TODAY'S MEMORY TEST

Do you know what a rag bag is?

I used the term recently to describe my mind, which seems to accumulate ideas, images, and questions as easily as a rag bag accumulates its fabric contents.



My house gets to this point before I clean.

And one of the ideas that came to me was this--how many of the things we did in our younger years have become obsolete? Run an eye over this list and see if you can remember when you last did one or more of these:


My favorite - Man Ironing

• Ironed a garment or household item
• Cooked a meal from scratch
• Washed the car @ home; cleaned it out
• Shoveled snow; mowed grass
• Cleaned the house
• Canned garden produce

I confess that only three of these are normal in my household. I press clothing, cloth napkins, tablecloths, and placemats--cook most meals from scratch, mainly because I like to cook--and I clean my own house (though I'd much rather hire someone else to do it!).


Looks fun, right?

 

Every fall I help my daughter home can produce from her garden. She grows it, picks it, and has it all ready for us to work on when I arrive at her house. All the work takes place in her kitchen, using her hot water canner or pressure canner. I'm there mainly for company--her husband hates to work in the food preservation department, and I'm an expert on washing jars, sterilizing lids, and tightening the metal rings. At the end of the day I go home, hot, tired, and talked out, but with a few jars of something yummy for my pantry (more will come my way at Christmas time). The joy of it all is,we've done a lot of work, put up all kinds of delicious things for winter consumption, and I didn't have to grow one iota of it! No back-breaking weeding, no swatting mosquitoes while I pick cucumbers in the early morning, no yelling at the dogs to quit eating the tomatoes.

Sometimes, this aging thing works in our favor--we get all the perks and don't have to do so much of the grunt work. I like that equation. A lot.

Back to the rag bag--it was a collection of clothing or household items like towels and old sheets, all of which has become too ragged, stained, or otherwise unsuitable for use as clothing or in the house.

I recall my mother and mother-in-law cut off buttons to be used later in mending and removed zippers that might find their way into some other garment.

The rag bag provided cloths for cleaning floors and furniture; washing the car, or the dog, or windows; wiping up oil spills, wiping hands that had grease on them from outdoor work with engines. In short, anything you needed to wipe up or clean up.

Does anybody have one now? (I do.) I couldn't find an illustration for a rag bag--they're all cutesy fashion totes to carry around--made out of rags, of course! My rag bag is a simple plastic shopping bag, hanging in a utility closet, stuffed with old towels, etc. Mostly etc. But they work as mentioned earlier. That's the main thing.

As for the other activities on my list, I confess: I pay somebody else to shovel snow, mow the grass, fertilize the lawn, and clean the car. I like to think I'm providing jobs for folks. As good an excuse as any, eh?

I NEVER have a smile on my face while cleaning the car.

A FEW THOUGHTS ON LIFE, ETC.

[A housekeeping item: A few weeks ago I wrote about a new kind of spa day. The photos I used were taken by Jan Roser, a professional photographer living in Florida. She also took the photo of me that appears with this blog. Thanks, Jan--you make me look almost lifelike!]

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So, here are a few thoughts on Life, Etc.

Often--say, every other day--I wonder what it would feel like to have complete control of my life and schedule. Mornings I'd write; afternoons I'd sew. I'd hire people to do all the things I don't want to do (cleaning house, especially dusting). I'd be freed from the minutae of my everyday existence and roam freely in my own little creative world: new plots for stories, new quilt designs, new ideas for blogs, new articles. Utopia!

Right? Well, maybe.

For example: What would I do when I got stuck? When a writing idea doesn't pan out? When a quilt that's nearly finished looks just plain awful.

I don't smoke, don't have a secret bottle in my deep desk drawer, wouldn't know where to get my hands on mind-altering substances.

So what's a gal to do?

