One Small Star

I haven’t been able to write anything about the Connecticut tragedy – no words could express my feelings.  My oldest daughter posted her thoughts which were so much better than anything I could have written and, in addition, added a link to a song by John McDermott, One Small Star.  I feel this says it all.

http://www.nudged2write.com/archives/3203

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Thank you, everyone, for all of the nice messages

I’m glad to be home where I can sit with my old hound dog and try to recover from all of the painkillers I’ve taken over the past four days.  I sleep too much, but otherwise am comfortable lying on the couch and looking at the decorations I managed to get up before I had to slow down.  I think I’m finally convinced that I put up too much stuff, but it’s so nice to see so many of my old treasures out again this year (I didn’t have a chance to get ALL of them out).

It was wonderful get on the computer and see messages from so many kind, thoughtful people.  Thank you again.

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A Fundraiser for Children in Haiti

My 13-year-old grandson is taking part in a fund drive by his French class to raise money for children in Haiti.  The following was copied from his guest post on his mother‘s blog:

“The purpose of this project is to raise money for children in Haiti so they’ll be able to go to school and buy the many things that we have but they do not.  In other words, it’s all about helping those less fortunate.  I feel that this project is important because it’s helping kids who really need it and it can have a positive impact because the children in Haiti will have a chance to go to school, get nutritious food, and have a future.

I care about this project because I think that children in Haiti deserve a better lifestyle than they currently have.  The life of these children right now is dreadful, they are forced to work like animals and are treated like slaves.  Kids are pretty much servants to a family.  They get up before everyone else, do the cooking, the cleaning, they’re often hungry because they don’t get good food, and it’s not unusual for them to be abused.  They don’t have a fraction of the stuff we have and without an education they don’t have a chance to make their lives better.  Please make a donation so that we can help provide these kids with clothing, blankets, school supplies, shoes, and, most important, an education.  Thank you!”

The French teacher has created the From Loveland to Haiti:  French Students Providing Hope blog.  There you’ll find information on the community service project, as well as regular updates.  If you’d like to help with a monetary donation, you can do so with a check made payable to Loveland City Schools with LMS French Class for Haiti in the memo line and mailed to:

Loveland Middle School
Attn:  French Class for Haiti Fundraiser
801 South Lebanon Road
Loveland, Ohio  45140

OR

Simply place a dollar in an envelope and mail to the above address.  Every little bit helps.

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A Good Find at Summerfair, Cincinnati

The 44th annual Summerfair was held over the weekend at Cincinnati’s version of Coney Island.  This is a 125-year-old amusement park with lots of old, shady trees and plenty of places to sit and rest between visits to all of the juried crafters’ booths.

Many years, I just stroll and admire all the beautiful crafts without buying anything, but this year, I saw a wall pocket that I really liked.  It was made by the Pottery Boys from Blue Island, Illinois, and I had just the right spot for it in my kitchen.  It is exactly the same color green as my primitive shelf and is just right for a snapdragon cutting from my garden.

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President’s Challenge

Earlier this year, my youngest daughter urged everyone in the family to enter The President’s Challenge program, in which points are earned for various kinds of physical activities.  Since I’ll be 78 later this month, my activities were limited to light gardening, housework and walking, but I was the first one in the group to get 20,000 points.  Just hitting the goal would have been satisfying enough, but my daughter had been keeping track of my progress and had ordered the official certificate, pin and bronze medal for me.

I told my daughter it was appropriate that I was wearing my apron when I received the award because an awful lot of the points were earned while I had one on.  This was fun and now I’m aiming toward the silver medal.

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Lunch and a Surprise Gift

Today I was invited to lunch by my oldest daughter and her long-time friend, S.E.  We met at the Silverton Cafe (Cincinnati),  home of extraordinary double-decker sandwiches. After we had ordered, S.E. handed me a beautiful gift box and this was inside:

This 3-1/4 inch pie looks so good you can almost smell the home-baked aroma.  S.E. hand-carved this out of basswood and painted it in a very realistic way.

The holder was her ingenious idea of a piece of an old bed spring.

The carving and painting are beautiful front and back.

The gift is especially touching to me because S.E. remembered that I love to bake pies – a real treasure.

And the sandwich was delicious!

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A Good Way to Keep Herbs

One of my Mother’s Day gifts this year was a cute little 7-part bud vase which is perfect for displaying small flowers and buds.  When my herb garden started producing, I thought it might be nice to have an assortment of fresh herbs on hand and that maybe I’d be more inclined to use them daily if they were available right on my kitchen counter.  The bud vase was perfect for this use.  In the picture, I have basil, lemon thyme, rosemary, peppermint, chives, sage and apple mint and I can replace any I use as I’m passing by the garden.

