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Current Photo Friday theme: UrbanView.
Because of urban sprawl, anywhere you find yourself in Houston, you’re likely to get a view of a different highway (there are many), a different skyline (there are several), and different weather in a single shot.
Eggs symbolize the cycle of life. This year, I found an online egg to download, color, and decorate for our nephew Aaron, who died on April 25, 2012. The original ribbon for world suicide awareness is orange and yellow; I used those colors for the background. The teal and purple colors on the egg are used to raise suicide awareness and prevention. White is the color used to represent the loss of a child, and orange is the color used to represent the loss of a sibling. Aaron’s mother and father are represented by white hearts, and his sister and brother are represented by orange hearts. The color purple represents the loss of a friend or relative.
Aaron was kind, smart, funny, talented, and sensitive. He’s part of our hearts and memories every day.
While David was visiting Houston, he, Debby, and Tom went to Austin to visit Aaron’s grave. Though I wasn’t able to go, we’d all painted rocks to place there. Aaron’s mother Lisa and his aunt and cousins had cleaned and redone the site a few days earlier. It’s very peaceful there.
Today is also the birthday of our nephew and godson Matthew.
Just so you know, Matthew’s turning twenty today. We don’t see him often because of geography, but I promise this isn’t the most recent photo we have of him. =) It’s from his baptismal weekend.
The last Easter basket I ever got from my mother was in 2006. She won it with play money from a plastic egg she found on an Easter egg hunt at the assisted living facility where she lived. The play money could then be used to bid on Easter baskets made by residents. She surprised me on Easter with the basket she won (when Tom and I went to visit and took her an Easter basket of her own). The bunny pictured above was in the basket she gave me. I photographed him this week holding an Easter egg decorated with beads that Tom’s mother gave us on a different Easter.
Here’s the back of Mary’s Easter egg.
Some moms never forget you don’t get too old for surprises from the Easter bunny.
These are fresh flowers shown in the vase I gave my parents on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary many years ago. They were married on April 24, and I never forget that date, even though they sometimes did. When David was here and we were going through some of Daddy’s military records, one of them actually listed April 23 as their wedding date. It cracked me up, because it means Daddy remembered it wrong when he was providing information for the form. On one of their anniversaries, I proved to them they were wrong by making them dig out their marriage license, signed and dated by both of them and the minister who married them on April 24.
Some kids never forget the joy of winning an argument with their parents. =)
One thing I’ve seen a lot of this season is artists who are doing beautiful paintings on model eggs. I used to think people were using darning eggs, until I realized that wooden eggs are available for purchase in multiple sizes in craft stores. I found them when I had the idea back in the early ’90s to use tiny bits of fabric to cover wooden eggs. My first was a gift to Steve, and I gave others away, too. Tom still has one in his office after all these years. These are the ones I still have.
Back then, Tom, too, decided to do an egg for me. He used a carving tool to make a head shape out of the top end so that he could create one for my pig collection. You have to see both front AND back for how he used either marker or paint for a whimsical effect.
It’s Tom’s mother, however, who gave me so many of my most beautiful eggs that she decorated with wood burning or paint and sometimes both. Both parents and all of his siblings have so much talent in all kinds of arts, crafts, and music.
Detail on both sides of an egg using a wood burning tool.
Putting borders around eggs with either wood burning or paint.
Using both wood burning and paint on the front and back of this egg with hummingbird and flowers.
I do love a modern geometric effect, once again with both wood burning and paint.
A beautiful pair of doves, and on a couple of pictures of the back, you can see how she made their wings and tails so colorful.
I have no memory of where this egg came from. I believe it’s an actual egg (emptied, of course) and painted. It’s too fragile to be in the “egg jar” where the sturdier eggs are, and lives in the library curio cabinet. It rests safely atop a vase that I think came from my friend Big Hair Lisa; maybe she also gave me the egg.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this egg-cellent gallery. (You knew I’d have to do that at least once this week.)
Happy Earth Day! Please be kind to the planet. All of the eggs pictured are commercially produced and painted wood and were probably in some version of an Easter basket I received in the past (none of them from childhood). The very tiny blue with white dots is the smallest of all my eggs.
Yep, that’s me. The pointed toes of those white patent leather shoes are scary. I very much admire my white gloves, hat, and purse. As Patsy Stone says:
Anyone remember Easter baskets or Easter activities from childhood? Were you afraid of the Easter Bunny?
