Mainely Write

This is my palette for my soon-to-be grandchild's quilt. Are these not the most vibrant colors you have ever seen together in one place? Generations had come to places such as this.  As a little girl I had wandered the aisles along with my grandmother and aunt.  I'd hid amid the draped hidden passages, under rainbow laden tables.  As a teen I had ventured in alone, clasping the scrap of paper bearing the numbers I would need. Today I was alone; my favorite.  No rushing, no talking, just looking, thinking and considering all the possibilities. Marching to the door, determined not to get distracted from my duty, I could already see those bolts of lighning creating patterns on the walls inside.  I could feel the electricity pulling me in.  I took a deep breath and entered into the realm of neverending possibilities.   I was in.  I was in the land of lollipops, dark forests, exotic flowers, flowing rivers of silks and satins, and gadgets galore.  Exotic washes of color

  O        I shall patiently wait for just the right moment. Thanksgiving  will be early this year for me  y    u        m      m    y e   o         w ! I knew there had to be something on our front lawn this morning.   Oh, to be on the other side of the glass!

I wrote this after reading Ann's Twists and Turns post yesterday It is coming... .  I'd been having a nagging "ticking" in my brain lately, and wondered what it was!  “Bood-guy. . .” “Goob-die. . .” I am not going back Don’t turn around Eyes straight ahead But I'm hearing it still “Tick, tock” Faintly Nagging “Good-bye!” There, I said it. When does The ticking Stop? I am so used to hearing it, that I imagine that I'm hearing it now. This is my first year of retirement, and still the tick, tock is a faint sound in my mind. I wonder when it stops?

This past week I have been messing about with a Google program called SketchUp.  I tried my usual technique of starting out not reading any directions to see how intuitive it was to learn.  It wasn’t. I drew some lines and rectangles of HUGE proportions, and some tiny.  Who would know?  The one that looked right had a measurement of over 1000 feet long, too big for for a house.  I went to the Help menu in the program, but it didn’t seem to do the trick for me. I needed more help than that. Then I downloaded the book SketchUp for Dummies.  I have never. . . I repeat. . . n-e-v-e-r  e-v-e-r wanted to buy a-n-y book that said it was for dummies.  But at this particular point in time I was feeling like I might be one, so I bought it.  I read a couple of chapters, and it got me started, but I still felt dumber than I thought I was. Next I went to YouTube to watch some demonstrations, and that is where I finally started to understand what the author of the book was trying to say.  It

News Flash! Yesterday hit 100 degrees in Maine AND I hit 100 posts for the year on that same warm day...two milestones involving lots of sweat for Me! On this somewhat cooler day in the 80's, we went for our usual drive in the country. On Wednesday I had purchased a cooked chicken, but it had been too hot to eat at home this week, so it was still in the refrigerator awaiting it's fate. Since it's dump date day, we almost threw out the chicken. We wouldn't be back until late, so eating it then was probably not going to happen. And if we did, we'd have chicken bones in the trash all week. Then we had a great idea. Why not take it with us and make a picnic lunch out of it? We haven't done that for years. We grabbed some ice packs for sprains and bruises out of the freezer and threw them in with the chicken, then some leftover bags of chips and a couple of packs of peanut butter crackers. We grabbed the trash and our computers and the lunch and headed fo

As I heard my husband get up this morning, the first words out of my mouth were “Is it over yet?” There are not many nights that you can’t sleep in Maine.  Last night was one of them.  We don’t have air conditioning, because most of the time fans are all you really need.  But last night despite open windows, an overhead fan and tossed blankets, there was no escape from the heat.  It had only cooled down to the 80’s overnight.  And it was muggy.  The day had been miserable, the night was miserabler. Last evening, we drove down to the ocean.  A few others had parked their cars and joined us at Bailey Island to get some relief from the heat.  You can usually count on it being 5 to 10 degrees cooler right on the ocean with a salty, seaweed breeze.  We sat and listened to the gulls and waves.  We watched people dipping their feet into the water and combing the beach for rocks and bits of glass.  The boats faced into the incoming tide, and the gulls, like stringless kites, hovered

This thought started when my soon-to-be-a-mom daughter sent me this article to read.  I think you'll enjoy it if you go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201554.html .  It's a Stay At Home Moms site, but it applies to teaching too.  I feel this way during the school year.  And when summer comes around and I can get so many things done and have some extra time, I think, "Hey, what's so hard about this?  There's plenty of time to get to the bank right after school.  Why don't I feel like I have enough time during the school year?  I'll be better at it this year.  I'll come home, put in a wash, change the sheets, make supper, watch a tv show...there should be time."  But there never is.   There's No time Like the present There is no other time As those two hands Push us forward Never mind That our heels Are dug Into the ground Trying to Slow us down The only time We have is now And when we

We have had incredible sunsets this year in the neighborhood.   Last night I tried to capture the setting sun again as we drove home.  It was a fiery red sun, but the sky was peachy.  The sun peeked through clouds and haze on this muggy evening.  It was hard to capture, because every time I could see it, things would be in the way...my husband's head, cars passing, telephone poles, trees, guard rails and sun visors.  Then we'd be too low, and I couldn't see the sun at all.   The best I could do ended up being through the windshield when we finally came around a corner.  It was at last in front of us instead of on the driver's side.  I tried to hold the camera at an angle that would miss our car, so it would give the impression that we weren't driving along....   I thought I'd captured it sans car, but when I imported it from my iPhone, the Miata's black hood was reflecting the silhouettes and sunset.  Isn't that fun?

