A little early morning creativity in my journal. It’s mixed media collage on 7 x 10″ sketch paper. The quote is by Hui-Neng, and it’s been a favorite of mine for years.
My effort today is less art and more craft. (Not that knitting isn’t art, but a simple dishcloth is pushing the concept; now a lace shawl or something akin — that is art.) However, this is what I created today. Recently Husband purchased a knife sharpening kit and sharpened all our very dull blades. This has made cooking much easier and more fun; however, we learned the hard way that we cannot wash the knives with my hand-knitted dishcloths. One of them was shred to bits, and so this one replaces it.
I spent a lovely afternoon visiting with a relative — a second cousin on my father’s side of the family. She was a fascinating person to talk to and before I realized it, I’d been there nearly four hours. I learned a couple years ago that I had relatives in the Bay Area, but without a premise for contact I didn’t pursue it, and I was busy, so the time wasn’t right. My parents recent visit catalyzed the connection.
Bean had a rough day today. I felt her gums, and she has an upper left molar coming through, plus the rest of her gums are very puffy. She has new words, though: all done, bird, cracker, excuse me (coo-mee), gate mouse (mess), pear. She mimicks what she hears really well.
This year, my efforts with AEDM will probably be simple, the result of quickie creativity cobbled together from stolen moments. Today’s work started as a random doodle. I had 45 minutes of free time and this is what I saw in it.
I’ll also submit this for Illustration Friday this week; the theme is “vacant.” I’d say this little man has checked out.
Bean’s still a little young to understand Halloween, hence the lack of a fancy costume this year. Among the many animals she likes is the owl, so she was happy to wear this outfit. We went to Westgate Mall where the majority of stores participated in trick-or-treating. The place was hopping! Next year we may go out into the neighborhood, but since it’s raining here today, this seemed like the best plan. She doesn’t have much interest in sweets generally, though we did give her little bits of gummy bear, and she ate them. Her favorite prize was the large brown leaf she found on the floor, which she clutched in her right hand as we made our rounds.
This has been a busy week, in part because we welcomed a new little person into the world. Our friends, M&K, gave birth to a beautiful daughter on Tuesday, October 28. (M&K are Bean’s godparents/emergency backup parents.) Because I don’t know how public they want this information to be, I withhold particulars at this time. But she is healthy and beautiful, and in about a year she and Bean will be active playmates.
And to all: Happy Halloween!
Besides playing with my lovely amazing daughter every day, I do other stuff too, such as clean the very gunky oven and making the whole stove sparkle like new. Here is evidence of my efforts:
I committed to doing Art Every Day Month in November. However, I’ve no idea what I’ll do, or if I’ll do much at all. I’ve never felt busier in my life, nor more content.
Via The Daily Kos, a video for North Carolina voters.
Your neighbors are voting. You’re not. That could be a problem.
Here’s a link to the video as well.
Bean understands more every day and demonstrates it in many ways. Here are some examples.
She’s also added new words: bag, bear, bow-wow, bubbles, bus, crow, foot, neigh, ooo-ooo (monkey), pop, poop, quack, sneeze, tummy, tunnel.
What a gorgeous morning. We went to a pumpkin patch (we arrived by 9:30 before the hordes of families) and I got some vibrant shots, like this one:
These days I make notes on paper of cute things Bean does, and whenever I get to sit at the computer to write, it’s at the opposite end of the house. So the list keeps growing.
To relax these days, I’m not reading, or knitting, or doing anything creative. I have been sucked into episodes of House, just at I was smitten with the series Scrubs in 2007. After the first episode of House, I thought it was simplistic, formulaic, and that the character was absolutely unsympathetic and uncompelling. But I watched a second episode, and then another, and then I was hooked. My brain is too fried to analyze why, except that Hugh Laurie has managed to bring something redeeming to the misanthropic character.
There are changes afoot at Husband’s job, and they are not good changes. I’m not sure how this will play out in the long run. Let’s just say that we’ve had a good run for several years and in the tech industry, there is no such thing as retiring from a company after working 20-30 years there. Things might end up staying pretty much the same — it’s just that we don’t know, and I don’t like not knowing.
I need sleep. I’ve been staying up too late the past three nights, and it shows by the end of the day.
But it’s late, I need a shower, and I have more to say than I have time or energy. I want to write and I’m making notes for a big brain dump. For now, let the fact that every day is full and (mostly) fun and this photo suffice.
Bean picked the crayon colors herself. It was fun to watch her expression as she realized that she was making the marks on the paper.
