life of a georgia Artist

 This is normally my favorite time of year. I drive north till I find color, so about an hour and a half or two. This is the season of light, brightness, and color, yet I feel down. My mom died in November and I feel the season will, going forward, weigh heavy on me. I feel the joy of my favorite season is gone. She would hate that for me. She would want me to enjoy life, but the grief anchors me to the shore. I can see out over the metaphorical harbor and the fear keeps me from moving. I love the colors of fall. Although I live in Georgia now, the colors truly put on a show growing up in New Jersey, and I love traveling there in the fall. The yellows are predominant down here. There are some red and orange, but not a lot. The light though does not disappoint. It is so beautiful and soft falling through the trees. It shines down on me and reminds me of my mother. She shone so bright when she was alive. When the sun shines down, I imagine it is her shining down on me.  The colo...

I used to write after midnight. The hours between midnight and 4 AM were the only times I had to write as my kids grew up. I have been sick and now awake at 2AM again. Why are these hours always calling me to write? The above photo is of my old office. I have since moved into another room of my home as my home office. It's all mine for the first time that I have an entire room to write in. It's now Labor Day and it is an extra day to write. I woke up coughing as I had been dealing with some health issues lately. I realize though that I have missed writing in these wee hours. The wee hours of the morning and the house is entirely quiet. No one stirs in these wee hour morning hours. Not even the cat. It has been a long time since I needed to write, and the need woke me up.  I am dealing with coughing and allergic reactions to things and have been in and out of two med stops for help. Apparently, the cough medicine is not working, as I am typing to you at 2:35AM. I used to write d...

I have been pushing Summer out. Before you get mad at me, Summer in Georiga has gotten unbearable. this heat catches your breath and you struggle to breathe, so I pushed summer out. I have been wearing fall shirts for a few weeks. I have even brought sweaters to work to pretend it is cold, which is in my office, so that works. Come on Autumn Fall is all pumpkins and orange, red, and yellow leaves. It is a time when nature reminds us that all change is not bad. The colors mix and the fragrance of cinnamon simmers on the stove. Hot cocoa is being made again, and blankets are returning to the nightly routine when the temperatures are dipping down.  This time of year makes me so happy and this year my husband and I planned a trip for my b day, which coordinates with the leaves changing colors. I love photographing the change in season. It makes me so happy to see them change and when they fall off the trees they dance around me and remind me that change is coming again. I started makin...

                              This is New Jersey in Winter and the 110-degree weather has me dreaming of snow. This is where my sister used to life and her favorite home if you ask her.  As with every snow you get locked into the house due to the cold weather, I needed some air, so I took a walk into the snow. My nose froze, my hair froze, my mittens mittens required and I think I was out walking for maybe ten minutes then walked back to her home and spent the next fifteen minutes taking off all my layers. It is Summer right now and this heat is killing me. It feels like 110 every single day and breathing outside is hard. I cannot believe I am writing this, but I am craving the cold. I will even take an 80-degree day. This 100-110 daily for months is too much. We cannot open a curtain or a window. It never gets cool enough to open a window, so what are you to do? Place games, binge-watching tv...

  This is my bestie. Bestie of 27 years. He is always there for me, as I am for him. That white box is a birthday cake. He came down from another county to go to the fair with me and celebrate my birthday.  Since my mom died, God bless him, he has listened to all my tears and sobbing and just let me cry on his shoulder. I keep thinking I am over the grief, but it comes at me like a bulldozer and I try to hide, which we all know does not work.  Best friends are one of the most important things about grief. You need your BFF to be there at 2 AM, at 3pm, whatever day, whatever time. He just listens and I know he is thinking about his own mother who is older and not doing well.  I keep coming back to the Crowder song when he talks about the dash on your tombstone. He sings how that dash represents the years you have. It is a small window of your life. You may be in the depth of crap right now in life, but it is a small part of your life. I cannot help but think every day...

(Photo by me, cookies baked by me ;) What is it about tea that brings people together? When you go to someone else's house they offer you tea or coffee. They make up some munchies and you sit and talk the day away. What about a cup of tea that causes time to stop and allows us to focus on being present. It's comforting to drink and hold. It's a gift given by someone who cares about your well-being. Tea is a universal language of comfort.  When someone on the Big Bang show feels down, they are brought a cup of tea even if they do not want it. Tea and comfort go hand in hand. Tonight I made myself a cup of clementine tea. It is hot in Georgia right now, but sometimes you just need a cup of comfort. It has been a rough 24 hours and many tears, on my part, have been shed.  Tonight I drink out of a mug my sister sent me years ago and I recently found it again. It says A Sister is God's way of assuring we never walk alone. Having a sister is the best. Someone to talk to who g...

