My Muse, Aquariart

I want to apologize to those people who entered my contest this month.  

My Dad had a stroke the day after Easter and passed away April 16th., 84 years old.   

I just started my new job and have been working everyday for 2 weeks and a day now. 

I just did not have time or the right moment to sit down and take care of blog business 

until today.  

So, the winner of my 6 little polymer clay flower beads is......... 

drum roll and cymbal crash! 

BETH OF EBBeadsAndMetalworks!!!

 I have your shipping info Beth so I will send them along this week. 

My Dad 

Robert Henry Brunton the III, 

was a brilliant man who put himself through college at night 

while working to support his new little family when I was a baby and young child. 

He was a microwave engineer who had two patents,

one of which was a device that helped the first rocket launch into space in the 1960's. 

I remember watching that launch knowing that he was there in Florida at Cape Canaveral,

invited because his device was part of the rocket. 

I have good memories of boating out in Welfleet Harbor in Cape Cod, Mass.

We used to drive the boat out to an island that was underwater at high tide

but the best place to dig clams at low tide.  

I remember digging for clams and watching the boat as the tide was going out,

warning my Dad that he better go move the boat

because we had to keep moving it so it wouldn't be beached at low tide.

This time we missed it and had to sit in our boat, stuck in the sand,

 until midnite or so when the tide came back in. 

We had 2 buckets of raw clams, a few potato chips 

and 1/2 of a tuna fish sandwich to share between the four of us. 

It was my mother's birthday and we were supposed to go to the drive-in theater

to see Dr. Strangelove and Erma LaDeuce (spelling?) 

two new hit movies that had just come out. 

We could see the screen in the distance 

as we tried to navigate with a compass in the dark back to the marina. 

That was a little scary. 

When I was in college my parents divorced. 

My Dad left for Canada and then the Washington State for a new life with his present wife.  

A lot of life lessons were learned many the hard way. 

Now that I am older I am grateful for all those lessons however painful they may have been.

About 20+ years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.

13 of those years we lived not too far away in Washington State 

and I and my family were able to spend time with him. 

His quality of life slowly and painfully diminished 

and his frustration was palpable even on the phone. 

His tremors and medications made it more and more difficult 

for him to walk and talk.  

I know that he is no longer suffering and that is a blessing. 

The rest I have to deal with a little at a time and 

I am very grateful for my job. 

The problems that my clients deal with everyday

help me to be filled with gratitude for all the things that are good in my life. 

I will miss him and remember him with love. 

I am working on scanning some old pictures to post the next time I can get to it.