THE WEDDING TREE
This is where Dr.*Son*in*ME and his bride were married on 27 September 2003...after which event Mah*Sweetie and I began volunteering for the Dean Campaign. The site is the home of the bride's late grandparents, then (and now) owned by the bride's mother. When you realise that the building under the tree is a full-sized shed, you begin to get a sense of how huge the Willow is. The priest was moved by seeing the tree at the rehearsal to use the Tree of Life as her wedding sermon theme. As this was also in the wake of the Tolkien movies, it was perfect for the wedding of a Wildlife Biologist to an English Lit major. This painting was my gift to them that Christmas, just after they had moved to NC, and the bride was feeling terribly homesick. It immediately became an heirloom to her, and that did my heart a world of good. Not bad for only my second oil painting ever.
Howard is still first: here, there, and everywhere!
ReplyDeleteUp before seven, back to sleep almost forty degrees ago. Better now: approaching sixty. Whew!
listener, that may be only your second *oil,* but the watercolorist is evident. . . Especially in the mountains and sky. And foliage. . . .
Still voting for this one as Best of Show. Absolutely wonder-full!
And, BTW, your DIL is *also* VERY good! Pass that along, please.
ReplyDeleteAs a young mother, looking for some out of house stimulation, my best friend found, and we signed up for, private art lessons from a pretty good artist across town. She had built a studio in her back yard, with perfect light, and painted there. She also gave lessons from time to time to others. Our class was six ladies, most of who were interested in "mechanics" -- how do make this LOOK like GOLD/SILVER? How to make this look ROUND? She didn't offer a second class. She did ask me if I was interested in private lessons. I was and did, for a while. At the first class, private, she said: we're going to explore collages. I said: no, not me. She asked if I really did want to continue? I did my first collage. Which won Best of Show in the Springhill Lake Art Show that spring. Put me kinda on notice that maybe students don't always know what they do best, lol! My first, and only sculpture (to that point) also won an honorable mention. And something, which I don't recall, won a First. In the end, I loved collage the very best of any work I've done. Which made wiki-ing of Romare Bearden (new to me) so interesting: I think he took a light years forward leap with collage.
Hi guys.
ReplyDeletePuddle, you're amazing!
ReplyDeleteNope. But thank you. I have a number of friends who are *both* better artists AND better poets than I am. I think getting some each of two talents prolly makes you less driven than combining the amounts into ONE. And there was never a question for me of either interfering with my ability to mother. And mothering what truly what I enjoyed most. And learned the most *from*. . . .
ReplyDeleteQuestion. I thought the Wonder Cat was a novel?
ReplyDeleteHave to admit, I think in terms of novels -- short stories *feel* so "stripped" to me. I always want MORE. More detail, more background, more color, more conversation, more thinking but not necessarily more "plot." Guess I'll never be a short story writer, eh?
AND, isn't there a lady with some dragons that has bidness to finish?
And speaking of finishing. . . . There's a lady with a bracelet on some planet somewhere. . . . eh?
ReplyDeleteOkay. Tell me to mind my own bidness, lol!
ReplyDeleteHouston, we have a problem. . . .
ReplyDeleteMaybe.
Renee contacted me on FB, said she didn't know when she'd be online again, but handed me a heads up: Js=kit is quitting the comments biz in about six months. (Oct 1?).
So. We need to think about what we're gonna do. I think it isn't fair to ask Renee to do the work of finding another system. So how do you feel about just going back to blogger commenting? At least they don't eat your comments at will. . . .
I've always understood Snowball's story to be short in length. And I definitely enjoy both short stories and novels. But, as I can personally attest, life has a bad habit of taking place before novels can be finished.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't she go to the park with Snowball, meet a new guy, then go to the bookstore where he works and she meets (his dog? his cat?). He's a musician. . . .
ReplyDeleteRandom Link of the Day
ReplyDelete"Feelings" Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feelings_%28song%29
Get a load of the star power that has been expended on this song! He isn't listed, but I also have it by Vic Damone.
They don't list it, but the song also appears in a couple episodes of Remington Steel. I'll have to get my facts together and add that one.
For such a lousy song, it has done very well.
Sweet thanks, puddle. Any comment you make about my DIL's artwork within the album I posted on FB will indeed be seen by her. So feel free! She'll be able to believe it all the more coming from the horse's mouth. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm with you 100% on mothering being the greater teacher and higher joy. We were painting living works of art.
