Where is our future?

Now that I'm back from my vacation to Colorado and Cayucos, it's back to reality in the Inland Empire. Such as it is. We possibly will live right here in this golf course condo for the rest of our lives. Sometimes I am tempted to go back up to Gualala, Calif., the Mendocino coastal village where I first worked after college, and see if the Independent Coast Observer needs a reporter. And if they don't, to go down the coast until I find one that does. However that plan, does not suit Don well, so I am pretty sure it will not happen in his lifetime, and I hope I'm well past retirement age after that.

What is a more realistic plan is to find a small town in the Rockies, or even another part of Colorado, and settle there. I am pretty sure the town we end up would not be in or near Denver, because that's just the conglomeration of suburbs we would be trying to escape if we left southern California. But it could be Colorado Springs. Or Durango. Or ?????

It's not a decision we will be making soon. Don has obligations here. He won't finish with CBU until the end of 2014 or counting student teaching, the middle of 2015. And he's obligated to be on the Jurupa Valley Planning Commission until the end of 2016. So I don't see how we could possibly go before then.

Meanwhile, I need to find something to help pay the bills until August 2014, when Don's income increases with his eligibility to start collecting Social Security. Although Congress has decided not to put a 100 percent tax on federal unemployment benefits, I will exhaust mine sometime in 2013. If jobs continue to be impossible to find, but there is some way possible to get the start up funds, I will start my own business officially. And if succeed in making Pen Porter a bonafide, legitimate company, I will be reluctant to move away from my clientele for a very long time. I think I would stay in business for at least 20 years, maybe longer.

And then there are parents to think about. Mine are very healthy, thank God. The possibility right now is more likely that we will need to stay in California so they can take care of us, not vice-versa. But someday that could change, and I am my parents' daughter.

Don's mother needs more care already, but that is primarily given by his sister, and to a greater extent than Don at least, by his middle brother. However, we want to be there as a backup, as it is hard for Nancy to do this without a break.  And we enjoy spending time with our parents.So, as long as there are parents, that is another good reason to stay in California.

And, although we have much against our state, our personal reasons listed here are just four more reasons to stay on top of a long list of other really good things about our state. So, I will be content to stay here for now.

For the art journalers: I used a new series of prompts at Daisy Yellow, called 6ix, to inspire this page. These will  list six colors, materials, techniques or topics to use on a journal page. At this point the only one she has posted is the one that inspired this page, which was to use "teabag," "California yellow," "vermillion,"  "pencil," "fabric" and "decision." This page also was slightly inspired by an ongoing series of prompts she calls EDM. I am not sure what EDM stands for, except that they are all about drawing objects. The one she posted most recently was to draw something "vintage" or "retro."

So, here's my process: I used a tea bag to tea stain this page. (And the one facing it, which will fit in well with my next planned creation.) I wasn't sure what shade of yellow is California yellow, but since I knew the page would be about deciding whether to stay in or eventually leave California, any shade of yellow I use is California yellow. Vermillion is a dark red, so I used my red and yellow water color pencils to add more color. The yellow is highly visible here, but the red has faded in with the other colors. This includes brown, because I used my brown water color pencil to draw a "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" sign I photographed on the state highway we took into Colorado on our November 2009 trip there. I am not sure that the sign is "vintage," but it is in a retro style that could be. I smudged all the water colors, including those I used to draw the sign with, with the water brush because I love that effect. But then I drew the sign over. I wrote the words on the sign, and in my journaling, with my best lead-point pencil.

Colorado and the California Coast

Here's a sample of more than 100 photos, perhaps more than 200 taken over the two weeks of Dec. 20 through Jan. 3. We took what was essentially a two-week vacation during this time period, although we were back home the night of Dec. 26 and morning of Dec. 27.

The first part of our vacation was to take a trip to see our grandkids. James is a sweet boy who likes cuddling, so he was happy to get plenty of attention from me. Two-year-olds are not cuddly, and Abigail has definitely a more established bond with Grandma Kane than with her California grandparents, but she warmed up to Don and me quickly  and I hope will look forward when she's told she will see us again. At this time, we have no idea when that will be.

