Jaci Dawn

Easter Egg Tree

March 7, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

First off, I was mildly surprised that my post last night about my sewing machine generated considerable traffic and several “likes” from other bloggers who happen to love sewing (I wonder if they actually read my blog because I don’t actually “love” sewing – and none of them commented). I checked out their profiles and am even following one because she didn’t seem to be selling anything, and she had a readable blog.

So, tonight’s post is brought to you by my maternal grandmother and Pinterest™. I actually have a Pinterest page. I don’t do a lot over there, but I am beginning to learn the ropes – and this post is brought to you courtesy of some great ideas I found there (posted on my Easter Ideas board).

Grandma always had an Easter Egg tree. I’m pretty certain my mother did, too, but for whatever reason, I associate the Easter Egg tree with Grandma. I only spent one Easter with Grandma, and that was when I was 18.

I have gone through several variations on the theme, and with little success. For a very long time, I had real egg shells (devoid of the insides, of course), painted and all, that I hung on whatever passed for the Easter Egg tree that year. After 30 years of hauling those eggs around, I finally tossed them last year. I still have the one goose egg, but the rest are either store bought or (more likely) yard sale purchased. I bought a nice wire display for the majority of the heavy ceramic eggs (estate sale), but the light weight hanging stuff…

See, I am almost as bad about Easter as I am Christmas: I *love* the celebration and I *need* to decorate. The problem with this is, decorating for Easter hasn’t really caught on within the money-spending Christian community. The bunnies, chickies, and eggs are rather “taboo” still (unlike the pagan symbols of Christmas).

So I have quietly amassed my collection of lambs, bunnies, eggs, and even a goose (green ceramic thing, bottom left of the above photo). I even managed to find a Christian symbol somewhere – the white ceramic cross in the back, by the lovely crochet gazebo. (Machine crochet, I got it at K-Mart, which is also where I got the cross). I love my ceramic bunnies. The swing set was a yard sale find.

Easter conjures up memories of my ultra-tiny mother in a new (and fashionable dress, usually along the lines of Jackie Kennedy) and all of us kids in Easter finery. Dad hid. The rest of us went to services at the Methodist Church where we kids got to sit in the main service and Mom kept us silent by feeding us wintergreen flavored Certs™ breath mints. We sang lovely hymns like “Little Brown Church in the Vale” and we girls got to wear little white hats and patent leather shoes that hurt our feet. We felt like princesses.

After church, and after we all shook the reverend’s hand and gushed over his wonderful sermon, and after Mom tired of greeting all the E&C people (Easter & Christmas), we loaded up into the station wagon and returned home. We kids got to tear into our baskets and fall into sugar comas at that point, while Mom prepared an Easter ham that I would refuse to eat. (I love ham now, but back then, I hated it. The only plus to ham was that we could have scalloped potatoes later in the week.)

All that to say: I found a pattern for an Easter Egg tree that I wanted to try this year. And I’m very happy with the results.

White on white isn’t the best photography option. I cut branches from the flowering plum that leans over into our yard (most of it is in our yard). I wrapped those branches in a mix of ribbon and yarn. I secured the branches in a funky milk-glass finger vase with marbles for ballast. I hung all the ornaments, including the ones my daughter sent me at Christmas.

The little half-egg wooden pieces in the shape of eggs. They are so cool. There are nine of them.

Here’s the whole display: ceramic “rescue” bunnies at the bottom, cool vintage wire basket with silk flowers, awesome plant stand I picked up at Goodwill for $2, and the Easter Egg tree (held up with one of my faerie houses).

When I got the big bunnies out, Murphy thought they were living animals. Harvey was pretty fascinated, too, but one sniff dispelled any fantasies for him. Murphy actually tried to eat the bunny on the right.

Faerie house in the middle – long story – but that’s Dill, the Brownie, captured in his treasure hoard. Glass plate on top keeps him from escaping.

The dogs can’t get near it.

(Brought to you by mother’s favorite quartet, The Statler Brothers. You are welcome)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Eater Egg Tree | Leave a Comment »

To Sew or Not to Sew

March 6, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

My mother loved to sew. She could make her own patterns. She made beautiful clothes.

I have at least three cousins who quilt. My mother-in-law sews. Both of my girls love to sew.

Me? I can sew and I have quilted. All on this lovely Singer Featherweight that I begged and pleaded for. My mother gave it to me when I left home and she bought her brand new White. My brother got the machine Mom used between the days of this machine and the White.

My Featherweight is in prime condition, has a complete button hole kit, the original manual, and a mostly intact original case (it’s missing one latch). You can purchase your own for between $400 and $600 (mine is not for sale).

For decades, this machine has been adequate for my sewing needs: a repair here and there, a simple project like a banner, a couple of quilts, a number of Christmas stockings for my nieces and nephews. I’ve put up with it’s persnickety habit of eating the bobbin thread (I think it is currently jammed). It’s been well kept. Well loved.

