Winter Window Stars - Art Every Day Month - Day 7

Today I made a trio of winter window stars in purple, blue, and white. The weather seemed much chillier today, so these colors reflected the strong wind and colder temperatures outside.

A trio of stars for a cold autumn day.

The first star I made was a purple one. Each point is folded 22 times. With 8 points, that's 176 folds to make the star.

Purple window star with 22 folds per point (176 folds total).

The second star is much easier to make - only six folds per point. With five points, that's 30 folds to make the blue star.

Only 30 folds to make this blue window star.

The last star I made is the white one. This one took 20 folds per point. It has six points, so that's 120 folds to create this window star.

White window star with 20 folds per point...or 120 folds total.

I have some more window stars to make for Day 8 as well as another quilt square that I want to finish. Art Every Day Month has given me the push I needed to create and get projects done that I have wanted to do for some time now.

I may just have to continue dedicating some time each day to create. It does a lot for my spirit when I take that time to do something creative.

Follow Your Heart - Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks - Week 45

This week for the Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge I'm reading Follow Your Heart by Susanna Tamaro. It is translated from Italian to English by John Cullen.

As a side note, the book I read last week - Comedy in a Minor Key - also was a translation (Dutch to English). This isn't intentional in choosing these books, but certainly interesting to read literature written by authors whose works were published in other countries before being published in the United States.

Follow Your Heart is a story about an elderly woman who writes a letter - a confession - to her granddaughter who she raised. The granddaughter is now living in the United States, and is estranged from her grandmother.

The grandmother has everything in order as she is preparing to die, all except one secret she has kept for many years. As the back cover the book says, the letter contains "...a story of love, death, and propriety, of words unspoken, of lives wasted, of secrets she had vowed to take to her grave but must now share to heal the lives mortally wounded by a lie."

The letter "is the ultimate gift of love and liberation, from one woman to another - a road map straight to the center of ourselves, where we can gather the courage to follow our hearts."

The letter - written from November 17th through December 22nd, 1992 - is a free-flow of thoughts, reflections, and insight. Some of the information the grandmother shares with the granddaughter is personal and gives a different perspective about the family and circumstances surrounding the granddaughter's mother's death.

Other times, the information shared in the letter is like trivial details one might share when writing a chatty letter to a friend. For example, in the November 18th entry, the grandmother refers to a tv documentary she watched about animals and how they dream.

She wrote, "All creatures in the animal hierarchy, from birds on up, dream a lot .... They all dream, but not all in the same way. Animals that are basically prey have short dreams, more like apparitions than real dreams. In contrast, predators' dreams are long and complicated. The narrator said, 'Oneiric activity is a way of organizing survival strategies. Hunter must incessantly work out new methods of getting food for themselves, while those that are hunted...have to think about only one thing: the fastest way to escape."

Another entry on November 20th refers to the grandmother when she was a child and her family's aging dog. The dog had a swelling on his throat and had not beeing acting the way he used to. One morning, she came home from school and the dog, Argus, was not waiting at the gate for her. "Where's Argus?" she asked her father.

"'Argus,' he said, without lifting his eyes from his newspaper. 'Argus has gone away.' "But why?' I asked. 'Because he was tired of the tricks you played on him.' Tactlessness? Shallowness? Sadism? What kind of answer was that? The moment I heart those words, something broke inside me."

The grandmother gives other examples of disturbing things and behavior towards her when she was a young child. This truly shaped who she was and what she was capable of handling as an adult and a mother herself. As she wrote in her letter, "That's why I say I became an adult at six years old, because at that age my joy was replaced by anxiety, my curiosity gave way to indifference."

She talked about destiny and how one's view of one's life changes with each decade. "Around the age of sixty, when the road at your back is longer than the one in front of you, you see something you've never seen before: the road you've traveled wasn't straight, but forking constantly, at every step there was a turning, an arrow indicating a new direction .... You've taken some of those side roads without noticing it, and there are others you didn't even see."

