Honoring those who served makes me think particularly of my father, who served in the Navy in World War II and my Grandpa, who served in the Army in World War I. Neither told War stories while I was growing up. Both were good men who served their country because it was their duty to do so. Neither would have considered a career in the military, I am sure of that.
On the other hand, I have dear friends who did make the military their careers, one in the Navy and one first in the Marine corps and then in the Army. Another dear friend is a Marine from World War II.
The "greatest generation" tends to fill my thoughts when I think of Veteran's Day, but today's men and women deserve our prayers, gratitude and kindness too. Even though the war is unpopular, they should not be. The members of my generation who suffered through the war in Vietnam are a testment to that.
Several years ago, I made a design with words for Peace in about forty languages to honor my father, Fred. As I was writing this tonight, I realized that was Grandpa's name as well. It was his father's and his father's uncle (my third great-uncle, I think that the relationship is) who was also named Fred. That man served in the Union Army in the Civil War. I wish he had left a journal--I do have all of his Veteran's records of application for disability from NARA (National Archive and Records Administration) and I have no doubt at all that he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. So my design does honor them as well.
To all of the veterans and those serving I wish you peace and joy and the return to your families. My prayers and thoughts go with you tonight. I am so grateful to you all and for you all.
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
August 6, 2008
It has been sixty-three years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. A terrible thing and a tragedy, truly. I grew up in the shadow of that bomb. If you are a baby boomer, like me, you probably remember dropping under your school desk when the air alert siren sounded. It was only a drill, but it scared us.
Still, we are a long way from a world at peace. We still have to worry about weapons--nuclear and street--in our lives. We have not tempered our aggressive instincts or re-channeled them sufficiently and we have a long way to go. I remember reading that classic book, On Aggression, but I can't at the moment remember the author. (Google will tell me in a bit, I am sure.)(Two days later: Konrad Lorenz, and I probably still have a copy somewhere in the house.)
Peace requires respect, I think, for others. It requires as well prosperity and a different way of organizing our economy in a global world so that no one is left out. It is more than time for that. It is overdue.
I am glad to see that Americans have been driving less this summer and that oil prices are easing. We have a long way to go though before we get ourselves out of the oil trap. Some folks have become very wealthy while we drove and drove. The rest of us have been providing that wealth. There are probably other areas of our economy that would yield the same analysis if we scrutinized them a bit.
Today is also the Feast of the Transfiguration, one of those lesser celebrated feasts that is worth noting because it is about the last things and the expectation of the after life. It means more to me today than it did twenty years ago. To be free of the body, transfigured or transmogrified, is something I am beginning to look forward to. Not ready yet, but thinking of not having to worry about weather or food, housekeeping or watering the plants; never to worry about money again. Not ready yet, but looking forward.
In the mean time, I will pause to look at my little Peace banner hanging on the wall of my front entrance and take a few moments to get out the peace cranes that a friend and I made last year and ponder this anniversary, the need for peace and how friendship also enters into it.
I am grateful today that we have not used the atomic bomb again since WWII. I am grateful to be alive today and hoping for real peace.
Still, we are a long way from a world at peace. We still have to worry about weapons--nuclear and street--in our lives. We have not tempered our aggressive instincts or re-channeled them sufficiently and we have a long way to go. I remember reading that classic book, On Aggression, but I can't at the moment remember the author. (Google will tell me in a bit, I am sure.)(Two days later: Konrad Lorenz, and I probably still have a copy somewhere in the house.)
Peace requires respect, I think, for others. It requires as well prosperity and a different way of organizing our economy in a global world so that no one is left out. It is more than time for that. It is overdue.
I am glad to see that Americans have been driving less this summer and that oil prices are easing. We have a long way to go though before we get ourselves out of the oil trap. Some folks have become very wealthy while we drove and drove. The rest of us have been providing that wealth. There are probably other areas of our economy that would yield the same analysis if we scrutinized them a bit.
Today is also the Feast of the Transfiguration, one of those lesser celebrated feasts that is worth noting because it is about the last things and the expectation of the after life. It means more to me today than it did twenty years ago. To be free of the body, transfigured or transmogrified, is something I am beginning to look forward to. Not ready yet, but thinking of not having to worry about weather or food, housekeeping or watering the plants; never to worry about money again. Not ready yet, but looking forward.
