SoCS: Mostly Good Memories from my Living Room

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “memories of the room you’re in.” Write about a memory of the room (or park, or gym, or where ever you are) you’re in when you write your post. Enjoy!

Most of the time, I start my SoCS post on Friday afternoon at the dining room table. It’s a small room with a small table and a view of the catio with the backyard beyond. That’s where I pasted the prompt just to get started. Sometimes I write the whole post there, then add photos, tags, etc. later in the living room.

So now, it’s a few hours later, and I’m sitting on the couch with my feet up, laptop on my lap and The Hunger Games on the TV as background. I “watch” my favorite movies many times and just look up for my favorite parts. I might switch to Star Trek during my least favorite parts. But back to the room, which is my small but cozy living room.

So many memories. Christmas comes to mind like decorating the tree when the kids were little. It seems like Christmas is a time when family – grown kids and grandkids come over. That’s one reason I want to move to the hills to be closer to my kids.

I remember breastfeeding my baby girl in this living room and listening through the screen door to the older kids playing and singing in the summer rain. I’d saved up enough vacation to take the whole summer off for maternity leave. That was the summer of 1993. It was wonderful.

There are a few not so fond memories from this living room over the past 35 years. There was the time my first husband asked me to sit down on the couch and told me he was leaving our 20-year marriage. To sum it up (retrospectively) in a nutshell, I wasn’t fun anymore.

A few years later, after the rebound from hell, I had a little party of close friends on Valentine’s Day. We wrote affirmations on index cards for each person going around the room. That’s a good memory. Several years later, in 2011, I remember sitting on the living room couch with David on the weekend of our second first date, smelling his neck and his intoxicating scent that had imprinted on my 16-year-old brain in 1972.

Now, my mother’s angels reside on the shelves in my living room along with a few other angels and treasures I’ve added.

Today’s gallery includes a bee on wisteria and Marley and David at our neighborhood creek.

~~~
For more streams and details on Stream of Consciousness Saturday

visit our host Linda Hill by

clicking the link below:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS March 23, 2024

SoCS: If I Knew Then…. Does God Roll Her Eyes?

Today‘s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “new/knew.’” Use one, use both, use them any way you like. Bonus points if you use both. Enjoy!

Thanks for the easy bonus points, Linda, since we can use one to say, Happy New Year! and the other some other way. And also a big thanks to Linda for providing so many prompts for so many weeks and years and helping to create communities on wordpress including SoCS, One-Liner Wednesday, and Just Jot it January which I may or may not do. But Stream of Consciousness Saturday has been a good addiction/addition to my week.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have not made the same mistakes. Would I? But then, I would not be the same person. Mistakes give us compassion for others who make mistakes and hopefully, compassion for ourselves which can sometimes be harder. Forgiving the self…. sigh…. is a process, like most forgivings.

If I knew my high school sweetheart would return to me some day, many years later, would I have gotten married to someone else? I suppose so. Otherwise, I would not have become a mother unless I was a single mother, which I was (unexpectedly) for about ten years anyway. But someone knew. God knew. I guess. Wait. What about free will? That’s too complicated to explore right now.

What I know is that when I was 16, the lady I babysat for told me that if David and I were meant to be together, we would be. That really helped my pining heart and allowed me to go on about my life for 39 years until David and I were ready to meet again.

Some things we just don’t know. Sometimes, we have to put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best. But it’s good to know what we know and admit what we don’t.

I know there are a few things I want to do in 2023. Keeping it simple and realistic: Get back to painting with alcohol ink on tile, continuing the de-cluttering process, keep working out, walking, or doing some kind of physical exercise… and love. The word love keeps coming to me. I want to make time for it – romantic, familial, and platonic love. Having reclaimed my inner introvert in retirement, I tend to not seek friends out. With occasional exceptions, I am content to be home with the dog and cat much of the time. I want to listen to my loved ones more and remember that God has a plan for them. I don’t have to try to fix things for them.

A friend on FB shared a quote:

“If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” – Anne Lamott

(Dang! Coulda used that for One-Liner Wednesday. Well, who says I still can’t just because it came along in the stream of consciousness…)

I like to think that when we tell God our plans, God will laugh but also say, “I’ll take it into consideration,” with a smirk or eye roll.

Does God roll her eyes? Is she rolling her eyes at me right now? Does God have eyes? Of course! In some form or other. All seeing eyes.

If my guardian angels knew how much work I would be, especially in my early twenties, would they have signed up? If I get to be someone’s guardian angel after I die, I’ll probably have someone difficult as payback. Oh, but mine haven’t had to work nearly as hard lately! Except when I ask them to look after my grown up children. I can feel my guardian angels rolling their eyes at that.

But here’s the real lesson: If I knew things were going to eventually work out okay, I would not have worried so much. Maybe I’m still learning to trust the timing.

Well, thanks for reading the ramble.

Recent photos from coastal Carolina:

Neighbor’s Camillias

December 13 ~ Hanging on

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning Ice

May your new year be filled with peace, love, joy, and blessings!

