Category: Monday

Granny’s the Boss … Kinda

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 12 Comments

 

A big task ahead — one that takes patience, energy, and perseverance. I wonder if I’m up to it….

Hubby and I are taking care of three grandkids for ten days while their parents and the other set of grandparents go to Hawaii for a conference and add a few days to this once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

We are becoming the parents.

Now, I haven’t been an active parent for 30 years. Things have changed in 30 years.

My grandkids are 8, 10, and 15. The apples of granny’s eye. They can do no wrong.  They are perfect examples of childhood — for the few hours a week we get to spend with them.

Ten days in a row, just about 24/7, is another story.

Of COURSE I am looking forward to this experience. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us grandparents, too. The kiddos are in school, giving us time to go back home and get a few things done before overnighting it by them. We can talk and play and snuggle on the sofa in the evening, go to the movies, do homework together.

Yet kids are kids, and there’s no doubt there will be a few of sour gum drops in-between the rainbows, too.

No glass of wine and rewatches of R-rated series at night. No sleeping in. No quiet coffee in the morning before I hit the housework list. No walking around like a zombie not taking a shower for a few days. No swearing. 

What fun is that?

Even though I squeal about the stress of being in charge,  I’m not sorry I volunteered for this excursion. Life has been good to me, and these kids are proof.

Nonetheless, I have to remember that I’m 73 not 53, and my energy level will never match theirs. And that’s okay. I’m a different kind of role model. Kids need grandparents as well as parents in their lives. And we need youth in our lives so we don’t become old fart fogies.

And, after all, there’s always ice cream cones in the freezer …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hugging Angels

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

 

I can’t tell if I feel a little creeped out or it’s just adjusting to the next step of AI-ness.

Amongst all the nonsense I see on Facebook these days, I’m starting to see videos of movie stars hugging each other, one the younger version of the other. 

At first I thought that was cool. This is young Russell Crowe from Gladiator hugging an old, oversized version of himself. Here is a young Keanu Reeves Point Break age hugging a 60-year-old long haired version of himself.

Then it started getting creepy.

Half the ones I see are younger versions hugging an AI older version of themselves with wings, meaning they have passed along.

Maybe it’s that I don’t like being reminded of my own mortality by all those wings.

Unless someone is taken younger in life, your last memory of them is the last time you saw them. I don’t try guessing what my parents or my son would look like today — I’m happy with the memories I have.

Same is true with movie and music stars.

I loved the Beatles when I was in my early teens. They were cute and bubbly and dreamy, and, like millions of others, I fell in love with them then and there. I don’t care about the older hippy versions or the old balding versions I see cross my Facebook. I want to remember them as I loved them.

Maybe this is one of those “living in the past” moments.

But what is life but looking back at moments? The moment I type this blog the words are in the past. You don’t need to see a picture of my high school graduation to know it’s still me.

If I want to see younger versions of famous people I’ll Google them or watch their movies.

I’ll hug those in wings when I get there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Loss

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 21 Comments

 

 

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.

 — Vicki Harrison

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drawing a Blank

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 14 Comments

 

These days I find I don’t have a lot of chit chat to share. It’s like there’s a gap in my brain somewhere that provides a bit of numbness to the world around me. 

And I’m liking the peace and quiet.

My brain is like popcorn — so many thoughts popping in and out that I can’t keep track of what’s going on. Combined with the nonsense in politics that’s happening in the U.S. and an overload of useless information from the Internet, there’s a lot of nonsense floating around out there. That, encouraged by the lethargicness of cold cloudy weather makes me hover around a base of noncommunication. 

Do you ever have times where you  just have nothing to say? Times where you think it doesn’t matter what you say, things will keep going as they are?  That your garden of wisdom has just dried up?

For someone who always has something to say, this is a new world for me.

I think once again it’s merely an adjustment to my way of life. I know when it’s spring and I’m out running around to soccer games and outdoor concerts and  craft shows and spending evenings on the deck I’ll have more to say. For I’ll have more to feel. More to stimulate me, more to nudge me back into sharing with the world.

