A Thought for Every Day

This is what I found while reading my Our Daily Bread for November 26, 2014.

A good guideline for what I want God to do through me.  Think I'll rewrite & create a jpg in my own handwriting.

It's the First Day of December!

So after all the Thanksgiving activity, it is now December 1st.  I've watched a bunch of youtube videos about documenting each day in this month with journaling and at least one picture.  Some even make albums and call it December Daily & add the year # do it every year.  Reluctant to commit to that since I am so disorganized & have a habit of starting projects...

So this is what I decided to do: Write down one thing that I learned each day.  Simple, short or long, with or without pictures, no rules.

I will also stick this little note somewhere.

2.  I also learned how to put a picture into the blog...

It is a slightly damp day today, cool & pleasant.  Recovering from the weekend.  Finding God so faithful in every moment.

50 Years

It was 50 years ago today, July 29, 2014 that my daddy, James Yoshio Higa passed away in a heavy equipment accident in the earliest days of Makakilo's development.  He was 46, I was 13 and mom was 42.  We (the 3 of us) had just returned from our first trip to the mainland where we visited with sister Phyllis, Neill, Noe & Kalani in Northern California.  It would be their 25th anniversary on July 5.  What an adventure we had, riding a Grey Hound bus from to San Francisco and then to LA to visit Uncle Bill, Uncle Mitsu & Uncle Larry & Disneyland.  What fun to be in the Big City.  He was intrigued by the many opportunities of the mainland and possibly considered moving there one day.  HIs unexpected passing was obviously a devastating blow to all of us and we survived it with God's help.

My three older sisters were already married and had families of their own so it was just my brother Jr. and me at home.  Jr had graduated in 1963 and was planning to return to Pasadena College.  Rev. Glen Van Dyne, then pastor of the Wahiawa Church of the Nazarene lovingly ministered to us at this time and mom found her faith in Jesus and sought to live for Him.  We were active in church & were surrounded with prayer & our church family.

Here is an excerpt from some writings from Uncle Roy Higa who in 1977 wrote down many stories from his/their childhood in Makawao.  Daddy was the second oldest and Uncle Roy the third child.

Thanksgiving Orgy and the Indian Chief
Uncle James was in the 7th grade and also a star performer in the Thanksgiving program.  The program was an ambitious production, a re-creation of the first Thanksgiving party when the grateful Pilgrims invited the friendly Indians to a feast.  The Indian Chief, you guessed it, was Uncle James.  He had fashioned an elaborate costume from old burlap bags and  strings of turkey and chicken feathers on his headdress & red, yellow and blue paint on his face made a believable Indian Chief.  I was proud that he was my brother.  The entire student body of about 700 students, teachers and some parents gathered on the grassy lawn fronting the teachers cottages.  It was a perfect sun shiny day in November.  

A cluster of burlap and canvas teepees and cardboard log cabins were set up on the lawn with a long dining table in the middle.  About 15 Pilgrims and 20 Indians were in the show.  An assortment of fruits and vegetables brought by students were scattered on the table as symbolic of the bountiful feast to come.  While the Pilgrims and Indians sat at the table and pretended to eat the raw vegetables, green bananas, avocados, guavas, lemons, mangoes and other unripe fruits, the Indians led by the Chief Uncle James were supposed to entertain by dancing and hooting around the table.  Then the Chief was to climax with a speech thanking the Pilgrims for the invitation and pledging undying friendship, etc.  The Chief had two beautiful squaws in attendance.  They stood discreetly by his side smiling with baskets of fruits and vegetables.  They were visions in brown with feathers and flowers in their hair.  The girls were Marjorie Iaea and Hoohila Morton.  They were also good friends of Uncle James in school and they affectionately called him Jimmy.  Later the friendship blossomed and Hoohila was to refer to him as my "Sweet Sweet Jimmy".

The program was well planned and rehearsed.  However, the unexpected was to happen.  It started innocently enough.  The Komoda Store in town had completed a new store and added a bakery to their operations and decided that the school program would be a good place to publicize their bakery products.  As the program was to commence, the bakery truck rolled up and unloaded an assortment of sugar and glaze doughnuts, unpuns with the ono black bean filling, snails, sweet rolls and other baked goodies.  And this largesse' was spread on the table.  This added exciting realism and delicious dimension to the program.  The onlookers were awed and envious, the participants were awed and delighted.  Chief Uncle James was undoubtedly the happiest of them all.  He was thrilled and dizzy with anticipation.  The overpowering aroma of the still warm pastries was knocking on his senses.  

The program started, the dancing and whooping around the table was spirited, full of uninhibited joy and it was all genuine.  Now they settled around the table, everyone including  the envious onlookers, among them your 9 year old father to be (stories written to his daughter, cousin Ann), was by now drooling rivulets of saliva from his gaping mouth, and their eyes glued in fascination at the real goodies on the table.  

