When you turn 8 at our house, you get to light matches, use sharp knives, use the sewing machine, and get your ears pierced. He’s Heidi working on her first sewing project, and another photo of Heidi and Elsie with the new skirts they made. It was very tricky for a first project to deal with two sections of gathering stitches, but the skirts turned out great. When Heidi got all finished, she was trimming off some of the excess seam allowance, and she accidentally cut a huge gash out of her skirt. Oops! But I sewed a patch on, and all is well. I’m very proud of these kids – they did almost everything by themselves.

At long last, I’ve finally finished this painting. It has been in the works for at least a year, maybe two.

So the story on this is – Several years ago, when our friend Stacie was employed as a nanny for the girls, one of her relatives acquired a baby deer that had been rescued from a car accident. The mother was hit and killed but they were able to save the baby from inside of her. They called it Miracle. Elsie and Heidi got the wonderful opportunity to pet it and hold it, and Stacie snapped a bunch of photos for me.

In this one, Heidi looked so sweet that I had to try to paint it. It was tough because there was such a stark contrast of light and shadow, and not a lot of good color to work with. I almost gave up and threw this painting out several times, but I plodded through and I’m so glad to be finished!

So, here is how it happened for me. 

It all began when I was maybe three. I had inherited an extensive collection of “Playhour” 45s from my brothers, which I played on our sweet old GE record player. Most of the tunes were nursery rhymes, but there was one song that was my favorite, an instrumental version of “Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?”. It was different than all the others. It was jazzy. It was syncopated. To me it sounded like “grownup music”. I remember feeling liberated listening to it. Ha! I still have many of those old records but unfortunately that one is missing, and I so wish I could find a recording of that song. 

At the age of 5 or so, I I picked up my brother’s guitar and wrote a song, my first song, which was called “Cigarette”. That is, of course, what I thought a rock star would want to sing about.

Here are the chord chart and lyrics:

Cigarette

(Strum All Open Strings for the duration -Allegro)

Sung in Stentato voice, any notes of your choosing

Cigarette, cigarette

I want to smoke a cigarette

So go to the store and buy me some

Cigarette, cigarette

My mother probably didn’t like this song. But I didn’t want to smoke cigarettes, you see. I was just trying to get in touch with the modern audience.

Next installment will be Music: Part 2 – which will include The Breaking of the Record Player and a thorough telling of The Hamburgers, in which I will really bare my soul.

We made this for the snack table at church. I thought of making a bow out of bacon, but decided against it. It seemed kind of gross.

This is a quick project that’s pretty easy for kids to make. Take some old pants, cut them off right above the crotch. Turn them inside out and sew the bottom closed. Then use some material from the legs to sew on a strap. Then they can add buttons, ribbons, whatever to decorate. Heidi had a neat idea of sewing on a photo of her and her cousin.