Welcome
Welcome to my journey of life. I am Rita Moser and now that I am a grandmother of eight beautiful and of course, wonderful grandchildren. My desire is to document my mosaic journey and the DIY log house their grandfather and I built, way before they were born. Now that I am older with age and wish I had more information about my grandparents, it is my desire to explain what, why, and how their grandfather and I ventured into a life in the rural country at a very young age. Hopefully, one day, they will appreciate our sincere interest in providing what we felt like was a unique, interesting, and preserving way of life. A way of life that would enable all to enjoy the woods while leaving a legacy with a house that would never go out of style because of its uniqueness. I invite you to follow along, and even participate by asking questions and advice. I hope you find it valuable to interact with me as I try to remember with pictures and stories the process, decisions, expectations, and problems that can occur with any change in life. I really do hope to hear from you and look forward to meeting you.
Our journey of moving to East Texas began in 1982 when a good friend invited us to visit his father in the rural country, where he raised coon dogs. Seeing his calm, peaceful, and relaxing lifestyle, we decided we were missing out on a casual and uplifting opportunity . A quaint small town life where everyone knew everyone, seemed so safe and appealing. Spring fed lakes, many surrounding the area, offered free, healthy, refreshing, and wholesome entertainment for our two young boys, ages three and one. Luscious big trees, tall flowing grass, and a wide variety of colorful flowers, and wandering wildlife were abundant every where we dared to venture. Surprised and amazed is an understatement. We were no longer just curious but instead, we were now determined to live a life full of what seemed liked freedom, clean, and healthy, back to the basics, and hopefully a fun, educational, entertaining lifestyle of wilderness right out of our own backyard.
Before we knew it, we were no longer contended to stay in Dallas for even a few days. the peace of no traffic, the views of beauty, the curiosity of the small towns, drew us to hop in the car and drive to East Texas. The amazing and convenient fact of this prolific rural countryside was the short distance from the metropolitan area of Dallas. Only one and half hours from Dallas, the short drive convinced us, that not only was it worth the trip, but that it was definitely worth the move to East Texas way of life. So with few mixed emotions and only a great driving desire, we started to think and consider all we needed to do. and the first step was to find land. Not just land that was pretty but land that was not landlocked..... for there were many.... land that if purchased gave no guarantee, you could even get to it.
MOSAIC MATERIALS
Mosaic Art is MAGICAL! Any and everything is accepted in making a mosaic art piece. There are no rules or limits in mosaic works. Every kind of material imaginable is used! If your hands, eyes, and heart love it, then use this item. Use anything you want to "express yourself" or even "relay a special message". Any and all things are appreciated in this magnificent world of art. Art that will last many lifetimes, allowing future generations the experience of a legacy left behind, by a caring creative artist.
Tile is my first suggestion to use in the beginning of learning mosaic art. If you are hesitant to break tile, you can always purchase tile that are already small pieces, This type of tile comes on a screen and is made to be place while still attached to the screen as a whole complete piece. I use this type of tile often for variety. You will have to either pull the tile off the screen mesh or cut around the tile leaving the mesh on the back of the tile. Each of these processes to get the tile off the mesh is often difficult, but worth the process. (Please remember to "wear" some form of protection on your eyes) when breaking tile. Also, going outside to a hard surface like your porch, will keep fragments from getting under furniture. Tile fragments can be vacuumed with the hose of a vacuum cleaner. But, keep in mind any tile fragments left behind can and will cut skin. I also, place my tile on top of an old towel. This towel helps with the small fragment pieces from flying everywhere and protects the tile from shattering and damage. Take a hammer and break the tile. I always turn the tile upside down when breaking. If you break the top side of the tile, it may shatter. Any size broken piece of tile will work if you are going to apply the tile to a large area. But, I usually work with the largest piece being about the size of the palm of my hand. The more sizes you have in pieces of tile, the more interesting the picture will be. The tile will break not only into different sizes, but also different shapes. These unexpected shapes that just happen when breaking tile, are what I like the best, and find the most interesting. My imagination and creativity are sparked when I see these random shapes. But, starting with just one size, if you are a beginner, will also work. As you play and arrange the tile you will discover what you like best and soon you will be ready to move on to other various sizes of tile. In placing the tile beside each other, try to keep a similar distance of space between the tile. This will give consistency to the picture. If some of the tile touch, it is ok. If you decide you want to try and fill in with smaller pieces then just break some of the tile into smaller pieces with the hammer. you will be surprised at how you can find a special place for each size piece of tile. Always save any leftover pieces, remember nothing is wasted in mosaic art! There are tiny miniature mosaic art works of jewelry to giant mosaic art scenes on the sides of buildings. In mosaic art work, the sky is the limit!
