"Coming Home" quilt show

I recently hung a small exhibit of my quilts at the Box Factory for the Arts and it will be up until Jan. 6.

I've been wanting to see a collection of my work  hanging together for a while, ever since someone told me a quilt I was working on "looked like me."

Do I have a style? Hanging all these together makes me realize that I do.
In my artist statement, I tried to sum it up.

I like using pure colors - not ones "browned" or "greyed" down.  I like using folk art shapes - as opposed to precise, almost photographic, images. I like combining traditional blocks with applique. I like improvising and compromising to make things work. I also seldom make a bed-sized quilt (unless I'm giving it as a gift).

I never - and I mean NEVER - choose colors for a quilt because it matches my decor, although I may chose them for some other random reason. The colors for the large quilt on the left and the two smaller companion quilts next to it were chosen because they were my high school colors, maize and blue. The quilt next to it is a combination of purples, pinks and poison green - just because I liked those colors together.

Home for Thanksgiving

Sloan and me sitting in front of a couple of large bison at a museum in Jackson, Wyoming


Our daughter, Sloan, is coming home next week for Thanksgiving. My sons, who live nearby, and their wives are coming too ... and my grandson.

We don't all get together that often, and usually when we do, I'm the one who has to instigate it.
It takes much shuffling of schedules, both work and recreational, to manage it ... and that kind of makes me sad. I always hoped that we would have the kind of family I had when I was growing up. One that just naturally comes together and hangs out pretty regularly ... but that's not to be.

Sloan is spending the year student teaching about two hours away. She is winding up her last few months of college and each time she comes home I feel like I'm living on borrowed time. She has made no secret to the fact that she wants to move to a larger city than the small town we live in ... and she's made no secret that she hopes that city is some distance from here.

Of course, I have no wish to clip her wings, her life is her own to manage. But how can I get past the fact that she's on her way out?  It wasn't something I did. I intended to have a career where I would move from place to place ... but I ended up back in my home town and here I've stayed.  Our family just doesn't move away ... not my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, sons ... nobody (well I do have an odd cousin who moved to California, but I don't usually count her).

I'm just wondering ... of all the people who feel they have to leave, why does it have to be my only daugher?

Autumn in the Smokies

A couple of weeks ago Tom and I went on the only vacation we're taking this year and went to the Smoky Mountains.  We rented this little cabin, which was tucked up in the hills.

We invited our son, daughter-in-law and grandson along with us and had a great time hanging out in the cabin. Nolan, our grandson, called it the "tiny house" and every time we left to go do something, he wanted to go back to the "tiny house" and the set of 20 new Matchbox cars we bought him to play with.

The colors of the trees were very nice, although living in Michigan we are used to seeing spectacular colors every fall.  We also saw several black bears, which was exciting, and some deer, which wasn't so exciting - we have bigger ones wandering through our yard at home nearly every day.

All in all it was a nice vacation, but not necessarily one that will go down in the memory books. I miss not going out west. The Smoky Mountains just seemed like big hills covered with trees. There wasn't much exciting to see and everything there was to see, Tom has seen it several times already since he has gone there for photography workshops a couple times.

It's a lot more fun when we go to new places and discover things together. Then I don't feel like the tourist who knows nothing and he the tour guide who has done it all already.

October Update

So much has been going on since I wrote last.

I went to my usual quilting workshop in Northern Michigan the first week of October. It was good to get away and I finished one quilt top and got a good start on another.

Then my quilt guild had our quilt show, which takes place every even year. I entered five new pieces but, as usual, did not win any ribbons.  The ribbons are awarded by popular vote and I'm not sure the vast majority of people understand or appreciate my quilts. It's easy to buy a pattern and replicate someone else's quilt - it's harder to design and make your own.

Just got back yesterday from a week in the Smoky Mountains - and I'm still trying to recover from that.
It was fun - but now need to get back to my scedule.

That's all for now. More and pictures to come later.

Seasons of Change

 I pulled the quilt onto my lap, lined the small needle along a carefully penciled mark and, using a rocking motion with my fingers, loaded it up with the first five or six quilting stitches. I pulled the thread through the three layers of fibers and positioned the needle in place again. This was something I would do over and over again, for hours, before the quilt was finished.

But I had time.

