Dibbles and Dabbles

 

          Dibbles and dabbles.

          A little of this and a little of that.

          That’s what I think of when I think of my art. I’ve tasted a lot of creative mediums over the years. Crayons. I think we all had crayons and coloring books when we were little. I remember once I colored a couch, or maybe it was a chair, in my coloring book. I colored it two crazy colors. Something like pink with green apple piping all the way around it. I thought it was interesting and showed it to Momma. She was not impressed, not that she made any disparaging remarks. She just said, “Mm-hmm,” and I went on my way.

I had pastels when I was a young teenager. Then I found boys and pot and didn’t do any more art. In the eighties I was inspired by my cute little redhaired sister to get back into art and I dabbled in inks, moved to colored pencils, then oil paints.

 I spent the next fifteen years drinking and stopped doing art all together.

Around 2005, Mike’s brother Cork got me into stained-glass. I went on to dabble in copper jewelry, wire work, making metal flowers from tin cans, ladybugs, book boxes, air-dry clay, concrete clay, fairy houses, and lately, watercolor paints.

What a journey!

As I look back, flitting from memory to memory, I realize it hasn’t all been without sins and regrets. Do any of us get to live our lives without sins or regrets?

Regrets? Maybe. I’ve met people who claim to have none, saying, “Everything I’ve done, everything that has happened to me, has shaped me into the person I am today — and I like the person I am today. How can I regret that?”

Sins? No. From the time we’re eighteen months and stand before our parents and defiantly say, “No!” when asked to do something. Disobedience. A sin.

“Did you take a cookie?”

“No.” The evidence of that lie may very well be found in the crumbs lingering around our tiny pink mouths.

We sin from a time before we even know what a sin is.

I heard a podcast this week. I’m not sure who was speaking, since I listen to several preachers. The message has left me with a good way to handle past sins and regrets.

“Once you have confessed a sin to God, you don’t need to confess it over and over.”

This is exactly what we tend to do when a past sin keeps coming to the forefront of our mind. We don’t “feel” forgiven as we wallow in the regret of that sin and re-confess it over and over.

“To continually confess a sin is to not believe God when He says in 1 John 1:9: ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,’” he quoted. “Instead, use this as an opportunity to praise God! To remember and thank Him for ALL He has forgiven us for!”

Turn regrets into praises is an idea I found intriguing and shared it with a friend who also faces similar struggles. She was thankful and that gave me the idea to share it with you, just in case you needed to hear it, too.

          I started a watercolor that is maybe a little ambitious for me. I got this far and can’t decide where to go, or even if I should go any further. I shelved it, waited a couple of days, looked at it again, and shelved it again.

          Needing a confidence booster, I decided to experiment with a different way of doing my book boxes. I love the texture when I coat them with wall paste but it gives me a problem in the hinges. The plaster chips off no matter how many times I sand it.

          What would happen if I didn’t use it at all? I wondered and tried that this week on one of my rejected boxes, one that’s put together a little wonky and I don’t care if I mess it up. I miss the texture but I think it’s probably okay to do them without. Now I have to decide on a color for the inside.  

     

          My best old friend, Trish, shared a project with me that she’s been working on.

          This isn’t anything new for her, in that she has been making tissue box covers for a long time, but the half cross-stitch pattern is new and I think it’s just beautiful!

Who doesn’t love butterflies!?

Trish attends several functions every year where she sells nearly everything she makes.

Besides half cross-stitch, Trish also is a dibbler and dabbler. She crochets and paints as well and the next time she visits, maybe we’ll make fairy houses or concrete frogs for her garden or tin can flowers for her fence.

West Virginia has just had another flood that took out the bridge Trish and six or seven other families have to cross to get to their homes.

“This is the fifth or six time it’s been washed out in the eight years I’ve lived here,” Trish told me. “Twice within two months one year!”

The problem is that no one, not the county, not the state, wants to claim responsibility for the pipe that runs under the road, which is what washes out.

Trish sent me a few other pictures of the flood in her area.

The ball field.

I don’t think anyone’s driving under that train bridge.

If Trish lived next to me, she wouldn’t have to worry about her bridge washing out and we could make art all the time!

But, her family lives nearby, and family is precious — as Trish is precious to me. 

Tiger was on my desk. He went from lounging to immediate attention in a jolt. I looked at him. His gaze was fixed outside the door.

