Zentangle-Natural Disasters

     I haven't been participating in the Diva's zentangle challenge for awhile but I still follow what others are doing.  This week, her challenge was primarily concerning the flooding in Calgary, but I decided to take the topic a little further, what with all the natural disasters we have been experiencing pretty close to home...tornadoes here in Texas and Oklahoma, fires in Colorado and California, and flooding in my home state, Illinois and neighboring Missouri.
     Mother Nature is being a real "B" word this spring!!!

Natural Disasters-6-29-2013

Memory Monday #25

      Last week, I showed our brand new radio/phonograph! A real treat for the whole family.  The phonograph would play "78" RPM records....big, heavy vinyl records.

A pile of 78 records

78 RPM record labels

     The records were two-sided...usually a popular tune on one side and a not as well known by the same artist on the reverse.  Sometimes, through exposure the lesser known song would become popular.  

      The first record that I remember my dad purchasing and playing on our new phonograph was "Ghost Riders in the Sky" by Vaughn Monroe!   Whenever I hear that song or a rendition (Johnny Cash recorded it later), I remember that beautiful phonograph we had!!

I am a Techie!!

   

      I am a Facebook fan....I enjoy blogging and reading blogs by other people...I love my iPhone (instant information and pictures!) and my Kindle...and all my Apps!  And my buddy has an iPad which I am drooling over!  (Next on my wish list!!) I am even able to "text"...slowly...which lets me be in touch with my college granddaughter better!

     On FB I have been able to see pictures of nieces and nephews from where ever they are...from Illinois to Antarctica; Missouri to Oregon.  On FB I have collected the best recipes; read the funniest stories; seen the most wonderful art; and connected with "long lost" friends! And even express myself politically!!

     I know many of my blog readers are not on FB so I  am going to occasionally share some of my favorite websites, information etc that I find on that popular social media!
     Just today, I saw this site which is kind of fun... "12 Most"  This site lists things...the one that I found on Facebook which led me there was the "Twelve Most  Striking Tendencies of Creative People" (or something like that!) I found that almost all of them do pertain to me...except for the # 1...I am never bored...the word boredom is not in my vocabulary.  I can always find some way to entertain myself...even if it is heavy duty day dreaming!

Facebook's "Like" Button

     One thing I wish Facebook would put on the entries people post is a "Don't Like" Button!  If I disagree with something someone posts, I either have to ignore it or go into a detailed explanation when a simple "don't like" would be so much easier!!!

Memory Monday #24

    As best as I can remember, this is the floor plan of the down stairs of our house where I spent most of my childhood...from second grade through high school.  I am showing it on my blog so my readers can easily refer to it when I talk about different memories there.  Now, when I was about twelve, my parents did some major remodeling, but that is a few years off!

floor plan of my childhood home

Room #1 was a living room; Room #2 was the bedroom that my sister and I shared for a couple years. Room #3 was a dining room and Room #4 was my parents' bedroom.  None of this is to scale and I am thinking that the original house didn't have the bathroom or kitchen as they are here.  The upstairs was just one big room and under the stairway was a closet which went clear under the stairs for storage. A stairway to the basement was located in the screened-in back porch...under a lift up door.

      After we had been living there for awhile, my dad bought a new radio/record player combination!  It was the the living room on the wall beside the door into my bedroom.  It was really special!!  State of the arts!!

The radio door is open; the record player for 78 records is on the left.

This is not exactly like the radio, but very similar!  Many a night we would sit around on the floor listening to our favorite radio shows!  A favorite that I didn't list last week, another really scary one, was "The Shadow"!  It came on past our bedtime...so we didn't get to legitimately listen to it.
     When our parents would go out, they would get babysitters.  Most of the sitters we had were sweet, little old ladies!  At least they seemed old to us.  I remember this one little old lady was quite hard of hearing...and she would doze off frequently!  So as soon as we were put to bed, she would sit in a cozy chair in front of the radio....and doze off!  From where our bedroom was situated, we could hear the radio...she would always have Lawrence Welk or some other ucky music on.  We would take turns being the "bad kid" and one of us would crawl out of the bedroom, quietly turn the sound down so we could hear it but she couldn't and tune in to OUR radio station, and get to listen to "The Shadow" or some other dastardly program!  Then, of course, when the show was over, we had to go turn it back to the other station so our parents wouldn't guess what we were doing!

