I’ve been a little bored with the usual format of doing these posts so I thought I’d try something a little different. I wanted to do a little more than just introduce Donna and show off some of her wares, I wanted to dig deeper.
So I read a lot. Both blogs. I took snippets of posts here and there, ones that touched me, made me laugh, one almost made me cry and anything else I felt really revealed who Donna is as a Mom, a blogger and an artist.
These are out of order and out of context and not complete posts (I provided the link to the entire post). I hope my selections reflect upon Donna accurately and I hope she sets the record straight if anything does not.
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100 years. She told me once how she used to pick cotton as a child of 6 or 7, with the hot Oklahoma dirt burning the soles of her bare feet as she dragged that long sack of cotton behind her. And yesterday, I was ordering flowers for her over the internet and now I'm sharing the story with all of you. 100 years...amazing....
Sharing the joys of old cameras
Somebody had posted a couple of blurry pictures of an old camera, and asked if anybody knew what it was. The fun thing was ...I knew! I recognized it as an old Russian rangefinder. I grabbed my old camera price guide off the shelf and looked it up. Sure enough, it was Russian Zorki 4, made from 1956-1973. I can't tell from those pictures, but if it has a lever wind instead of just a knob to wind the film with, then it's a Zorki 4K.
I don't know if anybody else with an interest in old, obscure cameras will read this...but I got a kick out of it!
I remember once we were introduced to a very nice black man. I guess it stuck in my mind (I think I was 3 years old) because we didn't encounter many black people in my white neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. But I remember how my father spoke with such respect as he introduced us. Clearly, this man was somebody special and I was told I would remember meeting him. And I did.
I was much older before all the blanks in my child-like memory were filled in and I realized that that man was Martin Luther King, Jr. He was on his way to a meeting of the Atlanta Pastor's Conference, and my parents told him about my grandfather who would also be there. We later heard that my grandfather did meet him there and when Dr. King heard his name he said, "Oh, I just met your three beautiful grandchildren in Dallas!"
I remembered Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and he remembered me.
My dad used to tell me that he hoped I didn't grow up and write a book someday. He often noticed me quietly observing the crazy show that was our family and shuddered to think of what I might remember and what stories I might tell!
It's true that I remember a lot of details about my childhood. I can tell you which friends lived in which houses on every block I walked between my house and my school. I can tell you where each of my homeroom classes were in that school and all of my teachers names.
I told my sister once that I could close my eyes and tell her exactly what we kept on each cubbyhole in the closet of the bedroom we shared when we were kids, and I closed my eyes and began to list them for her. She dropped her jaw and said "How can you remember all that?!" That's when my brother-in-law interrupted and said "WHY do you remember all that?!"
I don't know why my head clung to so many little details back then and yet now I go into the next room and forget why I'm there. Funny how our minds work once we turn 50.... But it seems many of my most enduring memories are about Christmas holidays.
I love doing custom orders. It reminds me of when I worked in bookstores and customers would be looking for that perfect gift for a special someone but they didn't really know what they wanted. I was pretty good at asking just the right questions and making just the right suggestions, and I loved it when their eyes would light up and they'd say, "That's it! That's perfect!"
When doing a custom order for an Etsy buyer, I can't see their eyes light up, but I do enjoy working out the details with them. Taking their vision they've described to me or adapting the shop's banner and fine-tuning the design till I get their buttons just right and they convo me with "That's perfect!"
Success Story (this is the one that made me tear up)
"She's waking up sir. We haven't told her anything yet."
Those were the first words I heard as I was waking up after an emergency C-section. When my husband said "She's doing better" I knew two things. First, that the baby was a girl, and second, that all was not well, just yet. She spent her first eleven days in the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit...the NICU...and has continued to grow and thrive ever since.
Today, we dropped her off at the airport for a two-week trip to Japan, part of an exchange program sponsored by her high school. She's become a very accomplished anime artist, fascinated with all things Japanese for years now. To say she's been excited about this trip is the ultimate understatement.
I turned 50 a few weeks ago. I have an Etsy shop and I'm always making something new to list there (and hopefully sell). I guess you could call me an artist. But my most creative effort, by far is my two beautiful, artistic, daughters who know how to love and laugh.
That's my success story.
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And because I had so much fun with yesterday’s post I made a Wordle of Donna’s blog profile, which is at the top of this post.