We moved into this house 12 years ago, and that’s about the last time I used this machine. No room, for one thing. It’s a pain to set up on the kitchen table and have to work around the project. Then, it ate the bobbin thread, again. And I moved on to other projects. Bought other machines that my girls ended up with because they liked sewing more than I do. I’ve been without a second sewing machine for around 6 years now.

Until this past week, when I finally picked out my Christmas present from my husband. I was going to purchase the one that is a step above this one, but the store was out of that model, and – really – I don’t need anything fancier than this. This does more that the Featherweight and I’ve decades of sewing on that!

(On a side note: the water color on the wall came from my Grandmother’s estate. I painted it for her in the early years of my marriage, a gift for Grandmother’s Day.)

I spent the better part of this weekend deciding where I wanted to set up a sewing station and getting motivated to do the work necessary to create that area. I have too much junk. My first sewing project will be to sew a dust cover for it (and, yes, I know how to do that, even without the DIY instructions off the Interwebs. It’s the kind of sewing I excel at: making up my own ideas).

Second project: new curtains for the 1971 VW Van.

Third project: long skirt for Ren Faire dressup. I’ll need to actually purchase a pattern for that. And all the notions.

For a little perspective: the Featherweight set up in front of the new Singer. The new Singer – all plastic – weighs about the same as the Featherweight, and has a carry handle for convenience, so it’s a win-win situation.

I actually look forward to sewing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged sewing, sewing machine, singer featherweight sewing machine | Leave a Comment »

Every Year Grief Looks Different

March 2, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

Damn. I looked over at the calendar. Today is March 2nd. Sixteen years ago, my father called me, almost in a panic. He didn’t know what was happening, but my sister was critically ill. She was so ill, in fact, that she was in a coma and on a helicopter to Reno from Ely, Nevada. She could have gone to Las Vegas or Salt Lake City – it’s all about equi-distant from Ely: a good 5-hour drive. But my family has always gravitated to Reno.

I remember how numb I was when Dad called again on the 3rd. She didn’t make it. My little sister, the one person I had a profound love/hate relationship, was gone. The one who once bit me over who got the blankets in our shared bed (she had them all and I just wanted my share, but she rolled over and bit me). The girl who purposely mimicked my clothing choices throughout my high school years (and her junior high years), often bringing out the worst in me because I couldn’t see imitation as a sincere form of flattery. The girl who drank her way through her Freshman year in high school, often stumbling home in the wee hours of the night – she was gone.

Since her death, I have been overwhelmed by the number of kids we grew up with who have messaged me and told me how much they loved her. Her laugh. Her ability to tell a joke. Her very dry sense of irony. Her one-liners. Her way of living life for the moment. Her fierce and loyal friendship.

I held her hand from a distance when she had to give up her first born to adoption. I still have all the poems she wrote about that dark time in her life, how she didn’t want to let the baby go. We cried over the phone together.

I sensed, much later in life, that her words to me were often staged: the words of a little girl who just wanted her older sister to love her and be proud of her, unconditionally. She’d detail house plans, redecorating schemes, art projects. She wanted me to love her.

I did love her, but not. How does an older sister put that into words. I was the “good” child, the do-gooder, the A+ student, the never-does-anything-wrong kid. The unintentional suck-up. Truth was, I don’t have a daring bone in my psyche. Risk of physical pain? I’ll take the easy way out. My sister (and my brother) would face the pain head-on. I am the unabashed introvert. Brother and sister: extroverts. I am the one that takes everything into some deep place and over-analyzes. I am the clumsy one.

I remember some girls picking on my sister. I no longer remember the circumstances, just that they were to the point of physical bullying. It so happened that my best friend and I happened upon a scene of them bullying my little sister. They were big girls, much bigger than me. But that was MY little sister, goddammit, and *I* was the ONLY person allowed to give her a hard time. I’d recently found my voice in life, and I used it that day, at the mouth of an alley way, to lay into three girls who had no business being bullies. me, all 70-pounds of petite, chasing bullies with her words.

Words became my weapon. My sister learned to break beer bottles over people’s heads. Not exactly a technique I would ever be good at, but she excelled at.

Damn.

The thing is, her youngest kid is graduating from high school this year. She has no memory of her mother. A few photos. A strong resemblance to me. No idea of the teenager her mother was. Huh. Her mom was a teenager until my mother died. Deni decided then that she needed to grow up. She was probably about 23 emotionally when she died. She was chronologically 40 years old and starting to look older than I am now. Life’s a bitch.

Grief comes with layers. You grieve for the lost relationship, for the things you didn’t get to say or do, for the love of the person. When anniversaries come, I grieve for the loss of my family: Mom, Sister, Dad. There’s just the two of us left now, and all of our children (my brother’s, mine, and my sister’s). I miss the laughter. The hugs. The covert whispers after dark. The secrets we promised to never tell. The looks that passed between us. The feel of her hair in my fingers as I braided it for the last time in 1998, standing in Dad’s kitchen as he and my daughter went through a box of mementos on the sun porch.

