Category: Blog (Page 97 of 101)

News of The 70273 Project with a side of Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart

2009, the year of grappling

December 22, 2009 / jeanne / 8 Comments

it’s been a year of grappling. yes, yes it has. there’s been grappling with things that could be decided with wishbones or the magic 8 ball or using my roll-on deodorant as a crystal ball – things like eat-in-or-out and do-i-or-don’t-i sign up for that bootcamp. then there was more advanced grappling that required more advanced divination techniques walking or writing or stitching.

the year began with grappling about whether to buy the house or not, whether to move or stay put. then once we decided to buy the new house, i grappled a lot with things like where to place furniture, what to leave and what to take, wall colors, floor coverings, and best use of space. as the grappling wanes and we get settled, i begin to see that anything’s possible in a house that loves you.

on and off throughout the year, i grapple with difficult people – one in particular. do i go eyeball-to-eyeball or do as i’ve been taught and take the so-called high road (the road i was taught to ALWAYS take, the road that feels so much like cowardice)? i write to distill, write for clarity of purpose, and set up a meeting. when we part hours later, there is no grappling at all as i silently thank her for giving me the opportunity to finally stand up to a bully. thank her for this feeling of powerful satisfaction and self-confidence i have seldom known.

when the calendar reaches the one-and-a-half year anniversary of the day my best friend from graduate school broke up with me, i grapple with whether it is time to write that letter or wait a while longer. i write the letter, and feel quietly satisfied, knowing whatever her reception, i’ve done the right thing.

when my cousin’s son “went off the deep end”, i grapple with whether to speak flat-out or take the usual vague, watered-down approach. flat-out won, and i have to tell you: it feels really good to speak unencumbered with syrupy words and hollow platitudes. i traveled light, and i like it. i like it a lot.

yes, i grapple . . . and whenever i think myself out of something – when i let my head overrule and overrun my heart – i look back and wonder what would have happened if. but, oh, oh, oh. every time i listen to my self, trust my self, heed my self . . . i stand a little taller, feel a bit surer, and say thank you. a lot.

best09
~~~
the stories are mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge. today’s prompt: what one word best describes your 2009?
~~~

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#best09, #bestof2009

best project(s) of 2009

December 21, 2009 / jeanne / 12 Comments

let’s face it: i am a project-driven girl. this year the BPOA (biggest project of all) was moving and settling into a new house. sifting through 14 years’ worth of accumulation in that house, deciding what to keep, and what to put up for adoption. selecting new wall colors, new flooring, making the best use of space. there were new light fixtures to install, switches and receptacles to replace, curtains to put up (a first for me) – the list is long and you know what i’m talking about so enough said.

the lack of storage space led me project No More Filing. that one involves creating digital copies of all the bajillions of photos and receipts we have in boxes. i purchased a neat receipts portable scanner and a fast, racy fujitsu scansnap, and i’m almost caught up . . . at least as far as receipts and paperwork goes. the photos? not so much. i’m about to find my rhythm, which is good. we’ve burned up 4 shredders (so far) and i had to get a bigger hard drive (a new computer, bless my heart), but we are decidedly lighter in the way of file cabinets and banker boxes filled with papers. (don’t bother doing the financial math on that one. it’s more about physical space, anyway.) (and i feel lighter and more spacious already.)

it’s fun nesting – learning the house, its sounds and quirks, striking compromise by making our mark on what’s already here. it’s exciting discovering what plants will grace us with their presence throughout the year. (next year’s house project is building my second stone wall and creating a cut flower garden since i have, for the first time in over 30 years, a sunny spot.) it’s satisfying being resourceful, finding ways to refashion what we already have into what will work better in the new house.

and hey: the next nesting project is to find just the right place for the bryce widom artwork i won in the gwen bell best of 2009 blog challenge! woohoo – thank you gwen and bryce. it’s fantabulous – so much so that the kids are already arguing over who gets it in the will.

best09
~~~
the stories are mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge. today’s prompt: what was your best project in 2009?
~~~

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#best09, #bestof2009

singing my heroes and sheroes

December 21, 2009 / jeanne / 13 Comments

i tell them i love them, but do i tell them why?

i tell them i’m proud of them, but do i elaborate?