In the mean time, I will pause to look at my little Peace banner hanging on the wall of my front entrance and take a few moments to get out the peace cranes that a friend and I made last year and ponder this anniversary, the need for peace and how friendship also enters into it.
I am grateful today that we have not used the atomic bomb again since WWII. I am grateful to be alive today and hoping for real peace.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Deconstruction Completed
For decades the house across the street from mine had a swimming pool that filled the front patio (now frequently referred to as the courtyard). Surrounded by a high fence, as are most of the houses in my neighborhood, the pool could not be seen. It took five days of pounding with a jack hammer and backloading with a small bulldozer, I called it a "baby dozer"--sort of like a baby dinosaur--to remove the concrete. Then the biggest truck I have ever seen on my street, a two-barreled black tanker pulled up and downloaded dirt into the street. The next day the 'dozer driver began trundling dirt into the yard through the hole that had been made by removing part of the fence. A friend and I watched on Friday and he commented that watching construction was mesmerizing. I found it so. Today they are tamping down the new dirt with a compactor and removing equipment. Peace and quiet will return and perhaps I can blog every day or so again. Writing was not possible last week!
I am glad for the young couple who bought the house two summers ago that they are going forward with their plans. The pool was in disrepair--probably too far gone to repair--and costly to maintain. It had become a "mosquito-breeder" and therefore even more costly to maintain because of the concern about West Nile Virus.
While the pool was being pounded out last week, I found myself thinking about my own memories of that pool. Seven or eight owners have passed through the house during the fifty plus years since it was built. Early on we knew the neighbors because two daughters were classmates in the same school. I remember that we were invited to swim and just to visit and that on one occasion we went over with our new young Keeshond to introduce her to the neighbors. They had a poodle and Frosty and the poodle began chasing around the perimeter of the pool. Frustrated because she wasn't catching the poodle, Frosty cut across the diagonal of the pool. The look on her face as she hit the water was something that I have never seen since and never forgotten. Part shock, part terror and then finally rage. Papa kicked off his shoes and was just about to dive in when we all realized that she was "dog paddling" toward the edge of the pool. Instinct had kicked in and she knew exactly what to do. One furious mass of wet fur was hauled out of the water. On dry land, she proceeded to shake water over all of us to let us know exactly how she felt about being bamboozled. A bath and more shaking followed at home because, of course, we had to get the chlorine out of her fur.
A decade later I was going to graduate school and coming home for the summers. The next neighbors kindly allowed me to use the pool so that I could exercise and keep in shape for my return to Chicago in the Fall.
It was a nice pool and I am glad that I do not have one to contend with in my patio. I figure that at today's prices the cost of removing a swimming pool is probably about the sum that my parents received for the two bedroom, one bath "bungalow" that we lived in in Toledo before we came to California.
Silence. At last. As I have been writing the last truck has pulled away and it is so quiet that it is almost delicious. I will stop clicking and clacking away here and savor it.
I am glad for the young couple who bought the house two summers ago that they are going forward with their plans. The pool was in disrepair--probably too far gone to repair--and costly to maintain. It had become a "mosquito-breeder" and therefore even more costly to maintain because of the concern about West Nile Virus.
While the pool was being pounded out last week, I found myself thinking about my own memories of that pool. Seven or eight owners have passed through the house during the fifty plus years since it was built. Early on we knew the neighbors because two daughters were classmates in the same school. I remember that we were invited to swim and just to visit and that on one occasion we went over with our new young Keeshond to introduce her to the neighbors. They had a poodle and Frosty and the poodle began chasing around the perimeter of the pool. Frustrated because she wasn't catching the poodle, Frosty cut across the diagonal of the pool. The look on her face as she hit the water was something that I have never seen since and never forgotten. Part shock, part terror and then finally rage. Papa kicked off his shoes and was just about to dive in when we all realized that she was "dog paddling" toward the edge of the pool. Instinct had kicked in and she knew exactly what to do. One furious mass of wet fur was hauled out of the water. On dry land, she proceeded to shake water over all of us to let us know exactly how she felt about being bamboozled. A bath and more shaking followed at home because, of course, we had to get the chlorine out of her fur.