The grandmother continued, "At the forks in your road you encounter other lives. Getting to know them or not, merging with them or passing them by, depends solely on the choice you make in a moment; though you may not know it, your whole life and the lives of those close to you are at stake when you choose whether to go straight or turn aside."

And with that...she is foreshadowing what is to come...and the secret she has held onto for many years but is now ready to reveal to her granddaughter.

Embroidered Quilt Squares - Art Every Day Month - Day 6

I am continuing to work on the state quilt that I started to hand-embroider yesterday. Today I did two more quilt squares - Minnesota's state flower (Lady's Slipper) and the state outline.

Lady's Slipper Quilt Block.

In Minnesota, it is illegal to uproot or cut a lady's slipper. Despite being the state flower, the lady's slipper is not a commonly-seen flower.

According to the DNR, "In its first year, this orchid grows only as tall as a pencil point. Each year, the lady's slipper may produce a half-million seeds, which are as fine as flour dust. This flower has a long life span; some may be 100 years old."

The other quilt block I worked on was the outline of the state of Minnesota.

Minnesota Outline Quilt Block.

According to the Minnesota Guide, in spite of the fact that most of its boundaries follow watercourses, Minnesota's shape is fairly rectangular.  It is 406 miles long from north to south; and although 357 miles from east to west along the northern border its average width is only 240 miles.

Now I have three of the quilt blocks hand-embroidered.

Trio of Quilt Blocks Completed So Far.

My next step is to create more designs that represent other Minnesota facts (e.g., state butterfly/insect, state mushroom).

In the process, I can learn more about the state I live in; and share this information with Sophia and Olivia who will be studying about Minnesota more in depth in the spring as part of their homeschooling.

30 Days of Giving Thanks - Day 5 - Meenie...the Cat

I spent some time this morning going through a couple hundred photographs, and pulled ones that I took of other people who I will be thanking in the upcoming week. More about the photographs and recipients will be posted during the next few days.

Since I didn't move beyond sorting photographs (to the actual thank-you-letter-writing process), I didn't have too many options left at the end of the day. So, as I began typing, I looked to my right and there sat Meenie, the cat.

Meenie.

Yes, Meenie was the recipient of a thank you today. She sleeps almost every night on my back and keeps me warm. She's the smallest of the five cats weighing less than six pounds.

She was part of litter from a local farmer who was going to "get rid of" the trio of kittens that remained from a litter of six (or was it eight?). Knowing that "getting rid of" meant something not terribly humane, I took all three kittens.

Meenie was accompanied by her brothers - Eenie and Miney. Unfortunately, a few years ago, Miney escaped out the back door and never returned. He was a great cat. I still miss him.

Eenie is still around and recently did a "pet therapy" visit with Sophia who took him to see my dad who has Alzheimer's Disease and just recently moved into a nursing home.

Meenie, Eenie, and Lucy.

Rarely do Eenie and Meenie sit by one another.

I was so happy to get this picture of them together.

Meenie and Eenie join the other three cats who wandered onto the farm in subsequent years. Lucy and his sister (yes, Lucy is actually a male cat...Sophia named him when she was three years old), were only a few weeks old when I found them wandering in the pasture. Apparently the mother abandoned them or was killed by a predator. We ended up raising them - even before they could eat solid food.

The last cat to join the family was Shadow. He also showed up at the farm one day and gradually spent more time here. By the winter, it was getting very cold.

One day it had reached 25 degrees below zero, and the windchill was at about 40 degrees below zero. Shadow was in the hobby shed. Luckily, he allowed me to put him in a cat carrier and bring him indoors. He spent time inside, but was eager to go back outside after about a week (the temperatures were much warmer).

However, by the following fall, Shadow wanted to come inside and no longer wanted to be an outdoor cat. He's been an inside cat since that time.

So, Meenie is one of five cats. She is a very special cat...one that would not be here to keep me warm on chilly, windy nights like tonight...had the farmer not put out a "free kittens" sign by his driveway. For that...I am very thankful.

