Thursday, September 24, 2009

20 Ways to Make Today Special

from: Magical Childhood

20 Ways to Make Today Special

How many individual days do you remember from your childhood? How many were magical? Here's some things to try that your children will carry with them. And hopefully make you smile a little too...

  1. Leave a secret "I love you" message hidden in a lunch box, painted on their pancakes or tucked into their shoes. Better yet, leave a dozen.
  2. Fake a doctor's appointment. If you have kids in school, let them (and the school) think they have to get out of school for an appointment. Pick them up and take them to a picnic in the park instead (or whatever you'd both enjoy).
  3. Have a tacky fashion show. Get together the loudest clothes you can find and give out awards for the worst entries. Eat supper in costume.
  4. Write a letter telling your beloved(s) how much you love them, and why. Be specific.
  5. Square dance. In the living room. Grown ups too. Make it up if you don't know how.
  6. Tell your kids their birth stories. Add the little details and tell them if you cried or daddy wouldn't let them go.
  7. Serve meals out of order. Have lunch for breakfast, desert for lunch, etc.
  8. Eat it with the wrong utensils and be artistic with it. Pipe tartar sauce haikus across the fish sticks and then scramble them to make new poems. You get the idea.
  9. Crawl under the table with your little one. Do at least three different normal activities under there (reading books, brushing teeth, snack time...)
  10. Get together a pile of your children's artwork and take the kids to a senior citizen center. Pass out the art and spend time with the residents. Let your kids know how happy they made people.
  11. Give your child a disposable camera and tell her to record all her favorite parts of her life with the photos.
  12. Go for a long walk and just talk.
  13. Play truth or dare.
  14. Have a campout in the living room. Roast marshmallows over candles and tell ghost stories by flashlight.
  15. If you have access to a camcorder, record at least an hour of silliness. Add some sentiment too, having everybody tell things they're thankful for, what they've loved about this year, and things they love about each other. Close with more silliness.
  16. Help them decorate their rooms with glow-in-the-dark stars, bugs or images. Better yet, get GITD paint and they can paint their own.
  17. Go on a road trip for the day, anywhere you've never been.
  18. Write a silly poem or story just for him. Make him the hero and fill it with stuff he loves.
  19. After dark, go look at the stars together.

20. Spend the whole day saying "mommy (or daddy) loves you." Say it so much you're annoying and strange! At the end of the night, tiptoe in and whisper it to them as they sleep. Fill them up with how loved they are, and tiptoe out.




Thursday, September 10, 2009

Ruby Louise Nelson Honea (b. July 20, 1934-d. September 9, 2009)



Mrs. Ruby Louise Nelson Honea, known as "Lou or Louise" to some and to others as 'Ruby Lou' was born at home on Old Hinkleville Rd. in Lamont, Ky (West Paducah) on 07-20-34, and died at home at 9710 Old Hinkleville Rd on 09-09-09. She was 75 years old.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Mr. Jesse Fields Nelson, Jr. and Mrs. Margaret Belle (Hester) Nelson of Lamont, and by her husband, Mr. Boyd Honea of Ruby, Alaska. She is survived by her Aunts and Uncles, Mr. and Mrs. Haven Kelley of Phoenix, Arizona, and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Nelson of Valdosta, Georgia; her sister, Judy Kinsey, her son, Michael Stowe, her daughter, Joy Holmes, four grand children: Jessica Leatherman, John Knight, Aaron Knight, and Paula Vines, three great grandchildren, Ian Leatherman, Tanner Leatherman, and Paige Knight, several loved nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Ruby Louise's education began in a one room school house. She was a member of the Heath High School class of 1952. Ruby Lou's great life work was dedicated to service in the field of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. After gaining her sobriety through working the twelve step program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) she received education to become a substance abuse counselor in Seattle, WA and Anchorage, AK. For the majority of her career, she was a counselor in Fairbanks, Alaska, working primarily with Native Americans. After moving back home, she received her associate's degree from Paducah Community College in 1991 and taught DUI education in Paducah, KY. This year in November, Ruby Louise would have celebrated her AA Birthday with 39 years of sobriety.