I clean. Move stuff (though not furniture), find better places for what I already have. Sort. Discard. Re-box for storage stuff that will later get sorted and discarded. I mull over possible gifts for birthday and Christmas giving. Try new recipes. And my latest fave: surfing the Internet. (I call it research. You never know when something might work its way into a story, quilt, letter, blog, conversation. Or into my storage.)

Last week it occurred to me that, if I clean out the drawers in the washstand, I'll have a great place for thread--of which I have a lot. The smaller drawers will work for seldom-used items like quilt templates and tools. And the area with a door just might be big enough for ring binders of patterns and designs (once I find another storage place for the music).

Little by little I get things done. Baby steps--the Montessori method.

Hard for an impatient person to gear down to a lower pace, let the project dictate its own speed. But it's actually less stressful because all the little interruptions and distractions are what Life is—as they say, Life happens. And so we don't get something done this year. A valuable lesson.

A companion lesson--also hard to learn--is this: Don't beat yourself up when you miss a goal or deadline. (You might want to ignore this advice if you have a paying job with deadlines. Just a thought.)

If it's your own project that doesn’t get finished—one that doesn't make ripples in someone else's life--then forgive yourself for missing the goal, extend the deadline (if it needs one), try again.

Life's short enough, without reducing the number of good days by whining, stressing, worrying, and fit-throwing.

However! If a good fit, pitched at the right moment, eases anxiety, then I say, Go for it!

 

CELEBRATE NEW BEGINNINGS

There's nothing quite like going to the list of posts for this blog, looking for the draft I saved a couple of weeks ago, and finding it has disappeared. First the "Whaaat?!?!?" Then, "Well......" And now--"Oooookay, write something else."

Today I want to celebrate new beginnings. We all have them--practically every day. (A local counseling center has a billboard that reads, "Every day a new beginning."

In the macro view, we're looking at spring: new plants poking their heads through the ground. (I'm sure I heard them muttering, "Is it warm yet?"); new dandelions blooming as if they had good sense; new road construction, which never seems to end.

Before the beginning....

In the closer-to-home view, I have new electronic toys.

First, the new modem, that allows me to post this week's Thursday's Child meanderings. Then when I took the new modem back to the AT&T store to get a refund, because I had converted my service to their newest, latest, greatest Internet service, I was interested in the new wireless phone system--an accompaniment to the new super-charged Internet service. The wireless phone system is activated this morning.

Oak Leaf Hydrangea--
gorgeous in autumn

Then--this is all the same day, mind you--after updated Internet service and a wireless phone system--I went to another phone store for an up-to-snuff phone. I can now take gorgeous pictures (you'll be inundated with them from now to eternity), or look at the front page of my phone and find out where I am plus the date/time/weather.

Normally I'm not into the Next Great Thing, mainly because by the time I get one, it's the Time-Before-Last Great Thing (or even older). But apparently the time had come for all my toys to break at once, or at least become nearly inoperable. And in this Day and Age, we don't fix it, we discard it and get a new one.

That's a new concept for me--I'm all for hanging onto what works, or almost works; fixing it if I can or paying to have it fixed for me if my skill set is 'way behind what's required; and muddling along with what's familiar--now I'm confronted with Off with the Old, On with the New.

Definitely A New Beginning for this senior citizen.


Avian Cafeteria



Ferns--30+ years old!

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Thanks for being patient with my on again-off again blog posting. Thursday's Child is alive and well and living in cyberspace.

Thanks also for visiting when my buddy Liz Flaherty guest blogged last week.

See you next time!

WELCOME LIZ FLAHERTY!

Today we are tickled pink/green/purple to have author Liz Flaherty, long-time friend and fellow writer/quilter, guesting at Thursday's Child. Grab your favorite cuppa and pull up a chair for a visit.

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"My quilt-making endeavors are all over this room...."

 

THREADS

I’m glad to be here on May Day. Thank you, Judith, for inviting me. If I talk too long, just give me a high sign or, you know, slip into the back and have a nice nap.



Yup, a thread addict.