Dad’s 70th birthday. The last time I held my sister in my hands. She had headaches, she said. I told her to try braiding her hair differently: two braids instead of one heavy one down her back. I proceeded to part her hair and braid it for her.

Sisters have complicated relationships. I desperately wanted to work through ours. I wanted to figure out where and how I’d hurt her. I knew she’d forgive me: that’s what she always did. I wasn’t ready to forgive myself. Oldest sister. The bitch. Me. It doesn’t matter now. She’s gone.

And she’s come back from the dead to let me know she forgave me long, long ago. I still see her as about 10 years old.

The girl I see in my visions.

Playing dress up in the basement

“How much can I torture Jaci’s cat?”

Always styling.

I love you and miss you, Mary Denise.

Denny.

Deni.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged grief, sisters | 4 Comments »

Waves of Nostalgia

February 28, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

Best Friends Since 1961

I found these two old friends in the bottom of a cardboard box in my attic. I thought I was protecting them from the wear and tear of daily life, but it looks as if the years inside the box have nearly been Teddy’s demise. Lucky has fared a little better, but he’s so happy to be out in the fresh air – and so concerned about Teddy!

Teddy was born in 1957. Lucky was born in 1961. They both came into my life on a Christmas morning shortly after their births. Lucky ran away from home once and was lost for almost a year. Lucky has also had a complete “face lift” in 1973 (his ears, tail, and eyes are original). Teddy had no such surgery, and he’s been blind in one eye for 48 years.

Did you ever read “The Velveteen Rabbit”?

I wonder what will happen to these old guys when I die. I just can’t imagine them spending out the rest of their days in a landfill. Especially since Lucky survived a year out in the elements back in the mid-to late 1960’s. Their insides are original and intact. I wonder if I can request that they be cremated with me? Would that be weird?

It would be weird to request my kids give them a funeral, I suppose. My sister and I gave funerals to all the dead creatures we came upon, so it doesn’t seem surreal to me, but I don’t remember my kids ever burying a pet fish or dead bird or… Only the pets that had names got funerals: Rosie & Cat.

But my sister and I had a graveyard out in the alleyway behind our house, each dead bird, fish, frog, or horny toad marked with some rock full of quartz crystals. Quartz crystals were a dime a dozen in my childhood.

Lucky doesn’t want me to abandon Teddy to death. He’s sitting on the cardboard box behind my desk, holding Teddy with care, and waiting for me to decide if they get to live a little longer or not. Can I heal Teddy with a needle and thread – give him the stuffed animal equivalent of a triple bypass surgery? Let them live out their lives – which are tied to mine – outside of a cardboard box?

I sat in the attic today and just held the pair of them. I cried a little. I used to fall asleep with my head on Lucky’s body, with Teddy tucked into my arms. Teddy went to Japan with me. He attended my one year of college with me. Lucky waited at home for us. You can tell by their photo how much Lucky cares for his old friend, Teddy.

It’s really hard for me to make a decision on their future. I’ve already lost most of my family. My sister died just 16 years ago this March (anniversary is 3/3/16). My daddy has been gone for 5 years. My mom – who gave Lucky his “face lift” in 1973 and surprised me by placing a completely “remodeled” Lucky under the Christmas tree that year – has been gone since 1995.

I haven’t suffered, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been incredibly blessed and protected. I’m not comparing my losses with someone else’s tragedies. I just miss my family.

And there are these two friends who crawled out of the attic today.

I don’t think I will ever put them into a box again. They didn’t like the dark. They want to live out their days in the light, loved by the little girl who always loved them. When she dies, they will die, but not until then. They’re a lot fragile, but they want to just hang out with me. I think I can make room for that.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 101 Dalmations 1961, Lucky Dog, old stuffed animals, Teddy Bear 1958, velveteen rabbit | 3 Comments »

My Eye Doctor Is Funny, He Just Doesn’t Know It

February 10, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

I had to go to the ophthalmologist today. I have chronic bloodshot eyes (and, no, it isn’t alcohol-induced. I heard you mutter that, Terry!). (Terry is my brother.)

My eye doctor is funny. He’s extremely OCD. He has several nervous tics. He’s allergic to all perfumes, from shampoos, to rinses, to scented deoderant, so he keeps a fan running and he often opens the door to the exam room. He coughs a lot because of it, and apologizes in a way that makes you feel guilty for washing your hair (OK, not really. He apologizes that you should feel bad about washing your hair and explains that it is *his* problem, not yours). His employees have to be psychic because he’s extremely OCD.

Did I mention he has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

He’s also colorblind, a fact that I find quite amusing when he asks me to interpret something from a scan because he can’t see the reds or greens.