A decade later I was going to graduate school and coming home for the summers. The next neighbors kindly allowed me to use the pool so that I could exercise and keep in shape for my return to Chicago in the Fall.
It was a nice pool and I am glad that I do not have one to contend with in my patio. I figure that at today's prices the cost of removing a swimming pool is probably about the sum that my parents received for the two bedroom, one bath "bungalow" that we lived in in Toledo before we came to California.
Silence. At last. As I have been writing the last truck has pulled away and it is so quiet that it is almost delicious. I will stop clicking and clacking away here and savor it.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Another Week has Flown By
Another week has gone by too quickly. The roses and poppies are giving me joy as are the friends who water and photograph and bring flowers inside for me to enjoy. The red and pink poppies contrast and at the same time complement each other. I think that is a contradiction in color theory, but it is what I am observing.
Today was a windy day. I could see the tree tops bowing in neighbors' yards and it amazed me that the poppies, even protected by the fence as they are, could still be standing. Nature is so strong and so resilient.
My friend M has moved all the roses that she has tended for me in pots on my porch to places where they will get more sun. Already they have grown and bloomed and I am able to enjoy flowers inside. The adaptability of plants is heartening giving us a lesson or two in the same for ourselves.
Tomorrow my neighbors across the street have people coming to begin the process of demolishing their swimming pool. Probably as old as the tract, the swimming pool is cracked and they have not used it since they moved in. I am glad for them and in fact for all of us--it has been a place for mosquitoes to breed.
I am grateful for the peace and quiet today and for the fact that I have been warned in a note that they sent to all the neighbors of the noise and vibration that is to come tomorrow and for several succeeding days. Unlike the heat wave, which was over when it was over and not entirely predictable, this is finite and also will not last around the clock.
Hopefully, I will be able to put the noise aside and do the things that need doing as well as one that doesn't. More chocolate cookies are in the offing before I have a recipe that I can submit, if I am going to submit one at all. I can't just tweak the recipe, of course, I will have to eat the calories--and share them.
Today was a windy day. I could see the tree tops bowing in neighbors' yards and it amazed me that the poppies, even protected by the fence as they are, could still be standing. Nature is so strong and so resilient.
My friend M has moved all the roses that she has tended for me in pots on my porch to places where they will get more sun. Already they have grown and bloomed and I am able to enjoy flowers inside. The adaptability of plants is heartening giving us a lesson or two in the same for ourselves.
Tomorrow my neighbors across the street have people coming to begin the process of demolishing their swimming pool. Probably as old as the tract, the swimming pool is cracked and they have not used it since they moved in. I am glad for them and in fact for all of us--it has been a place for mosquitoes to breed.
I am grateful for the peace and quiet today and for the fact that I have been warned in a note that they sent to all the neighbors of the noise and vibration that is to come tomorrow and for several succeeding days. Unlike the heat wave, which was over when it was over and not entirely predictable, this is finite and also will not last around the clock.
Hopefully, I will be able to put the noise aside and do the things that need doing as well as one that doesn't. More chocolate cookies are in the offing before I have a recipe that I can submit, if I am going to submit one at all. I can't just tweak the recipe, of course, I will have to eat the calories--and share them.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Monday and Cooler, Gardening and Peace
The weather has finally returned to normal and it is deliciously cool. After last week's heat wave it seemed almost silly to put on an overshirt and knitted hat last evening while I was watching tv, but that was necessary.
Yesterday, my young friend took pictures of my backyard. Clearly the roses and poppies enjoyed the hot weather as well as all the water that various friends kindly poured on them. These Oriental Poppies are being grown as ornamentals and not as a cash crop!
I associate poppies with Memorials after war. There are fields of red poppies in Ukraine growing where bitter battles were fought in World War II and soldiers died in massive numbers. They are blood poppies, truly and sacred as are the poppies that grow in Flanders Field, "amid the crosses row on row."
While the seeds have culinary uses and the pods are ornamental and can be used in arrangements, I no longer make wreaths and arrangements and I buy my food seed, so they probably will not last long enough to go to seed. My friend who planted them for me suggested that they would be good for pressing. That is probably true. Perhaps I will try to press or dry a few.
The pods would be appropriate for a memorial wreath. I began one a few years ago and put the names of all the ancestors who had fought in wars on the wreath along with the wars that they fought in.
