An Easter Bunny

I want a bunny.

A lot.

I found this one breed that's really cute; it's called a Netherland Dwarf. They're small compared to most domesticated rabbits and have short, little ears.

I can't help it, you just have to see them!



Awwwwwwww...

How fun would it be to cuddle one of these while reading a book, drinking iced tea, eating mangoes, and swinging in a hammock on a beautiful sunny day, with the breeze in your hair? Hmmm, maybe a little far-fetched. But seriously, you could stop at "how fun would it be to cuddle one of these?"

Maybe I caught the Easter bunny fever, but I even looked up how to take care of them, what they eat, and what kind of cages they need. And I found a Netherland Dwarf breeder who lives nearby.

I want a bunny.

Well, now that that little fact is sufficiently noted... Happy Easter!

"Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live." ~ John 14:19

"Behind the Scenes"

I recently did a new poster of 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. It took me a while, so I was able to (well, more like remembered to) take some pictures. Thus, you get to see my pictures.

So, it’s a sort of “behind the scenes.”

A “sneak peek.”

A “how-to.”

You get it.

I had a ton of fun doing this one and I hope you enjoyed seeing how I did it! I think it probably took me about twelve hours.

Working on another one right now. Lukily for you, I'm kinda forgetting to take any pictures...

Not-So Piano Lessons

I have been taking piano lessons for eight years. I started when I was eight.

I should be really good at piano by now. But we don't need to talk about that.

I have to say, the best thing about my piano lessons is my teacher. And when I think about her, I don't usually think about piano. But wait a second, I really have to start at the beginning. When I was eight.

When I was eight I was really shy. Painfully. I really don't know why I wanted to take piano lessons. I suppose it was just the fact that I've really always been the person who aspired to do everything. And piano looked fun. So my mom found a local teacher; Miss Shirley. I've always called her Miss Shirley. She wanted me to. Everyone I know calls her Miss Shirley.

I remember the first lesson. Miss Shirley lives in a little house just big enough for her piano and her plants. I don't have any experience with other methods of musical teaching, but I know for sure hers is off the beaten path. Being the introvert that I was, she scared me a little. Everyone scared me a little. But truthfully speaking, I'm not so sure that my reaction would have been different had I met her five or ten years later. She's the sort of person that takes everyone off guard. Still happens to me every once in a while!

Let me explain. She's seventy-six. A young seventy-six. About five feet tall with an abundance of white curls. She walks with a bounce and speaks with a chirp. A loud chirp. She knits with a fury. She says what she thinks. If you have the pleasure of hearing her opinion, you wouldn't think of trying to change it. If she starts to tell you her opinion, be prepared to stay a while. If she asks your opinion, you'd better give it.

She has her own language. Mistakes are "mistrakes." She pronounces Bach and Beethoven like they're spelled, just to throw you off. My brother is "Lukie-duke." Even musical terms have their own names, like "dead spider." (D.S. al Coda)

If you're in a hurry, avoid the following subjects:

• Charlotte Bronte. According to Miss Shirley, she was "wicked." I will just take her word on it since she has read the 1,200 page biography of the Bronte family.
• Camouflage. She hates it. Still a little fuzzy on why she hates it.
• Fingering. As in, where you put your fingers on the piano. She claims the people who write them on music have six fingers. So she changes it all. Here comes the white out!
• Orange. A little less repulsive is olive green. ("kind of like that shirt you're wearing" she says)
• Paco Vacunas. More specifically, their hair. Well, actually, anything related to fiber arts.
• The personal lives of composers. You might forget the lesson entirely while perusing the Oxford dictionary of music looking at pictures. (Her Oxford dictionary is a full inch thicker than her old teacher's music dictionary, and don't forget it!)
• Tucking in the tails of her knitting. She will perform various feats of knitting ingenuity to avoid tucking tails.
• Politics. Enough said.

I had a lesson today. Starting out on the topic of migraine headaches and hereditary "diseases," the conversation soon turned to the consequences of drinking an alcoholic beverage just because it has a pretty flower floating in the top. Then we talked about Israel, the definition of piu (Italian for "more") geraniums and Prince William. You know, the norm. Really quite impressive, considering how far we usually get off track. And I think I might be getting somewhere in the Mendelssohn!

