Rohling Studios

Mother's Day

I did my "Stand for Peace" on Sunday.  I hope you thought about peace and whatever that may mean for you and the world on that special day.  After wards I headed off to Milwaukee.  Paul and Laura invited me to come up and spend the afternoon with them.  They took me to this wonderful Irish Pub and Restauraunt named Brocach (that is Gaelic for Badger Den...we do live in the Badger state you know).  It is the second restauraunt of it's kind, the first being in Madison.  This place is an artist's must see!  Someone had a great deal of talent and skill in the art of painting walls to create a beautiful ambience.  Lots of texture, color, murals and shimmering gold paint!   I am going back just to study the walls!  See samples below.  Yes, I took pictures of the walls to share with you! 

 

I asked our waiter about the techniques that were used...he didn't know but reported that the painter was a person flown in from Canada who did her Doctorate thesis on Designing Irish Pubs.  It sounds like there was some fun research involved in that process.

I would love to do this to some of my upstairs hallway!  The old Irish posters were shellacked to the wall!  Think of the money I'd save on picture frames!  I think I may have to print some photographs up in sepia tones and try a few of them like this...

 

 

This is one of the two way cool bars.  Actually it is the smoke free bar in the upstairs.  (I like that idea).  We started out by ordering homemade beer cheese dip, pretzel breadsticks and julienne vegetables.  Next came this.....

 

All three of us opted for the haddock "fish and chips" (with a wonderful beer batter) and curried coleslaw!  It had to be the best fish I have had since my childhood.   I also ordered a bloody mary which had Guinness in it .  It adds a foamy rich flavor to the usual bloody mary. 

It is a wonderful place to dine and I am told they have wonderful entertainment there as well.  So...GO!

Standing for Peace

A reminder that today is the day we are standing for peace.....Just to recap I am reprinting my post from February...

Stand For Peace

My Dear Friends,

It has been 15 years since my visit to Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana where I was fortunate to attend a week long workshop by Jean Shinoda Bolen.  Recently I have been made aware that Jean continues her work joining people in circles for the purpose of bringing Peace to the World.  I am asking your help in creating peace by beginning it within ourselves, to our families and to our communities.    I am asking you to help create our own circles.  You are invited to Stand For Peace on Mother's Day May 11, 2008.  If you have them, bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence.  During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain peace in your world.  If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so.  Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world.

The roots of this circle of peace is based on the children's book, by Sharon Mehdi, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World (Hardcover).                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Sharon's wonderful short story was written for her five-year old granddaughter.  A quick summary of the story is:
A busboy who worked in a café whose window faced the public park noticed that two grandmotherly looking women had been standing in the park all day without moving at all and without talking.  They were dressed up in their Sunday best and were just staring at the town hall.  He asked the other patrons in the café what they thought the women were up to.  They speculated on a variety of things.  Then, a five-year old year who was in the café spoke up and said "One of them is my grandmother and I know what they are doing. They are standing there to save the world."  All of the men in the café hooted and howled and laughed.  On his way home the busboy decided to ask the women what they were doing and sure enough their answer was "We are saving the world."
Over dinner that evening the busboy told his parents and he and his father hooted and howled, but his mother was totally silent.  After dinner, the mother called her best friends to tell them.
The next morning the busboy looked out the café window and the two women were back, along with his mother, her friends, and the women who had been in the café the day before.  All were standing in silence staring at the town hall. Again, the men hooted and howled and said things like "You can't save the world by standing in the park.  That is what we have armies for," and "everyone knows you have to have banners and slogans to save the world--you can't do it by just standing in the park." 
The next day the women were joined by the women who were in the café the day before and a number of their friends.  This brought the local newspaper reporter to the scene.  He wrote a derisive article about the women.  The day after it appeared, hundreds of women showed up to stand in the park in silence.   The mayor then told the police chief to make the women leave because they were making the town appear to be foolish.  When the police chief told them they would have to disperse because they didn't have a permit, one of them responded that "we are just individuals standing in our public park and we are not giving speeches or having a demonstration so why would we need a permit."  The police chief thought about this and agreed with them and left the park. 
At this point 2,223 women including the mayor's wife, the police chief's wife, and one five-year old girl were standing in the park to save the world. The news quickly spread and soon women were standing all over the country. The story ended with women standing in every country throughout the globe, standing to save the world. See www.grandmotherbook.com.

  I understand that this is a holiday where many of us will not be together but if you can create a circle of friends and family wherever you are on May 11th at 1:00 pm...please set aside five minutes of your time to gather together.  I it is my hope that we can gather as many of us together here in Racine at the first pond area closest to the entrance of Johnson Park (just adjacent to Northwestern Avenue and Emmersten Road).  I will be using my blog to open a dialogue about this event.  If you care to comment this would be the entry to do so!  "In bringing peace to the world we all play a part".  (I wrote that poem so long ago and I still believe it with all my heart.)