A bird? I wonder and swiveled around in my desk chair. I didn’t see anything. I turned back to the computer. Tiger crouched low and jumped from my desk. I lingered for a few moments, finishing what I was doing, before I turned to look. There, outside, facing Tiger through the door, was the feral black and white cat. My movements set Raini in motion. She knew something was going on.

“NO! RAINI, NO!” I yelled, but it was no use. She scrambled across the linoleum floor and dashed through the pet flap in a flash. There was nothing I could do as she chased that poor kitty around the side of the house. A few minutes later, she was back, and I can only guess he got over the fence and she didn't catch him.

I’ve been sneaking out in the mornings and looking to see if he’s in the cat house. Twice this week he was. Spitfire was with him, sleeping on a shelf. The feral’s been sleeping under a table on some old pillows covered with a rag rug. Spitfire hears me and jumps down onto the table. The feral only picks his head up and looks. I’ve not spooked him enough to make him run from the room. I like that he knows he can come here for safety, food, and shelter. 

Mike and I went shopping this week and he took a road he doesn’t normally take. You know what that means, don’t you?

Road pictures!

          Let’s call this one done!

          Done!

Technology

Technology is wonderful, isn’t it!

Technology is wonderful as long as it works the way it’s supposed to work — that’s when it’s wonderful. When it doesn’t, it’s frustrating.

Something happened to my computer. It can’t find any of my iTunes podcasts that I’ve downloaded before Sunday a week ago. I get a message that says, the podcast could not be used because the original file could not be found. Then it asks me if I want to locate it. When I click the locate button it opens a system 32 box. Yeah. I’m not messing around with the system. I thought it was going to locate it for me. 

I can’t figure out what happened to them but my daily podcasts that have downloaded since then play. No big deal. I’m not especially sad about it. I can always go back to the internet and download them again if I want to. 

All is good. 

Or so I thought.

I thought I’d work on my interview with Linda, my church peep. I opened Sound Organizer; the program I download my recordings to. I clicked on the file named Linda and I get this message: No files found with the corresponding content. By specifying the original file, it will become playable. I tried other recordings in my folder and none of them will play either. I didn’t move them so I don’t know what happened. But this I do know. My two-hour interview with Linda is gone. I’ll have to rely on my memory. And this I know, too. It’s going to be a much shorter story. 

Linda was living in a nursing home after a stroke took the use of the right side of her body. Her daughter, Tina, didn’t think they were taking very good care of her so she moved Linda into her home. They live about ten minutes from me. 

When I pulled into the driveway for our interview, I could hear the goats bleating.

Linda met me at the door.

“I want to show you my room,” she said after I shut the door behind me.

Linda’s room is very cozy and inviting. She's surrounded by memories and many things she loves.

“That was my dad’s,” she pointed to a cedar cabinet adorned with photos.

On nearly every surface photos were attached. 

“I like to look at them before I go to sleep at night.”

Even Linda’s bed is covered with photos in the form of a photo blanket.

“I just love it,” she told me and went on to tell me who the people in the pictures are.

“Who’s this lady here?” I asked.

“That’s my grandma. Grandma Mable.”

“And the couple on the other side?”

“That’s my grandparents on the other side of the family,” Linda said.

“Where were you the happiest?”

Linda became thoughtful.

“When I was with Grandma Mable. She lived across the road from us and I’d go over there a lot. Once I asked her, ‘Grandma, how come Mom doesn’t play with me like you do?’ She said, ‘Because moms are too busy.’” Linda laughed. “Boy, she was right!”

She told me about meeting her first husband. “I was fifteen and we were at the skating rink. He came right up and kissed me! I was shocked! I didn’t know what kissing was!” I could see the look of incredulity on her face as she relived the memory. She ended up marrying this guy only to have him start abusing her a month after they were married.

I didn’t pry. I let Linda tell me what she wanted to tell me.

She stayed in the marriage for ten years.

Then she lived in her car for about a month with her three girls.

Linda divorced and went on to marry again and had another daughter and a son.

I’m a little hazy on details and timelines since I was relying on my recording. Okay, okay! A lot hazy. 

Linda likes to clean and cleaned for a living. Even now, she helps Tina out as much as she’s able. 

“I can scrub the shower walls after I finish my shower,” she told me. “At least as high up as I can reach.”

A cat wandered in. 

“That’s Ups,” Linda said. “One day, the UPS guy pulled in and she got out of the truck. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll get back in when I get ready to leave. She always does,’ he said. But she didn’t! She stayed here!”

I took it from our conversation that Linda isn’t much of a cat person because she said, “I’ve learned to get along with them.” There's at least one more inside and one outside. “If you put your hand under their chin, then you can pet them.”

