Rosemary Augustine

As I review my personal and professional accomplishments for 2014, it is bittersweet to see 2014 end.  Glad on one hand, and sad on the other.  The year was filled with light, love and laughter, and oh yes, tears too.

Personally, it was a year of love, laughter and loss.  I enjoyed art shows at Collingswood Arts Festival, Downton Abbey Clothes at Winterthur, member art displays at Wayne Art Center and the fabulous art works at the National Gallery in Washington DC.  I reconnected with childhood and college friends, shopped, took walks on the beach, and had many lunches and dinners with even more people I call friends.  What about my long distance tribe?  Well, we spent many hours on the phone laughing and gabbing about life and the pursuit of happiness.

I experienced 2 major losses in my life this year.  One was my mom, who had reached age 100 and 3 months by the time she died.  She was very insistent about that 3 month addition.  We celebrated her 100th birthday in February with a big party, including TV coverage and fabulous food catered by Maggiano’s Italian Restaurant.  However once mom turned 100 it was a steady decline from there.  I feel she felt she reached her goal of 100 and there was nothing left. Her health was a major factor as well.  Family came together during her closing days.  My brother, sister and I shared daily life for 2+ weeks, including childhood memories and daily meals.  We also acquired an understanding of the dying process and an appreciation for living in the moment.

Four months later, my kitty Zack died unexpectedly at the tender age of 9 years.  He was my recluse kitty, one that you never saw too much, so his sudden changes in his behavior – being even more recluse and no eating – signaled something wrong.  But it was too late, his kidneys and heart were so advanced with failure, I quietly laid him to rest less than 48 hours of taking him to the vet.  Ziggy and I remain the only occupants of the large 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment that was once shared with mom and Zack.  Mom and Zack are together now in their new dimension.

Travels for the year included Washington, DC, Melbourne, FL and of course the South Jersey Shore.  These were long overdue vacations – put on hold while I balanced work, business and care giving the last few years.

However, I did have some accomplishments for my small business.  My Self Publishing for Writers Meet Up started having sold out attendance in 2014.  Each month there is a wait list for attendees.  And, great exchange of information among writers and authors.

My original website careeradvice.com was totally overhauled using Kami Designs on Fiverr.com. I am very pleased with the results and showcase my career books including 29 Things and I Love My Job.

I worked with many clients coaching them on business and career with ideas for marketing and creativity.  And, I sold my first piece of art work.  My annual participation in the holiday craft shows brought new customers, and I finally succumbed to paid online target marketing with Cat Fancy Magazine, Amazon and Facebook.

What does 2015 hold for me?  Change!  Lots of change!   For one, I turn 65!  Possibly I’ll publish more books, take my art to a new level and maybe even move.  Who knows, maybe all of the above.  Stay tuned as you follow my adventures of life in 2015.  Happy New Year and make 2015 the Best Year Yet!

Love and Hugs

Rosemary Augustine

Every year we find the mad rush to Christmas which begins the day after Thanksgiving and seems to subside by Christmas night.  Gifts, cards, trees, ornaments, cooking, baking, and visiting.  Days are shorter and our time is even less with so many more things added to get done in time for Christmas. I did, however, find time to paint the above picture of evergreens for some of my cards.

When Christmas Cards start arriving, the annual Christmas Letter is often enclosed detailing the year’s happenings within the family.  Often we receive letters from those we don’t see throughout the year.  Then you wonder if some of the information is really true.

My friend Gerri Lambert recently sent me a Christmas Letter as a spoof on the famed enclosure many of us receive.  I loved it so much I asked her if I could include it on my Blog.  If you want a really good laugh this holiday season please read on.  You’ve often heard me say you can’t make this stuff up?  Well, she wrote a letter about a fictitious family and addressed it to friends, and then she wrote the real truth to a fictitious sister.  If you need a break from all the Holiday Hoopla, take a few minutes and wander off into the land of fiction and enjoy the following Christmas Letters.  I hope you get as much laughter out of it as I did.  Many thanks to Gerri for her writing these Christmas Letters.  Enjoy!

And, OH! … Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Winter Solstice, and Happy Kwanzza!

Rosemary Augustine

Dear Friends,

What a wonderful year for our family!

After graduating with a triple degree in art history, economics and tax accounting, this year our Michael decided to go on to law school and was accepted to Harvard. Michael wants to study tax law and follow in his grandfather’s footsteps. We are so blessed.

Our Ann has moved to New York City to start her career in the theatre! After studying in France, Ann has decided America is the place for her to express her art. We can’t wait to visit her and see the New York the way the locals see it! We are so lucky.

Instead of attending a local “public” high school, our youngest has decided to attend a very lovely old school in Pennsylvania. The school is full of history and has very well known alumni. Johnny just couldn’t find a way to express himself in public school, it stifled him – he needs a one-on-one atmosphere to bring out his talents.

