When I get to the gift market, it doesn't take too many showroom stops before I start picking up on the latest trends in the colors, patterns, styles, décor, novelties, and gadgets that are arriving on the scene for the coming year. There were those years when everything I saw had a bird on it. There was the pink and gold trend. There was the owl, then the unicorn, llama, sloth, flamingo, and cactus- in that order. There have been many years of the farmhouse-themed décor with chickens, eggs, wind vanes, and rusty pots galore- that one is still out there but, hopefully, in its golden years. The crazy socks, adult coloring books, fidget spinners, and coiled hair ties have each had their time as new kid on the block. Last year, squishy toys were all the rage. This year, animal prints seem really big, and, over and over again, I saw something that grabbed this soon-to-be empty nester's attention. They were really nice adult paint by number kits.

Now, I didn't order any for the stores, but I came home and decided I'd order one for myself and see how I liked it. Some evenings, I've found myself with more time on my hands than I'm used to with my children being grown and all. I've gotten into a couple of shows on Hulu. I have a nightly appointment with the treadmill. I try to blog once a week. And I've taken up reading again as it's been a long time since I've had time to read books with much consistency. So, in the interest of finding a new pastime or two to mix up this evening lineup, I ordered myself one of those paint by number sets like I'd seen.

I chose a beautiful fall scene. You know how I feel about that most glorious season and, as involved as the picture looked, I thought maybe I could have it done by late fall. The image portraying the glorious colors of autumn and the promise of cooler weather seemed to be an inspirational goal worth working towards. Well, it came in and did not disappoint. It was printed on a large 16"x20 piece of canvas and included everything I'd need to create the masterpiece. My creative juices don't lend themselves to free-handed painting or drawing, so this preprinted art route would be the only way I would ever be able to produce anything that wouldn't look like a kid's Bible school craft.
So, a couple of weeks ago, not sure how I was going to like this whole painting thing, I sat down with my water cup, stretched out the canvas, and pulled out all the supplies. I put the image of what the finished product should look like off to the side for inspiration. The directions suggested starting with color #1 and painting all the colors in order. The shades get darker as the numbers get higher and progressing from light to dark would apparently help with blending, so I obliged.

I got out the smallest brush, opened my first paint color, #1, and looked the canvas over for all the spaces marked with the corresponding number. It was a very light color, which I presumed would ultimately only serve as the background for part of the picture. What a bore. The faint color was barely a contrast with the ivory colored canvas, but I filled them all in with the pale hue and went back to recheck the vast sea of numbered shapes for any I'd missed. There wasn't that much to fill in for that first subtle color, but I was sure to go over them twice, so to give more coverage to the numbers underneath. An added challenge with which Rembrandt and Picasso never had to contend.

I cleaned my brush and opened paint #2. It was a little darker and gave me a little more instant satisfaction given its more visible results. I'd find a cluster of 2's down near the bottom and then a few clusters to the side of that and then there was this one little 2 in the very top right corner of the picture. It was up there all by itself among a lot of darker colors that would have to come along later. As an unskilled artist, I found it improbable that the little isolated smattering of the color that I was laboring with at that moment could possibly ever tie into the work that would be done at a later time, but, being so very unaccomplished in the art, I was careful to rely on the instructions of the professionals and not chart my own course. Bob Ross, I am not, and I knew there would be nothing happy about the trees if I tried to depict them in my own way.

As the colors progressed to #3, I opened it up and didn't consider it to be very pretty. Kind of ugly, really. I'm pretty sure color #3 could only be replicated in nature within a baby's diaper. And, while some of the shapes numbered with 3 were easily filled in with their smooth edges and predictable forms, others were quite arduous to complete. They were long and meandering and full of narrow, tight spots that were hard to navigate with a brush. Some were so involved that I'd think I'd never get them behind me. But, trusting it would all come together with breathtaking results, I kept my head down and forged ahead in my work even when I had doubts and questions along the way. After all, who was I to second guess the good people down at the paint by number factory?
                

