Hello from Mpls!

I'm very excited to be here at Fran's and watching her cranes! She is not basking in the beauty of Japanese folded origami cranes or even the whooping cranes, but she is admiring the humongous machines building a skyscraper right outside her window. It is really something that is not obvious even on a snapshot. They are HUGE and the technology required to keep them operating is very impressive.

Another plus to being here is that Fran has cable television and I can watch my obsession: tennis. The US Open is on. Wow. I am glad I don't have cable or I would soon get sick of watching, but for now, I am really wallowing in the opportunity.

The thing that is also taking up my time is our non-stop talking. When Fran lived in Evansville, we would be sitting after church having coffee and everyone else would be leaving but we would still be sitting talking. One lady asked us if we ever ran out of things to talk about and we had to admit that, no, we had never had that experience, yet.

Fran's daughters will show up here sometime soon and we will have to decide what marvelous things we will be doing. Stay tuned for the next installment of this fascinating tale!

What a day;!

George, Naomi and Bob are probably starting on their fishing oddysey. Fran and I are recovering from our big day yesterday. We had a blast at the gym, then at Karen's house, then having lunch at Old Broadway with their spectacular lemon pie. I can't eat more than a bite, but that bite is out of this world. And then last night we had our big "show" at the Coffeehouse Art Center. We had a great time. The people who showed up were fantastic people. You know how much I appreciated your presence! Thank you!

Today Fran and I are going to drive to Minneapolis. I am going to be driving around in that big city. May I please have all of your prayers for our safety! We did Map Quest and hope that their minute by minute instructions will help us. The instructions are so minute that they are confusing, but hopefully when we are actually at the place that corresponds to the instruction it will seem more sensible. It's the speed of reaction time which will be the problem. You cannot think about it, you have to MOVE. As I say... hope for the best. and PRAY.

We had a marvelous time last night at our "do." Made some new friends. Carol's daughter and family from India attended so we now have what I presume is the language from India (what is it? ) in our Guest Book. Let me know what the language is. I don't know what it is saying, of course, but I should at least know what language it is!!!

I will try to write in this blog when I am at Fran's but I am not sure I will figure out how to do it. I probably will. Take care and LEAVE A COMMENT, please. love, vicki

New and Improved

Well, how do you like the new additions? Naomi is here momentarily and she helped me get all snazzed up with the new pictures. Click on the top bar of the flickering pictures and you will have a wonderful slide show of a few of my paintings. Such fun. Let me know what you think of these improvements. I am pumped!

Cookies

I think "cookies"means something in computerize, but I just mean the old fashioned kind of cookies that people eat. My sister-in-law, Elaine, is the all time cookie baking champion. I imagine she is in semi-retirement from that job, now, but I can remember when she would bake 20 or more different types of cookies for Christmas. No matter when one would come to visit, she would sneak down to the basement freezer and come up with some variety of marvelous food. That is why I am a bit shame-faced about reporting my exploits at baking just two different kinds of cookies.

However, last night at about 10:30 I settled in to bake my oatmeal/raisin cookies. It went great. Then I started in on the double batch of chocolate chip. That went great. At about 1:30 am I finally finished the clean-up and headed for bed. All I can say is, "Hats Off" to Elaine! I had no trouble, but it is exhausting rather boring work. I managed to do a bit of reading as I waited for the timer to announce the removal and insertion times of trays into the oven.

Now the real job begins. Keeping the cookies out of the yawning maw of my husband is always a challenge. He's going on a trip tomorrow, so that will help. If he isn't home he won't be able to raid the cookie jar. I have tried hiding cookies in the freezer disguised as freezer-burned steak, but George has always managed to look behind the disguise to the delectable cookies. Frozen cookies are great dunked in milk!

I suppose I will send some with him as munchies on his trip. Can he take them on the plane? Perhaps they look too much like .... what? These carry-aboard rules are complicated and I don't want to get him in trouble.

Snoozin' Saturday

Wow. I snoozed through most of the Saturday afternoon golf tournament. I am rather disgusted because I had it in mind to bake some cookies. I guess I can still do that. I'll mix them up now at 5 pm and bake them after supper.