sometimes i do, but not nearly enough.

today, i tell them that they are my unsung heroes and shero, and yes, i tell them at least some of the reasons why (to list all the reasons would get us into bandwidth issues) . . .

my husband, andy has been my hero for 36.5 years now, and here’s why:

he makes me laugh. sometimes he cracks himself up more than he cracks me up, but he still makes me laugh.

he listens when i talk (well, not like i’m some e.f. hutton. i mean, sometimes his eyes glaze over, but we’re working on that).

he will go to the grocery store with me just because. once, in the days before cell phones, he figured out where i was and just showed up in the spices aisle to help me get groceries then we went home and put them up together.

to this day, we hold hands wherever we are.

he shares the scepter (read: remote control) to the television. he may leave the room when i’m in control, but he shares.

willingly and without complaint, he helps members of my family.

he is wicked smart, talented, creative, and funny.

he gives me cards. now, honestly, it used to make me mad that he gave me store-bought greeting cards. but then i had this small-huge shift in thinking and realized that he spends a lot of time sifting through racks of cards in search of one that says what his engineer-trained brain can’t quite articulate. or maybe it says what he doesn’t even know he wants to say until he finds the card.

my son, kipp. my hero because . . .

he knows that you can learn more about humans and their relationships from poetry, music, and literature than from any psychology class or textbook.

he edited my thesis, and when it was done, he asked if he could share it with some of his friends (who then became my friends from ensuing conversations.)

once, on a trip to hawaii, he surprised me with a handblown stylus and inkwell set because he knew – he just knew – how much i would enjoy the scratching of nib to paper and how much i needed to allow my brain to exhale and make room for all the important things that get buried and shoved aside under burgeoning to do lists and overcrowded calendars.

when he landed in l.a., he took a job delivering food to learn his way around.

he is an adventurous eater, something he learned all on his own.

he writes poetry, songs, and essays; does open mic events; is an actor and skydiver – all this and balances his checkbook.

we go to movies and shows, and afterwards to dinner or for drinks and discuss what we just saw from as analytical deconstructive creativists.

he is willing to say “i don’t know” right out loud.

he is wicked smart, talented, creative, and funny.

my shero is my daughter, alison. want to know why?

she ran for local city council then the state legislature before she was 25 years old. (and in the state legislature race, he was in a run-off with the older male career politician. lost the runoff only by a slim, slim margin, too.)

she started a local theatre company in 2005, and it’s still going and growing.

she supervises my hair stylist and goes clothes shopping with me.

in 2006 she hit a rough spot with depression, and i just kept putting one foot in front of the other, doing what needed to be done. a year later, she directed steel magnolias, casting me as m’lynn to her shelby. coincidence? i think not.

as a beautiful, articulate, talented public figure in a small town, she receives more than anybody’s fair share of other people’s insecurities and bad behavior. yet through it all, she remains the bamboo – bending but refusing to break. she is tenaciously nonconformist.

she is wicked smart, talented, creative, and funny.

she can do genealogical research and retain what she uncovered.

if you need to know what to give a person, call her. she knows people better than they know themselves.

she speaks her truth. others may not understand or agree, but she speaks it anyway.

yes, i am one lucky woman. luckier than i deserve.

best09
~~~
the stories are mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge. today’s prompt: who is your unsung hero?
~~~

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#best09, #bestof2009

denver or bust (aka: best road trip)

December 20, 2009 / jeanne / 4 Comments

okay, so it was last year not this year, and it was a bigass yellow truck and not a car, but it was still the best road trip i’ve had in a while: summer of 2008 when we moved my boy from california to colorado. it wins Most Fabulous Trip because we were moving my boy closer to me! okay, listen. i was out the day they taught geography, so let’s just go with colorado is closer to me than southern california and leave it at that.

hubbie and i drove the bigass yellow truck (i think it was a 148-footer, but i’m not a numbers girl, so don’t quote me on that) while kipp and his former girlfriend led in his car. it was a gorgeous trip – mountains of every hue and description. here’s the view from the passenger’s seat doing as we moved along at (roughly) the speed limit:

we start with the los angeles mountains (look familiar, emma?)

