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January Jaunt

Daily writing prompt
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
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If I had a freeway billboard, it would say If you haven’t had pizza for dinner at Frank’s Filling Station on the backside of nowhere in the rural Georgia Countryside off Highway 362 in Hollonville, you haven’t fully lived, ‘specially if you didn’t split a Little Debbie Double Oatmeal Cream Pie with your sweetie for dessert.

dinner wasn’t planned

we just ended up hungry

looking for some food

I was delivering a Facebook Marketplace sale of the last of my Longaberger collection from the 1990s ~ a lidded piece of Christmas pottery. I sold all but one of my baskets a couple of years ago in the sweeping house cleanout, but the pottery popped up needing a better home, and some man in a small silver sportscar pulled up next to us as we waited at Frank’s Filling Station, the designated meeting spot to do the business. I handed him the dish, and he handed me the cash.

The next obvious question at that time of the day was what was for dinner – a common conversation for two tired full-time working folks. We went down the list of possibilities, but nothing was appealing much to either of our appetites.

Wouldn’t it be fun to see if we can each eat dinner on five bucks? I asked my husband, eyeing the filling station and wondering whether they might have a little cafe inside. The place had just been redone a year ago, and neither of us had been inside since. I’d just picked up an easy ten dollars, and I sure didn’t mind splitting it with the love of my life to feed us both. It would be a fun challenge to see if we could stay within budget.

He took me up on it.

I eyed the boiled peanuts. They have regular and Cajun in there, and I do love the spicy ones. Probably not the best choice that close to bedtime, though. I scanned the cooler of local beef from Caldwell Farms and made a mental note to come back for some another time when I planned to cook at home. We spied the barrel tables next to the window and took a look at the food options – cheeseburgers, fries, pizza, chicken wings, hot dogs, and even a fried bologna sandwich. That’s how you know you’re in the country is when you see a fried bologna sandwich.

We settled on the pizza and two bottled drinks, and sat at a table to eat and watch the people coming and going – and that is a lot of excitement on a weeknight for the place where we live. My back was to the door, but when the last two pizzas walked out in the arms of a young man, my husband whispered that he was glad we got ours when we did. It wasn’t fabulous pizza, but it was decent, and that was good enough for a Tuesday night.

Did we stay under budget? Nope. We went over by $1.80 before adding the Oatmeal Cream Pie. We’d already blown the bank, so we splurged on a $2.00 deluxe dessert we could split, and we were grateful for the sustenance.

So if you’ve never had dinner at Frank’s Filling Station in Hollonville, Georgia, add it to your list of things to do if you’re ever an hour south of the Atlanta airport. They also have Hollonville, Georgia t-shirts in there, and those are as rare as hen’s teeth and would make great conversation starters for traveling. Keep a lookout for us ~ we might just be at a barrel table by the window.

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Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Found Poem

Sometimes I like to open the book I’m currently reading to a random page and find a poem hidden there in the pages, peeking around the corners of other words, just waiting to be discovered. It reminds me of Augusten Burroughs’ Running With Scissors, where he and his friends did what they called a “Bible Dip” anytime they needed scriptural guidance. They’d open the Bible and drop their finger onto the page and read the verse to see what wise answers pertained to whatever the matter at hand.

Right now, I’m reading Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and I can’t stop turning the pages. It is humorous and heartwarming, and all at once I can go from one breath with tears welling and one to full laughter, the kind where you’re alone in a room in your favorite chair and you know if anyone is watching, they will think you’ve finally gone over the edge. It would pair well with Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus, and already I’m wondering whether I need a box of tissues like I did at the end of that one after I’d bonded with Octavia and found myself overcome with sorrow upon learning her fate. I can feel the faucet of tears coming on now just thinking about it, so I’m shifting gears and doing a Poetry Dip to find some words and phrases on two of Van Pelt’s pages (20-21) and weave them into a poem.

Words are funny like that. They will find you where you are and walk alongside you, knocking on your mind as you sit in thought, demanding attention. My own One Little Word for 2026 continues to salt and pepper moments as I think of all the ways I need to heed its urging and all the ways I can bring its nuances into my own writing. I’ve tried to show the onward movement in today’s poem, navigating the currents of the stages of grief.