I was painting up a storm earlier today, and then I ran out of an essential ingredient for the effect I wanted: gesso. Now, if I were living where many people live - in the city - I could just grab the car keys and head for the store. Dick Blick or Wet Paint or even Ben Franklin in a larger city, probably. But I have no idea where the closest store that has that item is from here. I know I can find it in Fargo, St. Cloud or Mpls/Stp. I will just have to wait. They have GREAT gesso in the Cheap Joe catalog, but much good that does me TODAY.

It's fun to look out of the window and see George mowing the lawn. Because it has been so terribly dry, he has not mowed the lawn for a really long time. The downpours we have had in the last week have revived the grass enough that he feels comfortable mowing it. Most of it is green again and not that tortured brown color.

I am very excited to see my sister again tomorrow. We are going to spend the next week together. I will report on our perigrinations as possible during the week. We should have a blast. We will get to see many of her/our friends and hopefully get to visit the Southview ladies in their new environment. I will report.

George and our daughter Naomi are going on a fishing trip together with Bob. That will probably rate lots of reporting, too. Don't miss the thrilling tales to come.

Happy Friday

This Friday is special to me because it is the birthday of my grandaughter, Hannah. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HANNAH! How does it feel to be twelve?

I am going to be working down at the Coffeehouse Art Center today. I will let you know how that goes. I am also going to try to balance my checkbook. It has been giving me fits, and I will have some uninterrupted time while at work to puzzle over it.

We have had some truly horrific weather in Minnesota lately. Tons of tornadoes (at least three) touched down last night and I rethought my loving of storms. I guess the kind I like are the thunder and lightening kind that don't amount to too much. I wouldn't relish looking at a bunch of kindling and realizing that that was my house. Oofta.

I am having such fun planning the next week or so. George and Naomi are flying to the west coast to go fishing with Bob, Naomi's father-in-law. I am getting together with Fran for a non-stop gabfest. We should all be having a blast. Wahoo.

I am also looking forward to the evening art show: "Pastors' Wives and Painters, Too (or Three)" at the Coffeehouse Art Center on Tuesday Evening from 5 - 8:30. Carol, Nancy and I are going to be there and we would love to have you there, too! Yes, we would!

August 24!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO NAOMI and TONY! Five years ago today was the fateful day up at the Lake of the Isles Campground. The very spot that we were camping at just a few days ago! Our family favorite spot. Wahoo. How the time flies. I wish I could be with you today and make you some potato salad. Oh, well, soon! May God bless you and keep you. You will be making lots of new memories now in Tanzania! Wow.

We love you. mom

noisy night

I was up late last night revelling in a thunder and lightening display. Luckily, there was also quite a bit of rain.

I turned out the lights, turned off the television, opened the blinds, sat in my recliner, and enjoyed!

Naomi and I are strangely addicted to thunder and lightening. I remember the time we were trapped in the gazebo that Bud and Elaine had at the edge of Lake Waubesa. The winds were so wild that we didn't dare take the chance to walk back up to the house for fear of falling branches. Tornado warnings were out and the winds were so fierce that the rain actually flew through the screens parallel to the ground. We were planning to sleep out there, so we had a sleeping bag. We huddled in the sleeping bag with our faces wet, singing and telling stories and just enjoying the fact that we were alive. Every once in a while we would flash our flashlight back at the house so Bud and Elaine would know we were still ok. The power of unleashed nature is fantastic.

I realize that for some people being caught in the power of unleashed nature is far from fun. We could mention those who lived through Katrina, for one example. Because I have not been injured or made homeless by nature, I suppose my attitude is slightly unrealistic.

We have weathered fierce storms when we were camping in tents. We were herded into storm shelters at the campground, or once we got in the car and drove far enough away to be out of harm's way. Then, in the morning, we took all of our stuff in to the laundramat to be run through the drier!

Once we came back to find our tent twisted so that we had to replace the aluminum pipe superstructure to keep going on our trip. We dried out all of our stuff on the grass and George went and finally found a pipe fitter guy who would replace the supports. (dar un jeito, as they say in Brazil). Peter was 11 and John was four. They were very relieved to find that we could continue on our trip. Such fantastic memories. I LOVE CAMPING.

There are those who quiver in fear at the very sound of thunder in the distance. My friend Bev is an example. She was raised in Oklahoma where the tornadoes are fierce. She was terrified of any wind storm. But I am just energized by the sound.