Last week I began Squidoo lens Garden for Peace, which is linked to the right. I will be adding to it as time permits. It is an old interest of mine. Back in the eighties I was one of the plant growers for Common Ground, supplying them with pepper and tomato seedlings.
Before that, when I was an economics major at Stanford, I was interested in taking courses in the Food Research Institute. The building was not accessible and this was long before the ADA. I wonder if I would have been an analyst helping to shape policy about world food issues instead of a seedling grower if those classes had been held in a different building.
Maybe that is why I grew those seedlings and have been interested in seed diversity and related issues for the last twenty years. We do need to conserve and preserve our bio-diversity and cherish the earth on which we live.
There are interesting ethical issues that relate to all of this as well and I was heartened to see an episode of Bill Moyer's Journal several weeks ago that featured David Beckmann and Bread for the World.
If we could feed all the world comfortably wouldn't we be able to build a peaceful world? More later.
Yesterday, my young friend took pictures of my backyard. Clearly the roses and poppies enjoyed the hot weather as well as all the water that various friends kindly poured on them. These Oriental Poppies are being grown as ornamentals and not as a cash crop!
I associate poppies with Memorials after war. There are fields of red poppies in Ukraine growing where bitter battles were fought in World War II and soldiers died in massive numbers. They are blood poppies, truly and sacred as are the poppies that grow in Flanders Field, "amid the crosses row on row."
While the seeds have culinary uses and the pods are ornamental and can be used in arrangements, I no longer make wreaths and arrangements and I buy my food seed, so they probably will not last long enough to go to seed. My friend who planted them for me suggested that they would be good for pressing. That is probably true. Perhaps I will try to press or dry a few.
The pods would be appropriate for a memorial wreath. I began one a few years ago and put the names of all the ancestors who had fought in wars on the wreath along with the wars that they fought in.
Last week I began Squidoo lens Garden for Peace, which is linked to the right. I will be adding to it as time permits. It is an old interest of mine. Back in the eighties I was one of the plant growers for Common Ground, supplying them with pepper and tomato seedlings.
Before that, when I was an economics major at Stanford, I was interested in taking courses in the Food Research Institute. The building was not accessible and this was long before the ADA. I wonder if I would have been an analyst helping to shape policy about world food issues instead of a seedling grower if those classes had been held in a different building.
Maybe that is why I grew those seedlings and have been interested in seed diversity and related issues for the last twenty years. We do need to conserve and preserve our bio-diversity and cherish the earth on which we live.
There are interesting ethical issues that relate to all of this as well and I was heartened to see an episode of Bill Moyer's Journal several weeks ago that featured David Beckmann and Bread for the World.
If we could feed all the world comfortably wouldn't we be able to build a peaceful world? More later.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Peace Cards, Remembrance
Making cards is tedious, but also pleasant work. The tedium stems from the repetition. The pleaseure from sitting in a sunny space enjoying the day. I am reminded of the admonition of my childhood to "offer it up". Good advicie that turns the most mundane and repetitious tasks to grace. One can offer it just generally, or one can offer it for a specific intention. Peace would be a good intention.
The prints came from Adorama so quickly that I almost wasn't able to obtain paper as swiftly. Fortunately, that problem was solved by a dear friend who made the paper store run. Now that I know what color I am using I can re-order from the net if no one is available to go to the store. Life sometimes does get complicated!
As soon as I figure out how to accept money through PayPal I will begin selling the cards here through this blog. There are Christmas designs and many flowers as well. (I think that I have never met a flower that I didn't think deserved to have its picture taken. We have also been the same way about Christmas trees.)
So back to work and trying to turn the work into a prayer. It was a good childhood, and it is good to remember what my parents taught me, especially in this month of remembrance.
The prints came from Adorama so quickly that I almost wasn't able to obtain paper as swiftly. Fortunately, that problem was solved by a dear friend who made the paper store run. Now that I know what color I am using I can re-order from the net if no one is available to go to the store. Life sometimes does get complicated!
As soon as I figure out how to accept money through PayPal I will begin selling the cards here through this blog. There are Christmas designs and many flowers as well. (I think that I have never met a flower that I didn't think deserved to have its picture taken. We have also been the same way about Christmas trees.)