As Chief James got up to speak, it was the signal for the feasting to begin.  He was horrified to see all the darting fingers grabbing at the pastries.  Table etiquette was ignore.  It was every man for himself.  His speech was scheduled to be about 5 minutes long, to be spoken in a loud authoritative voice with very slow deliberate cadence like some one who had important things to say in an unfamiliar language.  But nobody was paying attention to his speech because for one thing they all heart the speech many times as he loudly rehearsed all over the campus in the last three weeks.  Everybody was watching in fascination the orgy that was going on at the table.  As he droned on, it became alarmingly apparent to him that the pastries might all vanish by the time he finished.  I can think of some negative things about Uncle James, but that stupid, he wasn't.  Of course he didn't finish the speech.  

He sat right down and none to soon, and started to make up for lost time.  His hands were like spears flashing in a school of menpachi fish.  Joe Louis had fast hands but I'd bet on Uncle James that day.  He was magnificent.  In two seconds, he had snared a half dozen bruised pastries and like a pineapple cannery ginaca peel shredding machine,  his two hands were cramming pastries left and right.  One after the other.  It was an incredible performance.  Six pastries were in his mouth at one time even before he started to chew.  Not an easy feat even for Martha Raye.  His cheeks were distended like two balloon fishes mating, eyes protruding like frying eggs sunnyside up, and the red, yellow and blue paint on his elastic face accentuated a real live Jack O Lantern.  It was superbly grotesque.  Alas, while his mouth was only too willing, his throat would tolerate none of that foolishness, one digested pastry at a time or else.  He suddenly stood up and went into a frenzied Indian war dance, his face fiercely contorted, it was totally unrehearsed and spontaneous, it was spectacular.  I was impressed and joined the applause of approval  There seemed no limit to Uncle James' s talent. 

Then just as suddenly, he flipped to the ground, rolled over and started to groan, grasp, vomit and palpitate into nauseous convulsion.  His teacher, Mr. Dick Shigemi rushed to his side, worked his fingers in the Chief's mouth and induced a huge glob of regurgitated mess.  Then artificial respiration was applied.  It was all rather deflating and undignified.  When the other Indians and Pilgrims were assured that the Chief was going to survive, they rushed back and this time carefully ingested only two pastries at a time.  Everybody in my class new that the rapacious Chief who almost choked to death was my brother.  I went home and complained to my mother.  She quietly said one doughnut should have been plenty.  Mother's simple logic.  Anyway this fiasco ended all such ambitious productions at our school.  Komoda Store never donated free pastries after that, not even doughnut holes. ~

Just one of the many stories but this one is my favorite.  Uncle Roy is 92, Aunty Judy Watanabe is around 86 & Uncle Mitsu just went to his class reunion in Las Vegas from Benjamin Parker School Class of '50 (the year I was born.)

I know Daddy would be proud of how we all turned out, would have loved our spouses, his grandkids & great grandkids (keeds).  Love you, Daddy.

Watching the G Girls

It's Summer & Alisa often has photography opportunities with Ashley, Pinky.  Why not?  Drop the girls off at Gma & Gpa's.  They'll keep them busy, right?

Well of course it's craft time!  Had Nysa bring the box of crafting/watercolor supplies that we gave her for her 11th birthday last Sunday.  I broke out their little booklets that they made last time they came over & gave them the assignment of writing  What does Summer mean to you...  They completed that and then cut up index prints to glue into their books.  I just got a Canon Selphy Printer & can print multiple pictures on one 4x6 inch=1, 2, 4, 8, 20, 30 (index).  I'm having so much fun!

So when Celina came over on Saturday, she brought a bag of goodies: Tim Tam, two kinds of Cadbury chocolate treats for Gramma's School (I didn't know Cadbury is made in Australia), a fun set of "retirement dice" and a bag of fabric sample swatches from her other niece Michelle.

Sorted out the swatches and after our spaghetti lunch, I decided to sew six of the swatches together to make a bag.  Each swatch had an grommet from whence the swatches were connected.  The edges were pinked and as I pondered out loud whether to fold the top down and add a handle, Kwyn--the 5 year old said she liked the unfinished edge and why don't I put something in the holes.  Used cable cord and voila--she loved it!  Then I had to make two more...  I let them pick out their prints and what order they wanted.  Pleased with how they turned out.  USE WHAT YOU HAVE.

Sew Blessed & Grateful

Celina's Visit and Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping

My classmate, friend, maid-of-honor Celina is here visiting from Australia.  Her niece arranged for her travel for her dad's (Celina's brother) birthday.  She found some time that worked out for the both of us on Saturday morning.  She suggested Starbucks and I thought to make some Blueberry Muffins & bring the Starbucks home.

Here's the recipe from Cynthia Won.  I've tweeked it with a crumble topping from The Pioneer Woman's Pear-Cinnamon Crisp.  It is ever so yummy.

2/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 3/4 cup sifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries (I use frozen, found it cheaper at Costco)
1 tablespoon flour

Cream butter and sugar.  Add milk and egg and beat until smooth.  Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Add to creamed mixture.  Mix until moistened.

