Thank You, Charmaine!

I've shown you the photo I took of my son and father before. Now, you get to see it with the painting my wonderful, talented sister-in-law Charmaine painted for me. I'm just in awe over her talent! You should see her quilts. Her applique is amazing. Now, she's taken up painting and after just a very few lessons, I think she's ready to teach. I hope to have her paint our Elly next year. Elly escaped our fenced yard and was hit by a car that ended her life last April, in the prime of her life. She was only six and a black German Shepherd dog. I miss her so much.

Charmaine has been such a blessing in my life. I met her when my mother-in-law (her mother) had had a heart attack and she, my hubby (her brother) and I were going to drive to Mississippi together to see her. As it turned out, we didn't make it in time, so we went there to plan and attend her funeral. That was in 1983, I think. Since then, she's always been there when I've needed her. She's a true friend. A sister. I'm blessed to have a sister by birth, a sister by marriage and a soul sister. I have an extremely good friend too and a mother that I love and get along with. Who could ask for more?

Thank you, Charmaine. One more thing -- I did have trouble deciding where to hang the painting. I knew it deserved to be in the living room where everyone who visited could see it, but I wanted it in my bedroom. That way, if there was ever a fire in the middle of the night, I could save it. Now, I just hope that if we're ever unfortunate enough to have a fire, that I'm wide awake and I can get it and the watercolor of our home that is upstairs.

Today is all about Dad talk

Today is the 14th anniversary of my dad's passing. This day used to upset me a great deal. I finally got used to the idea of him being gone. I got used to the fact that we'd never be able to go back and be close for a longer period. We got very close after he became ill and it made me angry that we had wasted all of the years before that. Really, that he had wasted all of those years. I'm not angry any longer. That's just a waste of time and energy.

My dad was basically a good man. He did the best he could with what he had, just as most of us do. His father was not a good role model. His mother passed when he was young. His father was not always around for him and his sisters and brothers after their mother passed. So, providing for his family was number one in his book. More important than anything else and I do mean anything. He was a good provider. He started providing to the best of his ability when he was a kid of 14 or so. Maybe even younger. He was the oldest brother and there were hungry younger kids in the family. He and his sister Joan tried to make sure everyone had food and that it was cooked and fed to them. He went into the Navy at a very early age. He got married at 19 to my mother who was 18 at the time.

He worked nights and weekends. He went to Vietnam to work for a newspaper during the war because he could make more money there than here in the States. I was eight years old. My parents divorced when he returned. I was ten then.

No one in his family ever wanted for anything that they truly needed when he was around. At least not if he agreed that they needed it. That sounds snotty and that's not the way I mean for it to be. It's just that if he didn't think it was a necessity, he wasn't going to help you get it with his hard earned money.

Daddy was always good at telling me that he loved me. I don't know that I always believed it, but I did love to hear it and I loved that he could say it when so many people find it difficult to say those three little words -- "I love you" can change a life.

My dad could never remember my birth date. He was forever getting my birthday and my sister's confused and mixed up. For instance mine is January 7th and Teresa's is June 16th. He'd call to wish me a happy birthday on January 16th. This was not the worst thing my daddy ever did though. He used to pit my sister and I against each other. It was his way of trying to get us to do better in certain areas of our lives -- pointing out how well the other was doing -- was to him, telling us that we were just as capable of doing that well ourselves. It didn't work that way though. Not at all. I can't speak for my sister here but, I ended up feeling dumb and not trusting my intelligence. It's taken me almost 50 years to start believing that I am indeed smart. That I am talented. That I can learn and even teach.

Daddy and I talked about this before he died. He lived on our land from October until he died on December 1st. We spent a lot of time together. I took him to dialysis twice a week and my sweet Aunt Joan would take him on Saturday's to give me a little break. I cooked for him and cleaned his little travel trailer. He had a lot of bad days, but we had a lot of good times during those two short months. We got to know each other for the first times in our lives. He was truly saddened to know that his actions had affected me in such a way. I know in my heart that if he had known another way to encourage us, he would have, but he didn't have the first idea of how to begin.

Looking back over this, I'm amazed at the things I've shared with you all. You see, my dad was an alcoholic and that didn't even seem important in this posting. Wonders never cease.

Art Every Day Month -- Day 25

This is my favorite photo that I have ever taken. It was taken, I think in 1983, late summer. I'm thinking it was August or September. The photo is of my father and my son. My son turned 3 in early September of that year. My father was building the log house that my husband and I now live in. Our son lived in it too, for many years, until he married and went into the Air Force at the age of 18.

My son thought my father hung the moon! Oh, how he loved that man. Dad passed away on December 1st, 1995. It's so hard to believe that it's been almost 14 years since that day.

