Category Archives: art

…dear Lindsay Lohan

art, children, enjoyment, encouragement, Family, GOD, humor, hope, kids, LIFE, Movies, Parents, , , , , , , , , ,

I am sitting once again, waiting to feel better and re-watching The Parent Trap, the remake of the old one with Haley Mills. It was one of my favorite Disney movies as a kid and I never would’ve thought it could be remade it so well. But they did!

Lindsay Lohan is precious and funny and perfectly suited for this role. I can remember going to the movies with my then 11-year-old only daughter, the same age as the girl in the movie, and we both laughed and loved it and fell in love with LL. She was spunky and precocious and cute as a bugs ear — just like my own little girl. I had thought then that this girl would do so well in the world of acting. She was a natural and went on to be involved in a few more remakes, i.e.Freaky Friday and Herbie the Love Bug. Once again new classics!

I seem to watch The Parent Trap ever time it’s on, well at least when I am down sick because first it is still cute and funny but mostly because LL is so sweet and I feel a weird sense of attachment to her. Even in “Mean Girls” she was good and we all can relate to that world. I know she has good sense, I can tell. I just wish she had the support to live it!

Not knowing the whole story of her life, only tabloid fodder and the more current news reports but I guess it wouldn’t be wrong to assume she has gone down a wrong path. I can only wonder why? Who’s to blame — Hollywood or her parents, the school system, global warming, or was it too much too young? Maybe all of the above. At any rate, it is such a sad testimony of a young girls life and those who have been a part of it.

Being the mother of four as well as a Sunday school and children’s worker in a church, I know all too well the trials and pitfalls of raising kids. Everything can go perfect — all the stages of life were fun and full of understanding and compassion and love and yet there be problems. The Lord knows my mistakes are many so when I say how it saddens me that LL had been someone who seems to not get a grip on her life, I am not pointing a finger. I say this out of pure compassion for her.

I know how hard it is to live above your press, and even though she will never read this I would love to tell her — get back to that scraggly, scruffy girl. Color your hair back to its normal beautiful color. Stop collagen treatments in your lips. Stay sober and clean. Choose life! You are a really neat person and a good little actress. You are someone who could use your past to help you be an awesome actress. Show everyone up. Be the person God made you to be. Get your voice back and stand above your raising and your parents troubles and be YOU! This is what I say to my daughter and it goes for you too. You are worth far more than rubies. Stand strong, you are loved!

P.S……….This is after the airing of your portrayal of our beloved Elizabeth Taylor….I loved it! Although you were panned by the critics, don’t you listen to them…..Please dear young woman…rise above them all!