He was my second opinion on the diagnosis of glaucoma. I didn’t believe the first one and waited a few years before I went back to an eye doctor, only to receive the very same diagnosis based on the very same anomaly in my eyes. I liked the first doctor, but I couldn’t spell his name (it’s Czechoslovakian, an interesting language that omits most vowels and uses consonants as vowels. I love Czech surnames, but they don’t exactly roll off the tongue like Greek and Basque surnames do – for me). My present eye doctor is funnier, and so I keep him.

Why is he funny, you ask?

Well, let me tell you about today’s visit. Doctor’s wife collected tears from my eyes and tested them for saline and asked me a bunch of frightening questions to which I replied “yes”. She’s the yang to his yin or yin to his yang. Calm, for one thing. She’s also rather new at being his full time assistant since their long-time right hand girl Friday up and married some guy and moved to Texas. Pam was my favorite, but Betty is quickly taking her place. That’s what Pam gets for falling in love and running off to create a life.

Doctor then had to look closely at my eyelashes through his eye microscope (you know the one? He uses it to check the pressure in your eyeball? Well, maybe not. I’m very familiar with it). Bright lights and the feeling of having your eyes under, well, a microscope. I briefly wondered if he could see the mites that live in my eyelashes. He ran off a bunch of numbers and observations to his wife.

Then came explanation time. First, he explained about tear ducts, oil glands, and eyes drying out too quickly (hence the misnomer, “dry eye syndrome”). He explained that my eyes exhibit the signs: drying out before 20 seconds (7 seconds in one eye & 12 in the other), diluted saline in the tears due to increased water production because my eyes feel dry (resulting in tears running down my face, uninvited). Got that. Check.

He moved otn the next subject, “Now, this is just a fact of life, nothing to get alarmed about, but…” he paused, trying to formulate a tactful way to say it, “we have mites living in our eyes…”

“OH! I wondered if you could see them! Did you see them?”

He stopped and looked at me, completely thrown off-guard. “You know about eye lash mites? How?”

“Uh. The cartoon, Rose-is-Rose! She has a phobia of dust mites. And National Geographic. What? Are there people who don’t know this?” Now I am incredulous. How can someone not know about the infinite possibilities of life as proven by science? Heck, there could be mites living on the mites in my eyes! It’s awesome! It’s magical! And to me, it’s proof of the infinite wisdom of God Who creates universes and things smaller than atoms.

My eyelash mites have not started a rebellion, but they are forming armies. Game of Thrones is on, and I have the resources to win. Water-based eye shadow is my friend. The fact that I refuse to use mascara is on my side. Win-win-win.

He still didn’t get it.

He then began a lengthy explanation of eye lid massage that would make Mary Kay Ash roll over in her grave. I sort of zoned on him, as I could hear Mary Kay, Estee Lauder, and a million other beauty experts explain that “there are only certain ways you should ever rub the skin around your eyes to avoid wrinkles and… yadadada…”

He paused and I looked at him and stated, “You know you just destroyed every beauty expert ever?” His wife cracked up in the background because SHE’S HEARD ALL THOSE MAKE UP LECTURES. He just stared at me. HUH?

Mary Kay died a second death.

Then he asked if I had pets. And *if* those pets ever got onto my bed. And if they ever snuggled into or onto the pillows.

I’m pretty sure he was thinking cute little Yorkshire Terriers. But I pictured Nesting Dog. And I laughed Out.Loud. Seriously?

I have an 80+ pound dog that nests. In pillows.

“Can you lock the bedroom door?”

“Sure, but the OTHER dog knows how to open it.”

His wife was nearly doubled in half. He was slowly waking up to this. I now have to wash my pillows every week. And ban Harvey from them.

After he left the room and his wife began to explain to me the new eye cleansing regimen I will have to undergo to correct the OSD, I thought it prudent to explain to her that I love making jokes that floor him.

When he first diagnosed me with glaucoma (confirmed the former eye doctor’s dx), I asked him, straight-faced, “So – this means you’ll prescribe me Medical Marijuana?”

“So – how long did it take him to recover and say ‘no’,” she asked, after wiping the tears from her eyes.

“I don’t know. I burst out laughing before he could formulate his thoughts on the matter. It was hysterical.”

(I am not opposed to medical marijuana, but I am also not interested in that therapy. And my eye doctor is entirely opposed.)

He’s also slow to get a dry joke, which is why he’s funny.

I’m afraid to tell Harvey he can’t nest in the pillows anymore. He loves pillows…

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Forgiveness

February 8, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

Today was the 60th birthday of a friend of mine. We have a complicated friendship. I haven’t wished her happy birthday in a few years because she has her settings on Facebook so I can’t directly comment on her page (but other people can). That bothers me. It bothers me, because I don’t think I’ve ever given her reason to not trust me – except I left the church she was co-pastoring with her husband.

