Thursday, May 31, 2012

Painting my way through the Alphabet

Today I have two "B's" to share. I did the barbecue one a few weeks ago but I still like it!

The Baby! Baby! is newly painted. I'm liking the inspiration of the Alphabet for a series of signs. I hope you enjoy this little painted journey along with me.
B

B is for 'Barbecue promotes Togetherness' and 'Baby! Baby!



No stencils.   No stickers.  Handpainted with my own layout.

You can see other signs in this theme by clicking on 'Painted
Alphabet' in my sidebar.

This is going to be a fun round of the Alphabet!   Thanks for stopping by.   To visit other B links, just click here!


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Click Here to visit my Etsy Store.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday Letter B


Good morning class. Welcome to round five of Alphabe-Thursday!

Today we will be bellowing about the beautiful letter:


Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by the following Thursday morning, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit at least 10 other students (perhaps the 5 students before and after your post). The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please bring your best letter B now!
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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Best. Diet. Tip. Ever.

Seriously.

I am a genius.

Prepare yourself.

Okay.  You know how you go on a diet and you are starving all day long?

So you think you'll  just eat a hardboiled egg?



But then you remember that a hardboiled egg has something like 70 calories...

...so you think that you'll just eat the hardboiled egg white...

...which only has something like 18 calories...

...which saves you something like (hmmm...carry the one, subtract from six...ummm...) 52 calories...

...WHICH really adds up if you want to eat more than one egg (not that I have, personally, ever eaten two or more hardboiled eggs at one sitting)

...BUT...

I know how you can save EVEN MORE CALORIES!

YessireeBob!  This is the genius part, so...

PAY ATTENTION!!!

If you just sprinkle some salt and pepper into the palm of your hand and lick it, IT TASTES EXACTLY LIKE A HARDBOILED EGG!

I kid you not.

If the thought of licking your palm makes you a bit queasy, you can use a spoon instead.

Simply sprinkle a little salt and a little pepper and lick away.



MAXIMUM TASTE!

ZERO CALORIES!

Go.

Hurry.

Try it.

I'll wait.

...

...

...

SEE!?!?!  

See what I mean?  It's totally amazing, right?   It tastes exactly like a hardboiled egg with none of the caloric implication!

And, hey, if you're on a low sodium diet, don't despair.

Just use the pepper and/or whatever non-salty thing you use in place of salt.

Yeah.


I'm cool.

It's neat to be single-handedly responsible for the thinning of America.

Yeah.

It's so cool being a genius.

...
And, of course...you're welcome.

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Monday, May 28, 2012

As we remember...

...perhaps we also need to...



Let there be peace on earth...and let it begin with me.

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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Sci-Why?

I hear her zoom away and I can’t help myself.



I’m drawn to the storage portico like something called a moth to a flame in pre-fire ban days.



I touch the archival unit reverently…I can’t help myself.



I carefully shimmy into the silky skirt. My feet fit perfectly in the shoes.



I tell my music-bot to retrieve 1986.



Oh, what a feeling…when we’re dancing on the ceiling…” ricochets around the sanitary metal walls of our home pod.



It’s hard to believe my great-great-great-great-great-great-Grandmother wore these clothes.



It’s hard to believe gravity’s pull doesn’t let us dance on the ceilings anymore.


Ummm...okay...yeah.   Who gave us this dumb picture post link anyway?!?!   This is my pathetic attempt at kinda/sorta sci-fi as an excuse to explain away a sideways picture.  

This odd little story is linked to week 108 of SC.   To read other offerings, just click here.



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Saturday, May 26, 2012

Saturday Centus - A picture is worth...

Jenny Matlock

Welcome to week ONE HUNDRED and eight of Saturday Centus.



Blogger is being a pain and won't let me post this picture horizontally. Write your SC from either direction, though!

I so admired your creative use of last weeks fire picture, that the prompt this week is another one!

Use the picture above (horizontally or vertically) as inspiration for your story.
Number of words: 100
Style of writing: Any
Pictures: Any you want to share
 
The regular restrictions apply: PG, no splitting of the prompt, play nicely and visit the other entries, any style or genre of writing you prefer. Please display my link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

E-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday.


