ellenspictures

Category: Grandparents

an eight-pound sledgehammer for Mother’s Day – who said that I’m typical?

The call from my grandson started me out today – waking up suddenly, realizing that the phone was going off – but always, I love these FaceTime visits – just watching him, amazed at his rapid growth, and how fast he moves around – his saying “da-da-da-da-da” plus a thousand other sounds that are his baby babble – the baby language – understandable to themselves and other babies (my theory) – the cacophony of developing language within the baby human’s skill set at age 9 months… delightful!

He has discovered cars and blocks, already playing with these little toy cars, knowing that they roll – his skills at doing this are not quite there yet, but he gets it – what they are going to do – and blocks – exploring every shape – picking them up, then delightedly throwing them down! How wonderful to watch – I long to be there with him, but recognize that life is complicated for everyone and the daily routines consume everyone’s interests and priorities over seeing grandma who lives in another place at a distance. Thank goodness for technology!

My sweet husband cooked a beautiful brunch, and he plus our big fuzzy dog got me cards to open – we drank bubbly and enjoyed the time – making a plan for the rest of the afternoon, my husband suggested visiting my younger son’s resting place after grabbing a Starbucks coffee – the routine we do – I have done – since Rob passed on in 2005. It does not really get easier, but it changes in character, this visiting.

We took a tour of Wal-Mart and two big-box hardware stores in search of a big hammer (we ended up with an 8 pounder!) – and another steel plate, plus some alligator clips to mount onto some cable to mount onto a block which I can use to hold things while soldering or working on them – my husband is a clever craftsman and knows some tricks!

I proudly told the check-out guy that my Mother’s Day gift was an eight-pound sledge hammer! He looked at me and said something like “how sad!” Well, I didn’t think it was sad… I wanted that big hammer for making my mixed media wearables – some aspects of which do require pounding!

We met a young artist in the garden section who complimented my necklace – I told her I made these – and she asked about the constituents… We conversed, and when my husband asked her how much she would pay for one of those, she said, “I’m a bargain hunter. I’d try to pay about $15-$20 bucks…” OUCH! The time and sweat that goes into these is probably worth about five times that; sad to see things so cheaply discounted because of wide availability over the Internet – it sounds like you have to really understand marketing online to be any measure successful in this – which I am not sure I really want to pursue. But one day, I will have to move these out –

Right now, I am building inventory – making gifts for friends, and also for potential showing – and learning new things – and it beats the heck out of working on the same things all the time!

But back to Mother’s Day – I miss my Mom, and my Grandma Ellen – they were those people that my natural inclination was to honor and buy gifts and of course, they were those mothers in my life – then there were other mothers that had a lot of influence, too… I can’t forget them… Too many to mention here… I love you all.

For now, Barbie, Caroline Howard, and my other mothers are those who come to my mind… I’m just on that boat of looking out there on the sea of life – Today, I pay special tribute to my friend in Canada who recently lost her daughter – and is now even more of a mother to her grand-children than ever… Bless her for her strength and courage…

May 8, 2016
Thanksgiving…

No matter how hard your life is, or what has happened, it is a day that we say “thanks” for everything that we have that is good. We celebrate with food, friends, sometimes family, and sometimes the family comes before friends (not in some of my extended family, in their case, mostly, the friends are more important). So, we have people we know who need to be with others, together, to celebrate.

When my grandmother was still around, and even my mom, it was a “default” to gather with family. I think that this set of constructs seems to have faded. I don’t even get invited about half the time by that side of my family. Their priorities are different and involve friends, mainly – and first degree relatives – despite that we are by comparison, an extremely small family – just a handful of us left… There is always something more important like a football game, or some other event… the likes of this would make my grandmother roll-over in her grave, seriously, but then, she has been gone for many years… and I am sure that somewhere, as she fades back in memories, somehow, the importance of family is brought forward… no thoughts as to how that plays out… Usually, when someone gets sick or dies – well, even that isn’t really something that might sustain visiting or building stronger relationships – it is what it is.

At our Thanksgiving celebrations of the past, when asked to say prayers, my Dad would always launch into a rambling prayer, truly from his heart… On one occasion, he asked my cousin, Susan, to say a prayer and she, being caught off-guard, and being a young teen, pretty much giggled herself into a mess – my Dad, picking back up the conversation with God to ask for continued grace, and moving us along to the meal. On another occasion, it was at the Thanksgiving table that I bit into one of my Grandmother’s famous watermelon pickles and felt the first twinge of pain that signaled a case of mumps that I had to endure over the next few days – more like ten – when I was in first grade…

And then, there was the Thanksgiving after Rob’s birth – just a few days following – with my post-partum perspective, just having given birth to a child who required immediate emergency surgery to repair a lethal birth defect, who lay in a Neo-natal intensive care unit forty-five minutes away from our house – it was hard to scrounge up “thanks” – but I did, at least, thank God for letting our baby at least have a chance at life – not knowing the rocky road ahead…

At any rate, we try to keep traditions where we can, and make new ones where old ones seem to fade away. It’s about distance, of time and relationships, and how we seem to live now — alienated, sometimes, as we go through our day to day lives… Our focus is more immediate. We seem to be thankful when reminded about our gifts by hearing of some loss that others have suffered, or some travesty that someone we know is enduring at present – God’s little reminders, I guess…

But each Thanksgiving, there will be the feast, and friends, and some family – and we will toast to our blessings… This is how it is… and how it will be…

This year our Thanksgiving was good – with my remaining first degree family, and some good friends – and it was different, but we were thankful for our gifts – and the food on the table… and asked for grace for the future…

December 6, 2014
oh gosh how come life has so many problems to solve?

i am generating content in word to try out the feature of copy/pasting from word to wordpress. will see how it goes. first of all, word corrects my lower case. i have to go back in and put it all to lower case. problem to solve no. 1 – told ya.

then the day the way it went, it was this happening, that happening, and out of control things that need to be managed. it’s okay it is just life. no stressin’ be as ready as you can whenever.

do we ever get to relax? let’s see. we had those issues to solve on vacation. this or that, but nonetheless, the beaten path to the place to ask for help.

would things go smoothly? would we have a gift of something going right come to us once in awhile. old cars. please don’t break on me. our bodies not cooperating. please don’t do this to me. ah the aging process does change things. clip clop, tick tock. ding!

now we heard today about experiments where they might be able to take your cells and regenerate your organs from old cells. wow. just like getting parts for the car. well not quite.

as my grandmother would say, “oh my, oh my…” when she heard about something modern and magical. cars, television, telephones, and… she never witnessed a cell phone. computers she had heard about, but these were not today’s computer in the palm of your hand combined with your telephone that provides a george jetson kind of picture of the person that you are talking with if you want to… no, that was the stuff that was on tv in those futuristic programs and she did not think of those as reality.

but today, what would she think? i think she would love the social networking, but maybe not use it except to see pictures of people she knows or exchange niceties. she was always polite, mostly, and very well educated in the social graces. she went to finishing school. solving problems in her day was not much different to now except for maybe the technology that did not exist. i miss my grandmother.

i miss my mom. i miss my dad. i miss my grandpa.

modern problems are old problems with a modern hat.

my aunt dorothy was given a great gift for her 80^th birthday – a hat. dorothy was an amazing woman, accomplished in ways that made being with her a very enriching experience. i miss her.

January 26, 2014