I didn’t leave because of them. But I did leave because of them. It’s complicated. There were a lot of hurtful things that went down over the decade-plus that I served under their pastorship, and not all of it was their fault. And some of it was. Eventually, I left because my husband left, and in his wake, I was left a “single-but-married-woman” attending church and there’s really a strange disconnect in the evangelical world for women like myself. My friend didn’t do much to help my situation.

Her husband certainly never called my husband to inquire as to why he left and if there was anything he could do to remedy the situation. But neither did any other Elder (and peer) in the church (save two). The modus operandi was to corner me at church and ask how my husband was doing and offer some sort of platitude. It got so bad that I typed up our phone number and waited for the next person to ask. I planned on handing the phone number to the inquiring church member and say, “you call him and ask him. I can’t speak for him.”

No one asked after I went to all that work.

My husband and I were very active in church service, and I continued on after he left, but I began to limit my attendance in order to also be a wife. An opportunity came up at the church and I – being a long time church member who had memorized most of the sermons – decided I could take advantage of that opportunity. I approached the person in charge (someone who had been at the church for considerably less time than I had). I was told that I *had* to attend *every* service – every time the church was open! – in order to be in this ministry. I stood there, rather dumbfounded, soaking in this information. I’d been to *every* service for over a decade and now they wanted *more* out of me? I’d been a teacher, a leader, an organizer, sat on councils, and headed up several annual events without a single hitch. Ever.

I turned around and walked out the door. I was hurt, angry, and disappointed. I felt pushed out. Your husband doesn’t go to church here anymore, so you are not valuable to our ministry.

Every stupid thing this friend had ever said to me surfaced. She was pretty, loved make-up, had her hair professionally done, and was endowed with a full figure. I am plain. I hate make-up, refuse to let anyone touch my hair that I don’t absolutely trust, and am flat-chested. I am the antithesis of a poster girl for anything except Ban the Bra (because you can’t tell if I have a bra on or not).

I allowed this friend to perform “make-overs” on me. One such make-over culminated in having 8 inches of my hair cut off. I nearly ended up in divorce court. I went from waist-length, beautiful, flowing hair to trendy just-below-the-shoulders cut. It was like asking my husband to shave his mustache. I will regret that make-over for the rest of my life. It led to bad perms and bad hair styles and – let’s just not go there. Now that I am older and my hair is thinner and I can’t grow it back out, I regret that haircut.

Then there was the time I needed to have something affirmed: I was asked by my father to take on my 10 year old niece to raise. She was an orphan and Dad believed she was being unduly influenced by her step-grandmother. This friend pulled me aside and said, “You do not have to do this. You do not owe your <deceased> sister.”

Wow. I was stunned. That was the last advice I needed. The last advice I expected. It was wrong on so many levels, the first of which: it did not confirm God’s word to my heart. I decided to follow my heart, and I have never regretted that. I just wish this friend had asked God to speak through her before she blurted something out that would forever mar our friendship. My niece was the best decision I ever made that went against the “counsel” of church elders.

I unfairly compare my friend with my first pastor’s wife, Betty Oglesbee. Betty saw through me. Betty saw into me. Betty spoke after she heard from God. Betty never spoke a word to me that was not delivered in careful deliberation. Betty loved me unconditionally – nothing related to church attendance or great spirituality. Betty was my unconditional mentor for as many years as I had her advice (1987 was the last year I had guidance from Betty, but I still think: “what would Betty say?”

I tell you all this (and there is so much more) because this friend turned 60 today. Her church and her children posted videos of her. I love her children – they were in my Sunday School classes. I was faced with my feelings for her: those of love and those of hurt. Which do you go with? I’ll never fully reconcile my walk in Christ with her ministry. I recognize that. God led us down very different paths. She could have been more encouraging in my chosen path, but I can see that my path so diverged from hers that it would be hard for her to relate to.

Still – she has been a good friend. She’s a TV icon. She’s written books. Her children converse with me. I don’t actually hate or even dislike her. I’m just hurt by different things that happened under her ministry. And I truly want to bless her on her birthday. I want to let all of that go. I want this to be her best-ever birthday. She deserves that much. She’s been through hurts I can only imagine, and her hurts have caused her to strike out at people like myself. She doesn’t trust people who claim to be friends.

It’s complicated. I love her. I want her to have a happy birthday. But…

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

The Joy of Rocks

February 7, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

We affectionately call this rock, “The Sadie Rock”. It bears a small resemblance to the English Pointer we had at the time we found the rock. Sadie is long gone now. Don and I held her head and paws when she crossed the Rainbow Bridge ~ she was truly the dumbest dog we ever owned, but she was our dumb dog.

I sat down tonight to write about the things I want to change in my life and I ended up taking photos of a couple of rocks I have picked up over the years. I – we – have way too many rocks. The last time we moved, we left quite a collection behind, but we quickly amassed a new one.

