The Year of the Horse

The Year of the Horse

Chinese New Year

White horse galloping( difficult to paint)

On January 31. many Asian countries and especially China, will celebrate the Chinese New year which is based on the lunar calendar . There will be many festivities with dragons and lanterns and lots of firecrackers and many people will be celebrating the Year of the Horse

I don't know where I saw this horse photo but I tried to paint it  and it was difficult. The legs don't seem right and a white horse is hard!!

So why the year of the horse? Why not the year of the giraffe or cow?

The legend of the naming of the year came about like this:

Buddha decided to give a party to celebrate the New Year. He invited the animals to come and 12 did. And a year was named after each one. Buddha then said that the person born during the animal's year would take on the some of the personalities of that animal. The people born in the year of the horse will be cheerful, skillful with money, perceptive, witty, talented and good with their hands. Some of the well known people that have been born in previous Years of the Horse are Harrison Ford, Rembrandt, Aretha Franklin and Chopin.

I was born in the year of the OX as was Mike. You can go here to find out your Chinese astrological sign

http://www.chinesenewyears.info/chinese-new-year-calendar.php

When troubles are a blowing...

When troubles are a blowing...
This too will pass.

For all of us through life we sometimes hit a patch of stormy weather.

Just like we have had in our part of Texas lately. After a lovely spring- like weekend where we were warm enough to sit outside and see the birds flying around , today we woke up to bitterly cold winds and a real change. We know in time, hopefully by the weekend that will change again .

We have to 'weather” our way through it till then just a we do in life.

Some people hit more nasty stormy weather where they live and some people hit bumpy patches of storms in life too but it will pass.

One of my favorite sayings is ” This too will pass”

It seems to help when I am worried When troubles are a blowing  and a storm I can feel building
. It may help you too.

 My mum, Nanny Flo to the grandkids, had a very bumpy life with lots of storms but she always somehow  figured out that it would pass and life would be good again.

This was her favorite song .

It helps if you are going through a 'stormy time”.

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on with a hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never, ever walk alone

Walk on, walk on with a hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never, ever walk alone

Here is the great Elvis singing one of the best versions of this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4IGlTLXHDg

Don't Go by Lisa Scottoline

Don't Go by Lisa Scottoline  

An interesting murder/mystery set in modern times. It made a nice change as I have been reading lots of early 20^th century novels lately.

The tale tells of a young doctor Mike Scanlon who is serving in Afghanistan with the reserves.

While he is there, his wife Chloe dies under mysterious circumstances. In fact the book starts off with scenes of her dying. You get a hint that something else besides an accident has happened.

This leaves their very young baby Emily at home without a mom but her Chloe's sister Danielle and husband step in gladly to help out by caring for the baby and seem just a bit too willing to do so for even longer than Mike really wants.

After some horrific battle encounters, the doctor returns home and tries to solve all the mysteries surrounding his wife's death and the death of her best friend Sara who is murdered.

Dr. Mike inadvertently gets into trouble with the police ,drugs are involved and then even more trouble erupts with him trying to regain custody of the child.

This is a mystery that isn't solved until the very end of the book.

It was very readable but the characters were not very well defined and the events didn't flow very easily.

This was not a book I felt I had to keep reading but I eventually finished it as I had a call from the library.
My time is up!

The Cardinals Puzzle

Jigsaw Puzzle # 3 DONE

Just a lovely puzzle picture.

This was another puzzle that came in a box of 10 puzzles all in different envelopes with no labels. So you have the puzzle of figuring out at the start which puzzle you are actually doing before you can really get into the actual solving the puzzle. That being said, Mike cleverly starts on the perimeter and can figure out quite quickly then which picture he should be looking at to help find the pieces.

This was a lovely puzzle to do as we have cardinals in our yard that visit . The puzzle again was 500 pieces.

I told Mike that photographing each puzzle is a good thing to do as then you can see at the end of the year just how many you have done. if I put them on my blog we won't lost the list. ( hopefully!)

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

This was an interesting book to read especially if you live in the Southern part of the USA or have traveled there.

