THE LIBRARY

"The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books"  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We're down to the last couple of weeks of school and its time for all the books to come floating back into the library... Monday is the due date! Its gratifying to see how reluctantly they hand me their last book and even more gratifying to see the progress they have made in reading. Most don't fully comprehend what a "gift" the ability to read is. 

Its honestly "magic" to see the transformation from the little 1st graders with their skinny sixteen page primers to the 6th graders who are truly voracious readers. 

Yesterday I cataloged, leveled, spine labeled and covered fifty brand new books. They're so "pretty" in their new jackets and the look on a student's face is priceless when he/she realizes that they are the first to get to read a "new book." But the nearly hundred old books I deleted, with their tattered and ratty covers, pages falling out and spines broken, are a testament of how much our students love to read. They have, quite literally, loved them "to death."

Illustration by Scott Gustafson

Do you know, Peter asked, why swallows build in the eaves of houses?  It is to listen to the stories.     JM Barrie - Peter Pan

 "THE AUNTIES"

 The art of Inge Look

Inge Look (Ingeborg Lievonen) was born in Helsinki, Finland in 1951. As child she and her family lived in a seven story apartment building in the city. It was literally teeming with tenants... so many people, personalities and smells. The two that quickly captivated Inge's attention were Alli and Fifi, two older women who's exuberance for life was contagious.

She refers to them as the "Aunties" and they became the inspiration for her very popular cards. The motto for these two fabulous old ladies is... 

"Time is not money and spending it isn’t a sin."

  

As an adult, Inge became a professional gardener but later in life she embarked on a second career reaching into her childhood for inspiration for her paintings. Her pictures are a reflection of her optimistic outlook on life.

She has painted over 300 postcards, designed stamps and illustrated children's books. Her work will soon be available for purchase on this site ...

 http://www.ingelook.com/site3.html

Today Inge lives and works in Finland where she is garnering a worldwide audience. 

I ran into one of Inge's picture on pinterest and posted it in the top right corner of my blog. Then I went snooping to see if I could find the artist. I had to travel "down a rabbit hole" but there she was.  What a delightful collection!

MY NEW CAR

I haven't owned a "new" car in years. I know that sounds pathetic but as long as it runs I'm good to go. Well my Toyota 4-Runner no longer runs. I just had a new fuel pump put in and now it need a new water pump and timing belt. It deserves a rest... it almost has 400,000 miles on it. 

So I did it... I bought a new Kia Sportage. I did this with the help of my daughter. No men involved just two women in a male dominated industry and we nailed it! Great car, perfect color (black) and a payment so low I'm still shaking my head. I'm  sure the "car buying angels" were hovering, saying... "You go girls"

MY MOTHER'S HANDS 

The relationship between a mother and a daughter is complicated. Sometimes it feels like we are the same person and sometimes we are not even on the same page. 

My mother

My mother was gifted with her hands... she sewed everything she wore, she knit, quilted, crocheted, tatted, embroidered, re-finished antique furniture, wove baskets and did needlepoint.  

At 70 she learned to spin. Not satisfied with that alone, she carded and dyed wool and then spun the fleece into yarn. Finally, with her loom, she wove the yarn into fabric that eventually became a dress. It makes me tires just writing about it.

I think I was seven

My mother expected that I would follow in her footsteps. I tried... I really, really tried, but my heart wasn't in it. I sewed, I knit, I did some needlepoint... it all just seemed like a lot of work to me. It took me years to understand that my mother LOVED the PROCESS and I LOVED the FINISHED PRODUCT. 

Every stitch, every turn of the wheel gave her pleasure. And when the project was complete she would rest for maybe an hour only to begin a new one. She is what is known as an "artisan"  She valued quality and craftsmanship and things were somehow elevated in value if she made them with her own two hands.

six brothers    

My mother left this world without understanding the differences in our personalities and she was gravely disappointed that I didn't do the things she did. I grew up surrounded by a family of artisans and for a long time I wasn't sure where I fit.

My brother Don Bluth, maker of American Tail,
Land Before Time and Anastasia






Then one night my oldest daughter came home from one of her college evening classes where they had discussed personalities and  said, "Guess what... I found you."

"You're an Idealist. You see the world as you think it ought to be. You make it a beautiful place in your head not with your hands" 

Wow! If there was a name for what I am there must be others like me. I wasn't a failure I was just different. A genuine feeling of relief washed over me.


I am a dreamer and a lover of beauty. I am thrilled when someone else has the skill and patience to make something of quality... a piece of fine furniture, a photograph, a beautifully decorated room. When I go into a quilt shop I don't want to buy the fabric... I want to buy the finished quilts hanging on the wall. My artistic eye allows me to see it and appreciate it. My children laugh and say ...

