Time travel on aisle 4...

   It's that time of year again.  The time when I walk through the store and suddenly out of one of the isles I get hit with those smells.  The smells that immediately transport me back in time.  Back to the time when  the only house cleaning I had to do was my bedroom.  The only laundry I did was pick up my dirty clothes and put the clean ones away.  Dinner was cooked by someone else and bills where a mysterious unknown monster waiting in the distant future.
   What a wonderful smell.  I find myself following that scent around the corner and down the aisle.  Suddenly there it is right in front of me.  The bright yellow and green box full of hope that all things are possible.  The box of Crayola Crayons...

Image via Wikipedia

    When I was younger nothing brought as much joy and pleasure as that box with its brand new never used crayons.  Inside that box where mountains to climb, rivers to swim, forest to explore, and space to conquerer.  There where all kinds of exotic animals and fantasies to be seen.

    They say a picture is worth a thousand words... Well, inside that little box there where unlimited words  and stories.  Where would you like to be... under the sea ... at the north pole... on a beach...a galaxy far far away ...  Grab a piece of paper anything would do and go.
   Nothing was imposable or too far away.  That little box is magic.  If you don't believe me buy one and hand it to a small child with a pad of paper.  Stand back and watch the wonder shine in their eyes and the magic flow from their hands to the paper.  Who knew that zebras were really purple and yellow, and ate red grass under a pink sky.




    Oh wow they now come in a box of 120 different colors... I really need that... For the granddaughter... so what if she is only one month old.  It's never to early to appreciate art.
 
   Wait.  What's that smell.  Can it be.  Yes it is... Play-doh.  I may never leave this aisle. 

 

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• Photos: The making of Crayola's crayons (news.cnet.com)

I must be crazy...

   I am an overachiever.  I try to do everything.  So when I started blogging I started looking at other blog sites and decided how I wanted mine to look.
  Things always change so I kept looking and I found the cooking sites.  Hey that sounds good.  I have all my mother's handwritten recipes that I have been typing up.  So I started a recipe blog Grandmom's Recipes.  Now my family can go online and find a recipe from Momma's collection.  Since I only have to write the introduction for the recipe I should be able to do that and my original blog.
   So back online I go.  I start checking the blogs other people are looking at.  Wow look at all the writers that are on here.  This stories are great.  There are romance, science fiction, horror and mysteries.  There are Drabbles that tell the story in exactly 100 words.  There are flash fiction that tell a story in less than 1000 words.  And there are serial stories that have a new chapter everyday or every week.
   Then Rayna from Coffee Rings Everywhere did a horrible thing.  She dared her followers to write a drabble based on a photo of hers.
   I never could pass up a good dare, so I sat down at the keyboard and wrote.  This is fun.  I forgot how much I enjoyed writing stories for school.  Great, but the fiction just didn't quite seem fit into the format I had decided on for my blog.  What was I going to do with these.  I knew I had way to much fun writing them to stop ... so where to put them.  Then I noticed that little link on the blogger dashboard that says Create a Blog.  Oh well, why not.  So Books at Large was born.
   Now I have 3 different blogs.  What have I done.  Have I gone insane... That rhetorical please don't answer I don't think I could take it.
   Well as you can imagine I don't think I can just dash off something every single day for 3 blogs, though I did today.  So the story blog may not get posted to as often.  But I always wanted to write.  So of course I am overdoing it as usual.

                                       What the heck was I thinking?

Help there's a Teenager in the house...

   I have never had children, let me rephrase that I have never given birth to children.  I have been around children most of my life.  I was the oldest of 4.  My sister being the baby was 8 ½ years younger than me.  My mother use to say my sister had two mothers.  If she told her no, my sister would come ask me.  The same thing happened with my sister's kids but I knew better by then.  I always asked them what did your mother say and they knew they where caught.  There Mother did it all before them ... and she did it better.
   I have always gotten along great kids and communicated well with them.  I think it has something to do with the fact I never quite grew up.  Grown ups are too serious and I am anything but.
   I even got along great with Jack's daughter and son. His son would listen to me, asked my opinion and believed me.  It was great ...

   Then he moved in with us. Over night I was living with a teenager in the house.  I was not prepared at all.  I thought by not having kids I could bypass the Mother's Curse.  Nope...didn't happen.
   Suddenly I knew nothing.  I was out of touch with what the real world was like.  I just didn't understand.   I went from no kids to a teenager... and I didn't get to grow into the roll. 
   I guess I could have looked on the bright side and realized that was a teenager's way of excepting me as a part of his life.  But I was a little too busy trying not to kill him, or go insane...  The next time I saw my mother I gave her a big hug and said I'm sorry.  I asked her ... How did you survive you had four?  She just laughed and smiled.

   I still don't know how I survived ... but I did.  Now that he is in his mid 20s and has a daughter, his father and I get smarter everyday.  He calls for our opinion again.  Listens to what we say.  We apparently now understand, and know exactly what is going.  It is nice but...

   I can't wait until his daughter becomes a teenager.  Then it will be my turn to just laugh and smile.
 
   Oh and thanks Mom for not saying I told you so. 

George Cochran Lambdin...

   While I was surfing the net ... am I the only one who has a picture of a surfer riding on light beams pop into my head when you hear those words.
   Okay I digress.  While looking on line I found a picture by a painter I had not heard of.  His name is George Cochran Lambdin (1830 – 1896).  I have seen one of his pictures before, but I had never checked out his work.  Now that I have begun blogging I check into everything (oh like you don't), so I looked him up.

