Last week I asked for suggestions for watercolor painting ideas and friend Julie came up with several, one of which was to paint from photographs that I’ve taken. Challenge accepted!
The Watercolor Travel to Italy workbook helped me in my approach to these two projects – I tried to paint with a looser interpretation of what I was seeing. I like how the blackbird turned out better than the reflection. Couldn’t resist working in a haiku for the RW blackbird.
Thanks for the inspiration, Julie!
And here’s what happened last weekend:
This is my much-abused craft table, the top of which hasn’t been seen since we moved here in 2005. It would have been helpful to show you a “before” picture so you could appreciate the difference, but I didn’t think of that. Have you ever cleaned an area and made a promise to yourself that you were going to keep it cleaned? I am Very Determined to keep clutter off this table, so I can use it for something besides painting. I’m getting excited about sewing some more felt animals for Grandma’s Toy Box. ❤️
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but will admit that I’m not Very Determined about it.
Subtitled: The Fish That I Killed. Here’s how it happened. My oldest brother (we’ll call him Bro One) was studying geology at the U of M and got an amazing opportunity to work at a jade mine in Casper, Wyoming, over the summer. At that time, he had the basement bedroom and I was still in high school. As the fourth out of six children, I was next in line for having my own room, so I was thrilled to find out that I was going to get his room for the summer. The “catch” was that I was also going to be responsible for taking care of his fish while he was away. He explained to me that they would need daily feeding and showed me how much food to give them. I’m guessing that there were about 40 or so tropical fish in the tank. I asked him if the tank would need cleaning or if the water would need to be replaced. He assured me that it would not, which filled me with relief. It sounded like a pretty easy deal and I started out with confidence.
About three weeks into the gig, I noticed that the water in the tank was getting less clear and seemed kind of dirty. I was a little worried about it, so I consulted my second oldest brother, Bro Two, who assured me that it was no big deal. And then the fish started going belly up. Not a lot at first – the disaster started small. I found the first one, got it out with the net and flushed it down the toilet. This was disquieting, but I hoped it was an isolated incident. A couple days later, another one floated to the top. This time, I observed that there were several more fish in the tank that were looking decidedly unwell and a little shaky in their swimming maneuvers. Bro Two proved to be a useless consultant (sorry, Bro Two, but it’s true) as he was mystified by why they were dying and had no advice for me except to keep fishing them out and flushing them.
As the weeks dragged on, the death toll kept rising and the water got murkier and murkier. I began to be oppressed and burdened in spirit by this turn of events, imagining Bro One’s great anger and disappointment when he got back (“you had one job!”). The fish started haunting my subconscious and I was almost nightly visited with vague and disturbing dreams about dead fish floating in the water, their beastly little white stomachs the only thing visible in the dark water. By the time Bro One came home, I couldn’t see to the back of the tank anymore and had no idea if there were even any fish left living in that death trap. I dreaded having to tell him how badly I had failed him, but it turned out that his attachment to the fish was a great deal less than what I had imagined. “Oh,” he said casually, “I should have figured that might happen if the water wasn’t kept clean.” I really could have wrung his neck at that point, having spent a good portion of the summer obsessing about those dumb fish.
You’d think that experience would have turned me away from the whole fish aquarium experience for life, but one of the science curricula we used with the kids had a unit in which you were supposed to raise guppies. Seemed easy enough, so we bought a few, bought the tank, the filter, the gravel, and one little suckermouth catfish to clean the sides of the tank. The guppies immediately started dying off. I am an inveterate fish killer, I guess. I called the pet store lady and she said, “You’re not putting shells in the water, are you?” It turns out that’s a bad idea and I wondered why this important detail wasn’t given to all new fish owners. Once we got that cleared away, we saw an improvement in the life expectancy of our little fish community, but those guppies were still more fragile than I thought they’d be. Eventually, we had no fish except the stalwart and faithful catfish, which I sold back to the pet store.
