This past year has been both lovely and not so much. My mother's health took a nose-dive and has been in a nursing home since June. She's very happy and content and has developed this beautiful, peaceful form of acceptance and understanding. I told her once I wish she had been more like that in her younger days, because her life would have been simpler and happier, plus, ours would have been too! LOL My mother is or was a worry-wart, very intense and at times, rigid. Unlike her own mother, she was very much the control freak. Then I come along, the one more like her grandmother, than mother. My mother always said I reminded her of her mom...called me a happy soul with not a care in the world. Well, I do have many "cares in the world, " but I find I am happy most days. However, what I did find, after a difficult time with some individuals, was that life IS too short, as some of you who have experienced a very great loss in your life, and that one can't be bogged down with negativity, especially from other sources. I just found out a friend of mine, a dear friend's husband is once again, fighting throat cancer. This is his second round with that nasty stuff and his treatment is especially intense and downright, horrid, but his prognosis is good and that's what all that suffering is about. Another friend, was just diagnosed with breast cancer and she won't know about her round of treatment till next month, hopefully, at the end of this week. I call these incidents, Life's Wake-up Calls.
I don't know how long I've got on this Blue Marble we call Earth, but I do know I want to live it to my fullest and as long as I can till it's time to rest. Actually, I don't like the idea of "resting" after death, we have plenty of time to rest in our lives...around here, you'll hear many say, "Al fin esta descansando," after one dies...meaning, "At last they are finally resting." Hell no, it's time to really begin having the time of your life/after-life. I've always pictured my dad and his friends in that Big Bar in Heaven, having a few, joking, telling stories and what not. My sweet cousin, Paul, just passed in Oct. and what a wonderful guy he was! He was able to survive a cancerous brain tumor, one that killed most, but he survived it, graduated from college, married, had children and lived long enough to see his first grandson. I think Paul survived as long as he did due to his attitude about life. Talking about a "wake-up call," but at 21?? He was attending University of Texas at Austin in the early 70's when this occurred, so can imagine, the treatments were harsher than now. Consequently, it was the massive amount of radiation that eventually took his life at 64. It took all those years for that chain reaction to slowly end his wonderful life.
Ok, on a happier note, I'll be starting another marathon body of work, hopefully, at the end of this week. I've been a bit grouchy and I figured out why. No, it's not all the goodies and sweets lying around here, since I'm really not a sweet-eater, or all the fattening foods that have invaded my body, ok, maybe a little of that, but I realized I hadn't been doing any studio work since the week before Christmas or maybe longer. I did make a couple things for gifts, for my sister, daughter, niece and friends. Have you ever noticed it's a lot more fun to make things you're making for those you care about, well, I guess I'm that way, but quality of my work is still important to the unknown person who buys my work too. Here is what I did for those I love:
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| For my daughter, a small ornie commemorating the day my grandson, Sammy, decided Lennon, the cat, needed shades for those bright Texas days. |
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| For one of bestie, Judy, who asked me to make something to hang on her front door. |
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| For my niece, an ornie of her little wiener dog, Whinie |
![Going Pink for October](http://<center><a href="http://www.plumroselane.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy344/plumrose-lane/Badges/Jack-goingpinkforoctober.png" alt="Going Pink for October" /></a></center>)