The second part of our trip was to Cayucos, California a beach town north of San Luis Opispo and Morro Bay. We spent New Year's with my parents.

It was so much fun. I am now trying to get life back to "normal," whatever that is when you are unemployed and have been for awhile. So as I process it, I'll probably post more about this trip, most likely in the form of scrapbook pages. Stay tuned.

Christmas traditions

As a grandmother, there is one thing I'm excited about this Christmas. In five days, I'm going to meet my grandson, James for the first time. He will be three months old on Monday. I also will be seeing Abigail for the third time. Ironically, Don's first wife, Lynn, is also seeing one of her grandchildren (the same two kids) for the third time, as we will be in Colorado together. In her case, however, that would be James. She was there when James was born and the family visited her for Thanksgiving.

That being said, I am not totally into the Christmas spirit yet. For a number of reasons. However, I am keeping focused on Jesus, the real reason for the season. And I'm enjoying two of our Christmas traditions, which are listening to carols on the stereo and making Christmas cards. Music is Don's passion year round, paper crafts of many kinds are mine. We enjoy incorporating these passions into one of the most important holidays of the year. 

My Christmas cards, posted second, all look pretty much like the second of the two images I'm sharing today. It's so subtle I don't even know if Don is noticing it as he signs the cards, but the cards do reflect our love of music, as the fronts are embossed with music notes and clefts. (Thanks to a Christmas gift a few years ago from Holly, a very sweet stepdaughter.)  If I didn't snail mail you one of these cards, consider this online version my wish for you. 

And if you are one of the people viewing this blog because you're interested in my art journal pages, I hope you enjoy how my Christmas card inspired an art journal page, the top image. The journaling mentions our two favorite traditions, but also scratches the surface of why I'm not feeling highly Christmas spirited this year. You can't read it, because the photo cut too much off for it to make sense. 

But in both this entry, and this one, you can see how I incorporate journaling into "art." Since journaling has always kind of been my "signature" on scrapbook pages, I can see pages like these being my style in art journaling too. Not my signature, because most of my art journal pages don't have this much. But I am very happy with the ones that do.

Meet James

It just dawned on me today that I have not updated this blog to tell everyone that I am now a grandmother of TWO! My grandson, James Cronin, was born on Monday Here he is getting a hug from his big sister Abigail.  Aren't they both adorable? I am sure I will have plenty more to say about both of them - soon!

What Grandpa's up to

Although this blog is about my life as a grandmother, I would not be a grandmother if I were not married to Abigail's biological maternal grandfather, Don Porter. He is the star of my life. And he is the driving force behind a new scrapbooking project I embarked upon today.

Don decided in January that it is not time for him to retire, so he has gone back to school to obtain a special education teaching credential. He is taking an introductory teaching course this semester, which has an interesting final project.

He will have to address 10 foundations of education, and present them in some sort of artistic fashion. Although this could have been a brochure, a poster or something presented electronically, the instructor showed a sample that from Don's description sounds like an art journal. Since I have just started making one for myself, I offered to make an art journal for Don as well. But we've decided instead that we will make a scrapbook.

So, today I planned backgrounds and pulled scrapbook papers for these pages. I will need to print photos and stamp or otherwise embellish some things as well. The journaling, however, will be left up to Don. I believe he will be able to get each of his 10 topics onto one page in the 8x8 scrapbook album he has chosen, but if we are mistaken, I will also need to make pockets for his journaling.

It's late, so I will begin nailing down the details of my part tomorrow.

I also worked on one more page of my art journal this morning. I used my one bottle of spray ink to create the background for this page. While spray ink is one of the newest and hottest ways to embellish paper art, I have only been able to justify purchasing one color, and that was while I was working. So there is an area of the page that I am going to have to color some other way. I'll either water color or attempt to spray my watered down baby blue paint on this.

After I finished the spray job and left it to dry, I went with Don to school. I normally do this, and then hang out in that neighborhood of Riverside until he's done with class. I spent today at Barnes and Noble reading the latest issue of Scrapbooks Etc. (and found one more idea for a new scrapbook page to do on a growing list of random scrapbook pages I might want to do.)

