Wandering Through Blogland ...

TODAY I went visiting, clicking on "next blog, next blog, next blog." There were so many in a row that had to do with gardening and flowers, I felt I was on a Google search. At last I came to Sachi's blog and here is the comment I left on SachiAmbi's blog:
"I cannot describe to you the wonderful journey you have taken me on. From your home and beautiful daughter to the mustard fields of India - all with your innocent, marvelous commentary! There are tears in my eyes as I think of my own grandfather - who is buried in an old country cemetery I still visit, because now my parents are there. Your photos are lovely and I have enjoyed them very much. Thank you for sharing and I pray for peace in our world and no more fighting to endanger a land you still hold tightly in your heart."
The ashes of her grandfather were under a certain tree, much the same as my tall Texan grandfather rests at the base of a giant Pacific Northwest fir.
Such an entertaining blog she has with an intuitive ear (if there is such a thing) for dialogue that feels like a real in-the-flesh visit. I went from being in her home and viewing her small daughter's play time to traveling with Sachi to India to visit her family's humble beginnings. Visit it, too, if you can!
Another blog I visited, the author used her photo editing software and cropped slices from pictures, ending up with some surprising floral and fauna collections. Very nice in small bits. So I wanted to try it. Maybe more of it tomorrow. I have some excellent coneflowers to slice into interesting bits.
Now, I must rest so as to be on time for work tomorrow - femminismo

I Write Like My Hero!

I WAS visiting Laura Miller's art journal blog - look for her link over on the blog roll at the right - and then went to visit l'Astronave's blog (also on blog roll). I really should be doing my hair. I'm late for a date with relatives!! Argh! They will probably read this someday so I will have to be truthful about my whereabouts! Not that I would have lied, anyway. They never expect me on time.
Anyway, on l'Astronaves blog I saw she had submitted a blog post into "I Write Like" and got her answer - she writes like David Foster Wallace - so I thought I would quickly try it.
My jaw dropped when I saw who this analysis says I write like: Chuck Palahniuk. Oh my gosh! My hero. I've always wanted to take this Portland writer's class "Writing Dangerously."

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Life can't get better than flattery like this - femminismo

August Journal Is Under Construction

IT DOESN'T ALWAYS HAPPEN that I can be true to my word and keep to my agenda. More often than not something comes up to rearrange "agendas." This week things have been moving pretty smoothly (in that direction, anyway).
Last night I started painting this thick annual report with house paint primer. By the way, I am not endorsing this company. It just happened to come in the mail. The pages are similar to Kleenex. Cheaper to mail a phone book type document that way! We have since gone to paperless reports.
So here we begin. I used one of those sponge "brushes" and it was pretty handy. In order to begin reducing some of my collage collections, I took a brown paper bag full of inspirational pieces and just started pasting them in using the house primer. This is one of my favorite artists, Maira Kalman, and I really liked her New Yorker cover painting, so of course I had held onto it. Trimmed out and pasted down, I like the shadowy "self" behind the woman in front.
The words "Divine Companions" in the newspaper story about pets caught my eye too. With the "shadow woman," or maybe "soul" of the person Kalman painted, the phrase felt right. Sometimes - and I'll bet others will agree - the elements just seem to fall together and often they're right in front of your eyes.
So I'm on my way with this August journal. While I was waiting for the pages to dry a bit, I used the house primer to paint over the cover of another book and some pages in another. I liked the primer. It dries fairly quickly and isn't sticky. Makes a nice base for other things too.
When the Kalman page was dry enough I went on - and I'm painting together several pages at a time to save time and make the pages thicker. I don't want to paint every page in this thousand page document!!
So first I found the quote in the paper bag of "stuff" and then I found the ballet picture. The headline was with the dancers. Then this gent caught my eye. I don't know that he was really terrible. You can use your own imagination to interpret what the "seven minutes of magic" are. : ) A dance? A date? A ... .
Separating the pages with waxed paper was a good idea. It allows you to work on several at a time so long as they are not terribly wet. I used some gloss gel to glue down the pictures too and used a brayer which picked up a lot of primer. The brayer is now coated with the stuff and has a great texture. It will never be totally smooth again, but it does get the bubbles out of the glued down elements.
This last page was just a bunch of tags I made and found at the bottom of the bag I was trying to get to the bottom of. I think I got the window from Judy Wise and the mosaic came from a magazine ad on traveling to Turkey.
After all this gluing and painting, I was glad to have dinner and a movie ("Coco - Before Chanel"). Time to relax and peel all the gloss gel and primer off my hands!
More tonight, if I don't have to water the plants or make dinner or do anything else but have fun - femminismo
p.s. "Coco - Before Chanel" is very slow. Audrey Tatou is lovely and the straw purse she carries is to die for, but I wouldn't recommend it for an engrossing portrait of the artist.
p.p.s. Happy birthday to Peter, my little baby boy!