So back to work and trying to turn the work into a prayer. It was a good childhood, and it is good to remember what my parents taught me, especially in this month of remembrance.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
New Peace Button
Cafe Press has launched 3.5" buttons on its site. My Peace design is now available along with the gratitude design and I Keep Advent. As I write this morning I am looking at a Peace flag I printed on cloth through my ink jet printer yesterday morning and I am happy. This is so cool! To print on cloth as well as a large variety of papers. While I ate breakfast, I pondered the design trying to remember all the languages. I can remember most of the languages. Spanish, Italian, Afrikaans (in honor of a dear family friend who nagged me and then recommended me to Stanford), Vietnamese for another friend, whose kindness, patience and wisdom inspires me. Tagalog in honor of my friend who brings me communion, Hebrew and Arabic. Russian is there, as well as Hungarian, Welsh and Icelandic. I will have to look them up though, to remember which is which. It is a long time since I fist started to work on this design.
Yesterday I began to use my new nutrition software and see it as a tool that should help me. For the first time in a long time I did actually measure the fat I used to saute the mushrooms. Lo and behold, they would have sauteed with less. So next time, less is more. The simple leg lifts that I can do from my wheelchair are proceeding. Up from three reps once a day to five reps three times a day. Long way to go still, but something is better than nothing and movement is one way to combat SAD, which will come as daylight savings time ends.
The week is almost over, Halloween is just around the corner, and there are so many projects calling my name! Maybe they were what kept me awake last night! In just this week I have knitted two long fluff scarves from Crystal Palace Splash, an eyelash yarn that is soft and shiny, great fun to work with. A third is well started.
Pray for Peace.
Yesterday I began to use my new nutrition software and see it as a tool that should help me. For the first time in a long time I did actually measure the fat I used to saute the mushrooms. Lo and behold, they would have sauteed with less. So next time, less is more. The simple leg lifts that I can do from my wheelchair are proceeding. Up from three reps once a day to five reps three times a day. Long way to go still, but something is better than nothing and movement is one way to combat SAD, which will come as daylight savings time ends.
The week is almost over, Halloween is just around the corner, and there are so many projects calling my name! Maybe they were what kept me awake last night! In just this week I have knitted two long fluff scarves from Crystal Palace Splash, an eyelash yarn that is soft and shiny, great fun to work with. A third is well started.
Pray for Peace.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sunday morning, bright, clear a little chilly and sunny. The sun flowers march along clearing the top of the fence by over a foot. I wonder what it would look like to have a field of them? They are such a vivid color that they seem to make the sun even brighter, as though they are concentrating it.
I miss being able to get out and about to attend Mass and socialize with friends after.
The first reading today is from Jeremiah and tells of how the prophet was lowered into a cistern and then rescued. The responorial psalm is Psalm 40:2,3,4,18. The second reading, Hebrews 12:1-4 has the phrase "a cloud of witnesses" and the Gospel, Luke 12:49-53 has Jesus telling us that he has come to divide not to unite and not to establish peace. This is one of those passages that I have never really understood, since there are certainly other images that evoke the Lord as Peacemaker.
One thing I did see in the image though, was that it seemed appropriate for the current election process that we are going through. So many candidates on both sides! So many issues that truly need our attention and that equally need resolution. Are we the cloud of witnesses or the house divided? Will we unite in time to actually make a difference? We shall see. Not such peaceful thoughts for a so beautiful Sunday morning.
I miss being able to get out and about to attend Mass and socialize with friends after.
The first reading today is from Jeremiah and tells of how the prophet was lowered into a cistern and then rescued. The responorial psalm is Psalm 40:2,3,4,18. The second reading, Hebrews 12:1-4 has the phrase "a cloud of witnesses" and the Gospel, Luke 12:49-53 has Jesus telling us that he has come to divide not to unite and not to establish peace. This is one of those passages that I have never really understood, since there are certainly other images that evoke the Lord as Peacemaker.
One thing I did see in the image though, was that it seemed appropriate for the current election process that we are going through. So many candidates on both sides! So many issues that truly need our attention and that equally need resolution. Are we the cloud of witnesses or the house divided? Will we unite in time to actually make a difference? We shall see. Not such peaceful thoughts for a so beautiful Sunday morning.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
My Peace Design
My Peace design, available at both Cafepress.com/margueritemanor and Zazzle.com/margueritemanor, is comprised of the word Peace in 37 languages. I thought it would be fun today, to feature several of the languages.
