Memorial Day

If you haven't been online lately, or just not noticing that there are new regulations on privacy popping up all over the place ... well then you might not know about the new GDPR rules Europe has just rolled out. I did get a notice from Blogger (who's parent company is Google) stating that I must make people aware of these rules in order to blog. The thing is ... I don't have advertising on my site? I blog for my own pleasure, and if you all want to read my rambles, then enjoy.

So let's get to it shall we. Memorial day always makes me think of my Dad. My parents lived on military bases for roughly 10 years from Texas, to Nebraska to Florida. Both my brothers were born on the Lincoln Nebraska Airforce base, and this picture is of my older brother. 

I remember lots of stories from my dad about flying, in harrowing situations. One that particularly stands out in my mind is one where dad was flying in a hurricane and was literally in the eye where it was calm, but impossible to maintain altitude. So he had to push into the storm in order to stay in flight. I cannot even imagine the nerve it takes to do that.

My dad was always strict growing up, but not necessarily mean. He had a low tolerance for laziness, and people who did not roll up their sleeves and pitch in. There was no sleeping in, at least never past 8am ... ever. When dinner was being made, you got up and helped, and when dinner was over you picked up and did dishes ... even if you were not yet tall enough to reach the sink. You simply pulled a chair over and climbed up.

I remember this picture of dad taking a short nap on the base in McAllen Texas where he went to flight school. I asked dad about it, and he responded with a story. He told me how exhausting flight school was physically. And that the temperature was somewhere around 115 degrees, the flight suit was crazy hot, and then he'd climb into the cockpit of the plane where the temperature would be another +10-15 degrees. He said that running around in the heat was physically draining.

I did not grow up in an age where 'everyone gets a trophy.' If you received recognition you earned it. There are days when I wonder where the hell that work ethic has gone? 

As I said above ... if you are interested in reading my rambles, then please do and visit often. 

Hunting the Beaded Medallion

Mom at Crater Lake 1954 (yes, before I was born!)

Moccasin Necklace

When I was a girl I took a trip to Crater Lake with my Grandma, mom and sister. I still remember that deep blue of the lake and the island that sits out in the middle. It is beautiful, and I'd never seen anything like it before. I was in awe and remember the trip to this day. Crater Lake is the deepest in the US and formed somewhere around 4680 BC when Mt Mazama in the Cascade range blew its top. The plumes are thought to have been some 30 miles high and the wind carried ash to Southern Canada. There are no water tributaries in or out of the lake, which makes the water some of the most pristine which preserve its clear aquamarine color.

Rim of Crater Lake

On our way out of the park, we stopped by the gift shop and my Grandma let my sister and I pick one item. We both decided to pick beaded necklaces, as did my mom. My sister picked one of an Indian doll, mine was a pair of moccasins and my mom's was a beaded medallion. My sister's necklace and mine are long gone. We wore them until they fell apart. But years ago my mom gave me her medallion necklace. Which I tucked away in a box, until a few years ago when I rediscovered it. I put it out on the bead table and proceeded to push it around the table for years thinking I would try to recreate the pattern. I finally did this past week and have been playing with the colors. I wanted to keep the stitching and the pattern true, which any of you who know me, know that I am really, really bad with following directions when I bead. But this one needed to be the same.

Mom's necklace on the right

I started my initial research on the origin of the medallion with the Klamath Indian tribe since Crater Lake is a sacred site for them. Their legend goes back to the origin of the lake and the spirit, Chief Llao, that they believed lived within Mt Mazama. The story tells of a battle between Llao, the Chief of the underworld, and Skell, the Chief of the world above. Skell had been called on by the local Klamath tribe to defend the Chief's beautiful daughter, Loha. Llao had seen Loha and fallen in love with her, but when she rejected him he threatened to destroy the tribe with the curse of fire. The tribe escaped to Mt Shasta and prayed to Skell to help fight Llao.

A horrific battle ensued with the gods hurling red hot rocks back and forth between Mt Shasta and Mt Mazama. A terrible darkness spread over the area for days, and in an attempt to calm the gods two medicine men offered themselves as a sacrifice and jumped into the spewing volcano of Mt Mazama. Skell was impressed and sent a final blow that collapsed the top of Mt Mazama pushing Llao deep within imprisoning him forever. Explorers are able to identify the existence of the Klamath tribe during the explosion as dozens of sandals were discovered under the ash thought to be from the explosion of Mt Mazama. The lake became a place to seek visions but only by those with considerable powers, like shaman and chiefs. Spirit quests would often take place at night with the seeker swimming underwater to encounter the spirits lurking in the depths of the lake.