This has been True Stories with Lynniebeemuseoday. I hope you won’t have nightmares about dead fish now.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, especially if it’s gone belly up.
Our financial consultant has neatly summed up the three phases of life once the kids are grown and out of the house: The Go-Go Years, The Slow-Go Years and the No-Go Years. I’m pleased to report that right now we’re in that first phase, the Go-Go Years. Everybody’s circumstances are a little different, but in general these are the years in which you still have the energy and resources to go places, visit people and stay fairly active. By the time you get to the Slow-Go years, you may have more physical limitations and it’s harder to get around. And if you live long enough, you will find yourself in the No-Go years in which you can’t drive, it’s hard to move from the couch to the kitchen, and anybody that wants to see you pretty much has to come to you instead of the other way around. I have made a helpful diagram for you.
It’s also when we embark upon these phases of life that certain Bible verses begin to leap out at you that you were happily blind to before.
Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16
Oh, the aches and pains of that outward perishing! The knees that groan, the back that goes out, the struggle to get in and out of a chair, the longer and longer recovery times from illness and injury, the awareness of muscles getting weaker, the mind losing its sharpness, the inability to kneel or sit on the floor… You’ve probably got your own list.
Yet, the inward man is being renewed day by day.
Solomon wrote metaphorically about the No-Go Years: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, ‘I have no pleasure in them…’ In the day when the keepers of the house tremble [bones and muscles], and the strong men bow down [the stooped look of the old man]; when the grinders cease because they are few [teeth], and those that look through the windows grow dim [eyes].” Ecclesiastes 12:1,3-4.
And yet…and yet – the inward man is being renewed day by day.
Renewed for what? Listen to this: “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 For those who are in Christ, the No-Go Years will be followed by the Ever-Go Years, which will never cease and in which we will have renewed strength, bodily strength.
The inward man will have a new imperishable outward man, and “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
Can I get an “Amen!”
I’ll probably delete this in the morning while I’m on the go-go.
Six-year-old Anna Ovedia stood on the dock with her parents and younger sister Pauline. How could they leave their home? Why must they leave their home? This land of Norway with its icy fjords, sharp, high mountains, snowy winters and short sunny summers was all she’d ever known. She looked up at her mother and held her hand tightly, fearful of all the noise and the crowd waiting to get on the boat, the shouting of the sailors, so many things going on at once. Mama had told her they were going to America, a place where they would find farmland and have sheep and cows and it would be a wonderful life. More wonderful than what they were leaving? She already missed Sirri, their cat. What a comfort it would be to be holding Sirri right now. Papa said they were going on an adventure. But Anna didn’t like adventure that took her away from her home. She would try to be brave.
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Anna Ovedia is my grandmother, or should I say “was” my grandmother. She passed away over 25 years ago now. She was born in 1900 in Norway, where she lived until her family emigrated to the United States in August of 1906. For years I have wanted to write a fiction version of her story, sort of like Laura Ingalls Wilder did about her own life. The challenges are that my grandmother didn’t talk about her past very much and there are very few photos of her younger years. Her mother died when Annie was 14 and she, along with her 4 younger brothers and sisters were taken from their father and put into the Owatonna State School. Some years ago I was able to get all the documents from that period in her life. I still remember the day that packet of information came in the mail. I sat and read it and couldn’t put it down, even to make lunch for the kids (“you’re on your own!”).
This is the first, very short installment. I’d like to keep going with it and will need to start sorting through all the documents and genealogical information I got from my Mom, who did a lot of family history research back in the day. I’m wondering if I should change her name or try to disguise her identity in some way if I’m going to publish this fictionalized story of her life on a public blog. Thoughts?
By the way, they really did have a cat named “Sirri” back in Norway.
The only photo I could find of my grandmother when she was relatively young.
A ghost appeared in my garden Astir in the raspberry patch Gossamer light, it moved out of sight- Fragile yet firm, a spectral worm- Astir in the raspberry patch.
