A Revival of Sorts and a #poem for Winter

Noticeably, I have taken quite an extensive siesta of sorts from blogging and I honestly hadn’t meant for it to be this long of a break.  In the meantime, I have continued to write poetry on Twitter and in my notebooks.  I have been attending school for design which takes a lot of my creative power to get through the academic writing and tasks that lay ahead for me there.  I have been volunteering at my daughter’s school as the Secretary in the PTSO which has been an enriching experience.  I have been working part time at a couple of locations and have continued a bit of freelance creative work on the side.  I am still a mother of growing children whom have lives and schedules of their own. A day doesn’t go by for me that I don’t create with words, pictures or art.  I enjoy being busy and I know in 2013 I will continue on with my adventures.  I plan to learn more about myself and apply that knowledge into my life which what I’d like to share on this blog. 

Basically, my blog has evolved into a poetry blog and I may mix it up once in a while. For the most part, I love poetry very much and I seem to return to it a lot in my writing.  All types of writing interest me and so I may experiment here from time to time.  I also like to personable and share my thoughts from either visuals or ideas I see around me.  I will also be including a few of my creative or art projects and designs as well.

If you are still following me then I appreciate that you hoped I would return.  I hope that you will continue to read and comment on my posts.  If not, I understand why you didn’t and I hope that you will might discover my return and feel free to follow me once more.  I may not be here often but I will do my best to have some consistency so that I would not deserve your interest.  I know I have many friendships to renew or establish as I look forward to blogging again.    

Now, for your reading pleasure I came across an idea that I had for a poem in 2006.  It was based upon a question that I answered for a writing group about my favorite season and why.  Loosely, it explains my amazement that I chose to write about winter because for the last 14 years I’ve been living here in South Texas.  So, I must admit I’ve grown accustomed to a warm and not very long winter in comparison to other places around the world where winter is long and cold.  Based upon my childhood memories of colder winters and my love of being able to keep warm from being cold, I present to you a winter poem.

 A Moment of Winter

Briefly

At winter’s gate

Ice forms then blankets all.

 

Cold slips throughout

My fingertips

Multiplying until my whole body feels numb.

 

Before becoming too frozen

Warmth must be found

Easing the hardship

Of feeling cold from the beginning.

 

Some of the brightest memories

From my childhood

Express itself from winter’s creeping form.

 

Found in a cup of delightful warmth

Bundle me up in cozy comfort

As I sip encountering a satisfying taste

That releases the chill

Bringing me home.

 

©JAC

Originally written: 10/26/2006

Rewritten: 01/01/2013

A "Soundtrack of My Childhood"

I remember that my Mom loved to listen to Starry, Starry Night by Julio Iglesias.

My dad loved Manheim Steamroller a lot - especially at Christmas.

I've grown to love Classical, mainly because of my Grandpa Hatch letting me listen to it with him, and Vivaldi is one of my favorites. Listening to classical music is one of the best ways I can feel relaxed.

My Grandma Hatch loved to sing all the time. She knew a song for every letter in the alphabet. The ones that stick out to me are A-Tisket, A-Tasket, Animal Crackers in my Soup, and Yankee Doodle Dandy.

My Grandpa Ted also loved to sing and I remember Danny Boy among others.

My Grandma Rae would sing Que, Sera, Sera to me.

Children's songs and Hymns from church are such a solace to me where in the end, there was "Never a Better Hero" by Kenneth Cope.

In my teen years, it was all about the '80's music, baby. Heart, Debbie Gibson and Michael Jackson + so many others that it's hard to name them all...a little ragtime by Scott Bradlee might jog your memory.

In college, whether I liked the variety or not, the '90's didn't let you forget with even more music from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney and Nirvana to name a few. I didn't feel I could identify with '90's music so I didn't listen to it all the time.

Next Matchbox Twenty made their amazing debut in my life.

Of course, now that music history has been sung from my point of view and we return to present day, I can't help thinking I'm forgetting some great music (like from movies) but that will have to be another post. Overall, I still love a good beat today and my favorites are fairly obvious since I have links to them from this blog. Cook(my A.I.), Mayer(best guitar ever) and Rt(best songwriter) - what more need I say?

I hope all the links from YouTube.com work and you can enjoy listening if you want to.

How about you? What music do you remember most from your childhood?