An Important Day

I CAN'T be more clear or more right when I tell you this is an important day.
Today I stood up for myself and spoke about my disappointment and hurt instead of holding it inside where it could do me no good.
I didn't attack anyone verbally and I believe I was within my rights to express my hurt. It just isn't like me to do this. I am the nicest, quietest, meekest person you would ever - or maybe never - want to meet, and this is a good thing ... sometimes. Sometimes it's not.
This morning, at work, we had a meeting, and you know how it goes when you anticipate an event. Does anyone else write scripts inside their heads? Do you plan ahead of time what people are going to say and how you will respond? Or is it just me?
Well, this morning I expected things at the meeting to go entirely different than they did. Because of miscommunication, I ended up with my feelings hurt and felt entirely extraneous. I felt as if the valuable skills I believe I possess were not appreciated or needed.
Now I'm not saying I'm the best thing since microwave popcorn (although it's a pretty even race) but things just didn't play out the way I thought they would.
So there I was, once again, facing the reality of all of my actors not reading the correct script!
At noon I had errands to run and I had time to think about what had happened and what I wanted to do about it. I decided to talk to my employer (who may be reading this ... she checks in sometimes, and that's OK) because I'm just tired of being as "mature" as I am and still not taking charge of running my life better. She was shocked to hear my feelings had been hurt and we talked about some ways to fix the problem. So it turns out that things may turn out better because I did open my mouth this time.
I am happier tonight than I was this morning, but still have a kind of lump in my throat because of a couple of things. One is that the magnolia tree is finally blooming, but that reminds me of my mother who died around the time they flowered four years ago. There are some kinds of pain that just never go away, and losing her is one of them.
The other is the "Battle of the Detritus" that goes on between me and the Mister. What I see as fodder for projects, he sees as clutter - depressing clutter. And I believe him. I believe it dismays and depresses him. And I know some will say just forget it; one man's clutter is another collage artist's valuable collection of gems. I suppose I will just get serious about categorizing and filing it all in the area that is now designated as my "studio." Every night I will work on it a little more until I get this area of my life right too.
The photo up above is a "polarized" picture of poppies - stems, mostly - in the field near Halfway, Oregon, where we stopped on the way home June 10. It looks suitably weird and sort of fits my mood tonight. (I guess I call them "Sleepy Poppies" remembering Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz."
And I apologize if these posts have been hard to read lately. I've been fooling around with the design and I don't have it quite right yet. Thanks, Fresca, for your comment.
Now let's all just grow up and take responsibility for ourselves, OK? - femminismo
p.s. I forgot to tell you: I posted "Did you ever feel extraneous?" on Facebook and my brother, Bob, replied: "Once I did, but Karen (his wife) slapped me." For a couple of seconds I didn't understand, but then I got it and roared with laughter!

