

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right. ~Maya Angelou

Home is where you can say anything you like cause nobody listens to you anyway. ~Author Unknown

I have been too busy to write, or more likely too scattered. I launched into a new phase of having my home ready to show for sale after months of inertia and letting things go and that has been a tough transition, but I am getting the hang of it. I am keeping the house up pretty well by tidying up, making the bed and stuffing clutter out of sight. The real estate agent has not place any high expectations on me--it is me who wants it to show well. I am slowed down by the bum hip but I have been getting it done. Mary Rose, my daughter-in-law, and part time room mate, has been working on the downstairs where she stays and it is looking nice. Helpers have also worked in the yard. The agent, a friend of mine, and another friend have been working on the house--a couple of things have to be brought up to code to please the lenders--and they rock. They won't accept any pay for their work; this is what they do-- helping others. I am touched by their generosity.

I did get approved for a loan but not in time to make an offer on the house we have been looking at--a small disappointment.

The weekend was fun; I did a lot of socializing. It was Rendezvous Days-- an annual celebration in the city park. Friday and Saturday nights concerts were held in the Pavilion and the music was awesome, and the crowd was happy, dancing on the lawn or in front of the bandstand. I even danced--rock and roll, with a cane. I used to go line dancing with my brother and there was a lady who danced with a cane which seemed a little odd, but I tried dancing at the Native American Pow wow, and it actually works. The cane helps me keep my balance allowing me to relax, and it shifts some of my weight so that I can move more freely. I had fun.

A son and his wife came to visit Saturday, and it had been awhile since we have seen them. Sunday was church in the park, and that afternoon I painted Memory Boxes with my artist friends. The boxes we paint are sent to hospitals to give to mothers who lose their babies to keep their mementos in. That evening I went to another event with other friends.

Today, I looked at another house which is even nicer than the last one and put in an offer on it. I am feeling oh so bold! The truth is that the whole thing is in God's hands.

I am tired so I am going to ring off without checking for errors. More later.

No one can get inner peace by pouncing on it.

2010-07-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. ~Richard Carlson
Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. ~Natalie Goldberg

The last week has been intense, and maybe a little too exciting. My goal was to get out of that paralyzed state of inertia caused by grief and move on with my life, but, phew, what a ride! The week included my car breaking down, but my son fixing it, putting a house on the market then frantically cleaning it and calling on family to help, attending a weekend Pow Wow with Native Americans, disappointment in a relationship, having strangers walking though the house, finding a house I can see myself living in, dealing with banks, having friends help weed my garden, pain, a couple of emotional meltdowns, typing for the church, designing a mug for an upcoming event, completing the first painting in a year, flowers, sunshine, music, hugs, laughter, friends and family. Life is good because God is in control. We will see where my new life will take me. Relax Max.

The painting is Goldfinch on a Cone Flower. Oil on canvas panel. 8 x 10.

Bad news then the good.

2010-07-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. ~Robert Fulghum

If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill
<----Dahlias

It has been an interesting week. Filled with frustrations to say the least. Bad New... I got into trouble with a "Christian" website with their free trial to join. They only asked for $1.99, which I paid for with my check card. Immediately I received an email from the bank saying my account was overdrawn. This site had charged me for 3 months membership. I called the bank and was told to call the company--all I got was an answering machine, and believe me I left messages. I did some research (which I should have done to begin with) and found out that the site was powered by a secular group and a lot of people were unhappy with it. Good news: they withdrew the charges.

Bad news: my computer got a vicious virus. The internet provider switched to Norton and I downloaded it. It seems that the Norton program that came with the computer, which I didn't resubscribed to when it ran out, was so firmly entrenched in the P C, that it became territorial and wouldn't allow another version be installed properly, so I had no protection. The computer has been slowly dying for weeks. Good news: A person starting out in the computer business fixed it cheaply for me. And he managed to save my files. Bad news: I have to start over in reinstalling my programs, photos, files and I had a lot of links in favorites which are gone now. Good news: I have all my art in Face book, so I just have to copy it back into the computer--easier than getting it off of disk.

Bad news: It is getting hot out. Good news: My daughter-in-law put the AC in the studio window, and the hot air is drying out the weeds and grasses which a friend is mowing down and they probably won't grow back this year.

Phew!! I have learned some valuable lessons, but I am glad to say that I spent a lot of time with friends this week. That is always good news.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public...

2010-07-07T23:24:00.000-07:00

...and learning the instrument as one goes along. ~Samuel Butler

Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf. ~Jonatan Mårtensson

As I adjust to a new medicine, I find myself suddenly without any energy. A former insomniac, I took two naps today after eight hours of sleep. I find this sudden change disconcerting--especially since I have so much to do. However, I am grateful that I have always been so healthy that I don't know how to be sick; I get discouraged and even pissed off. I am learning that I squander my energy on useless past times like obsessive thinking, negative emotions and fighting situations instead of accepting them the way they are.

I have a painting I want to enter in the fair which means I have to finish it soon so that it will be thoroughly dry. I haven't had the energy. But I know all the slogans, "this too shall pass," "one day at a time," "let go and let God," and "go with the flow." Putting them into practice and keeping a positive outlook will help me through this rough spot and even get the garden weeded and the painting finished.

I found a painting I hadn't shown --The Color of Lilacs. (The photo of the painting is not the best--a little yellow) It is an early still life where I discovered I could paint glass and reflective surfaces -like the vase and picture frame. I picked the flowers from several varieties of lilac trees. I made much of the painting up like the books, the landscape and the portrait. How cool is that? How does one paint a vase of water? Paint the background, then the back of the vase, then the contents of the vase (always considering the distortion of water and glass) and the front of the vase. Works for me!!

Sign Painter I Ain't...

2010-07-05T00:38:00.000-07:00

Emu Eggs

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist. ~Schumann

The artist gazes upon a reality and creates his own impression. The viewer gazes upon the impression and creates his own reality. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

Moose Shed

I will paint or draw on anything. Not because I am versatile, but because I can't resist a blank surface. If I were in a different time or culture I might have painted on cave walls by firelight or hung upside down to paint graffiti on an overpass. The upper picture is of emu eggs (they're about 6 inches high) that I was asked to do for a fund-raiser. I am especially pleased with the landscape that covers the entire egg. The other is, of course, a moose antler.

But I'm not a sign painter. I was asked to create signs for a yard sale recently, which I did with some struggle. People often think I am the perfect choice for painting signs because I am an artist. Uh, excuse me? But making signs requires math, rulers and geometry, and I am totally right-brained, meaning you don't want to trust me to balance your bank book, or measure a piece of lumber to be cut. And you darned sure don't want me to cut it! While I can make the letters of the sign pretty colors, and maybe even make a pleasing design, the positioning of the letters is frustrating.

I often get roped into sign-making projects. I remember one very bad experience. I had painted a sign on the side of Hubby's car for his business--just on the front doors. It wasn't easy but it turned out well with pictures on it. It also took me a long time. A man who owned an ice business saw it and wanted a sign painted on the side of his building. I agreed to do it. He said that just he wanted simple block letters. I worked very hard on the design for the huge sign. I spent a day in the West Texas summer sun standing on top of a cab over camper laying out the sign--hating every second of it. Towards the end of the afternoon when I had started painting the letters, the owner saw it and started yelling at me and told me it was not what he wanted and for me not to finish it and to collect my money and to get the hell off his property. I was so embarrassed, but he didn't give me a chance to finish or discuss how it could be better--in short, he was a jerk. I was so humiliated, I didn't even pick up my pay. He painted over my work and hired someone else to paint another sign--that sign remained there for years to taunt me. That ended my sign painting career and even today when I am asked to paint a sign, I get a clutch in the gut. A sign painter I ain't.

My Home

2010-07-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

Home is not where you live but where they understand you. ~Christian Morgenstern

Where thou art - that - is Home. ~Emily Dickinson

Houses always have held a fascination for me. I used to think that it was because of my interest in architecture--when I was in high school, I wanted to be another Frank Lloyd Wright, but that wouldn't have worked since architecture requires a lot of math. I am strictly right brained which allows me to appreciate the beauty in a building, but would leave me at loss at how to build one. I love looking at houses.

Most newly married couples plan to buy a house as soon as possible, but not so for James and I. He was always content to be a renter; some people just are--nothing wrong with that. I, on the other hand, have always had a yearning for my own home. While I didn't always think about it, I found myself collecting houses--figurines, art, fabric, or dinnerware or glassware. I even had a collection of tea pots or tea sets in the shape of houses or cottages. And I loved to draw houses.

We never bought our own home until nine years ago. James was still set in his renter's mode, even though we had settled down and stopped moving around. I couldn't interest him in even looking at houses for sale, but I became determined when I decided that receiving an inheritance a was perfect time to buy a home. I started looking on the internet and I compiled a list of houses I was interested in. Before I could call any realtors my daughter, Brenda, called to tell me that she saw a house for sale that was perfect for us. It turned out the house was the one on the top of my list. So I asked James to look at it with me and his sudden change of thinking about buying a home left me breathless. He immediately decided this was the perfect house for us, and we made an offer, closing on the house in record time. It was the only house we ever looked at. I was ecstatic; we were homeowners.

The house has very good bones but needed a lot of cosmetic help (the kitchen cabinets were painted black!) and we have worked very hard improving it. And it was the perfect house for us, allowing James to have his own space and a measure of independence as his condition worsened, and allowed me to have a studio.

I have appreciated my house and because I have decided to sell it doesn't mean I don't love the gift of it in my life. But I have also learned to let go of things, and the property is more than I want to take care of alone. It is on 2 and 1/2 lots--almost a half acre on a slope, and only a small part is landscaped--the rest is bush, and I have to rely heavily on family and friends to maintain it. I want a smaller home-- all on one floor-- on a smaller (level) lot that I can take care of myself.

I don't know if what I want is realistic, or if this is what God wants for me but I can only find out if I step out in faith. First thing is to get my mind around the prospect of moving and to start doing my homework; to start cleaning, clearing out and planning. I have started the process of making lists and discussing this with family and friends some of whom have offered to help. This is a new leg of the journey--exciting and overwhelming, but I am grateful for the possibilities and for those who cheer me on. We will see...

What's wrong with Maxie, anyway?

2010-06-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey
It is none of my business what others think of me.

OK, so Maxie has issues. I admit it. One day I will smirk at them and say "Seeya!" but meanwhile they still dog me sometimes and ruin my day. However, I am happy to say that their effects on my life are not near as great as they used to be. And it helps me to look how recovery has improved my life.

Fear. I was born afraid. When I was a little girl I used to play on top of the dog house because I was afraid of the snakes in the grass. Garter snakes. Not pythons or cobras, but in my mind they may as well as been. I was afraid of everything: school, new situations, preachers, men, monsters, the dark, other kids, the phone, my mother... OK maybe I should have been afraid of my mother. Every kid is scared, but what was abnormal is that I carried these phobias into my adulthood, which can be harrowing for a wife and mother. I was so used to worry and fear, that when I had no reason to be scared, niggling little feelings, which I call "free floating anxiety," troubled me anyway . I let fear rob me of opportunities. I didn't go to college until my late thirties because I was afraid to try. One thing I have learned is that if I am paralyzed and don't take an active part in my life making my own choices, someone or something else will choose for me. The life I want won't automatically happen, if I stay stuck in wishful thinking. I have to be proactive! On the positive side I have come a long way in overcoming fear. Courage and bravery are not feelings, they are what you do in spite of the fear. "If you're scared, just do it scared." Living this way allows me to face the fears, and helps reduce anxiety. I have done amazing things and will continue to do amazing things because Fear no longer has any power over me unless I entertain him.

Insecurity is Fear's brother. This fella tells me that I can't do it. Or that I am not good enough. Or that I am too fat, and that my smile is crooked; he afflicts me with a poor image of myself. Or that I really don't know what I am doing. Or that I am about to make the wrong decision. I met a man who said, "Be who you are." When I heard that it struck me that I have been trying to live up impossible standards--some other people set for me, but mostly those I set for myself. I wasn't being me...in fact, I wasn't really sure who that was. When I quote the mantra, "I say what I say, I do what I do and I am what I am," I am free from the Insecurity that often leads to....

