.....and other random stuff......

Friday, April 29, 2016

Speaking of Predictions……..

I once worked with a woman who claimed she could see the future. I thought it was funny and often told her so. She would ‘hold court’ in the lounge and on her coffee breaks she’d tell people their futures.

I never participated of course, being a non-believer.
But one day we were all talking about the future and I said my usual, “I’m never going to get married and I’m DEFINITELY never going to have kids!”   
As I got up to go back into the office she said over her shoulder, “You’re going to have two sons.”

Hahahahahahaha!
How ridiculous! NO kids for me!
(Insert bemused emoticon here)

But the thing that baffles me is….she could see I was going to have two sons, she could tell everyone else their future but she couldn’t see that she was going to go to jail for ten years for embezzling funds from the union!

Seems to me if you’re going to predict the future you should make sure your own future is in order first…….

Just sayin’.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Throwback Thursday

What I find so funny about this picture is....Husband wears a hat just like this today!!! 

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Am I a Believer……..?

The year we dropped BigBrother off for his freshman year at college I was thirteen. On the way home we stopped at a seaside vacation town. On the boardwalk, sandwiched in between the salt water taffy kitchen and a tschoky souvenir place, stood a small store front with a hand painted window sporting an All Seeing Eye and crystal ball with the words Fortunes Told.
I had five dollars the parents had given me to spend on the rides on the boardwalk.
Instead I decided to invest it in my future and went in!

The shop was dark and draped in paisley shawls with lots of fringe. A small table sat in the middle of the room with the requisite crystal ball. I was impressed and amused at the same time.

Now I should state here that even at the ripe old age of thirteen I didn’t believe in fortune tellers or mediums or the occult.
I just thought it was fun.
I plunked down my five dollars, sat down at the table and waited for the old woman to do her ‘shtick’.

I guess I must have said or done something (who would have thought…...) that made her angry.
Because she proceeded to tell me that she didn’t usually tell people the bad things she saw in her crystal ball but in my case she’d make an exception.
She told me, point blank, I was going to die in a car accident in a green Pontiac when I was eighteen.

I wasn’t laughing quite as much when I left as I was when I walked in.
Still, I didn’t really believe it. And as long as I stayed out of green Pontiacs I would be okay, right?

I didn’t give it much thought for the next five years.

Fast forward to my eighteenth year. I started dating a guy who drove; you guessed it, a green Pontiac.
Possibly this was a subconscious choice I made, but I didn’t know what kind of car he drove until AFTER I accepted the date with him.
Hmmmm……
It all worked out okay though, because not long after we began dating he traded the Pontiac for a Toyota.
I was safe!

Until one day when my parents excitedly told me they had just bought a new car!
I was excited too, having just gotten my license. I asked what kind they bought and my mother said, a beautiful green Pontiac Lemans!

Gulp!

I thought I had escaped the fortune teller’s prediction and now here it was rearing its ugly head again!
I must have looked funny because my parents asked me what was wrong, so I told them about the fortune teller.
My mother immediately went to the phone and……changed the color of the car they ordered to blue.
Her most UNFAVORITE color in the world she told me!
“Not that I believe in such things,” she said, “but if anything did happen to you in that car I’d feel responsible! No need to take chances!”
(My parents were level headed but superstitious to a fault!)

So, all’s well that ends well…….

Except for that one night on Elwood Road in the pouring rain when a car cut me off and I jammed on the brakes, did a 360° and finally came to a stop nose to nose with a family in a station wagon in the opposite lane of oncoming traffic!

I can still see the look of sheer terror on their faces. And I was so scared I went straight home and didn’t drive for a week!

True story! 

Monday, April 25, 2016

Punny Monday

What do you call a fake noodle? Impasta!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Uncle!

As promised….this is where I finally said ‘uncle’ and called it done!
I’m NOT fishing for compliments!!! So please don’t!
I didn’t enjoy doing it.
It’s not my style.
I don’t like it.
And I doubt I’m ever going to try this type of painting again.
BUT….it’s all a learning process. Learning what you don’t like narrows down what you do.

And I thank Mindy Lacefield for the step through with her 'How to Paint a Face' deck of cards.


(I learned things from her cards I can use in other mediums and projects, so that’s good!)

Her expression pretty much sums up how I feel about it! lol

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Throwback Thursday

I know it seems like I'm on a big ego trip with all these pictures of myself.....
but I'm really just trying to organize them for posterity.....lol
No, really, I'm doing it for the boys!
Honest!

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Lesson Learned……

A few weeks ago I dropped off some of my journals to the gallery that stocks them in their gift shop.
It’s usually just an ‘in and out’ sort of thing. I leave them at the front desk with the volunteer.
This time it was ……..different.
Starting with the woman volunteer saying to me (after looking in the bag), “Oh! You’re HER!”
I was ……….um….taken aback…..surprised….I actually looked around for who she was talking to for a second before I realized it was me!
It was a ‘deer in the headlights’ moment. I didn’t know what to do or say.
Anyway, after an awkward moment we got to chatting and she told me she buys my journals at Christmas time to give to the girls at the PACE center where she also volunteers. I was touched and told her so.
I must have been swept up in the moment ………..that she shelled out cold hard cash for my journals to give them away!
I heard myself saying, “Oh, you don’t have to PAY for them! I’ll give them to you! It’s so nice of you to give the girls gifts for the holidays!
Now it was HER turn to be surprised. She was SO grateful!
So we exchanged contact info and as I was about to leave it occurred to me I needed to know how many she needed.
“How many girls are in the program?” I asked.
“56” she replied.
…………………………………..gulp.