   This is what I found...







He was known for his still lives of roses.









He also was fascinated with the Civil War and did several paintings dedicated to it.

               This portrait of Ulysses S. Grant is the one I've seen before.

   This one is a wife sending he husband off to fight, and kissing his sword for luck.

   Lambdin also painted other types of scenes...

I really like Lambdin's style and use of colors.  You almost feel like your eavesdropping on a moment in someones life.  Hope you enjoyed these as much as I did.

The Unexpected Visitor...

   Today I had an unexpected workout.  I was in the house when I heard the dogs barking out front.  If you have dogs you know you can tell the difference between a play bark and a warning bark.  They were warning.  I figured someone had gotten lost on the trails in the woods and wondered onto our property again.  So I go to check it out.
   They first thing I see is our dog Blondie staring at the front of the truck.  Okay, people usually come from the other way.  It might be that wild piglet or a rabbit trying to get my garden again.  But no she is not looking straight ahead... she is looking down.  Now what on earth can she be ... OH MY GOSH.

This is what she is looking at...

               A  6 foot long Timber Rattlesnake.  No I am not exaggerating.

      Now I am barking with the dogs, but my bark is more like... SNAKE...  SNAKE .... SNAKE.  Poor Jack is in the office and knows somethings up but can't make out what I'm shrieking.  He is yelling what is it. And I'm yelling Snake.  Then I see the rattle.  I really yell then ... GUN... SNAKE... RATTLE.
   Luckily he has lived with me long enough to be able to understand my shorthand.  He grabs his gun and heads out the door.  Yells at me to keep the dogs back.  Nooo problem, I'm not going in where near that thing and the dogs are trying to protect me.  So while he is going forward, I'm going back.  Carl Lewis couldn't  have caught me.  I'm pretty sure I could have set a world record.
   The snake was dispatched before it got into the house....  But the dang thing keep moving, even after his head was blown off.  I was jumping around trying to keep up with dogs and out of the way of the headless snake chasing us.  Yes I know it couldn't bite with out a head but I didn't want to test that out.  Needless to say my heart got a real good work out before everything settled back down.
   Hey ... someone call Steven King or Dean Koontz I got a great idea for a book.

    Oh and by the way in case you are wondering,  I did not take a picture of the snake.  The camera was inside and I don't have a telephoto lens.  And I really didn't want to see it smile at me anyway.


 

Tap vs. Ballroom...Shoes...

   I was a dance instructor.  Because I was a dance instructor I have horrible feet.  The kind of feet you don't want to show to the pedicurist, much less the general public.  I know all dancers have foot problems, our feet where just not made to take that kind of continuous punishment.  But women dancers have it worse than men.  Think about it.  A woman does everything a man does only she does it in heals or toe shoes.  Most of the time backwards.  Just watch Dancing with the Stars.
   I have had tap shoes, ballet slippers, Jazz shoes and lots of ballroom dance shoes.  They are all look different and are made for that dance discipline.  By the way who designed these things... the Marquis De Sade.
   Who was it that decided what type of shoe you would wear for each different discipline of dance.  Believe they didn't think this through thoroughly.

   For example this is the type of shoe you wear for tap dancing....

   Notice the closed toe sturdy heal and taps.  These are made for a dance that you dance by yourself or next to your partner with your feet mostly in contact with the floor.

Image via Wikipedia

                                               I did say mostly.


 

   And this is a ballroom dance shoe...

   This shoe is made for a dance where you face your partner... with your bodies are touching ... while you do lifts, drops and leaps across the slippery wooden floor.  Oh and the bottom of the shoe is suede so you can glide easier.

Image via Wikipedia

                    Am I the only one to see the problem here.


   I can't tell you how many times I have had to limp off the floor after my student forgot which foot he was on.  Ah ... that would be mine. 
   What no really I'm fine ... could someone get me some ice.  Oh and a towel to wipe the blood off the floor.

   I think I'll go back to teaching country and western in steel toed boots.

Open house...

  I discovered something about myself, I'm a peeping Tom or Tammy.  I really enjoy looking in other peoples houses.  No not in the way you think.  I like to see how they make their house, their home.
  Everything in the house reflex their taste and their creativity or lack there of.  I use to go to new subdivisions and walk through the builders model homes.  I went to trade shows to tour RVs and boats.   I would look a home magazines.  On vacation I would tour older homes on historic tours.  I liked to see what decorating and space saving ideas I could steal, ah incorporate in my own home.
   But I have now hit the jackpot.  Online there are millions of people around the world inviting me into their homes to look around.  I can look as long as I want, take my time and explore.  They want me to see their homes.  They open the closets and let me have a look inside.
   Why because they want to sell their house.  I have seen places that invite you to sit down have a drink and relax.

   I have seen places that look like a decorator lives there, and others that left the decorator in tears.  Yard that say a gardener lives here and yards that say what's a gardener?  View that move you to tears and view that would have you closing the curtains.  Bathroom the size of most people's master bedroom and others that make the one on the plane look big.

House on top of mountains ...

and houses under the ground...

   You name it, it's out there.  All waiting for you drop by and explore. Without a Realtor following you around, looking at their watch.  You just can't peek in the medicine cabinets.