We have not had a working oven since Thursday night. The lock mechanism (operated by computer) got stuck shut. We’ve used the lock since Bean began crawling to keep her from climbing in or pulling the oven down on top of herself. Two people had to come out Friday (the first one wasn’t fluent in English and his manager came out after him to work on it); a part needs to be ordered. We do have a stove that works, however. It’s a new stove, installed March 2007. Bummer. We rent, though, so we won’t pay for the repair.
Bean came down with a little cold on Sunday. Today was the worst of it, I think. Another tooth has also been emerging, so she’s been a wet, snotty, drooly mess, poor kid. We’ve been staying mostly home which gives us cabin fever.
Tomorrow she and I will go get our flu shots. Whee!
My energy has ebbed in accord with hormonal fluctuations. There must be something about the body’s preparation for conception that draws all the energy inward. Once my period starts all the energy comes rushing back. I expect to be perkier by the end of next week (and I dearly hope sooner). The earlier sunsets don’t help with this low energy.
Tomorrow a young woman will come to assist me for a couple hours and get to know Bean and our routine. She will be a regular babysitter, probably every Wednesday for a couple of hours, plus an occasional evening for Husband and me. The fee is extremely reasonable at $10 an hour. It still seems like an extravagance for me, but I remind myself that I rarely indulge in manicures, lattes, clothes, etc. And we pay about the same amount of money every month for cable television which I rarely watch, so I guess $20 a week for sanity is affordable. It’s cheaper than therapy, even if I were to hire her twice a week!
My father is a private man. I am not like him in this regard, but we share the traits of introspection, intensity, and curiosity. He is a man of his generation, which meant our relationship sometimes felt distant to me when I was younger; he was focused on providing for his family’s needs, and expressing tender emotion was not a language he knew well. His love comes out as worry and preparation against difficulty. As I grew up, he was serious and strict, and I was stubbornly resistant in subtle, and later blatant, ways. But a grandfather’s relationship with his grandchild is different by orders of magnitude. I wondered how my father would interact with Bean. What I witnessed was the unfolding of his delight and tenderness, of patience and amusement and amazement. I’m sure I was once the recipient of similar expressions, but I was too little to register them, and so it was a reward for me to observe them together. Bean brought him book after book to read, and she enjoyed playing the What’s In Grandpa’s Shirt Pocket? game. This photo of them is a gem.
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
–Richard Feynman
In the past week, Bean’s vocabulary has exploded. I’m posting this as a way of tracking the genesis of her speech. Among the words she says (not as distinctly as adults, but clearly enough and pointing to the thing):
achoo; all done; apple; baa; baby; ball; balloon; bath; bathtub; bead; bear; bee; butterfly; buzz; bye; car; cat; clock; cow; cup; daddy; door; down; ears; eyes; feet; flower; glasses; goat; hi; knee; mommy; moo; moon; mouth; okay; owl; peek-a-boo (she started covering her eyes to play); popsicle; potty; purple; shoe; sky; sock; squirrel; star; store; sun; tattoo (I have two); thank you; tick tock; toes; tree; truck; tum tum; turtle; and the she can identify the letters Q and C and numbers 1 through 6.
Unfortunately the camera didn’t focus properly when Husband took this photo. The composition is perfect, the poses and smiles capture a moment of happy synchronicity. Just pretend the fuzziness is a result of viewing the photo with tear-blurred eyes (tears of joy, of course).
My mother was only 20 years old when her mother died at age 56 of breast cancer. My mother was married and living in Texas (my father was in training in the Army there); she did not get to spend time with her mother in that last year of her life.
Mom went on to have four children with the nearest immediate family living 150 miles away, in an age when using the telephone long distance was expensive. There was no such thing as email. Money was not overly plentiful, so trips to see family were not frequent events. Somehow she had the emotional fortitude to make a life for us: nightly dinners, handmade clothing, decorating for holidays, nursing our illnesses, washing, cleaning, marketing on a budget, introducing us to books and libraries, songs, and so much more. She always imagined she would become a grandmother. After 44 years it happened, and because of some health challenges, it was 45 years before she got to be with her beautiful, lively granddaughter. But at last it happened.
Taking care of a busy little child meant that our conversations were broken and scattered. We did not have any private mother-daughter time. However, the last day of the visit she pulled me against her as we sat on the sofa, and I sank into her gentle body. We all talked as I leaned against her, and she patted my arm as only a mother can. I couldn’t keep the tears back, but I tried to be quiet and discreet as I wiped my eyes.
As I drove to the airport, we held hands. And we hugged and kissed at the terminal.
She has the softest skin, my mother.