Enhanced by Zemanta

A cup half full

art, enjoyment, encouragement, Family, Friends, GOD, humor, hope, love

I happen to be a person who looks at life as if …“the cup is half full!” It is not hard for me to remember with thankfulness all the good things that have happened and the great and awesome plans that the Lord has for me and my family. I always like to believe the best about people and I want to try to see life as a gift and make the most of it. I have always had …HOPE. Even when I was a little girl growing up on my beloved farm…life was good. I was in my heaven, the one place that was all mine and where I was most free. I would dream, just like most kids, chase butterflies and watch the June bugs fly, while noticing all the beautiful sights of the landscape. The huge Sycamore tree and my wild daisy field and the apple orchard with the best apples I have ever eaten. I have so many memories of the changing of the seasons and the wondrous sightsof the Tennessee countryside. I believe this is why I had always wanted to be an artist. I could always recreate the scenes on canvas. It was such a beautiful world for which I wanted to always remember. I loved to draw and paint and I would spend so much time pondering on when the day would come that I would take off to New York, live in a snazzy studio apartment and recreate my lovely world on canvas with all my dreams of living in the big city, easel and brushes in hand. And New York….don’t get me started, “That Girl!” with Marlo Thomas was actually me! Needless to say I wanted Danny Thomas to be my father, how lucky was she I thought, her life was so exciting, skipping across the street holding her cute hat, I love hats! Then, what if I was like Doris Day and I met Cary Grant i.e That touch of Mink..…..how fun would that be? It is pretty obvious I have a very exaggerated imagination and I lived through fantastic imaginings. All the beautiful people who lived in that little box in our living room were Miracle Grow for my young mind. It fed me with all the ideals that Madison Avenue had planned for it to. I was the audience they were after, I believed it all, I drank the punch, I was bit! Life was always good! It seemed to me that the world was collectively reaching toward a goal. We were all trying to get there…what or wherever there is. I grew up with aspirations and goals that I never believed wouldn’t happen. It isn’t that I had all the encouragement and inspiration that my two parents could bestow upon me. Nope, zilch, none, nada! My poor mom did her best, she just didn’t have the time, four kids and an awful husband and then no husband at all and working three jobs at one time for years. Then my dad was AWOL! He left and never looked back. So it wasn’t that I was daily encouraged to reach for the stars! But I was told to work hard and to depend on yourself and there’s no free ride in this world so you better get up and get going! We didn’t have very much hugging and lovey dovey–ness. I consider that part odd, how do parents not do that, it is so foreign to me, as a parent, how do you not? But anyways I sometimes wonder if that is why I turned out the way I did. I have always had hope of MORE!
I meet kids these days that don’t seem to have that hope of more. They seem to not have many goals or aspirations. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” They just don’t know…how odd! Maybe it is because we have given them so much. They didn’t really have to wish for things for very long…..boy do I regret those times when I gave in all too fast. They just don’t seem to make kids like they used too! HA! Okay I am treading on a dangerous track now, feeling very old. This brings me back to my initial thought…the glass half full or is it half empty? Life is a struggle sometimes, get over it…grow up already! I know the answer……I got stinkin‘ thinkin‘..haha! Time to get off my lazy rear and get moving…the glass is half full, I have a million amazing reasons to stop pouting and get on with life. I am too blessed to be so whinny! I have fresh clean canvas and nice brushes and paint, time to get busy livin‘! Somebody slap me please, line forms now!

About ME

art, Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, Family, GOD, LIFE

I am a wife and a preacherswife and mother of 4 and I love my family. We moved back to my hometown near Nashville, TN and I am loving my life. I love writing, art…painting, creating something new from something old and I love God. I really wish people could lighten up and realize that God does love us and He cares what happens to us. A great man once said………..”believe Jesus and mind him!” That about says it all. Harder than it looks too…….Faith is the word! He has it all under control. Sometimes He whispers and sometimes he yells, I am just trying to learn what I need to after the whisper! I have journal ed over the years and I have always used this as a sort of therapy. My vision for this NEW way of journaling is to possibly help someone else who may be struggling with some of the same issues I am as well as for the pure joy of sharing my ups and downs. Moving back to my hometown area has been an adjustment…I have tended to re live some of my past, the good times and the bad. Memories make for interesting days and I tend to use those for writing, who needs a psychologist huh? I have no complaints…I am a blessed person, I have lived what feels like many lives and I am thrilled at the thought of the days to come. As a pastor’s wife my roll is more of a friend to our church family, we are not a two-headed monster…..HE is the pastor. I prefer to be involved with the ministry of hospitality and helps, women and of course the kiddos. I was raised on a farm the first ten years of my life and then after my parents divorce we moved to the town…..to my dismay! I eventually got over the shock and did ok…still always feeling like the odd man out but I survived. I always wanted to be an artist….my passion over all my school years. I have always loved every or any aspect of anything artsy! This is one venue for me to create with words. For anyone who reads…thank you for coming along!

…….and this is my sweet dog, Buddy! For which he is the best one ever!

