violetismycolor

Illo Friday...envy...

***click on illo to enlarge***

I love Gustav Klimt.  Our little lady loves Klimt, too and is envious of both his style and his subjects...she would love to find 'love' like that...

Thanks to all of you who have sent me cheer-up wishes on the death of my dog, Barley.  He was suffering from bone cancer and it suddenly erupted into a bloody mess the day that Adam came home.  ( I had said that I thought he was just waiting for Adam, and apparently I was right.) Yesterday, we sent Barley home to heaven and are thankful that he is no longer in pain, but it was horribly painful for us.  We miss him, already...

Photo Friday...symbol...

For Photo Friday, (***click for a larger view***) I decided to use a stained glass window from the little town of Luss in Scotland, home of my husband's ancestors.  This window has the family crest, so very symbolic.  My children loved this when they were in Scotland.

Fitting also, because sadly, today is the day that our dog, who has bone cancer is going to be sent to heaven.  We are all incredibly sad to lose him, but we don't want him to be in pain, anymore.

IF...aquatic...

***click for a larger view***

Yep, there she is...our mermaid is back and she yakking on her shell-phone, no doubt telling all her friends that she made Illustration Friday for the second time.  Not quite as good as making People Magazine, but still impressive.

It is supposed to hit 85 degrees here today and 90 tomorrow.  Also tomorrow, Adam gets home about 2:30 and boy, are we excited!  He will probably sleep for about 24 hours and then we will actually get to visit with him.

Bonnie is volunteering at the Bus Project for the month she is home, and she started that today.  Bus Project=progressive political organization that especially recruits young folks.  In fact, we will be hosting a student intern of theirs for the summer (Britta, attends Reed College, from Astoria Oregon, spent the last term at the University of East Anglia in England) and she will get Bonnie's room when she goes back to Colgate.

Photo Friday...green...

Finally, a PF submission after weeks of not-getting-my-act-together.  I went outside and photographed my garden and, while it is lovely (and green), it was BORING.  I went inside and tried to find everything green.  The dish soap in front of my kitchen window glistened and called to me.  Et, voila! A lovely, green statement...

fun times with baby Elly...

Baby Shower Magic...

Filling in this entry a little:  My niece, Maranatha, is having a baby around October 1, a girl, and they have already decided to name her Elly Johanna (Johanna is my mom's name). 

We had a great time at the shower.  Most of her aunts showed up and we played 4 games, none too dumb.  I had 7 baby food jars, labels removed, a number placed on the bottom of each...you could look at it and smell it (no tasting) and had to guess what each was.  Harder than it seems. 

I took the first and last names of the mom and dad (maiden name for my niece)...you had five minutes to come up with as many baby names as possible from the combination of the letters.  We then went person-by-person, listing the names...any that anyone matched was crossed out on all lists.  The unique ones were circled. At the end, whoever had the most names circled won.

We did the usual game of cutting ribbon, guessing what the size of the pregnant mom was.

And lastly, we had a bowl of rice, filled with small and medium safety pins. Blindfolded, each person had one minute to find as many pins as possible.  Really hard...

Maranatha gots tons of cool presents.  My sister-in-law, Heidi, made the fabulous cake!  For lunch, I served pesto chicken salad in half-avocados on mixed greens, a croissant,  with a couple of strawberries for color.  Yummy!

cleaning frenzy...

I spent the last 2 days cleaning my boys' rooms in preparation for my sister and family to show up tomorrow.  Now remember that I 'expect' my kids to keep their own rooms cleaned up.  Adam went back to Scotland after Christmas and left his room a mess, and I just closed the door on it.  Big mistake! And Ross just sort off ignores his room...leaves stuff on the floor, forgets to dust, you know the rest.  Bonnie is the only clean one. 

Cleaning up Bonnie's room before she got home was a matter of a little dusting and vacuuming.  But the boys!  I spent ALL day yesterday and today, cleaning, sorting, throwing out garbage, goodwilling stuff, etc.  It was hard, hard work but the rooms look so clean! 

Now, I have to do the rest of the stuff for the shower, which is Saturday and will be a luncheon/shower.  I hate it that people don't RSVP...I have several silent ones...so tomorrow, I will have to do some calling. I am making chicken salad on avocado halves and want to make the right number of them and all...

IF...Nourishment...

***click on the image for a better look***

I had all sorts of ideas for nourishment but this is the image that kind of stuck with me.  I love giraffes and how their long, graceful necks evolved so that they could grab the food higher up, where they had very little competition.  How brilliant!

