I haven't posted on this blog since February of last year.  Such a long time while life still went on behind the scenes.  I lost my beloved Tinker in December and told myself that I would never get another dog.  The loss was too painful and the crying never seemed to stop.

My grandson and his fiancee live in Corpus Christi and they were working in their yard when a dog came up and started to play with their dog Charlie.  She had no inclination to leave and so stayed the night.  In the meantime a very persuasive Zach was on the phone to me telling me that a stray dog had come into their home and they would love for me to have her.  I knew I didn't want to take on another animal at that time so I said no way can I take her.

As things turned out, I now have another pet in my house by the name of Isabelle.  She's a lab or lab mix, is about 2-1/2 years old, has had at least one litter of puppies and is very, very affectionate.  She has become my dog in a very short time and follows me everywhere.
She answers to Isabelle, Isabella, Izzy, Bella and as Jill Symons had coined her name, "Isabella Mozzarella". 

Meet Isabelle......

Snow Week

Although we don't usually get a lot of snow here in Texas, this week we did, in small doses.  First it was the ice coming in on Tuesday and it finally snowed so that we could see it on Thursday night.  Schools were closed all over Texas for the whole week!  Too bad the weather was not predictable far in advance because this week is Super Bowl Week and both Fort Worth and Dallas had prepared a lot of big shindigs to welcome people from all over the country.

I love this picture of the snowflakes falling in my back yard at 2:30 am in the morning.  Steam is floating over the outside light as each flake vaporizes when it hits the warmth of the light.

The metal bug on my deck is the

true measure of the depth of snow that fell last night.  All told the accumulation was about 2 inches. 

February is usually the worst month for ice and snow here and it's only the beginning of the month so I guess we'd better prepare for more.  It's a nice time to take a vacation to Hawaii!                                 

Almost

Let's talk about those New Year's resolutions.  I did START to clean out the bead room/office and I gathered three large boxes of clothes to take to the Women's Shelter.  I threw some papers away that were four years old and I figured if I didn't need them in four years I wasn't going to need them at all.  Same for some magazines that I couldn't resist keeping.  Oh and I went through the computer manuals for how-to about Windows 98, Adobe Photoshop Version 6, Learn how to fix your own computer and Learning HTML the easy way.  I am taking them all to the second hand book store, I know I won't be using Windows 98 ever again and I won't be fixing my own computer either.

I didn't start exercising and I didn't lose any pounds except maybe for two seconds just before lunch.  I haven't made any jewelry and I haven't even unpacked the kiln, the glass cutters or any of that wonderful dichroic glass.

I haven't gone outside to take a walk except to the mailbox and I haven't lost any pounds.

My excuse?  It's been too cold outside and I'm just getting over my after holiday blues.  Next month I'll try again to finish at least one of those things I started.

Resolutions

Once again it's time to share my New Years resolutions.  It took a few days to decide what was in the realm of possibility since last year I did absolutely nothing.

1.  Get exercise and lose some pounds.
2.  Start making jewelry again.
3.  Start fusing glass again.
4.  Start using my new Kindle instead of buying books and stacking them up just to smell the paper.
5.  Get exercise and lose some pounds.
6.  Stop spending money on unnecessary things.
7.  Clean out all unnecessary things, put them in boxes and give to a shelter for women.
6.  Take more photographs and organize the photos I've already taken.
7.  Get exercise and lose some pounds.
8.  Write more than twice a year on this blog.
9.  Get out of the house more often even if I have to give up some reading time.
10.Get exercise and lose some pounds.

This list is not necessarily in order as I'll probably start using the Kindle first thing and continue reading.  I've already read one book on it and today is only the 4th of January.  The treadmill is waiting and I can read while I walk (just as soon as I clean off the boxes that are being stored on it).

Book Reviews

Although I have never reviewed a book on this blog I find that I'm compelled to tell you about two books I read this week.  Each one is entirely different from the other but both fascinated me in an all consuming way.