It takes place in the Mississippi Delta region in a small Southern town at the time 1930 to 1950. It is still the time where there was very much a cultural divide between the white folk and the black folk living on the land. It is also basically the tale of 2 families, the McMillan family who are white and own the farm called Mudbound and a sharecropper black family the Jacksons, who are tenants on the farm. It is a tale of deep rooted prejudice between the older family members of each of the families but the 2 sons of both families show the beginning of change. Both have seen action in World War 2 and have a common bond .Their hidden friendship leads to confrontation and the ultimate climax in the book.

A well written and believable book but not an easy book to read as it makes you realize it was such a short time ago dreadful things were allowed to happen and who knows may still do so.

It is very hard to change the culture within a community and change comes about very gradually.

76 and still counting...

76 and still counting...

Thank you to all the people who sent me good wishes for my birthday. Just lovely cards and lovely thoughts I appreciate all of you.

The years roll quickly past and before you know it you have reached the allotted amount... 3 score years and ten. So any after that can be considered a bonus as far as I am concerned. I think my “bucket list” is almost finished not that is was ever extensive.

When I was a lot younger I never thought about being old,Why should I? When you are young you should be doing and learning, loving and playing and enjoying life with all the different situations and people that come your way.

Well I have to tell you that when you get old , and I guess I am considered that now even though I rarely feel it, the same thing is true. All that happens is you have a different set of circumstances and situations that teach you new things. The important thing is now you have a whole bank of wisdom on which to draw so hopefully you don't have to learn by making the same mistakes. You can make new ones instead and have a good laugh about them with your older friends!!

So I now approach every birthday year as a new beginning and hope that I will experience new things, new friends and a new happiness and gratitude in being alive.

For some older people the joy goes out of life as they long for the past but I plan to find new things to do, new books to read, new paintings to paint a, new music to listen to and new thoughts to think. That's what keeps you young in spirit.

The body loses its strength but the spirit gets stronger with each year as you age if you just let it.

That's how it should be.

Life is a continuous circle.

The Missing Rings

The Missing Rings

My hand missing the rings

On Tuesday I went shopping. I had lots of odd things I needed so I went to all kinds of stores on my travels. I went to World Market, Hobby Lobby, Kohls and Sprouts to name a few. I was out for quite a while.

When I got home we had lunch and then I sat down to send a few emails.

I was typing away and just looked down at the keyboard and thought, something is different! It took me a moment to realize my wedding ring and my attached engagement ring were both missing!!

Oh no I thought . I've lost them somewhere.

I never take these rings off and they have been on my finger since I was married almost 54years except for a short time when I had them at the jewelers for cleaning ,attaching together and making slightly larger. That was about 15 years ago. I did know my hands are now smaller and thinner and very wrinkly. I did know the ring was loose but didn't realize it could slip off.

So the search began. I told Mike and he started looking and thinking too.

“Did you wear gloves today?”.” Yes “. “Maybe you pulled it off when you took your gloves off.” I looked -no ring.

Mike walked up and down the driveway where I walk in the mornings. No ring there either

I looked in my purse, the large bag that holds the mysteries of the world at the bottom. That's where I usually find missing things like gas sale receipts, keys and reading glasses but no rings there either.

Nothing on or under the arm chairs or in my jacket pockets.

Mike said “I think you will have to retrace your steps and go in to all the stores again and ask them if anyone has by chance handed in a ring.

I really didn't relish doing that. I didn't even have a photo anywhere of the ring and the thought of going to all those stores again....

Then I went into the bathroom and there just by the side of the carpet I saw something glittering by the edge of the bathtub.

Could it be?.. Yes it was!!

The rings returned

I was so pleased to see the rings and felt so lucky that they hadn't slipped off my finger outside.

So now I have another store to visit. I shall go back to the jeweler and have him make the ring smaller so it fits my finger again .

And I will now have a photo of the ring if I lose it again.

January Painting Challenge

January Painting Challenge

Original photo challenge

Each month I take the challenge given on the website paintandrawtogether.com

This month it was a study of a brightly covered chair with patterned cushion close to a very detailed carpet.

My Painting.

I chose to do my painting in water color but I think acrylic paint would have been better to get the more intense color this painting needed.

It was a difficult study as just getting the pattern correct let alone the right colors was difficult. I also found the composition somewhat peculiar. Your eye is drawn to the highly colored carpet in the foreground rather that to the chair, the focal point. So I took the carpet out and put a cat on the chair instead. In my house there is always a cat on the chair so it just had to be.