And hopefully I’ll reconnect to the madness around me.

Until then, let’s keep going with unique art and quotes from a wide berth of society and blogs about cats and dogs. 

Something about those little faces brings out the chat in me….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do I Like Every Art Gallery I Post?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

 

from the Museum of Bad Art

An interesting thought came to mind this morning as I replied to a comment over in my Gallery.

My acquaintance stated she didn’t like the art I posted. Which is fair. Which got me thinking —

Do I like the art in every gallery I post?

Almost every time I would answer yes. Art is such a big world that one can’t help but be impressed by its variations.

My Sunday Evening Art Gallery is a little different than many, though, for it’s supposed to be “unique” art. Things the viewing public has never seen before. I don’t mean such artists as Renoir or Charles L. Schulz — most everyone has heard and seen their work. 

My artists are often a bit more obscure. As you can see from my “Looking Back” galleries, some art defines categorization. It’s just lovely but different.

Sometimes it’s not even lovely.

So many artists are similar in their style that I sometimes think I’ve already highlighted their work. While variations of style are still unique onto themselves, I try and find work that is just … different. Every once in a while I’ll choose an artist whose work is, upon reflection or inspection, more of a past time dalliance than a true calling.

Undoubtedly that’s where my own art fall in.

But I appreciate it so much when someone responds that they don’t get it or don’t like it just as much as when they fall in love with it.

Art is supposed to hit you that way.

Don’t ever hold back. Allow yourself to feel something.

Even if now and then the feeling is “ehhhh…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Music

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

 

 

 

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

~ Ludwig van Beethoven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year in Art

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

.

Happy New Year, Pq Haus

Happy New Year, Frances Brundage

Happy New Year, Margareth Perfoncio

Happy New Year, Nataliia Martseniuk

New Year’s Sun, Ito Jakuchu

The Party, Marisol Escobar

Party’s Over, Norman Rockwell

Baby New Year and Crystal Ball, Joseph Christian Leyendecker

Apartment Dwellers New Years Eve, John Falter

New Year’s Kite, Katsushika Hokusai

Three Boys Merry Making, Judith Leyster

Cookie Traditions

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

 


Cookie Mania has hit the snowy Midwest!

Saturday was make-cookies-with-the-grandkids day. My mere two cookie contributions — kolackies and oatmeal raisin — were but a drop in the baking bucket for future Christmas parties.

Actually only a couple of grandkids contributed time and energy, but there was enough assistance to give granny a break between cookie sheets.

Sometimes it’s hard to really get into the Christmas spirit. Like I said in a previous blog, Christmas Again?, it’s not always easy to get into the Christmas spirit. Energy and social security and other excuses often put a damper on my Deck the Halls nature.

But baking cookies with someone else makes all the scroogeness disappear … not to mention how I love eating the results.

We always bake the weekend before Christmas. It’s sort of a tradition. As is wrapping presents on Christmas Eve late at night for the next day. We add boiled shrimp and a glass of wine to our routine, and even though the wrapping date has changed through the years, we still try and keep the tradition we started when our kids were babies and we worked all day Christmas Eve.

I think you can make a tradition out of anything you do more than once. As long as there’s heart and togetherness mixed in with whatever you’re doing, you’re creating a safe place for laughs and love year after year.

And as you get older that becomes more and more important. 

Do you have any traditions you try and keep with family and/or friends? 

If so, Share! Share!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — John Atkinson Grimshaw

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

 

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 – 1893) was a Victorian-era painter, notable for his landscapes, usually known as Atkinson Grimshaw.Self-taught, Grimshaw started exhibiting in Leeds in the 1860’s with minutely observed still life paintings.Grimshaw experimented with a looser technique and with classical subjects — historical subjects and contemporary ladies — that were particularly successful.He was interested in photography and sometimes used a camera obscura to project outlines on to oil canvas, enabling him to repeat compositions several times.He also mixed sand and other ingredients with his paint to get the effects he wanted.