I got home from market, last week, but I didn't write because, well, it takes me longer to recover from that monumental task than it once did. I can't imagine why that would be the case. Anyway, I'd had in my mind that when I got that hurdle behind me, I was going to concentrate on getting Carson ready to go off to school, which is only 3 weeks away. You know how, sometimes, we like to put things off until after another event happens to give ourselves a little breathing room? Like- as soon as we get back from vacation or right after Christmas is over, I'm going to do such and such. That way, we have a buffer between us and dealing with the said task. It just moves it to the back burner to simmer and delays our confronting it for a while.

Well, market is over and my buffer is gone, so I've started thinking of the things we need to accomplish in the next few weeks before he leaves. We've done most of the shopping. I think I told you we did that, a while back, and it took approximately 2 hours of the most impatient indifference I'd ever witnessed to pick out his apartment things. We spent more time unloading our purchases from the car than he spent actually selecting them. I cannot stress enough how easy the whole son experience is. Words are simply incapable of describing the ease of having a son after, first, having a daughter.
  
Anyway, while he does have all the supplies he needs to move away, it occurred to me that, with Carson being a son, I probably haven't worked with him enough on his "indoor" skill set. Indoor skills include those household tasks, which are done inside a home. You know- cooking, laundry, cleaning. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I walked in the house, one day, and found it filled with the smoke emitting from his attempt at cooking. Sure, for years, Davis has taught him the outdoor skills that a father teaches a son as they've changed oil in vehicles, worked on lawnmowers, changed flush valves, and other man things. Yes, I know it's 2019, but I will always refer to some things as man things as I have no problem with them owning those completely. But, while he was outside learning to rotate tires and master the charcoal grill, I guess I kind of neglected to help him sharpen some of those indoor skills he was also going to need to know.

My mother is of the old school and did most everything for my brothers....well, for all of us, for that matter. She was and still is the quintessential homemaker. She saw running our home and nurturing her family as her job and she did it with tremendous fervor. Her work ethic, nothing short of vigorous. She, of course, taught me a lot about home stuff, but not so much the boys. I remember her saying things to me like, "Now, one day you're going to need to know how to do this" or "when I'm dead and gone, you'll wish you'd paid attention" and I learned a lot from her, while my teenage self was only halfway listening. I think she always threw death in there as an attention grabber. Even though my brothers didn't get the cooking or laundry lessons, they turned out to be pretty darn good people...of course, my sisters-in-law wouldn't have objected if Mama had worked with her sons a bit more in the indoor realm.

Along the same lines, I remember when I was about to leave home, Daddy took me outside to learn some things he'd long since taught my brothers. How to change a flat. Check the car's fluids. Gun safety. How to load and shoot a pistol for self-defense. I guess he realized, at the very last minute, what I realized, recently. All that time he'd worked with the boys on that stuff and he kind of forgot his daughter might need to know some of it, one day, too.

Now, I'm no gourmet cook, but I can throw a meal together that you'd probably enjoy somewhat and I pretty much thrive in an organized and clutter-free home environment. (Although my standards have slipped some in what I'm calling a pre-menopausal onset of ADD) Anyway, when Blair was growing up, as mother of a daughter, I carried around the weight of the responsibility that there were certain skills I'd need to teach her before she left home. I felt it was my job to see that she could cook for a family and have basic household abilities to keep a home running smoothly. She, my student, not only learned, but surpassed me, her teacher. When I saw her making her own bbq sauce that required straining the brisket drippings as the first step and when breakfast has found her homemade dough rising for the hand-rolled orange danishes, well, I realized some things must skip a generation. I'll just tell you- I have no problem getting the Sweet Baby Ray's out of the frig for your brisket and, if you stay the night, your orange roll is coming from a foil pan inside a Sister Shubert plastic bag. So, yeah, I felt good about my job with Blair long before she left home and she's since passed me and has risen to my mother's skill level and you just can't get any higher than that. 