In her own words, God gave her a gift: "the ability to speak from the heart to Alcoholics'. Her message to alcoholics and addicts was, "God Loves you, I love you, now love yourself, Don't drink and Go to meetings, What you receive, give away, I'll walk with you until you can walk by yourself." She was able to share her story with many and aid in their recovery. She always ended her story with the verse that she received on her very first Valentine. It said just what she felt about the members in AA and alcoholics and addicts everywhere:

If Love could be tied into little bouquets
Then you would have corsages the rest of your days
and you couldn't tell the corsages apart
Because they all would be tied to the strings of my heart
A memorial service will be held at 3:00 pm at McKendree United Methodist Church. Brother Bill Miller and Howard Pulley will be officiating. Visitation will be prior to the memorial service at 2:00 pm and after the service in the fellowship hall. To honor the life of Ruby Louise Nelson Honea, donations may be made to McKendree Church in her name or condolences may be sent to 9710 Old Hinkleville Rd., Kevil, KY 42053.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

In the End, We are all light, (alright-allight)

At The End of this Journey in Life: A Spanish Spiritual Lesson


music therapy for the day:


Al Final De Este Viaje en El Mundo this morning in meditation. I first came to know this song from a fellow Costa Rican camper at Playa Grande many many young moons ago....

This is a type of Spiritual Spanish Lesson.

Here goes my attempt to translate this...I hope my Spanish Speaking friends will chime in on of the subtleties and facets of translating Silvio Rodriguez's poetry.

Al Final de Este Viaje en el Mundo

Al final de este viaje en la vida quedarán
nuestros cuerpos hinchados de ir

a la muerte, al odio, al borde del mar.
Al final de este viaje en la vida quedará
nuestro rastro invitando a vivir.
Por lo menos por eso es que estoy aquí.
Somos prehistoria que tendrá el futuro,
somos los anales remotos del hombre.
Estos años son el pasado del cielo;
estos años son cierta agilidad
con que el sol te dibuja en el porvenir,
son la verdad o el fin, son Dios.

Quedamos los que puedan sonreír
en medio de la muerte, en plena luz.

Al final de este viaje en la vida quedará
una cura de tiempo y amor,
una gasa que envuelva un viejo dolor.
Al final de este viaje en la vida quedarán
nuestros cuerpos tendidos al sol
como sábanas blancas después del amor.

Al final del viaje está el horizonte,
al final del viaje partiremos de nuevo,
al final del viaje comienza un camino,
otro buen camino que seguir
descalzos contando la arena.
Al final del viaje estamos tú y yo intactos.
Quedamos los que puedan sonreír

en medio de la muerte, en plena luz.

At the end of this life journey our bodies will remain bursting to go

to the death, to the hate, on the brink of madness the sea.

At the end of this life journey, there will be our sign inviting us to live.

At least that's why I am here.

We are prehistory that will have the future,

we are the remote annals of the man.

These years are heaven's past.

These years are certain agility with which the sun draws the future,

They are the truth or the end, They are God.

We are those that can smile in the middle of death, in the heat of light.

At the end of this trip in the life there will be

one cure of time and love,

a gauze that surrounds an old pain.

At the end of this trip in the life

our bodies will be tended by the sun

like white sheets after love making.

At the end of the trip iis the horizon,

at the end of the trip we will start off again,

at the end of the trip a way begins,

another good path to follow barefoot counting the sand.

At the end of the journey, we are, you and I intact

We remain those that can smile in the middle of the death, in the bright light.

To hear the song on youtube, click here.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Home for Hospice




In the life swell of the past months...I am posting events out of order. In an effort to get caught up...Grandma actually came home to hospice June 31..Her 75th birthday was July 21...So we have had lots of reason to celebrate her and love her. These photos were from her welcome home party.

Dancing for my Grandmother


me loving gma, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.
Life is better than one could possibly ever imagine. This moment encapsulates everything that is sacred in life for me...It was with this dance performance that I truly realized how spiritual dance celebrates so many rites of passage in our lives. I am so honored and blessed with my Grandmother's life and I think she was honored and blessed as well. Happy Birthday Ruby Lou!

Grandma's 75th Birthday Celebration


75candles, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.

magic margie


magicmargie, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.

Margie giving Grandma wings to fly...

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

"Notice" by Steve Kowit


"Notice" by Steve Kowit, originally uploaded by .Flickrr.

Note to self. This is Brilliant, Thanks to Steve Kowit

Gulls on the River


(c)jjleatherman
I submitted 4 photos to the 34th annual Paducah Summer Festival Photo Contest. I've received good feedback from a few of them, so we shall see. I hope the juror sees something in the four different styles that i presented. I am wondering what that says about me (the 4 different styles)...if not searching for the particular aesthetic every time, but letting the aesthetic find me.