But when Don was done with school, he wanted to eat lunch, go to Michael's to look at art journals, scrapbooks and scrapbook supplies (although I advised him we should try to use the many papers we have at home, at least until we figured out an idea). He then got his haircut while I hung out at Canyon Crest Shopping Center. I found a cool shop where you buy and paint ceramics, which they then glaze for you. So in a week, I will be the proud owner of a coffee mug I painted myself. It's a $23 coffee mug, so I won't be creating matched sets anytime soon, but it was a fun way to while away the time.

Just as Don got out of the car to go to our hair stylist, he noticed we had run over a screw that was imbedded in our tire. Since that probably had created a slow leak, we took it over to Kurt's Auto as soon as he was done. They plugged it for free!

Don also wanted to go to the commissary, since we were in that neighborhood. We didn't get home until about 6 p.m., so and after dinner we spent until now planning his new book. So that left me no time to work on my own projects, or even house cleaning, as it is now time for bed. So good night, and happy creating.

Day 2 of the Creativity Queue Challenge

My most recent creations in the Art Journal

I just wanted to update on my art journal project, since this is Day 2 of the Creativity Queue Challenge at Daisy Yellow.

Monday, I posted the first of these two when it was in process. I had created the yellow background with paint, watercolors and ink. I still have a lot to learn about all those mediums, but I'm looking forward to doing so in this process.

I do like how this one turned out. The new background is Christmas wrapping paper, depicting a "Holy Land" scene with the three wise men. But when I put a rectangle of white paper on top of it, only a palm tree remained. And palm trees are one of the many things that make me think of my own homeland, southern California. I have lived in California since just before I was 2, but only about half of that time in southern California. So when I think of the state as a whole, I also think of the Gold Country. Thinking about yellow and the state of California makes me think of a number of things, so I listed them here, then ran the yellow watercolor pencil and brush over the journaling.

Today, I created another art journal entry, and this one uses a medium I am a little more familiar with. Although I can't say I have ever made a frame like the ones on this second art journal page on a scrapbook page, this was a good use of some really old scraps. I mean, I've had those yellow and green scraps since I lived in Apple Valley. So that's somewhere between 8 1/2 and 10 1/2 years. I have had the red scraps quite awhile too, and the blue and purple ones for a few years. Since I never throw my scraps away until they are tiny, this was a good way to use some up.

I have been scrapbooking the past two days as well. I haven't finished my most recent creation yet, just everything except the journaling. I may post it soon. It's going into Abigail's second year album, as it is about how she and her parents celebrated St. Patrick's Day. Instead, here is a recent layout of her (but not a recent photo) that I'm keeping for myself.

I still enjoy scrapping Abigail's baby photos, but I need to do more of her as a 1-year-old

That album is slow in coming. I am not sure why. When she was born in 2010, I was excited about becoming a grandmother, and wanted to do lots of pages about her. But I knew I couldn't scrap every photo of her when Holly sent us about 400 of them in Abigail's first month, maybe 1,000 in her first six months. Still, the Two Peas board inspired me to do some pages, and some of those important milestones in her first year inspired me to do some more. I sent Holly a good-sized book for Abigail's first birthday. But now she's 18 months old, and I have done all of seven pages for the new album. Her 1st birthday, Halloween, Christmas, that very important announcement about a future new sibling we received in January, and now St. Patrick's Day.

I don't even know that I would have started, except that her first birthday photos matched Challenge 2 over at Color Stories International. That prompted me to do the first page. Challenge 10 also prompted me to scrap a photo of her - a baby photo that I will keep for myself.

Getting caught up on our own 2012 photos prompted me to do a few more pages for Abigail, including St. Patrick's Day. But I hope something comes along soon to challenge me to do a few of the more every day photos. I suspect in the past year Holly has only posted a few hundred photos on her blog, as opposed to sending us 1,000 in the first six months through Kodak Share. But 1,000, 500 or 100, I still can't scrap them all. But I will keep you posted on what I do scrap.

