Sculpture Garden

On a cool, shady, July day in Texas (don't hear that very often!), we took our boys to a nearish sculpture garden. What we thought would be a fun 10 minutes turned into an hour of looking, playing, and giggling. It was a marvelous time!

The sky was white and you couldn't really notice the bright yellow sunflower in this picture, but graying out the grass and trees really helps you see how striking this sculpture is. It's the only picture I grayed out, the rest are their (as natural as you can get with an iPhone camera) full color pictures.

Hanging out with this lion fellow. We read later that while viewers may touch the sculptures, they may not climb on them. Oops. Made for cute pictures though!

 Mushrooms! One of Oliver's favorite foods! (It really is) He thought it was cool these were made of tools.

Ian found a giant MOOSE! This one was neat because the head would bob up and down when the wind hit the antlers. I toyed with turning the greenery black and white in this picture, but I think the moose stands out well enough and Ian is a cute little surprise with his green self. Maybe I'll change it for the future photo album I hope to put together before my kids start having their own kids.

Ian and I walked around a bend in the trail to find these very life-like statues. Wonderful masterpieces!

Oliver decided to make his statue more interesting

And Ian wanted to be a statue. My cutie patootie little guy!!

Oliver and Nich enjoying their statue pictures

When I thought Oliver was playing around on this statue, I looked over to see him staring at me with this precious face. He didn't budge as I took a picture while it melted my heart. This is my sweet sweet beautiful boy and am so glad I was trying to get my phone to go back into photo mode when I looked up so I could capture this expression.

He decided to be a "strong" statue

 

Back to the Lion!

 And little Ian attempting to ride the slightly creepy bunny.

We weren't expecting to stop here and when we saw the giant moose from the road, we thought it would be a fun little jaunt. It was the best time we had all week! So relaxing and easy and special with just us there and beautiful weather. I love my family of sweetheart boys!!

My personal rant, and now I feel better!

Me and my big brother

 Ever had an unexpected conversation with someone that totally made your day? This afternoon was one of those rare instances where I got to just chat with my big brother. Hearing that I was on his mind and that he wanted to catch up was such a neat surprise. "Neat" is not the word I'm looking for, but I have zero vocabulary today, and I'm also noticing I must be slipping into "jello-brain" again since the auto-spell-correct is not liking my British spellings for a lot of my words. I don't know when I started using British spelling again since moving back to the States TWENTY years ago...apparently today.

I've had a ton on my mind and a lot of interesting personal issues come up now that the reality of moving in a year is upon our little family. Maybe my issues are only interesting to me, but they are there nonetheless, and I'm having quite a bit of fun trying to sort through them. Reading the book my mom introduced me to a few days ago called "Third Culture Kid" (that link is not to the book, but a funny definition that I like and can relate to) is really opening my eyes to what I thought was my own brand of weirdness. While I'm still clearly weird and still looking for a book about it (not really), this book is helping explain away some of the issues I couldn't put my finger on. Like why is the thought of moving somewhere PERMANENT so terrifying? It might be permanent temporarily (like 10 years), which helps a lot.

So, back to my conversation...I almost forgot about that since I'm so caught up with myself. I (yes, ME again) have been more and more disgusted with the Facebook and Comment Section rhetoric; that is the garbage people post/re-post that is either politically or religiously based, completely polarizing, often not true or completely out of context, often oozing with judgmental overtones, and then the hateful, bullying comments people leave behind. My thoughts about that have been consuming me to the point of exhaustion and distracting my thoughts from what is way more important - mothering my kiddos. I remembered why I avoid both posting and commenting anything in that genre recently when I questioned an acquaintance's decision about possibly not vaccinating her infant. Trying to ignore the bullying and hate directed at me while keeping a composed fact-based conversation was mentally exhausting...I clearly chose correctly when I never once thought about going to law school.

And then my inability to express those feelings coherently has also driven me nuts. (Not vaccination, just seeing all the Facebook junk). IE the little gem I saw recently - picture a smoking gun atop a bible lit by candlelight with these words plastered over it: "Guns & Bible...The only two things we need to keep our kids safe, and the only two things they don't teach in school." Really? REALLY? Mentally go down that road for a minute and work THAT out to its logical conclusion. Uh huh. Child army ready to shoot 'em all then pray about it. What a wonderful world! Or how about the insane amount of social upheaval in trying to decide how and who should teach the Bible...which denomination shall we choose? The ones who take it literally or the ones who take it metaphorically? The Mormons? The Catholics? The Baptists? or the ones who read the Koran?  I kid, kind of. Ok, not kidding. Instead of someone saying they want prayer in school and want to carry a gun around, they post some knee-jerk reactionary post. It's so STUPID and makes the post-er (not to be confused with the Science project variety) look stupid too.

