A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

H is for Helping

Laurel sat next to me on the couch last night when I started this post by writing the title and inserting the picture I planned to use.

“Are you going to write about me?” she asked. “I help.”

Indeed she does. Laurel is an outstanding sous chef. She is often with me in the kitchen at dinner time helping with meal prep. She scours the internet for healthy recipes and sometimes volunteers to make dinner, on which occasions I am her sous chef. I think that’s pretty remarkable for a 13-year-old.

Mary helps, too, in her own way. She empties the dishwasher, unasked and often unseen. She brings my father his nightly beer. She makes sure he has the baseball game or Wheel of Fortune on after dinner. She has fixed him lunch on days when I’m not available. My father will say, “Mary is solid,” which I think may be cringe-worthy words for a 17-year-old to hear, but by which he means that he can count on her, a high compliment.

And the truth is, all my kids are great helpers. They have acted as gardeners and landscapers around my parents’ property, mowing the lawn, weeding the myrtle, cleaning up sticks and debris. They have chauffeured, accompanied, and assisted, attending to their elderly grandparents in so many ways.

Lately, some of my adult children have been caregivers, staying with my father over weekends when I need to be away. It’s a huge help to me.

I’m quite sure they inherited the helping gene from their father. Bud is one of the hardest-working, most generous people I know.

So thank you to all my helpers. You know who you are. I see what you’re doing and I appreciate it.


This picture is very early in my whole cutting-up-books-to-make-cards adventure.

The tree is from Garth Williams’ beautiful book, The Rabbits’ Wedding, the book that started it all. I picked it up at a yard sale, a gorgeous oversized picture book that had sat in the rain. It was starting to mold and smell — but the illustrations were so beautiful that I couldn’t stand the thought of it going to the dump. So, blindly, I paid a ridiculous amount of money for a soggy moldy book — 50¢ — and brought it home not knowing what I would do with it.

The girl is from Sarah’s Unicorn by Bruce and Katherine Coville. The illustrations in the book were all black-and-white, so I watercolored her, as well as the background.

I don’t know where the bird and nest are from.

family

Tenacious

The other day I stopped by the thrift store again.

I have a routine. When I drop my father at the nursing home where my mother had been — he likes to visit some of the employees — I make a quick trip to the thrift store. One is just down the road from the other.

I headed for the bookshelves where I found a worker was pulling books off and tossing them into a box.

“Are you getting rid of those?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Who would want them?” She picked up a paperback novel that had obviously either sat in the rain or been dropped in the toilet and held it out to me.

“I might like some of these picture books,” I said, pulling one out of the box.

I hit the mother lode that day.

Bedraggled, colored-in, torn, falling apart books are my favorite. I have no guilt cutting them up. I feel as though I’m giving them a new life.

When I made Laurel a coupon book for her 13th birthday, I cut up our personal copy of Tikki Tikki Tembo (author – Arlene Mosel, illustrator – Blair Lent). The book about the younger brother with a short name and the older brother with a very long name was a favorite with my children.

Chang is tenacious about getting help for his brother, the title character.

I think that’s what I love about the story. Brother looking out for brother.

For Laurel, my youngest daughter, a girl with seven older siblings, she has a lot of people to look out for — and a lot of people who look out for her. I thought it was okay to use that book. A good reminder.

Because that’s what family is all about — life/love in brokenness and care for one another.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

F is for Family

The background is from Mother Night by Denys Cazet.

The family is from Wheels on the Bus (a Raffi Song to Read book) illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz Wickstrom.


I love the way this picture turned out. The family is the point of light in a dark world.

The question is, are they coming or going? Are they refugees fleeing a greater darkness? Or are they arriving home after a long journey?

Whichever it is, I see them pausing to look at their house.

In statistics, an outlier is an observation point that is distant from other observations.

I don’t think of my little family as outliers, though. I think of them as looking at home.

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge

E is for Escape

Jennifer Trafton Peterson, author of The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic and her brand-new book, Henry and the Chalk Dragon, explained her writing process something like this — “I think of a picture that makes me laugh, something funny, and I write to it.”