Bonnie got home to bed about midnight.  She was drained from a day of flying sick, but she managed well on her flights and said it wasn't too awful  She is still asleep but sleep is what she needs right now.  I will take her to the doctor to get checked out as soon as I can and hopefully she can have a great month at home, doing what she wants and resting up for her summer job and then the fall term.

Barley's cancerous knee seems to get bigger by the day.  He takes his pain pills and sleeps...that's about it for his days now.  He is having a harder and harder time getting up off the floor and grudgingly goes outside for his regular poopie walks.  I am worried that he will soon not be able to get up at all.  It would be ironic if that happened when Adam came home and he just might have been waiting to have his whole family around him again.  Dogs are intuitive like that, I think.  I admire his stoic courage in the face of all that discomfort.  I would be a much bigger baby...

today...

Did I tell you that Bonnie comes home today?  Well, she will: tonight at around 11.

The bad news?  She called yesterday, saying she had the following symptoms:  massive headache, body aches, fever, chills and upset stomach (and what comes up with it).  First I was sure it was flu, but then I remembered that she has been hiking around in the Vermont woods for the past week...could be Lyme Disease, which has all the same symptoms.  The fact that she contracted Lyme Disease years ago at a horse camp she attended and we had her on anti-biotics for a month is what has me thinking.  Last time, she had the classic bulls-eye rash along with all the other stuff.  But she is not here for me to inspect, yet.

Poor baby, having to fly with all THAT going on. 

Thanks to all of you who sent her prayers, white or pink light, energy, positive vibes and all the rest when she was having her problems last week (thankfully resolved).  Can I request some assistance for her again?  You guys are awesome!

honors...

Last night, we went to the Neighbor House annual auction and dinner. My husband has been on the board there for the past 10 years and has been a board president. He got an award last night for all of his service and it was so touching.

My MIL and our son, Ross, were there and in his speech, he acknowledged his parents and their own service work and then went on to say that he hoped that his son would carry the tradition on. Ross got a little teary, himself.

Neighborhood House is the organization, founded 100 years ago, that does all the Social Service work in the southwest part of Portland. It does everything from Head Start Pre-K to Meals-on-wheels for seniors, and everything in between. They have transitional housing for homeless people trying to get back on their feet. They counsel teens in trouble. Lots of stuff. A very worthy organization.

And the theme last night was animation. Seems that Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Pepi Le Peu, and many, many more cartoon characters) was from Portland and was a Neighborhood House client when he was a small boy. NH was his favorite charity and he donated all his life. They were many, many original art drawings and animation cells of his various characters auctioned off, too. The voice of Sponge Bob was the emcee, and he was hysterically funny.

All in all, a great evening. Even Ross asked if he could donate $50 of his own money to NH and was so proud to put up his bid number when they were soliciting donations. He was awesome.

IF...mischief...

***click on the illo for a larger view***

So, believe it or not, old thought patterns die hard.  When I first thought of mischief, I thought of the devil.  And I don't even believe in the devil anymore.  But what can you do?  The image just stuck with me.  And I used a medieval-style typeface for this medieval idea with a modern face.

I used parts of old illos and recomposed, recolored, changed hairdo's and voila...  I even got it posted before Thursday!  Woo-hoo!!!

weird dreams...

I don't want to go into details but Bonnie was having a very rough night last night and spent some time commiserating with me, via cellphone.  So, I was very worried about her last night.  I woke up in the middle of the night, after having a bad dream.  I had trouble getting back to sleep; I was so worried about how my daughter was doing. 

I literally felt sick to my stomach with worry.  I finally asked God and my angels to help me relax and stop worrying.  I also asked for guidance or reassurance in a dream.  Then, I calmed down right away (Thanks, God) and went back to sleep.  I had a dream with my Aunt Katie in it.  She died about 2 years ago and she told me that she was there helping Bonnie.  I woke up feeling much better and I am pretty sure that my Aunt Katie is there helping my Bonnie.  I also made sure that I surrounded Bonnie with white light to help her deal with her issues and give her strength. 

I really do believe in all this stuff...helping spirits, white light, angels, God listening to everything we say and him really loving and aiding us.  I know that when I send 'help' to Bonnie, she always tells me that she feels so much better and more together.  I just have to be really persistent and keep it up.  Anyone else out there want to help by sending prayers, white light, positive energy, etc...it would certainly be welcomed!

nostalgia central...

Taking Ross down to U of Oregon and Oregon State was a very interesting endeavor.  UO just seems so much 'busier' to me, while OSU is so bucolic and calm.  Of course, I went to OSU and loved it.