Lots is going on in my life right now. Dealing with my grandmother's dying process has been a gruelling one. I hope to trascend the mundane stuff of my self and focus on her in this time in her life. She wants me present with her more than I am willing to give while trying to parent my two little boys, being good mother, and wife. It is tough. Watching her die, I realize that I do not want to deny the inevitable and obvious realities of and in my own life. I do not want to trudge to death, I want to fly to death.

Love Nut

(c)jjleatherman

2 silos in So. IL




(c) jjleatherman Photo Submitted yesterday to Paducah Photo Competition...


Saturday, May 16, 2009

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

If I were a flower, I would be a Peony...


DSC_0047, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.


DSC_0051, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.

Peony


DSC_0053, originally uploaded by jjleatherman.

If I were a flower, I would be a peony. This is an heirloom from a bush that my great grandmother planted many many moons ago. I have vivid childhood memories of watching the ants crawl, and the sweet , heady smells of the blossoms.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I Taught Myself to Live Simply by Anna Akhmatova

inspiration indeed!

my grandmother's hands


this is my grandmother's and my first official collaborative art project. we came up with the idea and then created the image for her to give as Christmas presents for her closest family members. Underneath the photo she asked me to write the quote, "Peace: it's a wonderful feeling, it requires trust."

Friday, March 27, 2009

"The Door Is Round" by Rumi

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=87085921288&h=mWblw&u=KTm2q&ref=mf

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Great, Amazing List of Women Greats, and Hearts to God

Editorial note: This node was originally created by Colorless Green Idea. by (idea) by alex at http://www.Everything2.com took over its ownership after maintaining it for three years in CGI's absence.

Can you name twenty non-fictional women, born before 1900, who are famous for their own accomplishments?
Seriously, try it before you peek.

Here's a starter list of great women, to get us thinking --
Disclaimers:
(1) Many people on this list should be in multiple categories and I've put them in just one. (Within each category, listings are roughly chronological.)
(2) The list isn't intended solely as an answer to the question presented above; it's supposed to be a metanode of noteworthy historical women; I've included some people born since 1900, if they did something especially noteworthy. The 1900 stricture is mostly to prevent the list getting uncontrollably large, and "famous for" can also be read as "unjustifiably ignored despite".
(3) And of course, the list is by no means comprehensive; in particular, it's very heavily slanted toward American and European women, since that's the shape of my ignorance.

Please add more below, or /msg me with additions. Also, if you're looking for factual stuff to node, look for women on this list who aren't yet written up.

Rulers/Politicians
(If you know that one of these ancient women is mythological, let me know)
Pharoah Hatshepsut

Queen Tiye -- Egypt
Cleopatra
Artemisia
Candace of Ethiopia
Semiramis of Babylon
Makeda, Queen of Sheba
Empress Theodora
Empress Wu Zetian of China
Blanche of Castile
Raziya Iltutmish
Sorghaghtani Beki, Mongolian
Catherine de Medici
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Isabella I of Castille
Queen Amina of Hausa
Mary, Queen of Scots
Queen Elizabeth I of England
Queen Victoria of Britain
Catherine the Great of Russia
Nur Jahan of Kashmir
Tz'u-hsi, the Empress Dowager of China
Liliuokalani of Hawaii
Jeannette Rankin
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Golda Meir
Indira Gandhi
Shirley Chisholm
Ella Grasso
Benazir Bhutto
Corazon Aquino
Margaret Thatcher
Wilma Mankiller

Judges/Lawyers
Belva Lockwood
Sandra Day O'Connor
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Edith Spurlock Sampson

Authors/Poets/Playwrights
Sappho
Corinna
Ban Zhao
Li Qingzhao
Murasaki Shikibu
Sei Shonagon
Christine de Pisan
Anna Comnena
Margery Kempe
Aphra Behn
Lady Mary Wroth
Anne Kingsmill Finch
Juana Inés de la Cruz
Emily Dickinson
Anne Bradstreet
Phillis Wheatley
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Christina Rossetti

