Updates

I haven't posted to this blog in awhile. I've been busy over at my yoga blog "Doing Nothing." I will now attempt to post to both blogs at least weekly. But please don't hold me to that. LOL

I had to empty my studio out for awhile as my son, his wife and my granddaughter will be moving in with us this summer while they transition from Navy life to civilian life. I so look forward to bonding with my granddaughter. I'm sure I will have a million pictures of her before they find their next destination. How thrilling for them to have another path to take in their life. How grand for me to be able to be part of that path.

My creative process has shifted for the time being to learning yoga and Pilate's and baby proofing our house. But watch for more posts and photos here as I really need this creative outlet too.

Baby proofing our house has been cleansing for us. Of course all the extra has ended up in the garage. My husband will be happy when we have that huge garage sale in a couple of weeks and he can have his space back. I'm sure he can't wait to work out on that weight set we set up out there. :)

The Holidays

How will I spend the holidays this year? For some just mentioning “the holidays” can bring a shudder with all the stress, planning, traveling and overspending. But with some thought I think we can alleviate some of the bad vibes that come along with the entire hubbub of the holidays.

My yoga instructor said to try and take the holidays easier this year. Make it simple as part of our practice. Make that your gift to yourself and those around you. The wintertime should be a time to hunker down, stay warm and take care of yourself for the coming spring. There’s a lot to be said in that. I’m taking heed in her advice this year.

We are spreading things out over November and December. While we have a lot of traveling to do we aren’t doing it all in the same couple of weeks. I won’t get out all my decorations, just my favorite ones. I am choosing to do those things I love to do for the holidays. I also plan to create whenever I can fit it in and I will continue with my yoga practice and my exercise regime. That will keep me calm and centered. I will also remember to drink lots of water. Keeping hydrated is important and then you won’t fill up and overeat.

We opted to have Thanksgiving at home with my daughter and her boyfriend with all the trimmings. We will have all of our favorites. Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mash potatoes and pumpkin pie are on my list. I love the smells of Thanksgiving and the warmth of the kitchen while everything is cooking. Then we will celebrate with friends with our “Saturday after Thanksgiving” party. A tradition we have done for the past few years. All of our friends get together from all over and we have another giant feast. People make great effort to get there sometimes. It’s a lovely way to get together before everyone scatters for December. It’s great to carve out time to see our friends and celebrate with them.




I love to go into San Francisco’s Union Square at night when all the Christmas lights are up and people are shopping. There’s a chill in the air and puppies and kittens in the windows at Macy’s. Hot chocolate and window shopping bundled up in my wool coat. I don’t necessarily buy anything, I just like to go observe and breathe in the spirit wherever I can find it, take a few photos and people watch. I love big cities. I find a comfortable place to sit and watch all the people buzzing by. I find calmness and rhythm while sitting in the middle of chaos just observing.




We will be celebrating in early December with my son and his family in the Seattle area. We are bringing my parents and they will be meeting their first great-grandchild. We have rented an apartment at a retro-motel in their town and plan on making it a mini vacation. We will take in all the sites of Seattle and the surrounding area and have a lovely family dinner at my son’s house. Early December allows my daughter-in-law time with her family when they come to visit at Christmas and it allows us to attend my mom’s Christmas Eve celebration in Southern California. Hence, I get to do all my favorite things. Hug my new grandbaby, visit a big city, connect with family, continue and start traditions.

I’m thinking a fun New’s Years Eve party at our house with our friends might be fun. But I’m leaving that up in the air right now. Whatever happens, happens. Go with the flow.

I want to thank Cynthia Morris for her post that inspired me and reminded me of how to enjoy the holiday season.

Lyra

I'm a grandma! The instant I saw this little bundle my heart melted. She is beautiful. Lyra Adele Ritner, born September 12, 2009, 7 pounds, 14 oz.

