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The Herd at Dawn

A Christmas Note

Merry Christmas From the Lund’s

So, it's that time of year for the Christmas letter, only this year I am not writing one to be sent off in cards.  As a matter of fact, I have sent very few cards.  Times change and I am changing with them.  At least I am trying to.

Gary's and my story remains pretty much the same from year to year.  We are both fairly healthy, Gary is still enjoying his retirement and I still love my work as a RN Supervisor for CNS Hospice.  We took a few fun vacations this year.  We visited the beautiful state of South Carolina last spring.  Gary and I are such history buffs, it turned out to be the perfect vacation for us.  And of course there were a few camping trips to Wisconsin and Michigan.  As you can see from above, I started working on watercolors and enjoy creating.

We thought it was going to be just us and the cats, but we are not alone!.  Thom has moved back in to attend Northern Illinois University.  Seems he really does like working for the Dupage County Forest Preserve most of all and is studying geography which is applicable to land management or some such thing.  He has been working with the forest preserve for the last 4-5 years and hopes to continue the summer seasonal position while he attends school.  In the mean time he has picked up a job at a local coffee house.  So we have coffee!

Dan has finished up an internship at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum for his master's at EIU in Public History Administration.  He has landed 2 jobs, since full time positions are hard to come by these days.  One is as the Collections Manger for the Elmhurst Historical Society and Museum and the other is with History IT which is a company that sets up online archival collections for various businesses, museums, libraries and the like.  He is home but cannot wait to save up a little money and move into his own place.

As for everyone else in our extended family, my brother Clyde and his wife Cathy are doing well.  Their son Andrew is at Marquette working towards a degree in some branch of the medical community. He plans on going on to study at the post graduate level. My cousins Lisa, Holly and Lindsay and their husbands are busy raising their children.  I saw my Aunt Elaine this summer when she came to Chicago to visit her daughter Candace.  We plan on another trip to Holtville, Ca this year in February to see her.

So that's about all for this year.  As Gary always says, the years fly by.  I have become acutely aware of time as I grow older.  There are not enough minutes in the day or days in the year to do all that I want to do in my life.  But life is good.. And with God's help and guidance we will, you will, all of us will, continue to have many, very Merry Christmases and Very Happy New Years.

Deb

More Watercolors

Tommy

Two Boys and Cat Winslow Homer  Reproduction 

Flowers bursting with autumn seeds,

Dancing leaves on my front lawn,

                                                       Frost tipped grass at early dawn,

                             Say goodbye to summer needs

Autumn on the Door

A Few of my Watercolors

Summer's Last Day

Summer's Last Day

The rain is sweeping the dust of summer away.

The earth is mourning this season's last day.

Autumn is due.

A tinge of color kisses the edges of trees,

The cool nights leave very few bees.

The finch's feathers change hue.

The dust of summer is being swept away. 

The growing season knows its last day.

Sun's brightness will now begin to wane.

Next equinox the warmth will come again.

My Other Work

What I did on Mother's day.  Still working on this.

Return of the Artist

I have fallen in love with watercolor.  I dabble in art and have done so for most ofmy life.  I don’t seem to be able tomotivate myself to sit down and do original works of art without having sometype of structure associated with it.  Idon’t know why.  Maybe it was because although I seemed to have some talent as a child it was never nurtured and artof any kind was always considered a hobby not a vocation.  Or it could be that I never seemed to be able to sit in one spot long enough to really work on a piece of art.  Or maybe, just maybe, no one ever took thetime to teach art to me.

I remember my first real drawing class about 10 years ago with a real art instructor.  What an eyeopener.  It was a skill that could be learned and, like doing math or anything else, with practice it came easier.  I really created some beautiful things.

 Then life got in the way. I began working full time, the classes that were available at the juniorcollege level were on the wrong day, and the Art league only had classes in things that did not necessarily interest me. Suddenly I was out of the habit again and I stopped picking up a pencil to draw, I put my chalk away and my paint brushes remained in their drawer. I did start knitting though but that is a whole other blog.

Then this winter I noticed a watercolor course offered at the Naperville Art League.  I began to take the class a few weeks ago and the instructor is wonderful and I have learned to love watercolors.  I am working on a floral right now and it’s so much fun that even if the final product isn’t art gallery quality, it will all be worth it. I am sure the whole class will be worth it for getting me interested again!