Fred, the name of my late father and several of his ancestors, going back to a great great-grand uncle who served on the Union side in the Civil War, means peace in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. We had wondered why Papa's father and grandfather had been named Fred. Family history research yielded the information about my great great great, grand uncle and I am sure that is where the naming tradition comes from.
Der friede, honors my mother's Grandpa, who came from a tiny, tiny town on the Moselle river. I found the information by ordering his death certificate and was thrilled to find and make contact with living relatives. His wife, my great0grandmother, immigrated with her family when she was only six years old from the German speaking part of Switzerland.
Paix, the Alsatian word for peace, honors my mother's people who came from that region. They were farmers who settled in Ohio and Indiana. How different there lives were from mine! Still, I imagine that my love growing things comes from them.
Fois is the French word for peace. Papa's ancestors were French on his father's side, French Canadian actually and they came to Michigan, the Detroit River Raisin area, in the 1700's. They spoke French until the late nineteenth century, when English finally won sway.
Siochain is the Irish gaelic word for peace. My father's ancestor's on his mother's side immigrated from Ireland in Black '47. I am so glad they did, for if they had stayed they might not have survived and I would not be here. Black '47 was the beginning of the Irish Famine. There is also one Irish ancestor on the French Canadian side.
On each side of my family tree, I have one Scots ancestor. So the Scots gaelic word for peace is included in the design. Solh.
May peace in any language be with you today and all the days of your life.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Designing for Peace and Gratitude
Here goes the shameless promotion part of my blog!
At Christmas time in 2005 I began to design a Christmas card. I thought it would be nice to have the word Peace in the center and to use translations of the word into as many languages as I could find as a design around the center-piece word in my language, English.
As I began to research, I discovered that Fred, my late father's first name meant peace in three of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. While we are not Scandinavian ourselves, I was so happy to see this for Papa was the most peaceable and kind person whom I have ever known.
A veteran of World War II and a member of the "greatest generation", my father was my hero and still is. I will post more about the Peace design, which is now available on both CafePress and Zazzle on a wide range of products.
I love this design dearly partly because it incorporates Papa's name and partly because it incorporates family history research, so that I included as many languages from my own heritage as I could find. The Irish Gaelic is there and so is the Scots Gaelic. The French (and Alsatian) as well as the German are there. Then I added the languages of friends and neighbors. I ran out of design space, since I was aware of the templates I would be using, long before I ran out of languages.
It is a pretty design with the words intertwining in the way that we all intertwine to form the community of the United States. I am a product of the "melting pot", but the like the image of a patchwork quilt better. The quilt is made from many non-matching pieces to form a pattern, to form a whole. It is quilted by many loving hands, each person bringing her (usually) own skill and talent to the task. The community, working together, makes the quilt. So to, the community, working together, honoring our heritages, can make the work of peace. I believe that this can be done in the country and in the world.
I hope that you will find this design pleasing and consider it for your organization's fundraiser as well as for your own purchasing for yourself or as a gift. Thanks so much.
At Christmas time in 2005 I began to design a Christmas card. I thought it would be nice to have the word Peace in the center and to use translations of the word into as many languages as I could find as a design around the center-piece word in my language, English.
As I began to research, I discovered that Fred, my late father's first name meant peace in three of the Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. While we are not Scandinavian ourselves, I was so happy to see this for Papa was the most peaceable and kind person whom I have ever known.
A veteran of World War II and a member of the "greatest generation", my father was my hero and still is. I will post more about the Peace design, which is now available on both CafePress and Zazzle on a wide range of products.
I love this design dearly partly because it incorporates Papa's name and partly because it incorporates family history research, so that I included as many languages from my own heritage as I could find. The Irish Gaelic is there and so is the Scots Gaelic. The French (and Alsatian) as well as the German are there. Then I added the languages of friends and neighbors. I ran out of design space, since I was aware of the templates I would be using, long before I ran out of languages.
