A Wild, Wacky & Wonderful Woman!!!!!

Art and Poetry by Artist Suzy Toronto www.3wackywomen.com

I feel so out of my skin lately.

In four months I'll be fifty - age has never bothered me before - but for some reason this sounds so ominous - so old. I keep thinking that I only have thirty or forty years left (God willing) and I still have so much I want to do and get done - if the last 50 years went by in such a whirlwind - what will the back end of my life be like? So morbid sounding - so final - and yet being out of work and finally making the decision not to go back leaves me endless days of time - time to do what I want and what I dreamed of - so I guess I should look at this time in my life as a blessing and as a gift from God.

DS is graduating eighth grade - I remember my eighth grade graduation like it was yesterday - as I mentioned in a previous post, my elementary school years were some of the best years of my life - I think Guy will feel the same way about his - as St. Elizabeth is truly a wonderful place - anyway I always looked at my graduation as a huge step in my life - by the time I graduated I was going steady with a boy (Steve -my first love)I was already in a bra and my period started that year. I look at my son and feel such pangs - he will be starting high school in September, he is already a head taller than me - I guess the magical "baby" years are over for me - never again to hold him and rock him to sleep - hear his sweet giggles or have his hand held out to me to be picked up and cuddled - yet I feel good that I raised him to this point and he has turned out so good - so happy for him that he too is starting a new chapter in in his life. I guess him being this age and independent enough to care for himself - will leave me time to be me - I hope he still will reach out to me for a cuddle now and then.

There are days when I still can't get over being laid off (sounds better than saying "fired") - giving them twelve years of true dedication and hard work - to be cast aside like a piece of trash at the curb - I get upset when I think about it - but then I want to thank God and shout from the rooftops that I am free and gone from that place.

I think I am beginning to go through (whispering) "the change" as my mother would say. My friend, which I started getting back in eight grade hasn't been my friend for a while (been sporadic the last year anyway) - but worse I am getting (whispering) "hot flashes" - more like holding my foot to the fire and having my whole body go ablaze. I feel the heat start in my very core and then radiate out to my very fingertips - ending with me sweating - I never sweat in my life until now and I never felt anything like this in my life. I also, at times, want to rip someones heart out - for no apparent reason other than I just feel like doing it.

So you can see I really am in a flux and have diarrhea of the fingers - as I just keep on typing and typing.........I feel good just getting these feelings out in the open - not an interesting post - but tough shit (boy that felt good!)

8th Grade Enlargement Project

It has become tradition at my DS school for the 8Th graders (his school is K-8) to do an enlargement for a Math project (it involves measurement, multiplying fractions and the like) in time for the schools open house and curriculum night. We have been seeing these since 2000 when he first started school and were always so impressed with what the kids turned out, always anticipating when it would be his turn - finally it is here! He decided to do my palm pilot. He had to measure it and all it's features, jot down the measurements and then decide whether to enlarge it 5x or 10x - we decided in 5, as 10 would have made it ginormous (notice I said WE, as after his calculations, he did need my help!). So follow along and you will begin to see a bunch of cardboard boxes become an enormous palm pilot(the first one is the actual PP)




















It was a long process, but a lot of fun to do - I think it turned out pretty well!

Impossible is Nothing - At a Snails Pace

Homemade Laundry Detergant.......

To continue my quest for going green & for also wanting to economize I have begun to make my own cleaning solutions. The first one is laundry detergent. Simple really -grate one bar of Fels-Naptha soap & boil it down to melt it (I used an old pot), 1/2c Borax & 1 c washing soda. Mix thoroughly in a 5 gallon bucket, and then add enough hot water to fill the bucket. The solution will gel up - but will be easy to pour it into an empty container (I used an empty Tide container) - fill it half way & then the rest with hot water - shake well & shake well each time you use it. I use 1/4c per wash in my front loader - I did some quick calculations & figured that it costs .0125 per load - can you believe it?