From Halfway, Oregon

THE FLOWER QUEEN in Halfway, Oregon, on her way home: June 10, 2010.
Amid all the flowers, under the blue sky, without a care in the world. If only life could always be as sweet.
And I was with a good friend who has helped save my sanity on more than one occasion. I like this picture of her sitting on the little bridge over a tiny creek that probably ran swiftly this spring - with melting snow and heavier than usual rain showers.
She will not like her picture, but then I don't like mine either. I apparently am about five months pregnant!! I knew I should have made this picture smaller ... way, way smaller - femminismo
p.s. On Wednesday, I am going to begin painting the annual report I got with white house primer so I can have a journal for August. I really, truly swear to goodness I am going to do this. You'll remind me, won't you, if it doesn't show up on these pages? Thanks!

A Certain Sadness, A Certain Joy ...

THERE is always a certain sadness on arriving home from an excellent adventure. The joy, however, in bringing back images and memories of the adventure more than makes up for returning to reality.
These flowers are courtesy of the city of Halfway, Oregon. It was not halfway from our home. No, siree!
My cousin John noted I've been from one side of Oregon (the Pacific Ocean) to the other (the Snake River, that divides Oregon and Idaho) in the span of less than a week - and it's true. Such different land formations, yet similar in some ways. Such different temperatures! The stars put on quite a show for us and I wish I had gotten pictures of them and knew more constellations. We saw one planet/star disappear on the western horizon. So either there is some hanky panky going on in the universe or one of the planet's moons got between us. Here's hoping you see some good stars in your own skys. Now I'm going to a wedding! Can life get better? We'll see - femminismo

EDITORIAL ADDITION: Here comes the joy ... and the bride. It was very warm so the straw fans came in handy on the grounds of the Joel Palmer House restaurant in Dayton, Oregon. Everything went perfectly as far as the guests were concerned. The groom strutted down the aisle to the ZZ Top song "Sharp Dressed Man" and looked sharp, indeed. Next came the maids of honor and then the bride on the arm of her very proud father (my son!).
Go on ... you can say it! "Awww!"
The minister was sincere and authentic, the vows they wrote and exchanged were tear-inducing (the crying grandmother sat behind the crying father, at left being comforted by his wife) and the kiss was very well done too. (Good job, Matt!)
The reception? Awe inspiring food from the restaurant. The pesto/garlic shrimp, porcini risotto with meatballs on the side to be draped with a cherry sauce - all the fresh fruit - WOW! There was much, much more and then the cake. A chocolate layer that took this chocolate lover's breath away and a delightful poppy seed layer with raspberry filling and cream cheese.
While helping clean up I found this natural arrangement of the straw fans, a wedding program, lavender sprinkles and the pillow the ring was on. I wouldn't be surprised if the "E" monogrammed on the handkerchief isn't an "E" for Evelyn, the bride's late great-grandmother - also known as "Grandma Portland," one of those cherished family nicknames. Now you've seen some of the joy I've experienced today. I hope you found some - femminismo

An Earnest Attempt at Art

THIS IS ONE of the treasures I found this past weekend as I dug my way through our guest room/art studio. It must become one or the other and the weather is warm enough - and now there is enough shelf space - for the "other half" of the garage (the half with no car) to hold my art doings.
Summer guests are now (almost) welcome to descend. Only the bed needs to be put together. And it would be nice if the room were painted. And the corners dusted. But one thing at a time.
I found these leaves last fall up on our property and arranged them ala Andy Goldsworthy. Someday I may do this with the banana slugs that congregate on the pathways on the property. I'll take some kitchen tongs to herd them.
So many different things have been going on in life. Ups and downs, ins and outs, sidestep and skedaddle. Last month I danced outdoors under the light of the full moon at a party, over the Fourth of July the Mister and I went to the Oregon Coast to stay with friends for the night, and today the coolness finally eased and we got a taste of real warmth - real summer - in the air.
There were sprinklers going with golden sunset light shining through, barefoot kids in the park, the thrumming sound of motorcycles and the warm summer air like some sort of heavenly dry water flowing around your arms and face.
I'm leaving you on the precipice of the Pacific Ocean, where Lewis and Clark might have walked to if they could still make one foot push out in front of the other after they stopped at Seaside. Down below is Manzanita and then Nehalem Bay, which was our destination - femminismo
p.s. It's 75 degrees outside right now at 9:30 p.m. Yesterday it was probably 53!