When George was young, his friend had a black lab named Pokey. (short for Pochahontas) That dog was simply terrified by thunder. One day, after a warning rumble, she catapulted herself through the front screen door and made for under a bed. The screen door was closed at the time, but that was no impediment to her! I wonder what she would have done if the inside door was also closed?

Are you scared by storms or energized by them? I think my Viking blood is fired up by danger. The wildness of the weather is so beautiful.

odds and ends

I have lots of odds and ends of thoughts this morning. We just got back from church and have heard a great sermon. There was a Persian saying mentioned that I have to get so I can share it with you all. In due time. Marcia said Isaac called and said "hi" to me. Yippee. I have really missed his blogs and his comments. Glad you're ok, Izzy!

About my last blog... Maybe you could tell me what your three favorite things are in a comment. You don't have to say what they mean about you, but just mention what they are. That would be fun.

I have also been thinking about how much more there is to a life than those favorite things. All of the other things that fill up your life with vigor and fun. The favorite things illustrate the core, but there are all the other things that make the life sing.

The list could actually be endless. The idea of the favorite things should free me up to start weeding out some of the stuff that I don't give a hoot about anymore. At one time, I suppose the stuff seemed important, but now I have moved on and don't have interest in it anymore. The trouble is, it's lots of work to get rid of stuff. Lots of it is valuable and can't just be tossed in the rubbish bin. Where can I get rid of it in an appropriate way?

But it would be marvelously freeing. Stay tuned.

My Favorite Things

Well. Donna T. was at a dinner party where one of the guests asked them to think of what were three of their favorite things and what they thought that meant about them.

When I got home from this conversation with Donna, I thought, OK - what about me? What are my three favorite things. Right away I thought about the angel and the pig, and then - because of the toasting of the marshmallows, I suppose - I thought of the little fork. I put in the picture of the three forks to try to give some idea of the size of these artefacts. There is the serving fork, the dinner fork, and then, the pickle fork. The pickle fork is small and it is the favorite thing.

For many years I collected angels. Crystal angels, stained glass angels, each angel more magnificent than the last. Then my friend Kathy gave me this little clay angel. I call it my "essence of angel." She/he is holding a humble loaf of bread. Immediately I could stop collecting angels. This was the reason I wanted to collect angels. This angel said it all.

For many years I collected pigs. Pigs on plates, clothes hook pigs, pewter pigs, and then my sister Fran gave me this small clay pig. This is my "essence of pig." I could stop collecting pigs because this was it. This was what I liked about pigs. A pig is the humblest of animals.

And now, the fork. I love this small pickle fork. No frills. Good design. It does what it's supposed to do.

NOW I'm supposed to explain what these three things explain about me. Wow. I think it shows what I like about people and things. I don't like ostentation. I value the inside meaning of people and things. I hate it when people pretend to be richer than they are or smarter than they are or pretend to be "big shots." What we are is enough.

So these three humble objects represent that to me. The inner core of what it is to be an angel, a pig, and a pickle fork. The genuine insides showing forth into the world. May we each be able to show forth our inner beauty as we walk the earth. No more, no less, but only the grace that God has given us. Rock on.

spelling

Actually, the marshmallow was gorgeous, I suppose. If I was gorging on it, I suppose it could have been gorg=ious, but then I would be making up a word, which was not my intention.

I am trying to get a handle on the thousands of mystery books I have... well, at least hundreds. I am contributing many of them to the Coffeehouse Art Center to do some sort of book exchange. We haven't worked out the particulars yet, but Connie Eidem and I are going to do some thinking about it on Monday afternoon to see if we can figure it out.

In one of the books I found a list of words which I had discovered in the book. It is a mystery by T. J. MacGregor. I liked the books, as I remember, in part because of the outrageous vocabulary used. Here goes:

perdurable, splanchnic, recrudescence, crescive, puissant, nacreous, minatory, pelagic, concrescence, sapid, congeries, coruscated, immediacable, nimety, parlous, hypnagogic, ecurient, coriaceous, chatoyant, erubescent, afferent, caliginous, peregrine, inspissated, longiveous, corybantic, divagated, erumpent, imbicated, lacineated, inspissating, and tristful.