Outside of family, church, and food, I have two consuming interests: I make quilts and I write books. My quilt-making endeavors are all over this room I work in. I have machines and tables and way too much fabric and books and patterns and thread—good grief, the thread! When I spent the winter in Florida, I took along several spools of neutral colors. When I came home, I had those spools plus five or six more that weren’t in the least neutral but that I liked a lot.

Writing, on the other hand, takes up much less room. In this age of electronic storage, I tend to keep tea bags and old phone books in the file drawer of my desk. The stacks of papers that used to cover its top have been replaced by the Kleenex box and a spider plant and a copy of my latest book (of course that was accidental, Judith—surely you don’t think I placed it there!) [see photo of Liz's latest at the bottom of the page.] The cup I once kept pens and highlighters in now holds a nail file, scissors, a box knife, and the Cross pen my husband gave me for Christmas years ago. The pen needs an ink refill, but I don’t care about using it, only that it’s there as a tangible sign of the support he’s always given.

Even the computer doesn’t take up much room. Best of all, it’s portable. If I don’t want to work at my desk, it goes into the house with me and I sit in the recliner with it and a cup of tea.

And there it is. Finally! I knew if I wrote long enough I’d come up with a reason for having done it.

I love to sew, and it’s something I spend hours of every week doing. I love sewing’s tools and toys, the scent and feel of fabric, the satisfaction of creating something pretty. The only time it’s portable, however, is when I’m hand-binding a quilt. I do that in the same recliner I sit in to write. I curse and feel righteous and stab myself with pins. I stitch until my hands are so cramped I can scarcely straighten them again.

I plan to tell this story to the grandkids I make quilts for, maybe adding a little embroidery to the tale I tell. More blood. More hours. More cramps. I hand-bind them because I love you so much, I will say. Well, I do love them that much, but that’s not why I hand-bind them. It’s because I don’t machine-bind well.

When I bind the quilt, it’s an ordeal. I have to take needles, thread, pin cushion, scissors, and the quilt into the house. I have to arrange myself and the quilt just so in the chair, then get up to go find the reading glasses I’ve left…somewhere. As soon as I get comfortable, the phone will ring. And, no, I am not a person who can let it ring. Ever. Then I have to go find the Band-Aids.



No recliner...no footstool...no one to talk to...

Could I bind the quilt in the office-sewing-room? Maybe. But quilt-binding is a social thing, a recliner thing. My chairs in the office are comfortable, but there’s nowhere to put my feet up. No one to talk to.

Writing? I’ve said it before, forgotten it, and am saying it again. It’s more than something I do—it’s a big, messy part of who I am. Not just me, I am convinced, but most writers.

The reason it doesn’t require much space is that the important components are inside oneself. The threads—tough and colorful and complex—are the workings of the writer’s mind. The tools are as simple as a pen and notepad (with lined paper) or—if you’re a young writer—an especially retentive memory.

The toys? They can get as numerous and sprawling as sewing toys, but they’re not necessary. If you want to “hand-bind” a book you’ve written, all you need is your laptop—everything else comes directly from the heart through the fingertips. You don’t have to have your feet up. You don’t want to talk to anyone. You specifically don’t want anyone talking to you. It’s not social at all. Because, in the end, when you are writing a book—or short fiction, or an essay—it is just you and the story. It is who you are much more than it is what you do.

It can sometimes be, if you’re lonely or overwhelmed or can’t think of a thing to say, a curse. More often, it is the greatest of blessings.

Wake up back there, Judith! I’m done. Thank you again for inviting me to Thursday’s Child today. It’s been a splendid visit, but I need to get back to work.

 

Here it is--The Girls of Tonsil Lake!

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I'm awake! I'm awake! Thanks, Liz, for insight into the writing world and a peep into your sewing-writing room.

Liz's books are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble--her latest, The Girls of Tonsil Lake, is women's fiction, and it'll have you laughing and crying (well, actually, all her books do that). But if you like friendship books, you'll love the four women who've been friends for nearly 50 years.