~~~

For more streams and rules about SoCS:

visit our wonderful host, Linda Hill,

by clicking HERE.

SoCS: Pushing Through and Ready for Healing

Our prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “starts with or contains ‘cel.’” Find a word that begins with or contains “cel” and use it in your post any way you’d like. Have fun!

The more tired I am, the more I forget where I put my cell phone. It’s been a strange couple of days out of the ordinary with back spasms, a visit from my son and granddaughter and our church artisan fair scheduled for Saturday. My cell phone got lost at least five times in the past week. It’s always in the house, and sometimes hiding in my purse, except for last week when I left it at choir practice. It always turns up eventually. Doctor/nurse practitioner wrote me a rx for a muscle relaxer and said it’s okay to take four ibuprofen, just not on an empty stomach. Maybe that will be enough to get me through the artisan fair for which I have reserved a table to share my wares and creations. We shall see…..

I wrote the above Friday. Made it through the artisan fair. My back pain was manageable. We had a good turnout, and I sold several pieces of art. Now it’s Saturday evening, and all I want to do is sleep after watching some easy TV.

There’s a meditation that a reiki practitioner gave me a few years ago. There were four steps which I don’t entirely recall, but the first line was, “I am open at the cellular level.” The rest of it included, expanding and then releasing, probably with some deep breathing along the way. Looking forward to some rest, cellular healing and releasing the tension in my back. I might not even make it to church tomorrow. Who knows? Was the push through worth it? I think so.

I’ll probably be slow in responding here on WP. It will take a while to catch up, but I could not, not do SoCS.

One of the pieces I sold today was a print I’ve had for a while. It was a zoom and crop of a bigger piece painted on wood.