Yesterday, as I was going through my egg collection and looking ahead to the week’s posts, I randomly did a search on “mindful eggs” for today and discovered that yes, they do exist in the marketplace. They may also have other names like worry eggs, thinking eggs, stone eggs–you get the idea–and most are meant to fit easily into the palm of your hand as a tactile way to refocus from anxiety, worry, or stress to a sense of calm and balance. Larger eggs may also be placed on a surface where your eyes can easily focus as you do whatever brings you calm–a mantra, chant, prayer, deep breathing, etc.
These are possible candidates I found from my collection.
Small and lightweight, these would easily fit inside your palm or a pocket. However, they’re glass, not stone, and I personally would prefer to have a natural stone so even more than shape or feel, I get the particular attributes of the stone (e.g., for stress or anxiety, good stones are sodalite, amethyst, tiger eye, rose quartz, carnelian, if you’re drawn to any of those).
Possibly iron-stained quartz crystal, these are small but have weight. Comfortable to hold, but maybe a little heavy and oversized for a pocket.
Believe me when I tell you, these are quite heavy and at least three of them are the size of, if not larger than, an actual egg. Ideal for table top focus.
It’s apparent that I need to keep an eye out for a smaller-sized, egg-shaped crystal or stone that resonates with me the next time I’m inclined to shop. (An infrequent activity.) In the meantime, should I want to use a stone egg for mindful moments, either of these two lovelies could work for both holding or gazing.
Do you have crystal or stone eggs, use them for mindfulness, or keep them with you as “worry” stones?
Happy spring, happy day, happy Easter–though I don’t think there will be many egg hunts in Houston, as we’re expecting a lot of rain. The photo shows some of the eggs I’ve accumulated through the years. I’ll be singling out items pictured here to talk about this week.
ETA: The Houston forecast has been revised. Perhaps less rain, perhaps later in the day. This could be good news for the outdoor-loving, candy-devouring, egg-hunting enthusiasts and the Easter Beagle.
1. Family Gift
Art glass, clam shell
Cradled for unwrapping
The baby chose that Eve
To take leave of his hostess
Pushed his way
Into Christmas Day
2. Strange Brew (For Elizabeth)
A varied array of shells
Strange brew, as were you
Your surprising shapes and surfaces
Your body: so brave, so broken
Your laugh: half doubt, half magic
I miss all of you
3. Farewell
Art glass, conch shell
The story you’d tell
A he said/she said
Both would be right
Both would be wrong
As two can be so often
But it really was farewell
No need to retell
4. Box With Shells
He was old
She was older
Not all sweet stories are romance
Two strangers found friends
In dusk and night of life
She dressed a box with shells
Shapes as old as time
An offering to him
She is gone now
He is, as well
Memory lives in every shell
All poems ©Becky Cochrane 2025
Current Photo Friday theme: Loud.
Two untitled paintings from my father, who when he wasn’t painting in bold colors or ordering troops in a commanding voice (and sometimes accidentally into a school’s PA system), was a quiet, patient man. Daddy died on this date, April 18, in 1985. He’ll always be missed by those who knew him. His was my first introduction to art. He was a veteran of World War II and career military (Army). Additionally, he was: teacher, historian, high school administrator, mayor, avid reader, and sign painter. Along with his gift for visual art, he was a writer and storyteller. He was my hero as a good provider and husband, father, and grandfather who offered his family unconditional love.
Remember these posts? I did twenty-five of them from 2022 to 2024. Today, I did a random pull from Cheryl Kelleher Walsh’s Aqua Summersus Tarot deck that I showed in Sunday’s photo. If you don’t remember the deck, here’s a flashback that explains how it came to be created and how it got to me just a little over a year ago. (Thank you again, Jim.)
I pulled four cards from the Major Arcana at random and wasn’t surprised to get the beautiful Moon card. Mermaids, after all…
The Moon and The Star, with the briefest of descriptions from Walsh.
The Moon represents the power of intuition and the mysteries of the unconscious.
The Star represents the power of hope and inspiration.
The Hermit and Strength, with Walsh’s descriptions.
The Hermit represents the power of introspection and solitude.
Strength represents the power of inner strength and fortitude.
All of these cards were good ones for me for my own reflections, which is how I’ve always used Tarot cards: as a lens for my interior self. Derive from the cards whatever you wish.
This is a gorgeous deck for the photography alone. And if you wonder why, with all that’s going on in the world, I keep my site’s focus on the things I do… Would you really rather I explore the pain and stress and anxiety of other things that (a) you’re already enduring or (b) you don’t believe in anyway?
Some silence is cruel. Mine is not meant to be. I share what I can.