The Quilts of Grandma Rae

It's hard to believe that it has been about 10-11 years since I finished this quilt with my sweet Grandma Rae. She had a dream to make a quilt for each of her grandchildren. Since it is so time consuming and her grandchildren kept growing and coming so fast, I'm not sure how many she was actually able to make.
I feel lucky and happy that she invited me over at a time when I lived close enough to walk over and help her finish my quilt. She let me choose my colors, fabric and pattern. I chose the star quilt pattern because I had an orange star quilt as a young girl growing up that I just loved so much that it tattered away to pieces eventually. I missed it and its comfort so much.
I really needed this experience in my life back then. She helped me in many ways and through each step in the quilting process. Some parts are more fun than others in quilting. It was a challenge and a lot of work. What I enjoyed most was the warm relationship that I gained with my Grandma Rae and the insight I saw into my own mother's past also. I will always treasure this moment and think of my loving Grandma fondly.
One part that I will always remember was my first little girl, Hopie, was playing around us as we were working on this quilt. It's another reason why it means so much to me. I was a new and very nervous mother. I wasn't used to the unexpected things that little ones do at Hopie's young, around 12-18 months, age.
Once, little Hopie, tried to stand up using a TV tray and since it wasn't very stable at all, it collapsed on her and she hurt her head. Immediately, my Grandma helped Hopie and me, then we ended up in the ER for her to have stitches. It was so scary then but with quick action Hopie recovered nicely and she is fine, of course, at 12 yrs. old now.
Another incident, was when Hopie tried to drink some of my Grandmother's fabric dye. We hastily called Poison Control and followed their directions to help Hopie. It all worked out without another trip to the ER, but Hopie had a nice dark brown ring around her lips and a brown tongue for a few days. I remember that she would still smile so cute and with that brown circle around her mouth, if you can just picture that, well then, I couldn't help but smile back.
These are what I recall of the cherished memories I have of making a quilt with my Grandma Rae. I'm grateful to her love, gratitude, knowledge, outlook on life, quilting experience and her inspiration. She was literally a life-saver to me through all of this!

Honeybees and Stings Part 2

This is completely ironic since I just wrote about my memories as a child with honeybees recently, yesterday(Sept. 4th), I was stung by a bee! So, I now realize that I forgot how much it really hurts! Ouch!
I called my dad, since he's a beekeeper, to ask him about it since I'm limping around and it's swelling so much. I had told him how the bee's stinger was stuck in my knee where it stung me and he asked if I had pinched it out or scratched it. Well, I had pinched it out and apparently that releases more venom into the area so that's why it has swollen even more. If the stinger gets stuck in you then you are supposed to scratch it out instead. So, there's something to remember - scratch the stinger out! I know I'll be fine and I feel bad that the bee most likely died since it lost its stinger but I want to scream also. Hopefully, in a few days, it will stop swelling and heal. Then I'll forget about the hurt of the sting once again and go back to liking honey.
I was with Hope when I was stung by the honeybee because it happened at the dentist office parking lot. I started to reminisce and this experience took me back in time to 7th grade when I was stung by a yellow jacket about six times at the school bus stop. It had crawled up my pant leg and became trapped and just kept stinging away. It was in the same knee, my right one, and I remember it swelling pretty bad too. I had to actually pinch the yellow jacket in my pant leg until it died and stopped stinging me. I was afraid to let go of it on the bus full of jr. high school students. I didn't want to scream out or draw any attention to myself about the situation or risk the very real possibility of being teased. So, I held the yellow jacket firmly in my pant leg until I got home and let go. I saw that it was huge and then I screamed. My mom was scared and came to help me. I can still feel the cold ice packet that she put on it. I was relieved for a bit. She still remembers that experience also. I've lived through being stung a few times now, I can do it again. Wish me luck!
Btw, Hope did great at getting her filling at the dentist. She was a darling patient and didn't have the laughing gas either by her own insistence, they told me. Hope, you always impress me!

Honeybees and Stings

This is my brother, Mike's recent favorite memory. He sent me these pictures which I really appreciated. They are pictures of him and my dad smoking out a beehive all decked out in their beekeeping gear. These pictures really brought back the memories for me of when I was a little girl and I had helped my dad with the beehives.

I remember wearing the white beekeeping suit that my mom had sewn for me and really hoping that I wouldn't get stung. Even though, I'd been stung before, I just didn't like it. I dreaded that possibility because even when you might expect a bee sting, for some reason, they still take you for surprise somehow. It hurts!