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The River
Weather in Texas is unpredictable and sometimes even miserable. Mr. Moser and I have been very intent on adjusting any way needed to accommodate the drastic changes in the weather here. In 2009 the longest dry spell happened and things were miserable. Grass along the highways and East Texas farm roads were brown and dead. Fires were possible. Actually throughout September 2008 thru 2009, the longest dry one year period occurred costing the cattle industry over 0ne Billion Dollars. This dry spell had one positive advantage and we were lucky enough to find out about this tremendous advantage! A friend was our informative messenger who showed and explained the one wonderful great advantage to having a dry spell in our area because of his profession in the wildlife area. Our friend is the official alligator catcher for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in the East Texas area. If you happen to come across an alligator, they call him to come and capture the alligator and relocate it. Rivers and lakes are his expertise and his knowledge of where they are and where they lead is highly recommended. My only regret during this time was I took very few pictures. Pictures that would have shown how dry it really was then. It was an amazing view to see because during this drought time there was practically no water in this river. An exposed river bottom showing all the rock and even fossils available for anyone to pick up. There were so many that we honestly couldn't decide how many to pick up and bring home! We would make piles of our possible finds and then upon deciding it was time to leave, sort through, trying to determine which of these finds were the best ones to bring back home. These finds were actually real treasures. Education was lacking in our knowledge of fossils and I could only recognize petrified wood, arrowheads, and shells. Loving all kinds of rocks I was able to distinguish a few rocks. Bones and rocks can look a lot alike. Coming home and searching the internet I tried to educate myself as quickly as possible. Discovering so many kinds of all the things nature contains in these objects at one place was quite overwhelming, yet very enjoyable and entertaining. The element of surprise of finding so many treasured finds was very exhausting. Fearing I would be leaving or overlooking something that could be stupendous, kept me wanting to examine each and every item I saw. There was absolutely no way to look at every rock or even bend over and pick it up. Exhaustion sets in quickly and energy needs to be saved to climb back up the extremely steep banks of the river, especially with a heavy load of treasures to take home. Saving time and energy was necessary and making piles of these possible fossils helped. As sunset approaches we would examine our piles of finds again and consult each other on what we would take home. Coming home and cleaning with vinegar, I would then search the internet and try to determine if what I had found was indeed millions of years old. Amazement at the spectacular fossils is still with me today. Experts were the only ones I thought could find and own fossils. This period of time was the only time in my life I appreciated a terrible dry spell!
Raising Grandkids
My desire with this post is to find other grandparents who are raising grandchildren. I hope to find support with this subject, share information, and ask questions. There is an estimation at this time to be an as many as 13 million children living with grandparents in the United States. Not just living with them but also raising them. So that means that 2.7 million grandparents are acting as parents. I am one of the lucky ones because I do have a daughter who has no children and her husband helping me and my husband, their maternal grandfather. This gives extra support to the child being raised and should help with depression and anxiety of my grandchildren. Over 40% of these children are being raised by grandparents due to a least one parent's substance abuse. As grandparents we sometimes cling to the hope eventually these parents can and will overcome their problems to somewhat help. If you can relate to any piece of this post I welcome you to connect with me and at least we can give each other support and exchange ideas, articles, and hopefully results that will enable us to not feel so alone and makes us the grandparents we strive to be!