The second we heard my daughter-in-law was headed to the hospital, Boyd and I jumped in the car and drove 14 hours to see our new grandchild. We were exhausted by the time we got to Washington. We didn't get to the hospital until 10:30pm. We had to go through security, have our car searched and then we got lost inside the hospital. But opening that door and seeing my son's new family was life changing. I can't even put it in words. They were all exhausted but beaming. Lyra was calm and comfortable snuggled into her mom. My heart melted as I looked into little Lyra's face. My granddaughter, a new person, a new branch to our family. The love was instant. My son is a father. Can't wait to get back over to the hospital this morning.

The Power of Now

How do you live in the now? You must have a passion, something to focus on, a goal, a dream, something to strive for.

The gentle rocking of a sleeping baby in your arms, the sweet baby smell, your breathing synchronized with his as his warm little body melds into yours. You can think of nothing else but keeping them warm and safe. People are talking around you but you can only hear the breathing and the heartbeat of the little child in your arms. You feel as one with the child as you glide back and forth in the chair. You must provide for them, they are your center, your passion. Your every waking moment is to care for this child.That is living in the now.

My children are in their twenties now. One of them is going to be a parent soon. It seems so long ago that they were babies. My sister just had a baby, he is seven months old. I just spent five days with my little nephew taking care of him. That mother instinct never leaves. The care is constant. I had no time to worry about what I left behind at work or the projects I had undone or when my next exercise class was or what I was eating or drinking. It was quite eye-opening to me. You never stop until it’s feeding time and then you can sit down in that rocker, darken the room and slowly rock as the baby touches your hand and you feed him. I had forgotten all that. That’s why it all goes by so fast; you are in the moment thinking of nothing else but what is happening in front of your eyes.. That’s living in the moment, living in the now.

I’ve experienced the same passage of time as I’m creating a piece of artwork or walking on the beach looking for treasures. When you do something you have a passion for you don’t have time to notice what time it is or think about your bills or problems. You are just in the moment, nothing else matters. The dishes can wait, the pot can boil over, the laundry can pile up you don’t care because you are rocking a child or painting a picture or writing a song or petting your cat. You are living in the now.

I can remember how hard it was to be sleep deprived, exhausted, and unshowered when my kids were little and thinking how hard this is. But one look or touch or new thing learned always made up for it. It went by so fast and then they are grown and you have this empty spot that you have to fill. Find that passion. Your second life after kids is just as important as the first half but this time you are experienced, older, wiser. Make good use of your knowledge. Volunteer to spend a few hours, days or a week with a baby you love, relive those moments, it will bring you joy and a new understanding of self and what’s important. Live in the now.

Update on Molly the Dog

My parent's went out to dinner last night; she ate two trees.
Hmmmm.........

Ignore the elephant in the room...

Visiting my parents’ house on Easter weekend we had our second experience with Molly the Saint Bernard. Last time we were there she was a bouncy puppy of about 35 pounds with sharp puppy teeth. She ate my husband’s glasses and left several holes in various clothing pieces. A couple of months later she was as big as me and weighed 70 pounds with the biggest head you’ve ever seen. I was afraid of what she might eat this time.

My parents are very good with animals and have been working very hard to get Molly trained and under control. After all, she will be about 200 pounds by the time she is full-grown. You just have to have a dog like that in control. My dad walks her, well marches her, everyday after work. She goes to the dog park several times a week with my niece and takes obedience classes. She was still having some issues with biting so they invited a dog whisperer over. Someone they ran into recommended him who had heard about his great successes with animals. He was connected with the Humane Society.

He came over and just wanted to observe how the family reacted with the dog. They wanted to find out if the biting was a puppy thing or something else. The trainer observed and basically said they were doing everything right. The dog was basically jealous when she wasn’t getting the attention.

About that time the cat saunters up to the dog. A little history on this cat is needed. This cat found my parents house and moved in. She belonged to a neighbor down the street that had passed away. She came over and decided she wasn’t leaving. So mom and dad asked the relatives if they could keep her. They agreed and the cat happily took over the then petless house. The cat lived an amazing life of leisure and then the dog moved in. Not just a dog, a Saint Bernard puppy. Molly really just wanted to be friends, but the cat would have none of it.