In October 2014 Harlequin will release Back to McGuffey's (I think it's book #9, right, Liz?), in their Heartwarming line of sweet, wonderfully romantic novels. I can't wait. Both online booksellers offer it now for presale!


 

APOLOGIES

Due to an intermittent router, today's post on Thursday's Child will not be seen.

Check back in a few days, after I've been to the AT&T store.

Thanks!

SPRING TONIC

In my grandmother’s day a good dose of blackstrap molasses and sulphur cleaned out the human system, warded off any lingering malaise from winter’s icy clutches, and tuned up the body for three seasons of hard work on the farm.

In my youth, the Spring Tonic on Grandma’s shelf was replaced by a few cups of Sassafras tea or stewed rhubarb, which pretty much worked the same way as the dreaded tonic. By the time I became a grandmother, a week in Cancun or Barbados or Aruba was the remedy. Or if your pocketbook resembled mine, five days in Kalamazoo.

Some of my friends—whose pocketbooks may be anorectic—swear by a day at the spa.

Say “spa day” and right away you’ll conjure up a jumble of images—pummeling and pomading through ten hours of sauna, massage, styling, tweaking, manicure, pedicure, every-kind-of-cure for the common blahs and disenchantments of the face and figure. Wintertime, springtime, anytime.

View of one of the "Chain"

By happy accident, I discovered another kind of spa day.

We drove from Auburn, my friend Janine and I, in her 4X4, to Chain-O-Lakes State Park about 30 minutes away. Picture a day in late April. Spring sunshine, leaves taking their time unfurling their shades of green. Water standing in fallow fields, running in ditches, swelling creeks, all from late winter snow that had no chance against a young spring breeze and honest-to-goodness sunshine.

In northeastern Indiana we celebrate the first day of spring with the rest of the civilized world—around March 21^st when the spring equinox shows up on the calendar. We know that’s a token celebration—on a par with a green Christmas—because real spring, the one worth celebrating, comes on a day when you least expect it. It’s a mid-week day, when offices and schools and businesses are up and running, expecting their employees and clients and students and customers to show up as well.

But.

On a real spring day, some of us are privileged to get in a 4X4 and cruise the trails and roads of a state park. 10 mph cruising. No hurry. No agenda. Only the journey.

The 4-by heads into the park, makes a loop around one or two of the lakes in the chain, from which the park gets its name, and climbs one of the steep hills into a wooded area. Campground, cabins, fish-cleaning station…. Down another hill into the valley floor. What used to be a racing creek has expanded into a flowing meadow. The water’s nearly level with the bridge over the no-longer-dashing waterway.

We stop and park on the side of the road. Janine takes out one of her cameras, a monster thing with a long lens that allows her to poke her eye into Nature’s intimate business from a safe distance. I watch last autumn’s leaves float down the lazy stream and let the sun fall on my face.

Our only companions are woodsy inhabitants, too shy to come out.

When Janine winds up her photo op, we continue our loop around the park, and end up at one side of the biggest lake where a pier juts out into the main channel. I stand in the sun, my arms propped on the side supports of the pier, while Janine snaps photos of me in various hats and scarves for future use as publicity pics.

We’ve spoken fewer than fifty words since we entered the park. No pummeling, no pomading. No need for the delights of the day spa.

Because here, in this natural setting, we’ve bathed in warm spring air so delicious you can almost taste it, spied out elusive greens that will soon be in full leaf to delight the eye, caught the springtime perfume of sun on old leaves and new growth. Our souls have basked in Nature music: bird song, trickles of water running over stones, dry leaves from a year ago whisked away by a sudden breeze.

We’ve spent no money. Yet we’ve received simple gifts: cures for the common winter blahs, and disenchantments of the spirit. You can’t bottle this tonic and sell it for profit. This cure is free for the taking. If you want it.