The first book that I started at the beginning of the week, Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne is the historically accurate account, data the author has taken from many books, personal diaries and articles, is the story of the Plains Indians, the nomadic warriors of which there were several bands after their migration from the Northern Plains to the buffalo hunting grounds in the Southwest.  After a raid which killed many people at Parker Fort, Cynthia Ann Parker was taken as a nine year old.  Little is known of her life until twenty five years later when she is recaptured by the whites and taken back to live with her family, the Parkers of Parker County, Texas.  She grieved for the rest of her life for her two sons who disappeared in a raid by the Texas Rangers on one of their encampments in the Panhandle of Texas.  Her daughter, Prairie Flower died while she was with her family in Texas.  Cynthia Ann, who saw her husband Peta Nocona killed at the hands of the white man eventually starves herself in her grief for her Indian family.  During the many battles between the Texas Rangers and the various Indian tribes who eventually band together and ride against the encroaching whites, the Civil War begins and ends.  Quanah Parker the eldest son of Cynthia Ann and Peta Nocona becomes the most powerful Indian chief at the time they all surrender to live on a reservation which is now Oklahoma.  We learn  cruelty from both sides, atrocities commited by both the Indians and the whites.  Author S. C. Gwynne gives a most thorough review of those years and of the different Texas Rangers who became excellent Indian fighters.  Living in Texas I can associate the places where battles were fought, possibly very near where I live.  One of the last pictures of Cynthia Ann (and pictured in the book) was taken in Fort Worth, Texas.

The second book, A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron, is an extraordinary story of one dog who is reincarnated four times, each time taking along things he has learned about himself and the humans he encounters and loves until he fulfills the true meaning of his life.  Told from the viewpoint of the dog, the story is funny and also heartbreaking, much as life is.  Any dog lover will love this book.  I read it in one day because I just couldn't put it down.  It is not a history like Empire of the Summer Moon but I was equally entranced and totally moved by it.  Can you tell I am a dog lover?

Ho Hum!

Ho Hum, I am so sleepy.  Tinker just cracks me up!  I was watching TV the other night and I looked over at Tinker and she looked like she was watching TV also, getting bored and about to doze off. 

Looking Through a Lens

I finally did it. I bought a new camera body that will fit the lenses I have for my other camera. The Nikon D90 will suit me just fine, it has some new gadgets that the D80 doesn't have and I think I absolutely need - like a larger LCD viewing screen. I recently bought a Nikkor f/3.5 - 6.3, 18 - 200mm for a walkabout lens and I want an f/2.8- 300mm lens to take to Africa with me. The 300mm lens weighs 6.4 lbs. and I imagine I'm not going to like carrying that around, it's not a zoom lens but to take pictures of wildlife, it's essential.

TCU has adult education classes and I signed up today for their photography class that starts in May so that I can truly learn all the secrets that the D90 holds. Wish me luck.

Hope that soon I'll have fantastic photos to post.

Af- ri- ca

A three syllable word that means thrills, excitement, awesome sights, lifelong dream...

I'm mentioning casually that I won a trip to Africa....have to be casual or I'll be jumping up and down for months! It all started with Marie asking me if I wanted to go to the Mardi Gras party that "Meals on Wheels" was putting on to raise money. I said I would go, although I wasn't too enthusiastic about it.


I got there and believe me, I had a wonderful time. I met a lot of new people and bid on some silent auctions, had dinner, a few drinks and I thought I was all through.


Ha! Then came the Live Auctions. They had a few local trips and even a chihuahua puppy that I wasn't interested in and I thought I was safe. Then....along came an all expense paid trip to Namibia for two for a photo safari. Well I've always wanted to go to Africa so I bid on it. And then bid again, and again and again and then once more - and I won!

The safari people are coming to my house on Friday to tell me all about it, I guess to tell me I'll be living in a tent surrounded by leopards, snakes and scorpions with only a camera for defense.

Springtime in Africa is in September, about a month before summer officially starts and the temperature starts to rise higher than 115 degrees. The safari company has a website, if you are interested in looking at all the wonderful things they do. http://www.sumsare.net/ . Take a peek, maybe you will want to plan a real safari - with guns!

In the meantime, I'm going to all the airline sites to find flights that aren't too expensive. I think the flight will be in two legs, one from here to Frankfurt, Germany and another from Frankfurt to Windhoek, Namibia.

Already I am picturing myself packing a suitcase. OOOOhhhh that's the worse part of the whole trip. How many 'things' can I live without for a week?

