Springtime Giveaway!

As promised, I am sponsporing another giveaway. I'd posted on Facebook that when my Etsy shop reached 1000 "hearts", I would do a giveaway in celebration of that. Kneedeeporiginals now has 1028 hearts, so I'm just a wee bit late, but better late than never.

So here's what I'm offering in this giveaway.


Love Me Tender is a cheery 4 x 6 original watercolor that will easily fit into a standard mat or frame. It was painted on 140 lb cold press watercolor paper and will be packaged a protective sleeve between sturdy cardboard for safe delivery to you.

So how do you win?

1. Go to my Etsy shop OR my website and check out what's for sale. Then return here and leave a comment to tell me which item you like best and why. This will count as ONE try at winning.
2. Are you following me here OR on Facebook? Please leave a comment that tells me that, and you'll get ANOTHER try at winning.
3. If you purchase something from my Etsy shop between now and the end of the giveaway (paintings, scrimshaw, and CD) or my personal website (paintings, scrimshaw, CD, and jewelry), that counts as TWO more chances at winning. Please be sure to let me know here that you have done so. If you buy more than one item, that's TWO more chances.
4. Share this giveaway on your blog or FB page, provide YOUR link in a comment here, and that counts as ANOTHER try at winning.

So all in all, you can have SEVERAL chances to win. This giveaway will end at 8:00 PM on Thursday, March 24, two weeks from today. Good luck, everyone!

A Magical Day

Monday dawned with gray skies and drizzle. Another dreary day... with no indication of what was in store for us.

My husband left at 8:00 to take a bike ride to the State Park just a ways down the road, and I had my coffee and posted on the blog about the past week and listed a few new things in the Etsy shop. Around 10:00, Abby and Empi started barking and rushed to the front sliding doors, a signal that John was coming up the driveway. But when I looked out the window, he was coming from the woods and through the yard... very strange. Then the dogs took off up the stairs to the window which overlooks the back side of our property, and they were squealing with alarm and concern. I took a look, and there in the back yard was a black dog.

We all rushed back down the stairs just as John was poking his head in the door and calling for Abby. I went out with her and John led her to the back yard to meet the stranger who was in the fence there. As they sniffed and circled and met each other, John told me the story. He'd seen this dog a few times over the weekend, thinking at one point that she was dead because she'd lain in the same spot for hours on end without moving. But today she was hanging around some construction guys who are working on a new building between our road and the park. He wheeled up on his bike and asked what they knew about her; not much, they said. He looked her over, petted her, and immediately, there was a bond because as he rode off, she followed him home, no short distance.

She seemed just a wee bit thin, and we gave her some food on the porch and talked about what to do. We decided to take some Found Dog flyers down to the houses close to the park to see if anyone would claim her. But first, we introduced her to Empi, who normally is fairly territorial (though this is only her home away from home), but there were no problems at all. Seems that Empi and Abby would both accept her without any trouble, and she was very accepting of them too. She even does quite well with our cat, Scout, who has rubbed up against her and gotten a kiss. Next we gave her a bath, cleaned off all the mud and dirt, and inspected the scars in many locations on her body. She's got a bad limp and it appears that her right shoulder may have been broken somehow and healed without surgery.

A few hours later, after a nap and lunch, John headed down the road with the flyers, and he found the owner at the house where he'd first seen the dog over the weekend. The man said that he'd planned to move into town soon and didn't want to take "Ladybird" with him. He said she's about 8 months old, has never had shots or been to the vet, so of course she also hasn't been spayed. He said she is part Pit Bull, part Boxer, and part Lab. She'd had a brother who was larger than she, but he'd been hit and killed by a car. When John asked about her injuries, the guy said he didn't know anything about them. He was more than happy to leave her in our care.

She is definitely not a dog we would have picked out at the shelter, not a breed or mix we'd be inclined to search out, but it seems clear to me that "Ladybird" picked us out, that she found us. I believe she knew where she wasn't wanted and knew where she would be loved and cared for.

Last winter, when Bruschi died and I'd posted about the sadness and grief of that experience, one of my followers wrote this: "Our kindred spirits never go far from us in this universe, Bruschi will be watching over you and when his spirit is ready he will be at your side again in fur form." I could not help but think of this as, on Monday afternoon in the drizzle, I went out to pick blueberries, and our new dog came out to the bushes and sniffed around, happily eating the berries I offered her, wiggling her whole body with delight. Then she laid down and patiently waited for me to finish. That evening, when I was cooking dinner, I looked up the stairs and found her laying at the very top, with her paws draped over the edge, surveying the goings-on in the kitchen. Let me tell you, I got a bit teary-eyed because that is just what Bruschi used to do.

Tuesday morning, we finally reached a consensus on her new name. I simply could not live with "Ladybird", so we chose Cooper, and it seems to suit her. She has easily made her way into her new home. She likes to go up the hill with John to the shop, and she lays there, quite content just to be near him, while he works; occasionally she'll wander back down to the house alone and ask to come in. She has no inclination to leave, and it's a marvel at how well suited she is for us and we are for her. At bedtime, she has her own bed upstairs with us and Abby and Empi, and all three dogs sleep peacefully through the night. Yesterday I bought her a collar and leash, as well as her own puppy food (Blue Buffalo... natural and holistic without all the crap and fillers that most commercial dog foods have; it's what we finally started buying for the adults dogs when Bruschi was sick and needed less protein and better food), and tomorrow she'll take her first car ride to the vet where she'll get her shots and an appointment for spaying.

Last week was a hard week... full of fear, pain, emotional issues. So I'm very thankful and feel quite blessed that this week is balancing out with light, life, and love. Amen and amen.