Besides her bedroom, Linda has her space in the living room. She has a desk, shelves, and a recliner.

“See that book there?” she asked.

“This one?” I asked picking up a small photo album. 

“That’s when I had the strep.”

“How did you get strep?” I wondered.

“No one knows! I didn’t have any cuts on me. But I was cleaning at the time and they think maybe I got it into my mouth because it started in my jaw. It hurt so bad! My son-in-law took me to the emergency room, but they thought it was a bad tooth. They gave me something for it and sent me home! I was living downstairs at the time. Then, later that night when they checked on me, I was unconscious! I woke up in the hospital.” 

Because of the strep, Linda lost an eye and she showed me all the terrible scars on her arms.

And the before and after pictures of the back of her hand... 

They did an amazing job.

You would think with wounds like that, that there would be a lot of pain.

“I didn’t have any pain! They couldn’t believe it!”

Despite everything Linda has been through, she’s the sweetest woman you could ever hope to meet.

“How do you stay so positive?” 

“Jesus.” 

Such a simple answer with a big meaning. Her faith has carried her through some of toughest trials in her life and she came out on the other side without being bitter.

“Do you have a favorite song?” I asked.

After thinking about it for maybe a heartbeat, she started singing. Quietly at first, then when she saw I was enjoying her song, stronger. 

“♪He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own♫.” She knew all the words and sang the whole song to me. 

“Do you have any advice you could give us?” I asked.

She didn’t have to think about that.

“Keep your mouth shut! No one wants to hear what old people have to say. They tell me I talk too much!”

Old people are a wealth of information and memories and should be treasured, not made to feel like they don’t want to be heard from. 

In other news, the flu bug has hit this house. Actually, I don’t know if it was the flu or not but it is definitely a respiratory sickness. 

Mike got it first. His symptoms started on Friday. Prudence dictated that we stay home and not spread this thing any further than it’s already spread. I hated to miss church, even though I felt fine, but I was not going to be responsible for making any of my church peeps sick. As it turned out, I did get sick, too. About four days after Mike. It’s been a fun ride, let me tell you! I know you can’t tell, but that was sarcasm. It’s been anything but fun, as my morning love notes will attest to. I’ve kept my peeps up to date on our health. It’s kinda nice knowing that if something happened and they didn’t hear from me, they’d come rushing to my aid. It’s nice to know that I’d be missed, even if only for a little while.

Childbirth and death. We tend to forget the pain.

By Tuesday, I knew I was getting sick. I went to bed that night and woke up this morning. That’s hyperbole. Exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, as my Miss Rosie defines it. I spent mornings in the recliner watching old TV shows with my handsome mountain man. Perry Mason, with Raymond Burr, Matlock, with Andy Griffith, and In the Heat of the Night, with Carroll O’Connor. I’d make a little lunch, do a few dishes, and by the afternoon, felt well enough to paint a little!

“Peg!” my oldest and much-adored sister admonished. “Painting is not resting!”

I finished my concrete clay gnome house. I gave it stained glass windows and a coat of glass paint. This guy stands about nine-and-a-half inches tall. With fairy lights inside, he’d be cute in the flower garden — heck! He’d be cute anywhere, don’cha think?

I spotted a Goldfinch at my feeder this past week. I haven’t seen any all winter long until now. Although they can stay during the winter months if there’s a supply of food, most Goldfinches go south for warmer weather.

And lastly, because we’ve self-quarantined, I don’t have anything else to talk about. 

But here’s a picture that’s been hanging around for a while. I was taking a picture of the cows and my camera focused on the rocks in the foreground instead. I kinda like it anyway — just like I like you!

Let’s call this one done!

Skipping

          I don’t often think about skipping a week, but for several reasons, I thought about skipping this week.

          “What’s going on?” you ask.

          We’ve got a dinner at church tomorrow right after the service. Mike and I leave the house at 8:30 to attend Sunday School before the service so I have to take whatever I’m making with us then. I committed to making chili and I’m thinking about making a cheese bread. That means I need to cook today (Saturday) for tomorrow’s event — or get up at five in the morning.

          We’ve got a dinner at church tomorrow, which I’ve already said, and it means we’ll be spending an extra hour or two — or maybe three! — at the church. That cuts into my writing time. 

          Not having as much time to write is one reason I thought about skipping this week.

          Staying home and not going places doesn’t give me much to talk about. That’s another reason I thought about skipping this week.

          Having just said that, we did go places this week.