Karen and the rest of you: That should give you a bit of work with your dictionaries. I remember vaguely that I knew what some of the words must mean because of their context, but the author went overboard. And it is a mystery how he (or she) got the books published. They were a fun read, as I remember, and I am going to reread them now, just out of curiosity.

Adios, amigos.

Blackened and charred! Yum.

Here is the picture. Gorgious, right?

Now I am going to my studio to paint and putter around. I am not going to have to eat more marshmallows. After all, I went to the gym this morning and had a good talking session.

Marshmallows

I mentioned that we had s'mores while camping. I don't really like s'mores, but I love toasting marshmallows. When I was in high school I spent many a night alone as my folks both worked at night and would come home usually around 10. I got bored, so between studies, I would adjourn to the kitchen for a little fun.

One of the things I loved doing was to light a candle, take out a little fork, and toast marshmallows. Heaven knows how many I would do! I would slowly burn, blow out, burn, blow out, until the outside was thoroughly burnt. I would envelope the marshmallow in my mouth and slip off the outer layer. Then I would proceed to do the same to the remainder. Three sessions was about par for the course, but a brilliant session could result in four. Just imagine how much time I could "burn" with half a sack of marshmallows.

Well, last night I got out the candle, lit it, got a tiny pickle fork, and tried out my expertise. I had enough carbs left to do four without blowing my blood sugar too high. Talk about a walk down memory lane.

Amy is the best toaster I have ever witnessed. She can toast for a long time without burning and without losing the marshmallow into the fire. I have tried to include a picture with this blog, did not succeed, so I will try to do the marshmallow picture tomorrow.

Have a great day!

Okeedokee

Well - I cracked the code. I am so excited. Three pictures. Wahoo. First, Naomi wearing the cap that is a beautiful shade of blue and is embroidered with the words, "Scenic State Park."

Then our fire pit and grill. A chair with George's book hanging on the back.

Then our two tents and the van. It is difficult to see. I think I am done with this now. I actually made three postings today, so be sure you don't give up until you've seen them all. I have made up for all the time when I was gone. We made a joke about being an "under-blogger" if you don't post for a week or more, or an "over-blogger" if you do more than one each day. Today I am an over-blogger! Fer shurrrrr. So nice to be back, but it was lots of fun.

Pictures 2 or more

Here's George eating his breakfast and doing his crossword puzzle. The cook is taking the picture. It only worked to put in one picture. Now I am going to try another. Hope springs eternal.

Picture (s?)

These are the tents of the Brown family. They had a sleeping tent and two screen tents. One screen tent was for cooking and the other for reading and relaxation. They didn't want to be on the shore, but near the rest room. Go figure.

I am going to do another posting, now and try to do more than one picture at the same time to see what happens. Have patience. And realize that this is already the second posting for today.

I'm trying to outwit this machine. We'll see how I do. Stay with me, folks.

Peaceful Lake

Well, as you can see, this place is spectacular. This little lake was all our own for 10 days. It is part of Scenic State Park near Big Fork, Minnesota, about 40 miles north of Grand Rapids. It is a wonderful place to rest and restore equilibrium.

The first part of the stay we were joined by our friends, Wendell and Ruth Brown. Later, after they left, our daughter, two of her friends (Amy and Martin Saar) and their dog Szu Szu joined us. The dog is a Bernese Mountain Dog who is still a puppy and rambunctious. After she got over the joy of being outside the car, she settled right down and enjoyed her stay.

I just added another picture to this blog, but no dice. I wonder where all of those pictures are showing up? Probably on someone else's posting. Oh, well.

We set up a screen tent for the cooking and eating so we don't have to battle the flies. The mosquitoes can be pesty, but the flies are much worse. Then we set up another screen tent for my art supplies. We sleep in the van. Our tenting is right on the lake shore. Fabulous.

I managed to do some painting, and Naomi and Amy had fun trying their hands at it. They loved it and managed to produce some fun stuff. We had campfires. Even some s'mores. A wonderful time for talk and laughter.

Now we are at home putting all of the stuff away. We are tentatively planning another trip up when the leaves are at their peak of fall color. The bugs are not an issue then so we can travel much lighter.

Back from the North Woods

We're back! I supposedly have successfully posted a picture here TWICE, but it isn't appearing. Perhaps half way through this it will do so. It is a mystery.