20120302-223011.jpg

Escape

art, Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, humor,hope, Movies

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2011

Escape

Recently I was drawn into watching a “Mini-series” on the book and old movie, Mildred Pierce. I haven’t ever read the book, but now I want to and I had seen the movie, with Joan Crawford many years ago, so I was intrigued. The feature star was Kate Winslet of Titanic fame, and I love her in most everything she does so I gave it a whirl. Not that this was hard to decide to do, mind you….movie about back in the ’30’s, check!, movie that was a mini-series, check!, movie about love hate, strong women…well I was there! I was pleasantly surprised about it also, not that I had any preconceived ideas, I really couldn’t remember what it was about exactly, but not long into the picture..I knew I was hooked. This was set in the depression age and this women realized early on that she would have to be strong or she would never be able to rise above her circumstances. As I watched in anticipation, I found myself really connecting with Mildred, as a women. I was able to look back onto my life and see the areas that I have been strong and forge ahead even though all I wanted to do was hidden in the bed and pull the covers over my head. I know this is a fictional novel, but the real life contrasts were being made and it taught me about myself. I know that I am a hopeless romantic, that is a given and I am easily drawn into the storyline. But this lady was really impressive and at the same time sad and somewhat down trodden. There was never much talk about faith or God or any other comfort that would possibly help her, yet she was still strong. She is what the old folks call, a women of strong fortitude. As a wife and mother she led the family to where it needed to be, put up with a lot of slack and when the time came to put herself in a humiliating situation to provide for her children, she did just that which turned out to be her best decision yet. I am writing about this Mildred Pierce because of the striking honor she maintained even during the worst of times, I was impressed by her and moved that even during this era when the world was on its ear, Mildred became a women of valor, yet still vulnerable enough to fall into the trap of a man who would never be the one. She like most of us, never learned that lesson. I am different from her in that one, I found the one and kept him, I do live by faith and value the life I have been given. Sometimes it is just fun to escape and relate to someone else’s calamity! It makes me thankful as well. So this is just a silly testament to my life and how blessed I actually am…..that’s all. One more thing…you gotta give a girl a break that goes thru life named Mildred!

Patchwork Days

art, Christianity, enjoyment, encouragement, GOD, humor, hope, LIFE, , , , , , , ,

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2011
Patchwork Days
When I was a little girl I was blessed to stay at my maternal grandmothers home each and everyday. All of the big kids would go to school, my parents worked and I was taken to Granny Maxwell s house. This was during the very best days of my life, before the dreaded divorce of my parents and even more before we left my beloved farm. These were the days of laying in the yard on a breezy day and watching the Silver Leaf Poplar tree leaves blowing in the wind, shiny and glistening, feeding the scary chickens, only scary to me since I had been “flogged” one morning. I now believe I had actually fell down and all the feed fell all over me and they were only eating, it just happened to be pecking me into a scared frenzy. Poor chickens, it really wasn’t their fault, though I am still traumatized! I digress!

 

These were good days and they were the beginning of many good and bad days. This is what makes up a full life, days filled with ups and downs, twists and turns that take us to places we might not ever expect to be. These are the times of our lives that make us the people we are to be. They are like the squares that are so delicately sewn together by the strong and faithful hands like my granny’s. Many days were spent playing underneath the huge quilt in a frame with four or five elderly women, church women, no less, who worked their magic quilting this work of art which would end up on the beds of its creators.

 

The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The stories that a young girl would hear, not too terribly offensive unless you were the particular church lady that was the subject of conversation or maybe the preacher or even the husbands of these sanctified women. While playing there it was always a special world, not Narnia, but fun even so, the rolled down stockings and the black discreet shoes, no high heels in this group. Printed shirt dresses and everyday work clothes. It was a world of simplicity and a creative vibe that I have carried with me ever since.

 

Our own lives are like that, we don’t know when we wake up what the day will hold, a patchwork of sorts, stitched together with love and laughter and this makes for an edgy and frightful; fun-filled and possible eye-opening batch of realities that make up the moments of our own lives. My life, so far has been filled with many days that have caused me to pause and take stock of where I have been and where I am going.

 

How much of the time have I wasted and what portion has been fruitful? Were my decisions the best ones or should I have thought more about the results of my actions? Well…..yes, of course. If I had thought more I may be better off….but then also if a person thinks too much we may never get anywhere. Hence the dilemma that I usually find myself in. Thinking ahead is a good practice and I usually do but to the degree which stops me cold and causes me not to do anything useful… procrastination sets in and another one (day) bites the dust.

 

So I have to take stock of a life lived the best way I can, I can’t look back, those days are gone, but ahead to what will someday be that completion of the quilt…these patchwork days that are what makes me… Me. My quilt may not be the best but it is mine and if I learned anything from my granny it is to keep on sewing!

 
Posted by Rosemary Mcknight Fritts at 10:04 AM

 

Enhanced by Zemanta