But the weirdest of the weird was going to OSU, parking in front of my ex-boyfriend's fraternity house (Sigma Phi Epsilon) and just feeling so much as though all those years had not passed and I was still that young girl.  And then looking up and being with my 17 year-old-son, who is probably going to go to my old school.

It was a gorgeous spring day, with all the azaleas and rhododendrons blooming and the grass all emerald green.  I remember walking along the same lane, near the Memorial Union with that same ex-boyfriend, holding hands and feeling in love.  And then I found myself with my son, not there in the past after all.

Ross seems to prefer Oregon State to UO, and so I will find myself going to Mom's Weekends and this time I will be the mom, not the student taking the mom around, as I did over 25 years ago.  I can tell I will continue to struggle with this disconnect between who I was and who I am now.

IF...ambition...

Okay, ambition because it was very ambitious of me to do this photo illo shower invite for my neice, Maranatha...

So, all the other things that were on my list were scratched off in favor of doing this. 

I did go to a mother-daughter tea, with my MIL at her senior complex.  It was fun...there were goodies and a harpist.  I have always loved harpists.

Tomorrow, Ross and I are driving to both Oregon and Oregon State for a look around and to pick up course catalogs for both.  Damn, Ross hates thinking about growing up and going to college, but we can't be Peter Pan forever, can we, Ross?

What if???

Arlene tagged me.  So here's the drill:  I'm supposed to select five of these statements and then tag three other bloggers.  But I am not really comfortable tagging anyone else...so I will let my readers decide if they would like to do this, themselves...

Here are the statements to choose from:

If I could be a scientist...
If I could be a farmer...
If I could be a musician...
If I could be a doctor...
If I could be a painter...
If I could be a gardener...
If I could be a missionary...
If I could be a chef...
If I could be an architect...
If I could be a linguist...
If I could be a psychologist...
If I could be a librarian...
If I could be an athlete...
If I could be a lawyer...
If I could be an innkeeper...
If I could be a professor...
If I could be a writer...
If I could be a backup dancer...
If I could be a llama-rider...
If I could be a bonnie pirate...
If I could be a midget stripper...
If I could be a proctologist...
If I could be a TV-Chat Show host...
If I could be an actor...
If I could be a judge...
If I could be a Jedi...
If I could be a mob boss...
If I could be a fast food restaurant worker...
If I could be a preacher..

If I could be a painter, I would try to capture images like Vermeer.  I love his soft-Dutch-light paintings so much.

If I could be a preacher, I would tell the whole world that God is not some guy with human emotions that is there to point his big finger and zap us if we make mistakes.  God is all love all the time.

If I could be an architect, I would design cozy little homes with lots of character.

If I could be a linguist, I would work at the U.N., speaking Dutch, Japanese, Swedish, and some obscure African dialect...

If I could be an innkeeper, I would have a cute little bed and breakfast on the Maine coast...serving yummy brunches in my warm, yellow dining room or in my summer garden.

Okay, anyone else want to try this?

another gorgeous Oregon day...

John and I went to see a fabulous movie this weekend:  Millions. This is from the director of Trainspotting (which seemed so gross that I never went to see it, making me worry about this film); but it was so wonderful. 

Plot synopsis:  It is rare that a family film is both visually sophisticated and emotionally nuanced. MILLIONS, the fantastical tale of two British brothers and the large sack of cash literally dropped onto them from the sky, is just that--a multi-layered, majestic feast for both the eyes and the mind. Young brothers Anthony and Damian Cunninham, whose initial response to their unexpected fortune is a Robin Hood-esque spree of charity, have only one week to spend their 265,000 British pounds before their nation switches over to the Euro. Though the premise may seem trite or predictable, unexpected details--including Damian�s ability to see visions of saints and the recent death of the boys' beloved mother--add complexity to the story.

The young child actor who plays Damian, the 7-year-old who sees saints, is such a fantastic actor, too.  This is a movie you can take your kids to, and they will enjoy it, too...Great movie!!!

I managed to get my entire garden weeded over the last week...we have a quarter-acre and I have tons of bed space.  My own fault since I dug up lawn over the years to add to it.  But I am now busily working the soil as I plant new cool things.  I still have a LOT of work to do.  The good news is that the weather has been basically awesome around here.  Things are looking so good!  I am also in the midst of pruning some of my shrubs; maybe a little on the late side for some but they always seem to manage.  And my motto is:  if they can't take MY kind of care, they're out of here.  They just have to put up with the gardener they've got.