Around 1880 Grimshaw suffered some unknown financial crisis and retrenched, returning to Leeds and boosting his output to around fifty paintings a year.

Certain elements of social realism come into his paintings around that time, night being a good time to record less respectable forms of life.

More of John Atkinson Grimshaw’s inspirational landscapes can be found at https://johnatkinsongrimshaw.org/.

 

 

Faerie Paths — Paths

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

 

 

 

 

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.

J. R. R. Tolkien

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inked (repost)

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

As some of you may know, I lost my youngest son four years ago. Last Saturday I finally got a tattoo honoring him and my love for him.

My friend Tiffany at Tiffany Arp-Daleo Artworks had lost her mother, someone who meant as much to her as my loved ones do to me. Today she posted a lovely post about the tattoo she got to honor her mother.

Tattoos are not for everyone. But for those who get them, each one is special and magical. It takes a special person to share their grief and connection both in body ink and in a blog. 

Here is hers.

 

Inked

 
Tiffany Arp DaleoSan Diego ArtistWomen ArtistCalifornia ArtistSan Diego

I wanted to do something special to remember my mom, who passed away on December 9th. We often joked about getting matching mom/daughter tattoos, but it never happened.

When she was first diagnosed with dementia, she went through her things and got rid of a lot. Besides being a great artist, she was also a writer and wrote poems and stories, but sadly, most of that she threw away. While I was going through her remaining belongings, I found this poem on a small piece of paper and decided to keep it. She probably wrote it after my dad passed away.

It took some effort to find someone who was willing to do the tattoo on the specific date, and someone who could do the lettering exactly in her handwriting. I found my guy at Seventh Serpent Tattoo, and I couldn’t be happier with the final tattoo, he nailed it. 😊

 

The original handwritten poem

”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Maarten Vrolijk

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

 

Maarten Vrolijk is an Amsterdam-based artist and designer who considers it important to elaborate on the simple, unequivocal nature of a product or art work and has been creating his works for over 25 years.His aesthetic and ‘art language’ is particularly unusual because it consciously plays with shapes, colours and materials in an uncontrived way.

He also believes his pieces should also make people’s everyday lives that bit more beautiful through the many little details that evoke the unexpected.Vrolijk is perhaps best known for glass vessels with their outgrowth of colored glass fragments.The volatility in accomplishing the exceptional thickness of his vases creates a risky balance between strength and delicacy.The thermal stress caused when trying to equalize the interior and exterior temperature of the cooling vessels, is fraught with the threat of breakage.

To create each piece, a meticulously patterned bed of broken glass pieces is strategically laid down and heated to a specific temperature in order to be properly fused to a nascent blown glass form.

The temperature and timing must be precisely in tandem. It is a high-stakes process that results in a kind of frozen sense of chaos.

More of Maarten Vrolijk’s unique glasswork can be found at https://www.maartenvrolijk.com/

 

 

 

 

Additions to the Family

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 22 Comments

Say hello to the two newest additions to our family. Darth and Vader.

I need two cats like I need a hole in the head. 

Having just turned 73, I find myself with less patience for disruptions in my daily life. Art and Crafts and laundry are done at my speed, not the world’s. As my productivity has slowed, so has my organizational skills.

And you can’t organize two little black kittens.

Don’t get me wrong — we lost my cat Mysty last Fall, and as you can see (Caturdays) I do love cats. We just put our 14-year-old dog down two weeks ago, and my heart was heavy. 

This is the way of life. I get it.

We have a year-old lab, who is still full of energy and curiosity. Match that with two 10-week-old kittens, and you can imagine the chaos it brings.

We were told that, if possible, take two kitties, for they will keep each other occupied, keeping the stress away from you. But with all the clip clip clip from one side of the house to the other, they do indeed keep each other busy.

