Very Basic How-To: Scrapbooking

This is how I used to do Scrapbooking. This kind of Scrapping is artistic and creative, but does take a lot of time and effort. I'm proud of my work, but I have scads of pictures to put into albums still, and I found another way to do it that is equally satisfying, and might mean that I get them into albums during my lifetime.

I get this kind of album from Michael's. It is a mega-album, 50 pages, black paper inserts in plastic sleeves. Michael's does delivery and curbside right now and often has sales or coupons.

These are my basic supplies: a cropping tool, photo sticker squares, self-adhesive photo corners, and a white pen. Amazon has photo corners in packages of up to 360, and probably everything else too.

I write with the white pen, in cursive, on the black paper. For me it is simple and elegant, and I enjoy it.

Here are some more examples:

It's kind of a vintage look, where the photos speak more for themselves, with captions as needed, so that some day, when my memory is even worse than it is now, I'll have given myself clues as to who and what the scenes are all about.

When I have many, many photos of an event, and I still have many after thinning out the duplicates and the duds, I make page blasts or collages like this, especially where captioning is not really needed:

And it is also fun to included brochures, ticket stubbs and other ephemera to add color and interest.

So, if you are thinking that being stuck at home might present a good opportunity to organize all those boxes of old photos you have stashed away, but you are not inclined to the more elaborate forms of scrapbooking that involve buying lots of extra supplies and tools, this might be a way to go for you too.

A Little Escape from Confinement

    Sometimes each one of us in the family who drives, gets in their car and goes for a drive. I did this Saturday. R and I went out together for a drive-through lunch. She likes to do that. We even got ice cream. Later that afternoon I needed to get out by myself, so I drove east to a spot that I knew might have fields of sunflowers. East of I35, the land is more prairie-like as opposed to our area which is rockier and hillier, west of I35. Round Rock straddles the Balcones Escarpment. If you go from one extreme side of the area to the other, the difference is apparent.
    I found a pull-off, parked and even got out for awhile. No one was around. I had a mask in case I needed it. I took some pictures, and just took in the sun, the breeze, the sounds of birds and the bright happy sunflowers.
    It was what I needed. I went back home refreshed. The next day, Father's Day, we picked up barbecue, and went back to the sunflower fields pull-off, parked and ate dinner. It was nice for all of us.

To Speak Hope, To Speak Life

Pearl Milkweed

We have a church family. We have been watching the Youtube video that my husband helps put together from recordings that different members of the worship committee and the ministers send him. We watch from our living room. All four of us are there.  R doesn't like going to church, but because she is there, in her chair at her table, with her computer games and her earphones, her coffee mug and today, her Sunday pancake, she is exposed. She even chimes in comments now and then. L's dog likes the communion bread that we have, in whatever form it is on a given Sunday, so he hangs close, waiting. Today, it was thick fluffy pancakes L made from some sourdough remnant. Our dog, though, does not eat bread unless it is covered in cheese, or made of corn in some form maybe. She has her preferences.

The sermon was very timely. She spoke about all that is going on right now - the illness, the chaos, the pain and oppression, the brokenness. She spoke about speaking hope and life to each other. There will be much soul-searching now to find ways to do this in our daily lives. How can I in my unique situation, help to alleviate suffering, fear, poverty, hopelessness, prejudice in all its forms? What truth I have to start with is that it centers around home for me. From there, I'm trying to find ways to reach out. I'm not great at that part. I am a worrier by nature, timid and very unsure of myself, very afraid of being misunderstood. Somehow, I need to not let that be a barrier to what needs to be done.

Yesterday I found this exquisite little flowering vine. It is a Pearl Milkweed, a plant that is evidently not only native to Texas, but endemic to our state, meaning it grows wild only in Texas, or so the online info claims. We have a corner garden in our backyard that started out as a vegetable garden. As the trees around it grew out and cast more and more shade on the garden, it became unsuitable for growing vegetables. Now it contains a mix of herbs, cedar elm sprouts that come from everywhere, wildflowers that have been seeded by birds, and little oaks that have possibly been planted by squirrels. I sometimes call it my "garden of biodiversity".

Being a bit of a native plant nerd, I am also aware of some of the infamous invasive species of plants often used in landscaping around here. One of them is Ligustrum. In the past year we removed two large Ligustrums from our front garden, and later replaced them with Texas Mountain Laurels. Since then I have been on the lookout for sprouting Ligustrums trying to make a comeback. Somehow I had missed the one shooting up in the "wild" garden out back, until yesterday. As I made my way through the thick growth of lemon balm herb plants and cedar elm sprouts to get closer to the invader and confirm its identity, I discovered the Pearl Milkweed vine twisted around it. I have no idea where it came from. Maybe a bird carried the seeds in. I have seen it on a nature hike before, but never in my yard, so I was excited. Like I said, native plant nerd. 

But it is attached to an aggressively invasive species, so what to do? Seems like some kind of metaphor at first. Invaders versus natives? But, no, people are not plants. We cannot compare them. Still, it presents a dilemma. And it does make me think about the role of aggressive invaders who crowd out natives and gradually weaken and destroy them. Is that what my ancestors did in this country? Yes, they at least contributed to the wrongdoing. Did my ancestors also force people from far away to come here against their will and then enslave them? They certainly contributed to that wrongdoing as well. I have ancestors who had slaves. I have ancestors who settled in this part of Texas when Comanches were being forced back, and Tonkawa were being moved to reservation land. I am a member of the group whose ancestors created the mess we are in, and we can really only have them to blame, and ourselves if we learn about what wrongs are still going on and we don't do anything about them.

