I hope you’re learning – as I am – to enjoy the little joys as they come.
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Super Typhoon Regasa is hitting Vietnam today. This will cause the storm to downgrade before it comes here tomorrow and the next day (our Sept. 29th and 30th). I will have my bucket and towels ready to keep window leak damage to a minimum and we’ll keep going out to a minimum.
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This is the latest sketch I painted yesterday. I plan to paint more this afternoon.
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We just got back awhile ago from visiting my husband in the nursing home. He was more alert than he has been. It took him 30 minutes to laboriously eat a small bowl of mandarin oranges, but he seemed to enjoy them. When he got to the packaged chocolate-covered, icing-filled cookie on his tray, he turned up his nose. He said he had eaten two of those and they sucked. Now THAT sounds like my husband! 😋. He then talked about buying a BMW motorcycle and a house with a marble front porch – both things he had seen on TV. He said some other stuff that didn’t make sense, and still more we couldn’t understand at all, but it was a better visit than we’ve had in awhile.
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The sun is shining, so there is a good chance that I’ll get my laundry in dry later. I’m particularly glad to get all my towels dry for the coming weather and leaks.
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Do you have something fun planned to do today? I can’t decide between painting another sketch, reading, or working on the jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I’ll do some of ALL of those! Have a wonderful day.
“Celebrating my life for everything that it is” includes being grateful that I can visit my husband, hug and kiss him, tell him I’m glad to see him, and be happy that he’s not hurting, even though he wasn’t cooperating with the nurse on taking his medicines and made little sense when we visited today.
It also includes the fact that on the way home from the visit, we went to an arts and crafts store called, “Chunya Art & Craft” where everything in the store was handmade by the owner/artist.
I bought two things: a handmade notebook and a tablecloth.
The photo doesn’t do the notebook justice. The painting on the front is very subtle, but shows an elephant with a beautiful cloth on his back walking in dense jungle of green, blue and purple. The rope that ties the pages together is done in an intricate, lacy pattern that allows you to open the book, lay it flat. I thinks it’s wonderful.
The tablecloth is batik. The card that came with it says, “Each piece of Batik painting has a unique feel as a result of endless combinations of the dye coloring., wax effects, the fabric typs, and most importantly the story-telling of love and joy we want to pass on. Hope you love our Batik!” – Nisa C. Tanakorn.
I think it’s a work of art. I LOVE the way it brightens up the whole end of the room.
The owner/artist of the shop could not have been nicer to us. She answered questions and was honestly thrilled I was so happy with my purchases. I can’t recommend her shop more highly. I left a review with pictures on Google Maps that I hope will send more appreciative customers her way.
I’m getting my place ready for my housekeeper to come tomorrow. I’ve changed the sheets, will change out the towels and empty the trash, trying not to leave a mess (other than my puzzle table, where there is only so much I can do to neaten it up.)
I’ve been sketching, working on the puzzle a bit, and reading, since I haven’t been able to get to my computer until now because it was in the middle of doing an upgrade. It turned out that it didn’t work the way it should and Brian said he would try to get it to work again later.
This has been a good day. We’ll share some dinner soon and then I’ll enjoy listening to music on YouTube. I like it that I can use the remote on my TV to request music by people I like or want to hear for the first time, just relaxing with my headphones so I don’t bother anyone. 😁
I just love Tina Ann’s artwork and sense of fun. I just can’t find enough of her work to satisfy me. 😃
My day has been a bit of a mixed bag. It started out with my feeling woozy with low blood pressure and opting out of my gym workout, to be closely followed by POURING rain and some leakage of my windows, necessitating towels and my bucket. I did my laundry and set up to have it dry on the rack inside. I then rested.
Now I’m feeling fine, my blood pressure is almost perfect on half of my BP pill, and the sun came out, causing me to move my drying rack out onto the balcony. I’ll watch closely to see if the weather changes….
Brian and I are at work on getting an image of the finished owl puzzle printed on glass by a company called FractureMe.com who made the wonderful image of my dad’s painting Brian got me as a housewarming present for my new place.
My idea is to do this for each of the puzzles I finish and put the glass images on the shelf in my living area with the painting my dad did as the centerpiece of the display. I love the idea of my vision growing and making a special statement. I took a pic of the owl puzzle earlier and sent it to Brian. He said it sucked (not in those words) and will take a better image for this project when he comes to my place later.
I’m going to concentrate on doing some sketches this afternoon. While I was typing this, though, I was distracted by birds singing their hearts out outside my window. I hadn’t heard them before and now CAN – because of my new hearing aids! What a delight!!!!!
(By the way. although each of us is different, if you’re in the market for help with your hearing, the brand I settled on is Oticon Intent 3. I love them because they are so comfortable I forget I’m wearing them. (an example of this is that I started to put my headphones on the other night to listen to YouTube on top of my hearing aids!) They have rechargeable batteries, so I take them off and put them in the charger until I want them again. There is a phone app so I can adjust them to suit conditions, making them louder or softer or using the ‘voice boost’ feature – when I’m needing to quiet the background noises. End of commercial. 😂
I hope that you’re having a wonderful day or evening, depending on where you are and that you’re finding beautiful things to enjoy.
