Well now that I have (finally) everyone settled and into safe schools (see my posts on Olde Baggs for details) http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8897790997537448009&postID=3550254022042668760 Shelley is at work, Sweet Man is on a new schedule and probably will not know his hours until the week before it happens, but he's a big boy and does pretty good on his own, I can breathe. Literally breathe in my freedom and the quiet.

I moved furniture (with help Skippy) and rearranged the kitchen baking and cooking stuff so that I could do what I love to do in a more efficient way. For some time now I have been cooking with a "lick and a promise" kinda attitude. If I got something to the table, rejoice, at least that was over. But then I got hooked on some foodie blogs and remembered the thrill of the hunt. The joy of the watching pleasure erupt at a new dish and an old favorite and the wow moments of discovery of new combinations. The cooking thing has even given me more of a rush as of late than my assemblage art hunts for parts, construction of sculpture and selling said "stuff" to someone who appreciates it for what it is.

Now don't get me wrong, I could no more give up my "arting" than I could breathing but this cooking thing is like relighting a candle. I used to thrill at creating something wonderful for my family. We were on a 1200 calorie Diabetics Diet for years and it was a kick to find new ways to put things together that were legal, healthy, and tasted like cuisine not cardboring (play on cardboard) as my FIL used to call his diabetic diet. Then Shelley went off to college, I was working full and a half time and well, it was only two of us and I got lazy.

I have oldies that I haven't cooked in years. Have pulled out a few and shared with some foodie friends. http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8897790997537448009&postID=6005604635648877958 Gotten some positive feedback which goodness knows we all crave. Now I imagined and created a kick ass Notcho Momma's Peach Crisp (also on Olde Baggs) http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8897790997537448009&postID=1833668163425815758 and am looking at that being added to a New Mexico cookbook (for me a big deal, I'm like a little kid or Sally Field's, they like me, they really like me).

So today dearies, I'm in a renewed mood. I needed to find the spark that still exists in me. I let things beat me down, life get in the way, excuses started being the clothing I wore. That's crap. SM took a Dale Carnegie class a million years ago and because of his dylexia, I read the lessons to him. So I took the course too (kinda) only I never got to make the speeches. Hey that's what blogging is. Anyway, there is a quote that has stuck in my mind all this time. "You cannot change anyone else, you can only change yourself".

So cooking is how I am reinventing a not so shabby me. And once again, I have to thank my bloggie buddies for bringing me back to myself. Excuse me, I have some more peaches (they are never ending, yeah) waiting on me in the kitchen.

Much bloggy love, The Olde Bagg

This little light of mine.......

Every since I was a young child, I have, for whatever reason, been keenly aware of light. How a room looks say in autumn versus how the same room looks in spring. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of how the light looked during an event rather more than the event itself. Seasonal light has such different qualities to each one. My favorite time of the year comes with the more mellow, golden tones of the autumnal light. I especially like the way the sunshine looks streaming in through the south facing window in my dining room about 11 o'clock in the morning. Soothing little streams of gold and citrine fill the space.

This is the gazing ball on my front patio. I put halogen holiday lights inside and put the light on a timer so that it greets everyone who comes to my front door with a welcoming glow. That way we don't have to have the front porch light on an attract the buggies to come and visit. It has such a dreamy quality to it's glow.

Along the same lines, I love lamps, candles, flashlights, fire, stars, the moon and of course the sun. As you know I have been gleening through my belongings and trying to pare down what owns me. I have already had 2 garage sales and will be involved in a 3rd at a friends place, which brings me to the number of lighting elements I have to sell. I was kinda surprised by the number of lamps, holiday lighting, rope lighting, candles and outdoor lights I have that I don't use. So the next sale will be made up mostly of things that illuminate. It is timely....it is getting darker earlier, thank goodness, and maybe that elemental fact will help me sell these illuminators that I do not use.

This seems to be a never ending quest on my part. Just when I think I have cleaned out every possible hiding place I may have created...there is another. Just when I feel like I have finally cleared the last vestiges of crapee, there is more to clear. Oh well, it's good for my soul. Keeps me readjusting my viewpoint on what is important and what is unnecessary. Or so I tell myself as I cart out yet another box to the car to take to one charity or another.

