Playing Catch-up

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. I've got a new project that's taking most of my attention lately. It's not pottery. I'll tell you about it eventually, but in the meantime, I've been attempting a Picture a Day album on Facebook, and hey, I'm almost at 2 months, which is a record for me. So I thought I'd borrow some of those pics and get caught up here.

In May, we had our usual round of baby birds hatching everywhere. Jim fights the sparrows so the bluebirds, mockingbirds and thrushes will have a chance. We were happily watching these mockingbird babies, but one morning they had vanished. Darn cats!

I signed up for summer pottery classes, was ecstatic because I finally got to play on the throwing wheel, had connected with a former pottery teacher who was going to make me a heckuva deal on her kiln, wheel, etc., and then I got such awful tendonitis (tennis elbow) in my left arm, that I've gone back to handbuilding and don't think I want to buy the equipment. This phase has lasted longer than some.



I'm having way too much fun with my iPhone, yes, me Cat Bounds, who used to detest cell phones. But this is an elegant little computer I take everywhere, and I use the camera and photo apps (examples above) more than I do my serious cameras. Literally, whatever I can think of, there's an app for that.

My sister had multiple strokes; this is a photo of Ian in her hospital room. She lost all use of her right leg and arm, but she is making amazing progress since she went home and even drove to church last Sunday.



My herbs have done pretty well, despite the searing heat and drought that began in June. I've dried a few, but mostly I like having them growing fresh so I can pinch off some stems to toss in whatever I'm cooking.

And of course I've been cooking summer veggies. Tonight we're having another veggie meal, this time including fried green tomatoes. Can you believe I've lived in the South all my life and haven't had them before?



The best thing about Facebook is reconnecting with family and friends I wouldn't have contacted any other way. I got to chatting with Lynne, one of my former junior high English students (I only taught for 5 years), and she and I went to lunch, and then she brought Mickey (another one of my darlings) over for supper. Can't tell you how much I enjoyed seeing them again and catching up......and I have this thing for Perrier. That company will know when I die by the drop in sales. Anyway, Mickey brought me a gift of Perrier, which totally touched my heart. He said he remembered the bottle always sitting on my desk in front of the class.


Marley thought we'd brought him home a live chew toy and was a little dejected when we gave it away the same day.

Oh, and here's our kitty adventure. Jim and I were headed into Little Rock, and at the same moment we saw a kitten on the edge of the freeway raise its head. That little image was burned into my mind, and I said, "We need to see about it!" Which began a small argument about why we shouldn't. "It's probably dying," he said, hoping that would end the matter, but I thought that's the most awful place to die, alone and scared. At least it should die with people trying to save it. So, (long story short) he unhappily found an exit, and we backtracked along the service road till we spotted the cat again, now lying flat. I navigated the knee-high grasses and standing water, a towel in hand, and scooped it up, expecting to find it bloody and broken, but amazingly it seemed to be okay. We took him home and did the best we could to make him comfortable, but I've got cat allergies and was already stopping up. We knew this couldn't be our kitty, and he wouldn't eat or drink. I posted his photo on Facebook, and my nephew, Josh, texted me to say his brother-in-law might want the cat. Eureka! Things were looking up for this pitiful little guy. Josh and Trista came that evening, and Trista immediately had him eating and clinging to her. They took him home and found he was covered in fleas, so after a good bath he perked up a lot. Yesterday they took him to her brother, and I'm just thrilled that Kyo has a new name, a new home, and someone to love him. Anyone with a heart would have stopped just like I did; it's the heartless ones who discard animals the same way they litter the highways with their trash.

And that's mostly it for now. Marley is hibernating indoors. We can hardly get him to go out to pee. I don't know how he holds it sometimes. I credit him with opening my heart to animals....... maybe Kyo owes his life to Marley.
Thanks for stopping by.
Love,
Cat & Marley

The 12 Months of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me.....that 's one of my favorite Christmas songs, and even though our country's integrity has gone to hell-in-a-hand basket, for most of us, everyday is still Christmas. We pretty much get whatever we want throughout the year, so many freedoms, we're basically healthy and well fed, and each day is filled with gifts and blessings.

If you read my blog, you may think my life began the day I met Jim, but I had blessings before Jim. I gave birth to my son David, who is dearer to me than anything else on earth. I started college at age 30 and became a teacher/counselor, and some of my students tell me I touched their lives in a good way; I know they did mine. And there were other stories, other loves, some were my ports in the storm, some brought the storms with them, but all are a part of me now, of who I am.