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Friday, May 25, 2012

Sad songs make me cry...

...especially when they are like this one...

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground

That song would make you cry, too.

Right?

(sniff, sniff, sniff)

The lady sitting by me at Mo's Kindergarten graduation thought I was funny.

Mr. Jenny thought I was funny.

My daughter-in-law thought I was funny.

But I was sad.

Mo.

My little, serious, lovely little Mo...




...is going to be a first grader.

And if that wasn't bad enough, all the little five year olds had to sing that ridiculously sad song during
the graduation ceremony.

Inch by inch, row by row

Someone bless these seeds I sow

Someone warm them from below

'Til the rain comes tumbling down


Of course I had to cry.


Pulling weeds and pickin' stones

Man is made from dreams and bones

Feel the need to grow my own

'Cause the time is close at hand

Grain for grain, sun and rain

Find my way in nature's chain

To my body and my brain

To the music from the land*

After the graduates filed out, the lady next to me asked me if I was always so emotional.

She said it nicely when she asked me, so I answered her.

I said, "No.  I must be tired."

She just smiled and started to leave.

I touched her arm, and she turned back.

"I lied," I said, "I am always so emotional...but, really, don't you think that's a sad song?"

She just smiled, again, and walked away.


*this song was written by folk singer David Mallett in 1975.  It is called "The Garden Song".

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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Painting my way through the Alphabet!

I used to paint.

A lot.

And then I got away from it for various reasons.

About a year ago I dug out my old paints and have been dabbling.  I find I am unable to paint the way I used to (and the way I often want to) due to shaky hands, but I found this alternate way of making signs by lettering and layering paints that I'm quite pleased with.

I'm going to commit (quite publicly...ACCCCCKKK!) to painting 26 signs for the Alphabet. 

Wish me luck.

I'm starting at the very beginning...

...which in this case in the letter

A

A is for "All you need is Love"


No stencils.   No stickers.  Handpainted with my own layout.

I love it!

This is going to be a fun round of the Alphabet!   Thanks for stopping by.   To visit other A links, just click here. 

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Click Here to visit my Etsy Store.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday Letter A


Good morning class. Welcome to round FIVE of Alphabe-Thursday!

After four rounds, you'd think I'd be getter bored with this...but NOT YET! I guess my attention span is longer than I actually realized.

I am actually using this little meme to make me do things that I've procrastinated on...this round I'm going to make myself paint each week according to the letter of the Alphabet! I have the letter "A" done and I really love it! Working on B now so I can at least be one week ahead!

I look forward to seeing what you have to share...and I want to thank each of you personally for participating. Sometimes life feels so chaotic that I like the steadiness of one little thing I can depend on!

Today we will be sharing all aspects of the letter:



Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by the following Thursday morning, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find you easily otherwise.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.


I also want to mention that sometimes when I visit wordpress blogs the only way I can leave a comment is by using an e-mail address DIFFERENT than the one I have linked to blogger. I wish I had more suggestions to help make visiting easier for this issue.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and try to visit at least 10 other students (perhaps the 5 students before and after your post). The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please advise us what your A post is, by linking now:




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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

You say trash. I say...

...what is WRONG WITH YOU!!!!???

Seriously.

Mr. Jenny took the can to the curb a few days ago, came in, and said, "Do you know it's open trash day?"

I leaped up from my cozy bed.

I got dressed in 3.1 seconds.   Flat.

Forget brushing teeth.   Forget brushing hair.   Forget putting contact lenses into my eyeballs!

"Fall out, soldier!" I screamed, startling poor Mr. Jenny half to death.

He compliantly (and perhaps fearfully) got in the car...

and WE WERE OFF!

Geez.

The treasures I found.


Approximately 2,695,312 tree limbs...

Piles of empty cardboard boxes...

Many hardened bags of concrete (sad, cuz I needed a few bags for a project here)...

62 mattresses...

All kinds of stuffing-spewing upholstered furniture waiting to be picked up...

A cool coffee table (that wouldn't fit in the trunk of the car)...