So, not wanting to short change Carson, I enrolled him in Joni's Indoor Skills Summer Program. The course started last week and will run until we've covered everything or until he leaves home, whichever comes first. It touches on the basics like grocery shopping, laundry essentials, wrinkle eradication, cleaning tips, and cooking basics. We started things off with a trip to the grocery store to buy ingredients for the meals we planned to cook and have covered everything from spot removal to potato peeling to meat selection to the importance of wringing out our dishcloths thoroughly. We've done several loads of laundry and prepared some delicious suppers and are well on our way to receiving our indoor skills certificate.  
So, yeah, we're in the final stretch before our nest will officially be empty. I'm not really looking forward to it to be honest. The topic has come up at a couple of gatherings with girlfriends, lately, and we're all just really unsure about this stage. For the last 25 years, my life's work, has been, primarily, to raise and nurture our two children with the end goal being to usher them into adulthood with all the virtues, skills, and knowledge they'd need to be successfully independent. When you finally reach that goal, well, it's a hard thing for mamas, you know? When our babies are born, the role becomes who we are for a couple of decades until, all of a sudden, we're done with that. They grow and move out and we're left wondering what in the world we should do with our hands then. The thing that busied them for so long is behind us and we find ourselves trying to remember what we did before all this started so long ago.

I've had so many people tell me that I'm going to love it. I can't tell you how many mothers wink and tell me I'll get used to it really fast. But, I'm not quite convinced yet. I've loved raising children. I've loved everything about having kids at home.You ever had a time in life when everything felt just right? It seems like we're always wanting time to either fast forward or rewind, but, when my children were little, I just wanted it to freeze in that place forever. To never move again. It seemed that I was best suited for that moment in time. And I'm not real sure I'm ready for that time of life to go, but here we are. And life moves on. That's just the way it works.

So, while some parents have their empty nest photo shoots celebrating the milestone, I'm gonna need a minute. Maybe two.


Y'all have a good week!

It's so incredibly hot and steamy down here. Y'all know I don't function well in this type of weather. This is the season of the year when I feel like I'm on one of those survival shows- just trying to live to see another day. I certainly can't say that I've been productive even in the least. These oppressive conditions just aren't conducive to a very zealous work ethic. The only thing I can really point to as having achieved, this summer, is playing the part of the farmer's wife. 45 bags of peas, 20 bags of butter beans, and 11 gallons of blueberries have been put in the freezer. Davis and I are almost like the pilgrims except for the belt buckles and, well, the part about having a freezer.

One thing that I usually do in the slow summer months is go from room to room and cleanse my closets and drawers of unnecessary clutter. I have absolutely no patience for clutter and, each year, while my work is at its slowest, I try to purge and organize our house. I've not even done the greatest job at that, this summer. I started in the laundry room, three weeks ago, and then it just stalled out there. I lost interest in moving onto another room.

Well, last night, Carson was gone and Davis was busy working, so I decided I'd get in our master bathroom and clean out the closet, drawers, and cabinets in there. You know how things just accumulate over time? Well, I worked my way through the vanity for a while and then I moved to the bathroom closet, which houses all manner of things. Not just towels and such, but our toiletry surplus and over the counter meds and first aid type stuff. I filled up a whole garbage bag of expired stuff and dried up stuff and no longer needed stuff. Among other things, there were some hair product containers that were as good as empty, a few bottles of gummed-up nail polish, and some Benadryl that expired about the same time Bin Laden did. I got rid of all that and organized the closet to almost a Dewey Decimal System level. Walgreen's should be so organized. 

In the very back of the closet was even a box of enemas prescribed as part of a pre-op prep, a while back. I remember the store was out of singles and only had the multi-pack in stock, so I had to get the party-size box of enemas even though I only needed one. (Here is where I want to apologize to my mother for the repeated use of the word, enema, on the world wide web.) Anyway, I hadn't needed the remaining ones in the box up to this point and didn't see the need for them arising anytime soon, so, not knowing any charities that accepted enema donations, I chunked them all in the garbage bag with the rest of the refuse. The bag was getting quite full, at this point, and I called Davis to take the bag outside to our big trash can.    