There is so much symbolism in Native design that I didn't want to screw around with that. The first thing I did was look for the symbol, but mistakenly I thought that the pattern was a flower. The more I looked for it, the more I realized that the pattern was a star and that it was a prevalent symbol for many tribes. I found the pattern in designs for the Cherokee, Sioux and the Mochilla tribes, but then I found its perfect match; Apache. The pattern was the exact same stitching and bead count in this link from Missouri State University. It noted that there are four key identifiers for interpreting Native American beaded rosettes. In order of importance start with the symbol. The circular design depict protective spirits such as the four directions. The symbols can tell stories about the person's ancestry or the spirits that are important to the family.

Next in importance are the colors and typically provide the key to the tribe origin. For example the Lakota use black to represent the west wind, autumn and the dream world while red means the sunrise, birth and the east wind. Looking at my pattern it seems I used the Lakota colors. So I did apparently screw around with the significance of the original design. Sigh. I apparently just do not seem to be able to color within the lines. So I stopped trying and decided to finish each medallion in my own way.

The third identifier is the repetition of the pattern. Typically a pattern repeats in sets of four, seven or twelve which refer to the directions of specific spirits. Well at least here I had followed the repetition in the pattern using nine points to the star rosette. The last identifier is whether the design is something that can be described as personal or if it is significant to the tribe. 

Even with all these indicators to help trace the origin of the design it has over time become less reliable with the tribes intermixing and exchanging ideas. Perhaps that is why I found an Apache design at the site of the most sacred place of the Klamath.

In Memoriam :: Carrie Fisher

This is a blog post from 3 years ago that I'm reposting. I think Carrie would have enjoyed this one given her sense of humor. If you want a good laugh check out a recent interview with her and her dog Gary.

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Christine's Rolling Blog Hop is, well... hopp'n! I posted two of my spools 2 weeks ago, and I was waiting for a lull to post my third spool reveal. But looks like I'm going to need to squeeze back in.

The posts are just roll'n in, and we've seen some fantastic designs! I have all the links to everyone's reveals so far at the end of this post so you can check them all out.    

For my third design, I was working with this large, more irregular shaped spool. I did struggle just a bit with it trying to figure out what direction I wanted the design of the spool to be until I remembered an image I saw of a young Native American girl. She had beautiful dark hair tied up on either side in what is called a "Squash Blossom" style. The hairstyle is a Hopi custom which represents the sign of a girl's marriageability. The young girl will twist her hair in the shape of squash blossoms, which is the sign of fertility for an unmarried girl in the tribe. 

I wanted natural colors and fibers in this piece, so I used a linen colored silk from Darn Good Yarn, a mix of seed beads, Czech beads and howlite. I am loving this howlite stone with native designs. It has subtle tan-cream veining throughout the stone, which gives it a natural look. I also stained the spool so it had a deep color. The focal is long (6 inches!) and has a good weight to it. I envision it being worn waist length.

Ok, I know this is an irreverent move on my part, but once I started putting this blog post together I simply could not get an image out of my head. Is it just me? or do those squash blossom twists remind you of Princess Leia in Star Wars... I always thought of her hair as more of a Danish pastry swirl, but maybe that is just the recollection from the Ross and Rachel scene in Friends. Once I started googling images, both the Native American girl and Princess Leia kept coming up together. It was all over for me; the image stuck. The one I can't get out of my head is Nicolas Cage dressed like Princess Leia ... that is one that cannot be unseen... Gah!

We're almost through the rolling blog hop! Check out all the links and projects already revealed. Our host: Christine (Christine's post), and all the rest of the rolling bloggers: 
Janet (Janet's post), Hope (Hope's post), Bobbie (Bobbie's post), Tanya (Tanya's post), Maryanne (Maryanne's post), Cynthia (my first post), Liz (Liz's post), Lisa (Lisa's post), Kim (Kim's post), and the bloggers still to post: Therese (Therese's post), Karin (Karin's post) and Erin (Erin's post)

Focusing on Life :: You Are

This week Sally's prompt for Focusing on Life is to finish the sentence 'You are ...." She asked us to think about what kind of a person we are. If you could only pick one word, what would your's be? 

I've been thinking about that all week, and it just isn't that easy. But I've finally decided on the word unconventional. When I think about the things that define my life, that is the theme. I wouldn't confuse that with more traditional things. I did take my husband's name because I wanted all of us (my kids, my husband and I) to have a family name. 

But some of the choices my husband and I have made are unconventional. I work full time, and he stays home with the kids. We didn't mean for that to happen, but when my oldest was born I had the boring, steady job with good insurance. He had the better paying, interesting job in high tech, but his work was on a contract basis. So he quit and we made do on my salary. Don't get me wrong, there are many, many days when I wish we could trade places. But we're just too far down this path to make that change. We both felt strongly about one of us staying home with the kids. It is just how it played out for us.