Self-Loathing. This is a demon that has tormented me much in the past, and I dealt with him aggressively and thought I had him buried, but he re-emerged in the last couple of years and I have had to go into my dragon-slaying mode. I used to say that I was so low, I could play hand-ball against the curb. Self-loathing can lead to self-pity, martyrdom, depression and Very Dark Thoughts. Not cool and very dangerous. Most days I am OK, but others...

People Pleasing. I am co-dependent. "Codependency is a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one's relationships and quality of life. It also often involves putting one's needs at a lower priority than others while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others. Codependency may also be characterized by denial, low self-esteem, excessive compliance, and/or control patterns^."Wikipedia. This definition pretty much sums me up. This characteristic has been in place since childhood and was reinforced by a marriage to an alcoholic. While these tendencies don't actively affect my relationships today, they still make me overly sensitive to what other people think. If someone is cold or indifferent or snippy, it can wreck my day, even if others' actions probably more to do with their own bad day than with me. One of my favorite quotes is the one above about what other people think about me is not my business. On days I get that, I am free of people pleasing, and better equipped to take care of myself.

So these are the fellas I walk with sometimes, but I seek their companionship less often these days as I have the presence of Faith, Peace, Love, Joy, and Laughter in my life, which means that at rare moments there is absolutely nothing wrong with Maxie.

Daddy

2010-06-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Father's Day is a good time to remember my dad, James Henry Streutker. I started to just create a post about him in my Face Book status, then I decided what I had to say was too big for that; it a perfect topic for a blog.

My father had a great wit and taught me how to laugh; it is a gift that has carried me through hard times and enhances my life today. He was a great jokester and story teller. He loved the funny papers, especially Far Side. I have a stack of cartoons he clipped out of the papers over the years that he had started putting in a scrapbook. The project is still unfinished.

Dad was also a carpenter who built our home--I associate the scent of sawdust with him. He patiently let little kids dog his steps while he was working and gave scraps of wood and used nails for our own creations. Every Father's Day, he receive a fleet of homemade boats --pieces of two by fours with a point created by a handsaw and a mast inserted in a hole painstakingly made with a hand drill.

Dad on his way to school.

My grandfather--Henrick Streutker immigrated from Holland with his parents when he was four years old and settled on a farm in a Dutch community on Whidbey Island WA. Henry met Gertrude who had come from Winnipeg with her Dutch father, married her and together they settled on the Streutker family farm.

Wedding Picture

During WWII the Streutkers moved to Bremerton where Grandpa opened a filling station and Dad went to work in the shipyard. His vision was so poor they wouldn't let him fight in the military but they let him work on ships. ;o) Due the influx of workers in the Yard there was a housing shortage in Bremerton and my grandparents took in roomers, including the Kellogg family from Wisconsin-- who had a beautiful daughter, whom my dad fell in love with.

After the war my father worked in construction until he found a job at Sears in the automotive department where he worked for the next 33 years. I have shiny trophies with angels on top that he earned for sales . I put them in the garden.

Dad loved his son-in-law and they became great pals. James actually got to do more with my dad than I did on visits. They were like two outlaws trying to escape from their wives.

Daddy was an easy spirit who hated conflict, and would do everything to avoid it. Over the years he deferred to my mother who had a lot of issues and she ruled the family with an iron hand. Before his death, and after conversations with James, he realized the role he played in the family dysfunction by not standing up for his children; in a bold move, he held a family "intervention" on my mother's anger, even though he was very weak and short of breath. This was an amazing day that all five kids got a chance to tell our mother how we felt and she had to listen, but it gave us all a great deal of peace about our childhoods and our Mom. It gave us closure and Dad peacefully left us in three weeks later.

One of the jobs he held-- Sears or the shipyard contributed to his death because of the use of asbestos. He died at age 76 from lung cancer.

There is so much more I could say about my father, but this is enough-- I am already crying. I love you, Daddy and I miss you, and I am looking forward to seeing you in heaven.

What now?

2010-06-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~Sharon O'Brien

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions. ~James Michener

I am at a breathing place in the blog and I am not sure of what direction to take. I was informed this morning by my son, that I couldn't stop writing--that lots of people are reading. I know that I can't abandon it ; it has become part of my life now. Like the above quote we will have to see what will happen in the next leg in this adventure of Maxie' life unfinished. I haven't a clue now, but stay tuned...

Sayin' Goodbye-- a Balloon Adventure

2010-06-16T23:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to say Goodbye to see if there was anything worth hanging on to.

Don't cry because it is over; smile because it happened. Dr. Seuss

Today was the anniversary of James' death, and I decided I wanted to something special with my friend Lisa. I wrote about her in the post, Path of Pain. She and I have shared our journey together this last year; both of us had our husbands taken away--in different ways but the grief is the same. Since we understand each other on the level that few know, it made sense to me that we spend this day together.

The day started out raining and it poured buckets all day but we went ahead with our plans. We went to the Dollar Store and bought balloons; we looked like we were headed for a party as we left the store. Maybe we were. We went to Lisa's house and wrote all over those balloons, pouring out hearts. Lisa picked out a Dora Explorer balloon with a picture of Dora running free because she wanted us to be that way. Lisa choose a red heart for her friend she recently lost from cancer. We wrote our private thoughts to our husbands on the pink hearts. On the star shaped balloons we wrote negative things from the past on one side--such as pain, grief, depression-- and positive things for the future on the other--like love, joy, peace. One thing I noticed my handwriting on the "bad" side was wild and messy, (see photo) but lovely on the other--I didn't do it on purpose. We read what we wrote to each other as we cried.

It was still raining when we left the house. My original plan had been to release the balloons on the hill above town, but I was also counting on sunny day. We decided instead to go to Lake Roosevelt (Columbia River) 20 miles away. I was concerned about the balloons lifting off in the rain and asked God to give us a few minutes of no rain. He heard. After we turned off the road into the campground the rain let up; it was not falling at all by the time we got to the lake. This still gives me goosebumps. If folks around here wonder why the rain stopped about 4:15--that is why.

With both of us holding onto the ribbon, we released Dora the Explorer first and she sailed into the air and over the trees and the wind took her out of sight, with us cheering her on. Lisa let go of the gold star, and I let James go next, telling him goodbye; he chased after Dora; I still have the picture in my mind of a pink heart rising above the trees and catching the current. Lisa released the red heart for her friend and it went into the trees and got stuck. I let my last balloon go and made it over the trees even though it was getting soft on account I got it caught in the car door--besides it had a lot of heavy stuff written on it. Last to go was the other pink heart which got caught in the trees. Lisa said her husband didn't want to go. She she was able to pull it out of the tree and let it go again, but it still didn't want to go, so she started slapping it, yelling "Go, go, go!!" until finally the wind caught it and it was gone. Then she found a long branch to dislodge the red balloon. We were both laughing by now, and she said her friend was probably laughing her ass off watching her free the balloon.

We had expected this to be a solemn ceremony but instead it was wonderful and lighthearted-- we couldn't be sad at the sight of balloons flying away with all our cares on them. We laughed all the way back to town. An amazing afternoon. God is good.

That Last Week...

2010-06-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Wal-mart... do they like make walls there? Paris Hilton
A bargain is something you can't use at a price you can't resist. ~Franklin P. Jones

James loved to shop. Through the years he never minded going to the grocery store with me or by himself. And he loved a bargain. He was quite fond of the clearance items at Wal-mart and bought things to share with others.

Jame also enjoyed yard sales. To him it was like an adventure, never knowing what he would find. He liked toys, but his collections weren't limited to those. He often brought things home to me from Wal-Mart and yard sales; while I enjoyed much of what he brought me, some of it I didn't care for, wondering "why did he think I wanted that!" I had a friend whose Hubby presented her with many yard sale gifts, and she used to grump about it until someone told her that maybe it was his way of making amends for the years of drinking. After I heard that, I just thanked James for everything he brought me and put some of it away, eventually donating it to a thrift store.

He even shopped the last week of his life. James was at peace, knowing where he would go when he died. He let us know his wishes about his remains and just trusted us with the rest. It was like he knew everything would be taken care of. One morning he decided to go to Wal-Mart, and rode down on his wheel chair. He didn't buy anything for himself, but bought about 6 canvas totes that were on clearance; James was pleased with his purchase and passed them out to family and friends. A few days later, he wheeled outside, declared it a beautiful day and decided to take a ride in the sunshine -- just around the block he said. Around the corner he found a yard sale and he came back excited-- he bought a lamp..... for me.

Of Perfume and Flowers

2010-06-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. ~Heinrich Heine
A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting. Christian Dior

God loved the flowers and invented soil. Man loved the flowers and invented vases.

A couple of things happened in the last year of James' life that I thought were significant, though I didn't know the meaning of them at the time.

One is flowers. If you remember that James picked me a bouquet of flowers out of other people's yards while he was courting me. But generally he didn't see flowers--I would have to point them out..."Oh see how nice the flower bed looks." His gifts of flowers were always a surprise because they were sporadic. I remember once we had a horrible fight on Valentine's Day and James stormed out and stayed gone for a couple of days. That afternoon, the florist delivered a dozen roses--he had ordered them that morning before our fight. He did not sign the card, so I spent the evening trying to figure out who the heck sent me flowers! The interesting thing that happened was about 8 months before James died, he was at the clinic for a doctor's appointment and he saw flowers growing in the beds around the building. He was struck by their beauty so wheeled over and picked some to bring home to me; he actually saw flowers. It reminded me of the first bouquet.

The other thing was perfume. James rarely bought me any since he had trouble remembering what kind I used. I'd remind him that it was Chantilly, but it would slip from his mind when he thought about buying any for me. I bought the fragrance myself or my late sister gave it to me as gifts. James hadn't bought any perfume for me for years and after he got sick, James' memory wasn't the best. He disliked shopping for gifts, so he just gave me cash to get what I wanted. That last Christmas he surprised me, though, by giving me a gift he bought himself. On Christmas Eve I was stunned to unwrap a bottle of Chantilly. I wondered then, if this was a message of some kind, and it comforts me to remember that bottle of perfume.

Gypsies

2010-06-10T00:27:00.000-07:00

Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.
Stand up and walk out of your history.-- Phil McGraw

I was asked why we moved around so much. The answer is complicated, but it is part of our history and since I am looking at our life without flinching, I have to write about it.   Aside from the drinking, James' itchy feet was one of the great issues of our marriage. There is a country song that describes our relationship perfectly, titled My Elusive Dreams:
       You followed me to Texas,
       You followed me to Utah,
       We didn't find it there so we moved on.
       Then you went with me to A-la-bam',
       Things looked good in Birmingham,
       We didn't find it there so we moved on.
       I know you're tired of fol-low-ing
       My elusive dreams and schemes
       For they're only fleeting things,
       My elusive dreams.....
In Twelve Step Recovery they called moving around "geographic cures." The truth is that Jim was always ready to move on when things weren't going well. And drinking played into a lot of decisions--he'd get caught up in a dream or idea, or he would get mad at a family member or his actions on the job would be about to catch up with him.

I have to say that I played my role in this. At first I'd fight the idea of moving, but once the die was set, there was nothing I could do but pack up and go, I'd get caught up in the adventure of being "enroute," and believed that maybe this time things would be better. The first move was the hardest because I had spent the first 19 years of my life in the same town, but he was persuasive, and he was, after all, my prince and what else could I do but jump on his white steed and charge off into the future? We took a dog and a cat with us. I remember the cat kept running off at the rest areas, so Jim hooked the cat to the dog by a leash.

Sometimes we were crazy--taking off not knowing where we were going or how we were going to get there. If it occurred to us that this was not normal behavior, and that we probably could use some professional help, we ignored the thought. However, God always seemed to watch over us and we landed on our feet, though we scared ourselves at times.

It wasn't until after I started college and got into Recovery, that I was able to put a stop to the impulsive moving. We had been in Amarillo Texas for several years and he decided to move to OK, again. I told him he could go but I wasn't leaving school mid-semester. He stayed.  I didn't know that all I had to do was refused to go to stop him in his tracks. I could have used that information a long time ago. After he went through alcoholism treatment we moved to Arizona for 9 years before we returned to the Northwest.

