Loving the Arts

Last weekend, the arts were the buzz in the streets of Raleigh. The annual arts event, Sparkcon, brought people from all over to share their love of art in downtown Raleigh. Friday, Saturday and Sunday the streets of Raleigh were shut down to celebrate the joys of art. Street painters filled the streets and entered contests on their chalk work. The works they created were incredible and full of detail! Dancers filled the street corners and the stages. Skateboarders did skateboarding demonstrations. Friday night consisted of a DJ Battle and a fashion show. Saturday and Sunday entertained dancers of all art forms, free dance classes, poetry, songwriting workshops, musicians, grafitti contests, photography classes, mobile cell phone picture contests, aerielist workshops, & fire and LED light shows. I enjoyed going to help celebrate art as a whole, as well as perform with Footnotes Tap Ensemble. I feel as if "art" gets overlooked in today's fast-paced culture. However art should be nurtured. It is a creative outlet for children, teens and adults to express themselves. It is a way for people to de-stress and step away from the business world of computer screens. I applaud Raleigh for creating an environment of a completely free arts festival to promote healthy individuals through creativity and self-expression.

One of the awesome street painting squares.


This one is so creative! A cat looking through a fish bowl.

Performing on the main stage with Footnotes Tap Ensemble.

Performing a historical Bill Bojangles piece from the early 1900's called "Doing the New Low Down"

September 17, 1908

September 17, 1908. This was the day that my Grandma (Elva Alice Anderson Belcher) was born. She passed away in May of this year but today would have been her 103rd Birthday! 103 seems like just a number, but when I think about what she saw in her lifetime I stand utterly amazed. She was a special woman, the oldest of 11 children in a small, South Georgia town. Her life was the story you only hear about in books and movies. Growing up in the world of farms, horse & buggies, outhouses, no electricity, and housework she was taught at an early age the meaning of hard work. In her life she witnessed the invention of the automobile, the airplane, home telephones (what we call landlines), the radio, the television (black and white, and then color), the computer, music records, cassette tapes, CDs, VHS tapes, DVD players, cellphones and so much more. She experienced the life and times of World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, The Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. She was saddened with the rest of the world on the days of Pearl Harbor, JFK Assassination and 9/11.
She could tell you stories of walking to school, "courting" in the parlor, spending all day preparing supper for the family, living off hardly nothing in the Great Depression, being a farmer's wife, a mother to four children, pulling all-nighters to make a daughter's dressing for a school dance and a loving grandmother and great-grandmother.
Nothing pleased her more than family coming to visit her at the farm and she could make her famous chocolate layer cake. If you were the first to shoot a deer once deer season came around, you won the award of her winning smile! My Grandma is greatly missed and will continue to be. She gave us 102 years of life of love, crotcheted blankets, chocolate cakes, smiles, hugs and kisses.

(Our family when my Grandma was 99 years old)

(She loved when her great-grandchildren came deer hunting)

Pirates Plunder Charlotte

This weekend I got to see my ECU Pirates play their season opener game against the University of South Carolina Gamecocks! Well, we lost... but what a fun game it was! ECU started off strong and showed South Carolina that we did know how to play football. Unfortunately, we came back after halftime and looked like we'd never played football before. However this game was a first of many for me. This was the first time I have been to a football game in the Carolina Panther's stadium game. This was the first time I have experienced seeing my team play a nationally ranked SEC team. It was also the first time I have had a fan throw-up on our seats, it was cleaned up and then another fan bled all over our seats .... all in the 1st quarter! We were then moved to lower-level 50 yard line seats. Sadly, ECU lost their first game of the season. But we still had a great time and enjoyed watching the Pirates play, win or lose!

Labor Day Weekend

Fall is in the air! Last week we were blessed with cooler weather, the first sights and smells of the upcoming Fall, and the start of football season. This Labor Day weekend was the perfect way to say 'goodbye' to Summer and 'hello' to Fall. After work on Friday, I drove to Charlotte to visit friends and cheer on my ECU Pirates in the season opener against University of South Carolina. Friday night I got to spend the night with my good friend Leigh and we enjoyed visiting Amelie's 24-Hour Bakery! What a hidden treasure this place was! I loved eating the Salted Chocolate Caramel Brownie (sounds weird, but was heavenly!) On Saturday morning we woke up and took in the first minutes of Fall on a walk at Freedom Park. This park reminds you that nature can be found anywhere, including in the heart of a large city.

Spending time with Leigh, she introduced me to many "hidden treasures" of Charlotte. We enjoyed sitting on her front porch mesmerized by the Charlotte skyline and watching a child run past us with a soccer ball. On our hour-long walk in the park we witnessed a wedding and then enjoyed a perfect hamburger at Big Daddys. On Sunday morning we woke-up and walked to church.

This weekend I was reminded to enjoy the little things in life. For me it doesn't matter what I'm doing, just as long as I'm with people I love and continuing to invest in lifelong relationships.