And even though I complain like an old granny half the time, it warms my heart to see life start all over again. Life and laughter and discovery of new friends, even though the friends are of the feline variety.

Don’t let life slow down for you too much. Two kitties might not be the answer, but make sure there’s life around you — life that’s full of life. Life that brings hope to your open heart.

Even if they meow louder than a thunderstorm …..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Tattoos

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 14 Comments

 

 

 

Tattoos are like stories – they’re symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful.

~ Pamela Anderson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Passions

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

 

When you start to do the things that you truly love, it wouldn’t matter whether it’s Monday or Friday; you would be so excited to wake up each morning to work on your passions.

~ Edmond Mbiaka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday Monday (repost)

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 7 Comments

Over the weekend I went back into the black hole depths of this Humoring the Goddess blog looking for posts that had Monday in the title.

There have been quite a few attempts to comprehend and write about the first day of the work week. I smiled as I read all of them. So many different directions on the same topic. 

That’s the beauty of Creativity. Looking behind is just as much fun as looking ahead.

So for all of you reading this this fine Monday morning — DO IT.  And don’t stop.

From —

MONDAY MONDAY     

 

Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da
Bah-da, bah-da-da-da

(do you know the song yet?)

Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
So good to me (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)
Monday mornin’, it was all I hoped it would be ..

All the oldies out there knew the song by the first six syllables. Funny how engrained music is into us. Even when we don’t think about it.

Was trying to come up with a topic, a theme, for this cloudy, cold Monday. But if there’s nothing there there’s nothing there.

Then a slip of lyrics passed through my head.

Monday, Monday (bah-da, bah-da-da-da)

I was a freshman in high school when the Mamas and Papas sang this song. I was escaping the horrors of middle school at that time. Those were rough times, especially for a geeky, smelly kid like me.

Not really stepping back, but I do know that even back then music made a difference in my life. The Beatles were my saviors, the Dave Clark Five my happiness. No one could break the bond between me and Paul or me and Dave. My writing started way back then, too. I used to have a notebook with my first love story written in it, but it is long gone. Perhaps it disappeared when it served its purpose.

Music was an escape when I was young. An emotional booster, an answer for self-consciousness and self-doubt. I didn’t think about doing drugs or getting drunk or having sex back then. (Shows you how backwards my freshman year was.)

But Last Train to Clarksville by the the Monkees and Summer In The City by the Lovin’ Spoonful and Five O’Clock World by the Vogues were songs that wrapped around those hard times and cushioned decisions in my life like why I never had a date Saturday nights or if my girlfriends wanted to have a pajama party or should I try out for the school play when I couldn’t sing.

I wonder if kids today have an inkling of that innocence. If they ever have a chance to be kids. If they ever have a choice to not be a part of the violence and discrimination and hatred that swirls around all of us.

I suppose songs like WAP by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (I wouldn’t look up the words if I were you) reflects the current needs and desires within a high-school education, the need to be free and understood and in control. Maybe innocence in its banal form is not needed anymore. Better to be smart than be exploited.

These days I find myself wandering back to that innocence I probably never really had. I have had enough of death and prejudice and politics to last a lifetime of discovery. Time for a bit of innocence to return to the world.

Do you believe in magic in a young girl’s heart
How the music can free her whenever it starts?
And it’s magic if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie………..

 

 ~ 

Pumped Up Mondays

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

If Saturdays are the beginning of your playday, Mondays are usually the beginning of your work week.

For me they are also the beginning of my creative week. I always start off wanting to write, craft, paint, and research. Quite a busy start to a retiree’s week.

Yesterday I took the (not so big) step of signing up for Peacock, the NBC version of Hulu or Netflix. A majority of shows are free, but it’s not because I was in need of something to watch. I came across what I was looking for:

Face Off.

Five season’s worth.

I happen to LOVE that TV series. Every week a group of artists create masks and faces and outfits based on the weekly challenge theme.

The things these “ameteurs” come up with are amazing.

