When I was looking for images of artists who make wood come alive, I found the picture above. I was suddenly swamped with memories of my dad and the dogs HE carved. They are two of my most cherished possessions.
My dad is gone now, but he is alive in my heart and always will be. My dad was talented in a lot of different ways – but one was determination.
I say that as a ‘talent’ though it was a character trait, as well. My dad fell off a horse when he was 3 years old, shattering his left arm. Many surgeries were done, but back then they didn’t know what they do now. They saved his arm, but he lost the use of his left hand. His left arm was much shorter than his right, as well.
This could – and did – ruin other people’s lives. I remember us walking on a sidewalk somewhere – seeing a man sitting on the sidewalk, asking for money, holding up an arm remarkably like my dad’s. My dad stopped, held up his left arm, and said quietly, “Get a job!”
He carved the two sweet dogs above, holding the wood in his left hand and carving patiently with his right. I don’t remember him actually carving them, but it amazes me that he lived his life so that we actually FORGOT for much of the time that he might have an extra challenge with something.
I feel my dad looking at me from time to time. Sometimes he is challenging me to get off my duff and quit procrastinating – just because I am intimidated when trying something new. Sometimes he tells me to lighten up, see the humor in a situation, or look at it as another of life’s character-building exercises. Sometimes I’m just swamped with love, missing him, but feeling so lucky he was ‘mine’ for a while.
Filed under Family, memories, When Wood Comes Alive
I’ve spent part of two days in my art room, playing with a new idea that was entertaining me while I was sleeping. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and will try to finish up today.
The idea was ‘Friendship Frames,’ with paintings on 6″x8″ hard canvas boards with a different friendship quote on each. I’ve had fun with colors, texture, and more, thinking of my good friends as I play. I’ll post a pic of one of them when they are finished.
I have to tell you that I am newly encouraged about my efforts since I had my first sale on Amazon Handmade yesterday. This is a new venue for me, and I was afraid that it was SO large it would be a miracle if people found my listings, much less liked what I did enough to buy something. I feel WONDERFUL that I sold a package of my hand-painted note cards. :0)
Filed under Friendship, playing in my art room
Nutrisystem, South Beach, BistroMD – all helped, but we stopped, feeling the same as this wonderful quote by Dolly Parton above.
Now we are lucky because two new companies started businesses here in Greenwood – REAL FOOD and STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’, both offering healthy frozen individual portion meals at reasonable prices.
We plan around eating their meals 5 days a week. I then fix a keto-friendly meal that has enough for the weekend, and maybe even a lunch the following week. We eat a frozen meal at night, usually tuna fish salad for lunch, and as few careful snacks as possible the remainder of the day. It’s working for us, albeit slowly.
My husband is basically at his goal weight now. We are trying to be very careful of his sugar, since he is Type II diabetic. I still have about 30 lbs to lose to get to my goal weight. I’m losing more slowly, am the one who is actually exercising, and does all the orchestration of our eating. I would bite my husband in the leg, but basically like him too much to do that just because he seems to lose weight effortlessly. (If he gives me another reason, all bets are off.) :0)
I really like not having to figure out what to cook every day. I also like the fact that we are eating good, healthy food with portion control that actually TASTES GOOD. We can still go to Lunch Bunch to meet our friends each Friday without losing the ground we’ve gained during the week.
I am hopeful that if we ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ (‘holding our mouths right’ as we say in Oklahoma and Arkansas) maybe I will eventually meet MY lard-loss goal, too.
Filed under drawings
I am hoping for a quiet day. My husband has a haircut and we have other errands to do in a bit.
Our weather is lovely – sunshine-y and 61 degrees F. Yesterday we finally got the irrigation system control thingie for my garden removed from the agricultural faucet. For some reason, it was almost like it was frozen on there – hard to get the attachment parts to turn, but we managed. We’ll leave the main irrigation system for the yard up and running until it looks like we’ll get some freezes.
I think I told you that a crew working on fiber optic lines came yesterday and did some work. We are delighted that our electric company is partnering with another company to eventually supply us with Internet speed that will bring us into this century! We have changed over the years, each time able to improve things a bit, but we are rural, and so aren’t in the forefront on anything significant. It will be exciting when it finally comes.
The guy told us that he needed to cut some branches in a tree that were encroaching on the lines, so I said ‘sure.’ It ended up that it looks like the tree was struck by lightning, with big broken branches hanging down. They are supposed to be back Monday. I will ask if he can do more, cutting the broken branches and stashing them out of sight a bit more. Fingers crossed.
Yesterday I played in my art room, starting on an idea for Christmas presents for my friends. I’m having a great time. My sister-in-law made a great suggestion for a small thing I can add to each gift to make it more special. I love when that happens. :0) I’ll work on them more today.
I’ll get the makings for beef stew in the slow cooker for us when we get back. I feel the need for comfort food lately with all that is going on in our world.
And that’s it for us. I hope YOUR day is full of fun and laughter.
I dreamed of some ideas for Christmas presents. I woke up early this morning with more ideas. I will see if I can get started on them when we get home from Lunch Bunch.
So far, changing the time back an hour is messing with me. I liked the idea of getting an extra hour of sleep, but the reality is that I am waking up super early – the middle of the night for me – and having grim thoughts. This is not like me and I’m going to see what I can do to stop the cycle.
