Best Foot Forward Paint Party Friday

So it's a New Year and I'm one step ahead of my tech savvy kids!! Yahoo for mom! I found Flipagram  app and wanted to share it with you! Only 15 seconds long, it's so easy to use on your android or Iphone! Just download the app you can use 30 seconds of any song.... I will credit Paolo Nutini  for 15 seconds of his song " New Shoes". I just found out we do own this cd.This App is not intimidating at all and opens up the creative world even more!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I think I will!!

I just wanna play, experiment, try new things!!

I decided to glean my old pieces of art into a very short flipagram called "Best foot forward!" I think this is  a wonderful quick way for artists to present their work in an interesting way!  Unlike youtube it's quick and simple to prepare, upload and add music to! Make sure you check it out at the beginning of this blog!!

Something New for the New Year!!  How fun is that?

Is there  something new you want to try this year?

And so I did!!

This is my Contribution for Paint Party Friday! 

Here is a recap of our Christmas season with our beautiful family!

  My 52 year old brother, my Niece and Nephew.

We had a wonderful celebration at his house!

We provided two of their favourite desserts!

At lot of laughs were had by all!

Cupcake with her Cousins!

Mom wished for tall grandchildren

that she never got to see. Cupcake in the middle

stands only a three inches

 taller than moms five foot frame!

 Here is Beardo at his moms with a Totem of his four 

out of six brothers all 6'3" and taller! 

They are a quirky fun bunch

that you can't help but adore!

With a family of ten children, spouses and grandchildren Beardos family picks names and they gather Christmas eve with eight of the ten children and their families to celebrate! I opt to stay home and make the deserts and breakfast for the morning!

 

 It was a lovely season but we really enjoyed the few months leading up to Christmas with the carols and decor! Which was less hectic and demanding than the week of! We were able to give more to those in need than normal, unexpectedly  everything came back ten fold! We drove purely by accident past a grocery store where a radio station was  collecting for the food bank. We quickly all but threw forty dollars at them,  immediately Cupcake was unexpectedly given concert tickets worth well over one hundred dollars!! The kids were given 4 tickets worth almost two hundred to another concert from Beardos customer and they also got Tickets to the singing Christmas tree which is booked months in advance, plus they were treated to high end steak house absolutely free!

We don't exchange gifts amongst each other  and yet all our needs are wonderfully met! I was given a gift certificate that will pay for lamps I had planned on buying for my bedroom! It has truly been a season of love, giving and surprise! We are blessed to have such  loving family and friends!

Now I look forward to purging, playing and producing art  in 2014......!!!

A Humorous Story about my Brother

 Not sure if anyone clicked through to this funny story about my brother on my last post!  It was written in 2006 I  did another edit and decided to repost it!

It happened in the early Eighties  

Lifting weights and dieting since age twelve my brother has always believed in good nutrition. At thirty he won a bodybuilding contest. When I was married  I'd have the  family over every Christmas. Dearest brother would hunt through my fridge consuming bits of everything in sight. Deprived of junk food all year long, it was his time to indulge.
 
I  won a container of tiny cheese wedges the previous year at a Christmas party. Unappealing to me I never served them. God knows why I saved them that long. I must have thought I'd use them in a casserole one day. And hey, doesn’t cheese get better with age anyway? A year passed, they still sat in the bottom of my crisper. Brother rummaged through the  fridge and ate them. I noted the missing wedges. I asked how the cheese tasted, never divulging how old  they were. He said they were a little dry, but fine.

I often caught him rooting through cupboards  tasting a little of everything in sight too! Satisfying his year long restraint. As I prepared the house for Christmas dinner that year he scavenged my fridge again, mentioning  that the beef jerky I bought was disgusting. Suggesting  I should throw it out. Thrown off guard I had  no idea  what beef jerky he was talking about. He told me it was the one in the fridge. I stared dumbfounded, pausing to think for a second,  I declared there was no beef jerky in the fridge. He insisted he found it there. My fridge was always so full,  so I doubted myself.  Thinking there was a possibility I forgot buying it!

