A LITTLE TRIP TO THE PAST

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Not much going on. I was in the den making some envelopes for the gift cards I just finished when from the basement I heard the whir of the shop vac. I couldn't figure out what my husband was doing down there, although it most definitely needed a good cleaning, I was fairly sure he hadn't succumbed to the urge. I was just about to get up and yell down the stairs at him to see what he was up to when he came up and then I heard him in his junk drawer. I called out and asked him what he was doing in the basement. He said that he had pulled out the old slide projector and was trying to get it running so we could look at all our slides. I thought well that will keep him busy for the rest of the afternoon, so I went back to my envelope making assured that I wouldn't be subjected to those slides because that projector was so old that all the parts had surely rusted or corroded or whatever old projectors do when they become unusable. It wasn't but a scant half hour later when I heard him coming up the basement stairs with guess what??? A big smile on his face and the projector!!! He said he got it to work. Well you know the rest of this little piece. Whether I liked it or not, we were going to view, again, those pictures that chronicled the years since 1958. In those slides were copious pictures of scenery from various trips, and from the trip to California that my husband made on his motorcycle, when he went to basic training for National Guard. There were pics of roads and trees, and hills and state signs as he left and entered. All the usual pictures that everyone has taken in their life. Sprinkled in the scenery pictures were some people. Smiling from those slides were my husbands parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sister in laws and nephews, and cousins and then in later trays of slides, Our own family. Those slides told of our wedding,(Not to brag but I had forgotten how cute we both were when we were younger). If you ever wonder what you saw in your spouse or long term partner, just look at those old snap shots. It was all there. Our honeymoon the birth of our first child, I was so scared when he was born.! Now you wouldn't think that I should be frightened because I came from a large family, and I was the oldest so I was used to kids, but this one was my own and I had the ultimate responsibility, Now that was a scary thing. I am surprised our dear son made it to adulthood without more scars than he did. I suffered from a very severe case of postpartum depression, although back then that was not even heard of. I struggled through the days so depressed that I did just what I had to do, with no energy to do anything extra. Well lest I digress. That was just one of the memories that those slides brought back to me. Most of them, in fact the majority of them brought lovely sepia toned memories Before this little presentation started I really wasn't in the mood, but now I am glad I sat through it. If on some winter Sunday afternoon when you don't have much to do, I suggest you get out your old pictures and look at them again. It will give you a new perspective on where you have been and how you got to where you are. Well that is all for now. Bye. Gloria Dee/Grandmother Handleys Closet.

VOLUNTEER WORK IS KIND A SUCKY... SOMETIMES

Now before you all jump down my throat and think that I am a terrible person for saying bad things about volunteering, I volunteer, I volunteer a lot. I do a lot of work in my church and in various other organizations. But if you are all honest with yourselves and with the world you would agree with me that to volunteer is sucky and probably downright stupid at times. It has been my experience that, at times, they ask volunteers to do stuff they would never even think of asking a paid employee to do. Some of the jobs are kind of like sorting wet sweat socks in a locker room. They are all messy and they stink to high heaven. Well enough of my frustration. I am in the middle of working on a newsletter that should have been started the beginning of Jan. But wasn't. Now dear hearts, I volunteered to do this newsletter twice a year for four, count em four, years!. The problem is It needs to be done a "certain"way, oh! and they never tell you that they always have someone who is also a volunteer, kind of a volunteer superior who knows how it is all to be done, and who doesn't really have a good reason for it being done that way, just because it is the "right" way to do it. I am going up to the printers tomorrow with a copy of the fall newsletter from last year, and see if the boy can help me out. I have done newsletters before, but have been allowed to use my own devices so to speak. This one is different and I am a bit frazzled. I think that I have decided that I am just going to quit worrying about it and I am going to do it the best way I know how, and if that volunteer supervisor says anything, I will just smile and say God Bless you, and go on my merry way. Well that's better. I have vented, and now I feel more relaxed. Hey this blogging is great. I recommend it. Take care. gloria dee/grandmotherhandleyscloset

Well Well Well, Here it is Tuesday!