Not Quite Through With Tacoma

IF YOU LOOK closely, you will see one of Chihuly's putti in the lower left (semi-center). The putti are Renaissance figures that were usually cherubic and carved from wood. Dale Chihuly decided to construct them from glass. They are so sweet and mischievous, reclining above octopi or holding hands while swinging above ribbons of glass. (this is another BlackBerry photo)
If I already told you I won tickets to the Museum of Glass, I apologize. I really want to go visit and see them produce the glass. I guess, for a price, you can even make your own and if you goof up the pros will "rescue" it for you. Now that's what I call an authentic souvenir.
This adorable pink bicycle was propped up against a perfect gray/blue background. The Northwest is BIG on bikes.
What else did the city hold for us? Well, we had dinner in the restaurant below our hotel - Pacific Grill - and had a delicious dinner. The establishment was even kind enough to move our party of two away from a party of 1,000 talkative chatterers. My dinner? Prawns with tiny, skinny spaghetti. Don't think it was angel hair pasta, but close. My compadre had clams or mussels in a very light garlicky sauce. Delicious! And then we had Julia Child's perfect fudge brownie with Madagascar vanilla ice cream for dessert. This started us off on ideas for a party to mark Julia's magnificent contributions to our world of food. We are planning the perfect gathering - food and guests. They all complement each other. The food will taste even better with the right mix of people.
And guess what else we found near the Bridge of Glass? That's right: a used book store. When in doubt, choose something by Henry James. I have never read "The Ambassadors," and I'm sure it will be delightful. It will be my "after gardening book."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I am off to Ace Hardware for some house primer - and no, it's not for the house. I'm going to paint a huge annual report we got. Thin, cheesy paper; but Judy Wise is always painting even newspaper with house primer and then going on to paint it with exotic colors and stamp it and then use it to all sort of things with, and I want to try it too - femminismo

Tacoma Sights

HERE is the first sight of glass that we beheld when we left the freeway for the museum district of Tacoma. Overhead were these towering "stacks" of blue "rocks" made from glass, I assume.
We checked into our hotel first - to attend the travel writers conference the next day, and then we took off for the sights. I, of course, forgot my camera so was forced to take photos with my BlackBerry. I seem to be doing that a lot lately - forgetting my camera. Maybe I'm forcing myself to just be an observer and not a recorder.
I have seen Dale Chihuly's work before, but was as amazed this time as the first time I ever saw the wondrous glass work he and his crew produce. Amazing!
I may not have mentioned this, but I am not going to Italy this summer. It's a long story, but the Mister and I decided to try another trip when he is able to walk a little easier. He is having a problem with his foot and knees - so my sister and brother-in-law will go on without us and we will try another time. So this glass in Tacoma will have to substitute for the glass on the Isle of Murano - femminismo

This is the Day! The Longest Day!

Happy Summer! HERE for your delectation is the "April Poem Rolodex," each in its own little envelope - finally finished.

A compadre said they are each their own little work of art and I hope that is true. I have been astonished to pick poems at random - checking first to make sure I'll like them for more than just one reading - and then finding them in some way serendipitously relating to spring, or April, or a photograph or art object I chose to decorate their holder. These things never fail to astonish me.

The last poem is "Trying to Raise the Dead" by Dorianne Laux. I have two of her poems in these 30 teeny-tiny April books. Maybe one day I will make them ALL by her.
The stand was made by the Mister and is everything I could have hoped for. Using copper and wood, utilitarian materials, this completes the recycling efforts of dribs and drabs, scraps and pieces.
Now I cannot wait to begin the next one! However, perhaps I should write my own poems or stories. Not always fair to glean others' hard work when the whole project could be my own work.

