Tag: family

Purple is for birthdays


Happy birthday to Mark, far away in England. I had an extra cake layer in the freezer, so I defrosted and gave it purple candles so everyone at the Hall can have a slice to celebrate you this evening.


Today is the day our nephew Aaron was born in 1993. Because he often came to see us, he had his own napkin ring among those I painted for family and friends who visited The Compound and shared meals with us. Every wooden ring was painted a different color, and Aaron’s is purple. It’s kept in one of the display cabinets in the Houndstooth Hall living room. We will love and miss Aaron always.


Aaron and Tom in February 2011 celebrating Debby’s birthday along with her, David, Geri, and Timothy.

La vache violette

Je n’ai jamais vu de vache violette
Je n’espère jamais en voir un
Mais je peux te le dire, de toute façon
Je préfère voir que d’en être un

My mother used to recite this Gelett Burgess poem to me (in English). I have it in this book, first publication date after I left the right age group, but this edition was also before the time of my nephews and nieces. Who knows how or where I acquired it. The lines around the poem are part of the way the publisher decorated the page. No child scribbled those.


Since this was the first of my coloring books in which I could find a page with a cow, I decided I must do a little more to make her très chic to match the week’s purple theme. She’s definitely outstanding… out standing in her field, as my Uncle Dwight might have said.

 

 

Sunday Sundries and WYR? No. 5

Some random things that are purple:


A Christmas angel. A perfume bottle. An inner self manifestation bowl. An amethyst crystal point. Tiny medicine sachets with herbs and spices. And the 3000 Would You Rather Questions book, from which I chose…

No. 409. WYR take a photo with Santa or the Easter Bunny?
Santa!


Mother, Debby, and me with Santa in Salt Lake City, 1990.

Christmasy stuff, etc.

Before I write another word of this post: I FINISHED CHAPTER freaking 16 15 (I somehow skipped a number, so all these times I’ve called it 16, I was wrong) in book seven of the Neverending Saga. It’s a Christmas miracle.

Meanwhile, this holiday-themed book was only released in 2023, so I don’t think I’ve colored out of it before. I really like its drawings, but yesterday, I was confused about some ornaments.

I texted Lynne, hoping for clues to the questions, What the heck are these; how do I color them?


She texted back: Pine cone or artichoke or pomegranate or all had a baby. Deferring to that botanical wisdom, here is my finished page.

And a couple of close-ups so you can see most are shiny in some way.

Also, this happened today.

Just like every year: Mrs. Claus has to mend Santa’s hat. Santa is painting another yellow skateboard. One of those elves looks like he’s taking a knife to a small child.* The wee reindeer keep watch. The tree has been decorated. Toys a’plenty are ready for Santa’s bag.

This is my yearly reminder that I was lucky enough to know Liz, who helped me love Christmas again many decades ago and painted and gave me Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and some of their workshop accessories. Lynne has a matching set (in different colors) painted by their mother. One day, Lynne’s set will be given to her granddaughter, and my set will be given to Lynne’s grandson. This is one tradition I hope will continue long after I’m gone.

Even before Santa’s Workshop opened for business this season, Tom’s Workshop was busy repairing several broken ornaments that I found when I unpacked decoration bins in late November. News flash! TOM IS SANTA’S HELPER. Did anyone ever doubt it?

*ETA: If you doubted me. Tom says the elf is whittling a doll. Sure, Tom. That elf chose violence.

Coloring fiction (and history)

Taking a suggestion from Mark for coloring that might include history and England…

C.S. Lewis was a British writer, literary scholar, and Anglican lay theologian. You might know him best because of The Chronicles of Narnia, which begins with the first novel, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When the four Pevensie children are evacuated from London during the Blitz*, they live with a professor in his house in the countryside. There, they discover a wardrobe that’s a portal to a magical land named Narnia.


The coloring pages I did below, of the wardrobe, can be found on the copyright page and last page of this lovely coloring book.

I didn’t read the Narnia series as a child. I was introduced to it by my college roommate Debbie, who I think gave me a paperback set for a birthday or Christmas. I then told Lynne about the series because both of us read fantasy as teens and young adults, specifically The Lord of the Rings novels (J.R.R. Tolkien) and The Sword of Shannara trilogy (Terry Brooks).


