The Hackney Pouch from Sew Sweetness

This cute pouch, handy to store so many of your small treasures, is from the Minikins Season 3 collection of patterns, designed by Sara Lawson for her company, Sew Sweetness. I'm entering it in the August challenge and have to link it to my URL, but my regular blog is suddenly and inexplicably not reachable. I'll contact GoDaddy when I can carve some time away from the piano.

The beautiful hydrangea digital print quilting cotton is designed by Chong-A Hwang for Timeless Treasures. I got mine from 4my3boyz.com, but you can also find it by using these search terms: "Timeless Treasures - Misty: CD6897 Black Packed Hydrangea - Digital Fabric"

The pattern is available in this collection.

Other wonderful bag patterns designed by Sara are available here.

I have been using Feedburner to enable blog visitors to follow by email. Now Google is disabling the use of Feedburner, so I have removed that capability. I'm searching for some other tool to use.

I'm not using this blog much, but there's a lot of content on here that I don't want to lose. And, occasionally, I want to write something but don't want it on my jancrews blog, so I stash it here. I will continue that practice.

Thanks for reading.

Two Outies, Two Innies

I work a picture puzzle on my iPad every morning in the Jigsaw Puzzle app from Critical Hit Software. I usually choose 64 pieces. I love picture puzzles. When I'm doing physical puzzles, I usually do 1000-piece puzzles. I can't start one when I'm preparing for a gig, as I get totally obsessed with working on it. "Just one more piece and then I'll go practice." Working a virtual puzzle every morning is just a way to start my day. (I've usually finished the night before adding a few words to the NYT or LATimes crossword puzzle, or perhaps spending five minutes on an easy Sudoku.)

This morning I wondering how I fell in love with picture puzzles. (Is that the Southern name for a jigsaw puzzle? One time I told someone I was working on a picture puzzle, and they looked at me with blank eyes. They had no idea what I was talking about.) 

I don't recall either of my parents or my brothers ever working puzzles. I know I got my love of crosswords from my daddy, as my younger son got his love (obsession?) from me. (He once started a crossword puzzle tournament in Youngstown. It only ran a couple of years - maybe his work got in the way of all the planning activity. Or maybe his divorce. I don't know.) And my grandson frequently works crosswords with his dad, while  my granddaughter is more prone to sit down at the jigsaw puzzle table when she comes over to visit. My elder son tells me he loves picture puzzles, but his cat-from-hell would turn a standing puzzle into chaos  

But how did I start doing picture puzzles? Someone had to have bought a puzzle for me. I've been doing them since elementary school days. Did I save my allowance and hop on my bike and ride to the Rexall Drug Store in Maitland where I might have bought my first puzzle?

[Like a flash while typing the previous sentence, I suddenly have a very faint memory of having a puzzle at our vacation cottage in Cashiers, NC. I know we bought that house furnished, so maybe several came with the property.] 

I have very few memories of high school. I attended Forest Lake Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist high school, grades 9-12, northwest of Orlando  The school's administration building burned down a month or so before school was to begin in the fall of 1968. The administration building had held a number of classrooms, without which the entire student body could not have all gone to school at the same time. The solution was to have a split day. The freshmen and seniors would go to school in the morning, and the sophomores and juniors would go in the afternoon.

The morning session began at 7:00, I believe. Because of where I lived, I was the first person on the bus every day. My daddy always went to Florida Hospital to make rounds with his surgical patients before going to the office, leaving the house before 6:00. For my entire freshman year, my daddy drove me to meet the bus at the Rexall on the corner of Horatio and 17-92. We would sit in the car and talk until the bus arrived. Tears well in my eyes as I write this. Those were some of the most precious times in my life. It was certainly the most extended time Daddy and I had together.

My mother was kind to me when it suited her. It didn't often suit her. Verbally tearing me down suited her much better. But my daddy poured love all over me  I frequently think he was the one who wanted to adopt me, not Mother.

