Mosaic Mom

The line at the bank was huge. Only 1 teller of course.

The lady at the Post Office was grouchy. She managed to rip the envelope I was mailing the books in. She got some batch mail sticky label stuck to my order then tried to pry it off. Grrr.

Across the street a railroad crew is installing new ties under the tracks. The house is shaking.

The shaking house has roused the snake in the attic. He/she/it is slithering over my head and in the wall.

The post delivery is late today. Must get to the IRS refund check before said railroad crew does.

It's smoky from the Georgia fire all the way down here.

We left the pump on all night by accident/forgetfulness. Won't have to water the trees today.

Today was heaven.

I met Little Mind Escape at Olive Garden and we discussed Modernist Art Theorey over lunch. She actually saw a copy of Kadinsky's The Spirituality of Art over at Borders in Winter Park and she's going to get it for me next week! Yay! Meanwhile she gave me one of her art text books to read. It has a condensed version of Kadinsky in it.

Then of course, we had to go to Dillards!!!It's a magnet with all those shoes over there. But we scored at Shoe Rack! It's just more casual to wander and choose your own.

We wound up at Macy's and LME got a cute jacket. Nice Day, made perfect because Plant Daddy had the Magic basketball to amuse him all aafternoon.

Plant Daddy wants to spend the summer polishing his head.

No, this does not have anything to do with his hair-do. It is his 240Z engine block. I guess he wants a peppier motor or something like that.

Anyway, he is going to use the mosaic studio over the summer to do this work because the studio has 1. a fan to cool him off, and 2. a radio to soothe hizself.

I have other projects, to wit...

The query got answered and now I have to organize a packet. Yikes! Exciting new territory! and...

Yesterday I wrote the first rough draft of the Bluemner thesis. Now I have to flesh out the dates and quotes and cite the references, etc.

Lots of work ahead of me for the summer!

1. I am to chair the Palm Writers Group for the May meeting. I had a fear that no one would submit work for critique and I'd have to come up with another meeting format. But yesterday a nice selection got sent for review, so it will be standard procedure for May. Yay!

2. We have some one in that group that when he writes good, he writes very very good. His article this month is brilliant. I wish I could do stuff like that.

3. Yesterday Plant Daddy and I had a long Bluemner conversation. That really made me organize my thinking. Today I will write the first draft. Thanks, PD.

4. I sent a query out 2 days ago. I hate waiting for reply. I just hate the tension of wondering if....

Because I stink at making ceramics.

Here is my attempt at making a spoonrest.

I should not be allowed to read the Sunday paper. All it does is get me riled up. Here's a sample...

Hillary says if elected she will send Bill off to be ambassador to the world. Hillary, I will never vote for you because I never ever want to hear about Bill again ever. I had to explain what oral sex and cigar sex was to my daughter who was 11 at the time. I will never ever support you because I would assune Bill is diddling women all over the globe. If you want my vote Hillary, get divorced.

The newspaper reports on a motorcycle event going on in Leesburg today. I want all you motorcyclists who are speeding noisily past my house today that I am praying for you...to be maimed and mutilated, you noisy reckless morons!

The City of Groveland has asked residents to conserve water. Wait didn't you just approve 1000 new homes last week? So you want the old time residents to die of thirst so you can cram more Yankees in here?


See I told you I shouldn't read the paper.

During Confirmation ceremonies at the LaGrange local Episcopal Church, I had something of a mystical experience. “It is no longer I who lives, but God who lives in me” is the way St Paul put it. Anyway…immediately thereafter…

1. I wanted to become a nun.

2. I really didn’t like that there was a black Episcopal Church and a white Episcopal Church and never the two shall worship together in 1963.

3. I had a deep sense of estrangement from all my Catholic relatives in Philadelphia and I wanted to rectify that and solidify the family.

So, one day after school, I walked over to the LaGrange Catholic Church, knocked at the door and told the priest I wanted to join.

He told me to come back and bring my parents. He wasn't going to encourage a teenage sheep to change flocks.

I took the long way back. It took 30 years.
In Florida, I was received into the Catholic Church in 1993.

1 .I became a 3rd Order Benedictine.

2. I love the universality of Catholicism.

3. By the time I joined the Church, all my cousins had dropped out.

Two out of three ain’t bad, but a shift in religious definition like this never could have happened in LaGrange.

Home from the University of Florida one weekend, I was summoned to visit Grandmother Krafka.

