Tuesday, May 31, 2016

BIRTHDAY BLAST

My grand daughter, aka Monkey Girl turned 9 on Sunday.  Her Mom planned an Art Birthday Party with a cookout, water balloons, family and fun!  The weather report was predicting thunderstorms, of course, during her outdoor party, but that did not prevent everyone from attending and celebrating!

I love this yearly celebration!  The party was held at my Daughter in Law's parents house, which is wonderful since they live high on a hill with a nice big yard, plenty of yard and space and her family.  I happen to LOVE my Son's in-laws - they are awesome and a perfect fit!  We are fortunate, my parents families did not inter-mingle and I think it is much better when everyone gets along - much more like family should be!

My young grandson handled the excitement of the day and all of the faces of people he knows, but you could tell he was confused since we were not in our usual surroundings.  I had to keep taking my glasses off so he could recognize me, and I don't think he recognized Thomas without his hood over his head - since that is how we are at home where he is used to seeing us!

My eldest son manned the charcoal grill to feed all of us.  He did a pretty good job too, the burgers and hot dogs were just right and the salads were delicious.  Kids ran and played, adults sat under the shade of the big tree and caught up with the happenings.

After lunch, the water balloons came out.  My daughter in law, Lisa, had 200 water balloons!!!  The question one has to ask is, are there ever enough water balloons?  I don't know who had more fun - the kids or the adult kids!!!

I was minding my own business, watching Lisa's brother fill up the balloons - she had purchased those balloons where there are a bunch of them on fillers banded and you attach them to the hose and boom - you have multiple balloons ready to go!  As I was curiously watching the filling - a balloon came from no where and I got soaked!!!!

No one was safe - except for my Mom and Herb - I don't think anyone would have dared bomb them! Someone gave my grandson a filled balloon which he played with for a few minutes curiously, until it popped all over him!  It was so hot out that he didn't even seem to mind.

Presents came after the balloon fight and it is always fun to see Monkey Girl with presents!  She is so funny.  She got a wide array of toys, clothes and art supplies.  That girl has more Shopkins than anyone on the planet - and how she yelled when she got a pack of the newest season!!

As promised - the rumble of thunder began around 1:00 and the party was on until 2:00.  We got organized opening Canvas, brushes and paints and then decided to be on the safe side to go inside with the painting part of the party.  The girls got busy and the boys decided that wasn't there thing.

I had procured a ride with my middle son, who was not feeling well that day.  He still came and tried to be a good sport about it - by 2:00 he was very green around the gills, so we had to depart before getting a piece of the Cheeseburger Cake - which was just cake shaped like a cheeseburger (in case you are thinking a cake made out of Burger).

I was beat when we got home.  A great time was had by all, or most any way.  After a quick visit with my son and his Dad, Thomas and I decided to go watch some "Lost" since it is our latest binge watch - and before you knew it we were both snoring.  A couple of hours (three episodes by the Netflix count) I woke up feeling better - I love naps!

I didn't get a piece of cake - I was hoping they would drop some off (not that I needed it!)  All in all it was a great time and it reminds me of just how quickly time flies, watching my Grand daughter grow from a little peanut in a car seat to a beautiful, fun, sassy and delightful young girl.

Declan will be celebrating his first birthday in one month and with any luck - we will be celebrating it in their first home (if the bank ever mails the contract!!)  Fingers crossed that goes through soon -


Monday, May 30, 2016

HEALING AND GROWING

As my grand daughter said, I have many hobbies and one of my winter projects was taking the one runt green pepper plant that survived the year of the hate garden as I am now naming it.  As you know, nothing grows from hate - this little leftover plant that survived is testament of what happens when you turn that hate back into love.

My bedroom is on the second floor of the apartment I rent.  The upstairs is so hot, even without the radiator turned on that I have to have a fan going just to be able to sleep.  I can't open the window because it is the home of all of my plants that need to be kept warm in the winter, and for some reason air doesn't draft in on its own.

If you have read any of my blogs, you may recall that I enjoy trying new things,and besides the pepper plant I have rooted and potted two pineapple plants in dirt.  I have another ready to go into dirt and a fourth which I am rooting and will not be ready for dirt for about a year.  I hear that it is tricky and I have learned a couple of tricks by trial and error to make these happen.

I have one for each year that my son has been married to his wife and since it takes seven years before you get a fruit (if you are lucky) the first one should spit one out when my nine year old grand daughter is a senior in high school.  I grow them for her, she loves pineapple.  I hope that when I am gone she will still have the first pineapple plant that we planted.

Another thing I have been experimenting with are avocados - to have the patience to get a pit to root and get it to survive to the dirt stage is tricky.  I have managed to grow three to date - the one I planted last fall spit out a twin - I doubt we will ever get a fruit off of it, but they are very pretty little trees and I can't wait to see them develop either!

All winter I water and nurse these and a few aloe, spider and one orchid which I finally got one of those air roots after a year of waiting - not sure how long those take to grow and spit out flowers - fingers crossed!

My little runt of a pepper plant with nice sunlight lived among the others, growing from one container into another - growing strong - flowering and already a pepper I did pick in the beginning of May!!!  It is now in a big container and is a big bush which encountered it's first rainstorm this evening and is still doing well!

It gave me hope to plant some other seeds and soon I had 8 green bean plants which inspired me to grow the jalapeno seeds, which should be big enough to put in there own little pots soon enough, now that the Sun has blessed us with it's warmth and light!

I thought books took up much room - plants take up more!  I have acquired two more aloe and a nice fuzzy succulents and a rubber tree plant, along with a fern type plant as well.  My spider plants are not only spitting out babies, they also have split and the three pots each have 2 to 4 plants which need to be potted - gardening takes up a couple of hours of time a day, which makes me feel really good.