Guardian Angel

I also sold some mermaids and mimosa angel ornaments like these:

~~~

For more streams of the cel kind, along with SoCS rules

visit our host, Linda Hill by clicking HERE.

The Angel Disguised as a Nurse (Remembering My Sister on her Birthday)

In January, my great niece messaged me on Facebook from California. She asked me to send photos of my sister, Mary Kaye who died on her 16th birthday. In 1975, Mary Kaye, her boyfriend, and a friend were on their way to a restaurant for the birthday dinner, when a drunk driver ran into their car. My sister’s boyfriend was killed instantly. Mary Kaye died at the hospital. Their friend survived.

With gratitude, I sent several photos of Mary Kaye to my niece and hinted at my curiosity for her interest. My niece told me that her daughter (my great niece who I’ll refer to as D) had recently come home from the hospital after being seriously injured in a car accident. The following events were sent to me through messenger from D and my niece, M.

No family members had been allowed to go to the hospital to see D due to Covid. She felt scared and alone as the nurses prepared her for surgery. Then D saw one nurse standing nearby, not doing anything, just watching her. The nurse didn’t have a name tag on, she was just standing there, so beautiful and smiling at her. It made D feel safe. When she got out of surgery she saw the same nurse again, just standing there smiling at her. She didn’t think much about it but told her mom about the special nurse after she got home.

When D came home from the hospital, she still had a lot of healing to do and struggled with the loss of her friend who died in the accident. D and her mom were lying in bed looking at my pictures on Facebook. When D saw a picture of my sister Mary Kaye, she started crying.

“That’s her! That’s the nurse!” she said.

The nurse standing by to give comfort with her beautiful smile looked exactly like my sister Mary Kaye. We believe it was Mary Kaye, an angel disguised as a nurse.

…

Today is my sister’s birthday. If she had lived, Mary Kaye would be 64 today. As a teenager, she volunteered at a group home for handicapped children. In the third photo, she’s wearing her yellow and white striped volunteer uniform. If she had lived, I believe Mary Kaye would have been a nurse or worked with children. I am thankful to know that her spirit is alive and well.

SoCS: Gratitude and Angel Art

Our Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “close eyes and point.” Grab the closest printed material to you when you sit down to write your post, open it up (if it’s a book, flyer, etc.), close your eyes, and point. Whatever your finger lands on, use that as your prompt. Have fun!

Thanks Linda!

It’s Friday morning, earlier than I usually write my post for SoCSaturday. I’ve got a busy day getting ready for tomorrow’s artisan fair at my church. It’s a big deal to me. The forecast is for a lot of rain, but it’s an indoor event, so I hope they don’t cancel it. This afternoon will be clear skies, or at least not much chance for rain, so that will be good for the set up. I’ll share some more later about that if the stream takes me there.

So, sitting at the table which doubles as my desk, there is a pile of papers to my left. The one on top is a green piece of scrap paper that I’ve written notes on from one of my organizations – Northside Food Co-op. I live near the northside of town which is part of a large food desert that includes my neighborhood. We’re starting with a Saturday farmers market and the plan is to have an affordable grocery store in the area. I signed up to be on the community engagement committee. (This was after telling myself not to sign up for anything new.) Anyway, there was a zoom meeting and a guest who is a former resident of the northside. The young African American woman talked to the committee about growing up without regular access to food, the poverty of not knowing, watching her mother struggle, and some personal trauma that she experienced. I asked her what helped her get through these things, and she said she just did – she got through it. She shared a spiritual awakening as an adult that has given her enthusiasm to go back and help those in the old neighborhood.

I didn’t point with my eyes closed, because when I looked at the green piece of scrap paper trying to decipher my notes, I was pulled to the word, “gratitude” in the middle of the paper. The young woman who grew up on the northside said,

“I have a purpose. Gratitude is a big fire inside.”

That would make a nice one-liner for Wednesday. But here it is in the stream. A big fire inside makes me think of heartburn, so I don’t normally think that way. But for some people, a fire inside is a motivator for enthusiasm, a warm glow that gets things going. I could use some of that. I’m pretty busy right now, but I need more exercise as I get older. There is a tendency to want to be a couch potato which is okay sometimes. Good thing I have all these ideas that get me off the couch and nice weather of the autumnal kind to get me walking outside.

This morning David texted me that he has known me for 50 years. The party where we met in 1971 was on November 6th. That was so cool that he remembered, even if he remembered it a day early. He is the farthest thing from a couch potato. It’s interesting how partners compliment each other. I’m a night owl and he’s a morning person…….

I am filled with gratitude that God brought David back to me when the time was perfect. I’m also grateful that I have the flexibility in retirement to be busy, when ignited by the fire inside, or to sit on the couch and watch the Lord of the Rings or whatever I want to watch.

Here’s my favorite recent piece I’m taking to the artisan fair Saturday. I believe I already have a buyer!

“Blessing the Whales” ~ Acrylic on Wood Panel

Here are some other projects I’ve been working on for the artisan fair. David drilled holes in the mimosa cookies so they can be ornaments. We had to cut the mimosa way back when we had the roof redone. It grew back well.

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  Angel on Mimosa Cookie

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  Angel with Golden Dog – acrylic on canvas

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  Fun with shells – a work in progress

Maybe this is my way of thanking the angels for all these years of protection and nudges.

~~~

For more streams of consciousness, rules, etc. visit our host Linda Hill by clicking here.

SoCS: Art Inspiration, Vegan Aspirations, Expiration Dates, and a Road Trip

Today’s prompt is from Dan who’s filling in for Linda. You can visit both of them over at the virtual bar at Dan’s blog today. Here’s what Dan came up with:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “inspire/aspire/expire.” Use them in any form you like. Use one, use two or use them all if you want. If you use two, you get bonus points! If you use all three, Cheryl will put your next drink on David’s tab. Enjoy!

I hope to inspire, but more naturally than in the past. Because I like to be inspired, too. In my art folder here on my laptop, I have a folder named, “inspiration.” It has ideas from nature and other people’s art that I want to, not copy, but be inspired by, taking my own spin on them. Clouds inspire me, like this one:

If you know a lot about clouds, you might be able to tell I turned this upside down. Originally it looked like a bird or angel diving down to earth. Turning it upside down makes it a rising mermaid or angel or something. I like rising better than diving, though I do love diving under water. So I’m going to paint it rising, whatever it turns out to be. The head will be different. We’ll see what happens. Do you notice the face near the very top a little to the right of center? It’s kinda eerie/cool. The face seems to be looking over a shoulder or wing.

Aspire. I have aspired to be and do many things. Maybe the best is to aspire to be ourselves. Our true selves, not what others expect. I think of myself as an aspiring vegan, inching closer and inspired by the vegans at the farm where I volunteer. Been doing better on not eating fish. Gave up chicken a couple years ago (the chickens on the farm reinforce that) and stopped eating mammals in my early twenties. Cheese though is sneaky. Dairy productus show up unexpectedly in granola bars or veggie burritoes. Anyway, I’m not perfect, never have been, never will be.

