One advantage of having your parents live with you is tapping into their memories.  And your mother’s photo album.

These are my grandparents, Dan and Gladys, holding my mom.  So this must have been 1927-ish.

It’s fun to see my grandmother standing on the California beach where I grew up, sporting a bathing suit.  Might have been a bit scandalous in the day!

Since I never saw her in a bathing suit, ever, this sight isn’t in my memory bank.

My memories include a garden full of geraniums, a spotless house,  new Easter outfits, her piano, the long drive to church camp every summer, paints and glass jars filled with brushes, the smell of wet ceramic clay.

But no bathing suits.

In fact, I still see her in the every day uniform of long, wide-legged pants and a work smock.  This allowed her to move from home keeping to gardening to art creating without ruining her good clothes.  Very common sense of her.

I loved to visit because there was always something different for me to do.  And she didn’t hover while I did it.  She would give me a canvas and paints and tell me to paint it… a hunk of clay and tell me to shape it… a tablet and pencils and tell me to write it.

She let me make my own, messy art.

Then we talked about it.  Approvingly.  Maybe a gentle lesson on how to mix paint colors, or if you pinch the clay a certain way you get “this”, or a suggestion to write a couple more sentences to give detail about “that”.

She always pushed me to do a little bit more.

Once after a heavy rain, we went to a bare patch in her garden where she gave me a hand trowel, an assortment of old dishes and told me to make mud pies.  When I was done we sat in the sun with a cup of coffee and pretend ate my pies.

I was six.

I loved her.

I love that she never stopped creating her own art.

And I’m pretty fond of coffee.

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When I joined the blogging world several years ago, I found many blogs full of inspiration, courage and beautiful art.  Some were created by regular folks like me.  Some more well known.  But all of them inspire in their unique way.  And encourage me to hang on and do a little bit more .  Just like my grandmother did.

You might have noticed, in fact, there is another tab on my blog which says Favorite Links and Things.  It’s been “under construction” for too long.  I’d intended to list blogs and websites, books and such that might be interesting to others.  Of course, I realize there’s Pinterest for that purpose, but I’m going to keep my own little list going right here anyway.

It’s a partial list.  So hope you’ll check it from time to time for some great reading, photo viewing, and inspiration gathering.