The cat pulls its ears back, bares her teeth and hisses at the dog. The dog will not touch the cat and is completely buffaloed by her. The cat provokes most of the encounters just to let Molly know who is in charge. The dog whisperer loves the cat and tells my parents that’s how you handle this dog. The cat knows what she’s doing. She may be small but she is in charge. He gave them some advice on what to do and left them with their new training regimen.

Molly has now had several weeks of training with the new techniques by the time we show up for Easter. This is a different dog. She’s huge and slobbery, but under much more control. We were all mulling around in the kitchen at breakfast trying to get our breakfast together and Molly walked in. She just wants to be in the middle of everyone, she’s very social. But it’s a small kitchen and when you add a 70-pound Saint Bernard puppy to the mix it’s hard to move. Mom says to just ignore the dog. Right. We all juggle our food and try not to spill it as Molly leans up against us trying to get our attention, I pronounce, “It’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room.”

Looks like Molly will eventually get over her puppiness if she doesn’t completely exhaust and slime everyone in the process. She’s a handful albeit very sweet. It’s a good thing she’s cute!

Boxes

We drove down to Southern California to visit with relatives a couple of weekends ago. Now that we don’t have kids at home, we packed our car with room to spare and took off for a long weekend. I had one box of jewelry to return to my friend and business associate, Aileen. I sold some of her sea glass jewelry over the holidays. But somehow when we packed the car to come back home it was stuffed to the gills with boxes. It seems every house we went to had stuff for us to take home. I think we ended up with about five extra boxes. My husband growled a bit about it.

My mom had a set of encyclopedias that my dad and his best friend bought the year I was born. They were young and the door-to-door salesman convinced them what a good investment those books would be over the years. As it turned out, they were. I couldn’t just let her throw them out. I spent many hours with those books doing my research and reports for school over the years. Kids today don’t even know what an encyclopedia is. They just "Google" it. I actually plan on using them in my collage art. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to tear them apart but they do inspire me. I’ll keep you updated on what I do with them. I can always scan the images and use them.



At my brother-in-law's house we ended up going through boxes in his garage. I was looking for a few vintage photographs of my husband’s grandparents. My brother-in-law couldn’t remember if he had them or not. We started going through the boxes and finding all kinds of fun things. Not only did I find some of the photos I was looking for but we found the original stuffing recipe in my mother-in-law’s handwriting. I blogged about this recipe at Thanksgiving. There was actually a photo copy in the folder that she probably made about the time we asked about the recipe. So I took some photos of the originals and took the copy. I plan on making a collage with it and putting a copy of the recipe in our cookbook. What I didn’t realize as we were looking through all of these memories was it was my mother-in-law’s birthday. My husband and his brother finally did realize it and I think their mom was guiding them through the boxes. We found things like menus for every holiday meal since 1958 when she was pregnant with my husband, and things she jotted down that my brother-in-law said when he was three. If I had remembered it was her birthday I might have had goose bumps the whole time I was looking through the boxes.



My plan this year is to do some collages that capture the essence of some of our family members. I’ll be scanning and using the memorabilia I have collected over the years. I am also offering this art form to others if they have someone they want to capture in an image. It’s easy to put things in a box on a shelf and forget about them. It’s healing to pull them off that shelf and remember the good things and where you come from.

If you want me to help you with your memories, send me an email! I can create a custom piece for you.

Tradition

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas Eve and all I have left to do is make a pumpkin cheesecake. All the presents are wrapped, the house is all decorated. We're getting ready to open presents on the phone with our son and daughter-in-law in Washington. A new tradition for us when we can't all get together.

It's a very stress free holiday this year. No traveling, no big dinner to cook. We'll be visiting with friends today and tomorrow. In the morning we will open presents with my daughter and her friend Missy. Then a great big yummy breakfast. In the evening we will be off to visit friends.

Most years we go down to Southern California for Christmas. We celebrate with my parents on Christmas Eve and my husband's relatives on Christmas day. This year we both had to work and couldn't get away in the middle of the week. My son wasn't available to come down from Washington either. Our daughter is here packing and getting ready to move to New York the first week in January. So we decided to stay home and have a quiet holiday here on the Coastside. I must say I don't miss the stress of traveling on the holidays.