I hope you have a lovely and productive weekend. I'm gonna keep on keeping on.

Santa Fe International Folk Art Museum Labyrinth

I just adore where I live. There are so many things to see and do, even for gimpy old woman like me. Joe alias Sweet Man and I try once a week to have a get away time. With his crazy new work schedule he deserves to just sleep his days off away, but he insists that we go somewhere away from the "hub bub" (also known as the insanity palace called home).

Not long ago we went on a day trip to Fanta Se Island or to those of you who do not know it......Santa Fe, full of chee chee, too many tourists, tiny streets, mecca for movie stars and those that wish they could see some, artsy and beyond and so many wonderful and fantastic museums and galleries. My favorite is the International Folk Art Museum. Filled (literally) to the top with collections of one of everything (well that may be a slight exaggeration).

Outside is a labyrinth. I don't know if any of you have taken a walk in a labyrinth but it is meditative, fun and sometimes confusing, depending on your point of view or attitude. Sweet Man has never wanted to walk one with me before. I was pleasantly surprised when he just went first. It was a delight to see him experience something new to him. This one is constructed perfectly in that upon reaching the center....if you speak....your voice surrounds and consumes you. It gave both of us goose bumps. It also gave us a new appreciation for the uniqueness of what surrounds us, dwells within us and gave us a spring in our steps we had been lacking.

isn't this gorgeous

The top photos are just some random pictures from some of the exhibits. More posts to come from some of the unique special collections.

Duck, duck, goose............

As I was editing the pix from our "last day before school starts" adventure on Tuesday at the only beach here in ABQ. Yes we are surrounded by sand but it's the water thing that keeps us from having that perfect beach situation...tee hee. We, the grands and us olde folks, went to Tingley Beach which is a series of ponds for model boating, fishing, paddle boats, a gazillion geese and ducks and the zoo train station. The train connects the bioparks, aquarium, zoo and botanical gardens. In the past few years the city has really made an effort to upgrade the whole area and it is really beautiful.

The kids got to work off some energy and we got to enjoy a outing to somewhere different. We had lunch at a place where I used to go on lunch hour when I was in middle school. Truly old school, tee hee. It's called the Dog House.....guess what they serve? Best hot dogs in a little tiny, yes everyone can overhear what you are saying cuz you're so close together, diner, hole in the wall, tiny eating establishment. It was super and the grands loved it. It will be a return adventure for sure.

Just gotta share....this one is a feel good

I guarantee if you go to this sight, you're gonna feel better instantly. Gotta love what seeing a sweet critter can do for your soul.
http://www.dogwork.com/feeling/ 

The case for tolerance

So how is the best way to live life...viva la vida? Live and let live, grin and bear it, do or be done, the Golden rule, Harm Ye None, forgive and forget, hit and run, do the mean girl thang, Que sera, sera, Just walk on by, wait on the corner.............(a song sung by Jim Reeves)???

BTW, that is a rhetorical question, you need not answer.

I have seen and read so many posts as of late regarding this and related subjects. Many have to do with not being tolerant of someone different from yourself and what to do, if anything when it is very "in your face". I have been known (oh surely not) to take my old soap box down from the shelf in the corner of the garage and rant or rave (but that has a whole new meaning, partee) or preach (and I did that for real's a time or two) or just gripe (some would say that is a daily thing but he's not home right now so no biggie).

I have a bumper sticker on the back of my car that displays the word tolerance. You cannot believe how many heated less than polite comments and conversations it has started simply because of the symbolism that is displayed. Oh for goodness sake....and I sincerely mean that statement with all it's universality.

Sweet Man and I recently had a conversation (yes after 38 years we still have those every once in awhile) about our own personal dictionary meanings of prejudice and intolerance. As we talked about the differences in our positions...we realized that we were saying the same thing but with different background information. I think that is what most humans do. Draw from what we know and go from there. Therein lies most of the problems we face. If you have a different point of view, you will come away with a different conclusion. If you are standing at the top of the hill the world looks way different than if you are at the bottom looking up. Knowledge can level definitions and allow individuals to see the others perspective but fear keeps most locked in where they are forever. So educate yourself and be free from fear that has been put upon you by past incidents, hurt feelings, misinformation, miscommunication, misdeeds, miscellaneous.