With any luck we will be eating veggies all year since I decided to grow in containers and if I have anything to say about it WILL maintain a few of these plants as long as they will bear me fruit - who knows?!?  My bedroom is a green house any way - so to speak.

Here is to gardening, science and green thumbs, and oh yeah the glorious Sun!!


Wednesday, May 25, 2016

SPRING - REBIRTH?!!??

Happy Spring!!!

We finally have had more than rain, with a bit of sun and warm temperatures the past couple of days.  I was getting worried.  I still am not confident enough to leave my little seedlings out on the porch over night, even with the windows closed so I have been transporting them to and fro.

I am excited.  After last year when I wished my garden wouldn't grow out of hate and spite for the person I was "supposedly" growing it with, but like that farce, my garden shriveled before it even began.  It really didn't have one iota of a chance.

I was too busy any way with my Dad fracturing his pelvis and being in a Nursing Home for a couple of months and me springing him daily with his wheelchair and taking many road trips around the county and neighboring states.

Scoping out artists, going to shows, curating shows, I am thankful to have had the winter to settle in, maybe a little too comfortably, to my own life which is wonderful without any enhancements, but you know me, I am all about making each day as good as possible, even and especially when it is not a good day.

I did dabble in a couple of Art shows over the winter to ease the pain of my exile.  Thanks to Sean Mc Cusker and Scott Cooper - each of them seemed to know and call on me just when I was getting ready to say Fuck Art and fuck everything.

I had already missed Fall because I was wishing for the seclusion.  Of actually having a reason not to leave the house.  I was in such a hurt and angry place.  All winter long I wrestled with demons which were not mine, trying to cope with such cruel and unusual treatment from people whom I expected nothing from, but got a whole pile of shit to deal with just from that.  I am not ashamed to say that I was hurt beyond comprehension but not as hurt as I have ever been in my life, so it was nothing really.

Real is real.  I did my best to contain my negative feelings at such snobbish and rude behavior and not say one word.  Overlooking the looks which were so familiar in my childhood and school days was not so easy.  Pain is pain! I did quite well holding my tongue, keeping my evil in check.  But how I missed writing!!  Unable to put a word to paper has been the most tragic of things.

Last week I actually said I wasn't going to write for another year at least, but alas, I am a liar.  For some reason today what I want got shoved out of the way.  I am surprised.  I have looked at a blank page every day for all of this time, tried, and walked away.  Unable to write another day!!  How very wonderful for me!!!  Hip, hip, hooray!!

Seriously, though, I am digging having some more balance restored.  Since I have been away, so many changes have taken place, aside from my self imposed hibernation and alienation as I try to make myself want to leave my home and my comfort zone.

My little bubble.  What a grand place.  I forgot how nice it is here.  Surrounded by all of my lovely life, on the shelves and walls, echoing throughout the years, good and bad.  Some objects make me smile and some produce tears.  They are mine and not to be taken lightly, my storers of memories I no longer remember.  Ripped out of my head like they never even happened.  Too painful to recall, these objects ARE me.

They wrap me in security and peace.  Like talisman and charms.  Each book, each page turned by my hand at some point in my long life of reading.  The first book I wrote my name in for the first time, all crooked and scrawling across the cover.  The beginning.

Today I sit in peace.  The sun has seeped most of the hate and anger out of me.  A few more days I may be good.  I will probably not even notice it's departure.  I for one will be happy for it to leave me.  One negative breeds one hundred in no time.  Negative equals cancer in my book - a death sentence to be sure, one step down the rabbit hole and it is a long climb back up!!

I have been keeping busy since "I have a lot of interests" as Monkey Girl pointed out on her last visit. She is correct.  I do, and I have picked up another one thanks to her.  Actually, her 9th Birthday Party to be more specific.

She always has the most amazing themed birthday parties.  Her Mom makes the most amazing desserts and is very creative in the decorating arena.  This year she is having an Art Party.  I had nothing to do with the idea of it, but I am sure that I influenced it, as she has influenced me by being my little Art Muse who got me started creating again,  I was excited when she told me!

She wanted to paint on canvas so I called dibs on Canvas supplying.  I knew they would spend a fortune on Canvas alone, forget everything else.  I went to one of my Art Supply Catalogs and was delighted to see that the more you purchased the less it was, so I ordered 20 - more than enough for the party since there are always more adults than kids and I am not sure how many of those adults would even participate, besides me and Tom (of course).

So you would think 20 would be enough, but when you are me, and I am, you have to play. I have wanted to paint on canvas for more than 30 years but I am a coward.  I admit it.  I paint on paper, I paint ceramics, I draw, I write, but it took my little Monkey Girl to give me the nudge I needed, that is what Muse's do - isn't it?

Needless to say, one fine Friday evening Tom, Ains (aka Monkey Girl) and I were having a sleepover and after baking some cookies after dinner we broke out the Canvas and the paint and the jar of brushes, made up some palates out of plastic lids and got some water to clean our brushes and we painted.  It was so much fun!!

So much so that the next morning after our traditional Pancake breakfast we painted some more.  A couple of days later Tom got me sitting down painting some more and then we got my Dad painting a couple of weeks after that!

Needless to say I had to order more canvas, so I ordered a bunch more and a whole huge set of paints which also came with some 4X4 canvas, which were a lot of fun to do as well.  I was running out of craft paint and there was a 58% off sale which was just what the doctor ordered.  The party is Sunday, so I can't wait!!!  If all of my negativity hasn't left me by then, that day will surely sweep the rest of it away!  I am looking forward to it!!

Now that I have written my first "normal" blog post in over a  year - and not even touching the tip of the iceberg - it is time for me to save some for another day - a nice fudge sundae cup awaits my attention.

Peace