Some New Dolls

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Folk Dolls made by my sister and me.

About a month ago, my artistic sister Maureen came to visit and we spent most of our time making these Folk Art dolls which I want to share with you. I am hosting a doll-making party next Friday, and we will again create these fun and whimsical art pieces. Anyone can do it! You begin with a bottle, any bottle really, for the base, and then begin to add and create. We use mostly recycled stuff; many of the dresses are from coffee filters, or paper bags, and then we add trinkets and things you can find all over your house. The more the better; glitzy is best. Anyway, have a go at it; it is so much fun and gets the creative side of your brain working overtime.

A Day in the Life Of...........

Sometimes I wonder what other people's lives look like. For the past week, I've had the luxury of being home before I start back to work next week teaching college writing, and also teaching ESL to three Japanese students, and one student from Columbia. I decided to write about a day like yesterday as a memory before I got busy again. I guess I am stopping to reflect when things are good.
I slept in late; 7:30 a.m. for me with a cool breeze coming through our bedroom windows. (We've needed very little air condition this summer.) I know it's about 7:30 by the position of the sun in relation to those same windows. When it gets above the half- way mark, it is past 7:30, and I have overslept. This morning I can already smell the fresh coffee brewing, thanks to Mike, and I walk out to our glass/screen porch where I find him already having read our med-size town paper, and deep into the Crossword Puzzle. By the time I sit down, Mike is ready to let me have a "go." Together we finish it over our coffee.
Today will be a perfect 82* so it is pleasantly cool as I hear, for the first time today, the cooing of our doves, Hank and Henrietta who live here year round except when they are vacationing in Florida. We live on a golf course, and by this hour, we can see the players up and down the fairways. Sometimes, very entertaining.
This morning, other than golfers, I see two young birds going back and forth from our Pine Tree with twigs in their mouths to build a nest. Seems like an odd time to be doing this; didn't they get the memo about Spring building? None the less, here they are building with intention. Perhaps we can expect off springs in the Fall, or perhaps they plan to "winter" here and are getting ready.
Today, Mike is driving out to help his brother on his farm. Harvest time is coming soon. He will come home oh, so dirty from working with farm equipment; he always showers before even saying hello which is fine with me! So, I am free to do whatever. (Sort of)
First, grocery shopping...ugh! One of my least favorite tasks! But necessary. Years ago, from my mother-in-law, I learned about Aldi's, a German based Grocery Store that is the most successful in the world. Here you can save at least 1/2 of your normal grocery bill. Guaranteed! Their secret? They only stock (usually) one brand of the most sought after products. You don't have to make all those choices, and their products are fresh and good...even their produce. I have been saving money here for years. I don't find everything I need, but I can get most things here. I am also fortunate to have two other food bonuses; "Garden on Wheels" who deliver fresh produce to my door every week (never know what I am getting which makes it fun and interesting...I try to use everything so have to head for the cook book now and then.) We also are blessed with having Barclay Beef from my husband's brother who raises farm fed cattle, grazed on grass without hormones. So, we try to eat pretty healthy, a challenge for many families today. This coupled with our own small garden of tomatoes (lots coming right now), lettuce, green beans and basil adds to the freshness of our diet.
Oh gosh, I got off track while talking about food. Easy for me to do! So, after a trip to Aldi's, I stopped at Penirra (sp?) for coffee and a bagal (lunch.) Back home; unpacked and put away groceries...double ugh! Threw in a load of wash; cleaned up the kitchen, made the bed and then thought, "what next?" Perhaps a walk...well no, how about a 1/2 hour rest with the good book I am reading (a mystery). Naps are highly underrated and really good for you. Nap won out even though I know that exercise is good for you also. But one just felt better than the other one.
After nap; thinking about "what for dinner?" Mike will come home VERY hungry so "throwing something together" is not an option. While I am thinking, the phone rings, my daughter Michelle inviting me to come over this week to go to lunch and do a little shopping together. Yes! Of course. I love spending time with my daughter Michelle! Back to dinner planning. O.K. how about a summer meal on the porch: hamburgers, green beans and tomatoes from our garden and corn on the cob. Great!
Rest of afternoon, I change over the laundry, prepare things for dinner (shuck corn), write out some bills to be paid, look at my e-mails (not enough from friends, and too many from advertisers!) and await my husband's return. Seldom do I watch T.V. although, my husband and I enjoy "Two and a Half Men."
Evening includes dinner together, conversation of the day, outside looking for golf balls in the high grass behind our house parallel to the golf course (Mike found six) and then off to bed early to read (my mystery again) before falling asleep. Since I am not a T.V. watcher, this is my usual routine unless something fabulous is on the Public Channel which yesterday was the "Mostly Mozart" symphony playing at Lincoln Center with Joshua Bell, violinist. Awesome!
I want to remember this day...so pleasant with little angst (except grocery shopping) as I will not always have one this delightful and peaceful. One of my favorite quotes: "Enjoy the ice cream while it's on your place!" What does a happy day for you look like???