Having Christmas at home got me to thinking about traditions and how important they are in a family. We have a box in our xmas decorations marked "minimum Christmas." This is the box I get out if I know we're going to travel and not be home for the holidays. It's full of all our favorite ornaments and decorations, but takes minimum effort to put out. I still think it's important to set up some kind of tree and put out our favorite ornaments, even if we are not going to be home. I also have our stockings in there and bring them with us where ever we go to bring a little of home with us.

When we are home we open our gifts on Christmas morning and have big pancake breakfast. The stocking gifts are always wrapped in foil and they are the first thing we open. When the kids were little, Santa always left out one big unwrapped gift. The kids weren't allowed to go out before they woke up mom and dad. So we were always up at the crack of dawn. Before they could go out to the living room dad or mom would go out and turn on all the xmas lights and put the holiday music on. I would make sure the camera was ready to catch the joy in their eyes as they saw their fun surprises that Santa left. As adults we still do the stockings with everything wrapped in foil, but Santa doesn't leave the big gifts out anymore.

When we go to my mom's house on Christmas Eve, we have a white elephant gift exchange, El Pollo Loco caters our food and Santa in full regalia visits, hands out gifts and sings Christmas carols with everyone. Santa has been coming Christmas Eve to my mom's house since our son (the first grandchild) was about 1 years old. There's always a ton of people there. Mostly my relatives; sister, brother, in-laws, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and various people we've adopted over the years. Our friends that still live in Southern California know they can stop by my parents house and join in whenever we're there. It's always a good time.

Santa has always provided fun entertainment. When the kids were little, we would hide and watch him put out the presents and he never acknowledged that we were all watching. It was magical. As they got older he started passing out the gifts and joining in. The funniest time was when he brought Mrs. Claus. We think she was on the verge of full blown Alzheimer's and she had been nipping at the sherry before she got there. She threw the candy canes at people and made inappropriate comments. We were all roaring. I wish we had a video camera going that night.

Traditions are what make a family gathering special. Missy is a friend of our daughter and is staying with us right now. She said they always have roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding. My friend Aileen said they are starting a new tradition this year and will watch the movie "Fido" with their daughter every Christmas Eve. We always insist on everyone opening gifts one at a times, except the stocking which you can dump out and open up immediately. It's fun to see how each Christmas and other holidays change as each generation gets older. We all incorporate our favorites from our family and then create new ones. It's fun to watch my son and daughter-in-law start theirs. Next year my brand new nephew will about one and everything will be new to him and we can watch my sister start traditions with her new family. We gave him "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and my sister is reading it to him tonight. I used to read it to my kids every Christmas Eve. So I guess that's my nephews first tradition.

Please leave a comment and let me know what your favorite family traditions for the holidays are. I'd love to hear from you.

To all my friends and family and fellow blog readers; I wish you a very merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season.

Stuffing!!!!!

So, my mother-in-law's recipe for stuffing really doesn't call for 4 pounds of butter. But that's what I buy every year because of the way my husband wrote it down when he asked his mother how to make stuffing about 20 years ago. I always swear it says 3-4 lbs of butter and it's really 3/4 lbs of butter. Logically that makes more sense, but my husband always said there's lots of butter in here and that makes it good. So I always buy the larger quantity of butter knowing we'll use it if I'm wrong and bought too much.

My mother-in-law was talking a mile a minute and my husband was writing it down on any available piece of paper; notepad, scraps, envelopes and post-its. There are even several colors of ink. It's all now stained with butter! I finally scanned it so I could keep it for posterity. But all the original pieces are still in my recipe book. I don't think anyone else ever wrote it down. It was a "secret" recipe passed woman to woman. But I think we're beyond that now. I don't make it, my husband does!

I'm sure the original recipe was passed on from several generations and has had changes made along the way. But this is how we make it. Our adult children crave it at the holidays and our son's wife just asked us how to make it. So here is the recipe. Good luck interpreting it and trying to read it, I never can. I hope you have other recipes to use that extra butter with.

The Family Tree Grows

My nephew came a week early. Six pounds 19 1/2 inches long. Mom and baby are doing fine and it looks like dad is in love with his new son.