Trying to describe something akin to being slowly, horribly run over by a slow tractor (don't ask where that metaphor came from...clearly I've spent too much time in little agricultural towns) is really hard to do even if you've actually been rolled over by one. Which I haven't. But my brother's ability to talk about my frustration in one complete, intelligent paragraph just made my heart sing, and I wish I'd recorded it so I could write it down. And I'm totally jealous. It makes me want to read more...maybe one day I'll be able to have thoughts I can actually speak without the hour of preparation I currently require. I can't tell you how awkward it is being in a conversation trying (poorly) to express the complexities of something, to finally be able to speak it out once it's been coming together in my head for an hour, but it no longer makes sense when the subject has moved from how to talk to your toddler about stranger danger to how to properly harvest basil. There's no good segue back. See? Awkward.

So in speaking with him about a million things including my frustrations with people making enemies over subjects they are extremely passionate about (but not really...who is ACTUALLY willing to die for their beliefs about whether global warming is real or not?) and don't really know anything about (they aren't experts in the field and I doubt they are REALLY reading or designing the studies in the scientific journals about global models of ocean biogeochemistry coupled to climate models, or what may be causing the profound effect on the hydrological cycle through studies of precipitation, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, etc.) and yet they will argue red-faced, call you names, get louder and louder, or WRITE IN ALL CAPS WITH A LOT OF !!!!!!'S, find out where you live, and threaten the lives of you and your pets. I kid again. Well, kind of. And to use my brother's words which COMPLETELY MAKES MY POINT (like how that's in all caps?), your response to this random subject has become the litmus test of whether you are in their circle or "one of THEM (said with a sneer and curled upper lip);" someone who loves America or hates America. Is God-fearing or heathen. Smart or stupid. Worthy of being considered human or faceless warm-body to unleash rage upon. And it makes. me. crazy.

I had to add this one...my (oldest) little boy and my brother's little girl. Somehow it reminds me of the top picture.

I just read over everything I've written here, and while I feel like a weight has been lifted (sorry if you are now helping carry it or now want to argue with me about something political or religious) I truly think I've gone insane. If you understood anything in this crazy essay, then I am officially impressed. THIS is how my brain has been working these days. Or not working. It's all over the place and makes little sense. Sometimes I get to my point, but I often don't. I'm so glad my husband loves my particular brand of crazy...not many people would be able to sift through this mountain of words. Thank you if you've made it to the end.

Buddy Walk T-Shirt Design

 I was asked to design the T-shirt for this year's Buddy Walk put on by the various chapters of the National Down Syndrome Society. To the left is their logo. They wanted the shirt to have the logo prominently displayed and several words of inspiration written on the shirt, and all in blue and yellow. Otherwise, I could design whatever I wanted. Sounded like a bunch of fun to me! Because the walk in this area is in Waco, TX, I decided the shirt needed to have something "Waco" on it and discovered that Waco is known for having a giant, beautiful, and recently restored bridge crossing the Brazos River. Apparently weddings and all kinds of events are held on this famous bridge.


For those of you who, like me, didn't know this bridge existed (2 of them, side by side!) here it is!

 It is a long cable suspension bridge known for its ornate entrances, huge "U" cable, and "V" support railings.














It is HUGE and truly a thing of beauty!












So, I decided this needed to be incorporated somehow, so I drew a very stylized picture to frame their logo nicely and then included words I thought were relevant to the walk. After sending in a few drafts, it was decided a sun should be around the logo. It's a bit on the busy side, but I really like the way it turned out! It's a fun, playful design for a T-shirt. And thanks to a new app I bought for my iPad (ArtStudio) I was able to get it done in an evening. It has all the cool parts of Photoshop without the price tag and is a bit more user-friendly.

I had so much fun with this project, and am looking forward to my next project...creating a logo for a new chapter of the National Down Syndrome Association!

I know I promised to update every week...that hasn't happened. It's not that I don't think to do it, it's that I have nothing interesting to blog about, ha ha ha! Hopefully that will change soon.