I realize they are experts in their field. I’m sure you know someone — yourself, even — that could come up with a short story, a quilting pattern, knit a scarf, or paint a painting or a calligraphy sign in competition time. That’s how good you are.

But it’s just the process — the intuitive, inventive way their mind thinks that gets me going.

I get the same feeling watching cooking competition shows. How could these average “Joes” and “JoAnns” cook something like that in less than an hour?

The first and most important reason is because they love doing what they do. They all may be auto mechanics or beauticians or grade school teachers in their “other” life but they are artists in this one. They may even be full-time creators.

I come back from these shows with a new sense of energy and purpose. And I try and share it.

I have one friend thinking of starting to write a book on her and her father’s experiences. So exciting! Another friend went to a quilting seminar this week for a few days. How great! One of my good friends went on a scrapbooking weekend not long ago. Nothing but talking and scrapbooking. How can you lose? Another of my friends is coming to my state  (not far from me, it seems)  to do some sort of crafting seminar/conference/get together. How great is that?

I’ve done an art gallery on Face Off, and could probably do a dozen more. So it is with you that do ceramics or computer design or photography. My good friend from my old work is a photographer AND graphic designer — what great things he comes up with!

Find something that fuels your passion and go for it. Let someone else’s work inspire you — not to be them, not to do what they do, but let their work encourage you do try new things and go new directions.

Make practice fun. Make mistakes fun. Make success even MORE fun.

Let me know what you are working on so I can continue to get pumped up in the Art World.

Feels Good! You ought to try it!

 

 

Monday Again?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Here it is — it’s Monday again.

The typical drag-your-derriere out of bed, increase your coffee intake, turn-the-sound-down-on-the-news kinda morning.

Now you would think that, since being retired for a year, I’d be over that kind of gut-kick reaction to just another day of the week.

I’m not.

Maybe my first reaction is a form of habit. After all, I worked for fifty years, all on the day shift, always having to get up at 6 a.m. five days a week. I don’t think you can just “turn off” that kind of Pavlov’s dog reaction.

Maybe it’s because there’s always something that needs to be done. No matter your country, state, town, marital status, or pant’s size, there’s always something you need to do on a Monday morning. Laundry. Call the plumber. Send your kids off to school. Go to a doctor’s appointment.

There’s always something waiting for you Monday Morning.

I do admit that days here tend to blur into one another. I find myself asking myself (or others) what day it is. Isn’t today Tuesday? Don’t we have to drop something off at the post office today? Did we talk to the kids about Saturday yesterday? Or three days ago?

I think with being home every day with the fear of Covid 19 striking you or those you love tends to blur your thoughts and memories after a while. I never thought I was going to be a jet setter once I retired, but there were things I was going to finally be able to do.

UhHuh. Not yet. No way. Sit down.

I think we all take a major sigh Monday mornings because it gives us a sense of routine. Of beginning again. Even if we don’t do the things we used to do, it gets us in the mind set that there are daily responsibilities we need to take care of every day.

Acknowledging Monday makes retirees blend in better with those who still have to work five days a week. Gets us into a  fixed rhythm like doing homework five days a week. Gives us a sense of routine. Of setting goals and finishing them all within a specific time frame.

For most of us, weekends are still the time we set aside to do things we don’t normally do during the “work” week. Vacation. Visit family. Mow the lawn. Change the oil in the car. Stay up late. Go to the Farmer’s Market.

We need to keep our special time special. We can’t allow one day to melt into the next into the next. It gets too easy to let go and have life become one melted puddle day after day, week after week. No differentiation to remind us that we are always growing, always learning, and always making order out of chaos every single day.

Today is Monday. I’ve already had a slice of cheesecake for breakfast, thrown in a load of laundry, brushed the cat, and made a to-do list for the week. I may not be punching a time clock like days of old, but I feel that I still fit in the rhythm of the day and of the week. That I fit in with the buzzing world around me. At least for four more days.

Can’t wait till Saturday!