These cute vases (approximately 6″ tall)  are reasonably priced on QVC, Item #H00007.

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Election Day Memories

Election Day and the months leading up to it were major events in our home when I was growing up.  My father railed against Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats and supported the Republican candidates with great enthusiasm and lots of backup facts and figures.  He was a strong supporter of Wendell Wilkie and of Tom Dewey.  I can’t say as a child I liked their looks any better than I did President Roosevelt’s, but if my father said they were worthwhile, I had no argument.

I don’t recall if we had a lot of coverage of election news in the classroom or if I got all of my information from my father, but I was always very much aware of the people, if not the issues.  I awoke on the morning after Election Day with much excitement, assuming each time that my father’s party had won – but it never did.  We sat at the wooden table in the big kitchen on Court Street, bowls of oatmeal in front of us, and listened to the results on the radio with despair.  The year that Wilkie lost to  Roosevelt, I went down the stairs from our third floor apartment to the back alley that led to Central Parkway and then to Raschig School.  I was completely disheartened that Wilkie had lost and suddenly I looked down and saw a discarded Wilkie campaign button on the street.  I picked it up, ready to pin it on my dress and wear it to school when my mother called down and told me to “put that thing down”.  She was probably as concerned about my picking up something from that dirty alley as she was about the political implications.

My father was just as much opposed to Harry S. Truman but in later years found that there was much in President Truman that he admired.  He never did acknowledge any merit to President Roosevelt, though.

In 1952, I was the new bride of a sailor and living in Portsmouth, Virginia.  Although I was too young to vote, I was fascinated with the race between Adlai Stevenson and Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

 

I just assumed my father was still a staunch Republican, but didn’t realize that he had lost all interest in politics.  My letters home to my mother and sister were filled with enthusiasm over the race and requests for my “I Like Ike” button to be mailed to me.   My mother kept those letters all those years and they’re a good record of my feelings at the time.

In my letter written the day after Eisenhower’s election, I said that my radio was acting up and I wasn’t able to get the early morning results.  I’m sure I got them after I got to work where I was not only the sole “Yankee” in the place but also a Republican surrounded by deep south Democrats.  I had Frank take my picture with my “I Like Ike” button on my lapel.

Eisenhower did win the election and I sent a letter home with sketches of Frank, the Democrat, being very sad and of me, who backed the winner, being very happy.

 

 

By the next year, 1953, I was 21 years old and able to vote.  I haven’t missed an election since that time and with the passing years have bounced back and forth between political parties.  At this point, I consider myself an Independent.

I realized as the years went by that my father was neither Republican nor Democrat.  He was for the underdog, no matter what the party affiliation was, so his candidate never won.

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Copyright Infringement – Sewing & Quilting Projects

I recently wrote a blog post about donating some items to a charity.  Included were five small wallets (Sewing) which I photographed, closed, with no details shown.  I included nothing related to the pattern in my post and linked to the website of the pattern maker. 

The pattern maker posted in comments that I was infringing on her copyright by donating the items I’d made to charity.  I was totally surprised and didn’t realize that donations of a finished article infringed on the copyright of a pattern (for which I’d paid a decent price).  In researching on the Internet, I found several websites that were very informative on this matter, especially for people who sew, quilt or do other handwork and then exhibit, sell or donate the items.  My research shows the pattern maker is correct as far as her copyright is concerned.  It seems to be a matter of whether the copyright owner chooses to enforce the law.  Here are some helpful links I found that shed more light on the issue.

• Quilters Newsletter - Copyright for Quilters – answers to quilters’ questions
• Get Creative Conference Center - Copyright and the Sewing Industry
• Intellectual Property - Sewing Pattern Copyright

I also found some pattern makers who don’t mind what sewers do with their patterns so long as they don’t copy the patterns themselves to distribute or sell.  Those pattern makers, though, do appreciate a link to their websites.  

This was an eye-opener for me.  I apologized to the pattern maker for contributing wallets made from her patterns to charity, and I told her I would not be donating items from her patterns in the future, nor from anyone else’s patterns.  It saves a lot of time to use a purchased pattern, but I’m not incapable of designing my own and have done it many times when all the features I wanted weren’t included in available patterns.

Just wanted to share as this is something for all of us to consider.

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