On the road to healing with Minions, music and happy day bouquets!
What a fantastic way to send flowers long distance! I received this ‘Bouquet in a Book’ in the snail mail a few days after my foot surgery from my blogger sista & co-honorary Manc bud, L.Marie.
Totally unexpected. Thoughtful. And fun.
Just like she is 🙂
I’m sharing my ‘adult’ pop-up book bouquet with all of you because it just might help to make your day a happy day, too – along with Stuart Minion (UKE ready to play), my jazzman Dad in spirit (represented by the statuette), my Ma’s outrageous lilies (one in a series of color studies), and a framed color copy of an art postcard I bought long ago of William H. Johnson’sBlind Singer (which has an interesting story behind it for another time).
Saw the Doc the other day to get my stitches out (ick, but whew, glad that’s done) and I’m on the next leg of my foot surgery recovery. Yep, that was an awkward pun 🙁
In three weeks I’ll be out of the Boot and closer to getting back into my ‘normal’ shoes – which implies getting back to my more ‘normal’ exercise routines. We’ll see. Until then, I discovered a fantastic YouTube Video by a youthful exercise coach on exercises that can be done while serving time in the Boot.
Caroline Jordan’s, Hurt Foot 30 minute Total Body Workout was filmed entirely while in the Boot during her own ‘hurt foot’ recovery. Already, I’ve kept up for about 15 minutes at a time in different sections of the 30 minute routine…not bad for a lady of ‘Sixty Pho’! HA! If nothing else, I should develop wicked upper arm strength (and possible sculpting), even if those glutes are neglected due to circumstances beyond my control.
Now excuse me while I do the last of three sets of TOE exercises my Doc ‘prescribed’ for me to do on a 3x’s daily basis…
“You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” -Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed Continue reading
My cousin Dennis taking us for a boat ride on Lake Waco, TX
As hubby alluded to in the last post, we went to Colorado via the ‘long way’ earlier this May. First driving for 17 hours straight through to Waco, TX to visit my baby cousin and his family (and to do some business with a colleague in Houston).
Then off to Las Cruces, NM (a breezy 10 hour drive) – land of hubby’s adolescence, our newlywed life and ‘the compound’.
A favorite spot to wander the desert in Las Cruces, NM
LCNM revisited (thoughts)
Sometimes ya gotta be away before ya can come back…or at the very least appreciate what ya left (for whatever reason).
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with this place known as Las Cruces, New Mexico. Town where we moved for hubby to finish his degree at NMSU after we first got married; place filled with his side of the family or in other words: my in-laws. Not inherently a bad thing, just harder to make one’s mark on a new marriage when there are lots of others hovering overhead. Plus life in married student housing was fun except for the crash course in the myriad varieties of roaches and ants harbored and lurking within the requisite 300 square foot cinderblock walls…
Our first-born was indeed born there, in fact, she was the first baby born for the New Year that year (1982). Cool. We couldn’t wait for all the diapers and other baby items everyone said the city would be bestowing upon us because of that incident of nature; we really needed the help with that kind of stuff being poor students and all…except the year before, the city made such a big deal over Baby New Year that it backfired on them since there were some shady relatives, legal circumstances and secrets now publicly revealed surrounding the family that innocent baby was born into.
So, no freebies for us, though we did get a great write up in the local newspaper and enthusiastic announcements on several of the local radio stations.
Oh well, didn’t matter much since we left for the Bay area soon after hubby graduated – within the first month of our Havilah’s life – to pursue his new job at HP (Hewlett/Packard) as a little family without either side of our families too near. And that’s when we grew the most as a three-some; and when our hearts yearned to be closer to both our families…go figure!
After a few days we were back on the road. The familiar I-25 trail took us to Colorado in the usual 9-10 hour time frame. Also, since we know that route by heart, it is less stressful in terms of placement of rest stops and timing on the one gas fill-up necessary to complete the journey.
Bruno’s Purple Giants – Irises in the family and transplanted in our various gardens for almost 50 years (last vestiges shown here in a corner of Ma&Dad’s neglected garden)
Once at Ma & Dad’s place, the dominoes aligned into classic form, readying for that one touch to start the tumbling of items needed to get their estate settled.
For good.
Now that most of the sorting and sifting of the stuff of lives has been completed, I still have much to do to get the house ready for listing, but as a professional real estate agent told me: “You’re on the right path…almost there.”
After a mere 10 days back here in SC for already-on-the-calendar doctor’s appointments/tests and other commitments, we’ll be heading out again to Colorado, land of my (he)art, gearing up and plowing through to the finish line to ‘git ‘er done*’ with all things related to selling the house.
The housing market is rich with possibilities, wish us luck. * thank you Anna for lending me this phrase On the day before this year’s Summer Solstice, I’m leaving you with a bit of Manc Music in honor of the turning of seasons. Here are Mancunian native sons, the Courteeners, withSummer.
Here I am doing my favorite blogger-tag game again: The 3 Day Quote Challenge. Half the fun is getting nominated, so I thank you Heather and Dizzy for the nomination.
The Rules:
– Thank the person who nominated you
– Post a quote for three consecutive days (1 quote for each day)
– Share why this quote appeals to you so much
– Nominate 3 different bloggers for each day
3 Days, 3 Quotes, 3rd Time #2
From her autobiography, “Seams Unlikely” (click on photo for more details)
‘Sewing with Nancy’ has been a PBS staple since the 1982 – the same year my firstborn came into this world. Echoes of Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers rang throughout our home during those early child-rearing days, along with trips to the park and reading storybooks. However once kiddos were safely tucked in for their afternoon naps, it was my turn to plop down on the couch, turn on the TV and watch Nancy create her masterpieces. It wasn’t until recently that I realized her facial disfigurement was a symptom of a progressive disabling disease, Bell’s Palsy. Yet, she lived her life, pursued her dreams and made a difference in this world one stitch at a time.