 

Autumn @ Chain-O-Lakes
Another inspiring season

 

TEACHING & LEARNING

In September, 2000 I began journaling daily. September is the start of my personal year--a holdover, probably, from when I was a perpetual student, loved school, and summers were just annoying periods of being hot and unhappy until fall approached and school doors opened once again.

Anyway. That's beside the point, sort of.

My journals are dumping grounds for information, quilting diagrams, emotions, you-name-it. Journals have also become a wonderful way for me to explore ideas.

Take yesterday--I never know where the nudge comes from, but I often find myself writing about something I might want to blog about one day. That morning's nudge was about lessons I've learned--how we learn from each other--about being a teacher, or an example, to other people.

Lessons come from everywhere: friends, family; strangers; neighbors; my dog. . . . Here are some random thoughts from my writings:

• I learn about unconditional love and forgiveness from Joy, my dog. If you've ever owned--or been owned by--a dog, you'll recognize their seemingly infinite capacity for love and devotion. They forgive your bad moods, your ranting about something totally unrelated to them, your forgetting to fill their water bowl or feed them on time. I find that love and forgiving nature quite humbling.
• I learn that time and distance mean nothing with true friends. One friend of over 40 years' standing is as present when she comes to visit three times a year as she was when we spent hours together every single day during our college years. We seldom write letters or emails or talk on the phone. We don't need to, because we are so in tune with each other.
• I've learned about friendship among people with radically different beliefs--there's always some point of contact, some connection that allows us to know we're friends.
• Another lesson has shown me that young people the ages of my grandchildren can be my friends--it's a matter of finding similar interests and respecting our differences; and then being present with each other. Caring is another word for it.
• I constantly learn from my children: about their worlds/careers/interests. They share their beliefs (which are not always the same as mine), knowing that our mutual love and respect mean that we can discuss a wide range of topics without animosity.
• I learn that caring for others is alive and well in my neighborhood--we have only a few young families, with school-age children; most of us are 60+, retired, and in various stages of our lives. Yet there's a little network of checking in with each other, looking for signs that someone needs help, taking food to share with a shut-in down the street. The younger folks get into the act, helping rake leaves in the fall or shovel snow.

Sometimes I wish I'd known these things much earlier in my life . . . they might have been quite useful. But then, each lesson came when my life was such that I needed that bit of wisdom, that insight.

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Teaching and learning are wonderfully symbiotic--teaching someone a skill leads to the teacher learning something as well. And a pupil learning something new becomes, unwittingly, perhaps, a new disseminator of that same bit of knowledge.

A number of years ago I taught freshman composition at Purdue University. Every semester I learned something I hadn't known before. Most of my learnings were about people. With each new group, the chemistry changed. Classes were composed of varying ages: high school graduates, returning students who had left for some reason, or adults recognizing a need or desire to get a degree. My favorite classes were the ones with students ages 18 to 40 (or older). With no planning on my part, I often witnessed the older students teaching the younger.

One year we had an assignment to read about a Christmas celebration. In class, we discussed the reading and told about our own experiences. A quiet woman in her 50s startled the rest of the students by saying, "Christmas Eve is the loneliest time of the year."

I've never heard a classroom grow so quiet so suddenly. The woman went on to say that she had no family, and all her friends went to their families for Christmas.

Clearly, younger students had never experienced such a thing. They were stunned. I suspect a few did understand because their Christmases weren't happy ones. But the majority were hearing about a lonely Christmas for the first time.

That experience happened over 30 years ago. It still lives for me as one of the finest examples of learning from each other, in an informal way.

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Book learning has always been important to me. I don't know what I'd do without books.

But the best lessons--the ones that stick with me longest--are the ones I learn from people.






There's no substitute for family . . . our earliest lessons come from the folks who welcomed us into the group, nurtured us, disciplined us, and eventually shoved us out of the nest.

Today I celebrate teaching and learning. I celebrate the teacher in all of us, and the lessons we've learned--quickly, painlessly; or the tough ones that make, perhaps, a bigger impact.

Keep on learning. And teaching.