I sat in my living room in an easy chair with my left leg propped up on a pillow while I quilted. I was sitting my way through my second knee replacement surgery of the year. The first was in January and the second was in June, which gave me different and greener views out my front window, although the neighborhood is quiet and offers few distractions during the day no matter what the season.

The quilt  is done in shades of yellow and blue, the colors of my high school alma mater, and a very traditional color combination for quilts. I made the top part of the quilt two years ago during a workshop I traditionally go to in Elk Rapids, Michigan  in the fall.  It is a quilt made to memorialize the year 2010.

That year was a touchstone for me; one that I’ll look back on the rest of my life and remember it as one of extreme highs and extreme lows.  My first grandchild was born in January, my mother died in May and my son was married in October.  Through it all I was trying to cope with these emotional extremes while suffering with the pain of bad knees that kept getting worse by the day. My sewing, which always meant so much to me and had a calming effect on my often hectic life, was put on the back burner while I “white-knuckled” my way through the days.

By the time autumn came along and I packed my car to head up North for a week of nothing but sewing, I was ready for a change.  As each mile rolled by the stress of duties and expectations fell away. When I got to the lodge where we meet for the workshop and set about the business of unpacking and getting ready to sew, I felt like I was connecting back with a good friend who had only been waiting in the shadows for me to call it forward again.

I lost myself in the sewing over the next several days and thought about my mother. Grief still had such a strong hold on me and never more so than when I sat at the little black Featherweight sewing machine that belonged to her. She was the one who taught me to sew so many years ago when she was a young mother of four boys and one daughter who wanted to be just like her. The Featherweight was a gift to her from my father back in the 1950’s and she gifted it to me when I went away to college 20 years later. Since that time she and I shared it, although we both owned multiple modern machines. It was simply the best machine to take to a quilting class.

The quilt I designed that week included a group of baskets alternating with a set of traditional blocks called “churn dash.”  On the top, as a header, I appliqued a basket full of fanciful flowers and weeds.  On the top left I loosely pieced five stars to represent the five original people in our little family, Tom, me, Caleb, Max and Sloan. Below my sons’ stars are stars for their wives, Candice and Sarah, and below Max and Sarah’s stars is a tiny one for the baby, Nolan.

Along the sides of the quilt I embroidered a few verses from an old folk song which is based on Bible verses:

To everything there is a season

And a time to every purpose under heaven

This song, with its gentle reminder of the ways of the world, brought me much comfort during these seasons of change.

 

Back to School

I've got new notebooks, new folders, new pens and pencils and now it's time to settle down with my thoughts and get back to the work of writing.

Here's the things I'm working on:

Novel: I've got a couple in the works and I may put aside the one I've been working on for the last couple years and take up another that has been haunting my thoughts.

Essays: I'm very close to finishing the book of essays and poetry I'm writing about the Western National Parks. Don't quite know what I'm going to do with it when it's done - probably self-publish, but I need to have a plan for that.

Autumn Stories: I have a notebook I haul out every fall full of work that is about autumn and Halloween.  I have a short story I have added to for the last two years and this fall I'm going to finish it up.

Writers' Studio: I organize the writing programs at the Box Factory for the Arts and in the fall we get started again. I need to work on that programming too.

So, lots to do. I've been thinking I need to find a way to make all this work pay a little something so I don't have to go looking for a job that doesn't involve creative writing. After a lifetime of trying to make ends meet - I would like to give this a go.

I'll try my best anyway!

Summer's End - Time for Work

I've been pretty lazy this summer.  Haven't written anything much except daily journal entries. Haven't really traveled anywhere except a short weekend up North to visit our daughter at the camp she was working at for the summer. Haven't tackled any of those big and not-so-big projects that need my time and attention.

I wish I could say I was spending my time lounging at the beach reading thick, trashy novels - but I've spent most of my time at home, sitting in a chair and letting my knee heal, though I have spent my time working my way through a series of mystery novels set at the University of Notre Dame.  It's has taken longer than I hoped to get my strength and stamina back. I feel almost like I've lost the summer.

So, here it is Labor Day weekend and after the next few days it's time to get back to work. Time to buckle down and accomplish stuff. Our daughter has returned to college to finish her year of student teaching. Life should return to normal for us, and that means getting down to a regular schedule and writing again.