Spring thoughts

Spring 2013, cold rainy...just like the winter was.  I had have never been much of a spring person while I was growing up.  When asked what my favorite season was, it was anything but spring. Spring was never a pretty month in the city.  The melted snow would reveal all sorts of trash.  And the odors that emanated from the sewers and the ground itself did not appeal to me, although I remember a friend telling me that it was the smell of the earth waking up.

It’s odd how I have very few memories of spring from my youth.  Let’s see, there was the time  a bird pooped on my new Easter bonnet just before we were leaving for church. Wasn’t that special?  I cried and cried.  I remember getting excited about baseball season starting, but none of the particulars.  I remember my Mom’s tulips and the first Robins of spring.  That was big stuff when you’re a youngster.  It was not spring until Mr. Robin redbreast lighted within sight of our back door.  I always knew school was coming to a close, but I do not remember being particularly sad or happy about that.  That is until high school.

I guess riding my bike was exciting after winter but most of my bikes riding memories are from the long, hot, glorious summers.  As I grew older there are memories of lying out on asphalt in the sun in temps that were unimaginably low to get a start on that deep dark tan we all sought.  Nothing remarkable seemed to happen in the spring of my youth.  And if it did, I probably don’t want to remember it, which at this time in my life is OK; I have come to terms with spotty memory.  I have friends who can’t remember a thing from when they were young.  I am lucky. I remember quite a bit.

As I grew older, spring became more eventful. In high school there was prom and college a lot of fun happened in the spring.  But the most vivid memory I have is the night I truly met my husband.

We had originally met when he and a group of friends began buying drinks for one of my classmates from college and me at what was then the Snuggery Pub in Edison Park.  Janet and I were celebrating yet another milestone in our nursing school career.  I believe it was the pediatric final.  We all began talking and over the next month or so we ran each other at our local watering hole Tommy’s on Higgins.  When the pub closed at 2 everyone would go to this 4am bar down the street.  Even when friends split up, we all knew to meet at Teasers at 2 which became a commonly used phrase for let’s all get together at teasers at 2am.  Like “hey…. what are ya doin’ later?   Teasers at 2?”

My most memorable spring night then occurred. I had arrived at Teasers at 2 am.  Having lost track of whoever else I was with, I began searching the crowd for a familiar face.  I was about to leave when through the crowd bops my future husband with a big grin on his face.  And what an amazing smile it was and still is.  We danced and then decided to go to Dapper’s, an all-night restaurant, (which no longer exists) for some breakfast.  We talked until 8am.  A few weeks later I graduated from nursing school, two years later we were married.  It was May when I met the love of my life and began a journey that would continue to fulfill me to this day.

So spring has grown better over the years with memories of my children’s successes, trips Gar and I have taken but as long as I live, the snapshot I have in my mind of Gary’s smile coming through that smoke filled bar will always be my favorite memory.  After almost 28 years our love just keeps growing.

A Room with a View

                   It was September of 1979. I had embarked on a new adventure.  I was doing something I had always dreamed of; I was going to live on an island.  It was a long, long flight to an unknown life. The three of us arrived in the dark of night.  When the plane doors opened we were hit by a wall of heat and humidity that would make Chicago in August feel comfortable.  The bus took us to our home which was a few miles down a very dark road.  I was at once excited and afraid, wondering what I had gotten myself into.  Mary, a few years older than me, seemed to take this all in stride.  Tom, who was to be our leader but turned out to be a close friend and anchor, was very businesslike as he left our company being dropped off at his residence first.  We were tired as we arrived at our destination and were led to our room.  It was dreary inside; the poor lighting did not help to brighten our accommodations.  I had a feeling of panic in my heart as we each picked a bed room. I, as usual, kept my doubts to myself but it was so quiet that my fears were almost audible.  Telling myself that I had to sleep, that sleep would make it better, I made the decision that when I awake in the morning, if this was not what I had wanted, I could always go home. 

                     Dawn came and I remember the feeling of total bliss as I walked out into the living room.  Mary and I looked out our window to a sheet of white sand followed by the gentle surf of the deep turquoise of the Caribbean. And so began my Caribbean adventure.  This  was a lesson I learned.  Never judge a hotel by what you see at night, and this also holds true for the dreariness of cloud cover.  That room, on that beach became the measuring stick by which I measure all hotel views.  

Isle of Palms came close, but, alas, the Atlantic lacks the color.