Somewhere in Missouri (I think, maybe it was Arkansas), as we were driving to Texas, my daughter Mary and I drove under a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Okay, it was actually a vine growing up a telephone pole and across the wire, with some viney branches dangling down like tiny T-Rex arms. But it really did look like a dinosaur about to step into the road, right over our car.
It got me thinking, wouldn't it be, like, so cool if we had a dinosaur topiary garden in one of our town parks? Little kids love dinosaurs. Imagine if we took a section of park and grew trees and vines and shrubbery and trained and trimmed them to look like dinosaurs? How much fun would that be? Walking between the legs of an apatosaurus? Darting away from a charging T-rex? Standing beneath the horns of a triceratops? It would be a total kid magnet. And even maybe a local or regional attraction.
Mostly I think it would be just a wondrous and fun place for a kid to play and dream and run around. I can already hear the joyful screams and laughter.
I wonder how to make it happen....
I just googled dinosaur topiary - there are businesses that sell dinosaur topiary frames, and several parks that feature dinosaur topiary (though some of those look like little dinosaurs, and even tho some dinos were little, T-rexes were not!). The LA Arboretum is one place and The Creation Museum is another, and here's a picture of one big guy in Cincinnati (I think). Awesome!
Topiary Joe just left a comment about his website. Have a look, it is pretty cool!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Blessings
As I've said, there are days I don't even want to get out of bed...
and then there are the days I get out of bed and hear about a fiery airliner crash somewhere (this week in Spain). . .
and I go outside and smell the fresh mown grass, and see leaves fluttering from trees, and clouds piling up in the sky, and my dog bounces happily at my side, and I hear my children's voices through the windows of my house, and I think, life is too precious and too fragile to waste one moment worrying.
God bless those families of those people on that plane.
and then there are the days I get out of bed and hear about a fiery airliner crash somewhere (this week in Spain). . .
and I go outside and smell the fresh mown grass, and see leaves fluttering from trees, and clouds piling up in the sky, and my dog bounces happily at my side, and I hear my children's voices through the windows of my house, and I think, life is too precious and too fragile to waste one moment worrying.
God bless those families of those people on that plane.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Bird by bird
There are mornings I wake up and feel overwhelmed before I can even roll out of bed. Like this morning.
What do I do? Walk the broken dog first? Let all the other dogs out to pee. Clean up my smelly, dirty house? Plan dinner? Do laundry? Go over to the other house and try to peel smoke and paint off the walls? Stick my head under my pillow and imagine my problems away? Yeah, that one will do.
In the book Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, she tells about a school report her brother was attempting to write about birds. There are so many birds in the world, he was feeling overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin. He asked his father for help, and his dad said, "just take it bird by bird, buddy." I try to remember that on days like this (most days lately).
We are in such a financial mess. Our property taxes are due (about $2,500), I'm still paying on our winter heating bills ($700), had to pay school registration fees ($200+) and then there's school supplies, our water bill has been tremendous and I can't figure out why - my husband has replaced leaky faucets and the water heater, but still we get these $300+ bills - we owe money to several other businesses for services due to the fire, and medical bills that aren't covered by insurance, plus our regular living expenses, and I just can't keep up with it. Thus selling the house on West St. - if we could sell that, then use the money from the sale to pay off our debts, we could live within our means. Meanwhile I pay a little bit here, a little bit there, and wonder how much more I can cut from the grocery bill.
And we are in a house mess. We need to fix up our house on 7th Avenue at least enough to move back in and live there, then clean up and do some repairs on (maybe) the house on West St. to get it ready to sell. We need to erect a fenced area at 7th avenue for the dogs, because we can't show a house for sale when so many dogs are living in it. Plus we are just messy, messy, dirty, untidy, disorganized people - both houses are a mess and both need to be cleaned and I can't even keep one house tidy! At the 7th avenue house we need to have a functional kitchen and bathroom, and a couple of fairly clean rooms to sleep in. This sounds easy until you see the house. My heart just sinks.
If we could just get the walls clean it would make such a visible, encouraging difference. For the past week we have been trying to remove smoke from walls. We have used basic cleaners, and chemical dry cleaning sponges, TSP, and a lot of elbow grease. Then Pat tried steaming and scraping (as if we were stripping wall paper) - that way instead of cleaning the smoke, we are peeling the layer of smoky paint off the walls. It is tedious, but it works.