After the honey was harvested from the beehives, we'd come home and the real work would begin. I remember watching my dad as he handled each honeycomb carefully and sheared it just right with a heated knife to produce the honey dripping process. He'd then place them in a big silver barrel that had a handle on it that we would turn and turn and turn until our arms were weak and tired. All of the children took turns doing the turning, but I'm sure my dad still did a lot more of it. It took a lot of turning just to get one bucket of honey. I never could believe how slow the process really was. How much work and dedication it took. I admired my dad's stamina, not only to harvest the honey but to let all of his children help him do it.

My dad would put the honey into jars and honey bears that we would store or give away to people to enjoy.

I still remember when he would make wheat bread and let us put honey on it as it was warm and fresh from the oven. It was soooo good!

I also remember eating bits of the sheared honey comb and it tasted so incredible. We would chew and chew it up like gum in our mouths until it started to taste like wax. Then spit it out into the trash can.

My dad also made lots of candles with the leftover honeycomb. They really smelled good when he burnt them. He was always looking for uses for the honeycomb and he didn't like things to go to waste if he could help it become something practical and useful.

I also remember him teaching us about the bees and how they made honey. I remember my dad getting little boxes of bees in the mail and watching them buzz around in the tiny box. I know how important the queen bee is to the hive. I know that there are worker bees, who do a lot of work, and drones who don't do as much. It fascinated me and I thought about it a lot. I still love the taste of honey and I think I always will.

Comedy Routine

I like to laugh as much as the next guy. So, when my friend, Anne, sent me this e-mail about the comedian Tim Hawkins, I sat around the computer with my kids watching You Tube and laughing tonight. We had fun together singing Subway, and talking about funny things in life. My personal favorite tonight was about the playground - I have my own playground stories from when I was growing up but I'll post that another time.
My kids mentioned to me that I had some pretty funny comedy routine's that I've written & performed for them. So, I was thinking it might be fun to write them up and post them here. Maybe you'll laugh and maybe you won't, but since this is a blog, I won't know that unless you tell me. Anyway, have fun with my funny, good, clean humorous stories anyway. (Jared you'll forgive me later, right? I make you laugh every day because you know I'm a piece of work, right?)
Here goes nothing:

Thousand Dollar Clothes Rack

So, the topic at our house lately has been about whether or not to join a gym. I really want to because I need to do something to get myself exercising and on my way to loosing a bit as well. It's funny that this has come up later because two years ago, I had another friend who had joined a gym and I wanted to then as well. So, I brought this idea up to my husband, Jared and that got him thinking and his mind reeled to an idea of a home gym. We had a lot of discussions about this and typically they went something like this:

"Oh, honey, I'd really like to exercise more and my friend is joining a gym. Maybe that's what I could do as well. What do you think?" (Julie)

"That sounds great! I think you should exercise more - I mean - we both should." (Jared)

"I know, so what do you think about the gym?"

"Well, I've got a lot of concerns about that. Have you thought it all through because I have a great idea of making a home gym. We can both exercise right here at home."

"Oh, but honey, I'm home all the time. I'd like to get away, out of the house, to exercise."

"What would you do with the kids while you exercised at the gym?"

"They've got it all set up for that - a little play room just for them. I don't know all the details of how it works but I'd drop off the kids and exercise, then I'd pick them up when I'm done."

"I think if you had a home gym then you can watch the kids while you exercise. Right here in the privacy and comfort of our own home. I really want a home gym."

"Okay, if you really think we won't use it as a clothes rack."

So, we went looking around for home gym equipment and tried out quite a few machines and with our tax return money we bought a stationary bike and eliptical-type machine. At first, it seemed great, even fun. As time wore on, the fun wore off and exercise is just plain hard work with little benefits unless you stick with it over long periods of time. I know home gyms can work for some people and they can be great but I think for me it's not working out. Perhaps, it's because at first we put the exercise machines in the garage. Well, we live in TX and it gets really hot in the garage. I mean, really hot.
Since we realized that wasn't working then we moved them to our master bedroom. Well, at first it worked a bit. Our kids have loved the machines and really used them. They like to do things like see how fast they can make it go and ride them backwards. Zayah and Gracie feel like it's their own personal monkey bars. Also, now its too convenient for Jared to use to put his freshly ironed shirts on and that's exactly what he does. So, one day I just couldn't resist and I teased him by saying, "So, honey, how's the home gym working for you? I mean, how do you like your thousand dollar clothes rack."