You make me smile

The following was written back in 2009, but I never published it to my blog. Not exactly a poem, but close enough. So much had changed prior to this being written and even more has changed since this was written. I consider it beautiful thoughts that many of have at some point in our lives. It's part of my past and will be kept there as a sweet memory.

I once thought I knew you, but I realize I didn’t. I’ve never known your favorite color, foods or shows  even your favorite pair of shoes. I can’t remember the color of your eyes and I’ve never owned a picture of you, so why do I seem so surprised?

I don’t know what moves you to tears or truly makes you smile. I don’t know if what I’ve felt all this time has ever been felt by you. My mind wrestles with itself, wondering how you felt. Do I tell you? Do I keep it to myself? Do I risk the heartache? Do I risk the rejection and the friendship that could be lost?

Am I playing games with myself? Am I infatuated with what cannot be? Do you feel it? Do you see it? Do you understand what I mean?

My heart has been broken, long before now. Even more so the day I read those words that came from your finger tips, onward to my house. I felt my heart sink. I felt like I’d lost. I hesitated. I called. I began to drop. Slowly my world felt as if it had come to an end. What I once thought I could have was lost forever deep within.

I moved on, at least I thought I did. Then we reconnect and it all begins again. Only this time something is different. The feelings are much stronger now. I sometimes want to scream and cry, because I want these feelings out. But I'm not sure it really matters just how I've always felt.

I want you to hold me once again in your arms. I want you to touch me and feel everything once more. To feel you near me like I did in your bed. To make love to you in the grass under the stars once again.

To forgiving you for your stupidity, has always been easy to do. Why I do? I don’t know? I worry I’ll never get it, just like I don’t think you realize how my heartaches so much more. Right now I’m lost. Right now I’m scared. Right now I don’t think I can be forgiven for all my thoughtful sins.

My heart skipped a beat today, when I thought of you. I smiled. I cried. Then I smiled one more time knowing I'd always have my thoughts of you deep within.

June Ideas

Here are some excellent ideas for June's Hostess and Customer specials with Uppercase Living. I'd love to know what you think and if you have your own ideas you'd like to share!

SUNSHINE

Showcase the “sunshine” in your life with this adorable photo display. To keep things coordinated, spray paint the MDF Board, knobs, and frames all the same color.

• “You are my sunshine” Two-Part Expression 15701: part 1, Honey Wheat (9003); part 2, Chocolate Brown (9080)

• MDF Board — Square (300109)

• Round Knobs — White (300135)

• Spray paint — olive green

• 4" x 6" photo frames (2)

• 1 ½ yards of beaded gold ribbon

• Hot glue

• Drill

WELCOME A NEW DAY

It seems every magazine we open lately has a bit of a country flair found among its pages, and this expression is keeping with the trends. Create a fabulous rustic home décor piece using a rich, deep color like Terra Cotta paired with a Sage Brush backdrop. A tip for applying your expression to canvas is to burnish it from the backside.

• “Welcome a new day” expression 15698: Terra Cotta (9083)

• Toolbox Paint — Sage Brush & Terra Cotta (300146, 300150)

• 12" x 12" canvas

• 1 ½" wide brass handles (4)

• Metal glue

HOME SWEET HOME

Home sweet home is a great welcoming sentiment for any home. It lets your guests know the love and comfort you feel while at home and with the right color choices, this cute, tiered sign can compliment any décor.

• “Home sweet home” Two-Part Expression 15700: part 1, Herb Garden (9064); part 2, Sugared Plum (9008)

• Vinyl Effects (300155)

• Toolbox Paint — Bright White & Matte Black (300143, 300148)

• 5" x 11" wood planks (3)

• Sandpaper

• Eye hooks (10)

• 18" silver chain

BREATHE

Breathe—seems like a simple concept, but the mere action of breathing ignites a chain reaction with innumerable benefits. A conscious breath can release stress, calm the nerves, and so much more. Display this desk-sized sign where you find yourself needing that gentle reminder to just…breathe.

• “Breathe” expression 15703: Caribbean Blue (9007)

• Toolbox Paint — Fresh Linen (300145)

• 5" x 12" wood plank

• Embossed decorative paper

• Glue

Personalize A Special Event!

If you can’t find a pre-designed expression that perfectly fits your event, there’s no need to worry! Create their own! Text, Graphic and Photo Print options are available on MyDesign Suite at http://Iowa.UppercaseLiving.net, you can create décor for a one-of-a-kind, personalized event people will be talking about for years.  

