Day 2 Day radishes

February 28/Gabe turns 10

Gabe's birthday is today, and his family party, which is today, is lunch at the Space Needle in Seattle.  This is something he loves is the Space Needle.  This grandson is the boy who wears my maiden name as his middle name. . .  Haines.  This boy is as delightful as his photo.   

Here at my sister's we are making do dahs for my nieces wedding this summer.  One thing leads to another and we keep changing things doing  with what we have, and yet needing more.  One idea leads to another creative piece.  

Today I went with my brother in law to church and had the good fortune to hear a really good sermon.  This sermon covered many things one of which was that many things start out good, such as Satan started out as an angel and little by little over time he became corrupt and then evil.  Some things in our lives start out good, but then little by little we may corrupt them.  It is good to be on the look out for little corruptions in our own lives.  

I forget what it was in the sermon that prompted me to think that these little do dahs should be an act of prayer as I go along.  An act of prayer for the success of the marriage of these two people!  I have much more to do for these do dahs, but I now have an opportunity to care for  this man and woman.  

Currently I am in Houston. My sister has had a hip operation is recovering. It is the same as having had a bone broken and set, there is a trauma to the body. And you have to wait for things to heal. I was a bottle washer today and actually happy to be it. The healing process goes forward and backward.
The above photo is of John Ringling himself. I like this photo because the candelabras reflect very near the pockets.
I am working on the above banner but I think I have to pay more to have a banner I want.

February 23/ Good mail

 I did not take one photo yesterday.  I just must be too blasé about Florida.  Wendy, who is my oldest daughter’s mother-in-law, and I went to lunch. It was a lovely woman’s day.  We went up the highway on the beach to a restaurant which looks tiny and goes on and on when you get inside. This must be a thing with Florida restaurants.  One of the topics we covered was mothers and how long you need your mother, which is for a long time.   I treasure the mother conversation with her. 

We proceeded to Barnes and Noble in St. Augustine.  I was looking for a magazine for my trip tomorrow to Houston.  My daughter’s have been chiding me that I am not reading.  I guess I have neglected to say that I have lots of reading material, but no novels.  But they are on subjects like making small books or documenting memories.   Yesterday at the book store in the craft section I fell across a book with the title GOOD MAIL DAY, a Primer for Making Eye-Popping Postal Art.  This book called to me.  It was like a siren. 

 

Today we have given up handwritten letters, and I have even said that I have given up writing cards.  My penmanship is scratchy and scrawly.  The ability to read it is very iffy.  But how many bad mail days do we have.  Nothing good is in the mail.  Nothing pretty or interesting, only bills and the unsolicited junk mail.  I do  not need another artistic interest.  I am already into Digital scrapbooking.  But the thing is that I have rediscovered paste.  After studying the book I finally found the permission I was looking for.  It said that in ten minutes you could send someone a postcard that was a work of art.  Last night I ripped out a beautiful page from Martha Stewart which was going in the trash and made an envelope.  That was less than two minutes because I had to choose the page.  I  may have the courage to spruce up my handwriting.  

 

February 22/ Ringling 2

 John Ringling was from Wisconsin.  His father worked on the leather harnesses when the circus came to town, and eventually John and his older brothers decided to start a circus.  But in the end he and his brother Charles were the final owners.    John amassed quite a bit of wealth.  A huge amount of his money went into collecting art.  In fact, late in his life, after his wife was gone, he had an art gallery built to hold it all. 

When you tour in the house or the circus museum the volunteers, of which there are many, are positive about the Ringlings.  But having read the book Water for Elephants I could not help thinking of the backs upon which this money was made. 

Mr. Ringling was deathly afraid of fires, which I suppose was somewhat related to the horror of circus tent fires.  Although this house had fireplaces, they were never used.  Even Florida needs heat now and then, but in the winter there is nothing but dry scrub nearby. There were no local fire departments.  They had an electric stove in the kitchen, and they had backup generators, and some other kind of stove, which the men admired, and that stove really had the only flame in the house, and only when necessary.     

February 21/ Ringling 1

 Aside from the weather, in Sarasota the attraction is the Ringling Museum of Art.  The Ringling Museum of Art is really 66 acres which holds an art gallery, mansion, performing arts center, and circus museums.   John Ringling, of circus renown, bequeathed all the property and its goods to Florida State.