I have a good month to accomplish something before October hits and I have a couple of fun weeks planned - my regular trip to Northern Michigan to attend a quilt workshop, then a week with Tom in the Smoky Mountains for our fall vacation. Much to look forward to.

And now, much to get going on!

I'm Back

It has been a while since I've posted anything here - some of it has been my fault, some not since Blogspot was not letting me have access for some mysterious reason for the last couple of weeks.

This summer I've been busy slowly recovering from my second knee replacement surgery and now, exactly eight weeks afterwards, I feel I'm finally back.

Last Tuesday I went to my last doctor's appointment and then met Tom at University of Notre Dame for a celebration lunch at Legends.

About a year ago when I decided to have both my knees replaced I kept saying one thing over and over - I'm looking forward to the day when it's all behind me - all the years of pain, the surgeries, the recoveries, the physical therapy, the doctors appointments - I just wanted it to be behind me.  And last Tuesday it finally was.

Now I can get back to myself.  I can start really setting my life around my writing and my quilting and enjoying this comfy, creative life I have - without constantly making adjustments for the pain.

I have much to look forward to this fall, including a few trips and creative projects galore!  I also will be moving to a new studio space in the Box Factory for the Arts (more on that later.)

There's more to come - so much more to come. I can hardly wait!

Summer Delayed




Nolan in the Children's Garden at Michigan State University

We started out the summer with a beautiful spring weekend on Michigan State University campus for Sloan's graduation. We took lots of pictures of  Nolan that weekend, including this one on a butterfly bench - which he only landed on for about 30 seconds.

The rest of the month and the first couple of weeks of June flew past with too much to do and time ticking.  In the middle of June I had my second knee replacement surgery and have been holed up in the house for nearly two weeks now, watching summer outside my living room window.

I'm ready to stop sitting here in this chair, although my knee isn't always cooperating and my head still has a wooley feeling from medication.  Each day gets fractionally better and I think by the end of July I should be in good shape and finally able to enjoy summer.

I've been able to sew a little, read a little, write a little and see Nolan a few times a week when he comes over and seems fascinated by my latest "owey."

Housebound

On Monday I had my second total knee replacement (left) - my right one was done in January and I told the doctor that if he could do the same thing with my left knee that he did with my right, I would be a happy customer.

It's only been four days, but I think things are looking pretty good.  The doctor called me a "star" patient and the nurses and PT people at the hospital were amazed at how easily I breezed through everything. It definitely helped going through this once and knowing what was coming.

Now I get to spend the next few weeks vegging out at home doing some light exercises and healing before I have to start the hard job of physical therapy.

It's just so unusual for me to sit here and not feel like I have to jump up and do laundry, cook something, tidy something, etc. etc. But I'm on a break from all that for a while.

Last time I couldn't get my brain clear enough to do much writing or reading - but I did do some sewing and wrote in my journal. I've got a quilting project prepared that I may start tomorrow and I just downloaded a new book onto my Nook. I haven't gotten bored yet.

Food is kind of an issue because I'm here alone all day and have to fend for myself for breakfast and lunch and my husband is doing some simple cooking when he gets home.  Luckily, my appetite hasn't returned yet. I've included this picture of peach pie because this is something I hope to snag while I'm here sitting around. It's certainly one of my favorite kinds of pie and a local grocery store makes good pie.

Father's Day

The kids: Max, Sloan, Caleb during Sloan's college graduation weekend.

Each Father's Day I like to give a little tribute to my husband, Tom.
This year marks 32 years spent as a father  and  2-1/2 years as a grandfather.

We're at an odd time in our lives now when all the kids are adults and we're standing on the sidelines watching them making their life decisions.

Some of those decisions are NOT the ones we would make. And sometimes I find myself telling Tom, "it's not our business."

But he finds it nearly impossible to really let them go. I think he will always feel the need to throw a protective umbrella over them. Perhaps that stems from the fact that his own father died young when Tom was only a teenager.

Tom has hung in there a lot longer. He has shepherded his children to adulthood and now, like it or not, we stand in the dust as they head off into pastures of their own making.