By the grace of God, we recovered from the insanity of our youth, and we settled down in to more normal behavior and bought a house. I always yearned for a home of my own, but James was happy as a renter--a mortgage would tie him down, even though we had pretty much settled down. I had to talk him into looking at this house, and amazingly, when James saw it, he made up his mind immediately that this was the house for us; we made an offer on it without looking at anything else. We got a very good deal and put a lot of work in it. It turned out it was the perfect house for us. I am sooo grateful for my home, and that I can be part of a community and church. Rolling stones gather no moss, and they don't make many friends either. The best gift I have for staying in one place is many friends. I am grateful.

(The picture is of Jim and the kids when he was a trucker; he did look good in a cowboy hat.)

A final Celebration

2010-06-07T23:38:00.000-07:00

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into. ~Henry Beecher

James was in the hospital a lot, but especially in the last two months of his life--4 times. They'd get his breathing stabilized and then after he went home he would start to go downhill again. The last time he was in the hospital we were told that he wasn't going to get better and to call hospice.

Most couples who are married a long time can look forward to a 50th anniversary, but that wasn't possible for us so I threw together a last minute party for our 45th. I did this for me as James wasn't really interested, but I felt the need to have a party. I got a cake from Walmart--James' favorite kind and invited people by word of mouth. He got out of the hospital on the 5th of June and the next day we had a party. The kids brought food and cooked out on the grill--James enjoyed their company and the food. Later friends came to celebrate with us-- or with me, since James got tired and slept through half the party, but I was grateful for those who were there for us.

The flower is a bloom on a cactus. I have had the plant for about 12 years, with nary a bloom, but it was covered with flowers for our anniversary. The plant hasn't bloomed since. I didn't get the connection until just now. God surprised me with flowers at my wedding and He did it again for my last anniversary.

Here comes the Bride or D-Day..

2010-06-05T22:58:00.000-07:00

There are three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love. - I Corinthians 13:13

I have spread my dreams beneath your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. - W.B. Yeats

We were married Friday June 6, 1964. I didn't realize it until later but that was my paternal grandparents wedding anniversary and it is also the date of the great Allied invasion of WWII. I always thought both facts were significant.

We were married in the First Baptist Church of Bremerton WA by Rev. Felthouse. I do remember his name--I didn't have to look it up. I wanted to be married in a church and because of my mother's fit of anger, I wasn't bold enough to ask to take my vows before my church family. My mother could be very difficult and I would have to fight her to have a wedding in our church, and I was not that brave. So we went another church.

Jim had decided that we didn't need anyone at our wedding--not friends or family. The pastor arranged for two young men to be witnesses of our vows and they would be expected to be paid. I was bothered by that. I still may be. There a number of our friends and family who would have loved to have been there, but I deferred to Jim's wishes. I told a friend today that I let a hayseed from Oklahoma plan the most important day in a girl's life. But it was what it was.

The church was large, but it had a chapel for small events, and when we arrived that afternoon, I found the chapel decorated with  the most amazing flowers. There was to be a large wedding later on in the evening and the pastor borrowed some of the flowers  for my wedding. I will always remember how touched I was; I think he thought it would be sad for a girl to get married without flowers. I wore a simple white dress, and the ring was a simple gold band Jim bought at a pawn shop.

The big surprise was that my dad came. He rarely stood up to my mother, but when he made up his mind to do something, he would not be deterred. We were married before two paid witnesses and my father surrounded with flowers. The vows were the traditional ones of "Love, honor and cherish" for him and "Love, honor and obey" for me. (It was that "obey" one that always gave me the most trouble over the years.)  The ceremony was over very quickly.

We rode the ferry to Seattle for the honeymoon. We just stayed one night. Jim didn't see any sense spending money for a longer stay when we had a perfectly good apartment. :o) I remember I had spaghetti for our wedding supper.

I have no photos, no honeymoon mementos--only the marriage certificate and a copy of our vows. I no longer have the ring, I lost it during a period when we weren't getting along and I didn't make very much effort to find it, and the dress was ruined when I tried to dye it pink. On our 25th anniversary, which was during one of the best time of our lives, James gave me a wedding set with a diamond. James has given me flowers over the years, including the bouquet in the photo above.  But the most important thing I have is a very clear memory of a wedding in a lovely chapel filled with flowers, the kindness of a minister and the comfort of having my father with me.

What'ya say we get married?

2010-06-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married. ~Robert Frost

Marriage is nature's way of ensuring that a woman picks up some mothering experience before she has her first child. ~Robert Brault
robertbrault.com

I have no wedding pictures. I barely had a wedding. This picture was taken a few months after we were married. It was Jim's birthday and I made a cake (from scratch--I don't cook today but it's not because I don't know how!) and a fine meal and invited friends over. I loved being domesticated--at first. Man, I even had candles on the table! That was a very happy day, but fetching out the candles for dinner other times in our marriage didn't impress Hubby very much, so I usually didn't bother. On Valentine's Day or his birthday, I might put candles on the table and make him heart shaped biscuits, but he wouldn't have cared if they were shaped like dog biscuits.

I don't have a romantic story of his proposal. He just started talking about how we should be married and I go, "Oh, OK." Neither one of us put much thought into it. He was lonely and wanted companionship, and I was just.... ignorant. I know he fell in love with me, as much as a person possibly could in our short courtship, but to be honest, I think I was more in love with the idea of love, than I was with him. Fortunately love grows if you give it a chance. If we had lived today, we would have probably just moved in together, but we came from conservative, traditional families and that was unthinkable, so marriage it was going to be.

The sad cloud over our wedding and marriage was my mother's rejection of both. She refused to meet Jim and was very angry that I just up and decided to get married without discussing it with her. I carried the hurt of that for a long time. After that rejection, Jim wasn't anxious to meet any more of my family and I didn't argue, and so we didn't plan much of a wedding. I know now that my grandparents, and aunts and uncles would have been delighted to be there, but I transferred Mom's rejection over to them, and didn't even tell them.

Jim rented a furnished apartment and moved out of the rooming house; I was still staying where I worked caring for an elderly lady. I closed out my savings account and bought things for the house; Jim bought the ring and my dress and made the arrangements. Washington state law said that the bride could marry without her parents consent at age 18, but the groom had to have permission to marry if he were younger than 21. Since he was a few months shy of that, he had to write his mother for consent. Then we were ready... well we weren't really but we were young and dumb and filled with hope...

It's a Girl

2010-06-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

The mother-daughter relationship is the most complex. ~Wynonna Judd

Suddenly, through birthing a daughter, a woman finds herself face to face not only with an infant, a little girl, a woman-to-be, but also with her own unresolved conflicts from the past and her hopes and dreams for the future....Elizabeth Debold

June 4 is my daughter's birthday and since we are going back in time in this blog, I'd like to write about her birth. She will probably squirm a lot to know I wrote it but I am writing it just the same, after all is is my story too.

People like the story about me meeting James in a roller rink but I never did learn to skate. We went skating many times over the years especially after the kids came, but I was either pregnant or riding herd on a little kid; eventually all desire to learn left me. Maybe I will put it on a bucket list.... Nah!

Brenda was born 2 days before our first anniversary. I was pretty ignorant about pregnancies and babies so I didn't know what to expect, but Jim was convinced that we would have a boy, being he was a good ole boy from Oklahoma, he believed the first born had to be a boy. We were living in Oklahoma at the time on a dairy. The house in the above painting is where we lived, near Sweetwater OK, and the car is the one we owned then. (The windmill is from South Dakota--artist license.) I got plenty of fresh milk and fresh air and I had an awesome neighbor named Naomi, who had 5 kids and offered me a lot of advice and help.

Of course we were anxious for the baby to arrive and the last weeks dragged on until the morning we decided it was time. Bright and early we fetched my mother in law and headed for the hospital which was 60 miles away. We didn't want to take any chances. But it was too soon for delivery, and the three of us spent a very long day walking in the park, or sitting in the waiting room until evening when I was finally admitted to the maternity ward. Jim was so happy he rounded up all the relatives he could find and they wandered in and out of the labor room. At one point I noticed Jim's cousin sitting in the room like he was at a barbecue or something and I had only just met him. If had been bold and knew how to swear then, I would have told everyone to get the hell out; finally Jim's aunt ran everyone out including him. He gave up because this process was taking too long, and he went to the car to sleep. In the wee hours of the morning, Jim's mom woke him to tell him he had a daughter; he thought she was lying to him. He didn't stay in denial long, and was mighty proud to have a daughter.

Three days later, when it was time to leave the hospital he showed up with a new dress that I got into but it impeded my ability to breath, apparently he thought I would be the same size as before. He took Brenda and me around to all the relatives to show her off where I sat on the edge of chairs in the tight dress breathing shallowly, until mercifully we went home to begin the new journey of parenthood. My life was changed forever. I love you Brenda, my only daughter.

The Hair of the Dog

2010-05-29T22:52:00.000-07:00

If you know someone who tries to drown their sorrows, you might tell them sorrows know how to swim.

I like liquor - its taste and its effects - and that is just the reason why I never drink it. ~Thomas Jackson

Some of you who have followed my blog for awhile may have the suspicion that someone in my family had a drinking problem. Twern't me! It has taken me awhile to work up the nerve to talk of this in a forum anyone in the world can read, but it is the time to speak of it; not to do so would be like ignoring an elephant standing in the living room. Drinking --and recovery from it --consumed much of our lives and our marriage, but also gave us lives worth living.

James was not a drinker when we met and he didn't drink a lot at first; on the rare occasions he did, he was a happy drinker and we had a lot of fun. The fun didn't last; by the time our youngest was a year old, James had become a problem drinker. He drank 3 or 4 times a week and his personality degenerated into something ugly. Eventually the alcoholism affected him in such a way, he wasn't even pleasant when he was sober. Things might have gone better, though, for me and the family if I hadn't been so uptight and went with the flow, instead of screaming in my mind, "Noooo!!..this is not the way it is supposed to beeee..!!" Not knowing any better, I became part of the problem.

I am not going to tell drinking stories, because they are his stories, except one because this one has become part of the family lore. Actually a lot of stories are in the family lore but I am only going to relate this one now.

We had planned a camping trip to New Mexico; West Texas is hot and dry in the summer and I was ready for the cool of the mountains. I had everything ready to go the night before our departure, but James had a late night drinking. It was very rare that he would drink in the mornings; that would only happen when he didn't get to sleep off his drunk properly. That night when he said we should hit the road early, I took him at his word and woke everyone up at daybreak; I am always taking people at their word and that gets me into sooo much trouble! James hadn't had enough sleep and he was still inebriated when I got him up. We all piled in the car and he told me to drive, and right away he pulled a bottle out from under the seat. He said, with a grin, that he needed a drink to help him sober up-- hair of the dog that bit him, so to speak. Sigh. I was mighty disappointed, but encouraged when he told me that we could stop for breakfast at 8. I knew that if I could get a meal into him, he would stop drinking, and all would not be lost. The only place on that lonely country highway where we could get a meal was in Clayton NM, and I timed it so that we crossed the New Mexico line at 8 AM, and started looking for a restaurant in Clayton. He laughed at me and informed me that it wasn't 8; we crossed into another time zone at the New Mexico line--it was only 7 AM. He was happy because he had pulled a good one on me--he loved teasing me about that over the years. I drove on. When I had a drunk in the car, I tended to drive like a maniac. People think I still drive like a maniac today, but I learned how to do it in West Texas on those long straight roads with a drunk in the car. I wanted out of the car as soon as possible, so I didn't let any grass grow under the wheels. The sad thing is that one of the kids would be apt to say, "Uh, Mama, there's a curve coming up." They must have had the sense they were catapulting down the highway to their doom! By the time we got to campground, James wasn't feeling so good which meant he was quiet the rest of the weekend, which served him right by my reckoning. ;o) The kids had a good time exploring and fishing and I sat at the picnic table with stating at a sketchbook, wondering how I was going to get out of the mess I was in. That was nothing new, I always spent a lot of time wondering how to get out of the mess I was in. I did find help but not in any way I envisioned.