Tentacles

tragedies ~

rawness,

despair

clustered,

soaked through

grief

~ cascaded,

etched,

blurred

into a sea

of sunshine

over the crest

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers space and voice

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Sunday Morning Wake-Up Call

The last day of my winter break before going back to work this morning was not a morning of sleeping in or relaxing. There were things to do that could not seem to wait on a Sunday morning. Perhaps 2026 will be a lot like this ~ getting things done with some sense of urgency. It is already Monday, and we are back at it, both of us, off to work and back into the grind of the routine. I’m holding on tight for the ride.

our Sunday wake-up call came early

on brand-new sheets

not even yet washed

we usually get

a warning: (the wretching)

not this time ~ there it was

between us

regurgitated orange dogfood

Ollie stiff-stepping off the bed

clearly the sick one

6:55 a.m. and on the way

to the sink I saw it in the floor:

he couldn’t hold it, either

to add to the madness

Boo Radley quivered

like Michael Flatley’s feet

hugging my ankles like

a furry shadow

I picked him up

(he never wants to be picked up)

heard the chirp of the smoke detector

and it all came clear: terrors

from his former life

abandonment

in a fly-infested duplex

a smoke detector that drove

him over the edge

like Chinese water torture

with sound

I soothed him

changed our fitted sheet (again)

Briar, meanwhile, thumbed

through his deluxe battery

organizer, changing every

smoke detector 9-volt in the house

Ollie brought me his ball

wanting to play

one toss didn’t hurt

Briar trudged down the stairs

t-shirt and underwear

carrying a vintage step stool

I whispered to Boo:

your daddy’s slain four dragons

singlehandedly just now

and our bed is ready

the dogs and I stepped outside

just off the porch

into the cool, misty fog

suddenly

through the silence

gunfire

I offered a silent prayer

for the deer family

summoned the boys

back indoors

into silence

and clean sheets

7:10 a.m…….(but who can sleep now?)

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January Gift Basket

If I were giving

you a gift basket

I’d go with ticketing

in all this icy blue!

…you’d receive

aquarium tickets

to soothe the stress of winter blah

movie tickets

to take you

and a tub of buttery popcorn

to another world

and ice hockey tickets

to remind you that

if you can’t beat ’em,

you can smash ’em with a stick!

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A Found Poem

The book that is currently sweeping me off my feet is The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. I’ve created a found poem from words and phrases on page 132. A found poem is one that is created by using words from any existing print ~ road signs, cereal boxes, church bulletins, or other poems and books.

The Air Trembles

I remember

his

mouth moving

saying something

he

really believed

deep down

I can see him

the day he left

wearing his denim

and leather loafers

I remember

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January Shadorma

A shadorma poem is one with six lines, in this syllable sequence: 3/5/3/3/7/5. My One Little Word (OLW) of 2026 is Onward!

Onward!

what we bring

into this new year

depends on

what is worth

keeping ~ and having the strength

to let the rest go

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My One Little Word of the Year for 2026

Years ago, Ali Edwards challenged a growing following of folks to choose ONE LITTLE WORD to take with them through the year as a sort of guiding light or inspiration. 2026 will be my fifth year of choosing a word to walk through the year with me. In 2022, my One Little Word was listen. I learned so much that year holding that one word that for 2023, I kept the same word again – listen. In 2024, I chose pray. In 2025, I chose enough – and life has had its way of showing me some ironic twists on that word.

There is power in words – a strange magic. There is killing and healing and nurturing and reassurance and hope. There are dreams and hard realities, wishes and escapes and triumphs and failures. What I’ve learned by choosing my One Little Word is to choose it carefully – because it has its way of revealing its truths and meaning in ways I never expected. This is not just some flippant exercise where people string some letters together and leash them like a stray dog to drag into a new year, hoping the mystery of the universe will reveal itself. I had no way of knowing last year at this time, as I had finished cleaning out a house and barn in 2024 with the dream of getting our belongings down to just “enough,” that Dad would die smack-dab in the middle of 2025, leaving a lot of loose ends untied, including a house and seven storage rooms filled with a lifetime of more than enough. Since June, the weight of these things and their encumbrance has felt anchoring – and not in a healthy or freeing way. There is still much to be done in the two-steps-forward, one-step-back dance of getting rid of things…..and of letting things go (and there is a difference). It takes time, but the important thing is getting through it. Thank God for my brother and sister-in-law, who have saddled the horse and taken the reins. No pun intended.

How does anyone choose a word? Do I choose a word I need to do, like listen or pray? Do I choose a word I want to do, like read or travel? I believe in verbs. They’re actionable.

Enough was another story, though. This word functions as adjective (enough food), adverb (tall enough), pronoun (have you had enough?), noun (there is enough for everyone), and even as an interjection (Enough!). It all depends on the placement of the word in the sentence. But enough does not function as a verb. It’s the most passive word I’ve chosen as a One Little Word (OLW).

So how? How do I pick one word? Am I overthinking all of this? I need to pray, to listen, to do, to plan, to act, to forgive, to express, to read, to write, to diet, to focus, to breathe, to rest, to exercise, to clean, to laugh, to cry, to grieve and to smile. I want just enough, not too much, and not too little. I feel like a character in a cartoon on a journey standing at one of those signs with a thousand arrows in all directions, not sure of which way to go but feeling packed and ready, map of possibilities in full color in the side of my bag, but there is this ball and chain around my ankle. I simply need to get in motion. To amble, to saunter, to skip, to run, to perambulate, to jump, to not sit still, to not stand by, to take action on movement, to leap, to walk. To go in some direction. Onward.