and move to a hint of green:

then a splash of red:

some stripes to keep things interesting:

some just plain fun:

and finally:

grandchild rode with us. i forget ~~his~~ its name. starts with a “z” i think.

or maybe it’s a her-it since she/it (don’t say that out loud) does like to shop and try on pinks:

here we have grandchild playing buddha:

and i’ll leave you (you’re welcome) with:

best09
~~~
the stories are mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

Technorati Tags:
#best09, #bestof2009

catching up (again)

December 17, 2009 / jeanne / 24 Comments

they say that catching-up is hard to do . . . no, that’s breaking up that’s hard to do. whatever.

best rush of 09 was brought on by . . . well, honestly, i don’t have rushes any more. not since that one unfortunate night in undergraduate school when i was drunk on life – the closest to feeling joy i can remember. for the record: there were no drugs and no alcohol involved – just a day of good things. like being asked out by an upperclassman who was easy on the eyes. getting an A on my paper. finding $20 in my wallet when i was hoping to find enough change to make $1. it was just me and happiness to the 7th degree.

maybe to the 9th.

so there i was, humming to myself in the room when my roommate got back with her little entourage of ~~toadies~~ pledglings. humming, laughing, saying whatever funny stuff popped into my head (and it was all pretty damn funny, if i do say so myself). “what’s wrong with her?” sniffed the ~~condescending bitch~~ girl from across the hall who’d just pledged a sorority. “oh i don’t know,” sniffed back my ~~condescending bitch in the making~~ sorority wannabe roomie. “just ignore her.”

they ignored me all right, talking about me as though being drunk on life automatically rendered me stone deaf. it took weeks for them to change the subject, and life was so miserable, i vowed to never disturb the flatlines again. it’s just too dangerous. even now, there are far too many people around here who prefer homogenization. to get a rush and show it is to risk being labeled, and the labels used around here have some more kind of everlasting glue on the back, let me tell you.

i don’t know why this college memory bubbled up. maybe it’s time to:
a) find these gals on facebook, ask them to be my fb friends, then drop them like hot potatoes (that’ll really sting ’em.).
b) learn how to have a rush and keep it to my own self. (i guess that’s possible?)
c) don my big girl panties and get over it.

~~~

best packaging has to be anything apple sells. space for only the necessary. the essentials held firmly in place to prevent jarring and breakage . . .

wish they’d create packaging for my life.

~~~

best tea of the year . . . well, since no tea has crossed these lips in the past 16 years, i’m just gonna trek down memory lane and tell you that the best tea i ever had was aunt rene’s sweet tea.

down here, when we go to a restaurant and the waiter asks what we want, we say “sweet tea” to which, more often than not, we get a “huh?” eventually followed by “we only have unsweetened tea.” let’s be real clear about this: the term “sweet tea” is NOT retarded. it is a type of tea. a particularly pleasing, desirable kind of tea. sure it’s been a while, but i can tell you this with absolute certainty: you cannot thump all the crystals to the bottom of some colorful little packet, dump it in a glass of tea, whirl it around a few times, and expect to get anything near the quality of aunt rene’s sweet tea. it’s just not gonna’ happen.

aunt rene’s tea was so good, i once gave her a big ass set of drinking glasses when it wasn’t even a holiday. (something that’s unheard of in my ~~cheap~~ economically-correct family.) you could get about 3/4 of a gallon in those glasses, and we’d down at least 2 refills with every meal. the woman had to make her tea in a stockpot, i tell you, it was that good. before i swore off tea, i was known to make a meal off aunt rene’s sweet tea, though i have to admit that like my children, i preferred to have aunt rene’s sweet tea with a side of her blackeyed peas and some of her crisply fried bacon for dessert.

the secret to aunt rene’s sweet tea? sugar. lots and lots and lots of sugar. added while the tea was still hot so it would dissolve. she’d stir that disappearing sugar, and once she couldn’t see it anymore, she’d up and add some more, reckoning that if you can’t see it you can’t taste it.

i guess now folks would call that wrong or unhealthy or something. i mean, we all know that sugar is on the bad-for-you list.

sure. whatever.

i just quit drinking tea cause it was staining my teeth, and i read somewhere that discolored teeth add about a decade to your real age.

yeah, i’m kidding. there’s no way i can talk about age in the same hemisphere as aunt rene cause the best thing that special woman (she was my great aunt) (and i mean that in more ways than one) ever taught me is to not ever tell ’em your age. “it’s none of their business,” she’d declare, the “damn” implied. “besides, just ’cause you can count it doesn’t mean it counts.” (she lived to be 97.5 years young.) (but who’s counting her years or the number of glasses of sweet tea she imbibed?)

best09
~~~
the stories are mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