Last week I told you about my two rings, and mentioned that there was another story behind the diamond ring. So when we got married, we exchanged simple wedding bands. That is because we wanted a simple wedding. We got married by the justice of the peace up in wine country. It was the dead of winter (December) and pouring rain. I wore green velvet (that first pic is us on our wedding day). As many of you know, my favorite color is green. We planned everything over the course of 3 months .... so there was no running off in the night. It was just how we wanted to do it. But perhaps I should back up one more step. Late Summer, I was planning a trip down to see my sister who lives in New Zealand. As I was completing my plans I said to my then boyfriend, "so am I going by myself? or are you coming? because either way I'm going." He decided that he did want to come with me. And then as we started to plan out all the places to visit we realized that for a mere extra $100 we could stop off in Fiji. Sign me up! The more we talked about it, the more we realized that we were planning a very romantic trip, and commented on what a great honeymoon Fiji would be. We looked at each other and said, 'let's do it."  So we planned our honeymoon before the wedding. But that is our life. We love to travel, so we tend to plan around places we'd like to visit. (Picture of our island in Fiji and a picture of my sister and me in NZ)

Ok, the diamond ring. We had been married 5 years at this point. I was roughly 38 weeks pregnant on our 5th anniversary. We decided to celebrate by going out to dinner. We were at a 'cozy' little restaurant in San Francisco (where we lived at the time). You know the kind of place where the tables are all right next to each other with a bench that lines the back wall across all the tables. A couple with their kids sat next to us. The woman was a serious Nosey Parker telling everyone what to do, what to order, reaching across the table to cut someone's meat. She saw my husband pull out a little velvet box and slide it toward me. She audibly gasped. She nearly yelled "he's going to ask her to marry him!" The look on her face was sympathy that he was going to make me an 'honest woman.' We both shot her a glare and my husband said, "we've been married for 5 years and this is our anniversary, as if it is any of your business."  You could see the relief on her face that I was not having this child out of wedlock. Now it makes me giggle when I slide on my ring and think of that bossy stranger interrupting my moment. It is par for the course of my unconventional life. 

Focusing on Life :: Green

This week's prompt for Focusing on Life is to find the green in your life. As Sally says, it is the color of balance, learning, growth and harmony. It symbolizes calm, self-respect and well being.

Green has always been my favorite color. For as long as I can remember. And when my husband and I got engaged, I knew that I didn't want to do anything in a traditional way. We ended up eloping, which means no one knew we were engaged. And when we did get married (about 3 months later) we exchanged simple wedding bands. 

Afterwards, my new husband surprised me with my engagement ring which was an emerald. Our marriage has been about building a life together, about finding balance in life and a harmony in our relationship. I can say we really have grown together over the 20 years we've been married. And I cannot image any other path in my life.

The second ring is a beautiful diamond that my husband gave me five years after we were married. Certainly not traditional! He surprised me on the eve of giving birth to our first child. Funny story, but perhaps for another post.

Focusing on Life :: Aged Beauty

This week's challenge for Focusing on Life was to look for aged beauty in our lives and something that holds a deeper meaning.

Lots of things in the house could be called 'aged,' myself included. But few hold as much meaning as the hours spent at my piano. It is a loved piece, and something that feels like home to me. 

I started playing the piano at age 5. I am by no means a concert pianist, but I can play. And it is less about my mastery of the piano and more about what it has taught me. 

It is the same things I want to teach my children. First and foremost there is a love of music. Nothing soothes the soul quite like music. We play a lot of music in the house. It has a way of bringing us together. 

Learning to play an instrument also gave me a love of many types of music. I studied classical piano, but then begged to play ragtime, then contemporary. Nothing like a 10 year old banging out the music of star wars on the piano. My kids now have an appreciation not only for what is popular with all their friends, but of rock, jazz, blues, classical... we play it all at our house.

There are other things that learning an instrument teaches. It teaches discipline. And that you can't expect to always be able to pick up a task on the first try. Practice is an important part of learning, and something that has been a more difficult thing for my kids to learn. But both have decided to play instruments, and both have grown to understand this notion of practice and a bit of 'stick-to-it-iveness' that I think helps in life.

My piano isn't a fancy one. But then neither am I. It's got a few dings here and there, but then I've had it since my childhood. It has been with me on a long journey. It has been with me in Oregon, California and now Connecticut. It is like an old friend that has aged beautifully. When I sit down to play, it just all comes back to me. It is the comfort of home.