Where did Monday go? I must admit that I don't know. I went to Baldwin to see the card display, and had tea in the tea room. I asked for green tea and she gave me a Lipton Tea bag. Now folks, I am not against Lipton Tea. I just thought that for $1.50 I would get more than a styrofoam cup with hot water and a Lipton Tea Bag. Maybe I am naive but I thought that a place that called itself a tea room and emporium would at least have some more exotic teas and would at least serve it in a glass cup. My sister in law went with me, and she felt the same way. Well anyway we sat in their little tea room, by the way, we could have had pastry, but that we will do some other time. The tea room is more of a very small dining room There are 4 tables, and mismatched chairs, It was really kind of nice in a very midwest small town way. Baldwin is the home of Baker University, and this little establishment is right across from the college, so I am sure that at times they may have some patrons from there. We went at 10:00 am on a very cold cloudy and windy Monday morning, so won't judge the tea room too harshly. The rest of the building has a consignment shop with a pretty presentable little collection previously loved clothing. They had a lot of jewelry, (vintage) Lisa you would have liked it. I checked their bead display, and No POP Beads. The front of the Pink Lady Tea room is run by the Vintage Flea, the antique store at the other end of the block. The antique part of the tea room is where Linda set up my card displays. It was a real hoot to go in and see my creations there for anyone to see. Actually they are right up front. Well enough of that. Today has gone by in a blur also. Here it is 5:30pm CST . At least today it was sunny. This was list making day. I got a couple things done on the list, and the rest will just have to wait till tomorrow or Thurs. I am done for this day. This blog is the last thing that I am going to do today. bye for now. hope you all had a wonderful day. gloriadee/grandmotherhandleyscloset.

SUNDAY MORNING COMING DOWN

Well another cloudy day here in the midwest. Colder, some drizzle possible. Now that I have given the weather for this part of the US. I want to talk about something else. Now I don't know what this particular blog will be about. I am going to try to turn off the intentional part of my brain and let the instinctual or what ever part that wants to talk, do so. Here Goes:

Has anyone ever done meditation? I have been meditating for several months. I should say trying to meditate. Do you know how hard it is to just shut stuff out??? I am working on it. aAll the people who think they know how to do it say that it is possible to go totally within yourself and come back out more enlightened, and feeling great. I go to a meditation class every Monday night. We are pretty informal. We all just get together and get silent for half an hour. We do this before a yoga class. I don't go to the yoga class but a couple of the gals do and the teacher of the yoga class also is in our meditation group. It seems to work, if we don't get a lot of insight into ourselves or the universe at least we have 30 minutes to just be. Now I think that is a pretty darn good thing in itself. We are a pretty chatty group normally, but when we go in for the meditation the words are few. I am proud of us.

We are going to Manhattan today. 1: to hear Mike play in an invitational band, and 2: maybe to see our oldest grandson Chris. for a bit. For those of you who care. The shoes fit.

Got more Valentines made yesterday to take to the Pink Lady. Going tomorrow, taking my sister in law with me because she wants to go. That's good. Perhaps we can have a cup of tea while we are there. Don 't know how many to make don't know if any will sell, but guess I will give them a variety anyway. Now a Hallmarks I am not!!! I make all the cards by hand by me. I cut paste and create, and compose all the verses from scratch, so I don't have 20,00000 of one card. If I make 3 or four of the same style it may not end up exactly like the first one I may fix each a little different. I will never be a big card company, although the budget might like that, I resist assembly line stuff. I prefer one of a kind. My sister paints and she is good. I told her to make some small water colors and I would incorporate them into a card, but don't know if she will or not. She has confidence issues with her painting, actually she is very very good at it. But perhaps it is not her passion??? I have discovered that if you are doing something you love and are passionate about, it doesn't matter what others think. I tried many things in the past until I started the card thing. That is my passion. I have done it for over 15 years, and will make carduntil I loose the passion for it or get too old to do it.

Well enough rambling. Got to get around and get to Manhattan. Have a wonderful Sunday.
gloriadee.

Well I missed yesterday. I was going to give my youngest grandson Micheal his due time on this little tome. What can I say about that lanky young man. He is 17. He is 6' 4" (yes his parents do grow them tall) he weighed in at 10lb 7 oz when he was born. He has the most incredible brown eyes, and a serious bravado that hides his tenderness. Now if I was not very sure that he will never read this, I wouldn't be telling all this. He is poetic, and musical. he has written several very good songs, and he plays in the school band and is in two other rock bands with some friends. One of the bands actually performs for people. They have a gig at a barbeque place in a neighboring town in a few weeks. He has a way with words and that in itself is a puzzle, he doesn't like to read. He is also an artist. He has been an artist since he was able to sit at my desk in the den and color and use all the scotch tape. As he got older say 7 or 8 he started using other mediums. He went through a time when he would bend paper clips into animals. He also had us save all those carry out cup holders from McDonalds. he maid furniture with them. Well I guess that is all I really want to share about our special grandson Micheal. I know everyone thinks their grandchildern are the best thing in the world and I agree. Grandchildren are God's way of thanking you for not killing your own kids when they were teenagers. If you have grandchildren, enjoy them, if you don't have grandchildren enjoy youth, they are the only real hope we have in this messed up world. That's all for now.