I have a spectacular picture of the Lake of the Isles up at Scenic State Park which I thought I had posted. However.....

We had a wonderful time and have returned glad to get back to our creature comforts here at home and ready to start up the round of occupations that await us here. Although we are retired, anyone who is retired will tell you that it is only then that you really get loaded down with stuff to do. Because you are retired, everyone presumes you have time for all of the things that need to be done in a community. You must exercise your "no" muscle or you would never have time for relaxation. Luckily, that is one muscle that I HAVE practices exercising.

Speaking of exercising, I can hardly wait to get back to the "It Figures" here in town and see my exercise buddies. I have really missed them.

Monday is my book club. We are discussing "Missing Mom" by Joyce Carol Oates which I had already read earlier. As I have MDD rather than ADD: Memory Deficit Disorder in the place of Attention Deficit Disorder, I reread it. What a powerful and moving story. I am eager to hear my sister readers' take on it.

By my next posting, I hope that my picture posting skills will work again. I will slowly relate the joys of our camping time. We had a wonderful time.

Finally

Well, I finally had success in getting this picture up on my blog, and we finally are ready to head out. Unless I find a computer in a wilderness campng area, this will be the last blog for a bit! Stranger things are happening every day, though, so you never know, I may sneak in a posting.

I am taking my fluid and regular acryllic paints with me. You would not believe how much that entails unless you are a painter yourself. I have some paper and some canvas. And lots of paint. plus brushes, of course, and all kinds of other miscellaneous stuff. Now the brushes will meet the surface and I will have to perform. (That was supposed to be a take-off on "the rubber meets the road.") I can guarantee that one of the things that will happen is that I will desperately need something that is sitting at home in my studio. Too bad.

We opened the windows last night and the air is downright fresh. Wow. What a change. I am so glad as it would have been punishing to have 100 degrees while camping. Be prepared for my tales and pictures when I return.

Almost Ready

I had a great picture of the van and boat I wanted to include with this posting, but the blog master refuses to perform up to expectations. The boat is all packed, the van is ready. We are almost fully supplied with food and our clothes are packed. The fly in the ointment is the garden which needs weeding or it will be a jungle by the time we get back. So we are postponing our leaving until tomorrow.

The relief from the heat wave is simply marvelous. One can breath again and George can get out into the garden. It was too dangerous last week when the temperatures hovered in the 90's, even attaining one 100 plus. So we can just meander tomorrow, leaving rather early.

I gave a talk at the Brush and Palette Club in Alexandria yesterday, introducing the audience to the art of May Stevens. I was fortunate enough to go to her show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art last year. The show will be in the Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO from September 15 through November 12, 2006. I do not know if she will be in attendance giving her presentation at the Springfield show, but I was fortunate enough to attend that presentation in Minneapolis. I imagine one could find out via the net. The wonderful net.

I love (why is this still typing in bold, even though I have taken it off bold in the deally up above? Very irritating. I will try again.) I guess I am destined to write in bold for the rest of my life! AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

Anyway, I love giving art talks. I have covered the lives of any number of artists. Off the top of my head, Van Gogh, Matisse, Degas, Edward Hopper, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee, Marc Chagal, etc. I notice that I have not done a talk about a woman artist until now. I feel particularly happy because she not only is a woman, but is also a LIVING artist.

Well, back to getting the food organized. I will try to post tomorrow before we go and get the picture of our outfit up.

Yummy

Ok. There is no more glorious meal than a bacon/lettuce/tomato sandwich with a side of corn on the cob. You might argue with that, but I stand firm. When the tomato is the first red jewel from your own garden, the bacon is fried crisp just the way you like it, and the corn is the first wonderful cob from your own garden.... well, there is just nothing to compare.

I sometimes wonder if those great gustatory delights are enough to merit the work of a garden, but when the time arrives to eat, wahoo... I am convinced. Especially since I only cook the produce, I do not maintain the garden. George seems to agree with me, however.

We thought we had planned our camping trip at a time that was early enough not to interfere with the "coming of the corn," but we were mistaken. Because of all the hot weather, the corn is ripening about two weeks ahead of schedule. I'm not sure what we will do, but I am fixated on camping. Period. Stay tuned.