This afternoon we babysat for our little pre-school grandson. Before he could come over, Tom had to buy some special toys, a DVD and some candy. I try to warn Tom that we can't spoil him and we have to back off a little - but the truth is that neither one of us really feels that way. It's a different role for him - the grandparent instead of the parent - but he enjoys it and, characteristically, he's doing a good job with it.

Happy Father's Day, Tom. And many more!

Can not not write

Earlier this week I just pretty much gave it up.

For years I've been telling myself that I'm a writer, but to be one you actually have to WRITE and I just haven't been doing that. I journal, I write about writing, I read about writing, I organize programs to help other people write - but sitting down and creating new, original work is something I just haven't been able to make myself do.

It's not for lack of ideas. I have at least five projects going right now, two of which I'm determined to finish before the end of the year - and they are both book length.

But each time I sit down to write, I think about all the other commitments I've made that need my time and attention and all have deadlines that haunt me like ghouls!

I know better. I know a writer needs to set a time and keep that sacred like you would a doctor's appointment. But I have trouble settling my mind when other obligations are weighing on me. And I'm in big-time procrastination mode!

Finally, on Tuesday I just decided to give it all up.  Who would notice? I'm just a middle-aged (teetering on the edge of old) woman scribbling away at things that nobody is likely to read or care about. I'm tired of being persistent - I've had 40 years of persistence!

Then, yesterday I got a notion about an essay I'm working on for a larger collection. This morning I think I'm going to sit on the deck looking out over my quiet back yard, and work it all out.

I suppose in the end it doesn't matter if what I write never sees the light of day. I do it for me. I do it to quiet a too busy mind. I do it for when I'm gone - to cry out into the darkness that I was here and this is the way I thought. 

And all of that is enough. For now.


Quilt Success

My quilt, "Early Morning in Grand Teton National Park" made it into the Michiana Annual Art Competition and won an "honorable mention" in the fiber arts category.

It's always a little nerve wracking to enter contests, but I'm glad I pushed myself to design and sew this quilt.

Now if I can just push myself to finish the writing project that does with it!

Nolan's Spring Training

As each of our three children hit 5-years old we would sign them up for the tee-ball league, often volunteering to coach one of the teams ourselves, then spend a season of agony! Most of the kids (not ours of course!) had no concept of how to play the most basic game of baseball. Most of the kids couldn't hit a ball off a tee to save their lives - heck most of the kids couldn't even keep their hats on or stand in the outfield without sitting down to pick dandelions!

But our little Nolan doesn't seem to be heading down that path at all. We bought him this little baseball tee set and he can already whack that ball a fair distance. And although he does occasionally hit the tee - he's only 2-1/2 years old - just imagine what he'll be like when he turns five! He carries the name of a pretty famous baseball player, but it's a name our daughter-in-law chose - I'm not sure she even knew the baseball connection. But I can see the drive in Nolan. He's so much like his father: our son who never met a sport he didn't like.

For Easter Nolan got a tiny leather baseball mitt and the other day when he came over he brought it with him.  He shuffled through the stack of our old mitts that Tom had unearthed from the closet and found one he thought would work for me - then out we went to play catch. To be perfectly honest, I never once played catch with any of my own kids, but now that I'm a grandma, here I stand in the yard giving catching hints to a preschooler. "Keep your mitt down, keep your eye on the ball!"

He's losing any traces of the baby that he used to be such a short time ago. But that's okay, because I'm enjoying each step of him along the way. It won't be long before we're in the bleachers again!

Sloan's graduation

Earlier this month our whole family went up to East Lansing to see our daughter, Sloan, graduate from Michigan State University.  It was a fun time together - something we don't always get to do too often - and of course we were so proud of Sloan's accomplishment.

About a hundred years ago, when I was in high school and considering the almost unthinkable thing in my family - going to college - Michigan State University was where I wanted to go.  For some reason they never shared with me, my parents told me I had to stay home and start at our local community college. I don't know if they couldn't afford it, if they thought I was too immature to go away to school, or they didn't think I was smart enough to succeed - or a combination of all three.

All I know is that I went to community college and did very well there, but when it was time to transfer to a 4-year university, I bypassed Michigan State and chose a smaller state university instead because it wasn't so overwhelming.  Despite doing well at my chosen school, I have regretted my decision ever since.

