Artful Creations

Vivid, yet muted, red, turquoise and gold spilled from an ordinary glass jar of beads,

beads once strung on ordinary string to

create a stylish and fancy necklace, wait to be stitched to a scarf created and crocheted with yarn lying still in my basket from another pretty project.

“Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Joys of Snow

Photo taken at Dallas Road this past February (2017)

Invigorating as crisp snow days, bundled in snow suits and mittens, colourful toques and scarves, building silly snowmen and cozy snow forts, creating fanciful snow angels in new fallen snow while laughter rings out, chasing each snowball through clean, cold air ~ Children everywhere know the joys of a good snowfall to bring smiles, pink cheeks and fun.

“Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.”

~  Andy Goldsworthy, British artist

Author's note: Edited February 22, 2024

Tasty Treats

Tasty treats at any time 

are pleasing to my tummy ~

pretty on a party plate

oft made by someone’s mummy.

But who knows the creator

of that very first recipe ~

a wise old witch or warlock

just wanting a snack with tea?

“Drinking tea with a pinch of imagination.”

~ 50 Ways to Drink Tea

Author's note: Edited February 22, 2024

When I Get Scared

When I Get Scared

“Adventurous. Adventuring. What do you know about adventuring? I know you’re getting ready to leave high school and go into the wide world of adulthood. University. Campus life. It all sounds so very exciting. I do remember when I made that step. I didn’t know what would happen and I didn’t care. I just knew I wanted to get gone from my bedroom, my tiny town, and my sheltered life in a home I knew and loved. I just didn’t know how much I loved it. And I didn’t know all the things I would learn, people I’d meet, places I’d go………”

“Oh come on. It’s just exciting! Are you scared I’ll forget my home and friends back here? ‘Cause I won’t. I’ll phone home every day, I’ll come home every weekend…..well maybe not every weekend….but often. I want to go all the places and meet all the new people and learn what all the exciting things are! I want to create a new life from my old life. Oh, get that look off your face, mom. I don’t mean this life has been bad or awful.”

“I know honey. I’m just afraid that this life hasn’t given you enough.”

“Enough what, mom?”

“Enough strength, enough belief in yourself, ….oh, just enough. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Well, mom, you and dad have always told me that I am enough. From when I was learning how to walk. I don’t remember that….obviously…..but you let me laugh, and fall and get up again. Then it was school and those hateful ‘popular’ girls and you told me I was enough without them. Do you want me to go on? I love you and dad s-o-o-o much. Just quit worrying ‘cause I know who to call when I get scared of the adventure.”

“Facetime? Skype? Texting? - or just an ordinary phone call.  Your dad and I just want to be sure you’ll be ok - just like your grandma and grandpa when we were doing this scary, exciting adventuring."

“You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.”

~ Cesar Chavez

Rising

Enthusiasm waxes and wanes

like a full, brilliant moon rising, fading into a blackened horizon until the sun beams through the darkest of clouds defining the misty shadows of the sky while sinking slowly into the next horizon creating confusion and then clarity

so that rest finally comes softly

to come awake again with each rising.

“….. just like the waltz, life has its own rhythm of rise and fall.”

~  Len Goodman,  British dancer

Author's note: Edited February 23, 2024

Resourceful Rhonda Rules

Resourceful Rhonda Rules

Resourceful Rhonda. That’s what they called her. Some said it with a snicker. ‘She could just go to any store - if she had any money.’ Some said it with envy. ‘Where does she find all the time to make all those things?’ Some said it with energy. ‘Let’s go and help Rhonda. She’s got a project going and needs some extra hands.’

Rhonda, however, didn’t listen to the hurtful words. She felt sorry for folks that couldn’t see the value in everything on the earth unless it was in a store. Walking the beach and finding lovely stones, beautiful driftwood was a joy to Resourceful Rhonda. Each thing she saw or heard stirred her creative soul. In parks, fields and on the beach she saw food for man and beast. She took them all as nature’s stores. At home she liked to go through her cupboards and closets to find treasures she had tucked away, or just a ball of yarn she had forgotten about. Painting a new picture with found paints, creating a new garment from forgotten yarn, or just playing as any of us did as children. Seeing her home, not just as a collection of furniture, but her ultimate resource. The beginning of all her own projects and the projects of others. The souls of her family, her friends and all those that passed through her life had given her resources beyond measure with memory whispers and love.

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. 

Think of what you can do with what there is.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

Author's note: Edited February 23, 2024

Christmas Convoy

Colourful Christmas lights

Draped and shaped over 

monstrous machines that

 build our homes

  deliver our mail

   maintain our infrastructures

  ferry our food stuffs and

transport residents and visitors all

Crowds of young and old

bundled against West Coast cold

umbrellas at the ready,

we lined dark, damp asphalt

awaiting the brilliance and fun of

the amazing creativity of this

honking, growling annual marvellous parade of trucks.

“If you’re not in the parade, you watch the parade. That’s life.”

~ Mike Ditka

IEOA: Island Equipment Owners Association Truck Light Convoy and Food Drive. This 19th Annual Light Truck convoy collects food donations for local food banks as it winds it’s way throughout Greater Victoria.

Author's note: Edited February 24, 2024