My Christmas tree this year was especially beautiful. The blinking lights I bought the year I did Christmas for my mother, the year she was diagnosed with cancer. There are ten or twelve settings, including “running,” blinking and a slow fade. There are three spools of a dark burgundy and gold ribbon. Two spools wind […]
Last night I slept upstairs, son the younger on the trundle bed. Under the roof, we could hear the rain better. I had on my favorite pj’s: pink flannel with coffee cups splashed all over. When I woke, the dog was at my feet and the cat had her head on son the younger’s leg. […]
My mother’s flower vase stands on my dining table. Burgundy velvet drapes are an elegant backdrop to a yellow chrysanthemum wearing an underskirt of mocha. Orange tiger lilies stand apart from Bells of Ireland, their furry, maroon pistils sway at the slightest footstep. Son the older and I have just finished watching a black and […]
This morning we held a snuggle-in, the family and I. At first it was just son the younger, husband, and I. Then we sent husband to fetch son the older. Husband returned to report that our bedroom was distinctly warmer than the rest of the house. The rest of the house being some eighty years […]
This weekend I went to the International Quilt Festival. My grandmother and great-grandmother both quilted. My sister and I have both quilted. My mother did not quilt but she did collect fabric. When I spent most of my time wandering through the vendor area, then, I came by the impulse honestly. The selections ranged from […]
A couple of weeks ago, I ordered some custom-made tutus for my dance school. They were delivered earlier this week and today, finally, I got them out of my car. I pile them high on a table in the costume room. Ten little tutus of frothy white net, with pink ribbons and tiny flower gardens […]
Halloween is coming. This weekend will be spent sewing a hakima for son the younger, so he can be an anime character, and shopping the Salvation Army for son the older. Halloweens past I’ve sewed costumes for pumpkins, dinosaurs, Hercules, and Inuyasha (anime characters are big in our household). As you can tell, I can […]
Autumn has come to Texas. I woke this morning at 3 a.m. to a cold house. I got up and turned on the heat. This morning the kids and I wore jackets. Looking out the window during yoga, I saw the trees had changed color. The yellow leaves, backlit by the sun, flutter in the […]
Today I went shopping for the ofrenda (altar) I am making for Lawndale Art Center’s 20th Annual Day of the Dead celebration. I went to my local Fiesta grocery store where I picked up some limes, some artificial flowers, and a few altar candles. Next stop: Casa Ramirez, a local gallery who specializes in Day […]
Yesterday was the 9th anniversary of my mother’s death. Last week I put up my annual Day of the Dead altar. Amid the sugar skulls and paper mache skeletons are photographs. There is my mother in her wedding dress, the one she wore to marry my father. My grandmother sewing a quilt. My father holding […]