And entire Little Tykes set of play furniture including the kitchen and playyard (which would also not fit into the trunk of my car)...

A cool stepping stone (mine...mwahahahahahaha...all mine...)

A lot of warped plywood...and some neatly cut squares of non-warped plywood that I will use to paint signs on...

A sweet table already prepped for mosaic work that magically fit into the trunk of my car.

Yeah.

I had so much fun...

...although I suspect Mr. Jenny's back was hurting from slumping down so far in his seat in shame of being in the presence of his trash picking wife...

I feel bad that I made him feel that way.

But I'm going to google when the next open trash day is in my city.

And between now and then I'm going to buy a truck, get some kind of camoflauge to wear so when people drive by they won't recognize me...

...and find someone to drive me that won't hunch down in shame in the drivers seat.

Geez.

C'mon people.

I'm all about the recycling.

And saving the landfills.

There is certainly no SHAME in that.

Right?

Right!!!!!!????
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Monday, May 21, 2012

A deep thought for Monday


A year from now, you'll be glad you started today. 


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Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Eve of Destruction

(For a soundtrack, you can scroll down to the bottom of my blog and play song 89 just to get your in the spirit of the story!)


My feet were bloody from the effort of walking toward the blazehole that had once held golden sun and the silver orb of moon.


Trudging eastward consumed my thoughts as the voyage became both dream and nightmare, but I could not rest. I was certain to encounter others attracted by the flare gun of destruction.


The last tepid drops of water from my canteen barely quenched my throat, as I stumbled up the final summit.


I summoned the last of my life force to hail the other survivors.


The greeting drifted away like lonely smoke.


‘OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod…why have thou forsaken me?’



This gloomy little story is linked to week 107 of Saturday Centus.   To read other takes on this picture prompt, just click here.


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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Saturday Centus - Picture Prompt

Jenny Matlock

Welcome to week ONE HUNDRED and seven of Saturday Centus.

I am caught up reading to week 105! Go me! Just letting you know that soon I'll be current!

The prompt this week is the above picture.
Number of words: 100
Style of writing: Any
Pictures: No additional


The regular restrictions apply: PG, no splitting of the prompt, play nicely and visit the other entries, any style or genre of writing you prefer. Please display my link button or just a hyper-link back to Saturday Centus. Be careful to link your SC URL to the Linky and not just link to your main blog.

E-mail me directly with ???'s or ask your question in a comment and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.

Feel free to link up anytime between now and next Saturday.


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Friday, May 18, 2012

Terrible Beauty

These SOOC shots are of the Gladiator fire in Crown King, Arizona.   Mr. Jenny and I took them late Thursday afternoon.







These last two shots, ironically, are of a truck we passed after we saw the fires.



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Thursday, May 17, 2012

To everything...turn, turn, turn...

(This song is #134 on my playlist.   I have autoplay turned off again, but if you want to listen to it while you read this, just scroll all the way down to the bottom of my blog, select song 134, and hit the forward arrow)

There is a season
turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

It took me a long time to find a purpose for the heart numbing loss I felt when I moved away from my old farmstead.

I threw away calendar after calendar trying to make sense of all those years of pain. I carried my anguish with me so constantly that the passage of years began to not matter. The only thing that mattered was the isolation the torment of my memories created.

I lost my joy…and in the process I put aside many things I loved to focus on survival...to focus on trying not to feel anything. Allowing myself to feel meant I allowed myself to be open to pain.

turn, turn, turn

I didn’t paint. I didn’t write. I didn’t garden. My guitar gathered dust along with friendships that were once important. I feared that all the creativity and happiness inside me had withered and died. I feared that doing things I once loved with people I once cared about would make me feel even worse.

So I hid inside myself in panic of being diminished into even more broken and brittle pieces…

…certain in the contest of life suffering, I would at least be awarded a bronze medal.

I lamented where I felt forced to live.

Green trees to cactus…lush gardens to arid landscaping…fireflies to nights devoid of any flicker of bliss.