Embroidered State Quilt - Art Every Day Month - Day 5

About a year ago, I began working on a quilt that would feature blocks that I made that featured Minnesota's state outline, bird, tree, and so forth. These hand-embroidered blocks would be combined with other ones from people around the world. I was sending and receiving the blocks through an on-going swap on Swap-Bot.

However, after four months, I stopped participating in the swap because the same people were swapping and I received the same quilt block by a person participating in the swap. It defeated the purpose trying to create a quilt with all different images.

So, I changed the focus of the quilt to be one that focused solely on the state I live in: Minnesota. While I was doing the swap, I made two images of each quilt block - one I finished and sent to someone else in a different part of the United States or world. The other one I simply ironed on the fabric pieces, but never embroidered.

The blocks have been sitting in my bag of projects to do. Art Every Day Month now is giving me a reason to finish the blocks I have begun and start new ones so I can complete the quilt.

The block I did this morning represents Minnesota's state tree: the Norway Pine.

Three hand-embroidered and appliqued trees

to represent Minnesota's state tree: the Norway Pine.

All the fabric I used for this block as well as the other three that I've partly done so far use fabric that  I have on hand. My goal is to use only fabric that I have rather than purchasing new fabric. As I was taught by my mom and dad..."Make Do With What You Have."

All the fabric is cotton, and the floss is 100% cotton. The batting also will be 100% cotton, so it will be an all-natural, very soft quilt by the time it is done.

So, over the next 25 days, I hope to complete the rest of the hand-embroidered blocks, sew them together, and finish the quilt. To have a warm quilt going into the winter will be something we all can use and enjoy here.

30 Days of Giving Thanks - Day 4 - So Many People...Where Do I Start?

Today I realized that I thanked a lot of people. Not everyone...sometimes I forgot to say "thank you" when I should have shown my appreciation. But, generally, I tried to remember to thank people today.

Something I did differently today was try to thank people by name (for employees who wore name tags I would look at them to see their names)...

==> Ruth and Jim...the drivers who transported my dad back to the nursing home on a stretcher in an ambulance.

==> Lana...the nurse who remembered and enjoyed taking care of my dad at the nursing home before he had to go the hospital on October 23rd. She enthusiastically welcomed him back to the nursing home and made him feel welcome there.

==> Mom...for letting me use her car during the past two weeks so I could have a vehicle to use to visit my dad and her while they were both in the hospital (two different ones for two different medical issues). My car has almost 198,000 miles on it now, so not adding almost-daily 80-100 mile round-trip visits will certainly help keep the car just a bit longer.

==> Sophia...for patiently feeding Papa his first meal back at the nursing home. He's having trouble feeding himself now due to being heavily medicated, so her help ensured he had some food to nourish himself.

==> Olivia...for keeping Papa entertained with his stuffed fox/corgi while the nurses tried to take his vitals and blood pressure. She also helped me fill his bird feeder so he can watch the birds.

==> Sr. Ruth Ann...for listening to me share what has happened over the past two weeks - the challenges, stress, and difficulties facing my parents and family; and for offering to spend time with my father this afternoon as he transitions back to living in a nursing home.

So many more people helped the day go smoothly and make it one where my father felt welcomed, cared for, and loved. It made me realize again how truly special and caring he is; and the impact he has made on this world.

After a long and emotionally-exhausting day, I'm ready to rest.  At least I can do that knowing that there are compassionate people in this world who aim to help make the world a bit easier for those who are struggling which whatever challenges they are facing in their lives.

Floral Mandala - Art Every Day Month - Day 4

This morning I colored a floral mandala that was in Coloring Mandalas by Susanne F. Fincher.

I've had this book since May 2008 and have colored half of the mandalas in the book. Normally, I have been going in the order that the book - from front to back cover.

This morning, however, I didn't feel like working on the mandala that I began last week. It was focused on good/evil and the images within the mandala weren't particularly appealing or ones I wanted to have in my mind as I went through the day.

