Peeps and other Peeps

I have many many things I need to accomplish today. It's 6pm and I am sure I still have time, right? So, instead of finishing my company books, sending out bills, working on Easter crafts for the shop and special orders (see, I do have things to do!) I am looking at pictures of peeps. Have you SEEN the strange things people do with these rather common little piles of fluff and sugar? What, exactly about a shaped marshmallows makes people go manic? The Washington Post has a Peep Art Contest. Here is the gallery for 2008 and 2009.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2009/04/10/GA2009041001975.html

Then I found these gems -


Peep Art




Peep Olympics

Jesus of Peeps

Kind of puts a whole new spin on "playing with your food."

Happy Mardi Gras. Happy Fat Tuesday.

It's a snowin'

Gizmo /Murphy

/ Rookie

The snow moved in on Friday night and hasn't left yet. The girls are getting a bit of cabin fever. 4 inches of snow would be a delight to walk them in but the inch of ice on top makes things a bit dicey. So they have been confined to running around the backyard. I am sure they have sniffed every corner of the yard by now.

I spent the time (when I wasn't opening the door to let them in/out) making Easter cards (I will post them soon,) fabric yoyos for another little craft and reading a new book. Oh and working on business paperwork (yuk.) The book is "The Girl with Glass Feet" by Ali Shaw. The reviews said it was "fantasical" and I could not agree more. I have to say it kind of freaks me out thinking about having glass feet. I have enough problems with my own feet as they are!

Joe has actually ventured out to run calls. One to open someone's car and another to open a building to the owners to check on their animals. He didn't have any problems on the roads other then the "Looky Lous" out checking the roads and driving 10 mph. STAY HOME IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IN BAD WEATHER!!!

I am headed back to my chair by the wood stove. Take care.

My latest work

A while back, I saw something in a genealogy magazine that got my creative juices running rampant. It was a simple frame with the pictures around the edge and the family name framed inside. I loved the idea. My collection of old photos has grown so the first one I did was family oriented with photos of different time periods. I shaded the photo edges with sepia inks, then painted the frame out with black paint. I settled on a quote in the center and printed on fabric. I have since designed 8 different collages. Here are three.





The "Sisters" frame has been the most popular and I just did the military one yesterday.
Joe suggested I offer custom frames with designed with personal photos. I am thinking about that.

I hope you like them!

I miss my sister

Today would have been my sister Theresa's 56th birthday. She died last year after a 5 year fight with ALS. It's still so hard to believe she's gone. That's her, holding me when I first came home.

When I was growing up, my sister was EVERYTHING to me. She was smarter than I was (no really, she was) and knew all these great people. I learned so much watching her, being with her. How to sing O Come all Ye Faithful in Latin. How to laugh at everything. It was Theresa who taught me what it meant to be a woman, she who listened when I cried about boys, taught me how to cook for a crowd, how to be a hostess, gave me advice (solicited and unsolicited) about anything I needed to know. She is the one who woke me when my father died and we cried together. I basked in her love.

And then, I screwed up. I left Portland in 2004 and while I won't take the time now to explore all the reasons (some of which I am not even sure about), I made her very angry at me. She turned her back on me and dropped me from her life. I think she knew nothing could have been more painful to me. Shortly after I left, she was diagnosed with ALS. I went back to Portland when I got married and had a reception. She went around the party telling my friends she was sick, but never told me directly. I left Portland hurt and angry and confused. I tried over the next couple of years to throw out little lines to her but I had NO IDEA what to say or do to work on the rift.

So finally, in 2008, I told my husband I had to see her. I had to talk to her even though she needed a machine to help her talk. We scrapped together the money and made reservations. Three days later, I got the call she had died. Too late, too late. I even missed a last good bye because she was cremated before I could get to town. The pain was so physical, several times I wept as if I would break. It hurts almost the same today. I think others tried to comfort me when they said, "don't worry. She never said anything bad about you. She never talked about you." They missed the point but I didn't. A nun came up to me after the service and we talked a bit about it. She asked me how I knew Theresa. I replied I was her sister. She looked a bit puzzled and said, "oh I didn't even know she had a sister." Other people felt they had to share how great it was to be able to spend time with her before she died. How glad they were to be a part of her grace. I know that grace was beautiful to behold. I was too late, too late.



I have tried to learn from all the pain of the last few years. Sometimes, I feel I know the meaning, other times I still want to cry. Preferably in her arms. If you are willing to listen to me now, then please, run to that person you have lost for whatever reason and say I love you. Moments really can't be had again.

I miss my sister.

Happy New Year

I saw the Blue Moon on New Year's Eve and knew it was a good sign. Of what, I do not know but I will wait and see.

Don't you just want to howl when you see such a perfect Moon?

Quote for the Day

Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn. ~Irvin S Cobb

Southern Moments

There are so many Southern Moments, I don't even know where to start.


That's what I call those events and occurrences that are unique and only found South of the Mason-Dixon line. When I moved to North Carolina 5 years ago, I was often mesmerized by things that other people took for granted. Maybe they felt the same when they visited my beloved Portland, OR but I was sure this place was just - different. A Southern Moment is spotting a sign for the gas station that sells fried Bologna sandwiches and has a notary public on duty. Or knowing the holidays are here when the local tire store builds a 20 foot stack of tires in the shape of a Christmas tree and dresses it up with lights and an angel on top. Or the Ballet dancing to square dance music with a square dance caller and denim tutus.