Many are just the right size to slip into a pocket, which is probably how they came to be added to our rock collection. Others, like Sadie Rock, took some effort to bring home. Sadie Rock weighs around 3-5 pounds. She’s metamorphic rock from the high desert above the Alvord playa. She makes a great book end, and since we have a plethora of books as well as rocks – that is a good thing. There’s not enough shelving for all of our books. Or rocks.

Or antique bottles and jars.

I am on a major decluttering binge, combined with deep=cleaning the house. Arthritis, a full-time job, and other duties interfere, but I have made good progress: I’ve washed down the entire kitchen (still need to clean the refrigerator inside), cleaned out the pantry, tossed out stale herbs and spices, cut my canning supplies in half, and even de-greased the top of the refrigerator. (Who puts in a stove and doesn’t include a hood with fan? The people who remodeled our house before we bought it. Ugh.)

I cleaned out and washed the walls in the laundry room – who knew I had so many duplicate cleaning supplies? A small bag of out-dated medicines and vitamins was delivered to our pharmacy for disposal. It was a small bag because I managed to haul off a LARGE bag of said items to the pharmacist last year.

I am half-way through the bathroom.

I keep finding rocks and instead of tossing them outside, I carefully haul them up the stairs to the loft, which is the last area I will be cleaning. I will have to make some hard decisions about rocks when I get to the loft. I am hoping it will be so much closer to spring and I will have a good idea where to put my “special” rock garden. I’ll have to toss all the agates. It’s not like we can’t drive a couple of hours to the coast and pick up more. I may have to admit to myself that I will never use the obsidian shards, though. Those were harder to come by.

The project, which is basically Stage 1 of my New Year’s Resolution “to change my life for the better (how’s that for a vague resolution?) so I can create and finish projects without feeling guilty about the household demands (yeah, now we’re getting specific: get rid of the excuses so I can’t fall back on them)” is slowly taking shape. One idea I had was to collect all the jars, bottles, and jugs – mostly vintage, but some antique, and all worth less than $10/a piece – into one spot. I can’t part with them! But presently, they aren’t even on display. And that is a travesty. (Saves on dusting, but…)

The idea of displaying all those glass items is troubling in a house with few open walls. I had an idea – confirmed by visiting Pinterest – that I could take an old wooden ladder and hang it sideways on the wall to create shelving. They call this style of decorating “shabby chic” and it’s perfect for my tastes. But to find a ladder! Wood ladders are not easy to come by.

I coerced a girlfriend to go with me. We hit every antique store in Oregon City (I wasn’t willing to expand my search: the Aurora antique shops and the Sellwood neighborhood antique shops attract more tourists and are pricier). My friend, it turned out, isn’t so much in to antiques as I am. But she was a good sport. And at the last place – an antique mall I didn’t know was an antique mall – we found The Ladder.

Wandering through that old barn structure, going from antique vendor to vendor, I was struck by how “this could be my house if I keep collecting things…” Yes, I live in an antique mall. I can’t keep up on the dusting.

And I want more.

Back to the ladder – it isn’t a bunch of funky paint colors, which I was sort of hoping for, but it is unique with the round rungs (and the warped bottom rung – or top rung, if your turn it over). My husband asked what I paid for it and guessed $30. Diane and I high-fived as we said (together), “CLOSE!” I paid $45. Ouch.

It needs to be painted. And hung. it’s perfect.

So far, I have been working around my obsession with old things (who am I kidding: OUR obsession). I need a vintage hutch for the kitchen (found one I like, but it’s $495 and I don’t have that kind of money right now). In May, I will travel to Reno to bring the remnant of my inheritance home which includes three chime clocks (two wall & one mantel) and a Star thread case. The Star thread case is full of Lions’ Club memorabilia which I will try to sell on eBay.

I think mine has six drawers. Stole this from Pinterest, there was no photographer credit. Each drawer pulls out with loads of room for items to be displayed (theoretically, spools of thread). If I was a seamstress, this would be a real treasure for thread keeping. I’m not a seamstress, but I think I have enough odd, little, things of vintage and antique status that I can use it well. It is currently full of Lions’ Club memorabilia of undetermined value. I will be doing a lot of research when I get it home.

I want to hang more photos of my grand children around the house. I need to update my photo albums. I have an entire photography update needed, which include scrapping some of the genealogy stuff. Yeah. Just start me on this project. I was pretty good about albums until about 1990. That means I have 26 years of photos that need to be converted to albums. I have the albums and the photos.

And then there’s grand kids. I want them to be in photo frames and hanging around my house. I have very little wall space in this 1150SF bungalow. Open floor plan = no wall space for photos. I think some people hang them all the way down to the floor. Wouldn’t that be cool? Not with dogs, though. Or cats.

This isn’t really a good conclusion to my post. This is a rock I found in the northern Cascades, in a remote stream that we had to bush-whack to get to. I won’t be putting this baby outside – ever.

It is yellow jasper.