Memory Monday #23

    When I was a kid we didn't have television until I was about 14..so we did a lot of radio listening!  And having to create mental pictures of what was going on was not a problem at all!  In fact, I think those of my generation probably had much keener imaginations because of NOT having everything visually presented to us! I'm just sayin'!

A table radio from the 1940's

    We had mysteries, westerns, adventures, dramas, humor...we had it all! Some of my favorite shows were the Westerns: "The Lone Ranger",  "Roy Rogers", "Gene Autry", "Hopalong Cassidy"...and for Adventure, you couldn't beat "Rin Tin Tin" and "Sergeant Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police"!  And my favorite Mystery was "Inner Sanctum" or more commonly known as "The Squeaking Door"!  It was very scary...but I loved it..probably where my fondness for SciFi and Horror shows stems.  Turn up your volume and click on the link and you, too, can enjoy the show!!
     While searching the Internet for old radio shows, I came across this website which is a non-profit archival site that has JILLIONS of downloadable information...check it out! I have bookmarked it so I can return to it again and again!!

   

Memory Monday # 22

 

In front of our house in town

     The house we moved into was pretty neat  It was two story...or more like a story and a half.  The upstairs was really just one big room with a large hall where the stairway was and a huge closet which faced the front of the house and had a window in it where one could look out on the street. (More about that in my teen years!)  The only problem with the upstairs is that it wasn't heated.  There were a couple of vents in the floor so there was residual heat from below in the winter.  Very few houses in that part of Illinois were air conditioned then; but there were windows on all sides of the room so we got great breezes! The front of the house had a glassed in porch with screens so we kids would often sleep out there in the summer.  And it was a great place to play on rainy days.
      We had a huge lot so my parents were able to have a large garden.  Mom was always pickling and canning vegetables!  There were also these large maple trees which were beautiful in the fall.  In fact the whole town is full of maple and oak trees and others which turn beautiful reds, oranges, rusts, etc.  I remember there was a large pecan tree in the back yard upon which my dad hung a rope swing.  And I came across this picture of me with kittens, so I guess we found someone giving away free kitties in town too!

Jay with kittens

      And when we moved back to town we were reunited with Fuzzy, our border collie who stayed with the neighbors!  My dad was a big hunting enthusiast so his favorite kind of dog was some kind of bird dog...either pointers or setters.  While we were in the country, he acquired Specks who was a mature pointer...the sweetest dog ever! Also a very skilled hunting dog!!

Jay with Specks

    Oh, for those of you who did not know why we had "boy" and "girl" bikes was as some one guessed...it was because originally women never wore pants and had to accommodate the wearing of long skirts and it would not be very lady-like to straddle a bar!!

   

Out of Asia

   

"The Year of the Dragon" 

A Chinese Dragon at our hotel on Hawaii

     The challenge for the Art Quilters of the World for this time was "Out of Asia"...coincidentally when we traveled to Hawaii last month, our hotel's decor was totally Asian influence.  All over the grounds there was statuary, artifacts, symbolic works of art...One topic that caught my interest was the use of the Chinese Zodiac.  When we returned home, I had to do a little research on that.  I discovered that the year in which I was born, 1940, is in the year of the Dragon. (For more info on the Dragon or to find out YOUR Chinese Zodiac year information, go to this link.)
     After toying with many ideas, I finally decided on doing my quilt in the motif of a dragon...so..back to the internet...found information about the dragon/ the symbol for "dragon" and proceeded to create my "dragon".

     Using Asian-looking fabric and colors; freezer paper and fusible webbing I was able to get the look I wanted.  Then I made a mini silk screen to create the Chinese lettering for "Dragon".

Freezer paper cut out of my drawing to iron to my fabric choices.

the Chinese lettering for "Dragon"

My mini silk screen I made to create the Chinese letters

    And then I spent quite a bit of time machine stitching all around the dragon parts!!!

Close up of stitching

Closeup of Chinese lettering (it is in black paint but looks green here!)

     Once again, I really enjoyed this choice of theme for the Art Quilters of the World.  Be sure to go to our website to see what everyone else has done...and now..on to the next challenge!!