CREATIVE TUESDAY 31/3/15

The challenge this week is to take the single flower you submitted in the last challenge and make a bouquet of them.  Hmmm  -- fiddly and detailed, but I did it and I quite like the result.

This is part of the Creative Tuesday Challenge.  If you would like to admire the other entries, please click HERE and do consider joining us.

K is for....

K  IS FOR...

KAYBEE

...or my sister, Kay.

(Sorry Kay, it's not as beautiful as you are.)

My sister, Kay, known by her friends as Kathy,  by family as Kay and her bloggers as Kaybee, is almost eight years younger than I am.  I drew this portrait of her from a photograph taken recently.  I really liked the photo, which I think makes her look like someone out of a Jane Austin novel.

We have had an unusual relationship in as much we really didn't know one another until 2007 when I was in my 70's and she in her 60's.  

By the time we were of an age  as children that we might have interacted very much, Kay was three and I was almost 12. I started attending high school in the nearby town of Bridlington.  Each day I left home at 8:00 in the morning and didn't get home again until about 5:30 p.m.  This was the situation until I graduated in 1956.  Then I went away to college, after which I worked in the cities of Nottingham and Liverpool.  Soon after that I was married and my husband and I moved to Canada and subsequently the USA.  So we really didn't have much time to get to know one another.

By 2007 Kay had moved to Canada and we lived in Southern California.  It happened that year that our church denomination planned to hold an international conference in England.  My husband and I organized a tour to England for the members of our church to attend the conference followed by a bus tour for a week afterwards.  Kay  wrote and asked if she could join us for the bus tour.  So now after 50 years, my sister and I had the chance to spend time together and get to know one another for a whole week.

We were so surprised to find that despite being apart for so long we had many, many things in
common.  It has been a wonderful experience to now have a sister, who though we are still far apart in miles, we have since been able to spend  much time together, by visits every year, by telephone and of course through  email.

Though  we came from a non-practicing Christian home, an important part of our close relationship has been that we both developed a strong personal Christian faith many years ago.

Now as I look at this post, it seems to me that we need to have a photograph of us together.  So next time she comes down to visit that's something we must do.

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This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday, an exceptional meme started by Mrs. Nesbitt and continued by Roger Owen Green, now in its 16th round.  Hop on over to this blog and see all the other wonderful entries.  I know you will enjoy all the educational, entertaining and enjoyable entries. (Too bad this wasn't the page for E!) by clicking HERE.

J is for.....

J  is  for...    JACKALOPE

                                       (CREATIVE TUESDAY  participants please scroll down one page)

It was our first summer after arriving in Canada way back in 1960.  We decided to take our vacation from college by taking a trip out west from Toronto to see the Rockies.  So we packed up our beat up old volkswagen and set out across the prairies.

It was on one of our first stops in a small prairie town that we first came across the JACKALOPE.   We picked out a restaurant on the high street and went to have dinner.  Once inside and having ordered I looked around the typical western diner, when I notice this mounted on the wall.

Now, we were rookies in North America but this was something I'd never seen before.  We asked the young fellow serving us about it, 

"Oh that's a Jackalope," he said.

"Okay," I replied, somewhat sceptically.  I'd been a teacher for a few years and I'd never come across anything like this in any of my Geography books.  But I was new in the area, British and far too polite to argue.

Sometime later I knew it was a practical joke -- a jack rabbit with horns glued on it.  

But actually it's become much more than just a simple practical joke.  Over the years a whole fable has grown up around the jackalope .  Here are some embellishments:

It was first heard of in 1829, but has its roots in the 16th century:

If you want to hunt jackalopes, you must have a Jackalope Hunting Permit and you must have an IQ between 50 and 72....

Who would ever go to all the trouble of knitting a sweater with  an animal on it that doesn't exist?

or wear the inevitable Tee Shirt?

and would the department of transport be fooled?

Here are some more interesting 'facts':

                                                                                                                      (borrowed from Wikipedia)

There's much more to this legend, so if you have the time, Google it on your computer.

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This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday, that excellent project begun by Mrs. Nesbitt and continued by Roger Owen Green and his team of volunteers now in its 16th round. Why don't you check out other entries by clicking HERE?

CREATIVE TUESDAY

THEME:  FLOWER
The theme this week for Creative Tuesday is to draw a flower, which is to be followed in the next theme by a bouquet of flowers, using the same flowers as is depicted this week.

My flower is on the zentangle or mandala style,  so I'll call it a Zahlia.  It is fine for this week, but to do a bouquet of this flower for the next project maybe a bit difficult. But we shall see.

Anyway here is my submission for this week:

To see more submissions to Creative Tuesday for Mar 17th please click HERE

I is for..."IF..."

"IF..." a poem by Rudyard Kipling, sung by Roger Whittaker.

Rudyard Kipling, a Victorian, British poet, wrote a poem which posed a number of possibilities, quite a few stanzas long . I have only posted three. The last line of the  poem is (if you can do all these things) - "then you'll be a man my son".

This is the code of values under which I was raised.  Sad to say, many of these propositions have gone by the board today.   I believe we are the worse off for that.

Here is the poem:

If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

  But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

  If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son.

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And if you're not too much into poetry,  here's a couple of photos of our vividly colored ICE PLANT that is blooming profusely all over Carlsbad right now.  These two patches are from our yard.

This is my entry for ABC WEDNESDAY, the letter 'I'.  This project was started by Mrs. Nesbitt and continued by Roger Owen Green and his team.  To see other entries, please click HERE.

H is for....

HALEY'S ARTWORK...

Here is my sweet, talented and beautiful

granddaughter, Haley.  She is all of 13 years old (going on sixteen!).  Thank you all who have been praying for her.  She is holding her own  and watching her

diet.  Recently she has been doing some wonderful artwork, some of which seem to have been inspired by the zentangle style which my sister Kaybee and I have introduced to her.

Her 'step-father', my son, took this delightful photo.  It's a keeper.

.....

She so obviously has a natural talent, which I'm sure will grow and bloom far beyond my capabilities. I love this flower.  So simple but beautifully drawn.

Something I would never have thought of drawing.  Expressive with wonderful details. Look at those little 'curly-bobs' under the mask,  each one facing the other.

Here come the tangly ones.  I like the soft blurry lines in the one above.

And how's this for a variety of shape fillers?  The little red heart is a perfect touch.  I will have to study these to see all the different patterns she has used and then try some out on my work.

Forgive me for bragging about my granddaughter but she is the only one I have and such a delight!

This is my contribution to ABC Wednesday -- letter H.  If you would like to see more enterprising and interesting contributions to this project, started by Mrs. Nesbitt and continued by Roger Owen Green and his team of helpers, please click HERE.