I flipped through the book and came across one that I thought would be a nice image to have in my mind this morning and carry throughout the day. Taking out my Prismacolor Colored Pencils, I chose the colors with which I wanted to work.

Ended up gravitating towards using all of the colors of the rainbow again. Either this is a safe color combination for me...or just what I feel particularly drawn to...I'm not sure.

One of the favorite mandalas I colored in 2008.

It was the start of the rainbow-colored mandalas.

Rather than start with red in the center - or foundation of the mandala - like I typically do, I started with purple. Purple, for me, represents home and family. It was my favorite color when I was younger and my entire room was done in shades of purple.

Today, my father is getting released from the hospital and is being brought back to the care center...his new home due to his advanced stage of Alzheimer's Disease. Sophia, Olivia, my mom, and I will welcome him back to his new home and help him get settled.

As I look at how the mandala emerged today with the reverse in colors (purple in the center to red on the outside), to me the predominant color is green. There are four different shades of green used. Green represents new life. And a renewed sense of hope.

With that in mind...I enter the day and hope for a smooth transition and welcome back for my dad.

30 Days of Giving Thanks - Day 3 - The Hospital Billing Department

About two years ago (on November 20th), Sophia had an emergency appendectomy. Her appendix was about four times the size of a normal appendix. Had it not been removed in the morning when it was, most likely it would have ruptured by that afternoon.

Sophia's IV after surgery.

Having individual/personal health care insurance and a very high deductible ($10,000 per person per year) means that the majority of medical expenses come out of pocket. The days of $15 doctor appointments...gone.  Medical procedures under $100...gone.

The cost of a CT scan, surgery, and overnight recovery in the hospital was staggering. Needless to say, having that level of discretionary income available to pay the bill wasn't an option.

The hospital billing/accounts receivable department asked if I could make a payment at a level which would pay in full the bill within six months. I believe I laughed aloud when she told me the amount that the payment would be each month. "I could only wish I'd have that much extra money each month."

"How about $100 less than that?" she asked.

"Keep going down," I said. After a bit she asked what I could afford. When she realized that it would be substantially less than what the hospital normally receives and would stretch a little over two years, yet it was the only option, she and I agreed with the arrangement.

Today, I called to thank her and the hospital for being so generous - for both extending the time and greatly lowering the monthly amount I needed to pay. Without their understanding and compassion, the monthly payments would have greatly (and negatively) affected how we would have lived and survived.

She was surprised at being thanked, and said that they are always happy to be able to help people given that health care these days isn't what it use to be. Many families are struggling with high deductibles - anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 per person...so our family's deductible level is on the high side.

I am looking forward to making the last two payments on the CT scan and surgery expenses in December and January. It will be such a relief and burden lifted.

Sophia collecting dandelions during the summer.

Thankfully, Sophia is doing much better now. There were no complications from the surgery and she has not had any major medical problems since then. For this...I am truly thankful as well.

Sunset Photographs - Art Every Day Month - Day 3

So far I've made two window stars for Art Every Day Month. Last night, there was a beautiful sunset. As I looked up from typing an update on my father's CaringBridge website, I noticed the clouds had begun to turn beautiful shades of pink towards the northwest.

I got up to look out the window, and there to the southwest was an amazing sunset that was turning the clouds into brilliant oranges, golds, pinks, and lavenders. From the upstairs window, I took a photograph:

Grabbing my coat, I went outside to the pasture gate to get another shot. In only a matter of a couple of minutes, the appearance of the sunset had changed so much.  There were more blues now rather than pinks.

The next door neighbor's tractor started up. He is still harvesting corn and is working into the night.

Wanting one more shot of the rich, autumnal colors of the sunset, I focused in on the orange and gold clouds. This is one of my last photos from the sunset:

These photographs were taken in a span of four minutes. It was amazing how different the sky could look minute by minute.

It's truly the simple things that sustain and feed my spirit during challenging times.

30 Days of Giving Thanks - Day 2 - An Artist Who Helped Me Remember

On the second day of the Thirty Days of Giving Thanks challenge, I thanked an artist who is participating in Art Every Day Month.