After our morning of classes, we had band, choir, lunch from 11:00 to 1:00 ... activities that involved the entire student body of roughly 300. Then I boarded the bus and rode home, where I was the last person off the bus. The bus let me out on 17-92 at Manor Road. I had about a mile to walk to the end of Manor Road. Sometimes Mother would pick me up, but my memories are of lovely solitary walks home. (And now I look it up on Google Maps, and learn my walk was less than half a mile.)

I must have practiced the piano or the oboe or the organ when I got home, but my memories were of sitting on the floor in the living room at the large square coffee table and working on whatever puzzle was laid out there. Daddy had a stereo system set up nearby, with a reel-to-reel tape deck and a turntable that he taught me to use. He would buy records that he knew I would enjoy. The soundtracks to "Oklahoma," "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," and albums by The Lettermen, Sergio Mendez, the Reader's Digest set of the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan .... I lived for my afternoons of solitude - Mother working in the kitchen or sewing in her bedroom on her Necchi and leaving me alone. I was listening to music and singing at the top of my lungs, and methodically putting pieces into the puzzle.

Wikipedia tells me the first commercially available puzzle was made in 1760, and that sales soared during the Great Depression. They were an inexpensive form of entertainment and could be used over and over again. Sales fell off after the depression, when rising wages caused higher prices. Interestingly, the Covid pandemic of 2020 caused renewed interest in jigsaw puzzles!

So, back to my original thought - how were jigsaw puzzles introduced into my life. I believe first with the wooden puzzles that were sold in the 1950s where large pieces would fit into a frame to help toddlers develop manual dexterity. I remember seeing those in my house as a child, after I had outgrown them. And then, quite possibly, the serendipity of buying our North Carolina mountain property and being introduced to puzzles there as a vacation activity.

And here I am in my early 70s, still finding great joy from putting the final piece into a puzzle.

By the way, Wikipedia also tells me, "According to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, doing jigsaw puzzles is one of many activities that can help keep the brain active and may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease."   

It looks like I'll be working picture puzzles for many years to come.

There's no defined name for the thing that sticks out from a puzzle piece, enabling it to be locked into the adjacent piece  I refer to them as outties and innies when talking to my son, as in, "I hate those puzzles where all the pieces are the same - two innies and two outties."

Pondering Religion

I'm going to say something here that I never admit to anyone: I no longer go to any church and can't say that I believe in god any longer. I go into churches for weddings and funerals, and to play the piano for their worship services when their regular musician needs a vacation day. But I don't believe the words they're saying and the prayers they're praying. It's all gobbledygook to me.

When people ask, I joke that I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist church, then married a Southern Baptist who had gotten off into all the charismatic stuff, then married a Lutheran, then a Mormon, then a golfer, and I liked his religion the best. For the record, after the death of my One True Love, I had a four-year relationship with a man who was Jewish, then a 10+ year relationship with a man who was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Just to round out the story.

In June of 1950, I was given away for adoption by my thirty-seven-year-old, never-married birthmother. I was her second child to be given up for adoption. The first had been in 1935. I found my half-sister on Ancestry in 2016, when we were 80 and 65. 

So there was the initial abandonment. 

Then I was adopted by a couple who, in their mid 30s, already had two sons, ages seven and five. 

These two mothers sewed up the baggage I've carried around for 71 years.

My adoptive father was, I'm convinced, the driving force behind the adoption. He wanted a daughter. He was a general practitioner and general surgeon, and let all his obstetrician friends know that he and his wife would like to adopt an infant girl. When my mother went into the hospital in labor with no plans for me, her OB called my daddy and said, "If it's a girl, it's yours."

And so, six days after my birth, I was removed from the hospital and driven to my new home in my second mother's arms. My daddy didn't go along to pick me up. They were afraid he would be recognized and that, at anytime later, my birthmother would change her mind and want me back. Only thirty-three years later did I learn that she might recognize him because she knew him! She had come to Orlando to stay with her brother from their native Gloucester, Massachusetts, during her pregnancy. Her brother had heart problems and, as coincidence would have it, my daddy was his doctor and she went with her brother to all his doctor's appointments. 