Onward.

Here’s a word to get me through days, through meetings, through books, through situations, through decisions. Momentum to keep turning the pages, to forge ahead into new experiences and new chapters.

Onward.

It’s an adjective, an adverb, and can be an interjection. It keeps moving in a direction, not standing still or getting stagnant, pressing on but not missing the important moments, either – just not getting bogged down and feeling like my wheels are stuck in the mud.

Onward.

Not necessarily forward or backward, upward or downward but whichever direction seems best to choose. Like bedward at 9:00 p.m. Onward, toward or at a point ahead in time or space.

Onward.

For the last six months of 2025, I’ve felt anchored by the weight of belongings and random antiques and collectibles that were not my acquisitions. I’ve felt handcuffed in the anger and sadness of grief. It’s time to cut it loose…..to let it go…..to move….

Onward.

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Stranger Things

On the heels of a missing grill that vanished from an AirBNB while we were gone to a birthday party and an unexpected early-morning knock at the door that turned out to be a Northern Flicker attempting to demolish the cabin we were occupying for the weekend, I came home from Kentucky to three boxes on the porch – two of which were late Christmas presents arriving after the fact. The third presented yet another mystery in these days of stranger things. There was no gift card from the recipient enclosed.

I called my brother and sister in law, who said they didn’t send the art canvas of a red Japanese tree against the backdrop of snow-covered mountains looking like Fuji, with two black metal benches on each side. Nor did any of our children. I texted a friend in one of my writing circles who just got back from Tokyo and collects art. It wasn’t her, either. I sent a text out to the full family group with my husband holding the picture: Anyone know anything about this? it read.

The mysterious art canvas (Boo Radley’s feet far right corner)

I did a little research and learned that I may be the victim of a brushing scam, where people receive things they never ordered in the first place as freebies from companies seeking verified purchaser top review status. All evening, I watched videos of the random things people sometimes get. There is no risk for the victims, either, other than needing to change passwords frequently. These recipients of everyday’s-like-Christmas surprises just have to make extra trips to the dump or find ways of getting rid of whatever doesn’t fit into their lives until the packages stop arriving and the review scammers move on to other recipients. I reported the package to Amazon with the tracking number, and they replied that it would take ten days to do an investigation.

I can’t help considering the irony of this scam in light of all that has transpired this year. We started cleaning out our house and barn in 2024 when we started the journey of downsizing with the dream of building a smaller living space on the farm. In 2025, my brother, our spouses and I shared the task of cleaning out our Dad’s house and seven storage rooms. They were full of books, art, dishes, lamps, furniture, pretty much everything you can imagine, and other “rare collectibles” because Dad was a hoarder who could never get rid of anything. I looked at the canvas of the red Japanese tree and chuckled, wondering if somehow this is him pranking me beyond the grave, particularly as I have wept real tears over the harvesting of all the trees on Briar’s family farm since April. Surely this canvas carries some kind of message I haven’t figured out yet.

For now, I’ll sit tight and wonder, as all the other brushing scam victims do, what might arrive next. I’d love one of those shiny silver coffee makers that grind the beans and do all sorts of fancy brewing like cappuccinos and espressos and lattes. I’ll take a king-size Nectar adjustable bed, with two cool-temp pillows and a massage feature. The latest Apple Watch (I have never owned one) might be a nice surprise if I can figure out how to turn the notifications off, plus some good winter boots with arch support, maybe Aetrex brand, in black leather. Those are the things I’m hoping my brushers will send next – – and I’ll even write their glowing 5-star reviews myself in exchange for all the free stuff.

A Call To Action Haiku, Celebrating Surprise Photographic Art

brushing scam victims

unite with glowing reviews

for free merchandise

Here is my free review of this art canvas that I’m considering actually adding to Amazon:

This canvas is the perfect size print to go over a bed or to hang on a bland wall space. It’s guaranteed to bring both boldness of vibrant color and tranquility of empty bench solitude all at once as it reminds us that there is indeed sunlight just beyond each cloud in the sky. The mountain spirit is alive and well, beckoning our very souls to reach for new heights even as we keep our feet on the ground and our lives simple and rooted in nature. Art lovers looking for cryptic messages they can apply to their own lives will delight in the vibes and reminders that living things all bloom and thrive where they are planted and that to everything, there is a season. The tree reinforces the notion that no matter where we go, there we are, and that we should never, ever forget our lipstick. There is much to be seen from a distance that you cannot appreciate close up with your boots in the snow. It’s all a matter of perspective, we find, as we gaze into the possibility of each vantage point as we stand considering angles. Yes, in this print, we feel a deep sense of belonging. We are branches on the tree of all humanity, each of us one mere leaf, hanging in our own time and place in the history of generations who have come and gone before us, even as we consider the promise of future generations if the world does not end in an apocalyptic rapture at the touch of a button by some bratty lollipop-spoiled kid who grew up to be a tyrant with a tortured soul in North Korea – or anywhere, for that matter. And these emotions are just the tip of the ice-covered mountain for the depths of discovery in this one canvas that is the most unexpected kind money can buy without, you know, actually being there in person, which would cost way more. Get yours today, and you will never look back – – only inward and upward henceforth. (Brushing Scammers, thank you for this delightful gift).

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Trembling Tricube

Today’s poem is a tricube – a poem of three stanzas, each having three lines composed of three syllables. This one has a rhyme scheme of aaabbbccc. This one is inspired by an argument I witnessed, right when it hit the fan. The whole thing reminded me of a Jenga game where you watch quietly, knowing the pieces are going to fall and the whole thing will tip a little and crash…..

Tip of the Iceberg

what to do

they fooled you

such words flew

saw the lies

sheep disguise

passion dies

two will go

they both know

all-time low

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One Mystery Solved

On our final morning in the cabin situated on the Rough River in Falls of Rough, Kentucky, I got up to count birds and feel the cool breeze of the upper 50s against a frigid gray sky. The clouds are swirling from the SSW to the ENE much like the Jolly Green Giant’s cigarette if he smoked, and the birds are out here spilling all their secrets and gossiping in languages I wish I could interpret. I’m sitting at 37.35.18N/86.33.1W at 430 ft. elevation, and in this one tiny spot on the face of planet Earth, there is magic in the air. No one is out here to hear it except me: I am alone, and there isn’t a soul around, at least not that I can see. An occasional truck ambles past on the road adjacent to the cabin.

When we arrived back from the next county over for our grandson’s first birthday party in Daviess County, Kentucky, we discovered that of the two grills that sat at the foot of the steps, one was gone that had been there earlier in the day. I hoped there wasn’t a grill theft where we could be questioned, but there were also two perfectly new bikes hanging from the porch that were still there, leading us to conclude that there mustn’t be much crime in this part of Kentucky. We also noticed strange wood shavings by the front door, as if a repair had been done while we were gone. We didn’t think much else about it, went to bed and turned on the sound machine, and brought the dogs out around 4:30 a.m. to find that everything was dark and still, just as we’d expected.

When I rose a little more than an hour later to sit outdoors and enjoy the quiet of the morning, I heard a knock at the door shortly after I’d flipped the coffee pot switch on. Surely no one was needing to borrow a cup of sugar we didn’t have at this hour of the morning, but in the absence of a peephole in the door, I listened carefully. This was no person. It sounded like an animal, perhaps a raccoon or possum, knocking around on the porch.

My husband was still sound asleep with the dogs in the back room, so I set my camera to video while I opened the door – just in case anything happened to me, so there would be evidence of any murder that was about to happen on my phone. I slowly twisted the deadbolt and turned the knob lock, then opened the door.

No one was there, human or animal, yet the knocking continued. I stepped out into the wood shavings, camera pointed up in the direction of the sound overhead, and as a wood chip fell at my feet, a Northern Flicker took off and landed on a branch of a tree by the river. Mystery solved! This was no cabin repair. It was a woodpecker doing his thing. I still had no explanation for the missing grill, but at least I knew where the wood chips had come from.

I’ll send the video to the cabin manager when we check out, but of course it will not take any stars away from the review. If anything, a mischievous woodpecker with a flair for a little destructive behavior and shrill calls only adds to the appeal of a place.

On the morning bird count, I counted 24 species and felt the peace puddling all around me as I did. I’m enamored with the beauty and humor of birds, but sometimes I forget how destructive they can be. As I consider it all from their perspective, I imagine that if I were a woodpecker in these parts, I might try to tear down the houses of any humans that threatened my territory. Show ’em who’s boss.

so we shall leave this place and

these birds

to their peaceful living

make our way back

to our own GPS Coordinates

two states south

where the comfort of home awaits

Today’s List

American Robin

Northern Cardinal

European Starling

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Northern Flicker

Red bellied Woodpecker

White Breasted Nuthatch

Eastern Bluebird

swamp sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Pileated Woodpecker

Eastern Bluebird

Red-winged Blackbird

Blue Jay

Carolina Chickadee

Mourning Dove

White-throated Sparrow

Carolina Wren

Canada Goose

Eastern Phoebe

House Finch

Eastern Towhee

Belted Kingfisher

American Crow