When she read aloud a portion of Henry and the Chalk Dragon last fall at Hutchmoot, the annual gathering of Rabbit Room peeps, it was the funniest thing I had heard in a long time. Of course, I immediately pre-ordered the book.

It arrived the other day. Every time I see it — and I set it in a place I would see it often — it gives me impetus to finish the book I’m currently reading so I can dive headlong into Henry’s adventure. Yes, it was written for 3rd grade boys, but I can’t tell you about a time that I’ve been more excited to read a book.

Henry and the Chalk Dragon has absolutely nothing to do with my “E” collage, except that I used the Jennifer Trafton method of creating. I sat one day with a pile of pictures spread out before me and thought about which ones would be funny together.

One of the results was this one — a butterfly chasing a pig.

It made me think of Monty Python’s Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, when the knights were in denial of the danger, but it quickly turned to “Run away! Run away!”

My picture depicts a narrow escape from the Bloodcurdling Butterfly of Baoithein.


Fence and bunny from Catch Me, Catch Me! A Thomas the Tank Engine Story illustrated by Owain Bell

Fleeing pig from The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf illustrated by Keiko Motoyama

Butterfly from — I’m so sorry, dear illustrator, I don’t remember!

A to Z Blogging Challenge

D is for Danger

Rabbit from A Boy Who Wants a Dinosaur by Hiawyn Oram and Satoshi Kitamura
Train tracks from Catch Me, Catch Me! A Thomas the Tank Engine Story illustrated by Owain Bell
Lego guy from Lego City: Snow Chase — Scholastic Books
Extraneous bushes from ??

Ways to deal with danger (note — not all these are optimal):

  • See it. Recognize it.
  • Be immobilized by fear/horror.
  • Yell for help.
  • Be the help.

Things to do in the wake of tragedy (note — not all these are optimal):

  • Nothing.
  • Weep.
  • Clean up.
  • Prepare against further tragedy.
  • Push back with good.

Yesterday my Facebook news feed held horrific images from Syria.

I don’t do well with horrific images.

In fact, I turned off the television for years after seeing bodies floating in the Kigali River during the Rwandan genocide.

Mary was asking me about my memories of the Vietnam War era the other day. I told her that Time Magazine had images that I can’t erase from my mind.

I never watched Schindler’s List because I knew I couldn’t handle the violence of it. Someone told me that you get sort of used to seeing a Nazi pull out a gun and shoot someone in the head. I never want to get used to that.

At the same time, I don’t to be unaware, sticking my head in the sand. I read the news avidly.

I want to push back against the darkness in the world. How can I do that?

At the very least, I can champion for good with my words.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

C is for Christmas

That moment when you realize that there really is a Naughty/Nice list.

I fell in love with this little girl when I saw her, head in hands, sitting in the overstuffed chair. Who can’t relate to what she’s feeling?

One of my sons, when he was in the midst of a bad day, used to ask, “Why does everything bad happen to me?”

Some days just feel like that.

But, as Anne Shirley said, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

We’re always sitting on the cusp of a new day.


The little girl is from The Terrible Thing That Happened at Our House by Marge Blaine and illustrated by John Wallner.

Santa — and I love the grim look on his face, like he’s thinking, This is the downside of my job, but I’ve got to do it — is from Sandra Boynton’s Christmastime! I have been a HUGE Sandra Boynton fan since I first picked up a “Don’t let the turkeys get you down” mug at Logos Bookstore on Marshall Street in Syracuse in, maybe, 1980. I think we still have it. Once, probably 20 years ago, we drove to Stamford, NY, where she had an exhibit at an art center. She autographed some board books for us, but mostly I wanted to meet her. When I found her book at the thrift store, I felt a little sad that someone abused and discarded it.  At the same time I was thrilled at the chance of giving it new life in scenes like the one above.

The flooring in the room is from Ox-Cart Man (illustrator – Barbara Cooney).

The wallpaper is some leftover origami paper.

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

B is for Buzz

A few weeks (or was it months?) ago, I sat at a little diner with Amy. It’s rare that I get to spend time with her anymore because I’m staying with my father so much. I had messaged her that day — “I’m going to be in Greene this afternoon. Do you have any time?”