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#best09, #bestof2009

there’s food, then there’s nourishment

December 15, 2009 / jeanne / 12 Comments

best new food has to be the moroccan lunch i recently had at in mouseville. i am not an adventurous eater – my taste buds are old fuddy duddies, stuck in their ways. i have become a veritable magician at disguising pushing food around to look like devouring. but there i was, in epcot with the in-laws. what i’m trying to say is i was outnumbered . . . and the forced moroccan meal was nothing short of delicious. can’t remember what i had, but it was a delicious mingling of sweet and not-sweet. probably could’ve done without the skinny-as-a-rail belly dancer contorting around me as i gorged myself, but the food and the company, well, yes. best food 09 = feasting moroccan with the mouse and the in-law peeps.

but was there some epiphany? did the angels sing down a chorus of “see there” in perfect harmony? am i now forever transformed into a cookbookaholic and someone who orders the most exotic-sounding items on the menu, even if she has to point because she can’t pronounce it? no. oh no, no, no, no, no. culinary adventures are never gonna’ be my thing.

some things never change, and this is one: my favorite meal will always be mashed potatoes and cornbread, what my great-grandmother and i feasted on when i’d visit her in her adorable little termite-infested dollhouse. she would hold the bowl on her left hip, hug it with her left arm and stir and beat and whip all the lumps out before pouring it into a sizzling hot cast iron skillet and popping it in the oven. she taught me how to create the crunchy exterior on cornbread (remember that piping hot cast iron skillet?). she ~~taught me~~ tried to teach me how to peel the potatoes so finely you could see through right through the skin. and she taught me that i don’t have to spend a lot of money or eat exotic things i can’t pronounce to feast.

ps: the picture? that’s me, there, the cute-bordering-on-adorable (well, somebody’s got to say it) one standing on the left, and my great-grandmother, chef mimmy. (the little onionhead she’s holding is my little sister.)

pps: the photo is a snap of an image and emulsion transfer i did in one of my no-fat art adventures.

#best09
~~~
the story is mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

Technorati Tags:
#best09, #bestof2009

querencia

December 11, 2009 / jeanne / 22 Comments

my querencia (spanish for a place where you feel safe, at home, protected, invincible) is here:

and here

and here:

oh, and here:

but perhaps my #1 favorite querencia is here:

that’s right: the shower.

it’s not much to look at, but i like to call it home as often as possible.

it’s there i can relax and

wash away all the day’s dirt and dreariness.

it’s always 5:00 in the shower

where i can sit on the ledge and

and do my best thinking

with a glass of wine or a martini.

in the shower, i can be totally alone.

there’s no phone – just running water

to drown out the sounds of the day around me.

besides the car, it’s where i do my best (and loudest) singing.

i can be totally alone there.

the cats don’t like the shower very much,

the dog can’t open the door,

and my kids are old enough to know that if they wander in,

they’ll go blind at the sight.

#best09
~~~
the story is mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

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#best09

favorite album: lessons from a bird brain

December 10, 2009 / jeanne / 12 Comments

today’s challenge is to write about our favorite album, and since gwen didn’t specifically mention music, i’m going with something we’ll call a video album. though you can’t really hum along and it’s hard to dance to, it is an album that rocked my world. (okay, maybe that’s a little too over the top, but i did learn how to take videos with my new camera and though i did already know how to use idvd, i learned how to use quick time pro, and last but not least, i learned how to upload and share via flickr.)

every morning like clockwork, ms. redbird shows up to defend her space. she’s a tenacious thing, continuing her task despite the would-be distractions of a nosey cat and a growling dog. outsiders are not the issue, you see. ms. redbird tenaciously defends her space from her own reflection, from her own self. when it comes to protecting her personal territory, she is her own worst enemy.