I want to talk about recovery now--his and mine. I start attending a 12 Step Program for families of alcoholics--a program I still attend today, because it changed my life and probably saved it. I can't begin to tell you the difference Al-Anon has made. I am no longer a scared introvert hiding at home stuffing all the pain and anger. I have friends, I am a friend, I am happy. The members of the groups loved me until I could love myself and gave me tools to use to process the anger, pain, fear, guilt and shame, and to get through the hard times. When I was in school, having to give an oral book report would make me sick for days prior, but now I speak in front of groups sharing my story. I give back what was given me. I am bolder, more confident, and can recognize and use the gifts God gave me. I have developed the skill of having fun. I love to laugh and have fun.

James entered recovery 4 years after I did when he went to treatment and began to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. His life was changed and he loved AA for the rest of his life. After he got sick, he couldn't get out to meetings, so he held them in our home for awhile. He was still outgoing and attracted people to him. I swear, we'd be in the grocery store waiting in line at the check out and strangers would approach him to chat with him. And his favorite topic was AA. He'd ride his wheel chair to Walmart and be gone for couple of hours. When I'd check on him, he'd be talking to someone. Someone he knew or a stranger he struck up a conversation with, and always the topic would turn to AA.

Towards the last of his life we spent a lot of time in the ER and the hospital and James shared his AA story with everyone he met there. In variably, when a nurse was doing an intake on him, he/she always asked "Do you drink alcohol?" It didn't matter if he was nearly unconscious, James snapped to at that question and said, "I haven't had the need to drink alcohol for 23 years." That always made me smile.

All I can say is that I am grateful.

Interval

2010-05-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo
Man spends his life in reasoning on the past, in complaining of the present, in fearing future. ~Antoine Rivarol

I am at loss what to write right now. This is the third post I have started, saving the other two to drafts waiting for the courage and wisdom to write in them. I need to talk about the wedding and I want to cover some of the issues of my marriage, but it is best to proceed with caution about that. I need to be careful that I don't focus on the negative and paint myself blameless, because I played my own role in this relationship. I spent a lot of time in regret, but as I wrote in a previous post, things had to work out the way they did because it was just the natural outcome of combining these two personalities. Kind of like mixing baking soda and vinegar; combining the two elements creates a third different than either. It is what it was, and as it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake." If I am to believe that, then everything that happened--good and bad--were for a reason and I can relax and not fret about hurts, wrongs and mistakes that were made and learn what I can about the journey. I can be free of the bondage of the past. My experiences brought me to where I am today, right here writing in a blog about sensitive things that potentially the whole world can read. Where I am right now is a good place to be; and where I will be next week or next year will be different --as it is a journey, but it will be good too. And where James is --in heaven-- is the best place to be; I can be pretty sure that he is not having to write a blog to process his feelings. :o)

I wonder why I didn't look happy in this picture that was taken shortly after my marriage. I am grateful, that you don't catch me scowling for photos these days; in fact I even let people take my picture--I used to hide from the camera unless I was behind it. Heck I even take pictures of myself!! Jim has a cigarette in his hand. He smoked all his life and that is what took it. Even when his lungs went bad he couldn't give smoking up. Being an ex-smoker myself, I am not condemning, but just telling how it went.

I guess I found some things to write about after all. There will be more on all this later, but I don't want to stir up emotions so close to bedtime.

A matter of Faith

2010-05-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

Faith is like radar that sees through the fog. ~Corrie Ten Boom
Faith is courage; it is creative while despair is always destructive. ~David S. Muzzey

When I first started writing this blog, I promised it would be real, and warned that I might use a bad word on occasion. Considering my state of mine throughout this process, I am surprised that I was guilty of that only a couple of times. Now that many more people are reading Maxie's Life Unfinished, I am resisting the urge to go back and clean things up to make my posts pretty. There are what they are, and they will stay that way. And I am not concerned about future posts. I am actually more concerned with making grammatical errors, than saying something inappropriate. My personality still has a lot of rough edges, and God keeps polishing them off. Ouch! That hurts! :o)

I think it is time to talk about my faith. Though I don't hesitate to speak of God and how He works in my life, I want to tell of how I got where I am today in matters of faith.

My parents didn't go to church when I was small, but my grandmother took me to services with her, I remember the struggle of sitting still on a hard pew, except for once a month when the Missionary Lady came and the children were allowed to go downstairs to see stories told on the flannel graph. I loved that. After Grandma moved away, I eventually began to attend a small chapel, with a bus ministry which picked up kids every week. Most of the congregation were children, as that was the church's main outreach. I went to summer and winter camp, and Bible school. I learned how to read the Bible, and memorize Scripture. During that time God became a fixed star on my journey; even when I ignored Him, or forgot about Him, He was always with me.

By the time I was a teenager, my parents became Christian and we started attending a much larger church. After the small warm congregation I was used to, I never really felt comfortable in the new church, but we attended until I left home. My sister Linda Jordan continued on in the church until her death in 2001, over 40 years of attendance, and she worked in the church's daycare.

Jim Simmons told me he was a Baptist and that he went to church with his cousins, and spoke glowingly of the church in Texas he belonged to. I learned later that his total church experience was 3 months, during the time he was staying with his cousins. Jim accompanied me to church until after we were married, when he left off all church attendance altogether, and it was many years before he would go again. But I tried to continue on alone.

We moved a lot and every time we'd go to a new town, I would find a church and attend sporadically, taking my kids with me, until about 10 years into my marriage, I stopped altogether for 5 years. I didn't intend to quit, but when we moved that year, I never got around to finding a church. We had moved down by Houston--camping and fishing paradise and that is what we did most weekends. I stopped reading my Bible and my thoughts were far away from God. Eventually I joined Jim in his party lifestyle and I threw myself whole-heartedly into it. I didn't want to hear about God, I didn't want to talk to door to door evangelists or little old ladies from the church. Basically I said , "See ya!" to the Almighty. Bad idea. That was the most painful dark time in my life, and I did irreparable damage to my life, family and marriage. But I did turn back to the God of my youth and became more and more faithful in the Christian walk. I had to overcome a lot of shame and self-loathing, and deal with the consequences of bad choices, but I know that God loves me today and that He has given me precious gifts--grandchildren, art, writing this blog and the boldness to present both to the world; He is teaching me to just be myself; He is allowing me to be of use to Him and others; he has given me countless loving, encouraging, fun friends and a church family. He has his hand on my future and I am a work in progress, so we will all have to stay tuned to see how it all works out...

Intermission

2010-05-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

A blog is in many ways an unfinished conversation. Andrew Sullivan
Your blog is an unedited version of yourself.

Writing these episodes of the blog are getting pretty intense. Especially posting just before I go to bed as is my custom; thoughts they stir up keep me awake at night. So, as I write about my marriage, I need to pass on posting if I can't find time to write during the day. I plan to continue with reflections on me and Jim, but I need to take a big breath right now.

On a lighter side, I would like to talk a little bit about music tonight. Jim was born and raised in rural Oklahoma, so he grew up on "shit-kickin'" music; like the Barbara Mandrell song, he was country when country wasn't cool-- he actually did put peanuts in his coke. I was a town girl and experienced a wide variety of music in my home from classical to Johnny Cash. Like any teenager, the music I loved best was the popular music that was played on American Bandstand . After we were married, Jim informed me that he would not listen to rock and roll, only country music would be in his house. I listened to my music when he wasn't home, but soon we moved to rural Texas and the local hick radio stations did not play Elvis, the Beachboys or Neil Sedaka, so I gave in and for the next 20 years listened to Country music. We named two of our kids--Brenda and Waylon-- after country stars. Until my youngest son (who always was a rocker in a family of shit-kickers) loaned me his Eagle's Greatist Hits album, when I abandoned C & W music altogether.

As I said in the previous post, Jim got to know the band at Belfair quite well, and he especially liked the fiddle player, Ernie Reed and we hung out with him and his family. After we left Bremerton, Ernie went to Nashville and when we saw him again he was playing for Faron Young. You can see him with Faron in the U-Tube link below. He played with several different groups over the years and joined Mel Tillis in Branson MO, where I think he still plays today. Anyway I have a picture I took of the Reed family and I know a few stories about Ernie, but it would not be polite to tell them. The picture is of Jim fooling around with Ernie's fiddle. He did look good in a cowboy hat, though. :o) Sooo we'll get onto more serious stuff soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL548BjrG1A

Roller Derby

2010-05-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

"It is the woman who chooses the man who will choose her."

A man is already halfway in love with any woman who listens to him. -- Brendan Francis

We met at the roller rink. I grew up in a Navy town and a good place to meet sailors, without going to a bar, was the roller rink. Certainly there were families and little kids present, but also lots of girls--and sailors. The rink management accommodated the singles by playing "couples only" segments with the lights dimmed. It was a really odd way to meet a man now that I think about it. I had left home and was working as a live-in care giver. I had never been to the roller rink to meet guys before--my mother would not allow it. I guess girls who did that got a reputation. Yet I knew a couple of girls in high school who went to the rink to meet men and they seemed to have a lot of fun. I wanted to have fun.

The first time I went skating was with some girlfriends. I met a sailor all right, his name was Tex. He got tired of holding me up (I couldn't skate worth a lick.) and he bought me a Seven-Up so we could sit and talk. All I recall about the conversation was vague descriptions of his hometown in Texas and his new tattoo. He scolded me for bumping it as it was still sore. Then he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I was pretty naive then, but I knew that leaving the rink with him was not a good idea so I declined, and Tex immediately abandoned me. I wonder how he thought he could do anything without hurting his precious tattoo?

The second time I went skating, I went alone on a Friday night which I believe was May 15. I walked to the rink, which included a hike up a long hill; I must have expected my friends there later--I can't imagine being brave enough to do that alone, but maybe I did. I couldn't skate any better that night than the first time, and I was clinging to the half wall berating myself for thinking I could skate, and he came through the door. I stood there watching him rent and don his skates begging in my mind, "Please, please please!!" Wishful thinking and hoping never worked very well for me, though I have done a lot of that in my life, but that night I got lucky. When Mr. Cute stood up, he glided straight to me and asked me to skate. I told him I didn't know how and he said he would teach me. He had more patience than Sailor Tattoo From Texas, and spent the evening gallantly holding me up, dragging me along, or picking me up off the floor, but I never learned to skate. He could skate though--smooth and easy and he could even skate backwards; I was impressed and he impressed his own kids later on with his skating prowess. I guess he had spent a lot of time at that rink. He still had the energy to accompany on my long walk home--unlike Mr. Tex, he didn't have a car.

His name was Jim Simmons and he was from Oklahoma. He had served in the Navy in Bremerton WA, and after his discharged he returned there to live; he worked in an auto parts store, and lived in a rooming house.
Our first date was the next day. There was a parade downtown, when he got off work at noon, so I met him in front of the parts house. We watched the parade until he got hungry when we went to a cafe where he ordered us shakes and burgers. I had eaten just before meeting him and I wasn't hungry--and I was really nervous, but I didn't want to offend him so I ate anyway. (Geez Louize, Maxie!) After lunch, we walked to the park over looking the bay and sat on a bench and talked. I don't know, I might have talked, but I certainly know he did. He talked about his break-up with his last girl friend, and his adventures since his release from the Navy, and his girlfriend he met in Japan. (Did I tell you I was naive?) He assured me he was a good Baptist boy, (I found out later that he had stretched the truth on that one.) I was captivated by his easy going charm, and attentiveness. This began a whirlwind courtship.

Marriage...

2010-05-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows - marriage does. ~Groucho Marx
If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books. ~Alan King
Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage - they've experienced pain and bought jewelry. ~Rita Rudner
No rhyme or reason for the quotes, except they made me smile.

Ever since I was a little girl, few things held an appeal for me as a blank piece of paper; it is crisp, white and holds amazing potential. If it was lined, it was waiting for me to write words on it, and if it was not, well, it cried out for a picture. I don't recall receiving much encouragement from anyone to do either, though. Once I drew a picture I was proud of and practically begged my grandmother to put it up on the wall; she always promised to do it later but never did; I stopped asking.

I learned to write letters as a teenager, a practice I have used all my life. A letter to a family member or friend was carefully crafted with the intention of entertaining others. Of course, I didn't speak of what was really going on with me and my family, yet I was able to write humorous, discriptive letters people loved getting--especially my sisters. One day I was visiting my younger sister not too long before she died, and she brought out all the letters I had written to her over the years and I spent the evening listening to her read them to me, laughing and crying; I was touched that she had kept them and found so much enjoyment in them. I carried this love of writing to email, and later to this forum--a perfectly natural extension of myself. I spoke with my other sister last week and told her I was writing a blog, and she encouraged me to continue, saying she always loved my letters.