We sat and talked for two hours, just sharing our lives with each other. Have I ever mentioned how much I love Amy? The openness and honesty of our conversations is always so refreshing.

In the course of our little tête–à–tête, Amy told me about a paper she was working on for a class she was taking.

“It’s a pretty big project,” she said. “I have to write a symbol paper.”

“What’s a symbol paper?” I asked.

“It’s a paper about a symbol,” she said.

Frankly, I’ve never been good at symbolism.

When I took a Flannery O’Connor class last year, we had to read “Good Country People.” In it  (spoiler alert), the main character, Hulga, has her wooden leg stolen by smarmy salesman. It turns out the leg was a symbol for something — I don’t even remember — but the whole time I thought it was just a leg.

I recently finished Ted Dekker’s Martyr’s Song in which ravens circle frequently and a dove alights at opportune times. Evil and good — that symbolism was a little too blatant for me. It felt forced.

Amy had chosen bees as her symbol. She and her husband have a hive, and she told me about all the places bees crop up in literature and art.

Suddenly, I was seeing bees everywhere.

Seriously.

In the dead of winter, of course, so they weren’t the live, buzzing, stinging, gathering pollen-and-nectar variety, but there they were, tucked into pictures in so many of the children’s books I had rescued. A bee seems to add a touch of realism to any garden picture.

I started collecting bees, too, along with my rabbit pictures from books. Bees show up in my cards with some frequency now.

But it’s prudent that I leave the symbolism aspect to Amy.


The card above is one of the first I made with bees in it. The big bee in the lower right corner (and the word “buzz”) is from Ezra Jack Keats’ book Over in the Meadow. The big splash of flowers are from a pop-up book that had been discarded because, as is the true fate of most pop-up books, it no longer popped, but was ripped on nearly every page. The other two flowers — the purple one with the bee visiting, and the yellow one behind — are from books that I forgot to make note of. Dear illustrators, please forgive me.

Life

My Rabbit Problem

I didn’t pause — that’s the problem. Yesterday I bought more rabbits.

Whenever I walk into Target, I pick up rabbits. Fortunately, I have to drive an hour to the nearest Target. Unfortunately, every time I’m in a city, I head to the nearest Target.

My father noticed this growing group of rabbits on the table. “Where do they come from?” he asked.

“They breed at night,” I told him, “when we aren’t looking.”

He laughed, but I know it wasn’t really an answer to his question.

He asks it repeatedly, and I’m a little embarrassed to confess to my obsession.

I admit to being a little crazy. I mean, I carry a rabbit in my pocket these days. I have conversations with the rabbit in my pocket — which really are conversations with myself or God — mindfulness exercises. But, yes, Tuga is with me throughout Lent.

His counterpart, Aleluja, is hidden until Easter.

I let my grandson, Henry, hold Tuga once when he was sad. When he set it down, I asked Helen to toss it to me. “Aren’t you going to let him keep it?” she asked.

Um, no.

I felt like Nicholas Cage in Con Air. Put… the bunny… back… in… the box.

So, when I saw another Tuga-Aleluja set at Target, I bought it for Henry’s Easter basket. I had already bought a set that I sent to my sister.

And now I have yet another set to send another friend.

I bought two rabbit candy dishes that I sent to friends. With chocolates, of course.

It started with two larger ceramic rabbits. I bought a third one yesterday. Because it was there as I walked in the store.

The original rabbits sit on the mantel where I put them when I finally took the nativity set down.

One of the mantel rabbits (and Tuga)

The real problem is the salt-and-pepper shakers. They’re the ones that breed.

Or jump into my shopping cart at Target.

I plan to send them to friends eventually.

Last week I bought some T-Rexes to keep the rabbits at bay.

Rabbits and T-rexes

It didn’t work. Two more bunnies have shown up.

The rabbits all remind me of people who are dear to me, who call themselves rabbits because of their/our affinity for the Rabbit Room, a website/community that I’m thrilled to be part of.

So, Target, as long as you keep putting rabbits out, I’ll probably keep buying them.

They say there’s a sucker born every minute. I’m definitely a sucker for rabbits.