 While the temperature is rising, global warming is a thing. So many people tell me it is not, but I know ten years ago in Ga I did not have to hide in the house. I could hang sheets on the line and now self-combust. This 105/110 is no joke. Yesterday we were outside walking for maybe five minutes and had trouble breathing and headed back to the car and AC. Photo by Me on Tybee Island This year just seems hot hot hotter. It is to the point where the insulated curtains are pulled and kept closed all day. Right now it is 96 outside and it is hard to do anything outside. I remember summers when I did yard work, where I mowed, where the outside did not try to kill me. This year has been hell.  Even the lake we normally go to to cool down is hot as bathwater, so here I sit inside writing to all of you. Who else is baking these days?  I cannot believe everyone does not believe we are doing this to our own planet. While I claim to not know a lot about global warming, I do my bes...

Red Mill Clinton NJ  The majority of my family still resides in NJ and myself, I am  in Ga. My kids and my granddaughter live in Georgia too. I have a sis and a brother and 4 nieces up north. I am planning a trip either with my sis this year in Nov to honor our mom being gone one year, and/or I will be going up to spend time with my brother and his family, which I don't normally do. I usually stay with my sis. I realized tho that I am closer with my sis because I do stay with her when I go up. I talked to my brother and he graciously said to let him know the dates and he would love to have me stay there.  Since our mom died I fear we are all unmoored. We are ships at sea with no captain. Only the waves decide where we shall go. I fear without our leader we will crash into other boats and sink. I am the oldest, so I will do my best to visit more. To be more involved with my NJ family. I really do miss them.  Mom has been gone 7 months. I worry sometimes that I will fo...

                                                    Photo property of me, Debbie Ealer It is hot summertime. It is also a time of grief. Mom has been gone 7 months tomorrow and it hits me every month on the 17th. As I bake in the 108-degrees weather in Georgia I cannot help but wonder why I moved to Georgia so far from my family. My ex was military which ended us up here. I pushed to stay because of the slower pace, but Lord the heat is getting worse and worse along with global warming. This is the time of year when freshly laundered sheets dry on the line in 20 minutes. This is the time of year when popsicles are consumed hourly. This is the time of year that I spent my first summer without Mom. I only got to see her about every 5 years. Tickets are not free to fly and it is more expensive to drive these days. Only my last visit it w...

                                         Depression, Death, and many miles hiking.                                         One of my all time favorite state parks to hike in.                                                   Another state park in South Georgia As those of you know my mom passed away in November 2023 and I have been on the struggle bus since then, but then I look through some of my photos and I think about what makes me happy these days. Well, it is the outside. Walking outside. Riding in the car with the windows down, and inhaling air from anywhere where I am not conf...

                                                                           Me and My Mom My mom was 77 when she died. I thought she would live much longer, but my family makes it to 77 or 78, which is about it. I turn 56 this year and I know my days are decreasing. I don't think this or write it because I am grim. I say it because time is an allusion. You think you have time to go on that trip. You think you know where life will lead you, but it changes every minute. Life is finite. It has a beginning and an end. I heard someone say that you see on a cemetery stone a date for a birth and a date for a death. That dash is where the magic happens. That dash is the part of life that matters. It is where you show kindness. It is where you help others. It is where you hav...

                                             Mother's Day is coming in hot and my mother died.  This will be the first Mother's Day without her. My sister has plans that day, and I do not, but our hearts will be on Mom no matter what we do. There is no running away from grief.  Grief will fill our minds, and our hearts, and keep us focused on her passing away. Our minds will wander to her and wonder where she is in this vast universe. We will think of the last time we saw her, hugged, her, and talked with her. Grief will bring us back to her last breath. We will try to move on, move past, but you know what I have found out, that is BS. We all have our own grief walk to take. We all have our own correct path to move forward. I have thought about joining a grief support group and then thought perhaps not. I am not so sure I could listen to others...

                                          Photo by Me. Woodbury Covered Bridge So life lately has given me Anxiety and Stress. This life feels as if I am riding a roller coaster. I am not sure if life is up or down. If it is good or bad. If it is coming or going. I used to think I was in control. That I could handle anything, but honestly God can handle anything and I do not want his job, but I find myself turning to him more and more. If you have been with me a bit you know I lost my mom in November 2023. This has been the biggest struggle for me. I have not, am not, and probably will not, handle this well. I have read the books I have talked to others, and I have found support, but I feel at a loss without my mom. she was my number one supporter. She was with me my whole life and no one else has been and to lose that person shattered and devastated me.  Add...