On Friday, a friend and I leave to attend a Saturday travel writing workshop in Tacoma. Up I-5 north of us and alongside the Puget Sound. I can smell the docks now and I'll bet they can inspire a poem or two - femminismo

p.s. The big picture is for grl+dog, Deneese, who is - she says - "too lazy" to click on the pictures and make them bigger.

Fixing Mistakes . . .

TRIED TO "DESIGN" TODAY.
Yes, things look a good deal different here on this end. I accidentally changed the page and couldn't undo it. It was awful. So ugly - like a bad, bad sin you would never admit to - I spent a good two hours redesigning things. I'm still not happy with the transparent background since I think it makes things to hard to read. However I can't decide on a plain one-color background, so I guess I'm stuck with this for a while.
Please visit again tomorrow when I want to show you my finished coin packet books. The Mister made a super holder for the packets and I was overjoyed! Our first collaborative art project!!
- femminismo
p.s. Happy Fathers Day to my two sons!

Even If You Have Nothing to Blog About ...

HOW CAN WE NOT BLOG? (It's like, how can we not breathe?) How can we not have something to say or think? Even if it's meaningless to 95 percent of the people who may see it - or read it - there might be something provocative for someone else to read, see or know.
Yes, I know. I can hear you. We are able to do and say lots of things. That doesn't mean we have to pass them on - out loud or in print.
However, I have some beauties to show you. A co-worker brought some peonies into the office to share and there is no way I cannot share them with you.
My camera captured them for the eternity this blog lasts. And, also for this period of eternity, I've captured a poem by Dorianne Laux. I have wanted to find this poem for quite some time and now I know I can find it on another blog where someone else "steals" poems. This is from Laux's book "Facts About the Moon."

KISSING AGAIN
By Dorianne Laux from "Facts About the Moon"

Kissing again, after a long drought of
not kissing—too many kids, bills, windows

needing repair. Sex, yes, though squeezed in
between the minor depths of anger, despair—

standing up amid the laundry
or fumbling onto the strip of rug between

the coffee table and the couch. Quick, furtive,
like birds. A dance on the wing, but no time

for kissing, the luxuriant tonguing of another
spongy tongue, the deft flicking and feral sucking,

that prolonged lapping that makes a smooth stone
of the brain. To be lost in it, your body tumbled

in sea waves, no up or down, just salt
and the liquid swells set in motion

by the moon, by a tremor in Istanbul, the waft
of a moth wing before it plows into a halo of light.

Praise the deep lustrous kiss that lasts minutes,
blossoms into what feels like days, fields of tulips

glossy with dew, low purple clouds piling in
beneath the distant arch of a bridge. One

after another they storm your lips, each kiss
a caress, autonomous and alive, spilling

into each other, streams into creeks into rivers
that grunt and break upon the gorge. Let the tongue,

in its wisdom, release its stores, let the mouth,
tired of talking, relax into its shapes of give

and receive, its plush swelling, its slick
round reveling, its primal reminiscence

that knows only the one robust world.

Wow! That woman can write a poem about kissing, can't she? The first time I saw/read this poem was at a calligraphy art show. The calligrapher had taken a long, long strip of brown Kraft paper and inscribed this poem onto it. It was a great mixture of images. Imagine being that close, nose to paper, so near these luscious words describing the sensation of kissing.
Only something as sensuous as kissing could be mixed with these slippery, velvety peony petals - femminismo

The Edgier Blogger

EDGIER? Yes, edgier! Fresca (l'astronave) was talking about how "unprivate" do we want our blogs to be. How much do we want to reveal? "How 'naked' do we want to be?"
How honest do we want to be?
What's in it for us, we wonder, to tell more than we feel comfortable with?
In writing, they call it "dangerous" writing. It's exploring who you are and what you really think and what you're really comfortable with.
And you're doing it in public! We shall see where the weeks take us - femminismo
"Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls." from Chapter I, Micah, The Old Testament

So This is 'Almost Summer' Weather?