Our weather is gorgeous again today, so I’ll plan to spend some time outside. There are LOTS of things to do.
I feel good today. My mouth is no longer hurting from my tooth filling. I had a wonderful massage yesterday. I’ll see my friends, and hopefully have a productive day.
I hope that YOU have a great day, too! :0)
I’m leaving shortly to have a massage. Ahhhhh!
My wonderful massage therapist will be having surgery very soon, though, and the recovery time is pretty long, so this massage will need to last me until February or so. My wish is that the surgery goes smoothly and that she heals thoroughly, feeling good again.
I was going to call to arrange to have our fall checkup on our geothermal system, plus our quarterly bug spraying, but both companies called ME to schedule! We had the geothermal check yesterday and are good to go now through the winter into the spring. Not only is our guy super competent about how our system works, but he crawls up into the attic to change out one of the filters for us – saving my husband and me the chore – AND our dog, Amber, is in love with him. She wags her tail so hard the whole time he is here that she sleeps soundly after he leaves. He always stops to talk to her and give her a lot of love before he leaves.
Our fish are swimming around in a sparkling clean tank again. They thanked me in their way, for the nice digs.
Our weather has warmed up again, so we’re able to open doors in the afternoon, airing out the house. :0) I’m hoping to be able to do some work outside this afternoon.
I hope that you are having a great day, too!
I have, perhaps, the greatest dentist in the world. His name is Wesley Moore and his office is in Fort Smith.
When I had my recent routine dental cleaning, the hygienist found the first cavity I have ever had. :0( I have to get it filled tomorrow morning.
Dr. Moore pulled a wisdom tooth last year that had broken off and caused problems plus a whole lot of pain. He used some type of medicine that put me in a ‘twilight state,’ (my description). I knew what was going on and was able to cooperate, but didn’t feel anything or remember the details afterwards. It was wonderful. :0)
Since I immediately started having nightmares about my cavity filling (I admit it – I’m a total WUSS when it comes to anything involving the dentist) I called and asked them if they could give me the wonderful medicine again for the procedure. They didn’t call me a wuss or tell me that it was beyond ‘wussy’ to ask for it. They just rescheduled my appointment and arranged for that to happen.
I’m still uptight about having my first cavity and having to have it filled, but the experience with the medication makes it so I’m not having to be beaten down with a stick today in anticipation.
We will leave first thing in the morning, so I may not write tomorrow until later – or maybe not at all. Just wanted you to know, in case you were wondering why the chatterbox goes suddenly silent. :0)
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, taking care of yourself
Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
Filed under metal art, spoon - cutlery - art
I’ve told you that we have changed our eating habits, trying to make sure we control our portions while actually enjoying our food while trying to lose the lard.
I also told you that my husband has essentially reached his weight goal. We are still watching his sugar like hawks, since he is Type II diabetic and I am trying to encourage him to exercise – something for which he just gives me a long, long look.
I just weighed and measured this morning, hoping for some progress. I’m delighted to report that both the scales and the tape measure were only smirking, rather than laughing at me! :0)
I am now down 42.4 pounds from my lardiest, and there are 42.95 inches less of me. I would like to lose another 30+- pounds.
I haven’t just picked a number from a hat. It would be the middle of the BMI healthy range for my height. I also read an article that said, although the BMI charts may be ‘obsolete,’ your waist circumference is a good indication of your overall health. I would like to lose 3 more inches from my waist. (I’ve lost 9 so far).
My yard work, elliptical trainer, and yoga stretches are helping me get more flexible and improve my balance. I’m hoping to be able to report more progress at the end of the month.
Filed under DIET!, exercise, getting the lard off, taking care of yourself
Filed under metal art, spoon - cutlery - art
Filed under When Wood Comes Alive
We don’t have many, but each fall a few twice-blooming iris pop up and remind us how beautiful our world is and how lucky we are to be alive.
I gathered these two yesterday, since there is a chance we’ll get a freeze overnight. I couldn’t contain my grin when I saw these in my walk around the yard.
I hope that you have reasons to smile around you, too.
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
I had SUCH a great time playing and being silly while we were out today! I wore my mask –
I put my regular Covid Humana mask over this one to go into The Pizza Barn, the restaurant where we meet our friends each Friday. I said “Hi,” as I always do, sat down and pulled off my Humana mask. There was a beat of silence and then the whole table full of women fell apart. I played into it, asking why they were laughing, and then huffily announced that I thought they could at least not make me feel bad that the facial hadn’t done all I had hoped it would…
Then our waitress, came over to get our orders and simply fell apart laughing. She went to get another lady from the back. We started eating our lunches and the other wonderful waitress came in from the parking lot. I put on the mask and my glasses again. She came out to ask something and I thought she wouldn’t be able to stand up she started laughing so hard. It was really fun.
I also wore the mask and glasses into Walmart after Lunch Bunch. Some people just looked at me like I was nuts (Imagine THAT!). Others smiled and/or laughed, and told me they loved the mask.
Finally, we went through the drive-through at the bank. When I waved to the tellers, they fell apart.
I thoroughly enjoyed sharing my joy of Halloween today, and hopefully I brightened a few days. We can all use that right about now.
Filed under metal art, spoon - cutlery - art
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