Gene Wilder

With the death of Gene Wilder Yesterday, it's only fitting I post the scene from one of my favorite movies, and where I got the name for my blog.  Love Gene Wilder.  Movies he's been in are some of my favorites of all time.

I've not watched Young Frankenstein in many years but plan to do so very soon.  A lot has happened since April when last I blogged.  Perry graduated from High School, and has started attending Project Life thru Butler Tech.  He seems to like it and is slowly maturing and gaining more independence which is the ultimate goal.  His least favorite thing about his new program is packing his own lunch everyday, and having to do his own laundry.  Ha Ha Ha.....I told him it's called being a grown up, and those things suck for all grown ups.  Except Geegaw who strangely enjoys doing laundry.  Somehow I did not inherit that gene.

Perry also started attending "big church" with us.  Last week was his second week in big church, I show'd him how to use the bible app I had him put on his iPad, and by week 2 he learned to follow along with the message and look up scripture on his iPad.  Made my heart happy.  Hopefully he'll learn to highlight and refer back to important scripture.  I think it was harder on me this transition as he'll no longer have that forced social interaction.  I need to find a new forced social interaction for him.

I have way more time on my hands now that my child is basically grown and not involved in stuff, so I've been doing lots of artwork for my art journal and staying up to date on my documented life unplanned.

I really enjoy playing around with mix media.  I hope to start practicing faces again.  

He Loves Pop tarts.......

I had decided there was a lot of blog worthy stuff in my head lately, then something pretty epic happened.  Let me give you a little back story.  My child is not social, like at all.  He doesn't have friends he hangs out with.  Any socializing he does is usually created for him by me or usual situations like school or church.  He doesn't seek out people to socialize with.  He will not seek out people to chit chat.  I cherish the moments he starts a conversation with me, this usually means something or someone has left an impression on him.  He is completely content with who he is, and an extremely happy young man.  

I have gone to the same church for nearly 30 years.  We have attended this church as a family for Perry's whole life, it's the only church setting he's ever known.  He has loved attending the Student union since 6th grade.  Other than Boy Scouts and school it's the only "socializing" he does.  I often wonder what it must be like to be Perry in that setting. Loud.  Hundreds of people roaming around.  Loud music.  Over the years I have met people who know Perry from the student union who have given me a small glimpse, and how much they adore him.  The very best glimpse though is a year or so ago Perry show'd me a business card he keeps in his wallet.  I was like "what's that?" He was like "its the police officers that's always at the student union.  He's a really nice guy.  He gave it to me. "  I was impressed, he must have made an impression on him enough to show me what he had given to him.  And that he must talk to Perry every single Sunday.  Which if you know Perry that's not easy task, it takes patience and understanding as Perry generally won't talk back to you.   

Today I came home after going to a play right after church, then ran to the grocery store.  Perry and Ron had done their usual Sunday shopping, Target and Costco.  When I got home I saw an ENORMOUS box of pop tarts.  I rarely buy pop tarts even though it's generally Perry's favorite food. The only time I get them is if Perry goes with me to the store.  Ron will flat out not buy them as he considers them poison.  Even though we don't buy them Perry finds a way to eat pop tarts nearly everyday as they sell them at school and he gets them at church.  I don't buy them because he will generally consume the whole box in like 2 days, and I don't want to eat them either.....although they are delicious.  So when I saw the box of 48 pop tarts......I was like what on earth????  Perry really got over on his dad, he must have done something amazing.  I got busy cooking dinner, I had holler'd for Perry when I first saw the box but he didn't respond so I soon forgot.  Eventually everyone was in the same place and Ron said "hey show your mom what you got a church...." He show'd me the ginormous box of pop tarts, I was like "did you win some sort of crazy game?"  He was like no the police office gave them to me........say what?  what a precious precious gift for Perry.  He said he thanked him.  And he told me he kept his cool and just said thanks but what he wanted to do was this......and he began jumping around like he had just won the lottery.  I am going to leave that precious story right there.......that my friends is truly the "art of neighboring".......

Yes that is a hand painted  tarva dresser I won in an auction at IKEA many years ago.  You too can try to score a hand painted Tarva dresser on April 26th, at 6pm at IKEA.  There's way more dresser's up for grabs than when I scored this one and framed art work done by children of the lakota school district.  #ARTFORTARVA

Blog Worthy-Generosity

The message at church today was on generosity.  It was a great message and reminder.....much needed.  Said a prayer for God to show me creative ways to be generous, and then went about my day.  