I won’t bore you with all the twins adventures – at the moment, they are studying in Italy. As you know they are both fluent in three different languages. You wouldn’t recognize them now; they have grown so much. More about the twins in our 4th of July up-date.

Jack spends a lot of time in Washington at his job as an elected official — and he is running again! You just can’t stop him. I’m sure you are keeping up with Jack’s accomplishments in the newspapers. He is a one-man army against the drug trade. You can’t keep a good man down!

I stay at home and tend the home fires. How lucky I am to have such a devoted husband. We keep in touch hourly via cell phone, which allows us to share every hour of our day with each other – and of course, when Jack is home we spend every minute together.

Jack’s only sister has come to live with us now that I’m an empty nester. What a joy she is to me. I can’t think what I would do without her and her friends.

If you don’t see me around town in our old “Woody,” it’s because I spend lots of time at the church doing volunteer work helping those in need. I always include my friends in my daily prayers.

Merry Christmas and God bless You All!

Ethel, Jack and the Kids

Now, Ethel sent this letter to all her friends, however, she sent a different one (the truth) to her sister. Read on…

Dear Sis,

This has been a hell of a year! I didn’t think things could be worse than last year, but this year was a doosy! I consider myself lucky just to get this off my chest.

That fool of a son of ours has finally finished school after eight years. Now he wants to go to law school. Not only does he owe thousands in school bills, he owes his girlfriend’s family for supporting him and their two kids all these years. He is just like Jack’s no good father, the ex-con who didn’t believe in paying taxes.

Ann was thrown out of France and three other countries in Europe for vagrancy on the streets. (And people wonder how Americans got a bad name over there.) She is now on the road with a group of hippies; God only knows where she will show up. Don’t attend any Playhouse Theaters lest you run into her! Last I heard, she is living with some guy in New York City. (Like father, like daughter.) Hopefully, I will be long gone by the time she is off drugs.

John was hauled off to reform school — again. I told them, that’s it – don’t let him out until he is twenty-one. Hopefully, I will be long gone.

The twins are living in South Philly in some “i-talian” neighborhood. Both are pregnant and expecting to deliver around July. Hopefully, I will be long gone by then. The two of them are still speaking with an English accent since that two-week school trip to England they took in Junior High. They were making decent money doing Rap, but that ended when they started to show. The two of them are as fat as fools (after Jack’s side of the family, of course).

Since Jack got laid off he landed a job as an undercover agent in D.C. He has made some great contacts with corporate heads and a number of people in the government. But it doesn’t seem to be doing him much good, they make promises, but he doesn’t see them after he does them a few favors. Because he is undercover, I don’t really don’t know where he is living, but we talk often on the phone. Our little plan to get new identities is still in the works. Jack says it will work because people will think his sister is really me and no one will guess I have gone on to a new life. He says it will happen any day now, just as soon his sister gives him is rightful inheritance. Then, I’ll be out of here.

Jack’s only sister, Edna, is a bitch. She doesn’t spend a dime. She blames me for the family mess. Doesn’t she see her own three kids are losers too! Her boyfriend is a pain, always rubbing my back – he isn’t worth a dime, but he is a good listener.

I’m checking groceries trying to make ends meet until I make my get-a-way. I have to drive three towns over so no one will recognize me. My tires are bald and I don’t know how much longer the car will hold out.  Sis, pray for me.

Ethel

P.S.  If you don’t hear from me, I am away, living under a new name in my new life – without Jack and the kids.

Gerri Lambert is a freelance writer and the author of “Ireland, Ye’re Ingrained in Me.”  Her book is written under the pen name of Geraldine O’Gorman and is a series of short stories about an Irish family in 1950s Ireland.  It can be found on Amazon.com.  She makes her home in Wayne, PA and can be reached at mischrl@comcast.net.

~ ~ ~

12 Days of Christmas – Art Journaling Style

By Rosemary Augustine

A Red Leather Bound Journal

Two Fountain Pens

Three Fine Point Sharpies

Four Colored Stamp Pads

Five Gold Gel Ink Pens…

Six 2B Drawing Pencils

Seven Assorted Highlighters

Eight Rubber Stamps

Nine Dollars Worth of Glue

Ten ounces of White Gesso

Eleven Sheets of Vintage Paper

A Twelve Inch Metal Ruler

All pictured above and ready for some creativity!  Ha!  I love this time of year.  Enjoy and keep singing those 12 Days of Christmas… No partridge in a pear tree here!

Merry Christmas and a Blessed Happy New Year!