TUESDAY was an awful weather day. The western sky was gray and foreboding while in the east the sun was shining. Talk about your evil twins!
The weather hit our building at work and you can see the hail bouncing around my car tires outside the building. This is five days before summer? People are going to start believing the gossip that it rains *all the time* in Oregon. AND hails!
Our building has very high ceilings - like 20 feet high - and there are skylights up above. When the hail hit it was so noisy you could hardly hear yourself think. I wonder what the birds thought.
I watched "The Lovely Bones" on Tuesday night. The Mister was spooked by the scene when Susie was crossing the cornfield and left to go take a shower. I have to admit I was spooked too. I loved the book, but I am not sure about the movie - even though I thought the actress who played "Susie" was wonderful. A terrible thing to lose a child in any way, and this particular movie at this particular time reflects a current theme in Oregon: a 7-year-old boy going missing from school. There has still been no word on Kyron Harmon who's been missing since June 4th. Real stories like this just make you feel sick with helplessness.
It's getting late and tomorrow is another day. I see a new dentist tomorrow and hope he is getting a good night's sleep tonight and feeling up to a 3:30 p.m. appointment tomorrow - femminismo
p.s. I'm getting very tempted to try the new "design" element available on Blogger. Don't be surprised if everything on this page changes one of these days.

June Events & Treats

This pretty girl, our granddaughter, Leesha, graduated from high school on Saturday. We are very proud of her for finishing her education despite some of the obstacles in her path.

Saturday was also the first day of sunshine around here in what seemed like a very, very, very long time. Some of the flowers had just given up trying to bloom and the foliage on many flowers and vegetables is very sketchy because of the slugs - who adore the moisture. Time to set out the slug bait.
On Saturday, after graduation, Leesha's parents had a barbecue to celebrate and it was a chance for my son and his dad to hand-crank ice cream. Old fashioned vanilla on top of the chocolate graduation cake. Yum!
The Mister and I attended the party and had a good meal to fortify us for more partying later on at a friend's house, where we danced and then the Mister played guitar. Fun times. The hostess had a beautiful bouquet of peonies with stalks of a mustard plant with variegated foliage. It was quite unusual and gave me a "plant itch" for something similar in our back yard.
This peony portrait is worked over a bit in Photoshop, but it was lovely on its own, too.
Here's the Mister at the barbecue before the party. While he played guitar at the party all I got was shots from behind. It was a "band in the basement" party and the music was quite loud for a while. They played until a little after 10 p.m. because most of the neighbors were at the party!
Here, below, is a picture of slim, tall Zoe, another granddaughter. She is growing so fast it's a wonder her skin can keep up with her.
And I'll finish up with a June rose that is so perfect and fat. Can you smell the peachy goodness of it? - femminismo

Five Hundred First Post . . . !!!

GOOD GRAVY! I almost didn't notice this piece of information when I logged in, but this is my 501st post on Blogger. Propitious moment to give you a picture of my Teeny Tiny Books. I suppose they might be even smaller, to be deserving of the title "Teeny Tiny," but they do fit into a coin envelope. You know: the kind you put loose change into when you make a deposit at the bank?

I have been a lousy blogger recently. Thinking a lot of what I'd like to write about, but never getting it down on paper. Or on the magical glass screen either!

The "Bound for Glory" picture is one I took in Salem from our conference headquarters. Overlooking a busy thoroughfare can be quite interesting!

I've been visiting other blogs the last two days - finally - and seeing these posts energizes me to get busy and do something. Anything to feel creative. So now that I have the April project finally almost done (I need to produce some sort of holder for these booklets) I can start on something new.

Something to do with paint and paper, I think. Now go create, people - femminismo

Testing My Photoshop 'Skills'

As you can see, the real Photoshop geeks have nothing to fear. I used an image another blogger generously distributed and added a few other images. I'm nowhere near to painting faces and adding other elements that these ladies might be holding.