Expiration dates are subjective. My husband will eat (almost) anything that smells okay even if it’s expired. I might go a couple months out from when something was said to expire. Maybe six months. A lot of food is wasted because it’s expired or looks funny, but it’s still good to eat. I’m glad people are starting to rescue and redistribute some of that. I got some free almond butter that had expired at the new food co-op down the road. Almond butter is something I don’t usually buy, because peanut butter is so much less expensive, and there’s something about almonds production that’s a problem, maybe with bees. I don’t remember. But it was a nice gift, the expired almond butter.

My energy level expired Saturday when David drove home from southeastern Connecticut to southeastern NC. He’s a tough guy. Just riding in the truck all those hours was hard on my body. We took the scenic route close to the eastern shore, because it was less traffic and less stress, though more time (15 hours with our stops.) We had considered stopping for the night halfway, but David seems to have an amazing ability to keep going which only inspires me to take a nap or take pictures. Oh, the reason for the trip – we had gone to visit David’s mother who is 86 and doing very well except for some vision problems. (We have all been vaccinated.) She was very happy to see us after five years and told me all about her volunteer work at the elementary school when her kids were little. I’m going to write another post about that sometime – about how she helped start a kindergarten, school library, and got things done as a mama bear back in the 1960s. But that’s enough for now. Here are some photos from our trip. I hope to stay home for a while.

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  Windmills in NC

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  Somewhere on the east coast

• 

• 

  Abandoned house in Rhode Island

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  Nice view in Connecticut

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  Chesapeake Bay Bridge

• 

• 

  Chesapeake Bay

• 

  Same windmills heading home

~~~

Happy October!

For more streams of consciousness visit Linda’s blog HERE. Be sure to look for Dan’s contribution at “No Facilities” in the comments.

SoCS: Birthday Plans, Strange Clouds, and Rainbows

Today’s SoCS prompt from Linda Hill is, “where.” Use it any way you’d like!

Where am I?

In the mountains of NC, but not exactly, because I’m in the city/town of Boone which is in a valley, so I can see the mountains. We are here for my granddaughter’s 10th birthday which was yesterday and my son’s birthday is today. Yep. His birthday is on 9/11. It was his birthday 36 years ago, when 9/11 was just 9/11 and his birthday. So we are having a party at the park this afternoon, mostly for my granddaughter who is 10 years old! Oh, I said that already. But it’s double digits! She’s still into sparkles, rainbows, and unicorns.

Thanks to my husband David driving us here, I got to take pictures of clouds. What do you see in the sky today? What do you see in these pictures? It’s open to interpreation. I hope all you see in the sky today is clouds, birds, butterflies, and maybe a rainbow. Oh, and the sun, but don’t look at it directly or too long.

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  Do you see an angel?

• 

  Do you see a skeleton?

• 

  Do you see a dragon?

• 

  What do you see?

• 

  This is my favorite. What do you see?

• 

  Do you see a giant bird?

Clouds along the way.

This is an older photo that I just like.

I spend my fair share of time reading the news and remembering, analyzing, and certainly in gratitude. Sometimes we just need to look at the clouds. I hope you get to be somewhere nice, peaceful, and safe today.

~~~

Where do you go for more streams of consciousness and to find out the rules?

You go to Linda’s blog!

SoCS: Pins, Buttons, and What NOT to Drink

 Here’s today’s prompt: “pin.” Use it as a noun, use it as a verb, use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Remember bobby pins? My mom had a lot. There might even be one around here. They were for your hair, like mini barrets. She would put her hair up in little pincurls and sleep in them overnight with an x of double bobby pins in each curl. Better than those big plastic curlers in the days before curling irons or whatever people are using these days.

Straight pins could be (and still are) useful for sewing a hem or keeping two pieces of fabric lined up while you sew them together with a needle.

Pintrest is so full of everything. I don’t keep up with my account. There are only so many hours in a day and so many other things to do.

I don’t wear many pins. My mom had a lot. I pinned her angel pin to the lapel of my black blazer which I used to wear a lot but have not worn in a long time. Maybe I’ll wear it this Christmas.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? I guess it depends on the size of the angels, and several other factors that have something to do with divine magic.