How does someone like me help to make things better? That is the burning question. And I am not sure what the answer is. It seems urgent to learn the answer or answers though. I am open and listening. It seems the responsibility lies with those of us who have not been associated with the receiving of wrongs, but with those who are perpetuating wrongs. Unfortunately, I am one of those unwitting perpetuators, ignorant at first because of lack of direct knowledge and experience, but now more aware. Once you know, you cannot un-know.  

Summer Tonics

Copper Canyon Daisy

Summers in Central Texas can be seriously hot, even for this native Texan. Yesterday it was already 101 degrees, with a heat index of over 105 because of humidity. It's not even officially summer, but we all know here that summer doesn't go by the calendar. In all honesty, without A/C, I couldn't live here. That said, as long as I have A/C to flee back into, I often find going out into the afternoon sun a restoring tonic in small doses. Because of where we are geographically, our weather can vary from dry to humid, depending often on which direction the latest front came from. If it came from the Gulf, there will be higher humidity. If it came from the west, the air will be dryer and more pleasant, at least as far as I'm concerned. We had a western front come in last night, so nice, breezy dry heat today.

We have a lot of low-care native plants in our yard, and it is calming to walk around in the sun and look at the wildflowers enjoying the sun's rays as much as I am. Some of them are all out in the open, and some enjoy from the vantage point of cool, dappled shade. There is no real design to our plantings. I'm more of an experimental gardener, for better or for worse, and some of the flowers reseed themselves or get help from the birds and show up all over the place unexpectedly. It keeps things interesting.

Rose Pavonia

When I happen to walk out into the backyard after dark, I am reminded how sound-insulated the house is, because the frogs and whatever else is out there are chattering away to each other in a kind of rhythm. It's a pretty loud chorus, and it is somehow relaxing, as long as the mosquito repellant is handy. (Lavender oil spray works for me most of the time.)

The hot dry weather is ideal for hanging things out to dry on the clothesline. The line is just rope strung between trees. There are always a few masks out there along with the other laundry, getting their sun-blessing. (They say it's the best disinfectant.)  There is something about this act that calms me even in my worst moods, especially when there is a slight breeze. It feels good knowing I am letting the passive heat of the sun take over for me. Another summer tonic. I get them when I can. It takes the edge off the anxiety.

Introduction - Caregiving in Quarantine

It is a time of being mostly at home. The empty nest is full again, to my delight, though it has been an adjustment for all involved. I do feel fortunate to have my whole immediate family under one roof. I know I would be worrying about our daughters more if they were not here.

We are four, two parents and two adult daughters. Our youngest daughter is a teacher, just finishing her sixth year of teaching middle school choir. She taught for five years in the Houston area before deciding to move back to Round Rock and try to work somewhere in the Austin area. She has taught at an area school now for a year and likes it very much. She is single and a teacher, and had to replace her car recently so, for financial reasons, is living with us for the time being. She and my husband have turned a shed in our backyard into an insulated, drywalled, air-conditioned studio for her to work in which she has enjoyed immensely. This separate space for her has been especially helpful with having to switch to online teaching, meeting with faculty, communicating with students, creating videos, etc. this last part of the school year, as all teachers have had to do. How choral education will be done next year is uncertain, because of the ease of transition of viruses when singing in close proximity, but she has to plan for next year anyway, in different ways, since much is still unknown.

My husband works entirely from home, having his own office area in our "study". His work is a little uncertain right now, but promising, and he has always been very good about saving money and making investments, so we are ok for the time being. This means that I have been able to do a lot of volunteer work in the community, and be available to care for our older daughter.  "R" as I will call her, usually lives in a group home for IDD adults. (IDD stands for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities.) It's a pretty good situation for her, though there have been some errors in medication dispensing on the part of house staff. Because of those errors in the past, and the fact that she wanted to be with us if she was going to have to be confined indefinitely, we brought her to our house.

The provider company that manages the group home is gladly holding her room for her, in spite of the two week limit to being away, because they do not foresee being ready to take any new clients in right now. They promised to let us know if that changes.

My husband and I have been R's legal guardians since shortly after she turned eighteen. That was almost twenty years ago. During this pandemic, we are also her full time caregivers. Since his job is being the family income earner, most of the caregiver responsibility is mine. However, he helps a lot when he can, and so does our other daughter.

I and R both have underlying health conditions that make us especially vulnerable, so I have made the decision to table all work outside the home for myself until a vaccine is available and then for at least two weeks after we have all received said vaccine. At that point I will feel safer about letting R go back to her group home, and I will consider going back to my volunteering. I am only guessing that that could be a year or so from now.

We probably all need outlets, those of us in stressful situations like the present. Taking care of ourselves has to be part of our coping, so that we are healthy and we can better take care of each other. I have always found writing helpful for mental health and to aid in problem solving. And now, I do not have much problem fitting it in to my day.