A NEW PROFILE PICTURE

Thanks to Joe, our Ranger guide in Chaco Canyon, I have a new profile picture. He suggested that I might need a picture that was a bit more casual, so he took this one of me on a windswept knoll out in the middle of nowhere. Another friend said it looked like "gone with the wind." I was glad that I had not started out the day with a specific hairdo because the wind out there was really wonderful! It reminded me of my growing-up days in the Texas Panhandle where the wind rarely stops blowing. I LOVED it!

I also think my picture was taken without any makeup. That morning we had climbed up a 300 foot cliff and I had "sweated off" all of the makeup I started the morning with.

When we reached the top of the cliff, the view was glorious! Thank you, Joe!!

Visiting the Grandchildren

Last week we went to visit Son #2 and his family. What fun we had! We played with the grandchildren, drove to the Panhandle town where I was born, celebrated Em's 9th birthday (a bit early), did some art projects, went for a lovely hike on the ranch next to their house, took some pictures around their house that I would like to paint, and had a grand visit. I was sad to come home. Here are a few pictures from the visit (aren't digital cameras wonderful??).

Em is taking fencing lessons and was practicing with a hay bale.

Little One is growing up way too fast, is talking a blue streak, and is cute as a button

We took the kids to school Friday morning so we could hear Em and her class sing a Fun Friday song. Em, Soph, and Little One wait with Kara.

I loved roaming around taking pictures. This one behind their house makes me want to whip out my paints and get started. The only things missing are the cows and bull that occasionally wander by.

We celebrated Em's birthday with cake and candles (the reigniting kind) and Son #2 was teasing that he might need to use the fire extinguisher to put out the candles. We had a nice celebration with Em. Happy Birthday this week, Em!!

LEAVING NEW MEXICO

Tomorrow I will leave New Mexico and return home. I will be sad to leave the mountains and the view of the sky all around. I have taken a large number of pictures with my camera, but none of them accurately capture the vastness of this land.

Today I climbed a large hill near my brother's house and stood there looking out over the valley for as far as my eyes could see. Then I turned around and looked up at the mountain looming large behind me. Today I did not take pictures because I realize that I cannot capture the beauty of these wide open spaces except in my heart.

As I climbed down the hill I found a large river rock shaped like a heart and carried it back with me. I will take that heart-shaped rock home and put it by the pond in my backyard. It will be a reminder of this vast mountain place that is so beautiful, even on a winter afternoon.

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES

I am a bit lacking in technological skills and it takes me a long time to figure things out by myself. Yesterday I talked about pictures I wanted to consider painting when I return home from New Mexico but could not put the pictures on my blog once I had downloaded them to my picture file on this laptop I am using. I fiddled and fiddled with it last night and finally fell asleep in frustration. Today I decided to try a different procedure and, as you can see, it worked! It may be unconventional and my techie son may groan when I explain what I did, but the bottom line is that IT WORKED!!

The first picture is the view from my bedroom window yesterday at midday. The second is a sunset picture the first day I was here and the third is a sunrise picture the next morning.

The fourth picture is of an arrangement in the kitchen that made me think of painting a still life. The shapes and colors intrigued me.

THANKFUL THURSDAY

Today I am thankful that I started oil painting lessons last January. I have completed several pictures and have had a great time learning new techniques. I strain; I work hard; I get paint all over my hands and sometimes my clothes; I load up everything every week and go to class where I have made some great new friends; and I am having fun doing this. Now for the "show and tell" part.


The first painting I did is on the left--I had it framed and it is hanging in my den and I LOVE it! It makes me yearn for another trip to the beach when I look at it.


The picture on the right was a photo from New Mexico that I liked. I have it hanging in my hallway and look at it every time I leave my bedroom.


This next picture on the left is one that I did on my own at home. I found the picture at church and was fascinated by the hands. I wanted to see if I could get the skin right. I was also fiddling with the concept of the painted "frame" around the edge of the picture. It turned out okay, but I am still hesitant about beginning a portrait, although I have one ready to draw on a canvas. Anyway, I am not sure what I will do with this picture of the hands.


After bluebonnet season came and went, I had some lovely photos of bluebonnets and decided to paint a single bluebonnet. It was an interesting project. At first I made the background very dark, but later went back and made the background a little more misty. I liked the picture when it was finished and planned to paint a companion picture to hang over the bed in our blue bedroom, but gave the picture away instead.






I fell in love with a photo from a Santa Fe plant magazine and decided to paint this picture on the right. I loved working with the weathered old wooden door, the brick step, cobblestone walk and the stucco wall. The pot of flowers was tedious and time consuming to paint. Those grasses above the pot really were a challenge to get curved just right and keep them even. However, the art instructor taught me to use a specific brush that made the task much easier. I learned a lot with this picture.