There are also pins that I have called buttons – campaign buttons, cause buttons, save the whales buttons – but they are really pins, because they have pins and you can wear them on your shirt or purse, or whatever. I had a big collection once. Now it’s smaller and kept in a glass container in the kitchen. Why in the kitchen? I have no idea. One button/pin says, “Get stoned. Drink wet cement.” When I was a substance abuse counselor, one of my clients gave that to me. It was funny. And weird. (Do NOT drink wet cement!)

Now I’m going to my pictures and type in “pin” and see where that leads.

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  My mom’s angel pin

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  The “get stoned” pin is bottom left

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  dragonfly on closthes pin

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  This one is still on the mantle.

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  I don’t know where this pic came from.

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  My dad’s MASH hat has pins.

…

For more streams of consciousness, rules and stuff, visit our host, Linda Hill at her blog here.

SoCS: Angel Wings, Caladiums, Fairies, an Owl, and my Old Dog

Here’s our prompt: “the last photo you took.” Take the last photo you snapped. What’s the first word that comes to mind when you look at it? That word is your prompt. Enjoy!

The last photo I took was…. No wait. What’s the word? It’s a toss up between, Fairy, and What, as in What is the title of this piece of art that I’ve been working on for the past year and a half?

It all started when David was making a cabinet to store more canned goods at the start of COVID. He brought home the door of the cabinet, and I said, “Wait a minute! Look at those angel wings!”

Here’s one section

Unfortunately, it’s a bit heavy, but I couldn’t let it just be a cabinet door. Here are some enhancements below inspired by the wood grain. I was looking at caladiums a lot. Then the owl just showed up.

This was maybe a year ago.

Well, it’s closer to being finished. It might even be finished. I don’t know. And I don’t know what to call it. Tree fairies and friends? Caladium Angels, Fairies and Friends? Any ideas? Here’s where it is now:

What’s the first word that comes to your mind?

I didn’t plan the painting much. Some things just emerged, like my Golden Boy, Jesse who’s in heaven. Maybe he’s hanging out with fairies and owls.

…

For more streams of consciousness and rules, visit our host, Linda Hill at:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS July 31, 2021 | (lindaghill.com)

SoCS: Hope for the Best and Trust the Timing

Linda picked my favorite word for today’s prompt: HOPE!

If you can’t find faith, look for hope. Hope will lead you to faith.

About 15 years ago, I was afraid to hope. Romance was not working out for me at all, so I tried not to want a partner. I tried to become cynical about men. I decided to focus on myself and my daughter, friendship, and of course my most loyal companions, the dogs.

But hope snuck back in. I read about manifesting, and visualizing. Of course, this was AFTER I had worked on myself some. For five years, I hadn’t dated anyone beyond a coffee shop visit. No one interesting seemed interested in me. Now, I know that was all part of the plan created by God, the Universe, my guardian angels who were tired of my dating messes and lessons. They all knew I had work to do on me first.

At the same time I was working on me, licking my wounds, and finding my footing again, my high school sweetheart and long lost first love was doing the same – working on himself. We were becoming ready.

Have you seen my wild woman photo? It was taken around that time when I was working on me. My daughter and I had gone on a trip to the mountains. I love this photo.

It was comfortably dark in the forest, and I’m resisting the urge to edit this photo.

I see that I posted it back in 2013. Well, here it is again. I thought I was lonely, but I was finding myself. My authentic self. I’m guessing this was taken around 2006, but that’s just a guess.

Well, here we are in 2021. David and I are coming up on the ten year anniversary of our second first date which was July 15, 2011. We were so nervous and excited. He says he wasn’t looking for a relationship. I told my heart to calm down! But we both knew this was extra special. In October, the company he had worked for in Connecticut for 35 years told him it was time to retire. That spring he moved in with his 3 dogs to make our five pack. In December of 2012, we made it official. I know you’ve seen that photo before. But maybe the five pack one not as often.

David and I walking the five pack.

The five pack is gone now. They’ve all crossed over the rainbow bridge in the past ten years. I miss them and hope to see them in heaven. That’s more than a hope. Do I have faith that I’ll see my dogs in heaven? Yes. God knows how important this is to me.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst if it’s likely to happen, but don’t spend a lot of time on that. It’s like with tropical storms and hurricanes. We knew Elsa would not do as much damage as a big hurricane, so we didn’t spend much time preparing. Just a little.

We can strengthen ourselves for the difficult times as we hope for the best. Like my favorite quote goes:

I hope you are well and at peace as much as you can be. Enjoy the hopes that come your way. Nurture them and they will become exactly what they are meant to be when the time is right.

For more streams of hope, visit our host, Linda Hill at:

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS July 10, 2021 | (lindaghill.com)