The Friday Five Good Things

 Five good things that happened this week.

1. We had a nice Valentine's Day dinner at home. Himself gave me a beautiful steak to cook and he made his awesome mashed potatoes and a salad.

2. I got a lovely text message from a former student.

3. I had a check up at the dentist, look, Ma, no cavities or other problems

4. A 40° day felt like a warm Spring day so Teague and I went out for ice cream.

5. I love my Tuesday afternoon online calligraphy class. It's a nice group of women and we had such a fun class.

How was your week?

TBT Reprints from CJ's Whine and Cheeze

 In 2003, Ma had a stroke. Dad was her full time caregiver until he he had a car accident that totaled the car. So in 2006, I became their chauffeur among other jobs.

At the time, to deal with the stress of running two households and working, I kept a blog entitled CJ's Whine and Cheeze. Egged on by some friends who enjoyed the first read through, you'll see your part when it comes by. 

July 18, 2007

New World Order

Since Ma and Dad first were married 64 years ago, Ma managed the purse strings, and Dad got an allowance. Instead of working as a team, both of them have this silly “my money – your money” concept. Their system generally worked fine until about 20 years ago when Ma became addicted to the phony lotteries and scam artists, and she whizzed through their savings. She blithely writes checks without having the funds to cover them. The bank happily slaps her with finance charges though they are generous in charging only $5 per bounced check instead of the $35 per check most banks charge their customers. The finance charges add up to a tidy sum per month.

A city girl, born and bred, Ma hated the town they moved to. She wants to move. She wants to move back to East Boston and into an apartment for $100 per room. She wants her rent to be $300 or $400 per month, utilities included!

She wants to teach Dad a lesson so she issued him an ultimatum. She will no longer pay for "anything". So, Dad took her up on her challenge. He went to their bank, had his social security check removed from the direct deposit to Ma’s checking account. He went to another bank, opened up his own account and authorized his social security check to be direct deposited into the account. Yes, you can say it. It’s about #%@#@ time!

I was concerned initially he might not be able to handle the expenses, especially the property taxes which are paid quarterly.

He said he would be able to manage. "I'll do alright as long as I can hold her off."

"Her" I assumed was Ma. "What do you mean?"

"The other day she asked me to write out a check so she could send it to one of the scammers."

Altogether now, 

"What happened?"

"I told her 'No!'"

I think Dad's enjoying himself. Long live the King!

The Empty Page Journal

 

I'm taking a 6 month journal workshop called The Empty Page with Lindsay Ostram. It's an approach to get over the fear of staring at a blank page and not knowing what to do. In a live video class, Lindsay steps us through projects with suggestions for tools and how to make your own journal fodder.

Above is the February homework page. Lindsay sent her artwork to be traced, colored with water colors, and doodled.

On the opposite page is a companion piece, a work in progress. "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; They are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust

T Stands for Love Has Wings

On Valentine's Day I woke up to a large package in my shade of blue from Himself. First, a cup of tea.

Fragile — it must be Italian! from “A Christmas Story”

Inside, not a sexy, leg lamp, but an adorable pig planter and the pig has wings!

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

Monet and Me

would like to show the February journal made from paper bags. This is the project I chose to do for the Creative Hand Lettering and Doodling with Lindsay group on Facebook. Lindsay had suggested decorating a small box, but I didn't have anything that would work

The title page is the group project page folded into an origami heart with pockets. Inside the pocket, an origami cat.

Lindsay's suggestion for the first page. Washi tape, watercolor hearts, and faux calligraphy

For most of the pages, I decided to go my own way. So celebrating Ground Hog Day. The nasty groundhog saw his shadow meaning we get 6 more weeks of Winter, and the groundhog goes back into his hole. In this case, the groundhog gets tucked in the flap provided by the bottom of the paper bag.

This idea was a combination of Lindsay using the John Lennon quote, "All you need is love" and a heart doodle that was done in the Monday Doodling for Stress Reduction class. To all you need is love, I added and chocolate along with a Love and Kiss stamp from an envelope I kept.

Lindsay did a tag with Start each day with a grateful heart, tucked inside a belly band on a card. I used a piece of origami paper for the background.

Lindsay had talked about the candy hearts with saying we used to get as kids. I punched out a bunch of small hearts, colored them with Tombow markers, and wrote the little setiments.

Another hybrid piece. Lindsay painted flowers and cut them out. I think she mentioned hearts and flowers, too. I colored a heart using the bottom of the bag as a tuck space for the flower. The sentiment was something someone had written in a photo album my mother had when she graduated from high school. "Hearts and flower go together, True friends part never."

I saw a meme that had and image of a heart which said normal person's heart

and my heart was a cat in the shape of a heart. Perfect image to go with soul. I was Ink's heart and he was my soul. It will be 10 years this year since he passed away. I still miss him.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

 

There's still a good 8 to 10 inch snowpack on the ground. Instability clouds left a dusting on the ground Thursday when I went to visit Teague. Temperatures got just over the freezing mark so there has been a little melting going on. The video title is  Is this what winter is doing to you?

Only 126 days until the Summer Solstice.

How does your garden grow?

Happy, Little, Time Waster

 

I just heard about Internet Archive.  You can watch movies, television, listen to music and borrow books all for free. You just have to create an account.

I was hoping to find a translation and critique of the Arthurian romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by J. R.R. Tolkien and I did. Except the book was listed as Borrow Unavailable Bummah! But what does it mean, Borrow Unavailable? Are there so many Medieval Lit scholars out there clamoring to read a book translated somewhere in the 1930s or 1940s and published in 1975 after Tolkien's death?

"Summary

More than 500,000 books have been taken out of lending as a result of Hachette v. Internet Archive, the publishers’ lawsuit against our library, including more than 1,300 banned and challenged books.

Books that are shown as “Borrow Unavailable” mean they cannot be borrowed by our patrons, including books you may have previously read or consulted. .."

Bummah. The lawsuit is under appeal, but that may take a long time to settle the dispute.

Meanwhile there are lots of other books, movies, and television series you can read or watch.

The Archive has the complete series of The Time Tunnel, a 1960s sci-fi series from producer, Irwin Allen (Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)

So while there may be books you can't borrow because of the pending lawsuit, there are tons of other things that can happily waste your time.