She created a beautiful representation of lantana (a type of flower/plant). Apparently, where she lives lantana is a weed. (If only the weeds here had such colorful flowers.)

Lantana that I saw in Connecticut.

Her work used such vivid, gorgeous colors and so accurately captured the beauty of the flowers. Seeing her lovely illustration of lantana brought back some wonderful memories of seeing the plant for the first time in September.

It also brought me back to the very moment when the girls and I were walking around the state park that had a butterfly garden in it. The lantana plants were right in the middle of the garden.

Sophia, Olivia, and I went on a nature walk and saw the first signs of autumn - leaves that were changing colors. It was such a nice way to start out the trip that was educational...fun...and very memorable.

Leaves in a pond on a nature walk in Connecticut.

(September 2011)

Today's thank you was to an artist who shared her work with others...and who helped bring back some great memories!

Comedy in a Minor Key - Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks - Week 44

For the 44th week of the Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge, I read Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson.

Comedy in a Minor Key tells the story of Wim and Marie, a young Dutch couple, who conceal Nico (a Jewish perfume salesman) in their spare bedroom for a year during World War II.

For Wim and Marie, they agree to take on this responsibility out of neighborly kindness and a sense of decency rather than a response to injustice or political passion. As Marie said, "Things happen sometimes, with these accidental combinations....We're all only human, and it lasts so long."

Because they aren't experienced in housing a stranger on the run from the enemy, Wim and Marie awkwardly move through each day.  The relationship between Wim, Marie, and Nico develops from being strangers to awkward intimates. Despite the closeness, there is a cloud of tension in the home, owing partly to the concern that Nico will be discovered.

Concurrently, Nico experiences a change in his mental condition. "Since he couldn't demand anything of the outer world  - what he did receive was freely offered, almost a gift - his demands turned inward and more and more excessive.  But people were helping him, they were helping him, didn't that mean anything? Yes, it meant a lot. And it was also nothing. He was turning into nothing. It was unbearable."

Nico continued, "It meant his annihilation, his human annihilation, even if it - maybe - saved his life. The little thorn that grows invisibly in anyone who lives on the help and pity of others grew to gigantic proportions, became a javelin lodged deep in his flesh and hurting terribly."

Gradually, Nico's health declines. He is ashen, gaunt, emaciated, feverish, and dressed in pajamas, and eventually dies. Essentially, his same slow death is similar to that of his compatriots who live in concentration camps.

Wim and Marie are at a loss for how to dispose of the body as well as handle the situation for their own safety. Unfortunately, in the confusion of removing the body from the home, Wim and Marie make a mistake that can tie Nico to them.  Thus, Wim and Marie must go into hiding. Ironically, they now know what it is like to be both rootless and deeply afraid.

Comedy in a Minor Key is an excellent character study of the human condition - addressing fear and risk; the problem of being saved yet imprisoned; the satisfaction of doing the right thing and, ultimately, disappointment.

Marie had always hoped that Wim, Nico, and she would be able to leave the house together triumphantly on Liberation Day. However, Nico's death cheats her of that satisfaction. It's that irony of the entire situation that leads the author to call this book a comedy, but in a sad way.

Comedy in a Minor Key provides an intriguing look at the way lives are changed and influenced through the circumstances of life; and how we may never truly be able to understand someone until we are in their place and experiencing their nightmare.

Greet Seniors - 52 Weeks of Giving - Week 44

Usually on October 31st each year, we gather as a family at my parents' home and have dinner. The cousins would go out and enjoy spending time with one another, while my parents had the opportunity to see their grandchildren dressed up and having fun each year.

Olivia, Nana, Sophia, and Papa.

(Taken on October 31, 2010 -

the last Halloween at Papa and Nana's home.)

It brought them a lot of joy and happiness to see a tradition that they enjoyed when their own children were growing up passed along to the next generation.

This year, my mother was just released from the hospital after being there from October 27th-30th; and my father remains in the hospital as his new medications are adjusted to deal with yet another aspect of Alzheimer's Disease.