Note to self: Get all the information FIRST before committing yourself!!!! lol

So if you need to find me, I’ll be the one behind the pile of journals! 
At least I have till Christmas to finish them……

Monday, April 18, 2016

Punny Monday

Do you want to hear a pizza joke? Never mind, they’re pretty cheesy.

Friday, April 15, 2016

No Fair!

Walked through the whole grocery store and  back to the car in the parking lot and not a single step was recorded! Apparently the damn thing doesn’t register when you’re pushing/resting you hand on the cart handle! Waaaaaaa! 

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

The Inner Critic Rears His Ugly Head…Once Again

And here’s how it goes:
Get scathingly brilliant idea.
Check.
Revel in the wonderfulness of the scathingly brilliant idea.
Check.
Think about scathingly brilliant idea for weeks.
Check. (This is not procrastinating! It is refining, developing, smoothing off the rough edges…..)
Start sketching out ideas of scathingly brilliant idea.
Check.
Amass a huge pile of loose papers with half started sketches.
Check.
Get stuck.
Check.
Surf the internet for direction and ideas to flesh out scathingly brilliant idea.
Check.
Start comparing yourself to the art of others you’re finding on the internet and feeling more and more insecure about yourself.
Check.
Start thinking your scathingly brilliant idea isn’t so scathingly brilliant after all.
Check.

And then, there he is….sitting on your shoulder whispering in your ear…..

“What makes you think you can draw? Who told you this was a good idea? Who is going to want to see anything you draw? It’s been done before! You’re a hack! You have no talent! Your art looks like an untalented child drew it! 
I’m going to make an inner critic doll that I can kick across the room when this happens.
I have no delusions that it will help to quiet him but I KNOW it will make me feel better! 

Monday, April 11, 2016

Punny Monday

What does a sub-atomic duck say? Quark

Friday, April 8, 2016

Never Going Home con’t

They put me in a room off the kitchen. It was kind of a catch all room they used for storage. Boxes piled high in the corner and a behemoth upright freezer with a lock on it's door. They set up a cot for me right next to the freezer. In the dark it looked like a huge ogre just waiting to attack me. And the waving tree branches outside the windows cast shadows that looked like giant arms adding to the illusion.

I asked to go home after the first night but they ignored my pleas. I couldn’t understand why I had to sleep in this storage room next to a snarling ogre when they had perfectly good bedrooms upstairs!

I finally worked out a plan that would get me home. It was brilliant. 
I had overheard them tell my father how much money they saved by buying wholesale and storing it in the freezer.
So…….the next night, after they tucked me in, I snuck out of bed and began to explore. It took me a little while to master the lock but I finally got it. It was really rather interesting. A side of beef all neatly cut and wrapped in white butcher paper stacked neatly on the shelves. And ice cream! Gallons and gallons piled high! My idea was to leave the door open so it would all thaw and be ruined.
They would certainly send me home after that!

But I was busted! 
As I stood in front of the glowing white landscape, admiring the symmetry of the stacks, one of them came in. They seemed concerned that I had eaten something. 
I hadn’t eaten anything and that’s what I told them but they were convinced I was lying. 
The next morning they put all my things back into the station wagon and brought me home.

To this day I don’t know what they told my parents, or who took care of me when I got home. All I knew was I got what I wanted! I was home! Sleeping in my own bed, in my own room!


VICTORY! 

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Throwback Thursday

If you look reeeeealy closely you can just barely see the scar on the left side of my nose that runs from lip to eye socket where  Ricky Storebeck ran over me with his sled. 

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

WOYWW

WIP....
Working on my series for "Y is for Yellow' class. 
It's not going well...... :(
(Ignore the green 'd'  journal page peeking out from behind the girl.)

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

That’s When I Knew I Was Never Going Home

When I was five my mother developed phlebitis. She was in the hospital for an extended period of time. Such a long time in fact they sent me to stay with family friends. Not MY friends mind you, but friends of my parents. I knew OF them but wasn’t particularly close with them.
I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t understand why I had to be shipped off. I don’t think they sent BigBrother away so why did I have to go?
Nevertheless, they loaded my things into the back of their friend’s station wagon. 
When I saw them put my tricycle in I knew I was never going home.



….to be continued.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Punny Monday

What do buffalo say as their kids leave for school? Bison

Friday, April 1, 2016

This Aging Thing Sucks

Some aspects of aging bother me more than others.
I accept that the person who looks back at me in the mirror resembles my mother more than it does me.
I accept that I need to put on ‘spectacles’ to see the fine print. (Okay, to see ANY print at this point!)
I accept that I’m getting wrinkles and crepey skin.

But the thing that bothers me more than anything else is losing the strength in my hands.
My thumb is falling down on its job.
Last night was the straw that broke the camel’s back! 
Because of this weakness I was unable to use the nut cracker to open my stone crabs!!!!! This is an injustice that is beyond the pale!
It’s unfair, unjust, and downright WRONG! Having to ask Husband to crack my claws is humiliating! Not to mention time consuming! I have to wait for him to finish cracking and eating HIS claw before he can crack mine!

I might have to invent an ‘automatic stone crab claw cracker’ for my aging generation of baby boomers. Powered of course!

I’m also thinking of writing a book.
The title will be ALL THE THINGS YOUR MOTHER NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT LIFE AND AGING.

Chapter one: THIS JUST PLAIN SUCKS!