Don and I were hiking up about a spot that has a couple names (to us): “It’s-just-a-quarter-mile-from-the-read-lake-honey” and “Mossy Rock”. The lake is actually unnamed and the quarter mile from the road was up sheer cliffs, only to discover there was a spur logging road that came down within a hundred yards of it. Mossy Rock refers to the deep moss covering of a rock slide another fifty feet to the north of the lake.

We were hiking and playing in the shadows of the fir trees when I spotted the rock in the water of the creek flowing down the hill. Pulled it out, looked for more (there were no more) and hauled it home. Took me forever to figure out that it was jasper. I need to label it so my kids know what it is when I am gone – and the story behind it.

Everything has a story. Every rock picked up. Every moment memorialized. I am loathe to toss rocks outside to weather and age because I fear their stories will get lost. So many human stories are lost. No one will know why we kept Sadie Rock when we die. They may not even recognize that it resembles a dog’s head. It’s “Just A Rock.”

It’s never just a rock. It’s a wonderful discovery. A treasure. A monument to a moment passed in our life. A cairn on the path of life, showing the next pilgrim the way.

God help them if they follow me…

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged deep cleaning, rock hounding, rocks | 2 Comments »

2016, Work, Life, and the Blog

January 26, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

I mean to keep up this blog and post about my family history, but I haven’t been very good about it since the first of the year. I did manage to scan and save an entire folder of family history as it relates to the paternal side, but I haven’t pursued any of the leads or transcribed many of the stories to this blog. I have a 40-page “General Family History” that someone transcribed, typed, and carbon copied to my father. I suspect my Uncle Mike wrote it from letter he has in his possession, but I have not called him to verify that. Most of it deals with letters written during the Civil War – originals that I do not own.

Personally, I have been dealing with whatever it is that cripples me – that undiagnosed, but very real, autoimmune condition that causes some very obvious (even to the medical field) symptoms. I should go to a doctor, but I am so over that right now. they can’t find what is causing this, so why go? Yeah, yeah, I get that the symptoms are on the “do not ignore these symptoms” list, but doctors can never find the root cause – so why not ignore the symptoms? It’s not like you get a magical remedy just because you checked in to a doctor’s office. you get a bill, insurance shaves a small portion off, and you pay for a shrug of the shoulders. Last visit? $143 for “Gee, I have no idea, but go to the ER if it gets worse.”

I crawled into bed last week and stayed there for three days. Cheaper than a doctor’s visit, and a modicum more of relief. It could be worse: I could have something they could identify that is actually very deadly and rapid in advance, or I could have Fibromyalgia. Whatever it is, it only cripples the body once in awhile and the rest of the time I just have weird (but obvious & measurable, even to doctors) symptoms.

I’ve also been working hard on starting an at-home business (now that I am finished whinging about my body aches and pains). I have a portfolio of mini paintings and several books on building my own Word Press website (not this blog, but my art site). It’s slow going on the web design because I feel intimidated by technology and I think I’m going to just have to bite the bullet and start from scratch with the web site. Now that I have made that decision, it should be easier (see, you didn’t even know I was making a decision, did you? Neither did I).

Meanwhile – I still love my job that is just three miles from home. I’ve had a bit of a bad attitude this week, but if I think about it – this is just where I am supposed to be. it’s just that it is *not* my career. My career is what happens in the evenings, when I have a pencil or paintbrush in my hand. My career doesn’t pay the bills; my job does.

I’m on a major deep cleaning and decluttering binge – my 2016 winter goal is to get through the entire house. My 2016 Spring goal is to bring the rest of my inheritance home and clutter up the space all over again, but this time with meaningful antiques. Oy vey. Let me just get the house in order, first. I’ve made it through the laundry room and most of the kitchen. The problem is the weather… It’s been NICE and the garden is beckoning. I can’t neglect my garden!!

I did manage to get out and prune my grapevine back, but the annual dead-heading and getting ready for blooms hasn’t happened yet, and the air has been so warm… I noted that my forsythia has blooms on it. Haven’t seen anything on the Camellia – yet.

And birds. I haven’t posted about birds, or even taken many winter photos of them. We have a resident Bewick’s wren that has moved to the front yard and has figured out the suet cages. The Brown Creeper has been a steady visitor, too. I can’t keep enough nectar in the Hummer feeders because the Townsend’s Warbler has figured out how to raid them.

So – my promise – to start transcribing the “General Family History” beginning in February. Then, Great Aunt Gert’s letters. And Newton Brown’s letters. Great-great Uncle Newton ought to be interesting. Great Aunt Gert was just funny. And, in between, I’ll post on gardening and decluttering. I’ll strive to post once a week, at least – just to practice my writing skills.

Besides – you all need to know how I got to Oregon from Jarbidge, right? It wasn’t a very direct route… But nothing in my life is.