          Our week started with a trip to get our taxes done. That’s not exciting at all. But it did give me a chance to take a few pictures for you.

          The back of this car has a message written on it.

          “What’s it say?” I know you wanna know.

          Under the license plate, barely visible, it says NOTHING IS TRUE. Under that, EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED.

          It’s a phrase. Have you heard it before?

          It’s associated with the concept of existential nihilism and is linked to the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and the fictional universe of Assassin's Creed.

          Existential nihilism says life lacks inherent meaning or purpose, and truth is subjective, suggesting that in a world without absolute truths, all actions are permissible.

          I once heard a Christian apologist denounce this philosophy and one of his examples included a man with a gun and an elementary school. “I think we can all agree that killing innocent children is wrong and should not be permitted.”

          The other thing he said that sticks in my head is an example of an absolute truth. “I look both ways when I cross the street because a bus and I cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

           Assassin's Creed is a video game. The phrase is used by the fictional Assassin Brotherhood to give them the freedom to act as necessary to achieve their goals, guided only by their own principles rather than societal rules.

          Without laws, both moral and governmental, our society would likely descend into chaos. People would act purely out of self-interest, leading to violence. You could steal anything you wanted from anyone, kill anyone at any time, for any reason, and there would be no repercussions.

          What a scary world that would be!

          But I digress. We went to get our taxes done and I took a few pictures.

          Sometimes I see weird stuff lying beside the road. I hope this wasn’t an important part of someone’s vehicle.

          Frozen Susquehanna.

          I took a picture of this barn both coming and going.

          It took me about a page to say we went to get our taxes done and show you six photos. Not exciting. Not really newsworthy. But there you have it.

 

          We also went to Dickson City again this week.  

          “Did you go to Sam’s Club?” you ask.

          No, but that was a great guess, since that’s where our Sam’s Club is.

“Did you go to Michaels?” 

Another great guess, since that’s why we went last week. And I did stop at Michaels this time, too. I saw on my Facebook group that paint brushes were on sale. Buy one, get one half off. I looked and looked and decided I had enough brushes and didn’t need any. I did pick up a couple of tubes of paint. Four, actually, since they had the same deal as the brushes. Sometimes it’s just easier to open a tube rather than have to mix a color.  

Where we did go, the reason we went to Dickson City, was to buy a Sleep Number mattress. Mike has always had a great deal of back pain and he hates the Select Comfort memory foam that we have. He’s thinking he’ll have less pain with a softer mattress.

We’ve had Sleep Number before. Back in 1999 or 2000 we had one and there was a Sleep Number in our last RV. I don’t remember if Mike had less pain. But I’m behind him 110%. If Mike wants a Sleep Number, we’ll get a Sleep Number.

Speaking of sleep...

Mike wore my Fitbit a couple of times. He says he wore it two nights, I say he wore it three. Regardless, Mike is a light sleeper and my watch confirms that. He dropped down into deep sleep for only six minutes the first time he wore it. I spend anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half in deep sleep. Last night Mike wore my watch again and didn’t go into deep sleep at all. Today he’s feeling all mushy headed and I attribute that to no deep sleep.

Sleep is important.

          “Peg, didn’t you take any pictures on your trip to Dickson City?” you query.

          Aye-yi-yi! I did! I just forgot to put them in my story!

          The day we went wasn’t a very nice day for traveling or for picture making. It wasn’t bad when we left.

          I saw a big bird sitting on top of a dead tree. I thought, with the size and coloring, that it might be an immature eagle. It’s not. It’s likely a raven.

          I have a thing for birds, in case you haven’t noticed.

          The rain started as we got closer to Dickson City.

          There was some ice and icy slush on the roads. Traffic was light, my handsome mountain man is a good driver, and we didn’t have any trouble.

          Our first stop in Dickson City was to the Sleep Number Store. They were supposed to be open but they weren’t. They were closed. Mike pulled out his phone and called the number posted on the door.

          “We drove down from Wyalusing to go to your store and it’s closed. Now what do I do?” He ended the message with his name and number.

          “Let’s get lunch,” Mike suggested. “I’ve got a hankerin’ for Mexican.”

          There’s a Mexican restaurant just at the edge of the Viewmont Mall. There weren’t a lot of people there yet. Was the weather keeping them away? Was it the hour? It had only been open for about twenty minutes. Or does it bespeak to the quality of food?

          We were seated and given menus. I wanted fajitas and almost changed my mind when I saw the price.

          “Twenty-two dollars!”

          “Just get what you want, Peg,” Mike said.