Part of it was that my best friend from high school, Janice, went to Michigan State as a freshman and I thought she had a snooty attitude about it while I was tolling away in the "rinky-dink" community college - working and trying to save as much as I could and proving to my parents that I was worthy of making the jump to a university.

But a big part of it was that I really was afraid to go to that big school where I thought everyone else in my class would have had a two-year head start on me. I regret that I wasn't braver and far more confident.

So, I was very proud when our daughter decided that she could manage Michigan State from the start and probably over the last four years I have taken a bit too much pride in telling just about everyone I ran across that our daughter was at Michigan State.  But it is something to be proud of! She did very well. She's going to be a special education teacher.

She's never going to "bleed green and white" as so many MSU graduates seem to do for the rest of their lives - and I probably wouldn't have done that either. But it was thrilling to see her in her graduation gown and that graduation weekend will be a time I'll never forget.

Step by Painful Step

Sloan, Me and Tom somewhere in Utah
Here is the epilogue  essay from my National Park Project

I have a secret about my travels West.

The trips I write about in my National Park collection took place over a 23-year period of time, but there was a ten-year gap between our first trip and our second, and four more between the second and the next. It was with this third trip in 2003 that we started travelling to the West in earnest, trying not to let more than 18 months go by between excursions and sometimes managing two trips within a year.

It was also the start of the physical difficulties for me as my arthritic knees became increasingly painful until they got to the point where I was barely functioning at all. And that’s my secret. For nearly a decade I tried to enjoy the magnificence of these vast national parks, while mostly sitting on my butt!

The pain crept into many of the essays in this collection and I would refer to my knees as “creaky” or “tricky,” but those were just euphemisms. The truth was – they just hurt! Every single step felt like grinding. I was already making quite a few concessions – Tom would mostly go on hikes alone, or with our daughter, Sloan, if she was along. I would sit in the car, or on a bench, or on a rock and try to enjoy the scenery all around me – but it wasn’t the same as walking into those far off vistas. I spent time in the hotel room or in the lobby, writing or sewing – certainly enjoying myself – but not out in the park, not fully embracing what it had to offer.

On a trip to Santa Fe we visited El Santuario de Chimayo, described as the “Lourdes of America.” We entered the dim sanctuary and sat quietly, praying a bit for a miracle, before going into the room with a small pit holding rust-colored sand. I rubbed it on my knees and hoped for the best, but not even the Saints would help me out and there wasn’t any improvement to be had.

We put off scheduling trips to the west coast, to see all that California, Oregon and Washington had to offer, because the idea just seemed too exhausting to me. Even navigating airports was horrible. Airports are painful places for people with walking issues, especially when they are too proud to admit they really should use a wheelchair! I got to the point where I wondered if I could manage to go on many more of these trips we loved so much.

Finally my doctor asked me a simple question. Did I want to live in pain for several more years before I admitted that I needed knee replacement surgery? Or would I like to live those years without that pain? Put like that, the answer was obvious.

As I write this I have already had one knee done and will have surgery on the next in a few months. And the pain in my right knee, by far the worst one, is gone. Just simply gone! Already I feel so much better and I’m beginning to realize how much that pain colored and controlled my whole life, not just my travels.

We are taking this year off from traveling in the West to give me a chance to build up my strength, but after that we have ambitious plans, including a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, and those postponed trips to Yosemite and the Redwoods.

So, this is a good place to end this collection of work. I have produced the last piece of writing shadowed by my pain and limitations and look forward to truly being part of the experience of our National Parks.

More to come!


Denise Kalin Tackett

April 10, 2012

Wandering Through the Dead

Tom and I like to visit cemeteries. Usually when we visit a town on vacation we try to find the oldest cemetery there is and wander through.

Last fall we went to Cincinnati with some friends and that city has the most wonderful cemetery I have ever seen in my lifetime. It was huge, easy to get lost in if we had been alone. These two photos are an example of all the truly amazing statuary that decorate the grounds.

We wander about, looking for the oldest graves and the ones with the most interesting information on them. We've discovered that different parts of the country have different ways with their cemeteries and headstones.

In Kentucky, home to Tom's family, we found that people there are very fond of decorating with multiple fake flower arrangements. But they also put a lot of interesting information on the grave markers, often listing names of children and grandchildren on the back of the stones. That's got to be a genealogist's dream.