Vet Blues

Tinker went to the vet today and got a total of seven shots, including her rabies shot. She also had her teeth cleaned and she is feeling depressed and sore all over. She's mad at me too, doesn't even want to look at me. If I walk up to her she turns her head away.

Dogs are funny that way when they feel they have been betrayed. I guess people are too but since dogs have those long tongues and can't form words, their actions have to speak louder.

Christmas 2009

Our family Christmas celebration was held on the 20th this year so that the clan could be together.

Andrew was pleased with the Wii he got. Elena loved the Wii game that she got to play on the Wii she got a few years ago.

After we ate a huge meal consisting of all kinds of hor d'oevres, including roasted shrimp, tenderloin slices, baked jalapenos that were stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon (from Tommy's kitchen), hummus, green salad and so many other things, we all sat down to open gifts.

The kids had waited patiently for hours and anticipation was high when we finally got the signal that gifts were about to come out of hiding. Jeff and Margaret are waiting just as patiently.

My favorite picture is one of Jeff and Margaret's son and my great grandson Dakota very carefully opening a package.









On Christmas Eve it snowed all day here in
Texas and my front courtyard had started to fill up with snow. In my blog post last spring I posted a picture of the courtyard without snow and ready for the summer months.

Face Games

Facebook has become an enormously favored social networking website. Oh yes, of course I have a Facebook page and I've been sucked into playing the games. Farmtown first and then I joined Farmville, then Lil Farm. Yoville became a big interest when I found out I could decorate an apartment with coins I earned visiting friends and baking cakes!

The only useful game I've joined is African Safari where some of the advertising dollars and cash used to buy the monetary 'shells' is going to help buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa.

After playing these games for awhile, one morning I woke up and couldn't bend my right arm! I don't know if I have tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome which has effected my elbow or it's just plain arthritis. The outside bone in my elbow is larger and I have trouble picking things up, even a coffee cup.

So this is the computer revolution! I've heard that AT & T is going to stop printing phone books and some newspapers now can only be read online.

My arm had better get better fast, I can't wait weeks to read the news or contribute dollars for mosquito nets, I need to get going now!

Healthcare

I couldn't let President Obama's speech go uncontested. He said many positive things, one being that illegal aliens would not get health insurance and would be exempt from any free healthcare. What he didn't talk about is the Amnesty Project, which will in effect give citizenship to all these illegal aliens and therefore, they will be getting health insurance. If they can't afford it, it will be free. Is that a dichotomy or what?

Can anyone give me a good reason why legalized Americans will be paying for everything and why these illegals will be getting free healthcare still?

And another thing I read in the paper today that Canada is very unhappy with their government run healthcare system and want to change it to be more like the United States. Why are we trying to be more like Canada when we know it hasn't worked for them?

May?

It can't be May already. I thought I'd updated this blog a few weeks ago but it was March! Not that I like to talk about time passing me by, but it is. After a certain age, time whizzes by so fast you think "I just took the trash out yesterday" and here it is Thursday again and time to take out the trash.

Saturday nights are just the same as week nights. Used to be Saturday nights were date nights or eat out nights or movie nights. Now I just say to myself on Friday night, "Oh tomorrow is Saturday, I can sleep late".

So May is on it's way to becoming June. I hope I remember to look at the calendar in time so I know June is here.

OMG, this blog update is pathetic!

Earth Hour

I hope you will join and help the world support EARTH HOUR.




http://www.earthhouramericas.org/official_ads/English/Digital/300x250.swf

Houses

Houses fascinate me. I like nothing better on a pleasant Sunday afternoon than to ride around in different neighborhoods looking at houses. If there is an "open house", all the better.

It's amazing how many different styles there are from Italian, French and English knockoffs to original architecture by degreed architects and by owners out of necessity.

The house above was built in 1774 in a small town in Connecticut and looked quite different than it does in this picture. It did not have the sun room but had an open porch when it was originally built.

The latest picture was taken in 2007 and shows that the side porch was converted into a sunroom and many other changes were made.

Another house in the same area was originally built in 1791 by the son of the family who built the first house. On the property the owner had a tinware shop where he and his father made pots and pans.