We will get there. Room by room, bill by bill, day by day. I just keep telling myself that. I just keep telling myself that.
What do I do? Walk the broken dog first? Let all the other dogs out to pee. Clean up my smelly, dirty house? Plan dinner? Do laundry? Go over to the other house and try to peel smoke and paint off the walls? Stick my head under my pillow and imagine my problems away? Yeah, that one will do.
In the book Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott, she tells about a school report her brother was attempting to write about birds. There are so many birds in the world, he was feeling overwhelmed and didn't know where to begin. He asked his father for help, and his dad said, "just take it bird by bird, buddy." I try to remember that on days like this (most days lately).
We are in such a financial mess. Our property taxes are due (about $2,500), I'm still paying on our winter heating bills ($700), had to pay school registration fees ($200+) and then there's school supplies, our water bill has been tremendous and I can't figure out why - my husband has replaced leaky faucets and the water heater, but still we get these $300+ bills - we owe money to several other businesses for services due to the fire, and medical bills that aren't covered by insurance, plus our regular living expenses, and I just can't keep up with it. Thus selling the house on West St. - if we could sell that, then use the money from the sale to pay off our debts, we could live within our means. Meanwhile I pay a little bit here, a little bit there, and wonder how much more I can cut from the grocery bill.
And we are in a house mess. We need to fix up our house on 7th Avenue at least enough to move back in and live there, then clean up and do some repairs on (maybe) the house on West St. to get it ready to sell. We need to erect a fenced area at 7th avenue for the dogs, because we can't show a house for sale when so many dogs are living in it. Plus we are just messy, messy, dirty, untidy, disorganized people - both houses are a mess and both need to be cleaned and I can't even keep one house tidy! At the 7th avenue house we need to have a functional kitchen and bathroom, and a couple of fairly clean rooms to sleep in. This sounds easy until you see the house. My heart just sinks.
If we could just get the walls clean it would make such a visible, encouraging difference. For the past week we have been trying to remove smoke from walls. We have used basic cleaners, and chemical dry cleaning sponges, TSP, and a lot of elbow grease. Then Pat tried steaming and scraping (as if we were stripping wall paper) - that way instead of cleaning the smoke, we are peeling the layer of smoky paint off the walls. It is tedious, but it works.
We will get there. Room by room, bill by bill, day by day. I just keep telling myself that. I just keep telling myself that.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Odd things that stick in my mind
On a road trip to Texas, we are driving near Branson, Missouri, and we see this billboard:
a smiling woman dressed in a maid's uniform gesturing to a sinking ship - the text reads:
a smiling woman dressed in a maid's uniform gesturing to a sinking ship - the text reads:
Visit Titanic --
A family experience!
On the same road trip in Arkansas at the outskirts of a tiny town we pass the sign bearing the town name and population : 158. Immediately following that sign are five more signs each bearing the name & denomination of a different church welcoming us to the town. With a population of 158, this town supports five different protestant denominations? I wonder if each church has a congregation of 30 souls, or is one church huge, with like, 75 members and all the others teensy?
In recent news I heard about severed feet inside athletic shoes bobbing in the waters off Vancouver. The fact that feet (I think there are five of them) are washing up on the shore is just weird enough. But there are other oddities to this story. When I first heard about it, on NPR, I believe, the journalists and detectives were laughing about the story. Black humor? Maybe, I don't know, but it seems pretty gruesome to me, there are five people who have had their feet separated from their bodies, and probably their souls from their bodies as well. So what's the funny part?
But wait! There's more:
The foot, like all the others before it, was in a running shoe. But the newest instance was a left foot, whereas the others were all right. None of the feet appear to have been removed by force."
So. The feet fell off by themselves?
Another recent news item. There is a movement to lobby the Olympic Committee to include Competetive Yoga as an Olympic sport. What's next? Competetive Meditation?
