The lost has been found; books are important

Hi there!

In my last post I was expressing my frustration with trying to update my blog. I’d changed themes and colours, but my widgets on the right and left sides got shifted around and half were lost. Well, it took me awhile but I sorted out how to move the left ones from the right back over to their original place, and I also found the lost ones that had been located on the right and put them back where they belong. If that was confusing to you … be glad you didn’t have to watch me trying to fix the problem! 🙂

I’m unsure how to continue, but this much is done – not perfectly but good enough for now. I’ll wait until next week for a Happiness Engineer to assist me further, although I do have a painting draft started.

You know, it still seems strange to me that I am not dividing my time and life with caregiving. I don’t regret the experience, though; not one bit. It is realizing that I have freedom that I’ve never had before that I’m still getting hold of. From caring for children to caring for parents … now I have some time for my own interests in a broader sense. It’s quite an adjustment, believe it or not. And I have more time with my beloved husband now, a man who was very understanding through the past 11.5 years.

Having said that, I am usually available for our grandchildren when needed. Our older grandson is graduating this month!, so he won’t be getting off the school bus here anymore. We’ll certainly miss having him; the bus doesn’t travel to his house so our location worked well. We babysit our younger grandson (2 yr 8 mon) one day a week – and he LOVES books, which is fabulous. In fact, that’s the first thing we have to do when he arrives – “Gammie come read bookth”; so Grammie does. Under “books I read this year” you can see we are going through a great many picture books as I try to have several “new ones” from the library each time he arrives. It is fun for both of us. Also, for a few hours on some weekends we babysit our 5-month-old grandbaby girl who is beginning with board books, so there is potential there for many more reading times. Books are important.

My heart is full.

I hope you have someone to read to. A tip for anyone who is helping with the care of someone with dementia – picture books are great! Read them to your person, talk about the pictures, get your person to read some too, if possible. Picture books are the best.

What is your experience with updating websites and blogs? And with reading to/with others?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! – Lynn

Updating my site and not enjoying it

Hi All,

Today my dad would have been 98! What’s amazing to me is that he lived only three years short of a century! Imagine all the changes he lived through during that time.

I spent most of the day painting at the studio. Now, here I am trying to update my site and finding it to be quite exasperating. I apologize for if you came looking for any information that was in my right side bar – which has disappeared, much to my dismay! Everything that was on the left is now on the right. Not what I’d intended. Yes, I have revealed myself to be a klutz at this. I’m sorry to say it took me hours to get it the way I wanted it before this update. Now I have to try to make it better again.

I sure hope you are having a better time on here than I am of late. The Happiness Engineers are good at what they do, although passing it on to me was not the best idea even with their instructions.

I’m not giving up yet; just feeling a good movie or time spent reading The Fellowship of the Ring is a better decision for the rest of this evening.

Please bear with me! It has got to get better, right?

Blessings to you all.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!

Change – the one consistent thing

Hello my readers!

Finally I’m back, making another attempt at blogging again. It’s been nine months since my dad passed away, ending 11.5 years of caregiving. The total change has been very difficult, but I am feeling better as time goes on while I’m figuring out and adjusting to my new normal. Grief takes its time.

Do you find it interesting how we go through phases and seasons in our life? By that I mean, for myself anyway, interests come along to explore and spend time in, then they morph into something else to learn from and grow in, and on it goes through life. Or we find ourselves in a pleasant working relationship, which eventually has to come to an end. That is difficult to deal with and what I’ve found is that change is the one consistent thing. It will happen, like it or not, so I can adapt and hold onto what I’ve learned or I can make myself miserable. The first choice is the better one to live with, don’t you agree?

As you know, I’ve loved books all my life, reading them, accumulating them, even learning to write them for children. When I got burned out on the ‘write them’ part I was directed into learning to paint. I am still reading a lot, but now I am finding joy in oil painting. I haven’t given up on the writing goal, but it is set aside for the time being.

Creating through painting seems to be the something that was missing for me, the something that was locked up inside me in great need of expression. It is challenging, frustrating at times, rewarding, tiring in a good way, confidence building, fun, healing, and surprising. Surprising when what I’m trying to do turns out the way I want it to or even better than I’d hoped. It’s a growing experience, and I do enjoy the challenge, as I am a creative and have to be working at something.

I’m telling you this because I am going to try to set up a place where you can view my paintings. So, please, bear with me. You may come here and find things are all messed up, while in the meantime I am probably consulting a WordPress Happiness Engineer to help me undo and fix my mistakes.

Most of my paintings are from photographs taken by my instructor, or myself, or my daughters. I will talk more about that later. Below is the very first painting I did, chosen for me to learn how to colour match. What you see is my copy of the original by Lawren S. Harris who was a member of the Group of Seven. My apologies that my photo is a little dark.