The day this photo was taken, dad was building this house. My husband helped him on the western wall of the house, up high standing on scaffolding. I carved the date into one of the logs on the NE corner of the house, which happens to be the laundry room wall. My son was playing in the dirt with his little Hot Wheel cars and running all over under the trees trying to have fun and keep cool in the hot Texas weather. Dad and my son took a break at some point to have a little visit. I still can't believe I had a camera with me that day. That I captured this wonderful photograph, that says so much about my son and father and their relationship, is to me a small miracle. It is a treasure. So much so that my dear sister-in-law Charmaine recently painted a portrait of it. I picked it up from her a couple of days ago. After much debate, I think we've finally figured out where to hang it. I'll take a photo of it hanging in a day or so and post it, so that you can see how talented she is.

I guess it's not fair to claim this photo as my art for today. Really, that was not my intention. I have been racking my brain all day, between choirs and errands, to think of quotes for the quilt I want to do. I've also read several older posts on a favorite blog, ornamental. Ornamental is definitely an artist date you can take for yourself right in your own home. That's what I did for my art today. I checked out a beautiful, inspirational blog that feeds my soul and creativity and I found great phrases for my quote quilts.

Now and This Week

I'm going to be out of town at the end of the week so I'll be posting my photo of the week early. I'm going to the Houston Quilt Festival!



I've got a lot of things to do before I leave early Wednesday morning to meet my momma and sister for my dear momma's 70th birthday celebration. We're going to lunch at a restaurant that has a reputation for being haunted! Mom and I love stuff like that.



It's also my hubby's birthday. He totally understands me not being home to celebrate with him so that I can be there to celebrate with momma. He and I will celebrate his birthday when I return. We were going to celebrate his birthday before I left, but our water is funky tasting and smelling right now and I think it would ruin the chicken for frying, so the celebration has been put on hold. That is one of the occasional drawbacks to living in a rural area. Our water gets nasty at times.



It would have also been my dad's birthday. He would have been 71 this year. Yes, you read that right, all of them -- my husband and both parents share the same birthday.



As for other updates on my life, I'm doing really good now. After a lot of work, with a counselor and alone, I've been able to forgive both friends who had hurt me so badly at the end of August. I've told the friend in person who lives locally and mailed a letter to the friend who lives out of state. I have decided that even though I've forgiven the person that is out of state, I no longer want that person in my life, so they are actually a former friend. I'm happy again! So happy in fact that I'm having trouble figuring out how to finish the miniature quilt that I had started to work out some of my Rage on. I had started to embroider the word rage, but now I think I'll take that out and just do the quilting I had planned to. I'll still title it Rage though.

Photo of the week 11 of 39 -- Logs

I live in a cedar log home that my father built on just over 27 acres in rural Texas. We have a 1/4 acre cemetery from the 1860's on our property. Unfortunately, when the highway went in, the cemetery was abandoned and headstones were stolen and destroyed. Many were used for house foundations and porch steps, according to cemetery records. Others were just broken to pieces. There is one headstone still standing. It has a father and two young sons listed on three of its four sides, but we don't know if it's in the correct place. It had been knocked off of it's foundation.

If I had known when my dad was building this home, that I would one day live in it, I would have helped him design it. I would have a window over the kitchen sink and lots more storage. I would have a proper upstairs bedroom with a door that closes for quiet and privacy instead of a loft bedroom. My kitchen would be twice the size it is and I would have room for a real table to eat at instead of eating at the bar between the kitchen and living room. Most of that is just piddling little wishes, but the biggest real changes I would have made it that I would have at least one white wall and the logs would not be rounded. You have to vacuum these logs because they catch dust and dirt and believe me, there is a lot of dirt in the country! It drives me totally nuts, and the logs get truly depressing in February when everything is so dark.

The picture is of a couple of the logs in the bedroom. I love this log because it looks like it has eyes looking out at me. To me, it's the soul of the house.

Next weeks theme is "Spelling Errors".

photo week 3 of 39 -- Candlelight

When I started this, I looked over all of the themes and visualized what I might be able to photograph if the theme came up at certain times of the year. So far, the luck of the draw has not worked to my benefit. Maybe that will work to get my creativity flowing more at some point.

This is a photo of my father as a small boy with his mother's father (my great grandfather Williams). I had hoped to take "candlelight" in a church near Christmas, since that was not the case, I made my own shrine type setting for this favorite photo of these two important men in my life.

My Great-granpa Williams passed when I was 5 or 6, can't remember for sure. I do remember him coming to visit once when my sister and I were very small and I have a photo of him visiting when we were even smaller. There are only two memories I really have of him, other than just knowing that he was kind and loving. He drank his coffee out of a saucer. I asked about that at some point later and was told that it was because he was used to boiling his coffee and it cooled quicker in the saucer so that he could drink it. The other memory is of Granpa Williams saying that he needed to take his teeth out and put them in a glass so that he wouldn't bite us in his sleep! He must have had to share the bed with my younger sister and I. Bless his heart. I can't imagine he got much sleep, since I just tried two nights of that with my own granddaughters in the last week or so. Funny memory.

Next week's photo theme is "harvest".