#best09
~~~
the story is mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

Technorati Tags:
#best09, #bestof2009

i’ve fallen into challenge and i can’t get up

December 10, 2009 / jeanne / 18 Comments

a snap of tree roots growing in north hollywood, california that look like feet to me. guess it’s all in how you look at things.

just writing this post proves a challenge of the first order as i try to get it from becoming a flat-out pity party.

other top contenders include:

* we moved this year.
* the holidays: overspending.
* the holidays: feeling melancholy instead of the generally preferred (by others) festive.
* the holidays: decorating followed by the dreaded un.
* the holidays: greetings, as in continuing to wish folks a “happy, happy” when around here, anyway, using anything but “merry christmas” can draw blood.
* a to do list that’s about to implode and involve collateral damage.
* settling the estate of a precious, much-loved, childless 97 year-old great-aunt who had two not-really-so-dear-but-just-as-childless-and-tenaciously-long-lived predeceased sisters (a.k.a. you never saw so much stuff).
* learning del.icio.us (the “damn” is implied).
* creating digital social faux pas’es. (which is the way i think you indicate plural, as in a few more than several).
* not sounding too eager when digitally meeting new people.
* not sounding too lackadaisical when digitally meeting new people.
* my weight.
* those little critical, naysaying voices.
* juggling what i need to do with what i want – and vice versa.

i have written this post several times now. the first draft was a clever little ditty about the boot camp i just finished. (or would have had my back not gotten all messed up). the 2nd draft was a wordy wrangle about how the challenge of how much a private girl like me should actually reveal and why opening yourself up is always risky. the edit stage of that version is when i realized my real challenge was how not to appear/feel like a poor-little-me girl. and just now, as i was polishing this off, comes a text message from a friend who underwent surgery for a hernia today telling me they found cancer. and right on the heels of that a call from my brother telling me that his stepson’s face and neck came in direct contact with a full-charged and running drill motor, requiring some 67 stitches on the outside and i-don’t-know-how many on the inside.

so.

now i realize 2 things:
1) in the best interest of myself and everybody else, i HAVE to get this challenge piece posted and move on

and

2) i don’t really have any challenges worthy of note. (but thanks for listening.)

#best09

~~~

the story is mine, but credit for the kindling goes to gwen bell and her best of 2009 blog challenge.
~~~

Technorati Tags:
#best09, #bestof2009

pieces of peace

December 8, 2009 / jeanne / 16 Comments

my grandmother made quilts – one for everybody in the family.

she’d swap fabric scraps with neighbors, decide on a pattern, then dump the accumulated fabric bits out on the bed, make her selections, and start cutting. she consulted with us about our preferred color for the flannel backing fabric, but she and she alone made the decision on fabric for the quilt tops based mostly – okay, solely – on what fabrics she had in hand.

she used a sewing machine – an old treadle machine – to sew the pieces together into blocks then the blocks together into the top. one the top was assembled, she’d sandwich batting between the quilt top and flannel backing and stitch those together, the machine whirring it’s irregular rhythm. the very last thing she did once the quilting was done and the borders finished off, was embroider our name in a corner of the quilt, and that she did by hand.

honestly, the quilts weren’t all that special to us. we figured quilting was just something grandmother did to keep busy. my mother used our quilts to wrap furniture when she moved it out to redecorate and as beach towels when we went to the ocean and as dog beds on cold winter nights. when they got dirty, she’d throw them in the washing machine then hang them on the line to dry.

a few years ago i decided to catalog grandmother’s quilts and asked my cousins, aunts, and uncles to bring their quilts to be photographed. when we held the first one up to the backdrop of the woods and stepped back to have a look, there was an audible collective inhale followed by the most exquisite silence – the silence of respect and appreciation and love-in-a-new-light.

my quilt is in the velveteen stage of life, loved raw in places, the batting spilling out and making a mess all over the place. i’ve thought about mending it, but, shoot, i’ve never gotten around to it. i ought to, though, because let me tell you one thing: some of the most peaceful moments i’ll ever know are enjoying that deep, peaceful, falling-off-the-edge good sleep that comes only on the nights when grandmother’s quilt is wrapped around me. mmm mmm mmm. all those tiny little pieces. painstakingly cut, arranged, then stitched together into something bigger. something much, much bigger.