It's nearly time in Michigan to tend to my parent's grave, now that the danger of frost is about done. This is a task my mother always took care of, but with her passing it is left to me. I always gave her simple flowers on my birthday, a handful of daffodils - a bunch of tulips, now I'll have to take them to the place she rests, next to my father and side-by-side with my grandparents. No fake flowers there!

It strikes us that there aren't nearly enough cemeteries for the number of people who have lived in the United States to date, but it's too mind-boggling to think about that much. It's just enough to think of graveyards as quiet, peaceful places of eternal rest.

With a few live ones wandering through once in a while.

Early Morning- Grand Teton National Park

This is the first of several quilts I have in mind to go with my essays and Tom's photography about the National Parks we have visited.

This one commemorates the time in the Grand Tetons that Tom ran across a grizzly bear and two cubs on his way back to the lodge after an early morning photo shoot.
I'm writing an essay called "Beaver and Bear" (he was startled by a beaver while walking along the river, and this bear and her cubs were really only a short distance away).

I'm entering this one in a juried art show and hope it makes it in. It's all hand quilted - which I have been working on like a maniac for the last five weeks! The next western quilt I will tackle is one for Monument Valley, which I've already started, and after that one for Mesa Verde, which I've got sketched out.

Spring and Flowers and Inspiration

I've always loved spring. It's not just the normal coming-out-of-winter kind of feeling - I was born in the spring and I always felt that the season was specially made for me.

Where we live they celebrate the blossoming of all the fruit trees with a festival called, logically enough, Blossomtime. They hold a parade on the first Saturday in May and since my birthday is on May 4th, inevitably the parade would occasionally fall on my birthday.

Once when I was very young, probably only 4 or 5, my family went to the parade, meeting up with families from my Dad's workplace in a gas station closed for the event as we did every year. It was my birthday that year and I remember I was wearing a brand new peddle pusher outfit. They gave me a surprise birthday cake while we waited for the parade to reach the area we were at and my Dad told me that the parade was really for me to celebrate my birthday.

I believed him. And, though it didn't take too many more years for me to realize I wasn't the center of that particular universe, I've always felt a kind of excitement about spring ever since (and secretly believed that parade WAS for me).

The past two years have been a little rough. My mother died two years ago on May 1, right in the middle of what would have traditionally been a happy time. She was a spring baby too - it's something we shared in common. It was an early spring that year, as it is this year and I brought her simple flowers in the last few weeks of her life - daffodils, tulips, lilacs and iris - trying to bring a little touch of her much loved garden into her sick room.

This spring is much better. It took a while, but I am finally feeling happy again. This spring is extremely early for our area of the country and all the fruit trees are already blooming - five weeks too soon. When that Blossomtime parade comes (not quite on my birthday this year) there will be no blossoms to celebrate.

But I don't care. I'll take that jump start on spring and marvel at the beauty all around me. It's inspiring, it makes these old bones start to feel the stirrings of youth again. And isn't that what spring is all about?

Happy Chicken

Diligently working on my National Park Project - here's a goofy little piece I wrote after a trip in May, 2009

Sometimes things are just funny. Sometime just one word can send a perfectly normal person into hysterics. That was the case with Chester the Fried Chicken episode.

We were travelling from Moab, Utah to Monument Valley in Arizona. We stopped at the Hole in the Wall gift shop, which is plenty weird in its own right, and stopped again at a gas station to use the rest room. I sat in the car waiting. It was a Sunday afternoon and I was idly staring out the window, lost in thought, when I began to notice two things. There were a lot of people going in and out the side door near where we were parked. And, there was a smell of fried chicken infusing the air.

That’s when I saw the sign, which should have caught my eye right away since it was large and mounted on the side of the building about six feet from where I sat. “Chicken to Go” was in white letters on a red background – hence the large white boxes all the people coming through the door were hauling out of there. Above that were the words “Chester Fried” and a cartoon character of a rooster dressed in a red cowboy hat, gun holster and a sheriff’s badge. He had one wing raised up in a friendly wave. It was the small words below the title that really sent me off – “the crispy moisturized chicken.” To be specific, the word “moisturized.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how “moisturized” could apply to chicken!

