NEVER TRY TO BE A TECHNO GEEK AT 1 TO 3AM. IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT. I was looking at the shots that Michael took at the car races yesterday that he will send to the newspaper he shoots for and tried to put them in files or folders or whatever that I used to do so smoothly on my pc but not so smoothly on my laptop. wellllll....when I put the SD card back in the camera the photos are gone! I did not... delete, I repeat, I DID NOT DELETE. What the heck happened to them? Luckily they are on my laptop but still..what did I do? I didn't sleep a wink. I burned a dvdrw from the ones on the laptop so hopefully this will be good... I am not a techy person...obviously.I am a  "learn while you goof it up" type of person!

Threadbare First Marriages

I've just meandered through a couple of blogs tonite and soaked up some inspiration. One about making hexies for quilting and how not to become 'undone' by the word quilt  and another blog about threadbare and nearly departed tea towels that we can not ever seem to let rest in piece~so to speak. The third blog was a really nice story about the past when some of us of an age can remember being freshly in love and penniless...so as to enjoy our meager surroundings.
My memories come to life when I see the skeletons of my tea towels.  I still put them into use although, now,  they are unable to soak up any liquid to quench their once insatiable thirst. 'Those bare threads are the sinews of strong women in the kitchen.' But I still use them because they remind me of the long ago...the very long ago when I was first married and I adored being a housewife.  We had very limited income..very limited.  I sent away for a computerized (one of the first back in 1971) list of recipes for a month spending $10 a week for food to feed two to three people three balanced meals a day.  It was from the Hunt's Tomato Sauce Company. I still make those recipes and they are delicious. No way could I buy all those ingredients for $10 a week in this day and age. I remember taking my grocery list and pad and pencil to the grocery store with me each week and I would round up the price of each item I placed in the cart so that I could make it just under $10 so that I could perhaps have a couple dollars left over to buy a magazine or a little basket.  What excitement I would have hurriedly putting those groceries away so I could sit down and day dream into a new decorating magazine.  It felt delightful like cheating on your diet with a cookie and hiding in the closet to eat it. I miss those feelings of really getting excited over very simple pleasures and making a little tiny efficiency apartment feel like a grand home.

I decorated with an old quilt as a table cloth and hung the baskets that I was able to squeak into the budget.  Since we didn't have any furniture to speak of I painted the walls of the living room a beautiful deep ochre and the dining room nook a burnt rust color...those colors warmed up the apartment and made us feel like we had more furniture than we did.  I laid beautiful scarves that I used to wear on my head over the lamp shades in the bedroom area.  I hung pretty stationary box lids as art on the walls and sometimes painted my own very folk artsy portraits. I hung beads in the doorways and the windows (it was the '70's of course) and I put my pastas and flour and sugar in mayonnaise jars with hand painted lids.  When I couldn't afford wallpaper I stenciled my hallway wall with a block print that my English best friend helped me make from spare wood we found and layered cardboard. We didn't follow any instructions from a book~ we just made it up...me being creative with nothingness and her being a former art teacher from Darlington. Those empty pocket days were a creative time for young homemakers.  

Tumbling

our cousin in southern indiana said that they will soon be losing the old family home.
"yes, he said, there are many, many memories in that house but that is life and the way it happens"

       I wonder.....are memories in a house just sitting there upright waiting ~ like dominos~one falls forward and all the rest tumble across your mind?

Time Traveller

I am a time voyager...I travel almost every day, researching family lines. The past..why do I search? Perhaps it holds truths to the present and future. I wonder about the people that ate off the antique plates and stirred with the spoons that are stored in my cupboards ~I wonder about the lips that have touched the glasses and cups that I use every day~ I strain to listen, hoping to catch a faint ghostly uttering of what was discussed over the mashed potatoes and gravy boat so long ago. I wonder if the creak I hear in this old chair is the same creak my great grandmother heard under her long, black skirt or if she found the tick tock of her old kitchen mantel clock as soothing as I do. I wonder about how it felt to live in that big old farmhouse when it was first built and I realize that nothing in these old trunks smelled musty when they were newly tucked away. It makes me long for the past~ to briefly be in the presence of my ancestors~just for a little while to get the feel of their lives. Did they ever wonder about me? I feel I know them~I stare at their photos, I lie awake at night and imagine them moving about in their daily lives. I search through old photos and hope that I will perhaps someday have a revelation about the identity of the nameless faces that have been kept boxed for over 100 years. Many long hours are spent endlessly researching with cousins and newly found friends as we passionately seek the secrets of our family ties..some things we find we just keep to ourselves...too complicated to tell the others~too hurtful to tell some~relationships too overwhelmingly complex to share in a short email with relatives that just don't have the time to take it all in. And then there are some stories that are just truly myths, but have been so believed for so long that we will never have the heart to dispel. Yes, I travel to the past in my mind.

Chair Fixation

New chairs...oh the thrill of it all. 14 months ago I purchased new chairs for the tiny living room...they were leopard print and you had to sit straight up and at attention...not so comfortable...so moved them out and about to other rooms...now found some relaxing chairs...much better fit. We already had the funky high heel chairs from long ago...KennyRogersLookAlikeBeforeThePlasticSurgeryWentWrong loves these new ones...he says though that I have a mass collection of chairs to match the mass collection of pillows that are tucked away in bins...which I do but you can never have enough chairs and pillows..(don't know the reasoning behind this statement, but it sounded good when I typed it...

Easter Eve

I've gone off chocolate and jelly beans as last year I ate so many jelly beans I broke out in hives! Now Chocolate is giving me headaches and not tasting so good to me anymore. I usually boil and color Easter eggs but I haven't done that this year either..too busy working in the yard and spring cleaning the house. But that is a good thing and I will think about what Easter is all about on Easter Day, appreciating all the nature around me, while I am with someone close to me named Easterday! Now, that being said, I have shamed myself into putting the pot to boil..

Driving to work...random thoughts. All three of those cars turned right without stopping at the red light..they didn't have an arrow..does one doing it make it right? The Beavers make a dam and the humans have to tear it down...over and over...but what can we do..we can't reason with them to stop the madness. The woman that just passed me in that car had her hair so taut and had such a firm expression on her face it made her look like a middle aged man. The geese are pairing up...will have little goslings around soon and more green poopy. Talked to my friend on the phone right through the scheduled tornado drill at 7:30pm. Was I supposed to practice running to the basement? uh oh The whole moon is reflected in a lake and also in a drop of water. The Universe can be very big or very small...depends on where you are in it. And how big or small you are. We may be seeing all of it and don't know it.