Oh, the courage it took to grasp it Right there in the raspberry patch By the tail I took it, I held it and shook it A marvelous skin, slippery as sin Right there in the raspberry patch
When the Lord comes to take us yonder Beyond this old raspberry patch We’ll shrug off our sin like a slippery skin We’ll leave it behind like an old orange rind- It’s a whole new raspberry patch!
And there you have it – Thursday Thoughts. I’m tempted to commit to writing a poem for every Thursday post, but then what would I call it to keep the alliteration? Maybe I should go for a rhyme, like Thursday Verseday. I’m not sure why these things matter to me. Poetical thoughts are still thoughts, right?
I’ll probably delete this in the morning after tallying up the votes for Thursday Thoughts versus Thursday Verseday. You can make a difference!
We’re traveling to Castelletto di Brenzone today in our Watercolor Travel to Italy adventures – Lesson 14.
The artists’ original painting
Look at all the pretty boats! That was my first thought. Then I started trying to paint the pretty boats and kept losing track of which boat was which – that group in the back sort of melded together. The masking-on of the boat names was well nigh impossible – that stuff goes on very globbily, if I may make up a word. The letters for the first attempt didn’t look so great when I removed the masking, so I decided to write them on with a black marker when it was dry. Big mistake. The names are now screaming their way across the side of the boat in a very unnatural way: LOBIA!!! OLIVIA!!!
I didn’t do any masking on the second attempt, but used a combination of gouache and regular watercolors to paint the names over the boat color. Works for me. Now that I look at the second one, I wished I’d darkened up the ropes tying the boats to the pier. But enough of my critical analysis. All you really should be thinking about when you look at it is: “Look at all the pretty boats!”
That’s a wrap for Watercolor Wednesday. How about one of you giving me a painting challenge for next week? (Keep it simple!)
For those of you who don’t remember, I decided this year to organize my blog thusly: Monday Meanderings, Tuesday Reading Roundup (quotes), Watercolor Wednesday, Thursday Thoughts and Fiction Friday. The one that’s been the hardest for me is the Reading Roundup. I’m not always reading very quotable books and I’m also not always very disciplined about copying quotes down when I do. It’s time for something new: True Stories! I’ve got lots of those right at my fingertips, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t actually live a very exciting life, but I do enjoy taking some of life’s interesting moments and telling them as stories. Gather ‘round the metaphorical campfire and let’s get started.
When Kris and I were engaged, I was looking for a job on the campus where he was a grad student. A temporary secretarial job was open at the Office of Minority Student Affairs, so I applied and then showed up for the 10:00 interview in the timely manner of my people: ten minutes early. I was welcomed into the small office and directed to sit in a chair and wait. The time of the interview came and went and nothing happened. Twenty more minutes ticked by. While I tried to look nonchalant and composed, the two people who worked there were looking increasingly uncomfortable. They whispered to each other, excused themselves and went into another room where they apparently had a little conference to determine a course of action. Eventually a phone call was made and the phone was handed to me.
“Hello, this is Matthew. I’m sorry I’m not there, but I overslept.” He sounded tired, like he’d just woken up. “So anyway, how fast can you type?” I told him. “Okay, then you can have the job. Can you start tomorrow?” Yes. This qualified for the most unusual job interview I’d ever had. I was to find out upon meeting Matthew (who was more or less the office administrator) that it wasn’t uncommon for him to be out late at night and then come in late morning.
My first day on the job, I met the two women who worked there: Nancy and Carol. At some point the director, Dr. G. Jackson, came in and we were introduced. Everything was going smoothly until he came out of his office and asked me to come in and take dictation for a letter. Dictation! Nothing was mentioned about this in the job “interview.” I went into a cold panic – I don’t know shorthand, I had no training in stenography. My first day on the job was looking like it might be my last.