Bessie Belle was no Grandma, or Nanna, or Meemaw. She ruled the family and this summons was no social visit. One always addressed her with the full German title.

“I am told you have changed your major to horticulture. Is that correct?” she demanded propped up on pillows in her French Provincial bed. She had gone blind and spent her days in bed with my aunt reading the stock market reports to her from the newspaper.

You need to know that the French Provincial furniture was the real deal, collected piece by piece on trips abroad. This was before the days of Rooms to Go knock-offs.

And you need to know that the old lady had made her fortune playing the stocks.

“Yes, Grandmother Krafka, I have changed my major from Journalism to Horticulture.”

“Your parents are too indulgent. I told your father to become a doctor and he did. He wanted to be a librarian. You will return to school and change your major to Business and Finance. You will either become a banker or marry one.”

“I have no interest or talent in that field, Grandmother Krafka.”

“Your Uncle Charlie and Aunt Mary went into the nursery business. They starved.”

“Yes, Ma’am, but I’ll be all right. Besides you were a camellia breeder. Wouldn’t you be happy for me to have more plant information?”

“Go into banking and have horticulture as a hobby. You’ll do as I say,” she waved the back of her hand at me in dismissal.

I went back to UF and continued as a Hort major. I never saw her again.

The old lady died of bladder cancer. She drank 8 Coke-a-colas a day every single day of her life.

I was disinherited.

I have had some lean times and I came within $32 of bust, but I never starved because I can grow a garden.

25K

Twenty five thousand people have now visited Mosaic Mom, according to the tracker counter.

I am totally amazed!

25,000 was the population of the town where I grew up.

LaGrange, Georgia.

There is one really good thing about LaGrange that I took with me.
I got a damn fine education there.

Other than that, the best thing is… I got the hell out of town.

You see, LaGrange was a place where THEY were always going to define ME. I would never have been able to define myself in a small town with a strict social hierarchy like that. There were rules about status and religion and race and relatives and property and on and on.

La Grange was always about money, property and prestige.
I hated it.

To have the spiritual and political life I wanted, I had to leave. And I totally love the freedom to create my own life that Florida has given me.

When I crossed the border into Florida in 1971, the sun broke through the gray clouds, both meteorologically and spiritually. It was a welcome sign into a state with a motto,”The Rules Are Different Here”. And I love it!

So now with 25,000 visitors, I can say as many people know the new Mom as knew the old me.

And I got to define who I am.

I had to go to the Post Office today.

I was unhappily in line behind a Mom and Dad who had a little girl in pink pajamas...(At 3:00PM?) Anyway...I think they must have had her on a steady diet of amphetamines! It was one of the most impressive set of acrobatics I'd ever seen a small child of 4 accomplish!

Then, happily, on to Suzy's to glaze my pottery! Yay!

Too bad to hear that Sherry is feeling sickly and will not be lecturing on poetry tonight. Get well soon.

What to do with leftover grout?

Make a Patty Man!


He won't last long since grout isn't as structurally sound as mortar, but he's fun.

This morning I found out my article was accepted over at the magazine, so I decided to go shopping to celebrate.

Went to Bed, Bath and Beyond…got towels and new bathmats since the old ones were tattered. Besides Plant Daddy was eager to have the old ones donated to the Z car shop!

Went to Park Avenue…tried on 4 shirts and a pair of jeans. Got Zero.

Went to Dillards…Scored 3 shirts and a pair of shoes and… BONUS…did research for my novel. The clerk identified the hat as a “newsboy cap”. My heroine will wear one in the opening scene.

Went to Macy’s. One of the most offensive sales clerks ever. I walked out immediately.

Went to Champs. Got a jacket for Plant Daddy.

I feel very, extremely guilty about having bought shirts and shoes, but on the way home I realized I was still wearing a shirt bought at Wal-Mart 7 years ago. I know it was that long ago because I had my photo taken in that shirt at the high school while working on the mosaic wall.

OK, time to let it go.

Participation:

At Palm Group last night, a member suggested that we, as a group, plan a seminar or an activity for the library during Reading/Literacy Week or whatever they call it, next April. Sounds intriguing.


Carla is getting married next spring. Yay!
I volunteered to do the wedding reception flowers. Yay!


Got a nice note from the committee woman from Art in the Gardens. She thanked me for attending. She felt that it was the proximity to Easter that dampened participation for the show and expressed hope I’d come back.
Not only will I return, but Plant Daddy will have a table next year, too! Metal sculpture.