I thought I'd look back and recount a few of the Gifts my True Love and my Family, my Friends and my God gave to me this year, not month by month (I'm not that orderly) but in my usual fashion of random musings.......

In February, for my birthday, I got a Shih Tzu; it was a life-changing event. I never considered myself hard-hearted before Marley, and I'm still not exactly sure how it happened, but this slightly psychotic, happy, shaggy little snip-of-a-dog has taught me to love more deeply, to be more patient, and to feel more connected ........hard to 'splain, but back in the day, when someone would say if the house caught on fire, they'd get their dog out first, I'd roll my eyes......it's only a dog. Ten months with Marley, and I get it, I totally get it.

Sometime during the year, on no particular day, my mother and I began to talk, I mean really talk again. There's a lot of water under the bridge, and we've had more than our share of issues, but there seemed to be a softening on both our parts, and I want to spend more time with her. At a Christmas party, a girl whom I've seen at other Christmas parties, came to me, saying she'd just figured out who I was, and revealed that she is the sister of my high school BFF, some 40 years departed....... I'm still speechless over it. I connected with quite a few old friends on Facebook and even had a visit from Bobby, Belinda and the girls. And I played a small part in reconnecting Jim with his son at Christmas.

I kept learning......If one day you read my blog, and I say there's nothing left for me to learn, someone please come throw me in a box and start shoveling dirt onto me, 'cause it'll all be over but the benediction. As of now, there are hardly enough hours in the day to explore all the new, fun stuff that finds its way into my life. During the summer, my friend Lu and I went to a Hypertufa workshop, and I plan to do a lot more with that in 2011; I took a few scrapbooking classes, played with some giant stencils, painted furniture, mosaics, painted fabrics, paper sculpture, collage, and mono-printing. Two friends whom I've known from the digital art forums, became closer friends, and we began painting together, though we live in 3 different states. I want to sign up for pottery classes in the spring. And I want to write more this year, maybe children's stories, and work more on my art journal. All art connects us with the Spirit, with one another, with ourselves.


Oh gosh! And here's a Blessing that was a long time coming.......In October, my cousin Linda and I finally got 'round to staging the first ever Goodman Cousin Reunion! Everyone who attended was slightly giddy with joy! So much love, so much history that deserves to be treasured. I get tears in my eyes as I type.

And Jim was by my side every step of the way; sometimes I push the limits as a temperamental artist; he has a short memory for the bad times, the patience of Job, and an uncomplicated outlook on life that keeps both of us on an even keel.He buys the sweetest Christmas gifts, and this year he did the thing where he wrapped notes with directions to the real gifts, but the notes are little poems. I've never thrown away one of his notes, and there have been hundreds over the years. Maybe I'll gather them up someday and make a little journal.

How would you sum up your 2010 in one word? Mine would be connections. Each Gift, each Blessing was about Connections. Happy New Year!

Finding happiness

We spent the day with our granddaughter, Rani. Actually, she's Jim's granddaughter, but I've been there since the day she was born, and we love each other, and I'm her Mimi. She lives in Tennessee with her divorced parents. At breakfast she asked me, "Did you know Papa used to be married to Grammy?" I said yes, that I knew it. She'll be 10 in a couple of months and is beginning to notice relationships.

We had such a fun day, went to the park and to see Ice Age at the Rave Theater where she and I giggled and chatted too loudly through the whole thing and got disapproving looks from Papa. When we took her back to her Grammy where she's staying, we were invited in. I haven't spent much time with her, but she seems like a sweet, very intelligent lady, and I think we could be friends. Looking around the living room of the house my Jim built, I thought about what might have been and about endings. I love him, and I love our life together, but lives get so complicated with divorce. I remembered to send Rani's half-sister a birthday gift, and I missed a gathering with my two half-sisters. We lived with their father, not mine. I would like to sit and have coffee with my ex-husband and talk about the years that have passed. We fell madly in love at 14, as in love as you can fall at 14. My son's step-children try to include me in their lives, but it's hard, seeing as how I met them so late.

I'm not exactly sad about any of this, and I wouldn't change things, but I looked up the divorce rate in the US, and it's around 48% for first marriages. Does divorce mean we failed? Or are we a society who has learned to cut our losses and go on? I guess I'd like to have it all, for first loves to go on forever but for people to have the freedom to grow. "There ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys; there's only you and me, and we just disagree." Maybe the bigamists in Utah have tried to do this, but from what I've seen, it's done from a patriarchal perspective that gives all the freedom to men and makes women into concubines. And so, the rest of us continue to try to find lasting happiness, each in our own way, without making too many others too unhappy.