A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

  The Artist Inside...Sort Of There is an artist in me. Maybe in all of us. Mine is mostly hidden but begs to get out every once in a while.  I’m not talking about that “craft person” I humor on occasion by crocheting something using a pattern or painting seashells to look like roses. Nor am I talking about that desire to “try something different” by joining a group of woodcarvers in my neighborhood. There, I follow someone else’s design or instructions to create my “own” hand carved Santa. Carving "Santa" No. This person, this artist, resides deep inside of me in a place I almost fear to acknowledge. Not because it is bad. Mostly because it is seemingly forever elusive.  It is fed by an eye that sees light and color and longs to capture it forever on canvas. Instead, I typically rely on the camera on my Smart Phone to preserve the image. I’ve done a bit of painting in times gone by. I’ve painted pictures on wood and canvas.  And walls. Sorry Mom. I’ve painted with a...

The Message of the Tree Mike and I have some tall …and I mean   TALL … Silver Maple trees in our backyard. You don’t find them everywhere in Florida, but they are prevalent in Citrus County where we live.  Our tree is scarred.  We have a few clues to tell us what happened.  Shortly after we moved here, we found a long piece of bark from that tree on the ground near it. A length of chain is firmly attached to that bark.  A few feet away, in another tree, we located a heavy metal hook. We’re guessing there was a hammock strewn between those two trees at one time. Lightening was likely the force that brought the hammock down and damaged the beautiful gigantic Silver Maple. The location near the lake was perfect for a hammock. The cool breeze off the water on a warm Florida day washing over you in a shaded hammock? Couple that with a tall glass of lemonade or sweet tea? It is the dream of Florida living come true. But no more. The hammock no longer hangs there. Howe...

  A Great Cuppa Joe Mike and I enjoy our coffee.   Every morning.  We have a Mr. Coffee. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. In the evening, I pour the water in the machine, measure out ground coffee I bought at the store, and set everything up so that all we need to do in the morning is hit the ON button. Easy. I even bought a permanent filter so we don’t have to fool with those little paper ones. When my mother moved to Florida from Ohio in May, she knew she needed to downsize. She gave people she knew Items they could use or wanted. She donated furniture and lamps to a charity.  She gave me two special items. Two coffee grinders. Not that I’ll ever use them. One belonged to my paternal grandmother. It is ceramic and hangs on the wall. The coffee beans feed into the top, someone turns the handle, and a glass container collects the freshly ground coffee. I don’t how much my Grandma Williams used it…if at all. Mom didn’t know. She only knew it belonged to Grandm...

         A Gulf Coast Golf Post Mike and I both grew up enjoying swimming, boating, and water skiing. We also both grew up around horses.   Though I never considered myself a “car girl,” I appreciate the same cars Mike likes. We attend car shows with friends and enjoy the comradery. Car shows were new for me. Mike and I have been married over two years now. It’s been fun to discover the many things we have in common. A good hamburger. Old Westerns on television. Tampa Bay Rays baseball. It has also been good to discover new experiences. Looking at a New Adventure Mike was…and is… a true fisherman. I’m not talking about putting a worm on a hook, tossing your line out and waiting for the bobber to bounce. Mike understands lines and lures. He knows how to cast a line and reel it in with a certain rhythm to attract a bass. I know. He’s teaching me. I caught a bass off our dock. Even though I still contend it was “monster” sized fish, on Mike’s assessment, we th...

  From Cowgirl to Car Girl If you caught last week’s post, you know my parents moved to Arizona when I was four years old because I had asthma. If you didn’t catch that post, I put a link at the end of this one so you can check it out.  The move to Arizona likely influenced my decision to be a cowgirl when I grew up. Well, that and the fact my dad and I watched westerns on television every Sunday afternoon. In Arizona we went to rodeos and visited Old Tucson. My closest friend was a Mexican girl named Moey. She taught me a few words in Spanish. Her mother cooked tortillas on a griddle, flipping the thin round flour food they used as we did bread, with her bare hands. I was fascinated. We pretended broomsticks were our horses and we fought wild Indians together. (No comments on not being “politically correct” here, please. I was four.) We moved back to Ohio near the end of my first-grade year to the house where my father was born. It was on my grandparents’ property. The move w...

  The Gift of Caring Parents This past week I went to the doctor for my annual checkup. I’d gained a couple extra pounds. That didn’t surprise me. Mike and I have had a crazy schedule for a while. Eating fast food and taking our meals at varying hours doesn’t bode well for me. It’s just the way I’m made,  But when the doctor listened to my lungs, she frowned.  “I had asthma as a child,” I told her.  “You have asthma  now ,” she said. “You are very asthmatic.” She sent me for further testing and prescribed an inhaler.  Not the news I wanted to hear. My parents heard that same statement many years ago. Nothing helped then. Nothing. The doctor recommended we move to Arizona until I “outgrew” my asthma. It was a huge sacrifice for them. We moved to Tucson. I was four years old. I have always held great admiration and gratefulness for my parents embarking on such a journey because of my health. Dad left a good job without knowing what he would do when he reached...

  Mama's Day Mother’s Day is joyous for many, hard for others.  I’ve given everything from a bouquet of dandelions to full blooming rose bushes to my mother through the years. But now that I am an adult, I’ve learned the gift of time is what we all value most.  This Mother’s Day, my daughters and I (all moms, ourselves) presented my mom with a special sort of gift. We drove her to Kentucky for the weekend to the place where she grew up. On Saturday, we visited the cemetery where her parents, maternal grandparents, and brother as well as her great grandparents, and other family members are buried. L-R: Mom, Danielle, Allison, Kendall & Me I should note, we couldn’t have done this without the help of my cousin, Gerry, and her husband. It’s a hike up the side of a steep hill and not ideal for a ninety-three-year-old. Harold and Gerry drove Mom up in a truck while the rest of us made the climb. All of us. That included three of my mother’s “younger” cousins who were there...