Her typical goodbye? "Well, I guess I should stop yelling at you now." I love her.

Alright, I'll stop talking so you can go ahead and look up what in the world a Paco Vacuna is.

Number One, Number Two...

I have a tendency to make lists. Long lists.

I make lists for everything. Usually it's "to do today" or "things I want to buy" or "blogs I want to write." But that doesn't mean I can't break out of the shell sometimes and make some crazy lists. But here is a list of the lists I will never make:

• Books I have read. That would take me a couple centuries.
• Places I want to go. Because all I'd have to do is copy the index from the world atlas.
• Favorite food. For one, I could never decide even on multiple favorites.

I almost put "bucket list" on there; because if you want to do something before you die, and you haven't died yet, you should do it right away. But I can't be quite sure that I'll never make a bucket list. You never know when the mood will hit me.

Here's the list of books I want to read. Condensed.

• Jane Austen's Letters- Deirdre Le Faye
• 101 Things You Didn't Know About Jane Austen- Patrice Hannon
• Villette- Charlotte Bronte
• Moby Dick- Herman Melville
• War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy (I think it would just be cool to say that I have read it)
• Cranford- Elizabeth Gaskell
• North and South- Elizabeth Gaskell
• More of Lynn Austen's works
• More of George MacDonald's works
• All of Charles Dickens' works that I haven't read
• All of C.S. Lewis' works that I haven't read

Again, I nearly added "and most of the books I see in the library"... but then it wouldn't have been quite as condensed.

Here is the list of plants I want. Prepare yourself.

• A Clematis jackmanii
• Bleeding Heart
• Lily of the Valley
• A pink Agastache
• Delphinium- tall purple ones
• Peonies- lots of them
• Climbing Roses
• Double Poppies
• Regular Poppies
• Cyclamen
• Orchids- lots more
• Asparagus
• Rhubarb
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Raspberries (a variety that doesn't freeze before they ripen)
• Any vegetable or herb, really

That, too, was a condensed list. Trust me.

And just for fun, here's a list of what I learned from my brothers and their friend yesterday.

• Squirrels make good gifts
• Ninjas have anger issues when it comes to fruit
• The Grand Canyon was made by the Pilgrims (didn't know that, did you?)
• Make sure you have food if there are boys in the vicinity. Lots.

Well, that's all for now. I should probably start doing some of things I have on my many lists...

Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Connecticut

I like nutmeg. You probably got that already.

I thought it would be nice let you know a little more about nutmeg. So I went to Wikipedia to learn about nutmeg. Really fascinating. Here's what I found out.

The nutmeg tree is any of serveral species in genus Myristica. It is an evergreen tree indigenous to the Spice Islands in Indonesia, although it grows in many places. In fact, Grenada's national flag features a stylized split-open nutmeg.

Ok.

Two spices are derived from the tree- Nutmeg and Mace. Nutmeg is the seed and Mace is a red, "lacy" seed covering called an aril. (As in the aril of a pomegranite. Did you know that? Pomegranite isn't a fruit, it's a false-fruit. An aril. Anyway.) Nutmeg is the only tropical fruit that is the source of two spices and its true fruit is also edible. The fruit looks like an apricot, and a popular way to eat it is candied. But it's easily bruised, which is why it's not exported.

Hmmm.

At one time Nutmeg was one of the most valuble spices. Evidently in England, if you could sell a few nutmegs, you would be financially independent the rest of your life. The British, Dutch, Arabs, French and Portugese all battled for a claim on the nutmeg monopoly. Today, Indonesia is the main producer and exporter with 70% of the market. I think I'd like to go to Indonesia, if ONLY to eat nutmeg fruit off the tree!

That'd be awesome.

However, I learned that you really don't want to eat very much of the ground nutmeg seed. Really. I mean, it would take a lot, but just don't. Don't smoke it either. Unless you want to experiance halucinations and all-over body pain. Get this; nutmeg is illegal in Saudi Arabia. Don't freak out though, even generous culinary servings are fine.

Yikes.