He came early because I bought plane tickets for next week to be there when he was scheduled to be born. My mom called last night and told me he's coming out in an hour and a half. I quickly concluded that I could not get get there that fast. It is a six to seven hour drive or an hour by plane. So I sat and waited by my cell phone. I got a call from my mom that said everyone was on their way to the hospital. My cousin, my aunt, my brother, my nieces, my niece's mom, my mom and dad and then all of the dad's side of the family. I guess that's what I miss most about not living near all my relatives. Everyone always shows up and supports each other at the drop of a hat. If I could have been there I would have been right there in the waiting room probably making a scene just by the sheer number of people that showed up to be there to welcome the newest member of our family. He's a lucky little boy to have such a great family to be born into.

Thank God for camera phones! I got text messages and photos almost instantly as events transpired. It helped make me feel part of the chaos of the waiting room. My mom said they were all sitting in the waiting room and all of a sudden they heard a lullaby come over the speakers. They asked what that was and were told every time a baby is born in the hospital they play a lullaby. The lullaby playing was for my nephew.

I'm making my plans now to get down there and see that baby.

Quiet Moment

My sister is having a baby. She's scheduled for a c-section the day before Thanksgiving. My sister thought she would never have children, but at 43 she and her fiance discovered they were going to be parents. Surprise! She has been a pre-school teacher forever and loves children. Although I think she believes all children are three years old. She will be pleasantly surprised to find out that this is not true. They change so much in that first year and then before you know it they are grown and gone to college or getting married and having their own children.

My mom was over at my sister's house helping her to set up the nursery. My sister has been very worried about learning all there is to know about caring for a baby. As I said she's an expert with three year olds. But clueless when it comes to bunting a baby. She was worried she wouldn't know how to wrap that baby up right and had been reading about it. She asked my mom to help her with it. The nursery was finished and everything was in place and here was my sister very pregnant and worried that she couldn't wrap that baby up when she got him home. My mom and her worked with a blanket and a stuffed monkey. They were sharing a quiet moment of mom and daughter, my mom patiently showing her daughter the intricacies of wrapping up a baby. My mom looked up and there was my sister's fiance, quietly watching them both. She didn't know how long he had been there, but was touched by the softness this man was showing in his face as he watched this loving scene.

I'm excited and elated as this new family starts another branch in our family tree.

Spice Cake

Every celebration in my childhood was blessed with a spice cake that my grandma made. It was my favorite. It didn't matter if there was birthday cake or pumpkin pies there was always spice cake too. I always had a piece of everything. "Yes, I'll have a piece of spice cake with my pumpkin pie and pecan pie. Yes, put whip cream on top the pies." It's a wonder I don't weigh 300 pounds.

Just the smell of spice cake brings me right back to climbing the trees in my grandparents backyard and sitting at the redwood picnic table with the red checked table cloth. Good times.

When my daughter-in-law stated she wanted a dark rum spiked spice cake for their Renaissance themed wedding I thought of my grandma's spice cake recipe. I hadn't made it in a long time. One of the main ingredients is lard. It's not for the diet conscious. The only thing was it didn't have rum in it. So I looked up spice cakes online and discovered some fascinating facts about spice cake. Most spice cakes do indeed have rum in them. I'm sure that my grandmother omitted the rum when she put her recipe together, Grandma and Grandpa didn't drink. I don't know where she got her original recipe, but family members don't remember a time when she didn't make it.

Another interesting fact is that rum spice cakes are very popular in the West Indies and Caribbean Islands dating back to the 17th century. The cake is very dense, full of dried fruits and keeps quite well with all the rum. There have been rumors that my great grandfather Gibson was from the West Indies. All hearsay, but he was much older than my great grandmother and looked exotic in the few photos I've seen of him. He looked nothing like a farmer in Oklahoma. Before he met my great grandmother he was a world traveler. So it's possible he could have been from anywhere.

Family Soul Collage

Poetry
Music
Philosophy
Contemplation

Still working on this. Needed to let it sit for a few days. It needs a little tweaking.