The photo above is from the mansion on the sea side.  The mansion has about 36,000 sq feet with 41 rooms and 15 bathrooms.  We only saw the first floor.  Aside from the foyer, I thought it rather livable.  The Hearst Castle quickly came to mind when I was at Ca’dZan which translates to John’s House. Although here I saw no swimming pool of the type with which Hearst Castle is so famous, the rich live differently from you and me.   The house was really built for Mabel his wife. When they were young they traveled in a railcar that was outfitted somewhat like a yacht.  It had only one servant who did everything.  This car was also used for entertaining.   
 

February 20 /St.Petersburg

  Last night we returned from an overnight to Tampa/St.Petersberg/Sarasota. We know nothing of Tampa because we had a 2:00 meltdown finding a restaurant for lunch.  We settled on Zelda’s which was next door to our gas station, and turned out to have good food.  It was a Reggae spot, and our waitress was Jamaican.  But even good food could not assuage our need for a familiar freeway. I am thinking we are too old to explore.

We drove across a long bridge to St. Petersberg  and moseyed around there for a while.  It seemed to be a very nice town. And we could read the map there.  It reminded us a little bit of Santa Barbara, which we also love.  This strip of coast is named the Sun Coast.  Thinking back on it now, I would call it the pink and white town.  Many, many boats in the harbor

We had heard that Sarasota was a nice town, and there the Ringling Museum of Art lived.  It was about an hour south so we merely skimmed St. Petersburg.  I am a nervous Nelly about hotels and I want to be sure there is one.   So on the road we went.  

In the picture above is the statue of the famous black and white photo of the sailor kissing the nurse on VJ day of WWII.  I have alway loved the photo.

Yesterday I told Mr. Radish that I wanted to buy a new, duplicate Photoshop Elements program. The only way to fix my problem was to reinstall the program and I had not brought my disk. Well, now as kids have traveling binkies, or blankies, I have my traveling PSE. I did redeem myself slightly, in that I had the good sense to tell Best Buy that the price was too high, and they immediately checked Costco’s price to give me the lower price.
We bought that program in Daytona and then had lunch further down the coast at Crabby Joe’s. This is the restaurant that we went last year and I nearly lost my camera because it was on the window sill, but I did not realize there was no window. After lunch we continued south to Ponce Inlet a name that beckoned to us. There four blocks from the ocean is the Inland Waterway. Pelicans were nesting. They make themselves look like large rocks. They look four times their size when they are in a tree.

Photos late tomorrow.

We are going to Tampa thurday and staying the night.

Yesterday I told Mr. Radish that I wanted to buy a new, duplicate Photoshop Elements program. The only way to fix my problem was to reinstall the program and I had not brought my disk. Well, now as kids have traveling binkies, or blankies, I have my traveling PSE. I did redeem myself slightly, in that I had the good sense to tell Best Buy that the price was too high, and they immediately checked Costco’s price to give me the lower price.
We bought that program in Daytona and then had lunch further down the coast at Crabby Joe’s. This is the restaurant that we went last year and I nearly lost my camera because it was on the window sill, but I did not realize there was no window. After lunch we continued south to Ponce Inlet a name that beckoned to us. There four blocks from the ocean is the Inland Waterway. Pelicans were nesting. They make themselves look like large rocks. They look four times their size when they are in a tree.

Photos late tomorrow.

We are going to Tampa thurday and staying the night.

Yesterday I told Mr. Radish that I wanted to buy a new, duplicate Photoshop Elements program. The only way to fix my problem was to reinstall the program and I had not brought my disk. Well, now as kids have traveling binkies, or blankies, I have my traveling PSE. I did redeem myself slightly, in that I had the good sense to tell Best Buy that the price was too high, and they immediately checked Costco’s price to give me the lower price.
We bought that program in Daytona and then had lunch further down the coast at Crabby Joe’s. This is the restaurant that we went last year and I nearly lost my camera because it was on the window sill, but I did not realize there was no window. After lunch we continued south to Ponce Inlet a name that beckoned to us. There four blocks from the ocean is the Inland Waterway. Pelicans were nesting. They make themselves look like large rocks. They look four times their size when they are in a tree.

Photos late tomorrow.

We are going to Tampa thurday and staying the night.