Blushing and stammering, I explained to Dr. Jackson that I didn’t know shorthand. “Oh,” he said, “Well, then, just do the best you can.” He then proceeded to dictate the letter to me and I tried to keep up with my own note taking using lots of abbreviations. And that’s how we did things from then on – it was a little nerve-wracking, but I sort of developed my own shorthand with him.
My two co-workers added to the zaniness of the whole job experience. Carol was an older lady who dyed her hair black and was hilariously quirky. Nancy, about ten years older than I, had one glass eye, and an aggressive and opinionated personality which I found somewhat intimidating, but she was also witty and had a great sense of humor. We soon settled into a fairly comfortable routine with lots of jocularity and camaraderie.
I was a relatively new Christian and with all the zeal of a new convert, I decided that I would do my best to share the gospel with my co-workers. So how did I go about doing that? Talking about it? Good gracious, no! In the manner of my people I took the indirect approach and wrote Bible verses on index cards and placed them on my desk. I switched them up every week, just to keep it fresh. Also, I brought my Bible in and read it sometimes on my breaks. That oughtta do it, I thought.
One of the students who stopped in regularly took note of this. His name was Fred and once he discovered that he and I were brethren in the Lord, he took to asking me every time he came in, “Lynn, have you told anyone today about Jesus Christ?” I don’t think writing Bible verses on index cards was his style of evangelism.
Nancy, however, began to get her feathers ruffled by the indirect approach. She’d sometimes make snarky comments about the Bible verses, which I didn’t take personally, since she was usually good humored about it. But one day, she’d had enough and challenged me, “Oh, so am I supposed to believe all of this stuff? What could possibly be in this Bible that would mean anything to me?” She picked up my Bible, randomly opened to a page and started reading aloud, as if to prove that it was all completely irrelevant. And this is what she read, “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Let me remind you that Nancy had lost an eye, her right eye, and had a glass eye in its place. She stopped reading, her mouth hanging open, and for the first time since I’d known her, she was speechless. Well played, God, well played.
I left that job for a permanent one shortly after that. I wish I could tell you that the gospel bore fruit in Nancy’s life, but I don’t know. I met Nancy and Carol for lunch a couple times, but lost track of them both eventually. But this I do know: God’s Word always does what He intends it to do. “So shall My Word be which goes from My mouth. It will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning – true or false?
When we got married, we lived in an apartment at first. It wasn’t until we rented our first house that the stuff started arriving. Every time my parents came for a visit, a couple more boxes of childhood memorabilia, books, saved schoolwork, etc. would arrive. We’ll call that “Stuff, Part One.”
Then came “Stuff, the Sequel.” In this phase, my parents started getting rid of their stuff. Fool that I was, I often took it. Sometimes I got rid of it and sometimes I didn’t.
And now we’re in the third phase “Revenge of the Stuff.” Our children have all moved out; some of them have been gone for over 10 years. The first summer that any one of them didn’t come home from college, I boxed up their stuff, labeled the boxes and stuck them in a closet. Every Christmas when they’ve come home for the last 5 years or so, I’d say, “I’d really like you guys to look through your boxes and get rid of the things that you don’t want to keep.” Ha! The words evaporated into a mist and floated away. Most of our children still live in apartments and don’t really have room for things and we have a large house, so it hasn’t been a huge issue.
But now I’m getting serious about this. Very serious. This year, I’ve been making phone appointments with each one of them to review what’s in each box. Much has been given away or thrown away at long last!
Some of you may be mystified by this strange habit of saving stuff. We recently had a family over and the father told us that he had just one small shoebox of things from his childhood. Our oldest son has 9 regular packing boxes of stuff, the next oldest has 11. Clearly we are a family of savers. And they came by it honestly.
When I went through our second son’s things with him, he had a huge box of specialty bottles and cans that he’d saved. I finally persuaded him to get rid of most of them and then I ended up liking some of ones he got rid so much, I kept them.
Is it time for an intervention? To justify this ridiculous decision, I found a use for one of them:
It’s probably time for the final phase: “The Zombie Stuff Apocalypse.”
