Friday, March 23, 2018

THE THINGS WE DO FOR OUR GRANDKIDS

Yesterday was Goober Day, when we usually hang out with the boy at his house. At one point he came over to me, dragging his favorite red blanket and saying his version of the word "tunnel". So I tried draping it over the gap between the two sofas, as we did last time. All I got was his pouty face in return.



He tore the tunnel down and dragged the blanket over to the dining room. So I draped it over one end of the dining room table. Again with the pouty face! Eventually I realized that he wanted a full blown table fort like his mama makes for him, so I got the colorful sheet she uses and draped it over the other end. Finally, a bit of a smile.


But, was it enough that his puppydog Izzy joined him in there, and his mama poked her head in to say hello? Nooooo, he thought Mima should be in there too!


In fact, it wasn't until I was completely inside the fort, being licked to death by his puppy, that I finally got a full-blown smile out of him.





It was sooooo worth it!


Thursday, March 22, 2018

EVER EVOLVING

It boggles my mind to think I've been living here in this house and blogging about our adventures here in the Texas Hill Country for more than ten years now. When we first bought this place I didn't even know what a blog was! We were both still living and working in Houston, with kids still in school, so it started out as our weekend get-away. In our efforts to morph from big city suburbanites to Hill Country-livers-of-the-good-life, we had so many crazy adventures/mishaps here that I finally started jotting them all down in a notebook, then sharing them with friends and family via snail mail.

One day my hubby took over my computer for the afternoon, then called me over and said "Hey, you have a blog now! Write your stories here instead of in those notebooks, then you can share them with everyone you know all at once. What do you want to call it?" And so it began.

At first it was mostly about us trying to learn how to live a more reasonable life -- one that was less about accumulation and more about appreciating what we already had -- and about becoming more conscious of where our food came from and how it was grown or raised, maybe even growing some of it ourselves. It was a period of drawing into myself, this house on these few acres, and this place, to figure out what truly mattered and how best to go about living and appreciating this good life I had been gifted with.

A year after our youngest graduated from high school I finally quit my job in Houston and moved up here full-time, with Hubby's promise that he would soon follow. A short time later, I met the women I refer to as The Muses, and my world started expanding again. They became my "tribe", supporting me in my own endeavors but also pushing me out of my comfort zone, encouraging me to try things I never imagined doing. Of course, the blog reflected that change.

Not long after Hubby finally did join me here full-time he started having some serious health issues, causing my focus, and the blog's, to shift inward once more. Then Facebook happened, and I reconnected with the woman I call High School Debbie. She, in turn, introduced me to the world of on-line art classes. Between the people I met in those classes, the ones I met through Story Circle Network, and the connections I've made through this blog, a whole new tribe has formed -- my virtual Muses -- and they have once again changed the path of my writing. My world has expanded in ways I never imagined, and this blog has become the virtual equivalent of the cafe where I meet with my local Muses every week to connect, inspire one another, and to share our latest creations, adventures and explorations. It was only fitting then, don't you think, that this blog's banner was finally updated to reflect those changes?

Welcome my muses, to Seasonality -- The Muse Café!

 

Monday, March 19, 2018

COLORMAD MONDAY: THROUGH HIS EYES

One of my favorite things about travel with my hubby is comparing our photos, once we get home. Though we are often aiming our cameras in the very same direction, the results are nothing alike, for we are seeing things with different eyes. I am trying to capture the atmosphere or feel of a place -- looking for illustrations to go with my stories. My hubby, on the other hand, is looking at things with an artist's eye, and zeroing in on detail and composition.




These photos I found spread out on the dining room table the other day are prime examples. They were taken at Fusterlandia -- that crazy mosaic-covered village we visited in Cuba. I took a lot of photos there myself but, trust me, there was nothing even close to this on my camera when I got home!




Ever grateful for the opportunity to see things through another's eyes.