Memory of Going to Work with my Dad and Penny Candy

I just saw a post on Facebook that reminded me of my dad, here's the post...

When I was little we lived on the outskirts of a teeny-tiny little town by the name of Harquhala, Arizona. My dad worked as a ranch foreman for a company there and sometimes he would take me to work with him.

My dad in his Romaine lettuce fields

I loved going to work with my dad! Just being with him and having him give me little jobs to do made me feel so grown up and loved. 

One of the best things I liked is that all his workers knew me and every time they saw me they would give me money. Not a lot of money, a nickel here, a dime there, maybe a quarter once in a while...but by the end of the day I felt like Rockefeller (I'm sure at that time I didn't even know who that was).

Sometimes in a day I would have a whole dollar or more in change. My dad would take me to the only store in this little town. It was probably called Harquahala Market, I don't really remember. What I do remember is that they had penny candy at that time. PENNY CANDY! Rows and rows of penny candy and with a dollar in change I could get 100 pieces of candy! 100 PIECES!

I was in hog heaven! I would fill up a little brown paper bag with all the goodies. It was a great time and a great memory of a day spent with my dad. I sure miss him!

Love you dad!

Why I'm Washing my Tassels in the Ladies Room

My mom…ya gotta love her!

See, I have this blouse that has these two string ties on the front with little string tassels attached. Something very similar to this blouse.

So last week I wore the blouse to work with some black slacks and somehow, I ended up with one of the tassels in my coffee! I pulled it out right away and blotted it with a paper towel until it was almost dry, but all day long I had the scent of coffee literally right under my nose. By the end of the day I was sick of the scent of coffee!

So, I put the blouse in my hamper and my mom will grab the stuff in my hamper when she does her own laundry so that she doesn’t waste water and detergent and because she’s a good mom and doesn’t want me to have to bother doing my own laundry. It’s a win-win for me and for the environment! 

She takes great care with my clothes and she didn’t want the tassels to get all messed up so before placing them in the washer, she put both tassels into a small plastic sandwich bag and tied it up firmly with rubber bands.

A few days ago, I noticed the blouse was back in my closet and I saw the plastic sandwich bag on it, but didn’t give it another thought because weird things like that just happen in my house and it didn’t seem unusual. 

This morning I decided to wear the blouse, took off the plastic bag and instantly smelled the coffee smell and realized that the tassels had not been washed. I decided to go ahead and wear it cause I’m lazy and did not want to change. But all morning, along with the coffee, I’ve been smelling mildew and now I realize that a bit of water did get into the sandwich bag. Not enough to wash the tassels but enough to mildew them.

I’m off to the ladies’ room to wash my tassels in the bathroom sink…. I never thought I would be saying those words at this point in my life! 

Ya gotta love my mom!

Featured on Art Group!

You guys remember when I started on my Art Journey? It was May of 2016, so it's been more than three years now and I've been pretty consistent in doing art of some type.

Am I getting any better? Well, there's some improvement, especially in my drawing skills. I'll have to share some more artwork in the future.

For now I just want to document an honor that I've been give in one of the art groups I'm in. The Art group is called Nina Ribena's Art Journal Prompts and More. Each Sunday we are given an art prompt and then we can run with it. One person's art is chosen to be displayed on the groups masthead. This week it was mine, here it is. I was thrilled when I saw mine was chosen as there are such fabulous artists in this group!

This Sunday the prompt was to Reuse/Recycle/Repurpose. We had to use just scraps and bits of paper and stuff we already had. I have an art journal that I made using a cereal box and scraps of paper, I'll have to post about that later.

So I did this two page spread using acrylic paint for the background, then scraps of a pink paper I had used on a different project to cut out flowers. The leaves are made using what we call "painty paper" a very technical terms which means we just use left over paint and put it on random papers which we keep to use later, nothing goes to waste! I did some doodling on the flowers and leaves and then used a lettering method called "wavy letters" for the quote.

So just wanted to share this little gem so I have it somewhere forever. Maybe this weekend I can find time to photograph the scraps journal, it's so stinking cute! Thanks for reading!