I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Either that, or I’ll put it in a box marked “Blog Posts to Delete” and forget about it for 10 or so years until my kids have to throw it away.
I’ve got a busy day today – no time to write anything for Fiction Friday. Of course, I really should be writing those pieces ahead of time, but let’s move on. I’ll share instead a poem I wrote sometime during my college years.
Remember when shadows spelled words and creaks were footsteps Sirens always sent jailbirds up the wall knocking on my window or dark shapes in the closet seemed to move to make me shudder with delightful fright. Me, always prepared with ten thousand blueprint escape flights of genius intricacy. Just when muscles tensed to jump – Hall light ran under my door exposing the jungle only my bedroom and me safe… But ready for the next attack.
Ha ha – that really was me when I was a child. My imagination always took over when I was in bed and I did, actually, run through ways I could escape if that criminal did get into my bedroom, or the monster in the closet came out. Admit it – you did, too.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning while doing penance for not having a fiction piece ready to publish.
We had another overnight at a park before doing the hike at Lake Carlos State Park. This time we stayed at Chippewa Park in Douglas County near Brandon, Minnesota. It was pretty full by the time we got there, but our campsite, because there was no electric hook-up, was in another section, which we had to ourselves (fist bump!). The park is situated between two lakes, Devils Lake and Little Chippewa Lake. We loved the location right by the lakeside.
The guy that does most of the work to make these trips happen – thanks, Kris!
Previous occupants had kindly left some firewood for us, so we had another campfire that night – absolutely perfect. I hated to put it out and retire for the night.
In the morning, we went out to the dock to read our Psalms O’ Day.
I saw a snowy egret “hiding” near the shore in some high grasses and when we showed up, it took flight. The photos I took turned out so well, I gasped when I saw them. All credit goes to the camera – it happened so fast I literally just pointed, took the photos and hoped for the best.
I need to digress a moment to talk about pit toilets. Don’t skip this part – it’s important or I wouldn’t bring it up! I’m a little bit squeamish about using them and they generally stink to high heaven, so I wasn’t thrilled to see that the bathroom at Chippewa Park had these instead of flush toilets. However, the kind they were using were called “Phoenix Composting Toilets,” and I want to bring testimony that they were amazing (as pit toilets go). There was no smell whatsoever, and there was a rather pleasant light breeze around your nether regions as you sat. TMI? I’d still prefer a flush toilet, but want to give the PCT’s a thumbs up. Research that produces an improvement in the pit toilet experience is research I can get behind – pun intended!
Okay, I’m done with that little commercial. Lake Carlos State Park was about a half hour’s drive from the campground and we arrived around 9:15 a.m. for the 2.9 mile hike.
As we arrived at the parking lot, we saw a deer running through and although we reached the point where we’d seen it just seconds after it had run into an area of very light brush, it was gone. Kris opined that deer are made out of forest butter, which allows them to melt away into the scenery. I thought that was rather poetic, don’t you?
Now you see it, now you don’t A deer runs into the brush It melts away before your eyes And the rustling branches hush
You see, when God created the deer, He left out the noise and clutter But added in a goodly dose Of silence and forest butter.
The morning dew was still on the grass and it was 61 degrees – all systems were go.
A grassy path beckoned us and led us away from Lake Carlos, which soon became the dirt path called Hidden Lake Trail.
You will not be surprised to learn that this trail went by a small lake. I suppose there’s a sense in which you could call it “hidden” – let’s just throw ourselves into the romance of this idea, even though it could be plainly seen. It’s part of the poetry of the place!
Cattails whose youth is well behind them
We came around a bend at one point and I saw a red-winged blackbird relatively close and it was the kind of bird who likes attention and doesn’t shy away. I got some nice pics, but the autofocus on my camera failed me on the one of him with his mouth wide open in song. Remembering the glorious egret-in-flight pictures, I can’t complain. It was probably my fault anyway.