I showed you the painting I chose as the first art for my condo. I looked up Kaew to find out more about the artist. I love supporting local people, and I fell in love with this painting.
“My name is Saengkaew Bongkotmat, but you can call me “Kaew” which you will see signed on all the paintings. I was born in Krabi province, Thailand on August 22, 1975. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education technology and I studied art as a minor, also. I like painting when I was young. After University, I worked in business, but was not happy. I was making money but not finding fulfillment in my work. Because of the unhappiness in my business life. I returned to painting full-time about 10 years ago, and discovered that this is really me. I began selling my art at the Chiang Mai Night Market, and now have a gallery and art shop in The Old City. Art is my passion and now my full-time job. My goal is to capture Thai culture in the style of my paintings. I intend to continue my best artistic work, and improve my painting.“
I think maybe it was his wife who packaged the painting for us so well. This is a small family shop exquisitely arranged to grab your interest and delight the senses the minute you enter.
Brian and I discussed where to hang the painting. I immediately chose what I thought was the perfect spot on the wall behind the sofa, where the wall has a section with the same rectangular shape. Brian thought the hanger wasn’t as secure as we would like, and so switched it to the spot where I posted the pics. (He then said THAT hanger wasn’t very secure, either.)
One of the things keeping me up last night was the placement of my very first purchased original painting. Today I have moved the painting to the spot I think is where it should live – celebrating the beauty of the busy, robust, creative, and colorful Thailand street.
Kaew captured one of the many things I love about Chiang Mai. I smile each time I raise the shades showing my wonderful views of the buildings and the streets and shops below. Now I have an original artist’s creation on my wall where I can celebrate the country and its people – shades up or down!
After our errands this morning, my son asked me which art gallery I would like to visit. I chose a place named Kaew Gallery, which is near the old part of the city. I had looked at their website, seen several photos of the type of products they sell, and decided I would love to see them in person.
True to their photos, the shop was beautifully laid out with souvenirs, post cards, prints, jewelry, and more, but the main focus was on original art. My mind was boggled on the first pass through, so I gathered my impressions and was determined to take a more careful look the second time.
My son helped me up some pretty steep stairs (for me), and was I glad he did! A painting simply jumped off the wall and into my heart. It was a delicious blend of all the bustle in Chiang Mai, electrical wires strung across buildings and streets, flags and signs, the street crowded with vendors and vehicles – all the things I find fascinating about Chiang Mai, all painted in black and white.
The painting was a vertical rectangle. The bottom third of the painting was the part that captured my heart. Colors simply leaped from the canvas, bringing the city to even more life, adding the human element to this beautiful city. There were a couple of similar paintings on the first floor, but the rectangular shape was perfect for me.
The painting was apparently done by Kaew, the owner of the shop. I’m not sure if she was one of the nice ladies who helped us today, but we couldn’t have gotten better customer service. One lady took payment while the other carefully wrapped our painting so that we could carry it in the trunk of the Grab we called.
Brian helped me figure out where to hang the painting – my first really personal pick for MY place. It makes me happy every time I look at it.
I have been in Thailand about 2-1/2 months now. We have had a whirlwind of activity with my husband’s health, moving to my condo, changing out the furniture, figuring out all the details we needed to do every day in order to get our lives going here.
Now things are finally taming down. There are still a LOT of details to be handled, and we are doing these the best we can, but our day to day lives have begun to settle into a routine now, and I’m embracing that new life.
Our typical day now looks like this –
I get up at 5am to get ready to go to the gym with Brian and walk on the treadmill while he runs. We walk back, shower, and then share breakfast and discuss if there is anything we need to accomplish that day. Three times a week that includes half the day going to visit Harvey at the nursing home, making sure he is okay, comfortable, and as content as possible. Many other days, though, we don’t have anything that we can do from our list.
Brian is trying to do more work, since expenses of taking in both of his parents – particularly the hospital/nursing home surprise – is a bit hard to handle. So, if we don’t have anything scheduled, he goes off to work and we then share dinner.
This means he is free to concentrate on doing well for his clients, and I am free to do whatever I would like to do with my day.
Today I spent quite a bit of time in my art alcove.
I love spending time here. I thought I would grieve at having given up all my carefully collected art stuff, but I’m concentrating on trying to learn how to draw what I see better. I keep these in the big fat sketchbook you see here. I have regular pencils, colored pencils, and watercolors. I am choosing pictures I like from the net, particularly YouTube and Pinterest, and trying to reproduce them the best way I can. I’m having SUCH a good time trying. I don’t feel pressured to produce anything for sale. (Thank goodness!) I can simply enjoy the process of trying to draw and paint something for the sheer joy of it, wiling away the hours with a grin on my face. I’m also making small paintings for my housekeeper each week, thanking her for her work, and for my new ‘grandson’ who loves dinosaurs.
I’m always in the middle of a good book, too. The current one is another Nora Roberts book. I can’t believe I’ve missed any because she is probably my favorite author right now, but I’m delighted to dive into anything she has written.