The house as it is today with a sunroom added. Both houses have been continually occupied since they were built.

My house was built in 2001, actually started in 1999 and finished at the end of 2001.

These three pictures are shots of my house. The first is a shot of the house from across the street. The second is a picture of the back of the house taken from the side lower yard and the third was taken from my library looking out the window, across the courtyard and into the dining room. It was designed by the architect, Norman Ward and is a very modern style with Japanese aspects to the landscaping. Of course I live in the South where the weather never gets too cold for too long and we are outdoors a lot of the time.

If the weather is nice this coming weekend, I think I'll take Tinker and we will drive around the area looking at houses and the spring flowers in the yards and on the trees.

Yard Art?

Another favorite piece of art is a sculpture by artist Otto Rigan. It is made from green granite and glass. The cut-outs from the original large granite piece contain thick slabs of glass stacked together and look like windows.

The edges of the glass mirror the color of the granite. As the sun sets, the left side facing West glows brightly against the darker sides backed by the granite.

As you look at the back you can see the front window in my house and notice that this sculpture, quite by accident, resembles the angles and mullions of the window.

What I love most about this second image is the figure in the background looking out of the window!

Black

This piece in my collection is by artist Joe Guy. It is cleverly constructed of wood and rice paper (think shoji screen). Hanging separately from the large piece is a mirror that has been blackened out. After the piece was constructed the artist covered all of it with graphite powder and then slowly and thoroughly burnished it with a river rock. You cannot see the sheen from this picture the piece glows as if from within.

Joe Guy's inspiration was the controversial artist Balthus (b. 1908) and his Japonaise au miroir noir or "Japanese girl with black mirror". As a matter of interest Balthus was married to a Japanese woman and she posed for many of his paintings. Balthus was greatly admired in his day by the Surrealists for his fascinating images of young girls. He was reclusive and as a result his life has been the subject of much intrigue and conjecture.

In this photo you might be able to see a slight sheen to the burnished graphite. The mirror that hangs above the main piece is actually a mirror under the graphite.

Joe Guy is a contemporary Texas artist. He is represented by William Campbell Contemporary Art in Fort Worth. If you would like to read about this artist look for "Balthus" by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, his son. Unfortunately there is no website for Joe Guy. I hope he gets one soon so we can see more of his work.

Getting to Know You

At the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 I decided to get my art works appraised. Taking pictures and really looking at things sparked my interest in them again. Tracy Hicks is the artist who devised this installation of specimen jars with frog molds in them. These jars fascinated me when I first saw them at an art gallery and knew that I needed to have it in one window in my house which faces East and gets the morning sun. As the sun rises the glow from the colors in the jars fill the wall with rainbows.

The larger jars are laboratory specimen jars and some are filled with oil, some are filled with colored resin and some have both along with whatever Tracy put in the jars. A few have pieces of glass, colored resin and oil.
Some have spiders and dragonflies, molds of extinct frogs, jars and other found things. The small jars inside the large jars are from the Smithsonian Institute and originally had other specimens in them years ago. The jars were given to Tracy and he envisioned them in this way.


I had a ceramic ewer made by artist Peter Beasecker that had gotten broken when a picture fell on it. Tracy wanted a few shards and we managed to get the top in one piece. He made a jar with the top of the ewer in it for me in exchange for the shards which he then put into other jars I imagine. Peter is a friend of Tracy's and he wanted a momento.
This window has been brought to life with all the colors of the rainbow reflecting on the wall and as the sun moves around the colors intensify. This is one of my favorite pieces in my collection.

Generations

My grandson Matthew got engaged New Year's Eve! We are all so thrilled that he is going to marry Ashley, a truly wonderful girl and a perfect match for Matt.

We went to the house they moved into on New Year's Day to celebrate and met Ashley's Mom and Dad and her sister Noel.
Here's Matt, Ashley, Mary Ann and Paul with Ashley and Matt's little dog Roxie.

Blink

In the blink of an eye the weather changes in Texas. Two days ago I awoke to find the icy trees outside looking like diamonds in the light.

The evergreen shrubs in the backyard look so 'southern' somehow against the frozen branches of the trees. Compare these pictures to the sight of my orchids glowing with color, warm and cozy just on the other side of a clear pane of glass.