All I could picture was someone rubbing a chicken with Oil of Olay. Dozens and dozens of naked chickens being lovingly massaged with moisturizer before being thrown into the cooker. I just started laughing and simply could not stop. Why did that rooster sheriff looks so cheerful? Didn’t he know he was on the verge of becoming “moisturized?” By the time Sloan and Tom returned to the car, I had tears running down my cheeks and tried, between gasps, to explain the whole moisturizing thing. They smiled vaguely – but I could tell they didn’t think it was all that funny.

We pulled back out onto the road and left Chester behind, but I knew for a fact what a lot of people in that town were having for supper that night – crispy, moisturized chicken!

Sloan goes to Mexico

Our daughter, Sloan, is spending her spring break from college in Mexico. Instead of lounging on the beach and becoming a candidate for a "Girls Gone Wild" video - she is spending it on a mission trip through her church to an orphanage for special needs kids.

This is so like her. She is a senior this year and the whole time she has been in college she has never gone on a spring break trip. It figures that the first time she does, it's to do charity work!

She has grown up to be a kind, thoughtful, caring soul - and if I must say so myself - absolutely beautiful. She has her whole wonderful life ahead of her.
But I must confess, it's still hard for me to think of her going out into the real world. I didn't even like to think of her going to Mexico, especially after the State Department issued a travel warning.

While she's been in college, I have deluded myself into thinking she's safely tucked away into an institute of higher learning not too far from home and we bought ourselves some time. Unfortunately, that's quickly coming to an end and I have to come to terms with her growing up and going out.

Thankfully, I still have a little time before I have to do that!

Ruminating on the Parks

Tom and Denise having a jolly time at Zion, October 2011


I am finally able to return to my writing and I'm finishing up a project I've been working on for three years - my National Park project.

This is a collection of short essays and poetry about the nine Western National Parks we've visited over the last 20 years: Arches, Canyonlands, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Glacier, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons; and two reservations: Monument Valley (Navajo) and Browning, Montana (Blackfeet).

I only have six more pieces to finish and a little bit of revision to do, which I hope to have done by the first of June. Then I'm going to turn it over to an editor and forget about it for the summer.

In the fall I'll do another revision based on anything the editor finds, then try to find the project a home. This will be the first time I've seriously tried to send a finished manuscript out to find a publisher.

The whole project may be entirely too personal to have a wider audience, and if I can't place it with a publisher, I'll self-publish a limited edition. Either way, it will be exciting to finish up a project I've been working on for a long time and send it on its way!

Travel Plans

Tom and I have made our vacation plans for the year. Because I'm spending much of the year getting my knees fixed and getting my strength back, we decided to stick closer to home this time.

We are going to visit the Smokey Mountains and rent a cabin in Tennessee. (This photo is from the Smokeys, but it's not ours.) The cabin is not at all rustic (it has WiFi and Cable with flat screen TV's) but it's log and has a wood-burning fireplace and a covered porch with rocking chairs.

And it has a full kitchen, so I can do all the cooking and baking I want to do. And, since we're going in the fall, the fireplace will feel nice, I'm sure.

It's only about 9 hours from where we live, so we are driving, which means I can take as much stuff as I want - lots of quilting, lots of writing and reading. And no luggage or weight or space limits!

I haven't spent much time in this part of the country, so I'm looking forward to seeing it and - for the first time in a long time - moving around freely with knees that work!

New Quilt Project - Early Morning in the Tetons

I am working on a new quilt project for a competition which is coming up this summer. I'm going to try to put together something that I've been thinking about doing for a while - design a quilt to go with the writing I'm doing for my National Park Project.

Right now I'm working on an essay called "Beaver and Bear" about the day my husband ran across a bear and her two cubs in the Grand Tetons. The quilt will have bears on it - this picture is one I'm going to use for reference to do the cubs.
This is the photo I'm using to reference the mama.


Need to get going on this right away, since I'm within 4-5 weeks of needing it done. I'll post a photo of it when I'm done and include the essay too.

The Coccoon

It's been nearly five weeks since my knee replacement surgery and I've had a lot of time to just sit and think about things.

One of the things that I'm beginning to realize is, that I have been living in a cocoon of pain for several years now. With bad knees, which progressively got worse week after week, I found myself measuring every activity, every plan, every event in terms of how much pain it was going to cost me.