Here are just a few ideas:

 

WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

Feature a life-sized Photo Print of the “original” bride and groom or the entire wedding party, and personalize with a Text and Graphic expression.

GRADUATION

As you celebrate your child’s accomplishments, remember their early school days with a too-cute Photo Print and custom MyDesign Suite expression.

 

WELCOME HOME

Welcome home your favorite soldier (or anyone who has been away) with personalized décor and a Photo Print that honors them and lets them know how much you missed them while they were gone.

 

REUNIONS

Watch your yearbook come to life on the walls of your reunion party.  Whether it has been 10, 20, or even 50 years since you graduated from high school, everyone will get a kick out of the walk down memory lane. 

The MyDesign Suite can be used to add a personal touch to any of the décor theme packs in the Celebrations Mini. There is nothing like adding a name or a date to party décor to let that special person in your life know that today really is “their” day.

What is on the internet about YOU?

Go to www.spokeo.com and type in your name. It's pretty scary to go out on the internet to find information about yourself. This is what I found out that was listed about ME.

It listed my name (middle initial is incorrect) address and my old home phone number that we no longer have as of July 2009. It also listed my husband's name, but his age isn't correct. I would guess that is because he and his Dad have the same name so instead of giving his approximate age of 30 years old they put him at approximately 60 years old.

Under my Photos & Profiles there is a picture from Uppercase Living. I sell this and I'm guessing they pulled it from an aviator/photo from one of the message boards I've posted to or even the Twitter account I use for the business or could be my Facebook account. My age, gender, ethnicity, zodiac sign, marital status, that I DO have children, hobbies, I'm a home owner, how long I've been in my home, estimated value of my home and my neighborhood listed as below average (which it isn't) is listed. There are also other facts about my house posted on the page.

Okay, so some of this is public knowledge that can be looked up on a county assessor site, but what is scary to me is that it lists that I have children. It also shows an ariel view of my home and my address is listed. Some of my coworkers and friends have actual street view pictures posted of their homes. You can also click on the picture and move the camera 360 degrees and look at neighbor's houses up and down the street!

I’d recommend that you look up your name. If you want to make your information private, click on the privacy setting or go to http://www.spokeo.com/privacy to request that your information be removed.

Pass this onto your friends and family! I’m sure that they don’t know there is so much information out there about themselves!

Tricia

Uppercase Living
http://Iowa.UppercaseLiving.net
http://www.facebook.com/ULCreativeGal

Remembering Photos

When I was really young I remember my mom taking me and my younger sisters to an auction with a friend of hers. I can even remember a couple things we bought including a record player and a very old camera. Although I didn't have many records, I do remember playing one song over and over again. Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head. When it rains, I think about sitting in my room and playing that over and over. I also remember my first camera even more so fondly.

I was so excited when my mom purchased that very old camera. My first camera! Oh the things I would take pictures of! But first we had to see if it worked. At my mother's suggestion we took it to my Grandpa Detje. At the time I didn't know this, but he was a bit of a photographer himself. At least I thought so after he passed away and found out he had a beautiful Canon with all kinds of colored lenses and attachments. 

Grandpa took that old camera, got it cleaned up and working. I don't remember what kind of camera it was, but I do remember it being very old, maybe from the 1940's or 1950's. It had a metal light bulb flash on top and only took black and white photos. 

The day my Grandpa brought that camera over so I could try it out is also memorable for me. My two younger sisters and I were in the backyard of our first home playing. Grandpa came out with the camera. He proudly showed it to me and tried to explain how to take a picture. Of course I was only six or seven years old at the time, maybe younger, so I had no understanding of the things he was telling me. He took my two younger sisters and knelt to the ground between them. With my back to the west and the hot summer sun beating down on us, I clicked my first photograph with that old camera. 

About a week or so later Grandpa brought me the photos from the camera. I don't remember any of the other pictures, but I remember that particular picture of my Grandpa and my sisters very vividly. What happened to that camera and that photo is a mystery to me. I wish I could find them, as they are very treasured memories for me.

As the years have passed my interests in photography have continued. I belonged to the yearbook staff my senior year of high school. Took photography classes in college while attend Waldorf College and Iowa State University. Developing my own film and printing black and white photos I took was amazing! Although I preferred the artistic side of producing printed material over developing film in that stinky dark room. My love for photography grew, but the cost wasn't something I could afford on a college budget. Photography took the back seat for several years. 