Thoughts about telephones

Thoughts about telephones  

Older people and I really mean Senior Citizens do not use the telephone in the same casual way that younger people do. I guess that is probably because they can remember the birth of the telephone service and how it was a privilege to have it when they were young and it was to be used sparingly.

We had no telephone in my house and to make a call you would have to go about ¼ of a mile to one of those lovely ( and usually) dirty, red call boxes that are now considered a tourist attraction in England. 

Hopefully the interior light would still be on and not vandalized but if you were smart , you always took a flashlight with you. Maybe you would have to wait until the person already inside making a call, had finished. It always seemed to take forever. Eventually you would go in, holding your breath as the smell usually inside these boxes was none too pleasant. You would go in clutching the coins you would need to make a call praying you had the right amount of coins to put in the box to pay. It wasn't cheap either. This was not a fun experience and to be used as little as possible.

If you were lucky enough to have a phone in your home you again used it only occasionally as it was expensive. If you borrowed a neighbor's phone to make a call , you always offered to pay for it. Most neighbors would let you use their phones if they had one, but again this would be for emergencies only.You would never bother your neighbors unnecessarily.

We also remember the first early cell phones and how heavy and difficult they were to use .Hearing a call was very patchy. Calls were often dropped or were often not available in certain areas.And don't mention the size of the batteries they needed!!

Thank goodness the mobile phone and services developed fairly rapidly . The trouble is there seems to be a problem in stopping the development of these mobile phones. They get smaller and smaller every time they put out a new one, and the system changes so frequently that they are constantly advertising the new one that everyone must have. You really wonder where this will end.

We do okay at my house. We have a small uncomplicated inexpensive phone that we use once in a while and are thankful for it when we have an emergency especially when we remember our days of visiting the old red telephone box .

The Puzzle. It's finished. Now what??

The Puzzle. It's finished. Now what??

One of the things we used to get for Christmas when we were young and was very popular was a jigsaw puzzle. In fact we used to call them “jigsaws”. You ask for a jigsaw these days and you'll get a fancy tool for cutting wood.

Mike has always liked to do jigsaws and in fact other puzzles as well. His whole family liked to do them and often a puzzle would be set up on a side table and everyone would put in pieces whenever they passed by or actually found a piece that fitted. It was a standard joke that Grandad Percy, would actually force pieces into a place to make them fit thereby messing up the whole thing!

This year I decided to get Mike a puzzle for Christmas as a change from doing his Sudoku puzzles. That was quite a job as the very few puzzles I could find in the stores were kid's puzzles .These all had few pieces and cute cartoon type pictures. I was very happy when I went in to the British Emporium, our local store that sells all things British, and found 3 jigsaw puzzles to choose from and what 's more, they featured all past era railways poster pictures. Railways and trains being another one of Mike's interests, this would be just the job.

This puzzle was such a good one as well.Lots of areas of just plain colors, much more difficult to do. It was big , 20" x 25" with about 1000 pieces and should keep Mike going for quite a while.

He started solving the puzzle shortly after Christmas and finished it today. It probably took around 14 hours, total working time .We had made bets that he would be at it until Easter especially when he first tipped it out of the box and saw all the tiny pieces.

Well Done MIKE!!

Now we have 2 new things to figure out.

What to do with the puzzle?

And where can we get another one?

Anyone have any puzzles hiding in the back of a cupboard in a box we can borrow???

A Subtle Joke

www.buzzfeed.com

I saw this on buzzfeed.com and I thought it was funny. 
I suppose you have to know the song by Bob Marley to understand the joke.
(I shot the sheriff
But I didn't shoot no deputy, oh no! Oh!
I shot the sheriff
But I didn't shoot no deputy, ooh, ooh, oo-ooh.)
Yeah! All around in my home town,
They're tryin' to track me down;
They say they want to bring me in guilty
For the killing of a deputy,
For the life of a deputy.  etc.etc
Its one of my favorite songs. i listen to it as I walk in the mornings, The version I like is Eric Clapton's version. It took me ages to figure out the story line of the song but I really like this music.
here is a you tube video of Eric Claptons version if you have never heard it

A Dreary January Day

Today I found it hard to do.