And the truth is, lately the answer has been - too much. I simply got to the point where there were things I couldn't do anymore - and those things included stuff I loved doing - shopping, going to museums, hiking in the National Parks, travel.

But lately, with my right knee getting better and better, I find that I'm starting to think like the old Denise. We are planning trips we want to take this summer and fall and no longer is my first thought about how I'm going to physically manage things. I can actually picture myself enjoying activities and not worrying about walking any distance.

I still have a ways to go before my right knee is up to snuff, then I have my left knee to take care of in June (although that one isn't in nearly the bad shape the right one is) - but I'm beginning to see some cracks in that cocoon and perhaps by this autumn - I can break free!

Emerging

I'm starting to emerge from the darkness of my first knee replacement surgery, which was 11 days ago.

The thing that surprises me about this is not the pain, which passed fairly quickly, but the feelings of weakness and fogginess that surround me. I have trouble being able to read - the words swim about the page - I have trouble doing hand sewing on my quilt projects - the needle seems to have a mind of its own. I haven't even touched my photo organizing project.

But worst of all, I haven't been able to do any writing. To get to a place where I can do anything creative, I have to be able to move into that space, and I guess the things that are going on with me right here, right now, are too compelling to enable me to put them to one side.

But it's only 11 days out - and every day seems fractionally better. The one thing I promised myself was that I wasn't going to try to hurry this healing. That I was going to take whatever time it was going to take, because it is a one-time thing I'm doing here. I need to take the time to do it well.

I just don't think I'm going to get as much progress done on my writing as I had hoped. But if all works out, I'll have the time and energy to do it soon.

Nolan at 2

I plan to write a poem each year on my grandson's birthday - here's this year's:


Nolan at 2

He greets us as we come in
with extravagant joy
"Yeah, Yeah," he says
as if he can't think of anything better
than us, coming through the door.

He has a big smile, sparkling eyes,
and a brand new haircut
- all his blond curls gone -
the hair carefully shaped to his head,
instantly aging him from baby to big boy.

We give him Batman, Superman and Spiderman,
small figures that just fit his hands,
and feed his new-found super hero passion.
He hops impatiently while his Dad
pulls them out of the packaging.
He doesn't want to open any other gifts.

We settle down with chocolate cake
and vanilla ice cream melting on the side,
while Batman and Superman fly among us
side-by-side, ever vigilant,
powered by 2-year-old magic.

A Good Start

Today I met up with my best friend, Carla, for lunch. I've known Carla since we first met in college 39 years ago this year. She is one of the very, very few people in my life who has known me when I was a teenager all the way up to now. We were college roommates and shared an apartment when we were in our twenties. We were the maid-of-honor in each other's weddings. She's one of my son's Godmother.

We've led parallel lives, getting married and having children all within the same few years. Even our weight tends to be the same and as we get older, we tend to have the same health problems.

We don't get to see as much of each other as we would like. Although we only live a few miles apart, we both have separate and busy lives. That's why it's so good to start out the new year with a good, long visit. Each time we meet up, it's like we are carrying on a conversation we were having the day before - or maybe even 40 years before.

She is blessed with several sisters, I am not. She's the closest thing I have to a sister sibling and these days, that means a lot. I know that she'll be there for me, even if we can't get together too often.

And I hope she knows that I'll be there for her too.

New Year Musings

Last year at this time, after a 2010 that was joyful, painful, hectic, happy, busy and overwhelming all at the same time, I asked for only a few things for 2011 - I wanted everyone to stay put for a while.

It worked! We had no weddings, births, funerals, job changes, moves or other dramatic events. The year was one that allowed me to take a breather, heal my bruises and make some decisions about the future.

We did do a lot of traveling - two trips out west (Wyoming and Utah) and several short weekend trips and a couple longer workshops.

This year will be different. This year I ask for time to heal. I'm having surgery on my knees the first part of the year, then I need to concentrate on getting my strength and stamina back.

To be able to do that, I have cleared the decks of obligations and volunteer work. I will concentrate on my health, my writing, my family and my friends. I will NOT run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to be everything to everybody. The time for that is over. And to tell the truth, I never was that good at it anyway!