          It comes with beans or rice. Beans OR rice. I had to choose? It doesn’t come with sour cream or guacamole either. All the things that used to be included when you get fajitas are now extras.

          Mike got a sampler platter. It came with two items, but for an extra charge, you could add as many items as you wanted.

          By the time we left, we’d racked up a fifty-three-dollar bill.

          Our waitress was super sweet. She called me love. Not once or twice, but several times. “Do you want a salad, love?” she asked when she delivered our food.

          I had my food already. Why would I want a salad? “No, thank you.”

          A few minutes later, just as I was getting my fajita put together, she brought me a plate with lettuce, a tomato slice, and sour cream. “I bring for you anyway, love,” she said.

          “Thank you!” I said to her. She walked away and I turned to Mike. “Is that what she was calling a salad?”

          “I don’t know,” Mike said, intent on satisfying his yen for Mexican food.

          I didn’t care about the lettuce but I enjoyed the tomato and sour cream.

          Our waitress did her job and I tipped her accordingly. It’s not her fault food prices are so high.

          We were leaving the Mexican Restaurant when Mike got a call from the Sleep Number Store. They delayed opening for an hour because of the weather. We went back and Mike ordered his mattress.

          Guess what‽

          They don’t carry any stock! You can’t take it home with you. Instead, you have to pay an additional one hundred fifty-dollar delivery charge. That’s disappointing.

          Heading back across the Susquehanna, on the way home, I’m looking from the other side of the bridge and see a tree fell onto the ice and smashed to smithereens.

          “Must be some hard ice.”

          Speaking of food...

          A recipe came across my Facebook page. It was for a quick and easy peanut butter fudge. It used only peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk.

          “Add a handful of chocolate chips to the top while it’s still hot, and spread them out once they’re melted,” was the tip if you wanted something like a peanut butter cup.

          Peanut butter is in the top two of my favorite flavors, so I gave it a try.

          I am not impressed.

          I shared it with the Kipps. Miss Rosie was not a fan, but Lamar thought they were fine.

          “I had it with my lunch a couple of days in a row,” he told me. He didn’t mind at all that Rosie didn’t like it.

          And for the final reason I thought about skipping...

          I spent a couple of hours this week visiting with this beautiful lady. Linda is one of my church peeps and has been reading my letter blogs since May, I think. On Sundays, when she comes into the church, I hand her the last week’s letter. You should see her face light up! She absolutely loves them and always thanks me. Sometimes we talk about something in them and she always tells me when something tickles her.

          I wrote a short story about handsome Dakota and his sidekick, Nick, a few weeks ago.

          I should write about Linda, came unbidden into my head. Us old people have a lifetime or two full of stories. Maybe Linda would like to tell us some of hers.

          “I’d like to write a story about you,” I told Linda one Sunday morning. “Would you want to do an interview with me?”

          She thought about it. “I guess that would be alright.”

          The following week I printed a page of potential things we could talk about and gave it to her. “If you’re anything like me, you’ll think of a story after I leave that you wish you’d’ve told me. But, Linda, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I just thought you might have some stories to share before you die.” I guess I could’ve been a little more tactful when I said that. She knows she’s going to die — not anytime soon, I sincerely hope. And I know you’re going to die. And I know I’m going to die. It’s gonna happen to all of us unless Jesus comes and raptures His people before we die. But that’s a whole other story.

          “Are you a reporter?” Linda asked.

          I never thought of myself specifically as a reporter, but I guess I am! A writer is a reporter and a reporter is a writer!

          At first, when I started writing, I thought I might intertwine Linda’s story with my weekly jibber-jabber. But now I’m thinking it’ll be a separate story. I don’t want to just squish it in, I want to do it justice.

          During my visit, Linda asked. “Do you want to hear a crazy story?”

“Absolutely!” Who wouldn’t?

“Okay, but you can’t tell it," she said.

She told me the story and I laughed!

“You won’t let me tell that story?” I asked. “It’s funny!”

“No!” she said. Then she thought about it for a minute. “Whatever you want to do. I trust you.”

She trusts me. I feel honored to be trusted with her memories.

“Are you going to tell it?” you wanna know.

Honestly? I don’t know. You — and I — will just have to wait to find out!

         

          Oh, what a difference a day makes!

          All day Saturday, Mike got sicker and sicker.

          All day Saturday, the weather forecast was for a storm coming. Starting late Saturday afternoon and into Sunday morning. With the weather being bad and a sick husband, the decision was made to not go to church. We’d stay home and keep our germs to ourselves. I didn’t have to cook and I could spend my time visiting with you.