Until I finally grew so weary of and so sick of my own misery that it at last became time to gather my stones together

… to make a garden. My season of grief was finally coming to an end.

I planted seeds and watched them wither and die in the intense desert heat.

My gardens failed.

I planted again.

And felt myself turn, turn, turning toward despair.

How could I live in a place with no cleansing summer rains? With heat so awful it melted my shoes? With so many people everywhere that there was no air left for me to breathe?

turn, turn, turn

I forced myself to ask for help and learned how to plant seeds in the desert.

A time to build up
A time to break down
A time to dance
A time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together.

In spite of advice to the contrary, I tried planting all the things I loved and missed from my Ohio gardens…the lilacs, the larkspur, and the peonies. They withered and died.

Finally, with little hope of success I threw a packet of zinnia seeds into my little garden.

I watered them and they sprouted.

Ironically, I had always tried to grow zinnias in Ohio, but after their first bloom they would become sickly and the plants would die.

I had little hope for my tender zinnia seedlings, but I continued to water and fertilize them until one glorious day they burst into technicolor bloom.

I cut them and they bloomed again. And again!

I filled old pottery jugs with their bounty. To me there is nothing happier than a big bouquet of crayon colored zinnias.

As time passed, I learned to grow other things in the desert…luscious tomatoes and sweet, sweet onions, spires of hollyhock and tender-faced pansies, but always a large part of every garden was devoted to the cheerful brightness of zinnias.

To everything…
turn, turn, turn
There is a season
turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven.

There is no expiration date on grief…

No timetable to finding our purpose again.

And when grief and sadness come to visit next, as they surely will, I will remind my heart that one day I will be able to gather zinnia blossoms again into a bright bouquet of delight.

And I will, again…

Turn, turn, turn…


This is my final post in the Farmstead series for Alphabe-Thursday.  

Z is for Zinnias.   To read other Z posts, just click here.

I've often written that the telling begins the healing.  Writing this little series really helped me focus on how far I've come since those years.  I still miss that glorious house...but someday I will live in a place like that again.  "Stories don't mean anything, if you've got no-one to tell them to..."   Thank you for indulging my little sentimental journey here. 
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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Alphabe-Thursday - Letter Z


Good morning class.

Welcome to round four of Alphabe-Thursday! Today we will be studying the zippy letter:


...but before we do please


I have something important to tell you.

Round five of Alphabe-Thursday will start immediately. We will not have a break in between rounds like we've done in the past.

Please link directly to your Alphabe-Thursday URL (if you don't know how to do this let me know!) and please continue to visit the five links before and after your link and leave a comment. Minimum of 10 links visited please. You can visit more if you like, of course, and please try very hard to visit the blogs that visit you for this meme.

I also want to let you know that each week I visit every blog. If it appears I haven't visited your blog by the following Thursday evening, please let me know!

If you have any difficulties with your link, please make sure to include the number of the link when you e-mail me. It is really difficult for me to find your link otherwise. And, if you see any broken links, please let me know that as well.

If you have any questions about Alphabe-Thursday or problems doing your link just post it in a comment or send me an e-mail. I'll do my best to help you as quickly as I can.

The McLinkey will be live from 1:00 pm MST time Wednesday afternoon in an effort to assist our lovely "friends across the pond" and continue through 10:00 am MST time Friday morning!

And remember.... link back to this post, you need to be registered as a follower of my blog, PG posts only, and you must visit at least 10 other posts...perhaps consider starting from the last posts and work backwards. The links will stay live after the final post deadline has passed so you can even wait and visit over the weekend or whenever you have more time.

Please link your zany Z post now!






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The writing is on the wall...

... if you're into painting signs.

I am.

At the moment.

I have a few more in the works but this funny little sign is a gift I made to take to San Antonio.   The letters are almost 10" tall...the wood is 48" long.



It's all hand-painted and I like the way it turned out.

Our son liked it, too.

Although he told me...

sigh...

...that he was, technically, more into grilling then barbecuing.

I told him I would keep it because I loved how it turned out...

...but he wouldn't let me bring it home!

I have a few bigger ones I'm painting now...I'll have to show you when they're done.

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