A Passionate Post— Blog Challenge #2

Blog Challenge #2: A Passionate Post—

 First, I am nowhere near where I want to be currently. I still have a full time and 2 part time jobs.  Ok, I love my part time jobs, but neither are fulfilling my current income needs.  And of course, the full time job while good at taking care of my income needs, can never make me happy.

It took me a long time to figure out what would make me happy. I am an extremely creative soul. Like so many people I am a product of a single mother, born in a time when people stayed married because it was the right thing to do socially. When my mother divorced she sent me to live with my grandmother for a while. I was 5 years old, and an only child.

 I was a social outcast, with no parents, or no older siblings, my days were often filled with my family elders and classmates picking on me.  As I grew older, I grew a tougher skin.  I found my acceptance in 3 areas, the first was my  family; my cousin Ann  who was my first best friend, my cousin Tony Sr. was my first protector and my cousins’ Tami, Eric and Cassandra who just accepted me  for me. 

Next, crafting  for example,  little girls in the 1970’s  were expected to have homemaker skills so, I would watch my Grandmother, and Great grandmother  who would sew by hand or  be creating  something and I would practice  sometimes just for the acceptance of the family elders. I have always been a crafter; embroidery, tatting, cross stitch, needlepoint, crocheted, knitting, sewing, card making and then at 25, suddenly I began to paint. I picked up a paintbrush and started painting on my boys stained sweatshirts. The paint was less expensive than replacing the children’s’ clothing. My boys received lots of compliments on the hand painted shirts.When I told my mother about being able to paint she  said without ever missing a beat, " your father was an artist."  I worked really hard as a single mother to raise and care for my children and to give my family all I could. 

Over the years I have made every effort to ends met by learning and improving my creative skills. I sold items or made things  for the personal touch or to help feed my family. At  one point I hand sewed beads on wedding dresses to pay bills.

  Lastly, comes my cooking abilities.  It never occurred to me making bread and pasta from scratch was a talent and not the norm. My  elder Great aunts and uncles all cooked, well except for 1, I can think of. We will talk about her another day.  My favorite uncle, Uncle Right grew the best gardens.  My grandmother was a cook at the Veterans’ Hospital, my Aunt J.  was always an outstanding cook. She had 5 kids so we were always cooking for something. Aunt J would assign tasks to each of us, it wasn’t work it was just about getting it done.   To this day I don’t blink when it comes to cleaning fish. Poor  in Portland families were often given buckets of smelts or whiting by fisherman or friends. We would fry the smelt crispy hmmm... they were good. I didn't  know we  were poor, till someone told me. 

My Mother, used to make candy and pies to raise money at bake sales. Growing up, I along with my first cousins would go picking or after school there would often be a bushel of something fresh waiting to be washed, and cut.   My cousins Ann and Tami and I would work together, sometimes we would make up games to see who could snap beans the fastest. It was fun.  Aunt J and grandma would can or freeze those foods. My favorite story is when we went strawberry picking and I hide some strawberries in my back pockets.  OH, I forgot to mention my jeans were white!

I forgot the berries were back there until I got out of the car when we got home and my cousin told me I had made butt jam! They teased me for a while about that one.

My son and daughter are both chef’s.  My mother and brother and my nephews’ all cook.  When we get together we all cook together. When I was raising my children to educate about having respect for other cultures we would learn to cook different dishes to be part of our thanksgivings.  Over the years, the practice has become our norm.  Cooking is love and acceptance.

 By the time I was in my 30’s. I studied Art, and History. In college I met a beautiful man who would be my mentor, friend and father figure.

My art teacher the late Barclay Sheaks, helped to build my confidence as an artist. Barclay taught me to laugh at myself and he was the first person who summed me up in a nut shell, he told me my soul was creative.  Creating crafts makes me happy and so does cooking. My places of acceptance.