My Dear Friends,

It has been 15 years since my visit to Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana where I was fortunate to attend a week long workshop by Jean Shinoda Bolen.  Recently I have been made aware that Jean continues her work joining people in circles for the purpose of bringing Peace to the World.  I am asking your help in creating peace by beginning it within ourselves, to our families and to our communities.    I am asking you to help create our own circles.  You are invited to Stand For Peace on Mother's Day May 11, 2008.  If you have them, bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence.  During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain peace in your world.  If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so.  Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world.

The roots of this circle of peace is based on the children's book, by Sharon Mehdi, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World (Hardcover).                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Sharon's wonderful short story was written for her five-year old granddaughter.  A quick summary of the story is:
A busboy who worked in a café whose window faced the public park noticed that two grandmotherly looking women had been standing in the park all day without moving at all and without talking.  They were dressed up in their Sunday best and were just staring at the town hall.  He asked the other patrons in the café what they thought the women were up to.  They speculated on a variety of things.  Then, a five-year old year who was in the café spoke up and said "One of them is my grandmother and I know what they are doing. They are standing there to save the world."  All of the men in the café hooted and howled and laughed.  On his way home the busboy decided to ask the women what they were doing and sure enough their answer was "We are saving the world."
Over dinner that evening the busboy told his parents and he and his father hooted and howled, but his mother was totally silent.  After dinner, the mother called her best friends to tell them.
The next morning the busboy looked out the café window and the two women were back, along with his mother, her friends, and the women who had been in the café the day before.  All were standing in silence staring at the town hall. Again, the men hooted and howled and said things like "You can't save the world by standing in the park.  That is what we have armies for," and "everyone knows you have to have banners and slogans to save the world--you can't do it by just standing in the park." 
The next day the women were joined by the women who were in the café the day before and a number of their friends.  This brought the local newspaper reporter to the scene.  He wrote a derisive article about the women.  The day after it appeared, hundreds of women showed up to stand in the park in silence.   The mayor then told the police chief to make the women leave because they were making the town appear to be foolish.  When the police chief told them they would have to disperse because they didn't have a permit, one of them responded that "we are just individuals standing in our public park and we are not giving speeches or having a demonstration so why would we need a permit."  The police chief thought about this and agreed with them and left the park. 
At this point 2,223 women including the mayor's wife, the police chief's wife, and one five-year old girl were standing in the park to save the world. The news quickly spread and soon women were standing all over the country. The story ended with women standing in every country throughout the globe, standing to save the world. See www.grandmotherbook.com.

  I understand that this is a holiday where many of us will not be together but if you can create a circle of friends and family wherever you are on May 11th at 1:00 pm...please set aside five minutes of your time to gather together.  I it is my hope that we can gather as many of us together here in Racine at the first pond area closest to the entrance of Johnson Park (just adjacent to Northwestern Avenue and Emmersten Road).  I will be using my blog to open a dialogue about this event.  If you care to comment this would be the entry to do so!  "In bringing peace to the world we all play a part".  (I wrote that poem so long ago and I still believe it with all my heart.)

New At PFATT

It's always exciting when PFATT is posting new items for the month!  It's SPRING!  Check it out by clicking on the banner above.  Next month will be our Halloween in June promotion (with doorprizes!) and in July we plan a Christmas in July promotion.   PFATT a wonderful place full of goodies to get lost in! I am so proud to be a part of these wonderful folks!

No MORE Bad Hair Days!

  It’s hard to believe that there really was a time that my world could be shattered by a bad hair day.  I was really that shallow.  I had long dark brown hair!  It was naturally pretty straight and hung down in the typical sixties style.  I had huge round “rollers” that I wrapped it in at night before bed.  It was a ritual. They were made with coarse nylon brushes that stuck out of little cylinders (so it could grab my hair as I wound it round and round)....My arms could hardly reach up far enough to begin the procedure.  When I finished I would wrap a "hair net" around my head to hold everything in place while I slept.  I looked like a space docking station with lots of little rounded brushes ready to catch the ships if were to descend anywhere in the city of Oshkosh.  All the girls in the college dormitory looked the same at "lights out".  The trick was to sleep.  I used a neck pillow so wouldn't wake with cricks and muscle aches.  Yet, a night of sleeping still did not guarantee good hair!....And waking up meant it was time to unwrap the package that was my head. It was the first thing I did!  The process wasn’t always easy.  Untangle the net, pull out the picks from the rollers, and begin to unravel them.    Then came the hair spray!  I had to use enough to keep the curl but not make it so stiff that my hair would break!  Next....the comb out….that’s when I would discover if it was going to be a bad hair day or not.  I suffered for years with bad hair days.  My self esteem suffered with it.  My hair wasn’t thick enough, didn’t have enough body, and maybe I really did need the permanent my mother used to punish me with on a yearly basis!  So, I made an appointment to get my hair cut and permed! Oh Geezy Creezy!  Now I had months of bad hair days!  I let it grow out, cut it, and let it grow out again.  Months of bad hair turned into years.  Finally I just got it all cut off!  I like it best now…short, gray, easy schmeezy!  Now a bad hair day just means I need another good haircut!  There is great freedom in not trying to be young, beautiful and trendy!