So, this year we spent Halloween in the neighborhood. Although it is bittersweet in some ways, in other ways it challenged us to go beyond just the "trick or treating" aspect and think of some way that we could do something memorable.

Olivia on Halloween with
Spotty (her stuffed penguin).

The idea: visit the seniors who lived in the senior cottages (one-level, accessible townhomes) in town. Sure enough, the majority of the outdoor lights were on indicating that seniors wanted to have visitors.

Sophia with Shadow on Halloween.

We went through each section of the cottages and visited each senior who had turned on her/his light. The girls made sure to thank each one for the candy they received.

Greeting a senior at one of the senior cottages.

More important was to give a compliment about some aspect of their home - how they decorated their front window for the holiday, flowers that they had out front, or even a little seating area; and to wish each one a nice evening or happy halloween. 

The seniors seemed genuinely happy with the extra time the girls spent with them, and for the additional greeting, wish, or compliment they received from the girls.

Autumn Window Star - Art Every Day Month - Day 2

This is the second day of Art Every Day Month. Yesterday I made a window star for Thanksgiving, and decided to make one today so there's another one for the holiday.

The colors remind me of leaves on the trees and ground. Some of the maple trees still have brilliant red and yellow leaves. The birch trees have the gold leaves speckled with brown. And my favorite oak tree has leaves that are a rich brown. 

In my Thanksgiving decorations bin, there should be several stars from last year that I made for Thanksgiving. However, it is always nice to have some new patterns and colors to add to the holiday decor. Now there are two new window stars for Thanksgiving this year thanks to Art Every Day Month.

30 Days of Giving Thanks - Day 1 - My Daughters

There's an interesting challenge on Free Spirit Knits that encourages "...you to take a moment each day in November and thank someone in your life. Send a text, make a call, leave a post-it, write an old fashioned letter. Make eye contact. Smile. And say, 'thanks.'"

The challenge doesn't specify how you thank them. Rather, the goal is to "simply think of someone in your life - each day - and tell them why you are thankful for them. Give them your thanks. Thank thirty people in thirty days."

Sounds like a very worthwhile goal and time well-spent.

So, today I focused on my daughters who have brought me so much joy and laughter. Yesterday, as we spent the night trick-or-treating, their happiness and thankfulness radiated from them as they greeted each person they met.

Olivia with her stuffed penguin (Spotty)

on Halloween.

Almost every year for the past nine years we have spent Halloween having dinner with my parents; sister and her family; and brother and his family. Afterwards my sister, brother, and/or I would take the children/cousins out so they could spend time together.

Since my father is still in the hospital and mother just was released from the hospital on Sunday afternoon (on two different health-related issues), we spent Halloween night visiting neighbors and local businesses that were making the evening a safe and fun one for children.

This year, we decided to visit the seniors who live in the "senior cottages" in town. Seeing the seniors' happiness at having young visitors; and hearing the girls greet, thank, and wish each senior a nice evening was such an uplifting way to spend the holiday.

Sophia on Halloween.

So, today I thanked Sophia and Olivia for the happiness they've brought to my life and to others; and for such a fun evening last night. I told them how happy the seniors looked when the girls greeted, thanked, and wished them a nice evening or Happy Halloween.

I'm hoping that if they had any doubt about how they've positively impacted others, that after today they had no doubt about how much they are appreciated and loved. Truly, they have added so much joy, fun, and laughter to many other people's lives...way beyond what they will ever know. 

Thanksgiving Window Star - Art Every Day Month - Day 1

This is the first day of Art Every Day Month (AEDM). Last year I participated in it and completed a lot of projects that I had wanted to do, but had not made time to do prior to AEDM.

Today, I made a window star to decorate the home for Thanksgiving. It is made from brown translucent paper. When the sun shines through the paper, it reveals the pattern.

Each point is folded 11 times. There are 16 points, so that makes 176 folds to make the star.

I plan to make some more window stars throughout the month to add to the window by the dining room table.