I know the cold was miserable but cold and sunny is okay by me and even snow has it's own special beauty but what I can't stand are the days like we have had today and probably will have tomorrow. Those are those really dreary days.- rainy, misty, dark, gloomy, drizzling showers off and on all day long.

It just does something to your psyche. Well it does to mine. I go from one thing to another , I can't seem to settle to anything and the time passes slowly. I usually end up doing basically nothing. I read a couple of chapters in my latest book. I look at a few emails . I sit but I can't find the energy to do anything.I waste time.

I am definitely a person who needs the sun.

Let's hope it will return soon.

I need to start painting again.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

January 6th 2014

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

When I saw this book in the library it perked my curiosity. I really thought it would be a book about reincarnation, a topic in I which I am interested . It is not reincarnation in the true sense but it does have an interesting  linked concept .

It tells the tale of a young girl Ursula, who lives her life, the very same life ,many times over  After each life,she has a deja vue sense that she needs to change something to make her life better each time. Quite an interesting concept.

It takes place mostly in the period of the early and mid 20^th century and is mostly centered around England and Germany so I found that interesting. The characters in the book remain the same throughout but in each episode or life ,change an action because of something different that happens during that particular life.

Sounds complicated and it is until you get into the book and then you are trapped because you have to find out what will happen. The book does not follow a normal time line so at first it was quite confusing to read but if you stick with it, you will find it a most captivating read.

Fajitas Today

Fajitas Today

Doesn't it make your mouth water??

We went out today to one of our favorite restaurants El Matador on University in Denton. This is a true Tex Mex restaurant, very authentic with just excellent food. I think the people of Denton knowall about it as whenever we go there. it has lots and lots of customers no matter what time of the day you go or on which day. It is a large place as well so even with the crowds you don't feel crowded.

The meals are inexpensive.

The nachos and salsa are served to you as soon as you sit down by the friendly attentive waiters . As Mike says , “ You can always tell about the quality of a Tex Mex restaurant by the quality of the nachos and salsa, The ones at El Matador restaurant are the best we have tasted.

When we knew we would meet our friends Joe and Sally there for Joe's birthdaylunch we knew what we would eat.

Fajitas!

This is one of the best meals in my opinion to choose. The smell of the sizzling beef, chicken, onions, green peppers and shrimp are enough to get you salivating as it's brought to the table burning hot. Then to wrap those juicy pieces in a fresh warm tortilla smothered in sour cream and guacamole and salsa just wins the prize.

Mike and I shared the dish as there is plenty for the two of us especially as it is served with beans and rice as well.

Washed down with a nice cold margarita on the rocks you can tell we had an excellent lunch.

The conversation was good as well.

Happy Birthday Joe.

A New Year, a New Blog...

A New Year, a New Blog...

Don't ask! I have no idea what I was doing.

This year I decided to change things around just a little. Writing a blog every single day gets to be too much of a good thing!! I decided this year I will write it when the creative urge takes me. Now that may be every day but probably NOT.

It will continue as my last blog – Plogging Plus did. mostly about thoughts, paintings, photos, experiences etc which we have around our house and area.That seems to work fairly well and covers a lot of subjects.

Today being January1 was a good day to start.

So one of the jobs was setting up this new blog on Blogger.I have to go through the learning process of setting it up each time and I am still not quite there yet but I needed to get it going before the urge left me.I'll continue to change the format as I go along probably.

Job no 2 was painting the bathroom.

A few days ago I decided that our bathroom was needing a clean up and the best way to do that was to give it a paint job. This is something we have been putting off for a while- it was either too hot , or too cold, we were too busy, we couldn't decide on colors. You know the problems with decorating.

A decision was made. White is the perfect color for a bathroom and the trim , would reflect the bedroom color, gray- green , kind of musty color. I'd get new towels and bath mats of something brighter, put a couple of new pictures or paintings up and Voila! it would be done

So I did mostly painting today.

House painting compared to picture painting is rather a dull job. It helps to have the radio on. I did hear a good interview with Elton John. I didn't realize he had been so shy and lacking in confidence in his early years. Also his speaking voice sound much different to how it sounds when he is singing.

So now we just have to replace all the fiddly things like bath rails etc and put all the things back in there and job 1 of 2014 is DONE.

PS Thank goodness it is a small bathroom.