I didn't seriously start drawing and painting until after my second son was born. I always had a hard time impressing James with much, except for one thing: My art. He never failed in his praise and encouragement. I remember showing him my first drawings --primitive compaired to what I do today--and he said "Wow," a response I could always count on. Not too long after I started creating, I was struggling to paint with a child's set of watercolors, and my neighbor presented me with my first set of oil paints. I fell in love. I love the brilliant colors (something missing in acrylics), the smooth texture, the way the paint moves on canvas and even the smell; I love the brushes--and I have dozens, and I still love the potential of a blank paper piece of or a canvas. James had an art gallery in his room; if I painted something he loved, he would talk me out of it, and he was sure to show it to everyone who visited him. Art is a gift of God to me and so was James' encouragement.

This picture was taken of us not long after our wedding. I love pictures like this where his love is evident; there are times when it wasn't, especially in the last 10 years when he was sick. I am still not ready to look at recent photos of him but I love the old ones.

Romance

2010-05-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of fiction and love. -- Benjamin Disraeli

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go through time with. -- Jim Croce

People said things about my husband. Things like, "He could charm the birds out of trees," or "He could sell a refridgerator to an Eskimo," or "He could talk a man out of his shoes in a sticker patch." I didn't stand a chance.

Some time after I found myself married to this guy, I spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how I got myself into such a pickle. Today I have more perspective on our meeting. I don't know if I would call it destiny, but what happened was just natural: A timid love starved girl, meets a outgoing charismatic man who thought--and lived--slightly on the shady side. He was a whole lot like Harold Hill in The Music Man. I don't know if it was love at first sight but it was an attraction that can't be denied, and that's just the way of it.

After we met, we spent every moment we weren't at work together. I was caring for a sweet elderly lady who obligingly went to bed every night at 8 PM and I was free to do as I pleased. We went skating a couple of more times, but my roller skills didn't improve much and the walk was long. Besides the rink had already served its purpose in getting us together, so there didn't seem any point in going back. We walked a lot, or sat on the porch where I was living. The weather and the time of year was perfect for courting. One evening we went to visit my friend who lived on the other side of town--another long walk. However it didn't seem long as we talked and talked and Jim picked flowers for me along the way--out of people's yards, and I went home with an armload of flowers. I put them in a vase in my room where the scent of lilacs filled the air. I was mesmerized. It never occurred to me that perhaps that was not the most honest way to receive a bouquet. Over the years James bought me flowers from time to time, but he generally didn't think about doing it much. However, the autumn before his death he was at the doctor's office and saw brilliant flowers growing in the flower beds at the clinic, so he wheeled his chair over and picked some and brought them home to me. If stolen flowers could be a benediction on a life, then that is the way it was.

I remember going dancing with Jim at the Belfair Barn, in a town a ways from Bremerton. It was too far to walk, so Jim had to secure a ride for us, which wasn't too hard for him--he was never afraid to ask for what he wanted and he didn't take "no" for an answer often. When he was stationed in Bremerton he danced at The Barn often and got to know the band quite well. He persuaded a couple of musicians to give us a ride. They drove an old Ford coupe, which only had a front seat, so the only place to sit was on Jim's lap, which nobody seemed to mind. The players were very kind to me. I have since learned a thing or two about men--they are generally always kind to a beautiful young woman. They will ignore a heavy girl--warm, funny and kind, and make a beeline to the cute chick, who might be a bitch from hell. I don't know why God made them that way, but I have come to terms with it. The thing is that I didn't know I was beautiful when I was young, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. But I enjoyed it that night at the Belfair Barn. I was treated like a princess and Jim felt like he was a very lucky man. The future looked bright indeed.

The Imaginary Vacation.

2010-05-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. ~Katherine Hepburn

I am approaching the first anniversary of my husband's death and I decided to write about him, and our challenging relationship. I know some of our relatives will be reading this and I hope I can paint the picture of our lives together with a palette of truth without the brush of rancor. I am going to write as the things come to me without any chronological order.

James was a dominating, type A, take-charge personality and when he was young and handsome, he could get away with controlling quite charmingly. I was a timid introvert, who always did what she was told. A match made in heaven, right? It would have been if he had been the cowboy with the white hat, or the knight on a white steed. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Truth is that he was a complicated man with a whole lot of issues. And he drank.

As years went by--when he failed to live up to the white knight role--I was forced to think and act for myself and my family. I became more and more independent. This created conflict between us, because he accepted the changes in me at a slower rate than I was changing. I was no longer the sweet docile girl he married, and that often rankled him.

When he developed Parkinson's, with other health issues, and became more and more home bound, he attempted to orchestrate our lives from his wheel chair, which created challenges for the whole family. Oh well. It gave him something to do between episodes of Forensic Files and Judge Judy. It was his hobby. This brings me to the imaginary vacation. I call it that because the trip only happened in my dreams and plans. Oh, I tried to pull it off with everything I had, but--well, read on.

My daughter and I were going to the Pacific Coast to camp. I had it all worked out down to the last detail--organization is one of my assets -- or faults. I had reserved the campgrounds and paid for them, planned the menus and bought most of the food and gathered all the gear we'd need. Brenda's son Brad, my niece Whitney were going with us. We were so excited; I haven't had a real vacation in a long time. The first indication that things were going awry, however, was when Brenda broke her ankle 2 weeks before we were to leave--that was a really big red flag! When I suggested we cancel, she insisted that she would be fine and really wanted to go. Not wanting to be disappointed myself, I only made a half-hearted attempt to talk her into cancelling, so we continued on with the plans. I spent hours loading the station wagon just right and we left bright and early one July morning. The second sign that we should call the trip off was when we got to Spokane 70 miles away; the transmission in the car started slipping. I stopped at a station with a mechanic, who gave me the sad news that the transmission fluid was black; since the oil had been changed a few days before, it meant that the tranny had burned up. We limped the car back home.

But I did not give up! I called my son, who agreed to loan me his Explorer. It took all day to get the Ford serviced and packed with our stuff--which wasn't packed quite so carefully as before. But we were on our way again.

We were cruising at 70 MPH on Interstate 90 somewhere east of Moses Lake; we were happy and the only concern on our minds was if the campground would hold our place at our first planned stop. I heard a pop in the engine and glanced in the mirror and saw smoke pouring out behind car, so I pulled over. The engine was on fire. I am not the right person to have on hand in a crisis because my reactions are dumb! I asked Whitney to open the hood. She tried but it was too hot. Uh, Maxie!! It's on fire! I got out, and forgot to undo the child safety locks so everyone else could get out. Uh, Mom? Could you unlock the doors? By this time engine is fully engaged causing the hood to buckle and I am sort of wandering around. Good news is that other motorists knew the car was on fire before I was aware of it and they pulled over when we did and I thank God for them--they took charge. One fella pried opened the hood with his golf club, ruining it. These guys put the fire out with their beverages, including a gallon jug of iced tea, and case of bottled water--they were quite jovial, like rescuing damsels in distress was welcome break to the monotony of the road. I swear, after a guy emptied a bottle, he crushed it before tossing it to the ground--must be some kind of male reflex.

OK. This is the third--and final-- message we weren't going to make it to the ocean. And it was bitter defeat. Even though the fire was out we still had to wait for the fire truck, the State Police and a tow truck. During this time we engaged in a flurry of phone calls to Hubby, and my son. My son said he didn't want the car to be taken to the impound yard, he wanted it left at the truck stop--so he could tow it home the next day. Brenda and Brad rode with the tow truck driver and Whit and I rode in the back of the patrol car. The officer opened the back door to reveal narrow bench with little leg room--I guess the comfort of prisoners is not a high priority to the state. Whitney, who was small said, "Wow how do they have room for prisoners?" And I said, "Yeah, especially fat ones." But we squeezed in--a more difficult feat for me than for little ole Whit. We were taken to a hotel next to the truck stop, where we secured the last available room; I am grateful for that. It was 11PM, none of us had eaten anything for hours, and all the restaurants had just closed, so I sent the kids to the truck stop to forage for food in the convenience store. Then James called. He gave me instructions about how to have the car fixed so we could drive it home. Uh, James, it's toast! The wires are fused together --and to the engine and the console is ruined. "No," he said, "just do what I say." I didn't promise anything, I told him good night.

We were rescued the next day by my daughter-in-law. The things that had been so meticulously packed a couple of days before were tossed into her car like trash bags in a garbage truck. A gloom settled over me as we traveled--we were going in the opposite direction of the Pacific and two vehicles and a golf club had been ruined in the attempt to get it there. I especially regretted the loss of my son's car, even though he never thought it was my fault. I was feeling low enough to play handball against the curb.

When I got home, James was very angry with me for not following instructions. (Somehow, even after all those years, he didn't get that I don't follow direct orders very well.) "Honey," I said, thinking I came up with the perfect argument, "One day you may be gone, and I have learn how to handle things myself." His response? "That is why you need to listen to me now to learn how to do things right!" Sigh.

Path of Pain

2010-05-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare

"There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go."

I have a dear friend who has been walking on a similar path of pain as I have. We have been friends a long time and have poured love and mercy into each other's lives. Years ago when I learned of my sister's death while my friend and I were in Yakima for a conference, she took me to the airport, bought me a ticket to Tacoma and waited with me for three hours for my flight. On the day of my husband's funeral--when the rest of the family was busy getting things ready, my friend sat with me all morning until time for the service.

Now, though we are on separate journeys, we are walking together and sharing it with her has been sweet-- Hours of talking on the phone, in person and in instant messaging. We go to meetings of support groups together, where we are seeking messages of hope. When one of us says she is depressed and spent the day crying, the other understands. But, often, before our time together is over we find ourselves laughing, and we part company feeling lighter and much loved. I am getting better now and pulling out into the light, but her grief and loss is still great. I won't leave her behind, though; I will continue to give her what she has always given me, love and acceptance and willing ear, until she passes out of the darkness herself. That's what friends do.

The iris is called Mornin'.

Part of the Wolf Pack

2010-05-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is."

I was thinking to day about a wolf I once knew. No, not the two legged kind, though I have known those too. I mean a real wolf.

I know that wolves have a bad reputation, maybe justly so, but I became friends with one. In the small town north of here, we moved into a house that was next door to a man who owned a wolf--there was someone in the area who raised and sold wolf pups. This wolf was no longer a cute pup but a grown animal who was chained in the neighbor's yard. The guy told me that the wolf's name was Buddy and not to approach him.

I will never forget my first encounter with the animal-- there he was standing in a classic wolf pose with his head lowered, looking at me with those incredible eyes which seemed to look into my soul. Then he snarled at me. That is when I started talking to him. Every time I was in the yard, I spoke to him and he started to settle down. He spent his time pacing as far as his chain would let him or sitting on top of his dog house, staring off towards the woods that were only a block away. I thought he lived a cruel existence; since wolves are pack animals, he must of been lonely. I got permission from the neighbor to feed him table scraps and started sharing our meals with him. After that Buddy was always happy to see me. I still never approached him--I couldn't imagine petting him like a dog; I respected his wildness. As I went about my business in the yard, carrying on one-sided conversations with him, I enjoyed knowing he was there.

One day, while working in the garden, he broke his chain and got loose. He didn't run for the forest down the street as you'd think he would, or run anywhere at all, except over to me. He raced around me like a frisky pup and then snatched up a glove and ran off with it dancing about out of my reach. I told him to bring it back but he dropped it and raced in to grab a plastic pot and took off with it, then he dropped it and came back to where I was standing to steal something else. For the first time ever Buddy looked happy; he was playing with me and I realized then that he had made me part of his pack, and he wanted to be with me more than he wanted to be free in the woods. His owner noticed him loose and caught him and our game was over, but I was deeply moved by this animal, and sad that he had to go back on the chain. He seemed to become distraught after that and started howling at night, and the neighbors complained --Duh! DUDE! He is a wolf! So Buddy went to a new home, but I still wonder about him; I hope he was happier. I would like to draw a picture of a wolf, but I need to find some reference photos for artists; I wouldn't want to use a photographer's copyrighted picture. Someday, I hope to show you a picture of a wolf titled Buddy.