This morning, I'd overslept and was running late for a nail appointment. I hurriedly got ready, ran out the door, hopped in the car, and started down the driveway. That's when I saw Ruby and her friend, Izzy, frolicking in the yard. Somehow, they'd gotten the corner of the trash bag, which was hanging out of our overflowing garbage can, and there Ruby was. Running and playing. The big FLEET box clinched between her teeth as if she was taunting me. She'd littered the grass with all of the enema bottles. The whole family pack. Looked like the aftermath of a wild night of binge....whatever. Oh, and to make us really look like a bunch of sick freaks, she'd strewn the discarded black latex gloves that came with my self tanning kit everywhere. Enemas and latex gloves are just what you'd want the family dog tossing and hurling around your front yard, while you're inside oversleeping.

So, as late as I was for my manicure appointment, I wasn't so late that I couldn't stop to gather up the proctological items and their packaging from the lawn and, while I was at it, the "guilty by association" latex gloves. I'm certain there's been some trash talking on the street today. I'm sure the neighborhood parents have instructed their children to stay away from our house by now. We'll likely have no more trick or treaters or girl scouts coming by to sell cookies. There's a home owner's association meeting tomorrow night. I'm sending Davis.   

The lesson of today's story is not one of a theological or moral basis, but more of a practical one. If one tries to dispose of items, which might be of some embarrassment to oneself, one should do so with extreme care. And if one has two or more unrelated items to dispose of, which might look even worse together than they already do independently, then, by all means, one should dispose of them in separate receptacles. If you take away nothing more from this post, today, at least, take that.
My friend, Jean, and I are leaving for Atlanta market on Thursday and will be back early next week.

We'll talk then!

JONI          

Sometimes, I have to work through grief here on Motherhood and Muffin Tops. Something about writing helps me feel my way through loss and kind of sort it out in my mind. The process of shuffling and organizing my feelings so to express them in words has always worked to soothe my heart's hurts and I need that today.

She was 94 when she died on Sunday. For years, she begged me to call her Jean, but I'd explain that I just couldn't refer to someone, who was old enough to be my grandmother, by her first name. Just the thought of it made me squirm as it went against the deep grain of my southern upbringing. She deserved more respect from a whipper snapper like me. So, for the many years that we were friends, I called her Mrs. Wright. A formal greeting for someone considered a friend, but she understood my deep-seated dilemma. Born when Calvin Coolidge was president and just a few years before the Great Depression, she'd lived through so many things that I've only read about in history books.

She would've been 68 when we came on the scene of her life. Davis and I bought our first house in 1991 just before we married. We had some of the sweetest neighbors there, who doted on us as a young couple. But, little did the 24 year old me know that I was moving next door to one person, in particular, who would continue to be in my life, three moves and 27 years later. An unlikely pair, given the age difference, but crossing all sorts of generational lines to join her in friendship showed me some beautiful things that are becoming scarce in our time. It would serve all of us, younger generations, well to befriend someone, who forces us to slow our steps to keep pace with them. The world looks so different at that speed.

I will never forget the smell of her house. Her door was always open for a surprise visit. If you were in the area or had a little time to kill, there was always Blue Bell ice cream in the freezer, sugar cones in the cabinet, and cold Coca-Cola waiting in her frig. Chocolate, her addiction of choice, was a sure thing in her crystal candy dish. "Come in this house" was the standard greeting as she held the storm door open, ready to dispense a hug. Jeopardy was on TV and if we were going on an outing, we couldn't leave until it was over and the mail had come. I've spent a lot of time on her bar stools just visiting. Mrs.Wright was part of a generation, who knew the value of a good visit. The art of forgetting the time and leaving behind the rush to just sit face to face and enjoy someone you love. Somehow, we allow that beautiful practice to be largely choked out with messages on screens and distended schedules.
She didn't need to have any grand or elaborate plans to enjoy time together with friends. She was always up for lunch or a trip to an antique store or discount store or even to Sam's to just peruse the fruit section. She didn't require great planning or anything that cost too much money. "I just enjoy being with you," she'd always say. Her generation grew up without all of the bells and whistles and options we're accustomed to today. She knew that it didn't matter where she went as much as who was next to her.