 

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

A is for Anticipation (part two)

I mailed this card to my friend, Shannon, whose blog, moving honestly, is a most aptly named blog. The barn is from a falling apart copy of Ox-Cart Man, written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Honestly, I’m not 100% sure where the bunny or the background came from. I’m pretty sure that the rabbit was in an over-sized scribbled-in copy of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The snow scene — I just don’t know. I should keep better track of these things so I can give appropriate credit.

But here it is — April 1 — and I woke up to snow.

Every day, my father looks for blue skies. “Do you think we’ll see any blue skies today?” he asks every morning, peering out the window, not unlike my rabbit, wishing that he wasn’t seeing snow.

I left the house early this morning. My husband knows how stressed I have been lately and offered to hold down the fort so I could do something fun. I made plans to meet one of my children for breakfast.

My drive was beautiful. Snow clung to the trees and mist hung like a curtain on the hills. I finally pulled over to take a picture.

“Fred” treated me to breakfast. When we were going through the line, I answered a trivia question and won a free blueberry muffin from the chef. He rang wind chimes over the register when I told him the correct answer. His glasses were modeled after Elton John’s — white and rhinestone encrusted. I tried to refuse the prize because he had given me a hint.

“No, no,” he said, “I only told you what I wanted to tell you.”

He smiled, handed me my muffin, and started singing. It wasn’t “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road.” “Fred” says he sings all the time.

We went to a craft store after breakfast. I needed more Modge-Podge for my collages.

“Do you want me to ask where it is?” “Fred” asked.

“No,” I said, ” I think I’d just like to wander and find it.”

So we wandered, not in any order, sort of serpentine.

A man in the poster section called to us. “Hey! Look at this one,” he said to us as we walked past. He lifted a poster out that showed a silhouette of a cowboy riding a horse against a backdrop of red sky. “My wife knows this guy. She used to live in Wyoming.” The man was older, wearing a red flannel shirt and a NASCAR cap, and glasses with photochromic lenses — and he was pleased as punch that he was that close to celebrity.

“That’s pretty cool,” “Fred” and I both told him.

We continued our lazy search for Modge-Podge and eventually found it.

When I finally got back home, my dad asked if I had seen any blue skies.

“Not today,” I told him.

“Are we going to see blue skies sometime?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

He’s living in anticipation of those blue skies. I know they’ll come. Sooner or later.

But for today, I’m going to live in the moment. I’m going to eat a blueberry muffin given to me because I knew something about David Cassidy, and revel in the fact that I met a man whose wife knows the guy on a cowboy poster.

It’s a good day.

 

Travel

Anticipation — part one

I got almost giddy talking about my upcoming trip to Croatia and Bosnia when I ran into a friend in the grocery store.

“Are you excited?” she asked.

I was practically speechless. Then I gushed. Effusive words of anticipation poured forth. It was hard to stop.

My sister sent me a passport holder for Christmas. I promptly put my passport in it and hung it on the back of my door where I see it every time I go in and out of my room.

passportputovnica (English to Croatian)

When I go for walks, when I’m making dinner, when I’m doing the dishes or laundry — I multitask with my language app, practicing Croatian words. Sometimes, when I’m struggling to hold the words properly in my mouth, I pretend that I’m a burly bearded Balkan man and try to say them in a deep guttural voice. It helps, but this is not the ideal way to learn a new language. I need someone to explain things to me, how it all works.

ticket = ulaznica

I’ve got my plane ticket. My friend and I have made reservations at Air BnBs.

entrance = ulaz

When the day finally arrives and I walk through the entrance at airport, I’m sure my heart will be doing cartwheels.

journey = putovanje

The words have common threads. I can see them, but I can’t fully sort them out yet. It’s a journey all by itself, this learning something new.

Even if the whole thing turns out to be a bust — which I’m sure it won’t — but if the travel is awful and the accommodations terrible and the food unappetizing and the people unfriendly and my friend gets tired of me by the end of our trip — even I get bedbugs and a GI bug and see strange new European bugs — if everything bad that I can possibly imagine happens (short of serious injury or death), the trip has already been worth it all.

Hope. Dreams. Anticipation.

Who can place a value on that?