In keeping with my being authentic here at YOCG, I will tell you that I try to be tolerant of any and all. I am however a prejudiced person in some areas.

This is confined to a specific geographic location and is not meant as a joke or a cut. I cannont stand people in Walmart. It matters not what color their skin, language they speak, how they are clothed...I truly believe that everyone who walks in the door at Walmart to do shopping for whatever checks their human kindness at the front door and drops their brain in the trash can outside. Okay there I have said it. I just outted myself.

I don't know, maybe it's just me.  But I am finding that there are very few patient, kind, polite, smiling, have a nice word to say persons of whatever nationality, religious bent, political persuasion or life style to be found. And I honestly try to be all of those things because I have a fear that if I do not behave appropriately that:
1. I will pay for it karmically
2. I will  be a bad roll model for my grands
3. I would like to be remembered as a weird, kind, funny, strange old broad, but have no one mention the word rude.
4. My Momma would come out of her grave and bitch slap me.
I can hear her now....Don't you be ugly Linda Sybil...yada, yada, yada.

Outside of Walmart,  I have seen the same people actually looking and acting like humans, but are they really? But that is a paronoid post for yet another crazy day.

I have recently become very fond of donkeys because of some really fun, cool bloggers who have these gentle wonderful beasts. So before (pre donkey fondness)  I would have called these people Jackasses but that term is too good for anyone in Walmart....I must find a new term that fits and I think I have.......my daughter's favorite name to call folks is (_*_) monkey, so I will borrow it and say I am sorry but I have no tolerance for anyone at Walmart and pre judge the outcome of a visit to said retail hell every time. I realize the answer is not to shop at Walmart and that has already become my reality. See I educated myself and moved on to more intellegent ground.

If I have offended you, please accept my apology and try to understand, you have not walked in my shoes have ya?

Guess who slept at the end of my street, night before last?

Okay so a girl can dream right? I've always had a thing for tall guys and these three are very tall..............and gorgeous.

Toby Keith

Trace Atkins

James Otto

When we saw the trailers and buses parked in the lot at the Sheraton.....well my little heart went pit a pat.

Pagan Blog Prompt....funny I was just going to..........

On a blog called Pagan Blog Prompt was a suggestion for a blog about what the Goddess looks like. Paint it, sculpt it, draw it......what form does She take for you. So I will just describe GK's thoughts.

That post thought was so serendipitious...........because I was just thinking about that very subject this afternoon as Gerea and I were having our quiet time (as if) discussion.

Since she was a very small girl and because of where we live here in the SW, Ms. G has always thought of the Goddess as looking like Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mother of the Americas, Catholic virgin who manifested herself to a poor peasant in the middle of a desert with roses at her feet, along with a cherub and her cloak had stars brighter than the sun on it. She has golden rays radiating from her person and always this sweet, kind face.

We have Guadalupitas everywhere in our home, in one form or another. We see OLOG, Our Lady of Guadalupe everywhere we go in ABQ. There is a piece of 1% for art, a city beautification project, on one of our major streets done  in tile with a bottle shaped like OLOG (which used to hold holy water) incorporated in the piece. SM says it's a blue Aunt Jemima bottle but then he is a bit of a skeptic when it comes to public art.  The use of La Nuestra Senora in this region is plentiful and comes in all kinds of surprising ways.

Gerea Kaye if nothing else does hold to her opinions (like a pit bull) that the Goddess did manifest herself as OLOG. 

So when we were in Santa Fe at the Folk Art Museum, we visited the wing that houses the hand carved retablos and santos and other religious art. This is what we found among the holy and saintly....Guadalupe at the Wheel. Who says us beaners have no sense of humor.

"Sexual abuse is like a bullet that's never been removed."

This is the quote for this week's posting.