And last for this post: a few years ago my husband and I took our family to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. We were especially interested in visiting the Lied Jungle, advertised as the world's largest indoor rain forest. It was quite beautiful and fascinating. We started at the top and followed trails down to the ground admiring the foliage and flowers and wonderful animals. When we got to the bottom however we were startled by the noise of a chainsaw - we turned a corner to see a zoo worker wielding the saw as he cut down a tree. We know zoos try to make their exhibits as realistic as possible, but we thought this was taking things a little too far. We haven't been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in several years. We hope the rain forest is still there.
A family experience!
On the same road trip in Arkansas at the outskirts of a tiny town we pass the sign bearing the town name and population : 158. Immediately following that sign are five more signs each bearing the name & denomination of a different church welcoming us to the town. With a population of 158, this town supports five different protestant denominations? I wonder if each church has a congregation of 30 souls, or is one church huge, with like, 75 members and all the others teensy?
In recent news I heard about severed feet inside athletic shoes bobbing in the waters off Vancouver. The fact that feet (I think there are five of them) are washing up on the shore is just weird enough. But there are other oddities to this story. When I first heard about it, on NPR, I believe, the journalists and detectives were laughing about the story. Black humor? Maybe, I don't know, but it seems pretty gruesome to me, there are five people who have had their feet separated from their bodies, and probably their souls from their bodies as well. So what's the funny part?
But wait! There's more:
The foot, like all the others before it, was in a running shoe. But the newest instance was a left foot, whereas the others were all right. None of the feet appear to have been removed by force."
So. The feet fell off by themselves?
Another recent news item. There is a movement to lobby the Olympic Committee to include Competetive Yoga as an Olympic sport. What's next? Competetive Meditation?
And last for this post: a few years ago my husband and I took our family to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. We were especially interested in visiting the Lied Jungle, advertised as the world's largest indoor rain forest. It was quite beautiful and fascinating. We started at the top and followed trails down to the ground admiring the foliage and flowers and wonderful animals. When we got to the bottom however we were startled by the noise of a chainsaw - we turned a corner to see a zoo worker wielding the saw as he cut down a tree. We know zoos try to make their exhibits as realistic as possible, but we thought this was taking things a little too far. We haven't been to the Henry Doorly Zoo in several years. We hope the rain forest is still there.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
A Fixer-Upper
My life is full of broken things lately.
My house is broken - its walls are broken, its windows are broken, its floors are broken, its roof is broken, its plumbing is broken. Its condition is what my mother used to describe as a "fixer-upper" and what my stepdad used to describe as a "burner-downer."
In May, half of our huge old Linden tree crashed down in a windstorm, and the rest had to be cut down and hauled away. When it fell, it crashed onto our porch roof, garage roof and truck. Now I have a broken, gone tree, a broken yard (no beautiful old tree in it anymore), broken porch, broken garage and broken truck.
My van and my son's car are also broken.
Two windows at the other house (the one I'm currently dwelling in) are broken and the cruddy old tile floor is broken.
I just returned from Texas where I visited my broken mother.
I just received my property tax bill and my water bill and paid school registration fees, I'm still paying off my winter heating bills, and the trip to Texas added a significant amount to my credit card bill - my finances are broken.
And I am fostering a broken dog.
Unlike a house, a life can really only morally be a fixer-upper. So I guess I have my work cut out for me. I have to fix up my life.
My house is broken - its walls are broken, its windows are broken, its floors are broken, its roof is broken, its plumbing is broken. Its condition is what my mother used to describe as a "fixer-upper" and what my stepdad used to describe as a "burner-downer."
In May, half of our huge old Linden tree crashed down in a windstorm, and the rest had to be cut down and hauled away. When it fell, it crashed onto our porch roof, garage roof and truck. Now I have a broken, gone tree, a broken yard (no beautiful old tree in it anymore), broken porch, broken garage and broken truck.
My van and my son's car are also broken.
Two windows at the other house (the one I'm currently dwelling in) are broken and the cruddy old tile floor is broken.
I just returned from Texas where I visited my broken mother.
I just received my property tax bill and my water bill and paid school registration fees, I'm still paying off my winter heating bills, and the trip to Texas added a significant amount to my credit card bill - my finances are broken.
And I am fostering a broken dog.
Unlike a house, a life can really only morally be a fixer-upper. So I guess I have my work cut out for me. I have to fix up my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