8-)
ReplyDeleteHeading to bead, but my guess is we'd just default to the standard Blogger/Blogspot commenting. Not much else out there. There was one--name escapes me now--but it didn't seem to want to play nice with our blog. Contacted support to ask about that, and was underwhelmed by the response.
ReplyDeleteI'm okay with whatever works, as long was we stay together. All these endings aren't good for the Dean soul.
ReplyDeleteWill there be a way to retain the archives here?
I don't recall how Blogger worked. Do we still post photos on the front page and whatnot? I agree this shouldn't be all on Renee yet again. Walk me through it and I'll do whatever I can with my highspeed/wifi connection!
For such a lousy song, it has done very well.
ReplyDeleteYour fine comment made me grin.
Eldest has been wending his way home from Belgium today. His trip went great! The only glitch was having his smallest bag stolen on the train this morning. :-( It didn't contain anything essential, just a LOT of Belgian chocolate and a pair of eyeglasses. He was able to get more chocolate at the airport, so he won't quite be coming home empty handed. Wouldn't want his chocoholic wife to be wearing black when he arrives! LOL! Thank goodness he keeps his passport and IDs in his pockets!
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone here know what the deal is with Wordpress? Is it expensive to have a blog there? I participate in a blog that uses Wordpress and it's a pretty simple format. Could work, if affordable.
ReplyDeleteHey wait! Here it is, and it says it's free....!
ReplyDeletehttp://wordpress.org/
The outside shell is still blogger, and that won't change. This is just not the blogger *commenting* system. (see baby for what that looks like) I think she could switch us off of js-kit without too much problem. Thing is, we lose the archives, such as they are (they're not searchable that I can detect). We'd be about back to the original blog configuration within the comments.
ReplyDeleteLOTS of info about it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wordpress.com/features/
What do folks think of this possibility? I like how it protects your blog against spammers.
I think -- Cat should tell us -- that is a different story in the series rather than a different chapter in a novel telling a single continuing story.
ReplyDelete"Multiple blogs and multiple authors
ReplyDelete"You can have as many blogs as you want! You’re only limited by your imagination. You can have group blogs with multiple authors who are allowed to post or contribute. This is great for topic blogs for things like books or politics, or just a blog for you and your friends in one place.
...
"Pick up where you left off
"Importer If you already have a blog and would like to move it over to WordPress.com, you can import your content from Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, TypePad, or an existing WordPress blog.
...
"No lock-in
You can leave WordPress.com any time you want and your content isn’t locked in. We provide a complete XML export of all your posts and comments."
ETC...!
Blogger is okay, too, but I find WordPress to be more user friendly.
ReplyDeleteJust one idea.
I don't think there's anything wrong with blogger, lol! And remembering the learning curve setting up baby with *both* Renee and jc helping, don't think I'd want to play with a new platform without guidance, which we don't have. . . . I am NOT a techie by nature, though I venture further in than I'd like at times, lol!
ReplyDeleteBLOGGER does, too. In fact, I just checked out the old Sunshine blog, and found the spam folder. No spam in it in 7 years, lol!
ReplyDeleteFOTCL Puddle. Damn but you have a good memory.
ReplyDeleteWell, there is another Snowball story, "Snowball's Revenge," which you've seen, and the beginnings of a third, which I think you've also seen. You and Bill wanted one where Snowball meets Darth Vader. I started it but stopped when Binky died. Just now getting back into the swing of that world. There is potential for them all to fit together into an novel., I suppose.
And, yes, there's the lady with the dragons. Need to finish all those chapters. Robert said he thought that was a novel, rather than a series of interrelated stories. Guess that one could cut either way. Robert also wanted a crossover where the dragons meet Snowball. He really likes the dragons.
And, yes, there's the lady with the bracelet. I haven't thought about that one in ages. Actually, I need to get "Worlds Enough and Time" finished before getting back to that one, "Io Station." On "Io Station" I got utterly stuck, no idear whatsoever what happens next. Same problem as with Marooner's Haven. Got to a certain point and ran into a brick wall. If I can get my act together, a big if, finishing "World Enough and Time" shouldn't be quite that hard. Just need to smooth out a few rough places and finish writing some connective material. That one's actually very close to being done.
Thank you for remembering and caring...and gently prodding me.
That's fine with me. No worries.
ReplyDeleteWordPress has tech support (they really do!) too.
But if it ain't broke, no need to fix it. If Blogger does break at some point, WordPress says we can move our Blogger blog over there, lock, stock and barrel, so that's a comfort.
Ohhhh, I see. Okay. As i recall, we could still make hearts before anyway. ;-)
ReplyDelete