                                                         Photo by  Zoriana Stakhniv  on  Unsplash  Marriage. Wedded Bliss. You found your forever after and you believe all your problems are solved. You found your spouse and now everything is coming up roses. Life will get easier, better, and happier by finding your spouse. We have all been fed a pack of lies.  Married life now means you have someone living with you. Hopefully happy and in love with you, but know that life will not magically turn into a bed of roses. Marriage is work. It is a full-time job. It is not fifty-fifty.  Sometimes you will give 60, your spouse will give 40, and sometimes you can only muster 20.  Life is hard at best, a struggle to survive it at its worst. There are days when you want to growl at your spouse an...

  Someone once told me that when you see a red cardinal, it is an angel visiting you. I saw one and I thought of Mom. Lately, I have been struggling and I miss her so much. I know she would listen. She would have some great advice. She was always ready to listen to any of her three children and later her grandchildren. So the other day I heard a song. It said God Shatters you to make you new. I have felt so shattered lately. Fragments of my soul fall off as I walk. A piece here and there as I step in faith.   The song made me think about my life lately and how sad I have been, how shattered I feel since losing my mom. This song made me feel like it is ok to be shattered. God has me, holds me, guides me, and in shattering me, it leaves space for new things to sprout. For new things to grow in me. It allows space and cracks for what I need to grow. As much as this growth hurts I cannot imagine staying still much longer. The elephant on my chest has me calling uncle, so I tu...

  My mom has been gone for three months today. I woke up this morning and was upset and did not know why, then I saw the date on the calendar and realized today she has been gone three months. She missed Christmas, she missed Thanksgiving, she missed Valentine's Day, and it will keep on going. While I struggle to remember all the fun times we did share, all the times she spent loving on me and my kiddos, all the trips to NJ, or when we lived in Maryland and were close enough to spend every holiday together. I hosted every holiday for the years we were stationed close enough to be with family. I knew it was not going to last. I knew they would move us and far away from the family again. This is a photo of Clinton, NJ. My mom had a condo in this town for some years. I spent my sister's night before she got married night, together with her and our mom. I would stay in the condo with her and my sister and love us three women being together. I borrowed Mom's car to go at the cra...

  Scents hit me like the waves of grief I am dealing with. They hit my nose and suddenly I remember the smell of flowers my grandpa and I grew as a young kid. A perfume my grandma wore floats past me as a stranger walks by. Flowers blooming smelling of jasmine and sunshine tickle my nose and I am magically transported to another time in my life. Scents are powerful reminders of times remembered.  When my mom passed away I struggled, and still do, with attaching a scent to her. She hadn't worn perfume in years. I did go in and have coffee with her each morning when I went up to visit her. Let me say CPAP machines and oxygen masks are what I remember, so for this time, before she died, coffee was our scent. She Came out of her room to have dinner with me and the family on my birthday. We celebrated my 55 with three mini cupcakes each. Chocolate for us both.  Today I went to a coffee shop and the smell as I walked in, and I began to cry. I blamed it on allergies, got my coff...

 This is a sign, or was, in the Newark airport. I don't know if it is there still as I am flying into Philly airport now.  I was walking by and turned to catch it, so it is a big blurry mess, but when you are running to catch a plane, you snap and keep running.  I grew up in New Jersey but always felt I did not belong in that state. I even asked my mom once if she adopted me from the South, and her response was, "Don't be ridiculous you look just like me." And she is right. I could be her twin.  My mom has been gone only a little over two months. The waves of grief come and go, and the tears keep pouring out. My heart is shattered. I know it will take a long time to heal it. I have read three grief books, gotten her words tattooed on my arm (in her writing) and I am on the fourth book. Apparently, reading about grief and tattoos on my arm is how I am dealing with this.  Have you lost a loved one? I am guessing you have. I am guessing you have had your own ...

 Living our best lives takes work. Living is full of potholes. There is poverty, death, and emotional, physical, and financial issues that are thrown into our daily lives. Every day is a struggle to make it to the end of the day. We fill it with whatever we choose, but sometimes life chooses for us. My mom passed recently, which you know, but since then it seems to me that the world is filled with holes that I keep falling down.  This is New Jersey New Jersey is where I was born and raised, but when I turned 18 I left. The reason is not important, but I left my mom as well. It seems distance did not keep us apart until it did. As I got older I could not go see her as much. Life, potholes, and money kept me from going to see her more.  Life is funny that way, you think you will do A and then W happens. I married a military man and we ended up being stationed in Germany. My mom and brother and sister came to visit. My mom twice as I had her first grandchild while living in ...