I questioned  him  more. Asking what it looked like, thinking he'd mistaken it for the pepperoni or Ukrainian sausage I bought. He told me the beef jerky was in a shiny green package. Still I couldn’t recall the package.  I asked what part of the fridge he found it. He insisted it was on the side door beside the eggs. Still unable to  recall  what the heck he was talking about I walked over to the fridge, opened the door. He barreled behind me,  grabbed the half eaten package and shoved it in my face. I looked at the package in shock, laughing hysterically. Dear brother  stood there perplexed as I continued to laugh uncontrollably. Over and over he kept asking me what it was, and why I was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming down my face, I couldn’t get my composure. Finally I blurted out that it was the beef jerky I’d bought for the dogs. He had devoured  half of  the dogs Christmas treat.

..
My ex continued to mock my brother the entire day. Although I was amused, the relentless teasing and smug attitude bordered on bullying.  I demanded my ex stop.  He wouldn’t. So I disclosed to my family that the previous week I'd ordered Chinese food. There was a huge plate of leftovers I  put it down for the dogs. They couldn’t eat it all so I wrapped it up and placed  it back in the fridge. Thinking they could finish it the next day. Before I could re-serve it to them, my ex  innocently warmed it up  and ate it for lunch.  I hadn't the  nerve to tell him, thinking what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. The continuous taunting of my brother, forced me to reveal that he had nothing to laugh about because the week before, he too had eaten the dogs food. In hearing this story, all the family laughed, and my ex never bugged my brother again.

The moral of the story is, Always read the labels, or don’t just  eat  random things out of a persons fridge without asking if it’s safe, especially if it's all mushed together under a piece of foil!

 

Sunday Scribblings " Cake" Happy Birthday Brother!

Sunday Scribblings Prompt this week is "Cake"

 What better reason to eat Cake!
Happy Fiftieth Birthday to my Little Brother! This man knows how to defy that half century mark! The way he dresses, acts, and preserves his body with daily maintenance and nutrition! He's worked at it and looks way younger than our dad did at 50! Right now he is sporting a solid six pack better than men twenty! Still a babe after
all these years!

 This was written in 2006 by still holds true!


Just a newborn, with a tuft of black spiky hair protruding from your tiny head I adored you from that moment forward. At two, you buzzed up and down the halls on your yogi bear ride-on toy. I was only seven but you amused me. Four years old and you insisted on taking all the wheels off your trucks. I didn’t pay much attention, but I revered you. Just five, over and over you concocted the antic of sticking your bare finger out the fly of your jeans, pensively awaiting the barrage of adult laughter. You amazed me with your humor. A little man at six, you stood between me and the teenage boys harassing us. My brave little brother, you took a whipping with tree switches across your tiny bare chest, Just to protect me, your eleven year old sister. I admired and respected your courage. A year later a huge percolator of coffee dumped upon your small body. Again you valiantly endured the pain of peeling nipples and second degree burns. My first love came early at thirteen, he was seventeen and I was forbidden to see him. You lied for me and kept my secret. Only eight years old, I trusted you and knew you were my friend. When our parents went out; we secretly danced in the prohibited living room against the light of the Spanish lamp. We ate ice cream and stayed up late watching movies. As a teenager my life became busied and I drifted away from you. At twelve you started to lift weights and I admired your strength, endurance and discipline. It was the time when I socialized into a woman and caretaker. And you became a man. I got married and went away, Mom told me, for weeks, you sat on the front porch with your dog, missing me. Caught up in my own life, I didn’t even realize how abandoned you must have felt. We stayed friends. You begged me to let you drive my vehicle within the complex before you had a license. I let you. You put a ding in my brand new red car and I made you scrape the wax off my floor as restitution. As a teenager you had your own life and I had mine, we weaned away again. You were busy chasing girls and I living in the confines of a monotonous marriage. We’d get together to share secrets and laugh, so handsome and fit, I admired your girth and enterprise. We’ve hung on to each other through death and folly. For a minute in time our love laid dormant, only to be revived with spring’s new growth, with lessons learned, natures changed and new found respect. Years later I admire you as a father, a husband, a brother, but mostly as a man. With strength and courage, responsibility and adventure, your talents still amaze me, your humor entertains me, and your generosity astounds and overwhelms me. I love you dear brother and I’m so proud to have you as my family! Your one and only sister!

For a hilarious story about my brother read here!

Brother defies Age

Inside says , " I'm old and hot too, and  it aint workin for me either!"

Of course I added, "but you're also....."

then listed  his many attributes, which will remain private!