I have known people all my life, some of them are relatives and they don't have a clue that I was "shot and wounded" almost 57 years ago. Those that I have shared my truth with reacted with total disbelief. "You, but you're one of the funniest, happiest people I know????". So, if I had been morose and maudlin would that have made it more true?

And after all of these years, of course the bullet hole has closed over the wound and I am healed....or has it and am I?

Most of the time the little door that holds the secret back where the bullet lives is closed and matches it's surrounding tissue. Which makes it invisible to all. Most of the time the wound is deep enough that I can actually just go about my daily activities and not be aware of the ache. But then something, someone, some object, some way the sun shines, some way the boards creak in the hallway, some mood swing and I am aware that I still have the pain inside of me. Hearing people talk about my parents, seeing my siblings, are all very painful and reactive times.

Most of what I feel now is not remembered pain, it is reflected pain. I have worked out enough of the ugly and foul and discolored that the pain is not the putrid color it was but is softer, the edges are more rounded, the heat is less intense, the revulsion is less gripping and the color has faded but it is still there and very real. I know it will never just go away, I can still hold out hope that it will continue to diminish and become less painful. After all, I have only had this wound for almost 6 decades.

My abuse was twofold. My father's sexual assaults and my mother's putting on her blinders and ignoring it. That's the first way. The second is how they then raised me, with the elephant in the middle of the room and then their "deep concern" for my well being and over reaction which was just another control issue. I was bad, I was the guilty one, I was the imperfect one, I was the one with the bullet hole that not one other human being acknowledged was real or even existed.

I repressed the memories for decades. Even as an adult when I finally had the flashes of what had really happened, I felt I was wrong...how could this have been real? But all along there had been this pain, this thing that was causing me pain. This thing I had no idea how to get to or for that matter get rid of. The pain became so intense that I could not longer deal with it, when after my mother's death, I was asked to care for my father. Not only had I been shot, I began to bleed my life out in front of my own eyes, my husband, my grown daughter and my granddaughter.

I did the dutiful daughter thing again (even in the face of what I was beginning to realize) and my husband and I moved in with the man who helped shoot me. It was four of the most hellacious months of my life. Every thing brought glaring flashbacks, terrible memories, horrible visions and hellacious gut wrenching dreams. At that time I did what was the only thing I knew to do, I found him a managed care facility and moved him out. A couple of days before he was to go, he tried to molest my granddaughter. 

I am glad that we had no handgun here. I would be in prison and he would have also had a bullet in him. But that was the day I began to heal. The day I let myself seek help and solice and peace. The day I washed my hands of being my parent's child and became my own child. 

You all know how much I love my grands, I had to learn to love me along with them and became a grandmother in love. But.............the bullet stills exists.

These are the other bloggers on this subject today:

http://scarred-seeker.blogspot.com/when-the-bullet-hits-the-bone.html
http://kseniaoustiougova.squarespace.com/blog/2010/8/11/taking-back-my-body.html
http://www.sugarpatch.com/index.php/2010/08/12/sexual-abuse-is-like-a-bullet-that-s-nev

Because you all mean so much to me......

Hello my lovelies. This has been a heck of a week, what with trying to behave myself and be still and get well. I have gotten some more reading in, crafted with the grands (who are on the edge of hysteria about going back to school. One can't wait and the other vascillates between yes and no), watched my house "go to hell in a hand basket"....someone explain that one to me and be upset more than usual.

I dislike very much not being able to do as I please. This crude, alias pneumonia, should be getting better and maybe it is but I am just flat out exhausted and have not a bit of energy. I would say it is a general malaise (or a captain one at the very least). My schedule is off because SM is working until 1 am. My sleep is non existant, just the flops. I have enjoyed the kids this summer but am so ready to listen to the quiet. And those are the highlights.

After all this griping, you probably aren't paying attention to me now anyway but I will let you know that I have agreed to be a part of a survivors group blog and will be linking (I know you who know what a techno idiot I am, are laughing right now) with some lovely woman who also have had abuse in their "before" lives. The posting will be on Fridays and will rotate among the participants. I found this "opportunity", my word for 2010, on a wonderful blog, Chicks with Scars http://www.chickswithscars.com/ The links and thoughts and sharing have been invaluable to me and my recovery.