Beautiful art has always been a joy of mine and visiting museums is such a pleasure! During our travels in upstate New York, Mike and I spent several hours at The Norman Rockwell Museum where his originals are on display. And although I would have been happier if it had been Matisse, who doesn't love Normal Rockwell??? And besides looking at all that "Americana," I enjoyed listening to the tapes where the children (now adults) talked about posing for hours while NR painted them. It was so hard they said to stand in one position for so long but NR would give them a nickle an hour which he dropped in a jarfor them. They thought it was worth it as they could then go to the local candy store and pick from a multitude of treats.
My love of art began, I am sure, with my mother. She was a talented artist but very seldom drew or painted after her children began arriving (7.) But she did see that we got an early and profound sense of art by taking us to art lessons every Saturday morning at the Cincinnati Art Museum at a very early age. I can still picture myself in one of those big rooms trying to copy one of the Masters. Hilarious to me, but it somehow worked with both my brother John who is an artist of sorts as well as my sister, Maureen. I dabble.
This brings me to my next subject on the same subject really. I have just finished reading two books back to back about art theft here and around the world, and have learned a great deal about a subject I knew little about, but which interested me a great deal. For one thing, art museums are the least protected places on earth, and it is (or has been) somewhat easy to walk in and steal a very rare and expensive painting right off the wall. I was amazed by this revelation but it really is true. Museums are underfunded and therefore, do not have enough security, and thieves know this. They often walk off with millions of dollars of rare art. The book that so fascinated me is called, "The Gardner Heist," The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft, by Ulrich Boser.
March 18 (early morning after St. Pat's Day for a reason), in 1990, two thieves broke into the Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole a dozen masterpieces including one Vermeer (there are only 36 in existence; perhaps now, 35), three Rembrandts and five Degas worth a total of $500 million. Almost two decades later, the art has not been found. This book coupled with a book I bought at the bookstore which I also loved reading was called "The Art Thief" by Noah Charney. Great reads both! There is a whole world of stolen art out there and these two books had me both fascinated and distressed by the easy access that the "unsavory" have to these rare and one of a kind art pieces. I am thinking of making a donation to my favorite museum, just a train ride away; the Chicago Art Museum and earmarking it for security. Suggest the same for anyone out there who feels as I do about protecting the Masters.

Thinking with Humor

When I get "up-north" to our favorite spot on the lake in Onekema, Michigan, I love the sunshine of a bright day which warms me to my very soul. I am also grateful for a rainy day when I can get in the car and head twenty miles farther north to the little tourist town of Frankfort, Michigan. Here resides my favorite, small book store which I have frequented all the years I've been coming to this northern paradise. I know the people there, and am glad to see the same faces year after year, and to talk with them about books. Small book stores still have enthusiastic bibliotects, and what a joy it is to get their "read" on the year's favorite page-turners. This year, once again, I was not disappointed.
Now some of you may know of this book that Margarette told me about since it was published in 2007, but it was news to me. I think Margarette sets aside a book for me each summer and then waits for me to come into the book store to tell me about it. At least, I hope this is so. This year's book is called, "Plato and a Platypus Walks into a Bar," by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. Some of you may or may not know that I was a Philosophy major in college which somewhat alarmed my parents who were hoping that I would have some kind of paying job after their four year payments to Marquette University. But, be that as it may, I have always been interested in the BIG questions of life; what's it all about anyway, and what's my plan and purpose in it? I have not picked up a Philosophy book in years until now. But, to call this book a Philosophy book would be a misnomer. It is written for the purpose of understanding the concepts of philosophy, yes, but understanding it through humor. For the first time, I am getting some of this stuff that I never understood before, and am laughing while doing it. This is an "everyman read,"....fun, funny, smart, interesting and enlightening. I love books I can say all those things about!
To illustrate a paradox in which something can be and also not be at the same time, the authors ask this question with this story.
"The town barber shaves all townsmen and only those who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? If he does, he doesn't, and if he doesn't, then he does."
If you want a lot of laughs and do a little thinking at the same time, I recommend this book. And now to prove that there is more to life than what meets the eye, I am going to swim underwater in the lake.

Places East

Two thousand miles later, we are back to "Normal" from our trip to upstate New York, and Massachusetts. Wow! A very long way to go, but rewarding and fun as we visited many historic sites, and ate delicious eastern seafood, and drank New York wines at cute Bistros along the way. A highlight for us was sitting on the grass under the stars to hear both the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops play at Tanglewood. This was their once a year music extravaganza where music is played all day and four of the great conductors (James Levine, Leonard Slatkin, John Williams, Keith Lockhard) each directed part of the program which included the William Tell Overture, medley from West Side Story and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with cannons. Tanglewood in the Berkshire Hills of West Massachusetts, sits on 210 acres of lush green grass and huge mature trees, and is the summer home of The Boston Symphony. This was their 69th summer to play here at Tanglewood. The event drew about 10,000 people; the highbrow event I might compare to Woodstock nearby, celebrating its 40th year this year. Several other memorable stops included Saratoga Springs, The Norman Rockwell Museum, and the greatest event for me, The Mount, lovely estate of Edith Wharton, one of my favorite authors who wrote Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth and Age of Innocence. I just finished reading her autobiography last year so this visit was particularly meaningful to me. I actually stood in the bedroom where she wrote her Pulitzer prize novel! Edith Wharton designed and built this estate in 1902 according to the principals she developed in her first book called, The Decoration of Houses. I loved the tour, totally wrapped up in the author I love; my husband Mike, bless his heart, tolerated it. A good lunch and a glass of wine followed. We are home for a day to do laundry and regroup before heading up to our beloved spot on Lake Michigan in Onekama, Michigan. More to come from there.