One of the best times we ever had together was at the Mississippi Highway Patrol office trying to get her driver's license renewed. Those may have been among the most enjoyable 3 1/2 hours I've ever spent. I believe I even blogged about our shenanigans, that day. We all tend to get bogged down in the details and plans in trying to achieve the perfect experiences. We build our itineraries and raise our expectations and summarize it all in well-crafted social media documentations. Sometimes, we forget we might best enjoy the people beside us, while doing something completely ordinary or mundane.....something that doesn't take the attention off of those we love.
She always greeted her friends with "Hey there, good buddy" and every conversation ended with "Bless you and thank you". She was humble and gracious. Always wanted to return a kindness with a kindness. Even if your kindness was in response to her kindness, she just couldn't help but keep the kindness cycle going. It was just who she was. She was a beautiful and giving soul. Never forgetting a birthday or special occasion even as recently as Carson's birthday, ten days ago. Despite my protests, she pulled her little purse out from under the covers of her hospital bed and thumbed through her wallet to find a little something to put inside the card, which she'd had me buy since she was hospitalized. In her shaky handwriting, she wrote a personal note to him and licked it shut. He will treasure it forever. A note written to him by a dear lady, who likely knew she'd not be around to wish him another Happy Birthday. Nineteen was as far as she could go with him. She learned that Carson loved Rolos, a couple of years ago, and we currently have 4 big bags of them in our freezer. After discovering his fondness, he couldn't eat them as fast as she could give them.
When Blair and John Samuel married, Blair had already accumulated a large collection of Christmas tree ornaments that Mrs.Wright had given her each Christmas ever since she was a little girl. Around September of each year, she'd start mentioning the task ahead of picking out the perfect ornament for Blair. She put much consideration into her kind gestures and invested her time in customizing her thoughtfulness to each recipient. And with as many friends as she had, her thoughtfulness and kindness were never diluted. Everyone received the full strength and measure of her love. Deliberate and tailored acts of thoughtfulness. They might not be as flashy or jaw dropping and might come with a less impressive price tag, but they cost much more of our time and require a far greater effort....those things that we, younger people, find the very hardest to give.
Even as an older lady, she was never afraid to try something new. She had the latest iPhone and, while she, sometimes, required a little technical support from her friends, she wasn't intimidated by the latest technology in the least. She'd text with one finger and show me the pictures she'd taken. She'd swipe and scroll and made her best attempts at adapting to the times, which were a far cry from Calvin Coolidge's day. She had a computer, an email address, and even a Facebook account for a little while. She'd even adapted to her car that had no key and all of its modern features. It doesn't take long for any of us to start feeling like we're falling behind in staying current on the newest conveniences. Mrs. Wright refused to be left behind without a fight. She wasn't one to fade into the landscape.
I don't know many people her age, who still have as many friends as she did. Not only her contemporaries, who are a most impressive group of ladies, but she had friends of all ages. I told someone today that we were just blessed to be part of her flock. There was just something special about her that endeared her to everyone, who crossed her path. Waitresses, neighbors, nurses, salespeople. I would quietly observe the immediate draw she had on them. There was usually an instant spark of affection upon meeting her. Some people are just that way, you know? It was a gift she possessed and it brought along with it a cornucopia of dear friends.

We lost something beautiful on Sunday. An old friend. In every sense of the word, really. It was quite sad to wake up to a world without Jean Wright in it, today. My children don't remember life without her being a part of it. They were both brought home from the hospital to a little house, which sat next to hers. And we are all the better for it.

Mrs.Wright, "Bless you and thank you, good buddy." You were so very loved. We will remember you always.