The painting is Sunshine. Yellow is a hard color to mix and paint. I have learned it works best to have lots of shades of yellow, and to paint directly out of the tube, rather than to mix the colors, as I had to with this picture.

Relax Max

2010-05-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

Relax, Max
Your nerves are just like jumpin' jacks, Max
Your heart is thumpin' with a crazy sound
Hear it pound
Bumpin', bumpin', bumpin'Jumpin' up and down. Dinah Washington
Rule #1: don't sweat the small stuff.
Rule #2: it's all small stuff.
Rule #62 Don't take yourself too seriously.

I think I am finally beginning to relax. I don't realize how tense I was until I started to relax. I have been calmer lately and happier and that is an answer to a prayer. I am still facing some challenges in my life, but when did I get the idea that I wouldn't have any? Well maybe I thought I could get a break from them--just for a little while? Please God? I believe, though, that I am called by God to serene no matter what is going on and I have been sorta failing at that, getting too caught up in my own tragic story, and that only takes me to dark places. I want to live in the light, if that means I have to focus on the positive even when I am not feeling like it, then--so be it.

Lighthouse a very relaxed painting. Watercolor is a challege for me because I don't do "looseness" very well. When I first painted it, I almost threw it away. I am glad I didn't, because looking at it years later, I have decided I like it--it's looking very relaxed.

God's Gifts

2010-05-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

"When a person stumbles through the day in a pit of despair, wishing to die, but refusing to die; when a person gets up the next day and does it all over again--well, that takes guts. That takes a kind of real, basic survival courage, a courage that can be put to good use if that person ever finds his or her way... (and) find new and beautiful ways to use it." A Day At A Time

I have been thinking a lot about the above passage since I read it yesterday and I realize that I have been given many gifts to use to live my life. The gift of art is obvious, but I have received other gifts during the trauma of the last couple of years: courage, wisdom, perseverance, bravery; maybe I have always had them. I have always thought myself as wimpy, but I realize that God doesn't give us this life to live without the necessary means with which to live it. He encourages us to use these gifts and doesn't mind if we tell others about them, maybe bragging a bit. So, I am brave and have courage and if I lived a few centuries ago, I might have been a dragon slayer-- in armor on a white steed; I like that image. How can I use this courage today? What dragons do I need to slay?

This picture is for my friend who likes landscapes. It is the first heating panel I did--acrylic 24 x 48 --big for me. I like the landscape, but I find the cloud a bit intimidating. I couldn't help it; it just grew and grew as I was painting it, much the same way cumulus clouds grow in West Texas; it seemed to have a life of its own, so I let it be. I imagine there is a farmer in the barn watching the cloud with concern, wondering if it will grow into a serious storm because, see? His wheat is ready to harvest. The title? Two Barns and a Cloud. Of course, what else could I call it?

Family, Original and Otherwise

2010-05-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. ~Jane Howard

If minutes were kept of a family gathering, they would show that "Members not Present" and "Subjects Discussed" were one and the same. ~Robert Brault, http://www.robertbrault.com/

I have a great family. I love my kids and grand kids and I am always happy to be with them, and they treat me like a queen. I have nieces and nephews and a sister whom I love, but there are family members already gone and others who don't talk to me. I am so needy that I expanded my relatives out beyond my family of origin, finding sisters and brothers in a spiritual family who enrich my life--people who are beyond just friends. Both families have carried me through dark times, and I am grateful for them in my life today. It is hard to believe that I used to be such an introvert who isolated from people--very socially challenged; I am happy to say that I have gotten over that... well I am getting over that. Thank you, my family.

The drawing on the bottom I did from a tin type I found at a yard sale, it is titled Sisters. The other one is from a photo my dad bought at a thrift store--he said it made him think of his three daughters. I call it Cousins.

Grit

2010-05-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. Harriet Beecher Stowe

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination. Tommy Lasorda

I am planting my garden, and I still haven't fully recovered from the hip problem and garden chores are difficult. But the garden is part of my art, and I love being outside, so letting everything go to seed is not an option. So I am determined to get it done. I know that it will get easier and I will be glad I persevered.

Work on the Goldfinch continues, the distortions on the cone flowers is the glare of wet paint in the light. Looking at the photo gives me a fresh perspective of how the painting is really coming. The other picture is Nevada. I took a photo out the back window of a restaurant in Virginia City NV. I think the street was paved but I changed it to dirt and I didn't like a house on the right, so I replaced it with a house from a picture taken in Oklahoma. Because I was looking down on the scene, to help it make sense, I painted a hill the foreground that the viewer is supposed to be standing on. This was one of my husband's favorite pictures.

Women Healing

2010-05-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women. ~Madeleine K. Albright
Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weakness. ~Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, Marquise du Deffand, Letters to Voltaire

Because of a history of living with toxic relationships, I go to a lot of Twelve Step meetings, but the one group I am beginning to love best is a women's meeting; we share in there on a level that is impossible to do in a room with men in it. Sorry guys, but there is no one who understand the level of a woman's pain, but another woman. But by this kind of sharing we can find healing, and when a girl is healed and whole, all will benefit--including the men in her life.

This is Snapdragons. I think it is a mediocre picture, but the redeeming factor is the watering can, which is excellent. However, I learned a lot from doing this painting so therefore it is extremely valuable.

Change

2010-05-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France
If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.

I am feeling a little sad about the blog tonight, as things seem to have shifted. I am running out of art that I want to show, and since I am feeling better I don't have much earthshaking to share. What this really means I am moving through another change--into wholeness I hope; if this means things get boring, then so be it. I have my doubts about the boring though--my life has never been that, so I guess we will all just have to hide and watch....

I drew this picture, Art Teacher's Cabinet, in college. I had a professor that was a stickler about drawing from life rather than photos and one day I was at loss as to what to draw so I went into another room and found this odd assortment of objects in a cupboard, and I drew them; I didn't keep all my drawings from school but I like this one. This teacher used a lot of bottles as subjects for pictures and this may be where I discovered my love for drawing and painting glass.

Know Thyself

2010-05-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

The unexamined life is not worth living. ~Socrates
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. ~Henry David Thoreau
It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy. ~Lucille Ball

I am getting better, recovering from the darkness of the last year, which is a relief. Being lost gave me an opportunity to find myself. This didn't just happen, though--recovery requires that I do some work, searching out distructive behaviors and discovering my strengths, but the rewards are worth it. Knowlege is power; knowing who I am, impowers me to succeed at this life of mine.

This painting, The Wedding Picture, is painted from a reference photo I made. Besides the lilies, I used wild sweet peas and another wild flower. The arrangement wilted soon afterwards, but the painting preserved it for posterity. I didn't like the object I had placed on the front right--can't remember what it was--so I replaced it with the brass pitcher. The flowers were easy to paint this time, it was the fabric that gave me trouble. The picture is my in-laws' wedding picture--of course it really doesn't look like them, but I know it is them!! Posting these pictures on the blog helps me to see the weaknesses of the composition--for future reference.

Laugh or Die

2010-05-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. ~Abraham Lincoln

Laughter is pretty serious business, and I am grateful for the gift of it throughout my life during hard times and good. I believe that it actually takes the edge off of grief and pain, and makes the good times more wonderful. I love to laugh and have fun and seek every opportunity to do so. Sometimes it is like ole Abe said-- I laugh so I won't die.

This is a watercolor, Yaquina Head, (Newport OR) that I did for my sister Linda. She showed me a picture she took of her favorite lighthouse and when she wasn't looking I borrowed the photo and made this painting for her for Christmas. She loved it so much that when we lost her 9 years ago, her husband used the painting to make her funeral bulletins. The picture on the right is a picture I took a few years ago of the 138 year old light that has been restored to its original condition and appearance. I miss ya, Linda.

Expect a Miracle

2010-05-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

There are two ways you can live: You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein
Don't leave before the miracle happens.

It is a miracle. It is a miracle to come through desperate times and survive; to be able to laugh again and to sleep without tears. It is a miracle to survive the storm with my sanity intact and a few more things I didn't know I had or could get, like strength, courage, increased faith and more friends I could ever imagine having. It is a miracle to look people in the eye, learn their stories and to share my own; to be comfortable with sharing my thoughts and art with any and everyone. I have a medallion given me on a special occasion that says, "I not only believe in miracles--I depend on them."

This painting is Cape Disappointment-- a light on the Washington coast, which I painted from a photo I inherited from my dad--it looks much different today. I didn't paint a stormy day but a sunny one, belying the name. Maybe we can call it Cape Miracle

Just a Thinkin'...

2010-05-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking. ~Albert Einstein
"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny." Tryon Edwards

I have read: "Don't go into your mind alone, it is a dangerous neighborhood." That is true of my mind, and my thoughts do affect the outcome of my life-- interfering with creativity. I have been feeling happier lately, but today out of the blue, some negative thoughts came back, the kind that can paralyze me into inaction and take me into mental darkness. I didn't intertain these monsters, though and began to do some chores around the house, forcing my thoughts elsewhere. This has really changed my future--tomorrow I don't have any ironing to do!

Telling you about this painting involves a confession. I borrowed the composition--tree, winding road, and hills from a painting I saw online. I made note of the artist--somewhere; I can't find it. It is a heating panel I did for myself and it hangs in my living room, so I don't plan to profit from another artist's idea by selling it--besides I love it too much. I may have borrowed the composition but the painting is mine-- the hills are inspired by the hills near where I live, and the buildings are taken from a old photograph of the farm where my grandpa grew up and where my dad was born--near Oak Harbor WA, and the tree is defitely a Maxie tree. It is titled, Family Farm. Oh, Unknown Artist of Unknown Painting, please forgive me. :o)

Walk in Beauty

2010-04-29T22:51:00.000-07:00

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk. Part of Navajo Prayer Song
Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. ~Wayne Dyer

Ok, I am going for it, Dr. Wayne--not sure what, though. After my husband died, I start writing down positive affirmations to read aloud every day. Most have fallen away as useless, but I kept one that finally started to mean something to me: "Today I will walk in beauty with my head held high, living without fear or regret." I added "with my head held high," when I read it in the Bible, and "Walk in Beauty" was written in my birthday card by a Navajo friend, and I decided that is exactly what I wanted to do. There are times, like tonight, that I really feel like I can do this.

I am a little sad to realize that I am about out of paintings to show; maybe I will start over again. This one, Strawberries was a challenge on every level. Doing this painting, I learned a very valuable lesson--never attempt to paint identical objects --such as the salt and pepper shakers-- it is impossible to make them identical!! Yum strawberries; I wonder where I can find some at this time of night.

2010-04-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.
A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her. ~David Brinkley

It is funny that I found these quotes under the topic of "Confidence." It seems to me that they have more to do with relationships! Relationships can be the cause of my greatest joys, but also my deepest pain. I don't understand some people and others make me crazy, and the only thing I can do is stand back and let them be. Often when we grow and change and move on, we have to leave people behind, no matter how much we love them.

This watercolor--not my best medium-- is a study of a painting I want to do in oils, which I started a couple of years ago. I need to go boldly forth on it even though I have never painted a dog. I don't have a lot of experience in portrature either. I figure that if I can paint a subject as complicated as an iris, I should be able to paint a dog. The girl is my little granddaughter who is now 12, and the dog is Buddy, my son's dog who is no longer with us. It is titled Granddog.

Catchin' Happiness

2010-04-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. ~Benjamin Franklin
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

My prayer lately has been, "God, I want to be happy again." I have been happy before. Before a series of trials occurred that were beyond anything I could imagine, including the death of my husband. These things robbed me of my happiness. Too a degree, there were things beyond my control, but I also allowed my peace and joy to be taken from me. I didn't fight to hang onto it. I am mad now. I want it back, damn it!! I want it back. You know what? I am gonna get it. Just hide and watch.

I enjoyed some good ordinary things today: Planting seeds, exercise, a nap, eating homemade soup and precious time with women who are sharing my journey.

This painting is titled Tomatoes simply because I didn't know what else to call it. The best part is the glass bottle. I love painting glass. Maybe that is what I will do now.