Toss blueberries with flour and fold into batter.  Fill a well-greased muffin pan 2/3 full with the batter.

Topping ingredients for 9x13 pear crisp (I halve the recipe)
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cu pecans, finely chopped
1 stick butter, melted
Stir with fork until combined and sprinkle evenly over the 12 muffins.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.  Smear with even more butter and enjoy!

Store leftover muffins if there are any uncovered in the refrigerator.  If stored in covered container, the crumb loses its crunch.

No photo :( on computer--it's on the phone or ipad mini.  Next challenge is to figure out how to add to post.

So we had a lovely visit, got caught up & talked about writing:family history, thoughts, what we've learned and decided we'd share with each other what we do.

this was taken at Main Street Station at our 45th Class Reunion in Las Vegas 10/14.

Getting Caught Up

I just realized that when I am operating on Craft Overload, I need to download somehow.  So many ideas, thoughts, things to share, pictures, how to's.  Until I take the time to dispense, I'll continue to become even more bogged down--like a snow ball rolling down a hill gathering, running over everything in it's way until it reaches the bottom.  So I'm thinking that posting on the blog will relieve this creative tension.

My intention is that this blog will be my place to gather pictures of things I've made or in the process of making, instructions, links to other blogs, videos.  For all the different things that I do, I'm still a bit unorganized about it all.  Hopefully this will be my new way of getting it all together & be able to refer people to a post for a recipe, technique.  I've spent who-knows-how-many hours hopping around cardmaker/stamper/watercolor/paper crafting/sewing/lettering/cooking/... blogs that have contributed to my OVERLOAD!  So I'll see how I do.

Let's start with a quote:
IF WE DO NOT FEEL GRATEFUL FOR WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE,
WHAT MAKES US THINK WE'D BE HAPPY WITH MORE?

Grateful is a state of mind, a way of living, of being.  It changes one's perspective.  One of my goals is to be in a constant state of grateful.

Watercolor

I've been very involved with watercolor.paper.colored pencils.paints lately.  It started when I found five very old (from the 80's) coloring books that I bought from a Christian bookstore that had: Words of Jesus, Psalms to Color, Proverbs to Color, The Ten Commandments & Bible Verses to Color.  About 15 years ago when I was in to shrink plastic, we made little wall hangings using sharpies to outline & color with colored pencils.  I still have several that I made & see the one made for Phyllis in her Las Vegas home guest bath when we go to visit.  It makes me smile every time.

I've also loved watercolor anything--that's why I love batik.  It is free form, unassuming, subtle, simple.  It's okay to go outside the line.  I know that I am not an artist that can draw with pen or paint but watercolor-for me-is doable--no wrong way--letting colors do what they will.  It's magical.  So, before Easter, I found the 9x12 inch water color paper, transfer paper & proceeded to do full-size word pictures:first transferring images with tracing paper; outlining with fine sharpies; coloring with water color pencils & lastly using a water brush awakening the color.  Did a bunch of them, scanned them into the computer, printed them smaller for card fronts.  Even had the grandkids do it as an activity~~printed at Costco.  The Greig girls used their 4x6's on the front of their 6x6 books that they made at a sleepover.  I'm a firm believer that the more opportunity that they have to be exposed to making things with their hands, making things for others will help them to have confidence & build their self worth.

Along those lines, watched a YouTube video by GirlGeekLovesStampin' and she used distress inks on her embossing folders to make beautiful wonderful cards.  I love the randomness= #you#don't#know#what#you'll#get#but#you'll#love#it# kind of art.

Wrapping us this post.  Hubby wants to watch Korean.  We're watching Dandelion Family on ep.16.

Leilehua High School Class of 68 45th Reunion Highlights

http://www.smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a6b344d4463354e6a593d0d0a&blogview=true   Yay, it works

now for the other one. 15 minutes later, not a go so just one for now.  Learning new things is so much fun.  Thank you Lord my brain can still grasp new concepts--with your help. :)

Still Learning from Mom

Being retired means having leftovers for lunch often.  With my sweetie still working at the church, it's just me & the kitty.  Today as I was preparing to heat up my chicken & broccoli, I thought about mom & how she was very much into presentation, how her meals looked so appetizing, on a tray, with a napkin, small portions of this & that, maybe a dessert.  It's all about how you look at things, perspective, if you see something as mundane, boring, uneventful, it will be.  Likewise, through grateful eyes, a little preparation and the same thing can be an event/pleasant experience.  I LOVE leftovers!  What's not to like?  Just heat & eat & enjoy again.

Oh how I want to be like her.  I know I must be me & develop/recognize/embrace the me that God wants me to be.

How blessed I am to be your daughter Mom.

Catching Up

So much time has passed since my last post.  It's 2014 now & January flew by like a flash.  We had an exceptional Arise.

This is the cover of my Scripture mini book.  Just started it last week and am enjoying adding daily these eye opening important Words for Me in my own handwriting.  I've always loved playing with pens (Gelly Rolls here~Metallic not so good, opaques best).