Parked at Findlay Market 

My day consisted of going to Rhinegeist to Art on Vine, and then down to OTR to have an early dinner at Bakersfield.....my  most favorite restaurant in the whole world.  Generally speaking if I am anywhere near OTR for any length of time and around Lunch or Dinner time, whoever is with me ends up at Bakersfield, or The Eagle, but usually Bakersfield.  So Colleen joined me on this adventure.  It was her first time going to Bakersfield.  Both of us had not had lunch, and it was 4pm.   Usually there isn't a wait at 4 pm, but it was the second nice day in a row and a sunday, so it was an hour wait.......UGH.....Headed to a  few shops and then found a spot to sit and wait.  Dreading the hour wait......waited 20ish minutes and go the call there'd been a cancelation......SAY WHAT?  Score.....shared a big picnic table with 3 random strangers....one of which was fairly loud.  We set up to pig out with Guac (best in the whole world) and Queso......also very good.  With 2 appetizers one might just get 2 taco's, but we both had 3 different kinds we wanted to try.  We got the Guac and Queso within 15 min, seems reasonable.  Right when we got it the manger came out and apologized it took too long.  Wait what....but we didn't complain, everyone was super nice and attentive considering it was crazy busy.  

Fish Taco

We got our amazing tacos.  Inhaled them, and the waitress asked if the checks were separate.  We said yes.  The manger came back with our check, on one, and said it was taken care of, our meal was on him.......WHAT......wait why?  No reason, just on him have a great day.  Gave a generous tip, and was on our way completely baffled as to what just happened, and why.  So turns out the creative generosity happened to me and Colleen today.  So now I am challenged to pay it forward.  Continuing to pray for creative generosity.  God is good.  

Did you say Donut Trail?

Well I did it.  Mission accomplished.  When I first saw the title Donut Trail, I thought there was going to be hiking involved, alas there is not, I mean there could be, and generally should be, but that would be a loooong hike.
Butler County Donut Trail was a lot of fun.  It could probably be done in one day, but You'd have to get up super early, possibly even like 1 am, as often these places close by noon or before if they run out of donuts.

The first day I started was a friday, and Ron just so happened to be off.  He was not happy about driving all over the county in search of donuts he had not intentions of eating......see Whole 30 ever since then he refuses to eat donuts.  Something about sweet addiction....blah blah blah.  I informed him I'd go alone and he wasn't getting any, then I got kind of whiney about driving all the way to oxford alone.....Guess he felt sorry for me so off we went.

So we did oxford, ross and hamilton on the first run with a super grumpy husband.  A week later on the Saturday, and drug a reluctant teenager to Middletown, Trenton, and Fairfield.  He was all kinds of happy to get donuts, but not too happy about the driving all over the place for them.  

Driving from Middletown to Trenton is a really nice scenic drive with really cool old homes.  My review is that out of all the donut places we went to Milton's Donuts in middletown by far was the best.  It was a saturday morning and that place was hopping.  We got 4 donuts and they were so tasty. I am a huge fan of Holtmans, and thought there was no way I'd ever find a donut better than Holtmans, Miltons Red Velvet was very very good and better than holtmans......gasp.....

Milton's donuts were instantly devoured.  We barely breathed in between bites.  

Jupiters Donuts used to be Bee's.....it has good Cherry cake donuts.  

Donut Spot is our go to donut place pretty much my whole life.  When Ron used to eat donuts he'd surprise use on the weekend and we'd wake up to fresh donuts from here.  Now we wake up to a plate full of goetta and sometimes pancakes.









I tried to go to Stan's on a thursday around 10am.....well they had already run out of donuts.  It was the last one I needed, and had to wait one more day to complete this project.  So if you go on a weekday get up early.

I've done ALOT of things for a t-shirt my whole life, this is the first time a travelled all over to get donuts for a t-shirt.  You don't actually have to get donuts, you really just have to walk in to find out the super secret word for each place.

After this dozen (got a dozen to celebrate the last donut place) I'm laying off donuts for a good while. Lets hope Perry eats most of these.....because Diabetes people, and sugar is bad for you, but apparently not for a growing 18 year old boy.