First, let me say that my husband and I are best friends.  Our friendship has lasted 40 years now.  In 2012, we will have been married 40 years, and we knew each other exactly one year when we got married. One of his favorite things to do, and mine too as of the day we met, is to drive around the countryside.  Today was our usual for the summer:  ride around until we find good views, good people and a good lobster roll!  Today we found it all in a little village called Friendship.  But don't tell anyone about it. This gas station, deli, grocery, takeout, eat in, check your tire pressure place had a great lobster roll.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but it was naked...meaning nothing but lobster meat, and lots of it, on a toasted deli roll.  Heavenly.  Truly.  Heavenly.   We sat outside at the round table with the red umbrella, as you can see in the picture.  It is just in back of the gas pumps. There is a green astro-turf carpet covering the area between the door and the

This summer we have had some spectacular sunsets.  Here's one from a couple of nights ago over Wiscasset.  We pulled off into the grocery store parking lot (there is only one grocery store) to watch.  It only lasts a few minutes, so you have to park fast.  Unfortunately we were on the side of the road that included wires. I could Shop them out of it, but that will be for a later date. I thought about writing something descriptive and non-rhymy to go with the picture...something about how the colors floated across the sky...how it looked like an oil painting...how the oranges, pinks and blues charged the ensuing night sky...how the sky was on fire...how you could see the dragon's breath... However the simple well-known rhyme kept nudging at me.  "Red sky at night, Sailors' delight, Red sky in the morning, Sailors take warning."  I've heard it with farmers the same way, and sometimes using pink as the sky color.  And I was reminded of how really important kn

I was sitting quietly at the kitchen table with the fan on me trying not to drip on anything.  It was a hot muggy late afternoon. I had the sliding glass door open to catch any small unsuspecting breeze. The woods in back of the house were getting deeply shadowed, and the robin was trilling to let us know he was delighted that the evening was arriving.  By the way, he is equally thrilled at morning’s dawning!  As I sat there drinking in the beautiful sounds of the robin, a loud squawk pierced the calm.  I tiptoed to the screen and peeked out.  The only animal I could see was the robin on the ground poking around for some stray worms, seemingly oblivious to the insistent squawking that was now emanating from the trees above. I went to sit back down again.  The squawking was unrelenting and very loud.  I figured it must be some teenage bird awaiting the parent's return with "Take-Out".  As the constant complaining went on, the sun finally set.  Faintly, I heard the

Tim's Favorite Hat Just last week my husband and I were talking about the problem of men wearing hats when they ate in restaurants.  We were trying to figure out what had changed.  It used to be when people sat down to eat, the hat got taken off, but now...hats are on all the time.  It's a pet peeve of mine, I guess. But looking around we realized that restaurants used to have coat racks and poles at all the booths with hooks so you could remove your hat AND coat (which is another thing we do now...eat fully clothed for the outdoors in winter).  Now if you set your hat down it has to be on the table or on a seat.  And on a seat, you are very likely to forget it. This Saturday, we went to an old, well-known and loved diner in these parts that tourists frequent for the experience and locals frequent because they always have.  Moody's Diner was very crowded, but we got a seat quite quickly and sat down in our booth.  As we sat there, I suddenly realized that they had pol

                           I'm too hot... I don't want to vacuum. I don't want to sort mail. I don't want to do the laundry. I don't want to clean the closet. I don't want to make the bed. I don't want to cook lunch. I don't want to do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.                        I'm too hot, but... I guess I will leisurely do     almost e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. It will just take longer     with all the lemonade breaks. The dog and the cat     don't want me to vacuum though. They are too hot.     I will respect their wishes today.

Maine Lupines on the Roadside I remember my mother once saying that she was going to plant some Lupines. I did not know what those were.  She knew lots of wildflowers' names, and birds' names, too.  I was so intrigued as a little child to find out that things had specific names, not just  "tree", "flower" and "bird".  As I got older, I began to realize how really impressive it was that my mother knew them. She was a city girl who didn't have anyone to teach her the names of plants and animals.  But she was an original life-long learner and self-starter.  If there was plumbing to do, she was there by Dad’s side book in hand to "make suggestions" as to angles and materials.  Raise chickens?  No problem.  Make chokecherry jelly?  Done! Mom and Dad always provided support and encouragement when it came to learning anything. We had pretty much free rein when it came to inventing, creating and investigating.  Knowing my love of

A woman at church who has 6 boys, just had her last child, a little girl.  I simply had to make her some fancy little shoes.  They were so much fun to do.  I used the sewing machine for parts but did the tiny soles and all the finish work by hand.  There is something so rewarding about working with your hands. Sewing is much like writing to me.  I generally start with a basic idea, look at some patterns and then strike out on my own, editing along the way until I come out with a final product.  These shoes were no different.  I looked at about 7 different patterns, used a part of two different patterns and added a third pattern's tweak.  Then I adapted another pattern's technique for hiding the lining's seams.  Of course, there were some major erasures, as I ripped out seams that were just wrong, and lots of pinning the draft together before I did my polished finish seams. When the basic shoe was completed I made ruffles from the same fabric.  Those ruffles were, in the