Thinking of Grandma

I am playing around over at Color Stories Inspiration again today. This website challenges my scrapbooking to levels hard to reach when you are scrapping on a budget like me, but I have always been a fan of its creator, Debbi Tehrani, for challenging me to do new things. Another challenge, which for probably seven or eight years she has been posting at Two Peas in A Bucket has taken so many of my scrapbook pages from hohum to something special. I just finished one like that, and I think I will share more about the topic of that one in a future blog post.

Color Stories Inspiration is going to be less likely to help me finish up a page for my regular album. (Although it too did once.) That's because Color Stories Inspiration is much more about one photo layouts than the usual multiple photos I use in mine. You have to leave room for some fancy work, in the case of mine the vintage cabbage rose paper, the butterfly and the torn edges. My pages are simple compared to most of what you see at Color Stories Inspiration. Also, a key part of this challenge is the journaling, on one of several topics recommended by Debbi. This week, she goes to one of her favorite topics - childhood memories.

This line of Graphic 45 (the cabbage rose paper) is one I initially purchased to scrap Grandma's 90th birthday. So it, and butterflies make me think of her. Also, with Easter coming around again, I knew that on my cousins' Facebook pages, I would see a photo of Grandma from two Easters ago holding great-grandsons Wesley or Wyatt. Sure enough, on Wendy's Facebook, I found this great photo of her and Wyatt, and an added bonus, she is wearing my Mom's red jacket. (Grandma was always cold the last few years of her life.) I needed more red on this page. If you are a scrapbooker, you understand. If not, just trust me.

Part of the journaling on the page focuses on how Wyatt is a special great-grandson. He is the youngest of her relatives that she ever met. Wyatt now has a younger cousin (and Wes a younger brother), but unfortunately, she was too sick to meet Bradley. My hope is that while Wyatt, Wes and Bradley are too young to remember, the rest of her great-grandchildren who have met her will remember the kindness and class she exhibited throughout her life.

If you want to know all about that, scroll all the way down to my first entry. Or just know that this woman loved people. I know all of her children and all of grandchildren know that. That's Uncle Don, Mom and Annie, and me, my cousin Debbie, Aaron and my "little" cousins Chad, Jodi and Wendy. This also includes Matt and Mandy, two grandchildren she acquired in 1981 when my Uncle Don married my Aunt Sandy. I am pretty sure Debbi's children, Chris and Katelyn, also know how much their great-grandma loved them.

My Grandma has several more stepchildren in her family besides Matt and Mandy. The rest are through my brother and me, as we both became stepparents instead of natural parents. It is my sincere hope that John, Pamela and T.J. experienced that love from her. They spent a good deal of time with her when Aaron was their stepfather, and I believe their lives were enriched from it.

Unfortunately, my stepchildren will be in the same situation as my little cousins' little children. Not because my stepchildren are little, of course. But it is because Josh only met my Grandmother one time, and Holly never did. It is my hope that Josh remembers enough from that one meeting to know I had a fantastic grandmother. It is sad that Holly will never know. Except that the premise of my blog has always been that I want to love my own granddaughter (Holly's daughter Abigail) the same way I was loved by my Grandma. That's a tall order, but I will do my best, always!

Thoughts a day after I turned 50

Yesterday I reached the milestone most of the world's grandmothers have reached - many of them before they become grandmothers. I am now a half-century old.

I had high hopes for a big celebration, but Don and I did the best we could. We incorporated some of the things we had been hoping to do for almost a year in the process.

My dream was to have a birthday party in Palm Springs, which would have included the show put on by Sandy Hackett's Rat Pack and the dinner at Davey's Hideaway. We did in fact go to Palm Springs to do those two things. But by ourselves, and for only about six hours.

My parents have elected to come here next weekend to celebrate my brother's 47th birthday (which is Wednesday) in San Diego with me, Don and the Hughart/Lepore family. We will be doing a nice dinner Friday night somewhere in San Diego or Coronado, and attending a Jimmy Buffett concert at San Diego State University on Saturday night. They spent the days just before my birthday attending a water tour from the Bay Area to Reno, and unfortunately, coming down with bad colds.