The other equally easy solution I made recently is a fabric deodorizer (Febreeze)
Mix together 1/4c of your favorite fabric softener, 1T of baking soda & 2c of hot water in a spray bottle.

I love the way this smells & makes the fabric feel - I figure this to be equal to .50 for the bottle

May All Your Dreams Come True

I found this very lovely photo on flickr by a talented photographer named Gary http://www.flickr.com/photos/garymcguire/

It seems to sum it up for me

Words on Women and Strength by Kelly Corrigan

Where Do the Sparrows Go When They Die?

A question I often asked myself as a child was, "where do the sparrows go when they die?" I didn't know the answer then and I still wonder about it. Now I see a dead bird silenced by some evil force, and I know he didn't die. Something killed him: the elements took him away, a lost soul in the night.

When I was six, my best friend was a boy on my street. We used to play in my sandbox, talking of things long forgotten by grown-ups -- like never growing up, or the monsters under our beds and in dark closets. His name was Tommy, but I called him Sparrow because he was small for his age. Its ironic to think of that now because he died too.

I remember the day I found out Tommy was dying. I waited in the sandbox for him, half-heartedly building the castle we began the day before. Without Tommy I was only half, so I waited for him for what seemed like forever, and it began to to rain. Then I heard a distant ring from the house. About 10 min later my mother came out, sheltered by her umbrella, but her face was wet just same. We walked together to the house. Just before we entered, I turned and watched the rain beat down the sandcastle Tommy and I built.

Once I was inside and had a cup of hot chocolate in my belly, my mother called me to the table. She put her hands on mine. They were shaking. I immediatly felt it: something had happened to Tommy. She said doctors had performed some tests a while back, and something showed up wrong. That something was leukemia. I didn't know what it was and I looked at my mother with confused eyes, but with knowing and heavy heart. She said that people who had what Tommy got — no: what got Tommy — had to go away. I didn't want him to go away. I wanted him to stay, stay with me.

The next day I had to see Tommy. I had to see if it was all true, so I had the bus driver drop me off at his house instead of mine. When I reached the door, Tommy's mom said he didn't want to see me. She had no idea how easily she could hurt a little girl. She broke my heart like a piece of cheap glass. I ran home in tears. After I returned home, Tommy called. He said to meet him at the sandbox after our parents went to bed, so I did.

He didn't look any different, maybe a little paler, but it was Tommy. He did want to see me. We talked to those subjects incomprehensible to adults, and all the while we rebuilt our sandcastle. Tommy said we could live in one just like it and never grow up. I believed him whole heartedly. There we feel asleep, engulfed in true friendship, surrounded by warm sand and watched by our sandcastle.

I woke up just before dawn. Our sandbox was like a desolate island surrounded by a sea of grass, interupted only by the back patio and the street. A child's imagination is never-ending. The dew gave the imaginary sea a reflective shimmer, and I remember reaching out to touch the dew to see if it would make the make- believe water ripple, but it didn't. I turned around, and Tommy jolted me into reality. He was already awake, staring at the sand castle. I joined him, and there we sat, locked in the awesome magic the sand castle held for two small children.

Tommy broke the silence. "I'm going to the castle now."

We moved like robots, as if we knew what we were doing. I guess in some small way we did. "I'm going to the castle now. Come visit, I'll be lonely." I promised him him with all my heart that I would. Then he closed his eyes, and then my Sparrow flew away to where I knew at that moment all the other sparrows went when they died. And there he left me, holding a souless, crippled bird in my arms.

I went back to Tommy's grave 20 years later and placed a small toy castle on it. On the castle I had engrave, "To Tommy, my Sparrow. I'll come to our castle someday, forever."

When I'm ready, I'll go back to the place where our sandbox was and imagine our sandcastle. Then my soul, like Tommy's, will turn into a sparrow and will fly back to the castle, and to Tommy, and to all the other little lost sparrows. A six-year- old again, who will never grow up.



By Casey Kokoska