It is a pretty design with the words intertwining in the way that we all intertwine to form the community of the United States. I am a product of the "melting pot", but the like the image of a patchwork quilt better. The quilt is made from many non-matching pieces to form a pattern, to form a whole. It is quilted by many loving hands, each person bringing her (usually) own skill and talent to the task. The community, working together, makes the quilt. So to, the community, working together, honoring our heritages, can make the work of peace. I believe that this can be done in the country and in the world.
I hope that you will find this design pleasing and consider it for your organization's fundraiser as well as for your own purchasing for yourself or as a gift. Thanks so much.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Murky Monday
The sky is completely overcast, the air is damp and the temperature is 63 degrees. Feels much more like a day in late October than one in early August!. It doesn't normally rain in my part of the world at this time of the year, but today looks and feels like an "it could rain day."
Why is Monday so difficult and why does it feel so different from other days of the week? It is the beginning so it should feel good. A whole new week, all fresh and new. Instead, for most of us it feels, "oh no, five more days until the weekend."
Today the painting of one wall, a strip behind a door, will be finished and that will be the last of the "Maypole Green". We will switch to the last wall, a small "island" that contains a closet and separates the bedroom from the little attached dressing room. The way this is laid out is quite elegant and adds grace and charm to my 1950's tract house. The dressing room is Paloma with woodwork in Whisper Pink. These colors will be used on the island wall. The colors are complementing one another nicely. Eventually, I hope to have the long, long living room wall painted the same green as we are using in this room. Even more eventually, because it would mean boxing up (or downsizing) a couple of thousand books, my office could do with a re-do too.
So the makeover projects, something new, are progressing nicely and I am pleased and excited that life will go forward.
Soon I hope to be an Etsy seller and to be posting links! The space will be there, clean and new for me to play and work in.
While my life proceeds with quiet joy and charm, I also reflect on the date today. This is August 6, 2007. Sixty-two years ago today a terrible bomb was dropped on a city far away whose name has become synonymous with horror and survival. Hiroshima, Japan. I grew up in the shadow of that bomb, that war and the Holocaust in Europe. Will we ever live in Peace?
Today is a day then for hope for peace and remembrance of those who died so horrifically. And those who have died so terribly in all the wars. We have a long way to go to make peace. But we can hope. A friend and I are folding paper cranes because they are beautiful and because they make us remember the story of the girl who, hoping that if she could fold 1000 cranes she would not die of the radiation sickness that had poisoned her from the detonation of that then new bomb on her city. She did not live, but worldwide, whenever people make paper cranes, we think of her and pray and hope for peace.
Why is Monday so difficult and why does it feel so different from other days of the week? It is the beginning so it should feel good. A whole new week, all fresh and new. Instead, for most of us it feels, "oh no, five more days until the weekend."
Today the painting of one wall, a strip behind a door, will be finished and that will be the last of the "Maypole Green". We will switch to the last wall, a small "island" that contains a closet and separates the bedroom from the little attached dressing room. The way this is laid out is quite elegant and adds grace and charm to my 1950's tract house. The dressing room is Paloma with woodwork in Whisper Pink. These colors will be used on the island wall. The colors are complementing one another nicely. Eventually, I hope to have the long, long living room wall painted the same green as we are using in this room. Even more eventually, because it would mean boxing up (or downsizing) a couple of thousand books, my office could do with a re-do too.
So the makeover projects, something new, are progressing nicely and I am pleased and excited that life will go forward.
Soon I hope to be an Etsy seller and to be posting links! The space will be there, clean and new for me to play and work in.
While my life proceeds with quiet joy and charm, I also reflect on the date today. This is August 6, 2007. Sixty-two years ago today a terrible bomb was dropped on a city far away whose name has become synonymous with horror and survival. Hiroshima, Japan. I grew up in the shadow of that bomb, that war and the Holocaust in Europe. Will we ever live in Peace?
Today is a day then for hope for peace and remembrance of those who died so horrifically. And those who have died so terribly in all the wars. We have a long way to go to make peace. But we can hope. A friend and I are folding paper cranes because they are beautiful and because they make us remember the story of the girl who, hoping that if she could fold 1000 cranes she would not die of the radiation sickness that had poisoned her from the detonation of that then new bomb on her city. She did not live, but worldwide, whenever people make paper cranes, we think of her and pray and hope for peace.
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