I say I think Daddy was the driving force in the adoption based upon the years of unequivocal love and emotional support I received from him, in contrast with the emotional abuse I received from Mother. The spankings and slaps when words I spoke to Mother were deemed by her to be "sassy." The harsh and denigrating things she said to me. Years of criticism of me from a very narcissistic woman, whom I've said through the years had no business mothering a daughter, much less adopting a daughter.

But she was not the only person who was critical and judgmental toward me. Because of three of my husbands' devotion to their respective churches, there were many more people looking for an opportunity to take me down a notch  

-There was an Adventist woman on a Saturday night at my elementary school, where many of the Adventist kids congregated after the end of the Sabbath at sundown, with or without their parents, to watch church-approved movies (usually true stories or documentaries about wildlife) or play kickball and tetherball and so on. I don't think I even knew who she was at that time. She had a child with her, a little girl probably three years old. I loved being around children. I bent down to say hello to the little girl and waved at her. The mother yanked her away from me and said to me, very sternly, "Were you thumbing your nose at her?" I not only didn't know what thumbing one's nose meant, I wouldn't have even thought to do it had I known. That was totally not my style. We didn't have a television; we didn't go to movies; where would I have ever seen the gesture called "thumbing your nose." That event occurred about 63 years ago, and if you gave me a map of my elementary school at that time, I could take you right back to the exact location the interchange occurred. 

-About 57 years ago, at the railroad crossing on Virginia Drive approaching North Orange Avenue in Orlando, Mother asked me something. I don't know what she asked; I don't know what I answered. But she clearly didn't like what I said.  She hauled off and slapped me as hard as she could. The location where this act occurred is indelibly burned in my memory. This woman who lived and died for her church thought nothing of taking her open hand or a flyswatter to my skin when my actions didn't meet her requirements. Her actions must have scared her that day, as she never slapped me again. But that was only the last of many such occurrences. 

-When my first husband and I divorced after ten years of emotional abuse on his part, he said horrible things about me to acquaintances. At a women's Bible study a few weeks before our ultimate separation and the following divorce, the woman sitting next to me told me I should be nicer to my sons.  (I remember very few people from that speaking-in-tongues and dancing-in-the-aisles church, but I'm pretty sure this woman's name was Cookie.) WTF? Judgmental much? All in the name of Christ. And because we had moved to that location for my husband to attend graduate school in a Southern Baptist seminary, and our only non-school activities were with the church he had chosen for us to attend, when we divorced, I lost every friend I had made in that town so distant from my friends of many years.

-In my 40s, I began dating an Adventist man whom I met at work. I should have known better, but I was driven by the need to be accepted and loved. I became very close friends with his sister, who was also very active in her Adventist church. She was one of the worship leaders in that church, and once she learned how well I played, she asked me to start being the church pianist. We spoke by phone almost daily and had frequent family gatherings with her extended family. Until one day when she didn't like something I said or did, and told me I wasn't a good enough Christian and she didn't want to be friends with me anymore. "Good enough Christian?" I didn't know there was such a scale. 

Again, all in the name of Christ. 

When presented with the "religion" category in various online profiles, I respond "Kindness." I try to be nice to everyone. I try not to criticize. I don't want to hear negative things that other people say about people I know. I want to like people. I feel I wasn't liked. My mother drummed that into me: I had no value, no worth, no redeeming graces.

People shouldn't have to be raised with a lack of self-respect, with a feeling of not mattering. And if your words that make another human feel worthless are driven by your religion, then you're losing the game of life. In my opinion. 

When someone asks for prayers, I make sure that person knows I'm thinking of them. I'm thinking of their well-being. I'm wishing them a swift recovery from whatever kind of problem they're having. But praying for them? Not in the traditional religious sense. I don't think it's anything more than words and thoughts. 