My first contact with a "real" Southerner and a real Southern Moment was on a road trip. Joe and I were driving from Raleigh to Disney World. It turns out Joe actually knows Mickey Mouse and we were invited down to visit the park with said Mickey (sans head and feet. More on that another time.) After the stop at Cracker Barrel (heaven on the interstate), I was feeling a bit sleepy and ready for a nap. Joe was fiddling with the radio and setting the cruise control on the sweet spot. I think he saw it first because it took several seconds for it to register with me. Up ahead on the right was a rather impressive tower of smoke coming from a large patch of flaming grass.


"Wow," I said. "That looks dangerous." (OK, I am the master of understatement.) "Give me your phone and I will call - HONEY WHY are WE pulling over?!"


As if by magic, our vehicle slowed to a crawl right behind the burning patch of roadside. "We're gonna put it out," Joe said, rather matter of fact, as he leapt out the door. Like duh.


Joe was a firefighter in his younger days and I guess you never get that out of your system. Oh and he was a Boy Scout too. So his natural response when he sees any type of emergency is to stop and help. He also knew it would be an hour or more before any emergency crew would be able to make it to our spot. By then the fire would have doubled or tripled in size.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Drag your feet in the dirt and push it onto the edge of the fire. Work towards the center."

Oh, ok.

I pushed and slide dirt, doing a kind of sideways moon dance. The flames weren't very high but the patch was about 20 feet across and about 10 feet wide. Joe starts to curse that he doesn't have a shovel or a pick in the van (there is one there now!) After a few minutes, another car pulled up next to us and a head popped out the passenger window. Did we need some help?

"Yes," Joe called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the fire. "We need something to push the dirt. Got a box, or a shovel or something? Anything?"

Not another word was said as the window rolled up and drove off. I guess they didn't have anything.

We worked steadily towards the center of the fire and found the still burning piece of tire tread. A big rig must have blown a tire and that started the flames. I felt my shoes getting hotter and my lungs fill up. It wasn't unbearable but it wasn't a picnic either. Finally, the flames were out and enough was covered to make Joe feel we could call it quits. It wasn't until we were back in the van that I finally got a good whiff of myself. I smelled like ash and burning rubber. Ew ew ew.

"We have to stop at the next rest stop. I can't stand this!" I whined.

That was the plan, he promised.

Just a few miles down the road was the "Welcome to Georgia" visitors center. Perfect. There was the promise of big clean bathrooms and maybe even real paper towels, not just air blowers. I am not even sure why I felt these things were critical to my well being. I had no idea how I was going to defunk my clothing but anything was better than smelling like an ashtray. The ladies room door had big red stenciled letters over chipped forest green paint that read "absolutely no smoking. " I laughed and hoped my shoes had stopped smoldering. Inside, I stood at the sinks and stared at the mess in the mirror. Maybe I should have hauled in my suitcase but that seemed like so much work. Cranking out a long strip of stiff brown paper toweling, I dampened some and started wiping it over my hair and clothing, hoping it would pick up the smoke and soot. How strange this must have looked to others was obvious as I glanced in the mirror again and saw the maintenance worker intently watching me.

I tried to explain. "I know this looks funny but I am covered in smoke. We stopped to put out this brush fire and I smell. We didn't have anything like a shovel or - " I stopped dead, realizing how stupid it sounded and the woman just said "uh huh" and pushed her cart out of the room. "No really, there was a fire." I called after her.

I washed what I could and drenched the rest, hoping to take some of the smell out. Another sigh came with the hope that we were close to our stopping spot for the night.

A rather tall, well dressed middle aged woman stepped out of the stalls and steered directly towards me. "Are you the woman who put out the fire?" She asked in a warm, Georgia peach accent. She was the ideal modern Southern woman, or at least my stereotype of one. Her traveling clothes were expensive, pressed and new. Her hair and make-up perfect. The accent was out of a movie.

"Yes, that's me," I said.

She rather boldly approached me with a smile and said "I have seen what roadside fires can do. I want to thank you very much. As a native Georgian, I so appreciate what you have done."

I stumbled out that Joe had been a firefighter and I just followed him. I didn't really know what to say, but it made me feel rather wonderful that our little act of heroism would not go completely unnoticed.

"Well, thank you again," She said. "It was really good of you to do something like that." She exited the restroom and I thought she sort of glided out with smooth Belle gait.

Suddenly, I didn't feel so strange with my semi-dripping hair and ashes clinging to bits of clothing. Hey, we did some good! And people were so nice! I left to find Joe and let him know we had done good in the eyes of a real Southern Woman.

As I was recounting my experience, leaving out a few of the more messy wet paper towel things, I could see the woman from the corner of my eye. She was obviously telling her husband about her encounter with me. Then I see her pointing at us and both were intently focused on us. They turned to approach us and I can hear her ask, "Now, where was this fire again?" as she walked up.

"It was about 3 miles north of here. " I felt rather effusive and buoyant at the moment and gave Joe a squeeze.

"OH," The woman exclaimed. "NOT in Georgia." She turned abruptly and they rather stomped back to their car.

I guess South Carolina can burn. It's a Southern thing.