"Our mom's not the worker bee... she's the designer bee."

With a new sense of value and an infusion of confidence I began to "fly"   Beauty, in all its forms, is everywhere and I am constantly on the lookout.  When I see something where all the elements are combined in such a way that the effect is stunning, it takes my breath away. I have come to realize that my talent lies not in the doing but in the recognizing. 





Now the interesting part of this story is that my daughter, who helped me to understand all of this, is cut out of the "same bold of cloth" as my mother.  She is an amazing "artisan"  with a real passion for piecing and quilting. My mother taught her some of it but when she stood in front of a huge quilting machine for the first time she instinctively knew what to do. There it is again ...

 "LIFE'S A CIRCLE"

BLESSED AND BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY 
Daffodils 

CALIFORNIA

The written word is so delicious! One of my favorite poems...

             

           I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
          That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
          When all at once I saw a crowd,
          A host, of golden daffodils;
          Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
          Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

      

          Continuous as the stars that shine

          And twinkle on the milky way,

          They stretched in never-ending line

          Along the margin of the bay

         Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

         Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

          

                                              

                  


          The waves beside them danced; but they

          Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
          A poet could not but be gay,
          In such a jocund company:
          I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
          What wealth the show to me had brought:

          For oft, when on my couch I lie

                            In vacant or in pensive mood,                         

          They flash upon that inward eye

          Which is the bliss of solitude;

          And then my heart with pleasure fills,

          And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

HAPPY SUNDAY

DISHES IN THE DETERGENT 

"The great giveaway"

Coming out of the depression and then World War II, women were resourceful and companies were clever with their marketing techniques. 

In the 1950s Duz Detergent began a promotional campaign which involved including a piece of 22K gold-trimmed Golden Wheat dinnerware in each box of laundry detergent. 

I vividly remember my mother opening a new box of detergent and pulling out an amber glass. She was always so excited. Companies gave away dishes, glasses and even dishtowels. 

With a little patience and loyalty to the brand they could collect "service" for the entire family. 

Love the 50s!

FINDING MEANING IN LIFE

One person CAN make a difference in this world. Darcy Creech, a remarkable woman, believes philanthropy is a "lifestyle"

I first discovered Darcy Creech when I went looking for a hat. I fell in love with her store, Peter Beaton, and the story behind it. Then I noticed on her website that there were some philanthropic adventures and that made me curious. I did a little digging and "chapter two" of her life is equally as fascinating as the first.




When newly divorced Darcy, and her two year old son Peter moved to Nantucket and opened a hat shop, the budding success she had already been experiencing ballooned. She was the "toast of the town."

Once destitute, she now was more than solvent. She married again and gave birth to a second son. When that marriage failed she began a whirlwind social life, trying to fill the whole inside herself that was formed by two failed marriages and an abusive childhood.

In her own words... “Everyone thought I was living the dream, but I was so empty inside. My life was a great big party. Everyone envied me. I had celebrity clients, a beautiful house, beautiful children, party invitations, and the attention of men." 

"But I had no joy.”

“I tried to anesthetize myself with another season of parties. One summer night, after coming home from a fundraiser, I sat on the staircase in my floor-length dress and wept.”


“I thought, I’m either going to kill myself, or I’m going to surrender my life to God.”
Surrender she did. 

She continues...

"I’d always been interested in philanthropy, but I thought I had to make a bazillion dollars before I could do it. But $38 a month?  I can do this. I can catapult someone out of poverty"

She became sponsor to two children, Patrick in Kenya and Witness in Tanzania. In January 2011, she traveled to Tanzania to see life there firsthand.

On her trip she discovered that people in the village walk 2.4 miles everyday to get water from a swamp.  Water that makes them sick. 

Upon her return she attended a world crisis conference and learned that all the worlds water problems could be solved with  $20 billion, less than half of the $50 billion Americans spend shopping on "Black Friday"


Very familiar with consumerism, she went to work developing products. Her first item, a watch priced at $500.00 garnered  $44,000. in 30 days. 

100% of the money went to building water wells in Tanzania where contaminated water is killing 5000 children a day. Her efforts are ongoing with her foundation Hydrex Philanthropy. 

Darcy Creech is a truly remarkable 
woman of a certain age.

“I get more back by giving than my sponsored kids could ever imagine. Giving is not a one-time thing, it’s a lifestyle,”

Want to help change the world? visit... 

http://www.hydrexphilanthropic.org/