It was my brothers birthday last week he's now one year shy of fifty. I had to make him a  card as a reminder, since he's always so ready to tease me! He's not typical and never has been. He defies age by dressing current, keeping up to date with his kids,  eating healthy and working out. A regime he's followed since age twelve. Like most of us he's not perfect with his own demons to fight. The photo above was taken in February, but  he looks a little more built up than usual right now.  Although he  prides himself on being in top shape during the summer I suspect he may be preparing to enter a body building contest on his fiftieth  next year. Even though he's not mentioned it yet, call it sisters intuition.   

He won first place in a body buiding contest on his thirtieth birthday, a few days before mom's stroke that lead to her demise three months later. Which I'm sure took the joy out of that win. It's kind of the Sandra Bullock theory...when something grand happens, then is swooped away on you! Like my friends step dad winning the lottery and dying of cancer six months later..... I digress, it's a lot of work to train for a contest like that...hours in the gym, eating lots of  plain rice and chicken, nothing else for months....everything is bland, being  grumpy because of constant  hunger. It's  darn grueling work too! But that's never stopped him before... I'll tell you when he announces it! For now he's keeping mum!

YOU ATE WHAT?

It happened in the early Eighties
My brother has been lifting weights and dieting almost his entire life and truly believes in good nutrition. When he was thirty years old he won a bodybuilding contest. He’s a very good-looking six-foot tall man who weighs approximately two hundred pounds. Every Christmas I would have my family over and D’Arcy would go through my fridge consuming everything in sight. He deprived himself of junk food, all year long. During the Christmas season there was always a surplus of food , so he indulged.

At a Christmas party the year before I had won these little packages of cheese tightly packed in tiny wedges. They didn’t seem appealing to me, so I’d never served them. God knows why I saved them. I guess I thought one day I might use them in a casserole or something. And hey, doesn’t cheese get better with age? Before I could use them, a year had passed by.

While rummaging through my fridge the following Christmas, D’Arcy found them, and surprisingly ate them. I noticed the missing wedges, and asked him how the cheese was, not informing him how old they were. He said they were a little dry, but fine.

D’Arcy always went through my cupboards like a vulture, eating a little of this and a little of that. Testing everything he had grown accustomed to living without. While I was getting the house ready for Christmas dinner D’Arcy went through his usual routine of scavenging my fridge. After he finished, he mentioned to me that the beef jerky I bought was disgusting and that maybe I should throw it out. A little stunned I asked him what beef jerky he was talking about. He told me it was the one in the fridge. I stared blankly at him thinking for a second, and then declared that I had no beef jerky in the fridge. He insisted it was in the fridge. My fridge was always so full and I knew there was a possibility I had forgotten about buying it.

So I began questioning him on what it looked like, thinking maybe it was the pepperoni or Ukrainian sausage I got. He told me the beef jerky was in a shiny green package. Still I couldn’t recall what package he was talking about. So I asked him where in the fridge he found it. He insisted it was on the side door beside the eggs. Still unable to figure out what the heck he was talking about I walked over to the fridge and opened the door. He barrelled behind me and grabbed the half eaten package and shoved it in my face. I looked at the package in shock and began laughing hysterically. D’Arcy just stood there dumbfounded as I continued to laugh uncontrollably. Over and over he kept asking me what it was, and why I was laughing so hard. Tears were streaming down my face and I couldn’t get my composure. Finally I blurted out that it was the beef jerky I’d bought for the dogs. D’Arcy had eaten the dogs Christmas treat.
My ex continually teased Darcy the whole day long. Underneath I was amused, but tired of his constantly hounding my brother with his smug attitude.

Finally I demanded my ex stop laughing. He wouldn’t. So I divulged to all the family how the week before I had ordered Chinese food. There had been piles left over, so I had put it down for the dogs. It was a huge plate full and the dogs couldn’t eat it all. So I wrapped it up and put it back in the fridge, thinking they could have it the next day. Before I could serve it to them, my ex had innocently heated up the dog’s Chinese food and devoured it. I never had the nerve to tell him, thinking what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. His constant taunting of my brother, forced me to reveal that he had nothing to laugh about because the week before, he too had eaten the dogs food. In hearing this story, all the family laughed, and my ex never bugged my brother again.

The moral of the story is, don’t just randomly eat things out of a persons fridge without asking if it’s safe! Or, it helps to read the labels!