My grandsons.

I just sent my oldest grandson Christopher a private message on facebook. It was nothing important. I just got him a pair of shoes and I was telling him that they should arrive at his dorm in a few days. We had tried to get him interested in new shoes several months ago, but that wasn't a priority then. Well when he was back at Christmas he had a hole in his favorite shoes, and his feet got wet when he went outside. Now he has other shoes and an almost brand new pair of boots but he doesn't like wearing those boots all the time. His mother took him shoe shopping at Christmas but they couldn't fine any to fit him correctly. His problem is he has a big wide foot. He wears a 15 triple E. That does limit his selection. He wanted Luggs, and they are one of the few companies that carry that width. Well that wasn't what I wanted to write about this evening. As I was writing him my mind went back to that first time I saw him only a few minutes after he entered this crazy place. His green eyes at the tender age of 3 minutes old held the promise of all things. At this point he is a freshman in his second semester at Manhattan. He is doing fine as far as any of us know, but he is not a great communicator. He let's us know what we need to know and the rest he keeps to his own councel. He has such a gentle spirit. He is tall. At least 6' 6. I think he has grown since he went away. His green eyes still hold the promise of that infant I first set eyes on 18 years ago. I don't have any great moral to this story except that time does go by so fast and I just was wondering what my dear oldest grandson will become in this world. He is studying engineering, and that is a good profession. Whatever he finally decides I know that he will be a good loving human being and that is all that is important. Well I guess that is it for now. I am getting a bit maudlin. I am listening to a Barbara Striesand CD and I think I need to go turn it off because it is making me really melancholy. Well dear hearts. This is all for today. Tomorrow I will extol the virtues of Micheal my youngest grandson who is a Junior in High School and one of them most wonderful kids in the world. Well that's for tomorrow. Love and Blessings to all. gloriadee/grandmotherhandleyscloset.

Killing Time

Well this will probably be short, and it probably won't make a lot of sense to many of you. What do you do when you are waiting for time to go to a meeting or appointment and there is not enough time to do anything really? I have about 25 minutes before I need to leave to go see the lady who wants to look at my cards. Anything I could do would take more time than that and I really don't want to do anything right now anyway. As we speak my daughter is out sweeping the kitchen floor. She is making noises like she doesn't really want to do that, but she is doing it because she is neater than I am. She is very vocal at times about what needs to be done around here. Let me say right now, A Martha Stewart I am not. In fact I just got a bit of her show earlier when I was channel surfing. She had Emeril LaGasse on and he had his little boy helping him make some potato salad. It finally was more than Martha could stand so she started helping him by pouring stuff in the bowl and just generally taking over some of the stuff. I felt sorry for that little boy. Is there anyone out there who lives that Martha Stewart lifestyle anymore? Was there ever anyone who lived that lifestyle? I suspect that people watch her and live vicariously through her unatainable standards. Now all you Martha fans. don't come down on me. I am an underachiever when it comes to the domestic arts. I am just one of those slugs who can drink my wine out of a regular glass and eat my dinner on a paper plate. I don't sleep on 7,0000 thread count sheets, and I don't throw parties with place cards and crystal and china. Oh well guess I will close this little thing right now before I make anyone too angry. Besides it is time for me to go.

Where have all the good jobs gone? Or memories of a job interview.

Well dear hearts let me preface this post with the fact that I have a daughter out of work, and a son who just lost his job at a plumming company after almost 20 years. He hasn't had to look for work for over 20 years because he was referred to the company by a former employer, so he hasn't had to do much interviewing or any of that other demeaning stuff job hunting puts you through. You know what is the most unnerving to me??? When you go in for the interview. It's the wait time between when you walk in the door and announce yourself to the receptionist, and then she says she will call Mr or Ms. Boss person and let them know you are there. There are two reasons for that you know, first they want you to think they are more important and that their time is very important. In actuality they are sitting in their office finishing their doughnut,... and they want you good and nervous. Well I digress a bit. I was looking over some old blogs I entered back in 08, and found this one about the time I was looking for a part time job. I think it describes how it goes sometimes. Hope you enjoy or can relate.

It's Not Fun Sometimes.