On Christmas Eve 1999, my father-in-law and I were admiring the moon from the formal living room window. He commented how that moon would make an interesting photograph. I didn't know that he had an interest in photography or that he had an enlarger and dark room equipment sitting in his basement that had been unused for years! It all belonged to his older brother who had past away several years earlier. That next summer Rob and I moved into our first little house. Rob had taken the moving truck to his Dad's house to pick up some furniture and to my surprise Rob and his step-sister unloaded that enlarger and dark room equipment! I was thrilled, yet curious where I was going to set up a dark room.

Sadly ten years have passed and that dark room has never been established. Photography has changed dramatically this past decade with digital cameras becoming the simplest and most cost effective form of photography for everyone. As sad as I am that I've never started up that dark room, I must admit that I’m thrilled for the convenience of my digital camera!

Over the past year and a half I've allowed my creative senses to reintroduce themselves to me. While in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on vacation with my husband and mother-in-law, I took our new Canon out on a little self exploration of the resort. I was beyond pleased with what my eye captured. Through that winter, I made mental notes of what to photograph that next summer. My broken leg that summer put those ideas on the back burner for a little while; however, I was so pleased to make it to Saylorville Lake that September with my husband and beautiful daughter to photograph her playing carelessly on the beach. 

Once again I was thrilled with what my eyes caught! I was able to catch Emilie being Emilie. My child's timeless childhood memories captured in a few minutes on a warm September afternoon. Emilie’s first visit to the beach, finding her first pet rock, naming it and giving it a home is something I know she won’t forget. Emilie sat quietly in the wet sand trying to make sandcastles and moats all while I took endless photos of her at play. Ruining that beautiful white dress her father and I bought in Mexico by running along the beach, splashing wildly in the water without a care in the world is something I won’t forget thanks to my creative vision.
 
(Read more of my blog at http://thecreativegal.blogspot.com/)

Really, I'm okay folks!

It's the middle of October and I, like many others, am trying to figure out where the heck summer went? I didn't get out to do all the things I had planned to do...

• Planting the pumpkin and squash seedlings.
• Plant my new rose bushes and watch them thrive.
• Four tomato bushes, planted.
• Four chili pepper plants and two bell pepper planted.
• Keep the garden weeded. Now that's a funny thought.
• Work on the landscaping around the shed.
• Decorate my garden with a few homemade sculptures and birdhouses.

So the pumpkins and squash seedlings never got planted. The rose bushes died. Tomatoes, chilies and bell peppers were almost non-existent. The garden turned into a weedy treasure hunt. Landscaping didn't happen and there were no homemade sculptures made or painted birdhouses hung.

So am I really that lazy? Uh...sometimes I know I am. Of course I sat on my butt all summer, but not because I wanted to. I had to. And it sucked. If you take anything from this silly, brief post...remember when gardening not to wear flip flops in a muddy garden bed with a slight slope to it. If you do, you'll end up like me. Falling on your butt, with one foot buried deep in the mud, breaking your leg! Yes, there was no drunken trampoline jumping, naked incident that took place to cause me to break my leg. It was a simple fall that landed me two months, starting the middle of July, on my butt for the entire summer.

I do have to say the funniest part of the whole thing was having the ambulance pick me up. Just before they arrived, I asked my neighbor gals to hose me off. I was more worried about how I looked than the fact I broke my leg! The girls kindly offered to grab the garden hose, but in addition to that they would run and grab my earrings, high hills and lip stick as well! I had wet pants from spilling rose bush water down the front of me prior to the fall. My butt, legs, feet, hands and arms covered in mud. And I'm sure I smelled oh so wonderful from not showering that day.

Knowing the ambulance crew that took me to the ER, because my husband is also an EMT with our township, ended up being less humiliating than I thought it would be. My overweight body had to be picked up by my friends and placed on the stretcher. Then I was wheeled up the grassy hill, over to the neighbor's driveway, onto the road with all my neighbors watching. I waved my beauty queen wave and yelled, "Really, I'm okay folks!" All the while me and the crew cracked jokes with each other and they told me that next time all I had to do was call and ask for help instead of injuring myself.