Love and Hugs

Rosemary Augustine

~~~

I recently took a vacation… first one in 2 years.  I use to travel extensively, now I’m lucky if I fly once a year.  I wrote this blog on my iPad, sitting and waiting for a flight – well multiple flights.  Well, you read on, since it will tell the tale of my vacation travels last week (Nov 19-27).  Hope you get as good a laugh out of it as I have.  I’m still laughing – hysterically!  Enjoy!

Today I am hysterical with laughter.  Since I am in the process of taking a vacation and keep having delays.  Last month I was headed to Denver for a trip to see friends. I hadn’t been to Denver since my 60th birthday when I gave a big birthday party and cooked lasagna for my friends (see my very first blog post “Don’t Fight the Noodle”).  I talk to friends in Denver on a regular basis and was looking forward to seeing everyone in the flesh so to speak… But my kitty Zack became ill and the day I was to fly, I quietly laid him to rest after a 48 hour ordeal with animal emergency rooms. So I postponed my trip until the spring since my next trip had already been scheduled to travel to Florida to see my long time friend Allie Newton who is elderly, and maybe declining, I’ll know when I get there.  I haven’t seen her in two years. I was planning on driving to Florida and changed my mind and switched my Denver ticket to Orlando for a 5 day trip to Florida since I didn’t want to leave Ziggy for two weeks if I drove.

As the time drew near, I was excited to head to Florida. A polar vortex had settled in over the northeast with temperatures plummeting to nearly zero. The day I was scheduled to fly, the temp was in the teens … My flight was with Frontier Airlines out of Wilmington, Delaware – an airport I had never been to but it was the “new” Philadelphia Regional Airport for my airline.  Where is this airport? New Castle, Delaware. A “drive by” airport, since you will miss it if you blink along Rt 13. Airlines want you to arrive 2 hours ahead of time so I did. Well 2-1/2 hours ahead. I misjudged my travel time to New Castle. So I am first in line (already checked in but needed to drop the bag) – since on Frontier you pay a fee whether you check or carry on a bag.  Six staffers to check us in, and 10 more TSA employees to screen us.  It’s the tiniest airport I have ever been to and I have traveled around the world.  So you are no sooner past security, and they announce a 2 hour flight delay. Not to worry, since instead of arriving around 6:30 pm it would be 8:30 pm, no big deal. The rental car place is open until 1am and Allie will leave the front door open for me since I have a 90 minute drive from Orlando to Melbourne.  A half hour later they announce another hour delay. The 100 or so passengers sitting and waiting are starting to get restless, since there are only vending machines to provide food and water.  At 4 pm they announce the flight is cancelled, pick up your luggage and call the 800 number to rebook your flight, since the staffers will not rebook us. Arrrrgggghhhh! Imagine 100 passengers suddenly disgusted, pissed off and you are one of them.

As I grab my bag and head out into the frigid air to my car, I already have a Frontier ticket agent on the phone trying to rebook me. What? You can’t get me to Orlando until Sunday? Excuse me? Well if I’m flexible regarding my Florida destination, I can fly tomorrow? But not out of Wilmington? Out of Trenton, NJ? Who the hell flies out of Trenton, NJ? And what kind of jet airport is in Trenton? Ha! Guess I will find out.

So as I sit in my car and rebook the flight, the rental car, scheduled appointments once I arrived in Melbourne, and let Allie and the pet sitter know of my change in plans, I was exhausted.  Once I was home, I wanted to check in for my flight the next morning… HaHaHa! Now the seat assignment of 6A confirmed in an email, was suddenly reading 14B… No $&@&ing way.  Plus I had already paid for my bag, checking in online wanted me to pay again.  I call the 800 number at 8pm… Only to be told “with all the confusion of the cancelled flight, the system is screwy, so just check in at the counter in the morning.” HaHaHa!

Ziggy was happy to think I was back… But soon learned when he saw the suitcase sit by the front door all night that I was leaving again in the morning. Ha! He’s no dummy. So I drop into bed, drained and wanting to recharge for another round of travel daze. At 6am, Ziggy is in my face. He is my best alarm clock ever. “Wake up Mom, I don’t want you to miss your flight while I quietly sulk about you leaving me again.”

While driving to Trenton Mercer Airport… I start laughing uncontrollably … thinking about this whole travel ordeal.  I can barely read the road signs my eyes are filled with tears of laughter. .. The directions to this airport are familiar. Pretty much the same way when I go to either Jerry’s Artarama (art supply store in Lawernceville, NJ) or Hamilton Train Station when I go to New York City.  The road signage is excellent, better than yesterday when I had to stop and ask for directions.  At Wilmington, the parking lot barely held 100 cars. Today, as I take the exit to Trenton Mercer Airport, the entrance was like driving up a sweeping driveway to a mansion. Holy Jesus, as I see the parking lot.  At least a thousand cars and not a spot in sight. Ok, who the hell flies out of this airport?  It’s still just a one airline airport, but I learn later 12 flights a day depart and another 12 arrive.