Years later, when I worked at a bookstore, badly damaged books were often marked 50% off, and that’s how I was able to afford my hardcover collection on my meager salary. While they may not be the prettiest, they came to me gently loved and remain loved.

Debbie’s recommendation also began my fascination with lions thanks to Narnia’s Aslan. Aslan is the reason my father did this for me in pen and ink:

And Lynne’s sister Liz did this ceramic piece for me:

And Debby gave me this canvas print by artist Leonid Afremov as a recent Christmas gift.

*The whole lion fascination was a detour. Back to British history. Long before I read C.S. Lewis, I’d read books about children who were evacuated to the English countryside as well as to the United States to stay with host families during World War Two. The Blitz is the term for Germany’s bombing raids of cities and towns in England from September 1940 to May 1941. In London during that period, there were 57 consecutive nights of bombing. People wore gas masks and used blackout curtains. They were on food and petrol rations, and volunteers patrolled the streets at night to sound warnings and make sure people got safely inside shelters during air raids. Civilians, including women, drove ambulances, helped rescue people trapped in bombed houses, and tended to wounds as they could. Mark, in a comment you left on Mindful Monday’s post, you pinpointed some of the qualities that explain why I have so much love and admiration for your country and its people.

Because of my interest in that period of history, there’s a backstory for a brother and sister in the Neverending Saga that includes being sent to live with relatives in rural England during the war. Though their parents were killed in a London bombing after the Blitz, just in London alone, 30,000 residents lost their lives during the Blitz.

Tiny Tuesday!

Yesterday brought good mail. One of the first things that showed up was my 2024 sleigh bell. Tom and I still haven’t decided exactly which decorations we’ll put out this year (at least the tree is already up), but seeing the new bell made me look forward to all of them hanging on their garland again.

Back in December 2022, I put a couple of photos on Instagram showing most of the many paper angels that I’ve colored or have been colored and given to me through the years.

Coloring angels dates back to when Steve R was alive (early 90s) and introduced me to Catherine Stock’s A Christmas Angel Collection coloring books. A friend commented on my Instagram post that she really liked them, and I offered to send her a few if she wanted to choose one to color.

I’ll share this in the most privacy-respecting way possible, but my friend had some big life changes coming her way, and it turned out coloring an angel added to the stress. A lot of people find coloring stressful. In fact, several years ago, at the fundraiser Debby and I went to that reignited my interest in coloring, one of the other people attending got so stressed out that she had to stop. What’s calming for some of us is the exact opposite for others.

My friend’s angel was the other thing that arrived with the mail, along with her explanation for why she never finished it. There’s nothing wrong with stopping a project that doesn’t bring you happiness. I was excited to see the angel and the colors my friend used to start her.


All of the angels in Stock’s book are based on great works of art, and this one is derivative of the artwork St. Macarius of Alexandria, from the School of Rublev, Russia, late 16th century. Angel colors are completely up to the person coloring (i.e., it’s not important to try to imitate the art, because it would be so boring if all my angels looked alike).

New angel, new sleigh bell.

I finished my friend’s angel using her colors and my additions, and now this angel can join the others when I unpack them and put them out this year.

Mindful Monday

Oxytocin is a natural hormone made in the brain. It’s stored and released into the blood stream by the pituitary gland.

Other suggestions to boost oxytocin include yoga, massage, listening to music, physical intimacy, meditation, and doing something nice for someone.

Tom, Debby, Tim, and I celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday, with photographic proof below. Our oxytocin levels were excellent.

A couple of table views, where the menu was hen, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, black-eyed peas and macaroni and cheese (both from Debby), green beans, asparagus, corn, cranberry sauce, and rolls.

Dessert table, with my cranberry orange bread and Debby’s sweet potato pie.

People!

Lots of leftovers will be eaten. I’m just about to have a slice of cranberry orange bread with my coffee while I start a reread of Book 6 before getting back to the writing of Book 7. One of the issues with a character whose secrets force her to tell lies is a common problem: I, knowing the truth, can’t keep up with her lies.