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Folklore, Historical Fact, and Benedict Arnold

January 12, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

The difference between folklore and fact is that one can be irrefutably proven and the other is usually a bit of an embellishment of truth that is handed down until the retelling of it becomes known as fact. An example would be the Ballad of Jesse James in which the writer wrote that Jesse robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, and that he had a wife and three children. The facts were very different: James was a thief with a vendetta against the railroad and he did not spread his wealth to the poor. He also only had two children, not three.

So what has this to do with Benedict Arnold?

I was leafing through some of my Grandfather Wilcox’s letters (Gramps, as I knew him) and I stumbled onto this gem of a story about my ancestry. I’d read it before but remembered few of the details. Here is the story (ancestral names in bold)(and complete in grammatical error):

<snippet> “Then there was another cousin, William Meade, his father & my great grandmother were brother & sister so I am told. That is the branch that had ancestor that was around Cedar Hill, N.Y. when he was very, very old. Along with two other lads they deserted the Continental Army thinking the cause about lost. On the outside they learned and observed different and were looking for a ticket back in to good graces of the Federal Forces when oneXXX Major Andre walked into a bar, then called a tavern, and they took him in tow and found the famous message from Benedict Arnold. They had their ticket and used it. Ancestor Williams was rewarded with a very nice piece of land that kept him in drinking liquor until he was still well preserved into the memory of future generations.” <end>

That makes you say “Hmmmm”, doesn’t it? Given Gramps’ penchant for spinning a tale and embellishing it, I thought it prudent to see how much of that narrative actually matches the historical record. I was surprised to find that enough of the record matches to make a connection, and the historical record differs a little in every version of the telling. However, not one single, verifiable, item in the record points to the three young men as AWOL from the Continental Army (which was not, no matter how much Gramps wanted it to be, a “Federal” Force as the Nation had not yet been born).

This much is true: three militiamen by the names of John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams did make the discovery and did arrest Major John Andre. (Another version gives the second man’s name as Van Wert.) (A “skinner” would be a Militiaman). Paulding was the only one of the three who could read and soon realized the man they were robbing was actually a British agent.

This little gem of Gramps’ use of folklore is full of fact and falsehood, but it makes for a great fireside story in much the same way as the Ballad of Jesse James makes for a moving ballad. Sprinkle the truth with a little spice – that would have been Gramps’ motto. There are obvious holes: Gramps skipped from William Meade, the very, very old man to a story about an ancestor named Williams.

This fellow, Williams, would be a distant relative, not a direct ancestor – if we are even related. I haven’t gotten that far on my search because I’m trying to stick with the straight lines of the family first (which includes the matriarchal lines as well as patriarchal).

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Benedict Arnold, folklore, possible relation, tall tale | Leave a Comment »

A Short History Transcribed

January 11, 2016 by Jaci Dawn

Thomas Force Palmer 1787-1865

I found a hand-written “history” of the Palmer clan in my file cabinet that I have reserved solely for genealogy. This is where I stuffed everything my father sent me: all my mother’s notes on her side of the family, and anything my dad had on his side of the family. My father was the grandson of John and Irene Wilcox. Joseph Snow Palmer was my great-great-great grandfather.

I have not researched the hand-written history, but I am going to transcribe it below (verbatim). It was written in pencil on faded note-paper, but is still legible. I’d like to capture it before it fades completely.

Here goes:

Coat of Arms was granted to Ralph Palmer in 14 century and brought (?) to the coming of the clan to America.

Ralph Palmer was of great note in the South of England and resided at Sussex. Sir Edward who was a descendant in the 8th generation was our ancestor. he (sic) married a daughter of Sir Richard Clement. She had three sons (think of it3) (sic) triplets and they were born on three successive Sundays, the first one on Palm Sunday*. Some Record (see coat of arms)**

The first of Palmers of our line in America: William. He came from Sommersetshire, England in 1621 on the good ship Fortune. He had a son, William. The second Wm. was a lieutenant under Capt. Miles Standish and has been designated as Lieutenant William Palmer. he was a man of large affairs and held many positions of trust. He married Judith Feake and had five sons & one daughter. One of his sons Ephraim married Sarah Messenger & they had seven children. One of whom was John, who married Sarah Close and had five children, one being Justus who married Amy Lockwood and had six children, all sons & the third of these was Ephraim our Revolutionary ancestor.

He was born in 1760, married Margaret Force in 1786 and had 11 children, seven sons and four daughters. The eldest of these was Thomas Force Palmer born in 1787. Married Rebecca Snow 1813 and then had six children, four girls & 2 boys.

Joseph Snow Palmer, b. 1819

*I’m trying to verify that story. Sounds like a tall tale: giving birth to triplets, but each one a week apart, beginning on Palm Sunday?? I can verify the boys were triplets, but not the story. That link also hints at the tragic death of my ancestor, Sir Thomas Palmer. (Cause of death: beheaded after the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy.) That bears a lot more research!

** Coat of Arms

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ancestry, kimmey ancestry, palmer ancestry, wilcox ancestry | Leave a Comment »

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