Your religion is important to you? Good. Good for you. But, for your and everyone else's particular god's sake, don't go around with a sense of superiority. Don't say your religion is the only religion, the only true religion. It just ain't so. Believe what works for you  But don't go trying to force everyone else to believe as you do. It doesn't become you!

My greatest desire is that, at my memorial service when I'm gone, someone--or many someones--will stand and say, "She was kind." Not "she was kind for God's sake" or "she was kind in the name of Jesus." Or Buddha. Or Allah. Or Mother Earth. Or the universe. Just, "she was kind."

I wish for you the same thing. 

The photo is of Kress Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church in Winter Park, Florida, the church in which I grew up.

 

I have a headache from the crap weather this morning (but while I'm ranting, my heart goes out to the people in the Pacific Northwest and the western states who are suffering from the horrific heat and drought). But my rant is this: if someone mentions that they have some condition that's making them feel bad, don't try to fix it for them. Just say you're sorry they don't feel well. And please don't tell me to talk to my doctor in my annual female physical this morning! I've had headaches since I was 16 or so, and migraines since 18. I'm as on top of it as anyone can be about migraine. I know far more about my headaches than my female-doctor ever will. Just say, "I'm sorry you don't feel well. Is there anything I can do for you?' And I'll say, "No, but thank you for asking." And we'll be done with that. 

So annoyed with Spousal Equivalent this morning. This is the second time in twelve hours that he's told me what to do: last night it was when to get over into the turn lane; this morning it was, yet again, about my headaches. Really, it must be such a burden for him to know everything about every damned thing. Yes, that was sarcasm! 

I needed to rant. I wrote the first paragraph on Facebook, then cut it to paste somewhere else—here—rather than air my dirty laundry where it could come back to haunt me. 

Thank you for letting me rant. 

An Unpopular Opinion

I'm anti Mother's Day. Well, maybe not anti. Maybe I'm just ambivalent about the "holiday." I don't understand why we need a day to honor mothers. Or fathers, grandparents, etc. My daughter-in-law talks to her [wonderful] mother on the phone every day, sometimes multiple times a day. In their world, every day is Mother's Day. And Daughter's Day.

I've had numerous mothers in my life. There was the woman who gave birth to me and, six days later, gave me away. Then there was the woman who, now that I'm 70 I've come to realize, probably didn't want to adopt me. I believe my adoption was solely my daddy's desire. And I thank the universe for him every day. There were four mothers-in-law, who may or may not have been pleased with my marriage to their sons. As I look back, I think of them all as having been kind to me. But I was already damaged goods in the needing-a-mother department. Mothers, for the most part, and by the very nature of being mothers, tend to want to train their offspring. And I didn't think I needed their training, so we were already off to a bad start when we first laid eyes on each other.

But back to Mother's Day.

I consider Mother's Day to be yet another Hallmark holiday. And I don't like the commercialization of anything. Maybe I'm just a grinch at heart.

Here is what I posted on Facebook today:

If Mother's Day is important to you, if you consider yourself a mother-figure to your children, step-children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, the neighborhood kids, your dogs and cats and fish, your students, the person in the cubicle next to yours or the Zoom window next to yours, or any other being, then I wish you a Happy Mother's Day.

If, like me, you consider it nothing more than an opportunity for commercial establishments to ramp up their marketing efforts and use it as an opportunity to bring in a little extra income, then we can ignore it together. Commercialization be damned. We cynics can unite.

If it's painful to you for any reason - you've always wanted to have a child, but nature or life got in the way; you had a crappy relationship with your mother who had no business being a mother; you lost one too many babies to miscarriage or a childhood illness or an awful accident; because of circumstances in your life, you had to make the difficult decision to abort the pregnancy and have always struggled with that memory; because of circumstances in your life, you had to give a child up for adoption; or any other reason that makes the day painful fo you - I'm sending you a hug and hoping you have someone to talk to about it, if that would help. My heart goes out to you.

To the companies who have told their call center staff, "if you talk to any female this weekend, be sure to end the call with 'Happy Mother's Day," you need to wake up. Being female doesn't equate to being a mother. There are so many more factors involved. And there are so many circumstances you know nothing about.