Elizabeth Inchbald
Jane Austen

Charlotte Bronte
Emily Bronte
George Eliot
Georges Sand
Mary Shelley
Sarah Josepha Hale
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Sarah Orne Jewett
Fanny Burney
Mourning Dove
Eudora Welty
Edith Wharton
Kate Chopin
Yosano Akiko
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Dorothy Parker
Selma Lagerlöf
Virginia Woolf
Lillian Hellman
Katherine Anne Porter
Emily Post
Fanny Farmer
Beatrix Potter
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Louisa May Alcott
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Emma Lazarus
H.D.
Isak Dinesen
Anna Sewell
Zora Neale Hurston
Gertrude Stein
Marina Tsvetayeva
Anna Akhmatova
Elizabeth Bishop
Marianne Moore
Gwendolyn Brooks
Daphne du Maurier
Margaret Mitchell
Pearl S. Buck
Willa Cather
Flannery O'Connor
Madeleine L'Engle

Artists/Architects
Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith Leyster
Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun

Camille Claudel
Berthe Morisot
Mary Cassatt
Kathe Kollwitz
Grandma Moses
Georgia O'Keeffe
Frida Kahlo
Kate Greenaway

Journalists/Photographers
Ida Tarbell
Ida B. Wells

Nellie Bly
Margaret Fuller
Julia Margaret Cameron
Imogen Cunningham
Berenice Abbott
Margaret Bourke-White
Katharine Graham
M. Therese Bonney
Dorothea Lange

Feminists/Suffrage Leaders
Mary Wollstonecraft
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucretia Mott
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Susan B. Anthony
Emmeline Pankhurst
Carrie Chapman Catt
Matilda Joslyn Gage
Amelia Bloomer
Alice Paul
Lucy Stone
Fanny Wright
Qiu Jin

Betty Friedan

Reformers/Educators/Enlightened Patrons
Elizabeth Fry
Lady Godiva
Isabella d'Este
Abigail Adams
Dorothea Dix
Mary Church Terrell
Mary Lyon
Emma Willard
Sarah Grimke and Angelina Grimke
Julia Ward Howe
Harriet Tubman
Sojourner Truth
Florence Nightingale
Mary McLeod Bethune
Sarah Josepha Hale
Jane Addams
Margaret Sanger
Marie Stopes
Victoria Woodhull
Mary Harris Jones aka Mother Jones
Carry Nation
Helen Hunt Jackson
Mary Shadd Cary
Maria Montessori
Helen Keller
Eleanor Roosevelt
Frances Perkins
Rachel Carson
Rosa Parks
Crystal Eastman
Marian Wright Edelman
Fannie Lou Hamer

Scientists/ Mathematicians/ Inventors/ Health Care Workers
Hypatia of Alexandria
Shi Dun and Si Ling Chi: mythological?
Trotula of Salerno
Heloise (see also Abelard and Heloise)
Hildegard von Bingen
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia
Laura Bassi (1711-1778)
Sophie Germain (1776-1831)
Ada Lovelace, aka Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace
Clara Barton
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Blackwell
Maria Mitchell
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya
Annie Jump Cannon
Marie Curie
Émilie du Châtelet
Maria Agnesi
Evelyn Boyd Granville
Grace Murray Hopper

Margaret Mead
Maria Goeppert Mayer
Florence Sabin
Virginia Apgar
Lise Meitner
Mary Leakey
Jane Goodall
Dian Fossey
Hedy Lamarr (seriously!)
Barbara McClintock
Rosalind Franklin
Emmy Noether
Chien-Shiung Wu

Religious Leaders/ Mystics

St. Teresa of Avila
Saint Catherine of Siena-- for more female saints, see list of saints
Julian of Norwich
Mother Shipton
Mother Seton aka Elizabeth Ann Seton
Mary Baker Eddy
Anne Hutchinson
Madame Blavatsky
Dion Fortune
Mother Teresa

Philosophers
Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia
Queen Christina of Sweden
G.E.M. Anscombe

Phillippa Foot
Luce Irigaray
Simone de Beauvoir
Emma Goldman
Hannah Arendt
Simone Weil
Ayn Rand

Warriors / Pirates
Hua Mulan -- schist informs me that Mulan is mythological
The Trung Sisters -- Vietnam
Laskarina Boubouline
Grace O'Malley
Joan of Arc
Lady Agnes Randolph
Mbande Zinga or Nzhinga-- Angola
Yaa Asantewaa -- Ghana/Ashanti
Boadicea

Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier
Nehanda --Zimbabwe
Nandi -- Zulu
Flora Sandes
Lily Litvak
real, non-mythical Amazons?:Myrene, Lysippe, Penthesilea -- see www.gendergap.com's section on women military leaders, according to them there are many more

Explorers/Adventurers/Pilots/Astronauts
Valentina Tereshkova
Svetlana Savitskaya
Ann Bancroft
Sacagawea, also spelled Sacajawea
Jaqueline Cochran
Bessie Coleman
Amelia Earhart
Eileen Collins
Sally Ride
Gina Yeager
Tori Murden

Athletes/ Dancers
Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias
Anna Pavlova
Martha Graham
Isadora Duncan
Josephine Baker
Wilma Rudolph
Libby Riddles
Dawn Riley
Annie Oakley

Musicians/ Composers/ Actors/ Directors
Beverly Sills
Kate Smith
Marian Anderson
Bessie Smith
Etta James
Sarah Bernhardt
Helen Hayes
Billie Holiday
Ella Fitzgerald
Sarah Vaughn
Dinah Washington
Julie Dash

Hearts to God

by Jessica Leatherman


Submitted to This I Believe essay contest~2/3/09--first essay I've written in a long time. in typical fashion, although I've been working on this essay for a month (journaling and mulling it over) I didn't read the guidelines, and doubt that I will be selected because it's really not personal enough for what they want. But, it shows that process is as important as product because finally I understand why I get so mad when parents don't encourage their daughters to have a higher education whether based on religious or societal factors...

This I Believe: That the Shaker sister, Mother Ann Lee got it right when she said, "Put your hands to work and your hearts to God"; that women should be able to choose, to vote, to pursue an education, career or decide to be a wife and homemaker if that is her true ambition, that our foremothers and forefathers fought hard for women's rights and that when a young woman's religion, community or society denies or discourages her to choose a path such as minister, scientist, or politician it is a travesty. With so many choices, I believe in the right to choose according to and within my own spiritual beliefs whatever they may be: Baptist, Buddhist, Amish, Shaker, or Muslim without fear of condemnation or judgment. I believe that when families or religious institutions discourage young women from pursuing their callings and dreams based on gender, we are taking steps backwards as a society.

Some religions and families prohibit females or cultivate societal norms that discourage females from pursuing what many US citizens hold as 'certain unalienable rights': life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At the time that Thomas Jefferson said these words (July 4, 1776), women were still considered as secondary citizens in the tiers of our society. During the Shaker Mother Ann Lee's lifetime (1736-1784), there were and still are many religions that do not allow women to minister in their church according to their religious laws and beliefs. Since the time of Jefferson, our society has given women the right to vote, to hold political office, and our societies have allowed women to wear pants or whatever attire (or not) we wish. Since the time of Sister Lee, most of the same religions still do not allow women to minister or hold high rank in their echelons, and require dress codes such as skirts, veils, and hair coverings. While US society is opening up to allow women their unalienable rights, religions are not. Fortunate for me and other women who value higher education, and political activism, separation of church and state is working.


It is interesting to note that while society has changed much, many religions have not. There is the possibility that having just elected our first black male president, we could elect our first female president (of whatever race) in the not-too-distant future, and that during this time there would be citizens under her guidance who do not believe that women should hold positions of authority over men. A few of the religions in the USA whose sacred laws forbid this are fundamentalist Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Christian sects. Timothy 1 (2:12) states, "Do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man: rather she is to remain quiet."
We are "One nation under God", but thank God, even in the Bible belt, our government does not profess to know or to divine God's rule and impose it on us. Thank God, that I can wear pants, teach, write this essay, and that I have a voice, a female voice, and that it will be heard, even if some believe differently.


 

Saturday, March 7, 2009

I just got back from Hippy Town!









An old friend and I took a little trip to Makanda, IL yesterday in Southern Illinois and we had a lovely time. I took my nikon along and it felt so good to photograph and document this really great place, and the wine trail roads are some of the best scenic car/bike trails that you will ever find. The lovely Mary Lynn Schroader is the woman pictured here in here inblue studio. You can find her on www.etsy.com search inblue. The garden pics were taken in Rainmaker Art Studio~Dave Dardis' place. His website is www.davedardis.com. He has amazing sculptures! I will post more photos of their work and of this lovely place they call "Makanda"...But for now, I am off to sort the recycling :) Long Live Hippies! Viva el ARTE!