Sunday Sundries: World AIDS Day 2024

On December 1, the World Health Organization (WHO) joins partners and communities to commemorate World AIDS Day 2024. Under the theme Take the rights path: My health, my right, WHO is calling on global leaders and citizens to champion the right to health by addressing the inequalities that hinder progress in ending AIDS.

December 1 is not only a call to activism and awareness on behalf of those living with HIV and AIDS, it’s a time to remember and honor lives lost to this pandemic.

Tom began setting up our tree a few days ago, while I unpacked ornaments. I took a photo of these.

The Santa was a gift to Tom and me from Amy after the three of us went to Washington, D.C., in 1996 to volunteer for the last full display of the NAMES Quilt. Steven’s House was a residential facility for people with HIV/AIDS where Tom volunteered his time for several years. The Support AIDS Research red ribbon fundraising ornament I bought from a national retailer (who now gets boycotted if they show compassion or support for the marginalized in their merchandise). Tom painted the little wooden ornament with the red ribbon for me one Christmas. The quilt ornament was a gift from my mother after she joined Tom, me, and several others–including Amy, Lynne, Nora, Vicki, Debby, and Lisa K–who assisted in making quilt panels that Tom and I gave to the NAMES Project (Tom donated his time to the Houston chapter for years).

Our panels:

The “Twelve Names” panel honors our friends Steve and Jeff, along with friends of friends: Fred, Dennis, Bill, Andy, Steven, and Jim were friends of Steve’s; Michael was Steve’s first boyfriend and Don was his partner who predeceased him; Jody, a high school friend of my co-worker Shawn; Ato was a friend of Tom and his family.

In addition, Tom, our friend James, and I hosted a gathering at The Compound to contribute our signed reflections about John, James’s partner and our beloved friend, to a panel created by the NAMES Foundation’s Pete Martinez.


Pete was tireless in the time and energy he gave on behalf of so many people who died because of AIDS and the partners, friends, and families they left behind. He was a good friend to Tom and me. Pete died in 2001, a loss to the community and to all those whose lives he impacted.

How to make…

This year I’ve been mostly on my own to start decorating our large tree, and let me tell you… I MISS MY THREE TO SIX ELVES. I used to call myself the Christmas hooker, because all I did was put hooks on ornaments and hand them over to volunteers who’d work for fun, food, and good tunes to hang them on the tree.

There are so many bins of ornaments that I was overwhelmed, so this year, I made the decision to leave a whole lot of them in the bins, and that included most of the beautiful ornaments that have been made for us by children and gifted stitchers and other arts and crafts friends through the decades. THEY ARE STILL HERE AND STILL LOVED. They’ll be hanging and beautiful again on future trees.

On the other hand, I’ll offer a Saturday morning pictorial of How To Create An Ornament That Nobody Will Want*.


Back in July of last year, I had a bunch of 2-inch by 2-inch canvases and painted all of them on the same day, for future use as wanted, with acrylics. I picked one of those for An Ornament That Nobody Will Want. Enjoy!

Step 1. Do an online search for free downloadable mini mandalas, and find a 2015 set from Tiffany Hastie. Be very grateful, download it, and print it on regular paper so you can check the size.

Step 2. Adjust the size (down, in this case) to print on cardstock. Do that and pick your pens.

Step 3. Get to coloring and realize you don’t need those sticking-out circles for what you’re doing. Oh, well.

Step 4. Cut out the mini mandala and pick a canvas.

Step 5. Pick your glue. Be grateful for your friends who have taught you from their experience to organize and label all your craft supplies.

Step 6. When the glue is dry, take your wee canvas outside with your preferred spray finish (in this case, matte), spray it, and leave it outside to dry.

Step 7. Time to call in the muscle, in my case, Tom, to find the right hook and insert it into the wood frame of the canvas.

Step 8. Find and cut the right piece of ribbon from this mess.

Step 8. When the ribbon is on the hook, hang it on the Christmas tree. Festive fun!

*An Ornament That Nobody Will Want is not a bitter name. It is a truth universally acknowledged that crafting is in the pleasure, art is subjective, and experience is a teacher. Also, Becky is not a perfectionist unless she is ruthlessly editing someone’s (including her own) writing. Which she’s about to get back to doing.