Also, (since I'm certain you were dying to know) Connecticut is only called the Nutmeg State because- as legend goes- certain people there carved fake nutmegs out of wood and sold them as real ones. Which seems like a lot of work for one nutmeg. But I guess (as previously stated) that they were worth a lot more then.

So, that concludes our lesson today. That was a mouthful. I hope you enjoyed learning about nutmeg. I leave with these thoughts:

#1. I wish that the nutmeg fruit was exportable.
#2. I wish I could say that I've tried mace, but I haven't. Not even in spray form. :)
#3. I wish that I didn't have to worry about nutmeg over-consumption.
But (#4) I will never willfully down three ground-up nutmegs in wine. Unlike certain, rather stupid Czech physiologists.

And #5. Nutmeg is pretty awsome.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

So what’s Blue Nutmeg? I mean, isn’t nutmeg… you know… brown? So why blue? For that matter, why nutmeg?

I will tell you.

At the beginning of 2011 my mom asked my brothers and me to find a Bible verse that would be “ours” for 2011. Kind of like a pet rock. It isn’t really yours but if you play with it long enough it feels like yours. The similarity ends when I realize that a rock (in my limited knowledge) has never been a great source of comfort or wisdom. So forget that. It isn’t like a pet rock. I guess the common term “memory verse” would fit better. Who has a pet rock anyway?

But the verse; I chose Psalms 86:11. It’s not a well-known verse, and it didn’t even stick out to me the first time I read it. It took a while. And I’m the sort of person who takes forever to decide. So after I had read my runners-up three… or seventeen times… I made my choice.

Then came the hard part. The whole point of a memory verse is to, well… memorize it. I’m not so good at that stuff. So I used some creativity. I’m pretty good at the creativity. In fact, I prefer creativity to school, dental work and hard labor. Ever since I was pretty little I’ve made this and that. Drawing, painting, cutting. Clothes for my stuffed animals out of Kleenexes. Small houses (for the fairies, of course) out of sticks and rocks. Anything, really. I carved my carrots instead of eating them.

So it seemed a matter of course that I should paint my Bible verse. And I did. And I had a great time! I found the perfect kinds of fonts and sketched it out, and mixed the perfect colors. My favorite colors. I had so much fun that I decided to do it again! And as the ideas for new and different painted verses sprang into my head I got more excited.

True, I have thought of starting a business before. Selling other things I’ve made, or things other people have made. That always seemed like a vague, rather daunting dream. One of those things that you say “Oh, I suppose I may do that someday.” Or “It’s possible, I guess.” But never did it seem like a near, or even feasible, reality. Extravagant reality, yes. Hard? Most definitely yes. But even for me, painfully slow and indecisive, it was a no-brainer.

Sell my Bible verse paintings? Yes!

The decision was made approximately forty-eight hours after the paint started flowing. It was that easy. Alright then, what will the business be called? Aw, rats. Another decision? This would require much more thought than a simple “yes” or “no.” This required an actual thought process. This required some effort. Maybe even a little creativity.

But as it turned out, I only needed creativity. Maybe I used a thought process, in a twisted sort of way. But I know that I didn’t exert any effort. This was how it went. I was looking out on the moonlit river as we drove the curvy road home. Very nice scene, the moon and the steep, tree-covered slope to the ice encrusted river. But that has nothing to do with the business name. But I had a song stuck in my head, On the Blue by Joel Auge. Good song. I can’t really say that has anything to do with the name either. All it did was lead me to think about how much I like the color blue. Favorite, in fact. A light, greenish blue. Seafoam. Has anyone noticed how that color has recently become popular? I’m a trend-setter, what can I say?

This is where I lose all sight of a thought process. Really. Don’t know why or how I started thinking about nutmeg. The only comparison that I can find is that it’s another favorite. Yes, nutmeg is definitely a favorite. In coffee, hot chocolate, applesauce, hot cereal… the shavings by themselves. You either like nutmeg or you’re wrong.

All that was left was to put them together, which I did very quickly. Voila.

So, here comes another job, another distraction, another thing for my to-do list. But another beginning, another challenge, another pleasure too.

So, here comes Blue Nutmeg.