A neighbor asked me to paint a picture of a sunset that we took in Hawaii a couple of summers ago when she invited me to go with her at the last minute. Our painting classes had been postponed for the month of July so I thought I would just whip the sunset picture out while the teacher was on vacation. Wrong! I struggled the whole month with that picture and finally gave up. I just could not get the sky colors right, so I put the canvas up and bought a new one for our first class in August. First of all, the teacher told me to use a limited palette of colors--a new experience for me. I was to use just 4 or 5 colors, plus white, to create the picture. She also said that I was being too tentative with my colors--just splash them on and make them vivid! Whew! That was hard for me. But the picture turned out okay and my neighbor LOVES it. I kept the other one which is softer and I like it also. She has put hers in a big gold frame and put it in a favorite place over her TV. Mine is still unframed but sits on my mantle.

The last picture is one my husband took of two pictures I was working on. I am still working on the poppy on the left and all but given up on it. I gave the bluebonnet picture to my sister for her birthday in August.

Passing It On

I borrowed the title of this post from Larry Lehmer who has a blog called Passing It On. Lately I have been thinking about the many things I want to pass on to my children and grandchildren. There are many family keepsakes that I have identified, written their history, and want to pass on to my children and grandchildren. I also try to tell the grandchildren stories about what it was like when I was a little girl. I pass recipes on to my daughters-in-law, and I have begun writing the stories of our family history. One of the things that I had not considered was passing on family resemblance. However, a couple of summers ago I took a picture of my mother standing next to my brother's son. I did a double take when I saw that picture because my brother's son looked so much like my dad standing next to my mother.

Recently someone said that our granddaughter, Em, looks a lot like me. That surprised me because, of course, I cannot see the resemblance, but I had taken a picture of Em when she made her First Communion in April. Today I was going through some pictures my mother had of us as children. I found the picture on the right. Mother had written "Taken on Pat's First Communion Day" on the back of the picture. I was amazed at the resemblance to the picture taken of Em. We both seemed very serious on our First Communion Day. These pictures convinced me that we are also passing on a family resemblance.

OUR FIRST YEAR TOGETHER

Today I was going through a box of things I had stored in our barn and found an album that I had made for my husband as an anniversary present after our first year of marriage. I thought our boys might enjoy looking at pictures of their parents that first year. How young we looked then!

On our July Honeymoon we traveled across from Texas, where we were married, to California where my husband had a fellowship to attend a leadership training program at San Fernando Valley State College beginning the next January. We planned to find a place to live and enjoy the sights as we drove to the Los Angeles area. I think we visited every Indian ruin between Texas and California, but we had fun along the way. First we stopped in Albuquerque and visited hubby's aunt for a couple of days.

After we left Albuquerque, we headed west, stopping at interesting places until we reached California. In Northridge, we stayed with friends who were in the program that hubby would being the next January. We found an apartment and made arrangements to rent it when we arrived in January. We returned to Texas and began our last semester of teaching before pulling up stakes and moving to California. Here is a picture of the first house we rented--fully furnished.

We spent the first Christmas that we were married with my parents and brother and sister, and Fancy, the dog that my parents inherited when we all left home.

After Christmas, we packed up all our belongings in a U-Haul trailer, hooked it up to our Chevrolet Malibu and headed for our great adventure in California. For me, it was a bit like a big vacation because I did not plan to work. I had a wonderful time exploring all the new shopping places, discovering a world of new fruits and vegetables in the ABC Grocery Store where we shopped and exploring the wonders of Topanga Plaza--a wonderful shopping mall (before shopping malls were popular in Texas). I did end up doing some part-time work for the college and typed papers for hubby and some of the other students for spending money.

While we were in California, we did a fair amount of sightseeing, saw some snow, the Redwood Forest and local attractions, including Universal City and Busch Gardens. I also went with friends to Disneyland, but hubby missed that trip.

My sister came to visit and we had a wonderful time showing her around. We even picked a few oranges from the orange trees on the campus.

Graduation time finally arrived and we began to pack for our next adventure. It was hard to say goodbye to so many friends that we had made while in the San Fernando Valley but we still stay in touch with some of them even though it has been more than 40 years since we spent that time together in California. From California we moved to Chicago because hubby landed a job there and that was a whole new adventure for us.

Lots of memories were packed into that first year of our marriage--fun memories, interesting experiences and wonderful new friends!

Thankful Thursday

I am very thankful for my blog. It has been so much fun learning how to create my blog and watch the format that has emerged. I was not sure that I would be able to master the technology required to do this "blog thing" that everyone was talking about--mostly the younger set, and I certainly am not very technologically savvy. However, I wended my way through all the setup process, learned to insert pictures, and have gotten over the nervousness of having my writing "out there" in cyberspace.

I have enjoyed sharing pictures with my family and reconnecting with cousins whom I have not seen in years and years. That probably has been my number one delight along with comments from family members! Next I have enjoyed putting some of my family history stories together with old photographs and posting them for our family to read. I even have one "hometown" reader who seems to enjoy my stories of her town long before she lived there--or was even born, for that matter. And the blog is a nice way to keep family members informed about what is happening in our spread-out family!

Yes, I am truly grateful for my blog and the opportunities that it has provided for me and for my family.