Letting Go

In the quiet of the house, I hear the clock ticking away the minutes, see the dust and dog hair settled on the floor in the sunlight sneaking through the windows wintered with fine dirt. I know I should sweep, do some spring cleaning, but somehow, right now I can't. I hear the strong March winds, come a day or two too soon, and the chimes out in the trees, clanging and singing, a sound so familiar yet so far away. It's a reminder, a knowledge that the world is there. But it is not the same. I want to set things aright, there's a need and a desire both, but somehow I am frozen here at this table, a cup of coffee growing cold in my hand.

Life isn't fair, and death often cheats. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This time we lost. Up on the hill beneath the grass that will one day be green again lies Bruschi, at 5 1/2, so young but oh so old after 18 months of seizures and medications took their toll on his beautiful body. He is not far from Amos, from BeeBee, from Gesso. They each have a flowering tree, but Bruschi will have blueberry bushes. When we used to walk through the yard, or when I went out in July to pick the berries, he loved to join me, and he ate his share off the branches, using that wonderful hound nose of his to seek out the ripest. I know that come harvest time, five months from now, I will still cry.

John dealt with his grief with a shovel in his hand, muscles straining to remove heavy loads of dirt enough to open a hole in the earth that would envelop our 95 pound baby. It took him several hours, a lot of water, and a shooter of whiskey to get through.

I simply could not participate in that. I had held Bruschi's head in my arms while he died, and I could not look at him again, motionless and still, on the cold February ground. So for once in my life, I was thankful for a dirty house and during those digging hours, I vacuumed, scrubbed the smell of seizures off the floors, washed dog bedding, rearranged furniture, some of which had been moved over the past months in light of Bruschi's condition, cleaned bathrooms and the kitchen, cleaned the winter off the windows.

And now, the house seems so quiet. Our morning routine has changed. So much focus and energy had been spent on Bruschi, and while there is a sense of relief, there is so much strangeness and lonesomeness about the house. It seems so empty. As John says, Bruschi was such a big presence and he could not be ignored. He is missed in so many ways.

Our Abby knows the emptiness of this one-dog house, and even on this sunny Sunday, she has chosen to stay in bed, sleeping the morning light away.

A Light in the Darkness

I came across a line, a sentence fragment really, last night in a book I am reading... The Freshour Cylinders by Speer Morgan... about a lawyer, murder, ancient Indian artifacts, political scandal in the 1930s. This quote comes immediately after a description of life on "the lower avenue" with its "dim bars and slouched forms" and poor souls hanging around "the charity hotel." These are "people whose lives couldn't bear too much thinking about."

Far too often, I am that far removed from the workings of the world and its population, of people who live without what most of us call the necessities, of the issues that plague so many. I am here in my small, cozy, comfortable home out in the woods, painting, beading, writing songs, rarely immersing myself in the problems of "civilization." I suppose that is why I feel compelled to sing with the lonely, older folks in the local hospital, why I hold their hands and ask them how they're feeling. I suppose that is why I do adult literacy tutoring. I suppose it is part of the joy I feel when I go to the Special Olympics events of my daughter. I suppose that is why I spent my birthday singing at a fundraiser to support homeless families trying to transition to independence and self-sufficiency.

But still... I am removed.

Yesterday I happened to go up to the barn where my husband was working on knives. Our son had called and I brought the phone up there so he could discuss a VW problem with John. The radio was on, tuned to NPR, and it was talk talk talk. My husband took the phone outside for better reception and I stayed inside with the dog who'd accompanied me there, squatting by the warm woodstove in the corner. And in the silence, I heard the radio... focusing on the homeless and a homeless coalition in California and the discussion of whether the laws governing hate crimes should include the homeless. An interview was taking place with a man who had been homeless for two years, following a psychotic episode where, I suppose, he just couldn't deal with reality... a situation that happens far too often where the help that is needed just isn't found. This man described being asleep in some out of the way or under the bridge setting and being awakened with an aluminum baseball bat. He described the beating, broken bones, cracked jaw, swollen eyes and face and all... and his tormentors... young white males having what they considered a good time. I cringed, wondered how in the world people can do this to others, how can these young men live with themselves, wondering what my own sons would have done had they, in their younger years, knew of acquaintances or school mates who took pleasure in this sort of thing. I hoped I knew.

And then the talk went to some videos that a person can see on youtube and that can be seen in this homeless coalition office in CA. One showed two homeless people being paid to fight each other... being tied up somehow with duct tape and slamming each other into walls and such. I thought about how much I detest the idea of cockfights and dogfights, of how disgusted I am with people who make money and take pleasure and make bets on this type of practice with animals. And I thought how low someone must be to make bets on homeless people. I was overwhelmed with sadness and didn't think I could hear any more of this show. And then a man told about a video of a homeless man pulling out his own teeth with pliers... being paid to do this and being videotaped by someone. My stomach churned, my heart ached, I felt dizzy with it all... I quickly left the barn, telling my husband outside that I can't hear any more about this human misery.

I am happy to not hear these things. I am quite content to not see these videos. I can't imagine watching them. It isn't that I don't want to know, because I do know. I know these things happen. I may not know the details, and I surely do not want the visual stimulation of them.

But unfortunately these thoughts stayed with me, and then I read that description and those words in the book last night. And I know that "the poor will always be with us" - they have been and always will be. And human nature being what it is, there will always be people making money and having such ugly "fun" at the expense of others, there will always be suffering and sadness and loneliness.

But there will always be goodness too, and generosity, and love. And that is why we must do what we can, each of us, however we can, as often as we can, to make some small impression of kindness and loveliness and light on the lives of those around us, not just family and friends but strangers too, the homeless, the orphans, the old ones, the widows, the lonely, the friendless. It is the only way to combat such hatred and ugliness and fear.