So all summer, while lying in bed, on the couch or in the recliner I was given all the time in the world to watch TV, read and think. Think. Think. Think. And think. Do you know how boring that is? I'm sure you can imagine what it would be like. But really, if it's never happened to you, you don't want to be there. You will drive yourself crazy. Seriously crazy!

After all that I did learn something about myself. I found something out about myself and when I was able to move around on my leg without the crutches, I didn't waste any time! Stay with me folks, because there are some seriously beautiful things about to come from this Creative Gal!

Dancing Queen...Where Did She Go?

There are times I'd like to shut myself in a room. I'd blast the stereo or my iPod and just freely dance to some of my favorite songs. Like right now. I've got some of my favorite Goo Goo Dolls music and a few other artist blaring in my ears as I blog. Right now I'd get up and dance around the living room, but my beautiful daughter is sound asleep down the hall in my room and my handsome husband is downstairs. I wouldn't want to wake Emilie up or the possibility of Rob coming up the stairs due to the bouncing around on the floor to see why the ceiling was about to fall down. I know he'd freak the hell out of me by catching me totally off guard. But then why would he be surprised to see me doing this? Or why would I be so freaked out by him catching me? I shouldn't be embarrassed by my random incoherent dance steps. Ah...but I don't think he's ever seen me do this, even in the 14 years we've known each other. Yep, that would be a little weird.

My urge to suddenly break out in dance takes back to a time when I use to dance freely like this in the driveway when I was young. I know my Mom use to watch me dance away under the basketball hoop until late in the evening. At one time she was intrigued enough by my skills that she signed me and my two younger sisters up for dance lessons in another town. Unfortunately it didn't fit into my junior high volleyball schedule and other extra curricular activities. So I kept my dreams of being the dancing queen to the driveway under that basketball hoop. Of course I'd always had the basketball out with me because the driveway was in clear shot of the street. Anyone out on an evening walk could catch me off guard and see me. I sure many in town wondered what I was up to. However, if I was quick enough, I'd grab that basketball and make it look like I was shooting hoops to music. I was a carefree spirit when I was young. What happened to that girl?

Somewhere along the way I lost the carefree spirit I found as a child. Doing things on the whim were lost. But exactly when I can't remember? I remember taking off in the middle of the night while in college to head to Perkins for a food induced study session. I remember sitting out late at night under the stars with my boyfriend at any given time and checking out the stars and just talking about anything that caught our interest. Oh, and there was puddle jumping on rainy days. Yep, it's exactly what it sounds like. Very messy, but laughing so hard we could hardly breath!

Speaking of rain...there is one night I'll never forget. This particular night I spent out at the bars a friend, her boyfriend and his friends. I was ready to go home, but my friend wasn't about to let me walk alone. To my amazement, one of her boyfriend's friends volunteered to walk me back to my dorm room, in the rain. As we seeked cover from one building to the next, we talked freely asking each other questions about one another. Suddenly we realized there was no way we could stay dry any longer. He took my hand and proceeded to cross Lincoln Way. The street was completely empty and once we hit the middle of the intersection, this unpredictable young man spun me around and started dancing with me in the pouring rain! I looked into the sky and let the heavy rain fall onto my face and I laughed. The next thing I know we were standing on the sidewalk, engaged in a kiss that was so beautifully unexpected. That moment was never relived. This respectable young man who was to graduate that spring, walked me to the entrance of my dorm and thanked me for wet walk and sporadic dancing in the street. He turned, ran down the steps on the west end of Friley hall and I never saw him again.

That was one of those nights I'd dreamt about. Yes, dancing in the rain completely on a whim with a beautiful soul I didn't know was a secret fantasy I had. Feeling so carefree, pursued and respected gave me such an adrenaline rush and every time I think of that moment, in the middle of Lincoln Way, with the rain hitting my face, I wonder where that girl went? At some point after that night I lost me. I lost that day-dreaming creative girl inside of me.

Recently, I've seen the day-dreaming creative girl. I've seen that girl in my own daughter as she dances freely across the living room. When she looks up at me with those wondering eyes and smiles without a worry in the world. As she sits in the corner of the living room at her small table and chairs, she quietly draws colorful random lines and scribbles. Emilie reminds me of who I once was. A creative, free spirit who wanted to create beautiful art and experience so much in life. So much so, that this once lost carefree spirit did the most unexpected thing most would never have thought she'd do. She got a nose piercing at 34 years old! Oh how I feel that carefree spirit in me. It's been wanting to break into dance...once again in the rain.