I thought I owed it to you, who are so dear to me, and have endured so much with me as I have shared my "stories", to let you know what to expect. It is my hope that by doing this, I can open a dialogue, spark hope or just allow someone else to feel "good or better" for a moment in time. This is for me as a human being, as well as others, who have been made to feel less than we really are.

New books, new thoughts.....oh no!

It's now or never.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find eternity in the moment.
Henry David Thoreau

I am currently reading three books.....crazy? Perhaps but I have always done this.....spread myself thin and multi task. Doesn't mean I get any more done just means, I get bored easily. I also need time to digest what I am learning. So I put one down and start another one.

I shared not long ago that I am coming to grips with my anger issues. Please note here, I did not say trying to. Yay my team.

I am reading: The Anger Habit by Semmelroth & Smith. Interesting compiled case studies on angry people and how they "came to not be controlled" by their anger. This book has provided me with the ability to control my reactions to what usually makes me angry. It's a work in progress and will always be. Folks who have been abused usually abuse themselves the most and anger is one of those things with which we abuse ourselves. The cycle is disappointment with yourself for being angry at someone, they don't live up to your expectation (real or imagined) and then you get angry and it just keeps chasing itself. I needed to get off the anger not so merry go round for my sake and for the sake of all that I love and care about.

Because this is a whole family issue not just me...you know the angry one and the ones who are learning anger, I bought the youngers a book titled Mad is not Bad... Good book for allowing anger to be but not control you and how to channel it before it gets a hold on you. The grands are benefitting from our reading and re-reading it.

And the last book is How to Be a Wicked Witch, good spells, charms, potions and notions for bad days by Patricia Telesco. I love it. I know this sounds.....well just wrong. But it is not a karmic mistake causing book. It is solutions to everyday irksome happenings in a way that makes them controllable.



What are you reading?

They make me itch...but lookie how pretty........

The little yellow finch like birds (I have not a clue what they are but they sure are a noisy little bunch) are getting their monies worth out of the 5 different kinds of sunflowers we planted in the fairy garden. It's fun to watch the sparrow, house finches and the "whatever" birds swinging upside down on the sunflower heads. It's like our own little bird circus. The turtles have had a good time playing hide and go seek in and amongst the huge trunks of these flowers. The turtles also love the blossums that are knocked down by the birds....who knew.

Every year we have just let the NM wild sunflowers that I brought home from a road trip 6 years ago, go to seed and they grow up about 8 ft with smallish blooms and the birds just love it. But this year we planted other varieties and there has been some major competition to be the tallest of them all among the large head varieties.

Joe said that when he went up to check on the swamp cooler on the roof that the plants were up as high from his vantage point as the "old ones" were on the ground. That means that some of these things are 15 feet high. I guess maybe that's why the trunks of these things are like trees, huh?

Anyway it is getting close to chop down time and that always harolds the coming of autumn...yay.  I will dry some of the heads for the birds for winter. And when I bring in the huge bouquet of the bounty my internal clock will say it is time to start preparing for my favorite time of year.

This is not the face of innocence.....trust me on this one.

She's making me crazier than I usually am.

Pert near impossible ya'll but she's a done it.

The puppy is darling, that's a given. Is smart as can be, that could be trouble. I the most stubborn animal on the face of the planet, that's where I live.

The British guy who invented the Dyson vacuum cleaner did not have this technology when he invented his machine because if he had.....we'd all have the advances 3T model floor evacuator, terrible terror terriers running amuck eating every damnable piece of everything that lands on the floor as fast as it can get there.

And she has a special fondness for biting your toes, just as an added bonus to her antics. Poor Odin has her in his face about 23.87 hours a day. She kisses, kisses, bites, nibbles, kisses and he bares his teeth and just endures it cuz he's a good dog. She is a pain. A cute pain but a pain.

And for those who have to offer the platitude, patience.............my posterior. I have none left.....she ate that too, patience not my posterior....poor dog would have exploded.

But just look at that face, and she talks too....talks back that is when you are saying no.....she growls.....does anyone have Ceasar Milan's number on speed dial?