          Hmm. Not true. I did cook. I made a pot of chicken soup. It’s supposed to be good for you. Chicken contains an amino acid called cysteine, which can help thin mucus and reduce inflammation in the respiratory tract. It’s also easy to digest.  And the warmth of the soup can soothe a sore throat and just make you feel better.

          Mike had a bowl.

          “How is it?” I asked.

          “Didn’t you taste it?” he asks.

          “Yeah, but I burnt my tongue and now I can’t taste anything.”

          “It’s good but why’s the chicken tough?”

          “Because I boiled it.” I can hear Momma in my head. Boiling it longer won’t make it more tender, she told me. I Googled it. It said if you cook it too long, it will be tough. See! Momma was right! What I didn’t know was if you cook it at a high heat, it will make it tough, too.

          Live and learn. I’ll make the pieces of chicken smaller, so it won’t be so noticeable.

          It was getting on to time to trim Raini’s toenails again, a chore I don’t look forward to. I love the dog grooming hammock we got for her. As long as she can’t get her paws against something, all she can do is wiggle.

          “Settle down,” I tell her and wait until she settles.

          It took both of us to hang her on the weight machine. I wasn’t happy about that. Mike would have to hold a flashlight for me to see to do her nails because the light wasn’t the best in that corner of the living room. I wasn’t happy about that, either.

          When we first got the hammock, I wanted to hang it between the kitchen and pantry —

          Oh gosh! Every time I write the word pantry, I worry about losing the r. I’ve done it, and luckily caught it, but what if I don’t? That changes the whole meaning of the word!

          Anyway, Mike couldn’t figure out a way to hang it where I wanted it and thought it was just easier to hang her on the weight machine. Trust me. It wasn’t. She’s heavy and lifting thirty-five pounds over my head is a challenge for this old woman.

          Then inspiration hit.

          “What happens when you’re gone?” I asked Mike. “I won’t be able to lift her by myself. I’ll have to call Lamar or Jon Robinson to come and help me. Can’t we use a pulley or something and put it where the light’s better?”

          Mike, bless his heart, thought about it. Next thing I know, this shows up at my door.

          “What is that!?”

          “It’s a block and tackle,” Mike said. “You can lift forty-four hundred pounds by yourself.”

          I doubt Raini will ever weigh that much but there’s one thing you should know about Mike. If one is good, two is better. Do you know what I mean? He always goes the extra.

          We discussed several locations. Mike’s only concern was making sure it was anchored properly so it wouldn’t rip out. Ultimately, I didn’t want a block and tackle hanging from the doorway into the bedroom or the ceiling in the living room. We settled on the doorway between the kitchen and the pantry.

          Mike installed a carriage bolt and put the block and tackle up.

          “Let’s see if you can do it by yourself,” Mike challenged.

          Raini freaked out a little when she started going up in the air — will we freak out when we start rising in the air when Jesus comes? Will the unsaved think it's aliens beaming us up to the mothership?

I digress, again, but the thought crossed my mind as I was writing it. If I think it, you get to hear about it.

I was able to hoist Raini up, grind her nails, and set her down all by myself! I don’t mind that the block and tackle hangs there, it’s the pantry, and the light is tons better!

I have such an awesome husband!

          I guess the only other thing to talk about this week is my art. Watercolors. I wanted to paint something, and I wanted it to be good. Too much pressure on myself? I looked through my photos and looked and looked.

A portrait? I picked out one to try and printed it.

I don’t know if I can paint that, I thought as I looked at it.

A dog? I picked out one of those, printed it, and sat staring at it.

I don’t know if I can paint that, either.

“Peg! You’ve painted four dogs!” you say.

I know, but what if it was a fluke?

Maybe a landscape would be easier.

          I went back to my file and looked at landscapes. Did you know that a lot of landscapes have trees in them? Did you know I’m terrible at trees? Unfortunately, my stinkin’-thinkin’ got in the way. I didn’t even print the photo.

          Maybe I should practice trees in my sketchbook, I thought, so, that’s what I did. I got on YouTube and watched how to paint trees in watercolor. After painting eleven trees in eleven different styles, I got bored.

         Although, I have to admit that this one technique was interesting. Blobs on the top, blobs on the bottom, connect the two while it's wet and let the watercolors do the work. I added the splatters for fun.

          After getting bored with trees, I went back to my file of photos and painted this.

          Do you recognize it?

          Let’s call this one done!

          Done!