And there wasn't anyone else, even here in Riverside, who wanted to go out to Palm Springs. We really don't have close friends here in Riverside. I wish I had been able to let my friends in the Victor Valley know of my plans, because I think with sufficient advanced notice I could have more strongly encouraged their participation. But I couldn't get Don to commit to any of this until the middle of February. We made a reservation at Davey's in the middle of the last week in February, but even on Saturday morning we had to have a frustrating conversation about how much I was looking forward to an enjoyable meal at a restaurant that would be a step up from Old Spaghetti Factory.

The show and dinner were the only presents given me so far by human beings. God gave me a nice present though. My pastor had an alter call on my birthday, and I believe there were close to 200 people who responded. This includes one person I once considered a friend, but who clearly turned out not to be one. That person and I normally do not attend the same service, but he and his wife did attend the 5 p.m. service on my birthday. He is rededicating his life to the Lord, and I pray that those who are still his friends will give him the support to grow into the person God wants him to be, as well as the other 199 or so who made decisions.

And for me, I pray that I will act in a way that reflects a half-century of maturity, and 29 years of a personal relationship with the Lord.

As for the cupcakes, they were my gift to 47 other people. I took 48 of them to the weekly barbecue Sandals holds before the 5 p.m. service. The first 48 cupcake lovers in line (one of which was me) got to sample my cupcakes. These are the second bunch of cupcakes I have ever taken to Sandals. The first bunch won the "best cake" award at a cupcake contest we had in November.

I'm a Grandma and a grandaunt

I wanted to let you know of a recent addition to my extended family. Since I have been a little negligent with this blog, the newest of my mother-in-law's great-grandchildren has actually been here for about a week. So, without further ado, may I introduce to you:

Sherman Kent Hess Jr.

Lil' Sherman, born Feb. 23 at 8:15 p.m. weighing 8 lbs. 15 oz. He is, of course, our nephew Sherman and his wife Ana's little boy.

For my mother-in-law, that makes (the way I am counting them), 10 great-granchildren. I am not counting the grandchildren of her stepsons, Glen and Dale. If I knew the names of Glen's children, I would. Dale does have one grandson, named Joshua Porter. Dale has two sons, Dale Jr. and Andrew.

I mention that because of the coincidences. If you know me, you probably know that the Joshua Porter we usually talk about in our conversations is not Dale's grandson (even though the boy lives in our community.) It is our own son, Josh.

And the Andrew Porter we speak of is usually not Dale's younger son, but the boy on the right in this photo:

Jed and Andrew Porter

These two boys are two of Brian's five grandchildren, both sons of Paul. Andrew is the oldest at age 7, and Jed is right behind him at 6.

Aidan Porter and Kaia Coleman

These are two more of Brian's grandchildren, Danielle Coleman's children. Aidan Porter is 6, falling in between his cousins Andrew and Jed. Kaia, who just turned a year old in January, is the next-youngest after Sherman.

I don't actually have a picture of the next addition to our family. Her name is Briana, and she is David's granddaugher, Neesa's daughter. She is about 4 or 5 years old, the oldest great-granddaughter. 

Kiera

The next-oldest great- granddaughter is Kiera, who is Ana's 4-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. She's a very big part of Sherman's life, and Nancy loves having a granddaughter along with two grandsons.

You can see Nancy and Kent's older grandson, Kristan's son Eddie, in the corner of the photo of Kiera. Here is a better photo of Eddie.

Eddie

About a month after I posted most of this entry, I learned my nephew Paul actually has three children. His daughter Jade was born in 2010, and shares a mother with Jed.  For reasons I don't know, while Jed has lived with Paul for more than three years, and with Andrew's mother for most of that time, Jade remained with her mother until April 2012. I do have a picture of Jade, but until a custody battle is resolved and/or until I take my own photo of her, I'm going to hold off posting it.

These nine little kids are my grandnephews and grandnieces.

The other great-grandkid is someone very special to me:

Abigail Cronin

Although Abigail is just 1 year old, she falls near the middle of the pack. Andrew, Aiden, Jed, Briana and Kiera and Jade are older than her. Eddie is just 12 days younger than her, and Kaia is also 1.

Sherman Jr. isn't going to be on the bottom for long though:

Abigail is a big sister, to a little one who will be arriving in September.