When I woke up thinking about this topic this morning, I decided to search the internet on "Who invented Mother's Day." I found out it was "Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia." You can read all about her [on Britannica .com]. But here's the most important part of the whole article: "What had originally been primarily a day of honour became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts, however, and, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being."

Anna, I salute you.

And to my second husband, who knew how difficult the day was for me and, nevertheless, with a nyah nyahnyah nyah nyah tone to his voice, said to me, "I didn't get you anything for Mother's Day. You're not my mother," well, you can take your tiniest of tiny hearts and shove it where the sun don't shine. You were beyond insensitive. There are soooo many reasons I'm no longer married to you!

There were specific factors that first soured me on Mother's Day. They came out of the first marriage (which I knew two weeks in was a Very Bad Mistake). And the ensuing divorce. The thing is—I walked out on my marriage. And in doing so, I walked out on my two little boys, ages six and five. My intention was not to walk out on them; they were unintended victims. What I was walking out on was the emotionally abusive husband of ten years.

I remarried two years later, concurrent with a IBM transfer from the Dallas area to the D.C. suburbs. I got to see my boys every summer and on alternate holidays. If I wanted to talk to them, I would call them in Dallas, and they might or might not be available for my call. Their hyper-religious father treated me as if I was Satan's sister. He said horrible things about me to them (per their comments to me), and saw no reason to treat me as if I were still their mother. They were instructed to address his new wife as "Mother." On Mother's Day, all deference was to her. I would get not a call, not a card, not a thing. And everywhere around me was Mother's Day this and Mother's Day that. Not one person acknowledged that I was a mother who, in walking out on the marriage, had done the only thing she knew how to do in trying to protect herself from a cruel-to-her husband.

As, year after year, the pain of those empty Mother's Days added up, I did what was natural to me: I built a wall around my heart. I acted as if the day didn't exist. I made it not matter to me.

As I draw to the close of this recount, I wish to state clearly that—in my mind, my heart, my opinion—my sons bear no responsibility for these Mother's Day omissions. They were in their own preteen world. Had they been one ounce aware of the upcoming "holiday" (and I use that term very loosely!), and wanted to send me a card, they would have had to depend on the not-good will toward me of their stepmother and their father to get to the store, choose a card, ask for the money to buy the card, ask their dad for my address, ask for a stamp .... You get the idea. If they had wanted to call me that day, they would have had to ask for my phone number. Nothing was easy. Nothing was facilitated.

And in the back of their sweet minds lay the time they were with their grandmother at Walt Disney World and saw some cute tchotchke they wanted to buy for me. When they asked her if they could buy it, she responded, "Why do you want to buy her anything? She walked out on you." (Per their statement to me sometime thereafter—watch out what you say to children of divorce. It always gets back to the target.)

Now, forty years later, I tell myself not to bristle when someone lovingly wishes me a happy Mother's Day. I work very hard to just respond graciously, to just say "thank you."

And my guys, my wonderful men, now 47 and 46? Since we first brought the subject of my walking out—okay, let's use the "a" word, my abandonment—to light in their late teens and twenties, they were nothing but loving and forgiving. They said they understood why I would walk out on their dad. They have never appeared to hold a grudge, to be bitter, to be anything but kind and supportive and loving.

My forgiving myself is an entirely different matter. I don't think I beat myself up about it. But I do, ruefully and not infrequently, wish that I had had the resources to realize I was not helpless in the situation. I do feel sorry for that young mother with frequent, sometimes month-long, migraines, that thirty-year-old wife with a husband who went from job to job on a whim "because God told me to", and who had no inclination to help around the house and with the children. She was a lost soul with no apparent-to-her support system. May the young wives and mothers of the 21st century know the support that society offers them today. May society in this country that is currently in upheaval put politics aside and care about those in need, whatever that need may be.

And if Mother's Day is important to you, may you have a happy Mother's Day, with due deference from those who love you.