I am trying to balance my walking on the treadmill in the morning with yoga stretches in the afternoon or evening. I’ve been doing these stretches for a long time, but they are especially useful in times when I develop mysterious old lady problems, like the grabbing pain in my back last week, that need to be carefully stretched out to heal.
I, of course, spend time on the blog. If I’m not actively writing a post, I’m researching things to find to share with you. There are so many talented people in our world, and I’m delighted to be able to share their work with you.
I also take time to stare at my jigsaw puzzle. It’s a really good thing that I’m not feeling any pressure to get it done. I find that I’m much slower than I used to be. This “owls” puzzle is difficult, and I may die of old age before it’s finished. That’s okay, too, because I love taking a few minutes here and there to see if I can make some progress.
Last night Brian downloaded Family Tree Maker software for me. We had it for years in the states. Now I have my data attached to it again, and I can spend lots of time seeing old photos, remembering things about relatives, learning new things about people related to us, but I didn’t actually know. I find it fascinating.
In the middle of the afternoon, if I don’t contact him first, Brian texts me, asking if I’m okay and if I want him to order a coffee for me. Imagine that! Today I got a cold chocolate mocha coffee that was delivered to the condo building table downstairs. Brian texted me the order number, and I went downstairs, retrieved it, came back to my place and slurped it. What a difficut life I have!🤪
We share dinner, talk awhile, and then hit the hay because 5am the next morning comes quickly.
And that’s our new routine. I’m studying some Thai language tapes, trying to learn some very basic phrases. I will be able to learn more quickly, I hope, when we see the last hearing aid people and I get some hearing aids. (Trying to reproduce a sound when you can’t hear it accurately isn’t quite a waste of time, but close to it.)
More plans in the works as we get more details settled.
This is part of my beautiful room in Laos. This hotel was really well run. The people were friendly and helpful, and great places were within walking distance of the hotel.
We went to the hospital today, as usual. Sadly, Harvey didn’t recognize us. He was sitting in a chair, though, when we came into the room. A therapist was there with mental and physical small ‘games’ to work on verbal skills, hand-eye coordination, emphasizing use of his left, or weaker, hand. Then the big muscle physical therapists came in and took over, doing all kinds of chair exercises, then helping him walk down the hall with an aide on either side and a ‘belt’ for them to use to make sure everything went well. He walked down the hall to the therapy room and did more exercises. He was pooped when he returned to the room and slept through lunch. He has real trouble standing up straight and holding his head up.
We left about 3pm. Brian cheered me up, taking us to an art store in the mall. We got a big sketch book full of paper, two regular pencils and an eraser, and a plastic container of 24 colored pencils. I’m planning to use some of my time trying to draw some of the simpler ‘learn to draw’ images on Pinterest, as well as YouTube videos. I want to just work on it every time I get a chance, just delighting in the act of trying to create an image, rather than worrying about the result. I may fill all the pages of the sketch book and toss it in the trash, replacing it with another to try again until I show some improvement. It will be a joy. 😊
While we were out, we crossed the street from the mall and went to a church type building that was filled with shops. It was quite lovely, with way too much to see in one walk-through. We stopped at a coffee shop and both got citrus-y cold coffees, perfect for the temperature outside.
Brian will be here soon with a salad he’s ordering for us to go with the roasted chicken chunks and fruit we have left over from yesterday. YUM!
We are narrowing down the options for a nursing home for Harvey. We have two main candidates that look good so far. We plan on getting some more answers from each of them and then will probably go visit very soon.
Closing on the condo has been moved to Wednesday, cutting the timing really short. I’m supposed to check out of the air bnb on Thursday, so it the closing doesn’t go as we hope, I may be asking for people to pay me to STOP singing on the street in order to get another air bnb hopefully in the same building until I CAN move.
As you come to visit, there is a decoration we made attached to the mailbox at the bottom of our driveway. Right now, it’s Yosemite Sam. We have made 34 decorations in our shop, choosing favorite cartoon characters and holiday decorations.
Our robot welcomes you, doffing his hat and grinning. You can see one of the owls behind him. (We have one on either side of the driveway.)
Here’s a close-up of them.
About halfway up the driveway, our flying pig hung from a strong line over the driveway. The huge branch AND the pig came down in a storm. The pig is now in our shop, waiting for me to refurbish him. We’ll bolt him to one of the big boulders beside the driveway, so it looks like he’s about to take flight.
Meet our guard dog. He’s ready to defend us from harm.
This crow is on the other side, at about the same level as the guard dog, watching everyone who drives up.
Toward the top of the driveway is our sun face. He weighs a LOT and was really hard to attach to the tree.
Below the sun face on the same side is our turkey, made from an old propane bottle and scrap metal.
This turtle sits beside the turkey. We didn’t make this, but I painted his shell.
And there you have it. You have almost reached the house. You might have missed the signs on trees, “Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out,”“Trespassers Will Be Shot. Survivors Will Be Shot Again,” and “Trespassers will be composted.”
Welcome to the Lewises! We’ll continue introducing you to other ‘critters’ another time.
We’ve just had lunch. I’m heading up to work in the art room for awhile, making presents for good friends and relatives. I’m in the middle of a new book, and then I’m planning for a nap before it’s time to
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