In an effort to reflect solidarity with students in today’s walkout, I am pubbing this post at 10AM local time on March 14th.
Parents wait for news after a reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Joel Auerbach)
Just one month ago on Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday 17 students and faculty members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were violently killed by Nikolas Cruz with an AR-15-style rifle. As with the Manchester Shootings, teen aged ‘children’ were victims but unlike Manchester, this is an internal ‘war’ waged by American citizens against itself.
I am proud of the students of Parkland – but not proud of the reasons behind this desperate need for change. They have somehow been graced with the gift of channeling anger and grief into a rational and highly visible form of social activism.
Finally, a palpable ‘changing of the guard.’
Hubby says this is their Vietnam…and I’d say they’re rising to the challenge.
The following are snippets of articles gleaned to read as a single narrative (sources are referenced in highlighted links) to document this living history of a rising “Next Generation of Change.” Continue reading
I thought the final drafts and final rewrites of pieces critiqued by two different writers groups in two different states, edited, reworked and rewritten over a time span of close to four years would be the easy part of finishing my Goat Suite Saga set of 7 vignettes. Never mind the larger project of Swimming with Swans: vignettes of our three year journey between homes set of at least 2xs that amount.
Silly me.
While I’ve stamped four of the seven vignettes as final, it’s this fifth one that’s got me up against the wall as mentioned in a previous post. It’s a good thing I took that quilt break as it helped refresh my writerly juices to get back in the game.
However, it seemed like I just wasn’t making any progress. So, the other day I decided to passively gather data on how long it’s taking to actually do specific rewrites. The numbers were kind of scary.
Let me explain.
There’s this one musically technical paragraph that I was told was confusing to non-musicians. However, I insist upon it staying as it’s important to the totality of that particular vignette. One paragraph, out of one vignette with an approximate word count of 2000 words took me over 12 hours to rework, reword, rewrite and stamp as final.
One paragraph.
Waiting on the final studio mix of my lone recorded piece (out of four total) left to be mixed before sending all to the mastering lab has been frustrating. Yet, it gives me an excuse to focus on the written part of the GSS of which an abbreviated form will be featured in the cd insert booklet.
Never did I ever figure on spending so much time on one paragraph.
In these days before Irma’s impending impact upon this evacuation city of Florence, South Carolina, I have been overly sensitive to the fact that we will not be here during her arrival. Instead, we will be ‘going through Irma’ while driving on-the-road to Colorado.
Already this town’s hotel rooms are filling up with evacuees from Florida, leaving less space available for later local evacuees coming from areas such as Myrtle Beach.
Irma is a very real threat, especially in light of Harvey’s tirade. Residents here are keenly aware of the dangers ahead. Yet our own prepping for it involves continuing with our travel plans. A form of voluntary evacuation, if you will – though hardly intended as such. Also as of this writing a new twist has been added to the mix: a resemblance to this area’s worst hurricane on record, that of Hugo in 1989. Hugo landed inland and did his damage as if the midlands of the Pee Dee were the Carolina coastal lowlands. Continue reading
Once-upon-a-time there was a classical guitarist with severe performance anxiety. Throughout her years as a working musician, she managed to control it through judicious elimination of caffeine on the day of playing and maintaining a regular pre-performance regimen including the use of breathing exercises learned during delivery of her three children. Nothing really worked all that well, uncontrollable shakiness of the hands often threatened to take control of the show. Recommendations of relief by self-medication using beta-blockers began to sound quite appealing, but her natural aversion to non-organic approaches to dealing with life’s issues held her back from taking the leap on that avenue. Good thing. Most who went that route, acquired other side effects that only compounded the basic performance anxiety problem.
Then one fine day, rumors of the Banana Cure began circulating among other afflicted cgers.
That was one cure this lady cger was willing to investigate further. Coming from a scientific background, she tried her best to set up quasi-experiments to see if the Banana Cure had any merit or if it was purely placebo. Continue reading
Me & the Goodwill Educational & Historical Society, Inc Board Left to Right: Ada Lyn Jones, Donise White, James Boyd, Laura Bruno Lilly, William Remmes (President), Louise D. Bevan, Rev. Carnell Hampton, Ruby Jean Boyd
I fully intended on posting a ‘thoughtful article on my first SwS presentation’ as mentioned here. Obviously, I haven’t been able to quite pull one together. Yes, the June 3rd featured event at the Goodwill Cultural Center was a huge success and the thrill of introducing the public to my Goat Suite (Saga), the related creative process and how it all occurred while in the midst of our non-traditional between homes journey was some kind of high. But what really makes this experience stand out for me is the fact that all of the Goodwill Educational & Historical Society, Inc board members attended it. In the world of the working musician, this is quite an anomaly.
I keep perusing these two photos* taken afterwards. The genuine expressions of joy shining through the faces of those photographed remind me of the spirit of the place; the delight of the moment.
On the steps of the Goodwill Cultural Center Mayesville, SC Left to Right: Laura Bruno Lilly, Terry W. Lilly, James Boyd, William Remmes
I have long since done my own personal ‘performance assessment’, ferreting out solutions to challenges encountered during the actual performance. Specifically: in the transition from spoken word performance to the focus required in performing on an instrument – a very real hurdle for the brain in switching gears.
Quotes and clips have been gathered for use in future marketing and grant proposal endeavors; bits of prose and musical phrases have been tweeked; new contacts have been made and old ones reignited…I’m ready to move forward!
*photos by Jayne Bowers used with permission; content of photos used with permission