Hmm. Marie Antoinette as a zombie on Day of the Dead? I'm sure she wouldn't be holding a rose, but rather an arm or a leg to feast on - femminismo

First Day of June

JUNE - the month of graduates and newlyweds. And this year, apparently, gully washers of rain showers here in Oregon. A "pineapple express" is scheduled to come through tomorrow or the next day - or maybe tonight! I love pineapple, but I don't think we'll enjoy this one so much. The flowers are already looking pretty worn out from all the rain.
Not this clematis though. Sturdy flowers and such interesting centers I thought I would zoom in on this one.
We were up in the woods, too, on Sunday and I brought back a couple of photographs and a lot of red clay mud on my tennis shoes. Everything was very damp and my little path - Jeanne's Trail - down by the river had really grown over. Some of the deer ferns were as tall as me. Here I had it all cleaned up and spotless and now these little white flowers are carpeting the pathway. The goatsbeard* is in full bloom too, right by the side of the creek.
This is a sword fern, shot from overhead. All the "spears" look so fresh, clean and new! Gorgeous. Must go now. Bedtime and it's off for an annual conference tomorrow about an hour away from home. My suitcase is packed and with all the outfits I was stuffing in the suitcase the Mister was getting a little worried, asking how long I was going to be gone. Just three days, and not even that, really. I'll be back Friday evening - femminismo
* there is a photo of the goatsbeard on another "page" of this blog, if you search for it in the search field at the top

A Weekend For Remembering

THIS three-day weekend has been full of weeding, working, laughing, hoping for sunshine and counting blessings. Oh, and eating strawberries.
Here's a picture and a word or two to keep my hand in this "blogging thingy."
Today we went to the cemetery to say hello to Mom and Dad and my Uncle Frank and Aunt Mildred. Small flags on the veterans' graves. We walked around the old country cemetery to see the hard work others had done cutting the grass and raking up fallen limbs. On every tombstone in the cemetery there were flowers on the graves.
I know some of the people buried there probably don't even have relatives who remember them any longer, but the local church must have some really good people helping out.
Our section of the cemetery was overflowing with flowers. You could really tell my parents and grandparents were well loved!
Today was a good day for gathering flowers - remembering my mother's favorites. This calla lily we got from her garden and brought home to flourish in ours - femminismo
p.s. Check out the pistil, especially at the bottom, and the fluted, rippling petal edge!

Tumbling Strawberries

I SHOULD have been more ambitious, started earlier in the evening, not put off my blogging ... but none of those things happened. We've been busy here. Lots of deadlines to meet at work, art receptions, volunteer meetings and a bridal shower here on Sunday last.
I've been thinking about my blog and wishing everything came together more easily, but here is a photo taken after the art reception. This pitcher, with strawberries and violets, was a centerpiece surrounded by cookies. Then I got to take them home to munch on. I tried one of the violets, but it didn't have much flavor.
I've planted flowers in the front during breaks from the rain. Wettest May on record - or something like that - here in Oregon.
I hope you are all well out there in Bloggerland. I will soon have a photo of all my completed coin packets and tiny books with poems. So many great poems, so many vivid images to save - femminismo

I Miss You xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

I MISS the days I first began this blog and savored the wonder of seeing my photos and words come together. I miss the times I couldn't order food without taking a picture of it once it arrived at my table to share with "you."
The places I went, the people I saw, the books I read - I shared them all with "you."
No, this isn't good-bye. It's just a wish I had more time - more time - more time!
Here at the keyboard I scatter a few words magically on the screen before me and say hello one more. Hopefully I will see something tomorrow to show you.
Maybe the limping raccoon that lives in our neighborhood will visit and I can get his picture, although he isn't very friendly. (thank goodness!)
Maybe I will have a great dream and need to tell you about it. (A couple of nights ago I dreamed my cousin sang a hymn in harmony with herself. Her voice could sing three or four notes at one time. It sounded beautiful.)
Do you hear in your dreams? Do you smell things? Do you dream in color? I do all of these, but I've never tasted anything in them.
Sometimes when I am driving I see wonderful things and I think of "you" and want to remember to tell "you." I love you - femminismo