Self-Respect

2010-04-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect. ~Joan Didion

Tonight I talked to the fella I met last fall--the one who told me to "be who you are," and listening to him brought back me back to center on this. It is funny how I have to be constantly reminded of simple truths--blinding flashes of the obvious, but I tend to forget and try to put myself in a mold that doesn't fit.

This painting is one of my earlier ones--Watering the Lilies, based on a photo of lilies growing in my flower bed. A few years later I darkened the wall behind the flowers making them pop out better, and I am much happier with it. I am pleased with the drops of water.

Rejection

2010-04-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

I take Rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going rather than retreat. Sylvester Stallone
A rejection is nothing more that a necessary step in the pursuit of success. Bo Bennett

I don't have a problem accepting rejection in regards to my art. There are times that pictures that I submitted for publication or exhibit have been rejected. While I feel a little sad at first, I am able to shrug it off because I know that it is part of the process. I am secure in knowing that the gift God gave me is a good one, and that it just may not be everyone's taste--nothing personal intended.

In personal relationships, however, the sting of rejection is powerful, and I take it hard. I can find the roots of that in past toxic relationships. I realize that I need a better perspective on this, and to remember, "People don't do things to me, they do things for themselves." As I am a work in progress I can use these experiences to move onto successful living, rather than let them paralyze me. Now if I could just figure out how to do that.

The painting is Cherries. I finished this painting some time ago and didn't like it so I put it away. I got it out a few years later and saw what was wrong with it, so I worked on it some more vastly improving it. I love how the lace turned out and the sunflowers. The thing that gave me the most trouble? The fabric and the clump of three cherries!!

It's in the eyes...

2010-04-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

A bend in the road is not the end of the road... unless you fail to make the turn. ~Author Unknown
Sometimes in tragedy we find our life's purpose - the eye sheds a tear to find its focus. ~Robert Brault www.robertbrault.com

A friend asked me today if I was doing better, and I told him that I was. "Yes," he said, "I can see it in your eyes." What I could see in his eyes was concern and I realized that it has been there for awhile, because he was aware of some of my struggles. I don't question the troubles, though, because if I did ask God, "Why me?" He'd be apt to say "Why not?" Difficulties are part of the human journey. I am happy to say that I haven't shed many tears since Easter. My hip is better and I am planning to start working in my garden, which is looking pretty neglected. I am ready for a more upbeat attitude.

This is a painting in process. The coneflowers are emerging. I am not happy with the one on the left but the beauty of oil paint is that things can be changed. The finch may not be placed right but it is staying where it is. I am excited to see if I can actually render a bird in paint, as I have never done it before. Today I shipped two paintings I sold from my Facebook page. Whoo hooo!!!

Curiosity

2010-04-20T23:18:00.000-07:00

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. ~Dorothy Parker
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. ~Albert Einstein

I always wanted to know stuff. My Dad and I were always so good at Trivial Pursuit that no one would play with us; we won with a lot of random --sometimes useless-- facts rattling around in our brains because we were curious about things. If something catches my attention I want to know more about it. In the old days I searched the library for information. If there were any questions I had, the answer was at the library. As I said before, when I was younger, I taught myself how to paint and draw from library books. This is where I learned about reflected light--there is always reflected light in the shadows of an object-- and how the surrounding colors affect subject. This painting is an example of that. Learned that from a book, I did.

I still want to know stuff, but I don't have to go to the library to find it. Now I have Google. I love Google.

This painting is Blue Ribbon, because this African violet in a vintage pitcher won a blue ribbon at the fair. So I painted it. It is funny how the simplest things will give me the most trouble-- in this case it was the leaves. Sometimes I think the painting needs something more on the table, but then again maybe not. So it stays at it is.

It's All Good

2010-04-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. ~Soren Kierkegaard

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ~Pablo Picasso

This weekend was good. When I arrived at the venue where I was to speak, I was told I only had 15 minutes slated for my talk. I drove halfway across the state for only 15 minutes? That threw me off balance, but the talk went well anyway. I find that I am too much of a good girl, always doing what I am told. So would the crowd walked out if I talked 30 minutes instead of 15? I doubt it. But it is all good. I made new friends, drove places I have never been, slept on an Aero bed, tried Thai food for the first time, and got myself from one end of the state to the other with just me, God and rock n roll. I was able to visit my oldest grandson, who is in the Navy, on the west side of the state. Yes, it is all good.

This painting is titled Field and Stream, and is another radiant heat panel. The barn is from a photo I took and some of the trees I think, but I made the rest up, including the stream. I do recall driving around on a blustery day taking pictures of clouds--would you believe clouds give me trouble? They are supposed to look as if a bird could fly through them, not solid like a bunch of marshmallows. Tricky.

Later Gator!

2010-04-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Even though I have been posting nearly every day, I won't be for a bit, as I am going out of town. I am speaking --in front of people :o-- on behalf of a Fellowship I belong too. If you pray, pray for me, as I am not a proficient with the spoken word as I am with the written. See you later!

OH, you want a picture? OK a drawing of Amiralty Head, a lighthouse on Whidbey Island WA. Gotta pack now.

Small Beginnings

2010-04-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin." - Zechariah 4:10 NLT

Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. ~Dale Carnegie

I am humbled by the followers of my blog, and the fans of my Face Book art page--Art of Maxie Lee, some whom I have not met face to face. It still surprises me that people are interested. I was reflecting today how I got started in writing on the web. About 12 years ago I joined an online self-help email group. The first time I posted a share to that group I was so tense that my heart raced, as if I was actually standing in front of that goup in person. Over time sharing in this group became easier and I became good at it, often sharing in their chat room. Out of that forum came a smaller gratitude group where I share every day things I am grateful for--something I have been doing for about 8 years--maybe more, I can't remember. I have discovered that I have this urge to entertain-- I certainly wouldn't want my shares to be boring-- and I have used the daily writings to tell stories and to attempt to make people laugh. I confess I can be the class clown. I have become quite comfortable with online writing, but the best thing is that I have formed beautiful friendships. So writing a blog has been natural and easy and I am comfortable most of the time in posting it where others can read. Thank y'all for reading my thoughts and responding to them.

This painting, Summer Gate, is done on a radiant heating panel, which actually heats the room. It is done in acrylic and was a commission. It is rather a flight of fancy but it makes me smile. The garden gate is in front of a real home in my town, I took pictures a few of years ago and I have used the fence in a couple of paintings. The gate still exists but something happened to the roses, and it is sadly plain now. I confess I borrowed the bird house from a Fred Swan picture. Sorry Fred.

Post # 100 --Healing

2010-04-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

A lot of people say they want to get out of pain, and I'm sure that's true, but they aren't willing to make healing a high priority. They aren't willing to look inside to see the source of their pain in order to deal with it.-- Lindsay Wagner

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.-- Hubert H. Humphrey

This post is number 100! I didn't think I would make it this far when I first started just after Christmas, but I have written something nearly every day. When I started, I thought the purpose of this forum was to get motivated about art and to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, but as this project progressed, I discovered what the blog really has to do with is healing. Looking back, some of the posts are bleak--sad, angry, depressed, or even morbid--some were just lyrics to sad songs to express my pain. But someone told me recently that healing is messy. And that is the truth; like healing a physical wound, emotional and spiritual healing is not very pretty, so I am going to leave those posts alone and not delete them since they are part of the process; they are me.

As Mr. Humphrey said, love and friendship have been vital to my healing. This former introvert has become a very determined friend-maker. Every single day I am out where people are and my friendship list is growing --of friends face to face and friends online. At first I met with these people just to get through the evening or the weekend, but now making friends is my new hobby and there are actually some people who have me as a friend who never really intended for that to happen ;o). I have found a whole new family. In turn, I can help others heal by offering them the same love and friendship that has been given me.

This painting is titled, Favorite, because it is my favorite sunflower picture. I like roses and grow some, but they can be persnickety and sunflowers grow tall, strong and hardy and reseed themselves every year; they always face the sun. I am a sunflower kinda girl.

Change

2010-04-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. ~Anatole France
The essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unwitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. As Bill Sees It by Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I don't know why we give so much conversation to the topic of change, because it is inevitable, like death and taxes. It should be par for the course. But change is something that I fight with all my might, even though it might be good. I realize now that I was hiding in my marriage and the little safe world I had built for myself there. I knew change needed to come in my life and thought I was open to it, but I realize now that my efforts at changing were quite puny. It took abruptly becoming alone to realize I wasn't prepared for change at all. I was suddenly responsible for everything and terrified of making a mistake and I had no idea what to do next--somebody died and left Maxie in charge, a pretty scary proposition. Of course I made mistakes, causing me to sink into remorse. In short, I was a wreck. I knew I couldn't return to the old life, but had no idea how to proceed into another one. Finally I gave up. After fighting Him, I surrendered to God and began to trust that, somehow, whatever I was doing, or thinking was OK for the moment, and even the mistakes I made --and will make-- are OK, because it is just part of the process. I feel like I am coming out of the tunnel into the light; even though I dart back into the shadows, I know I will make it out into that new life.

This painting is called Flamin' Flower, one of a series of sunflowers. I like this, because I used the telephoto lens to capture the reference photo which blurred the background, and I caught that in this picture. A lesson in art: To make a picture pop, use colors opposite each other on the color wheel, they vibrate against each other; red is opposite of green. This sunflower came from my garden.

My hip is better and I am getting happy thinking about working in the garden. There are so many exciting possibilities ahead of me. Please God, don't let me get depressed again.

Puttin yourself out there...

2010-04-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

Nature decrees that we do not exceed the speed of light. All other impossibilities are optional. ~Robert Brault, http://www.robertbrault.com/

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.

You're on your own.

And you know what you know.

You are the guy who'll decide where to go. ~Dr. Seuss

I have never been one to promote myself. While I was growing up the children's accomplishments in our home were never recognized. The opposite was true with heavy criticism dished out at every opportunity and all creativity squashed. I am not blaming my difficulties on my parents, but I have to recognize how I got to where I am today. I remember a drawing I did as a child, and I was so happy with it, I practically begged my grandmother to put it on the wall; she kept promising to do it, but never did and I don't recall sharing any more of my pictures with her or anyone else after that. Being the center of attention and applauded for my successes made me feel uncomfortable at the rare times it did happen, but at a deep level I ached for it. I attempted to satisfy that desire with being funny--one attribute that folks didn't seem to mind and it got me the attention I craved. There was also fear at work in my life--fear of rejection. Fear of being myself--that I would somehow be found lacking.

After I started painting in earnest, I was afraid to approach the prestigious galleries to show my art. I felt that my education credits were pathetic. Until I went to a community college in my late thirties, I was self -taught --from library books; by then I had been drawing and painting for 20 years--my bio didn't read too well next to those with lofty accomplishments. I also didn't have much confidence in my ability. I did show my work, but in rinky-dink places where nobody shopped. But about 10 years ago I started showing my paintings in places around town; I sold some paintings and my confidence soared. I became quite productive. However I let circumstances of the last couple of years erode at my confidence and motivation and I am having to fight to get them back. But I am becoming quite the dragon slayer now. Maybe that will be my new moniker--Phoenix the Dragon Slayer--she is rising from her ashes with an attitude.

Damn those voices that say I should be shy and retiring. In order to be a success, I have to sell myself--just like the grocer advertises and sells his canned green beans. In a sudden fit of boldness, I created an art page in my Face Book account and already have sold two paintings. Yea!! Watch out everyone, Maxie is on her way.

This painting is Blue Iris. I like it because it seems to be moving--maybe moving towards great accomplishments, or at least towards the sun.

Terminally Unique

2010-04-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

I really can't deny it, I am who I am. I'm pretty normal. I'm not that smooth type of girl. I run into things, I spill food, I say stupid things... I really don't have it all together. Katie Holmes

AA members have coined the phrase, "terminally unique," which defines a person who thinks her problems are not like any one else's. In other words, "Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen." This is dangerous thinking. If I believe I am unique, and don't believe anyone else understands, then I am not apt to do anything to help myself, while remaining in the dark comfort of self-pity. I am learning that, while I feel crazy most of the time and my thoughts don't seem normal, my reactions are normal for losing a loved one and the other trials that I have been walking through. I know I am a unique child of God, but the Bible tells me that my troubles are "common to man." And I need to give myself a break.