That blonde lady (who wears designer clothes when she mosaics) told me her British friend is making mosaic sea shell mirrors. The British lady should get a table and so should Barbara Doll and her ceramic sculpture students.


Anticipation:

I submitted an article to a magazine. Am anxiously awaiting a response.

I submitted a mosaic proposal to an advertising company. No word on that yet, either.

Meanwhile, the phone is wonky again. I called in a repair and Embarq didn’t even bother to send a repairman out!!!!Every time I send an email I say “Einy meany miney mo. Will it crash or will it go?”

My quilt sewing friend, Jane, never ceases to amaze me! I love her work! Here's her latest...

There won't be much going on with mosaic construction for a while now as I focus on some upcoming writing deadlines.

Today I finished an article for a magazine and have run it through first edit. Then it has to sit a little and get a re-read early next week to check flow. Then I can send it out. Yay!

It's rainy and quiet...a perfect opportunity to sit and write! With a cup of constant comment tea, of course!

Saturday:

Maybe it was the cold weather and howling wind...

Maybe it was the high gas prices...

Maybe it was the day before Easter and there's a lot of competing events...

Anyway, I had no sales at the show and I had one piece break when the wind caught it. So I was down on the day.

The best thing though was 4 former students showed up. That made my heart sooooo very happy.

Easter Sunday:

Kidlet came home and we had a feast.

Asparagus, Beets, Mashed potatoes, green bean caserole (with garden fresh beans of course) strawberries (ditto) and chicken and pumpkin pie.

I'll be dieting the rest of the week!

A very happy Easter this week. Hope yours was , too!

I hid behind the Viburnum hedge in the rose garden to stay out of the wind!

Don't Miss Art in the Garden

Saturday morning...tomorrow!

9:00Am till 1:00PM

Discovery Gardens at the Agricultural Center

Woodlea Road and S.R. 19

See you there!

Phone rings.

“Hello, this is Mosaic Mom”

“Hello this is Mary from Coverings. Are you planning on attending the trade show this year?”

“Well, Mary, I’d’a’gone if it were still in Orlando, but I’m not going to travel to Chicago to attend.”

“Hmmm,” says Mary, “I’m hearing a lot of that today.”

Too Cheap for my own good


Plant Daddy ran out of deodorant. He asked me to buy him a new “flavor” since the old type is no longer made.

I went to Publix and …after 10 minutes of sniffing and pondering…I selected two new deodorants for him.

Ban “Lime Green Container” and Gilette “Cool Wave”.

It took Plant Daddy less than 30 seconds to reject both.

Well, I cannot let $5.00 worth of deodorant go to waste…so yesterday, I applied the Gilette “Cool Wave” to my own self.

At first it seemed very pleasant.

At noon, I smelled distinctively like shaving cream.

By 3:00 PM…it was 90 degrees and I had been in the mosaic studio all afternoon…

I reeked.

I smelled the worst I have ever smelled in my life.

I would have smelled better if I hadn’t’a put nothing on.

I’d’a smelt better if I’d’a put cloves of garlic…
you get the drift…
well, be glad you didn’t get the drift.

Today I threw both deodorants out and told Plant Daddy to go to WalMart and buy his own.

This was fairly easy. Finished it this morning and will grout it maybe as soon as this evening.

The mosaic flip-flop is driving me crazy!!! I should have done the bottom before the sides...duh! What was I thinking.

Saturday 9AM to !PM Discovery Gardens...see you there!

Here's the newest flower pot in the picasette style.

It probably will not be finished in time for the show Saturday...
Reminder...Art in the Garden Show 9:00AM Saturday at Discovery Gardens in Tavares!
Hope to see you there!

On Friday, I cleaned my mosaic studio.

Nature abhors a vacuum...and a clean mosaic studio, therefore I started 3 new projects.

I have another Mosaic Shoe. How about a Mosaic Flip-Flop this time?

How about a mosaic Rubik's Cube? It's a pricey doo-dad when you factor in the Bisazza!

And I have a picasette style flower pot going..for no good reason.


Poor sick kidlet came home Friday night to rest up after a week of stomach flu. The fresh strawberries grown by Plant Daddy perked her up!

Writing projects...just editing Palm Group pieces. Glad my friends are enjoying the short story class.

Harvested onions Friday and Saturday. What a stinky job.