Before long, we veered away from Hidden Lake Trail and onto Red Oak Trail, which had enough up and downhill action that I regretted leaving my hiking poles in the car. We passed a little fern forest – such beautiful plants!
We also saw some of what Kris called “scouring brush,”a segmented reed with rough parts that he said they used to use for scouring pots and pans while he was at Camp Icogawan as a youth. It just goes to show you that everything that we invent, God thought up first.
We got to the top of a hill and glory be, there was a nice bench which we took advantage of to have a little Clif bar break. Kris said it was a “sag bench,” a joke which was wasted on me until he explained about sag wagons placed at intervals on runs to give water to the runners and allow them a rest if needed.
After continuing on for awhile, we came to a bridge that had a troll on it. It was pretty handsome as trolls go, and demanded a kiss for safe passage on the bridge. I paid. 🙂
What with one thing and another, we finished the Red Oak Trail loop and got back onto the last part of the Hidden Lake Trail which took us right by Lake Carlos on our right and before long, we were back at the parking lot. This hike of 2.9 miles put us over 100 miles! We have 97 miles left to go on our Hiking Club journey. It’s been a grand experience so far (even with all my griping about parks with difficult terrain).
Knee score: 5 out of 10 with 10 being the most difficult. We climbed an equivalent of 9 flights of stairs.
We’re really on fire with our hiking schedule this year, visiting 7 state parks before the end of May. We prefer spring and fall hiking to mid-summer hikes anyway – too hot.
I have neglected to mention that we still take our state park sign photos separately and depend on help from my photo gurus to put them together seamlessly so that you can’t tell. The Kilen Woods trio were done by BIL Karl, and the set from the three parks we went to on this trip were done by BIL Rich. Thanks, guys!
I’ll probably delete this in the morning, rejoicing that my readers will no longer have to see ads on my posts. (I ran out of storage room for my photos on the free version and had to upgrade to a paid one.)
I follow someone on Instagram who recently posted a short process video of painting an apple. I was completely transfixed and watched it several times. The painting was so simple and yet elegant and beautiful. I’ll post a link to it to you can see what I mean. It’s probably 6 seconds long, so you’ll have to check you calendar to see if you can afford that much time. [side note: I think I just figured out how to post a hyperlink using a word, which is a fairly major technological breakthrough for me. I hope it works!]
And in case you don’t have that 6 seconds of time, I’ve got you covered with a screen shot of the finished painting.
I decided to try my hand at it today.
As expected, the professional makes it look like simplicity itself, while the amateur must straggle along trying to figure out what colors to use, how much paint, how much water, etc. Attempt #2 really makes me laugh – why so small and blobby? Mistakes were made. I watched the video a couple times before each attempt and by the time I got to Attempt #5, I was feeling a little more confident.
So what was David praying about when he asked God to keep him as the apple of His eye? I have a dim memory of someone telling me once that the apple of the eye refers to the pupil, but this doesn’t really open up the prayer to me very much. “Keep me as the pupil of your eye.” Hmmm. Time to go to the internet and do some research.
Here’s what I found on Christianity.com: “The phrase, which first was used in the Bible, comes from a Hebrew expression that literally means “little man of the eye,” and it refers to the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people’s pupils. To be the apple of someone’s eye clearly means that you are being gazed upon and watched closely by that person. Your very image is dancing in the eyes of that person!So when David asked God to “Keep me as the apple of your eye” in Psalm 17, he was asking God to keep an eye on him and not lose sight of him. David was asking that God would regard him as one would a cherished child, the object of great affection.
So, the next time you eat an apple, remember David’s prayer that he wanted to be the “little man” of God’s eye, to know that God was looking at him, seeing him, and regarding him with great affection.
O Lord, keep me as the apple of Thine eye.
I’ll probably delete this in the morning while contemplating apple eyes, which is almost the same thing as contemplating apple pies in my book.
Lynniebeemuseoday 