So when I check in at the counter, the agents were oblivious to yesterday’s debacle and could really care. But I exercised my voice of being assigned seat 6A and now you have me in 14B. Who got 6A? And why did your help desk send me an email confirming 6A?  Well, quietly the check-in clerk asks her co-worker, “can I put her in 4A?”  And, 4A is the re-assigned seat!  Yippee!!!!!

Now, instead of going through security (since they were closing for a break!), I head upstairs to a restaurant where practically my entire flight of travelers is hanging out … yes because of a delay.  So, we all eat and drink and talk and have a few more good laughs.  Oh shit, as I sit here in this restaurant, with a full view of the landing strip at Trenton Mercer Airport, the plane that just left for Ft Myers just returned – another delay for more passengers on a different flight.  Thankfully, I’m headed to Ft. Lauderdale. The bartender is making lots of tips and keeping us all happy with food and drinks.    However, more delays, and more people frustrated with the whole flying process. It’s the week before Thanksgiving so it really should be lighter travel. But with airlines packing them in these days, not to mention flying a low cost airline. Well, need I say more? I sat in the restaurant/bar area for several hours talking with other passengers, and commiserating flight delays. It passed the time comfortably.

My 12:05pm flight finally took off at 1:35pm. My seat mates wore masks.  Ha! I am only hoping so they don’t spread their germs to me rather than worrying about picking up my germs.  They certainly were not chatty and annoyed when I needed to climb over both of them to use the restroom twice. We landed uneventfully and I found the car rental place easily. However, now I had a long ride ahead of me from Ft. Lauderdale to Melbourne.

As I emerged from the airport rental garage, it was 5:30 pm and I was thrust into rush hour traffic. As I rounded the curve onto the highway, I had 8 lanes if solid red tail lights facing me for as far as I could see.  I had about 170 miles to go. Ha! Ha! It’s going to be a while I thought to myself.   After an hour of bumper to bumper traffic, I stopped and ate dinner as I didn’t feel I would get to my destination much before 9 pm… After a nice dinner, I was off to travel north on I-95 for the next few hours… And sure enough, I pulled in to Allie’s driveway just after 9 pm.

My time in Melbourne was enjoyable, with warm air, sunshine and good food with my Florida friends. I did however receive two separate emails from Frontier Airlines about travel credits for inconveniencing me.  For the cancellation of the Wilmington to Orlando flight, I was credited the full amount of my fare, and for the hour flight delay in Trenton, I was credited another $15. I have never experienced this before, and it does sweeten the travel delays.  Yes I would fly them again despite the delays and cancellations.

Now it’s time to return home after my week here in Florida.  Originally I was to return home on Tuesday.  But when they rebooked me through Ft Lauderdale, they pushed it to Wednesday – the day before Thanksgiving and the busiest air travel day of the year. In addition, the entire Philadelphia area (including Trenton), were scheduled for up to 8 inches of snow. Here in Florida, we were having what I would consider hurricane-like weather.  We had violent thunderstorms, high winds and pouring rain for 2 solid days.  Now it’s the morning to fly home and there is flooding everywhere and non-stop storms. Do I take my chances and drive the 3+ hours to Ft. Lauderdale? Only to be cancelled or delayed when I arrive? Or do I change my flight?  I’m on hold with the airline at 6 am for almost an hour. Finally when I get through, I learn of the weather advisory and my option to change my flight at no additional charge since Trenton is having a weather advisory and I am scheduled to fly into Trenton.  So I laugh some more hysterically.  Change the flight to fly home on Thanksgiving Day when the weather will be clear? Both in Ft Lauderdale and Trenton?  Miss a great Thanksgiving meal? Or risk limb and life driving through torrential down pours and have additional travel delays?  The decision was easy.   On Thanksgiving Day, it was a beautiful day, easy day to travel, and minimal delays.  Although we took off late, we arrived 45 minutes before our scheduled arrival – we must have had tail winds.

Despite all the crazy delays, cancellations and refund credits, it’s been worth it -100%.  My future travel credits exceed the original price of my ticket.  And, after all, I wouldn’t have this blog post if it wasn’t for my travel delays during this trip.  Frontier’s tag line is “a whole different animal” and they sure live up to their marketing.  I’ll just keep laughing hysterically, will fly them again, and will use my travel credits for a new ticket… Next time maybe to Denver or Los Angeles.

Oh, and Ziggy?  Well, let’s just say, he was more than happy to see me Thanksgiving night, since he hissed and growled at the pet sitter for 8 days.  He hasn’t left my side since I arrived home.

Hope you had a good time laughing with me.
Happy Trails and Happy (belated) Thanksgiving.

Love and Hugs

Rosemary Augustine – Artist and Author