Well guys, here I am a gal who is how shall I say this. A bit older than 25?! (quite a bit older). I have just come back from a job interview with an employment agency (I am looking for a short term job to help pay the gas bills so I don't have to stay home all the time). Below is an account of my trip.
I arrived and filled out the obligatory application and all went well until they put me in this little room and told me to take a timed test. It was an alpha-numeric test, in other worlds, a data entry test. Now my daughter-in-law can do these things blindfolded and with one hand behind her back. But I have a test taking phobia, I think it came about in my first grade year when a very nasty teacher berated me in front of the class because I hadn't got my colors memorized yet. Now I don't want you to think that I don't like teachers, actually I support those brave people who face our youth every day and try to make them care about learning, they should all be nominated for sainthood, but this one particular teacher was not a happy person and she didn't like me so I was her scape goat. Well I digress, that darned data entry timed test brought all that insecurity back to me. My hands got shaky and I did not do very well. The woman said that I did fair, and that they would contact me if they had anything that fit my talents. Which I am fairly sure is short for "see ya". I don't know how anyone else feels but job interviews are not my favorite pastime. I always feel inadequate. I have talents. I think I'm great with people. I have a good personality, at least that is what some of my friends say, and I really do like helping people solve their problems, but when I step into a job interview, It is like I am 10 years old again in front of the teacher trying to explain why I didn't pass that darned spelling test, no not spelling, I was good at that! oh, I know arithmetic. I was bad, am still bad, and probably always will be bad with numbers.
Well anyway I am home now, I have changed back into comfy clothes, I am barefoot, and sitting here typing out my frustrations. There is no big moral to this little blog except I just hate job interviews and would like to hear from some of you about your job hunting tales. Well guess I will close for now. have a good day,

Exciting News.

Well guys. Guess what?? A lady called today and wants to see my greeting cards to possibly put in her shop. She wants some Valentines, and just when I had decided that I would not make any this year, well, guess plans can and do change. I must admit that I am a bit frightened. I have never had anyone call and actually want to see my cards!!! I have sold Christmas cards to friends and neighbors and at some craft shows, and a few special order cards but this is a whole new ballgame. Don't know where this will lead, my cards will be seen by people who go into the Pink Lady Tearoom in Baldwin City. That is exciting to me. I have long been fighting the e-card trend. It is just not the same as getting that little square of cardstock that actually has a verse in it. I handmake each and every card and put an original verse in each. I know they have all kinds of machines to die cut shapes but I just prefer the irregularity of hand cutting some of those shapes. I do use punches, but not in excess. Well guess I need to close and get busy on those Valentines. bye for now. gloria. Creator Glorias Greetings. a Division of Grandmother Handleys Closet.

I am busy today. I have to design a program for a meeting that is in the morning. I haven't done much more than read the article that I am using as the basis for this program. I also have to get the business end of this meeting organized since I am the chairperson this year. I am on crisis mode here today. Well just to ad a little interest to the day. My husband came up a couple hours ago and asked me to do some phone calling for him. To say the least I was not receptive to this request. Now before you form your opinion of my long suffering husband. He seldom asks me to do things for him, but it is hard for him to hear over the phone, that is from years as an auto mechanic and all the noises that damaged his hearing. So I make any of the business calls that need to be made. Well TODAY was the day that he needed these calls made!!!! I was less than gracious, and then my better self stepped in and I realized that it is presumptuous of me to think that my stuff is more important than his stuff. The things that need to get done will get done, and the things that don't get done will just not get done. These busy things that make us all feel important or useful is just that in the final scheme of things. Given the disaster in Haiti and indeed all the little disasters that happen every day in this world. MY stuff is piddly. Well guess I should get back to the piddly stuff. Tomorrow will run smoother if I am at least partially prepared. I have a tendency to wing it too often. I am not a big devotee of planning. It drives my more disciplined family and friends crazy but then they drive me crazy also, with their need to be so structured all the time. bye for now. gloria

I'm Back. Things Change.

My don't things change?? Here it is Jan. 13 2010. I have closed my website grandmotherhandleyscloset.com, too much money going out and too little coming in. I figured out after about a year, that I really don't like perfumes. I am allergic to many of them and some just smell funny to me. Now I am not maligning perfumes, I am just saying that I don't really like them all that much. Perhaps that is part of the reason that my little business took a nosedive. You need to do something you are passionate about and I just wasn't passionate enough about fragrances to make it work. The economy also had a big impact, but it wasn't a total loss. I feel like I got a lot of useful information from that little website, even if people weren't flocking to Grandmother Handleys Closet for it's fragrance needs. I am now working on a true passion and one that I have had since 1995. I design greeting cards and create original verses. I intend to bring back the gentle art of sending greeting cards. I am not against e-cards as such, but I love going to the mailbox and receiving something besides bills. Well need to close for now. Got a meeting. I will post tomorrow and keep on posting till someone reads them. bye for now.