This painting is Blue Chicken. The original drawing has a pair of salt and pepper shakers in it, but I used the same pair in another painting and learned by that experience to never put two identical objects in a painting, because it is impossible to paint them to look alike. So I added an apple which I got out of the fridge and set on the drawing table for reference--this worked until someone ate the apple. I also added some flowers that I like very much, giving the bouquet an airy feel. I read somewhere that a painting of a bouquet should appear as if a bumble bee can fly through them. I think the bumble bee will like the pink flowers. In critiquing this painting I realize should have included some blue flowers to balance the blue in the chicken dish. When I started painting in earnest about 10 years ago, I used to do a complete drawing to get a feel of the subject and check the composition, before starting a painting; then I would have 2 works of art. It is a practice I want to resume.

Chop Wood Carry Water: I have been getting some cleaning done, and working at the drawing table. I have done the budget, started paying bills, and cleared the desk. I organized paintings to price as a friend is interested in the irises. I exercised, ate right, showered and brushed my teeth :o). I even remembered to feed the dog.

Self-fulfilling Prophecies

2010-04-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

Self-Fulfilling prophecy: a false definition of a situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. Robert Milton

Remember, if you’re headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns! ~Allison Gappa Bottke

Friday evening a friend shared in a group the above thought about self-fulfilling prophecy, and I knew immediately that he was speaking the truth. I have seen it played out over and over in lives of those around me. I know there is power in words, and we can talk ourselves into having a bad day or bad month or even into being sick. I shudder at remarks that I hear like, "this ice cream is going straight to my hips," or "my shoulder is killing me." However, I have to rigorously look at what prophecies I have been speaking over my own life. There have been many--some I have carried since childhood and others that have come up through recent trials. If you read far enough back in this blog you will find negative posts. Grief is a seductive thing, tempting one into making grief her identity and coloring every aspect of her life. This sets the girl on the path to hell. I must be very careful with my words. I do not want what I have been thinking lately, to come true.

This painting is Peaches and Hollyhocks. I painted it in my still-life phase and it took me a long time to finish and by then I couldn't stand to look at it so I put away. One day I got it out and decided I liked it and entered it in the fair, where it won a rosette. While I struggled with some of the flowers, I love the textures: the fuzzy peaches, smooth teapot and as always the vase with water. That is what draws me into still lifes-- reflective and transparent surfaces. How do I paint a vase of water? The only way that makes sense to me. It looks complicated with the light bouncing around inside of the vase and reflected on the outside, but it simple really. I paint the background first then backside of the vase and then the stems, remembering the distortion caused by the water on all these things. Then I paint the front. Simple. Vases never give me any trouble--it usually the flowers.

Some one asked me what CWCW means in my posts. It is based on a Zen saying: "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." This means to take care of business, instead of waiting for a blinding flash to come to me, or warm fuzzies, or motivation to get things done-- just do it. I had somewhat of an enlightening moment when I realized that I have been way too worried about being alone. I am alone now; but, except for God and friends who are vital to me, all I have is me, my home, and my art and I have not been taking care of any of those. Sometimes I even forget to feed the dog, and an African violet suffered an agonizing death under my care. Gotta pay more attention to CWCW.

Be Yourself--Again

2010-04-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. ~Johann von Goethe

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. ~Dr. Seuss

I found a very wide spectrum of sayings on being yourself, and it tickles me to include quotes by Goethe and Dr. Seuss in the same post. They both speak the truth to me. As for Maxie being herself, it comes from knowing herself and that is a work in progress. Writing in this forum and a second private blog--Confessions of a Co-dependent-- is part of that process. I know this is a topic I have addressed before, but it is one I will probably visit again and again.

There is a story behind this painting, which is titled Miner's Row. Many years ago I visited a ghost town in New Mexico by the name of Madrid. It was once a thriving coal mining town, but the mine closed in the 1950's. When I was there all the buildings and the company houses were abandoned and falling to ruin. Something about the neglected houses touched me and I took pictures of them. Not too long after we were there, artists bought up the town and the old houses, restoring them. Madrid is now a thriving artist community and tourist stop. From the photos I took, I created this picture imagining what the homes might have looked like in their prime. I gave the painting away for a wedding present, but a couple of years ago a friend told me that she had found it in a second hand store, and she is now the owner. Painting snow is a struggle, but I am pleased with the sky and lighted windows.

Gifts

2010-04-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all. ~William Temple

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. ~Malcolm S. Forbes

We have to render ourselves vulnerable... Dan S.

Alright, Mr. Temple, you are right. I have been thinking about myself way too much, at least in an unhealthy manner. And Mr. Forbes, it is true, I have been focusing on what I lack rather than what gifts I do possess. I still strive for balance in these matters but I feel pretty darned good tonight, because, as my friend Dan S. says, I rendered myself vulnerable to a group of friends... and they responded with love. I shouldn't have been surprised. My friends are the most precious gifts in my life.

This painting is called Gift, or Blue, I have it in my files under both names. Maybe I'll call it Blue Gift. I love the way that irises have the ability to capture the early morning sun, making them glow like they have little candles inside. Of course I have to get up early to catch that effect; being an night owl means I have to stumble out of bed, grab the camera and start shooting before I even have coffee. But the results are worth it.

Self Respect

2010-03-31T22:42:00.000-07:00

Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. ~Newt Gingrich

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power. ~Clint Eastwood

These two quotes are tied together. I have trouble following through when my self-esteem is in the basement. The self-loathing that I struggle with has been applied to me in layers over the years, due to words and perceptions I took on from others and from myself. I bought into criticisms of others and negative self-talk from myself, believing the lies. I have to peel these layers off my soul and it is painful. The temptation is always to give up and hide in the layers, and use them as an excuse. I still find myself taking on what is not mine. I met someone recently who just looked right through me as if I wasn't there and ignored my efforts to be friendly. I took that personally as if I was the one who was deeply flawed; like I deserved to be treated like that. The truth is that people are people and I didn't make them that way, and I can't expect them to be any different, either--they are what they are. I need to just shake it off, instead of applying another layer of yuck to myself. If I don't respect myself, then it is doubtful that others will.

This is a strange, but fun painting. It was a commission and the client wanted waterfalls that looked like they were in Hawaii. I couldn't find any pictures of Hawaiian falls so I just made one up. The falls are actually Multnomah Falls in Oregon. I just added the palm trees and the bird-of-paradise, which is woefully out of proportion. The client was happy with it. It is titled Paradise.

Finding Myself

2010-03-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. ~Thomas Szasz

Never mind searching for who you are. Search for the person you aspire to be. ~Robert Brault

In my Face Book profile, I wrote--"I am reinventing myself so stay tuned..." I am hard pressed to describe myself these days and the truth is that I am in the process of becoming something different. Not because I want to-- I thought I was doing OK the way I was--but because circumstances forced it on me. Damn, I hate change. I have discovered when a person's life is rudely interrupted or if a war rages, it is impossible to go back to the way she was--it is like someone burned the bridge--and she has to climb on her horse and charge through the dragons to get to a new place. Who knows, maybe I will be the princess this time, but whatever, my prayer is that I will be strong, brave and true, able to look my foes in the eyes, yet be soft enough to know another's pain.

This painting is Sunflowers in a Blue Vase. Still lifes are a challenge for me because there is more than one element I have to do well in a picture and yet make it all pull together. It was the fabric I struggled with in this painting. I Love the vase, though, and I am happy with the flowers. I am pleased with the background too. Sometimes there are just too many rules about art --one is about the colors. As students we are taught to have a limited pallet and to just to mix the colors. I don't like to mix colors, I like them straight out of the tube. I read in a book that to paint sunflowers, rather than using one yellow to mix lighter and darker, it is better to have a number of different tubes of yellow. I have found this works for me. For a lighter yellow, I don't mix white in, I just use a tube of lighter paint. Using the different hues of yellow, makes the flowers glow. I use this principle in the blues, reds and greens too. It has taken a long time to build up the supply, but I have lots of oil paint and do very little mixing. I grew the flowers and found the vase at a yard sale.

Brush to canvas--finally!!!

2010-03-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go. ~Author Unknown

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present. ~Jan Glidewell

Both quotes apply to my emotional state tonight. I won't say anymore than that, since it is my intention to move on. They say what doesn't kill us will make us stronger. I highly suspect that I am not going to die from this.

I am very excited to report that I started painting again. Not just drawing, or tole painting cutesy things but real fine art!! This sketch, Goldfinch on a Cone flower, I did over a year ago. The cone flowers are from photos I took in my garden and I found the goldfinch in a book of artist's reference photos. I planned this painting 18 months ago; it was my intention to move from flowers to birds and other live things. So I stopped painting flowers and never started the birds. I can give all kinds of excuses for that, but it is what it is. I painted the background way back then, and a couple of weeks ago I drew the bird and flowers on the canvas. Last night, I blocked in the basic shapes and colors. At this stage perfectionism is not an option--I need to keep it loose--the details will come later. Heavy texture is not good right now because I will only have to scrap it off later. Because I work with oils which dry slowly, I paint in stages and I usually have several paintings going at once. When this painting dries, I will continue to shape the bird and flowers, but I wanted to show that I have started. I also painted the background to a new iris painting-- I decided to continue flowers for now since I do have confidence in those and I have tons of iris photos. I also have several other canvases I began some time ago and they are ready for me to continue. Are ya proud of me? Even though everything still hurts, I am ready.

CWCW: I dusted and vacuumed the living room; I plunked the vacuum in the middle of the floor 4 days ago and decided I would not move it until it got used. I worked in the kitchen and on the laundry. I organized things around the drawing table. I plan to get caught up on the house work this week since it is spring and I am gonna want to be outside as soon as it stops raining.

Glory

2010-03-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Georgia O'Keefe Quotes:

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else.

The purpose of this blog, and the purpose of the portfolio I put together, was to break past the artist block and the personal turmoil in my life to paint again. I haven't gotten there yet, but one day I will be posting a new painting. Like Georgia, I must not let anything keep me from doing a single thing I want to do. Looking at work I have done in the past does inspire me. In fact, it still surprises me that I rendered these paintings; that my name is on them. You'd think that the act of creating would put me in such a spiritual state that nothing would touch me, but the truth is that painting is a series of ordinary actions: designing, sketching, painting, cleaning brushes, getting paint on my cheek, getting frustrated when something doesn't quite work, and being tired at the end of the day. Somehow the magic comes out of that. It is a gift.

Like Georgia, I want to give you a flower. It is titled Glory. Not mine but God's.

Success

2010-03-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. ~Charles Horton Cooley

I have never looked at myself as a success because things in my life have never gone "according to plan." I certainly had expected a different kind of success in regards to my art. But I think that my perceptions about myself and my art are warped. I have always dealt with intense self-loathing due to childhood abuse and a painful marriage. Some days I keep that monster in the cage and others it gets out; I don't know it's out, until I find myself staring it in the face.

But I am a success. I am getting better and changing, becoming more relaxed in my own skin. Tonight in a group of people, we were served cake on little paper plates. My cake was on three plates stuck together, so I pulled them apart, and drew little sketches on the clean plates and gave them away. Just simple doodling, really, but there was a time I would never let anyone see me doing it, let alone letting them have the sketch. Hey, Monster!! I am a success!! Get the hell out of my life!!

This painting is titled Amazing Grace II. Because it is amazing that God would create an iris in that color of purple and that I could paint it. It is all a gift.

CWCW: I actually chopped my own wood today. Usually my roommate does it, but it was up to me today. I worked on laundry and cleaning the living room and detail cleaning kitchen. I sorted through paints getting ready to start using them. I will do it, as I am a success.

2010-03-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~George Bernard Shaw

Gardens are closely related to art. I have hundreds of photos taken in my garden which I use for reference, and of course flowers are creation of the greatest Artist. I can plan where to plant what to make the most pleasing effect, but most arrangements are accidental. Last year I loved the contrast between the blue green of a cabbage growing next to a maroon dahlia. Both plants were stuck in the ground as an afterthought.

This is one of my first paintings of an iris. I noticed a bug on the flower in the photo so for fun I put it on the iris. I may start painting irises again. I don't think I have enough.