Patchwork Prose and Verse
It’s time to play. I’ve learned the basics, played in practice, and taken good notes. I have the card and the desire to play. Now it’s time to join a group.
After 101 and 102
comes 103
Mahjongg open play~
And all the things……
the groups
the days and places
the tables
the tablecloths
the mats
the tiles
the lamps
the bags to carry it all in.
And so it begins.
Retirement officially began four weeks ago, and there are both upsides (travel in the RV) and downsides (having to replace a wheel – not a tire – on the RV) to this new chapter. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook like the one in the image above to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in my first official four weeks of retirement, as teachers and students have returned to school (#1-7 I blogged about two weeks ago):
1. Mahjong 101
2. Rag Quilting
3. Morning Walking
4. Yoga
5. Friends of the Library Book Fair –
6. Local Bookstore Book Club
7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club
The past couple of weeks have included two getaways in the Wayfarer along with a few other new endeavors. Everyone kept asking what I would do in retirement, and I’m so eager to share the ways I’m enjoying it! I have 100 things on my list…..so I continue sharing the list:
8. Postcard Poetry Fest – I signed up to send at least 31 postcards out to those who joined the Postcard Poetry Fest 2026. I have written over 31 original poems and have mailed them to my assigned recipients. It has been exciting receiving postcards from all around the world – many with original works of art on them by the artists. I’ll share the postcards I mailed and many of the ones I received in the coming months.
9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping….and…..10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert – We went to our favorite nearby state campground for a weekend on a remote campsite and enjoyed the fun and frustration of an unplanned hike. The following weekend, we took the Wayfarer to Lake Lanier to camp at Margaritaville RV Resort and saw the Eagles tribute band The Long Run. We rented a golf cart to get to the venue, and we learned the next morning that Boo Radley is not a candidate for riding in the golf cart because he cannot mind his own damn business and loses his mind and acts a fool.
11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play – I added a new segment of learning Mahjongg by attending the second course of lessons and engaged in an evening of open play at the McDonough Truett’s Restaurant with my friend Christian. We are riding around places meeting new friends and sharing the joys of “going Mahjongg.” I won my first game last Friday, and Christian swept all three games the night we drove over to McDonough.
12. Zinnia Arrangement – my sister-in-law who grows zinnias has brought me several batches, and I love arranging and rearranging them in my mother’s pitchers. I received an extra-special arrangement when I checked the mail last week. My friend Glenda Funk from Idaho created a watercolor painting of zinnias when I wrote a poem about them, and she framed the print with my poem as a retirement gift, along with a gorgeous boho blanket from Natural Life, a really cool pen and toothbrush holder, and a bracelet from Thailand – and the most heartfelt card ever! I shed tears of joy opening it, thinking of my friend who is so giving and has been suffering such pain in her leg lately. These are treasures I will cherish – so personal and meaningful.
13. Fabric Postcards – I’ve been working on creating fabric postcards for Postcard Poetry Fest for the next round. I sent out a few to see how they would hold up in the mail, and my small group of Stafford Challenge writers all received them and they held up fine.
14. Porch Sitting – I’ve enjoyed late morning coffee with my sister-in-law Bethany and an evening visit with my friend Jayne, who brought me a retirement t-shirt gift. Porch sitting and visiting is a great way to adjust pacing.
15. Lounge Pants Spree – I ordered lounge pants for each day of the week so that at least I could change into clean pajamas each day, but I ended up keeping only one set. I’ll add them more gradually so I can be sure of the fit instead of ordering online. My writing friend Margaret is changing my thinking, though. She says she replaced loungewear with activewear, and perhaps I should consider the same. There are some yoga pants that do not fit quite as tight as leggings, and those would work for me better than the tighter fit.
16. Novel Writing with Nick – I met a friend and fellow writer in Eastman, a couple hours south of here, to go through the first round of edits for the unfinished book left by my father that we are co-authoring. We look forward to bringing this novel to print in the coming months.
17. Kindred Spirits Book Club – I have a Goodreads personal goal of 60 books this year – – (it’s fitting….it’s the year of 60)…..and my Kindred Spirits sisters (missing one of us in the photo below who are the regulars) and I met at our local coffee shop to discuss the August selection: Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden. Our book choice for September is The Sideways Life of Denny Voss. Currently, I’m finishing Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth and I can’t turn the pages fast enough to see what happens next.
18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club – I was looking for a way that my daughter in Nevada and I could connect in a book club, so we participated in the reading of a Brazilian thriller author’s latest book, The Secret Dinner. We downloaded the book on a Tuesday and had 48 hours to read it before the Barns and Noble Monday Mystery event. It’s definitely a great way to participate with family readers across the miles. The novel was disturbing in its subject matter, but reading outside the comfort zone is what readers do sometimes.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be busy. One excursion that we will take this weekend will likely be one of my favorites of all time….. (hint: It will take place in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday night).
Retirement II Haiku
it’s a fresh chapter
new adventures, living strong
~ sing love like Dolly!
The Bean in Eastman,
Georgia: perfect spot to write
a forthcoming book
Here’s a secret I’ve been holding back: Dad left an unfinished manuscript, and it looks like it’s going to make it to print. For years, he’d been telling folks that he was working on a book. He shared snippets here and there of the plot line and the general story, rooted in the setting of a second home he and Mom owned along the Sapelo River down in McIntosh County.
At his funeral and visitation services in June 2025, many people asked what would become of the book. My brother and I searched his computer and found a few threads of story ideas for this book, but nothing more than a few scattered breadcrumbs. And then our good family friend Nick Doster, the last person to sit with Dad before he died and who brought him the Braves cap he’s buried in, produced an outline with story notes.
More like a piece of bread than a breadcrumb. But still far short of a loaf. Then, Nick offered to work with me to finish the book….which, really, felt more like starting the book by sowing the seeds of ideas and hundreds of tiny quilt squares together to see where the patterns emerged. Like me, Nick is always reading and writing. His most recent book is a western, and he has been talking with the screenwriters about a screenplay, which has consumed a lot of his time lately. Getting to retirement has consumed a lot of mine. So for about six months now, we’ve been working here and there, chatting on weekends and plugging in August as the time we’d get together to do our first productive round of editing of the whole manuscript.
The Bean in Eastman, Georgia was the halfway point for both of us, so we picked a day and met there. We took over the coffee shop and the free wifi yesterday to chisel away a few more steps toward the finish line. We’re still far from finished, but the fun of writing is another part of retirement that makes me happy. These large chunks of time to be able to write and think and edit are a great way to spend a day.
Today? A little more editing, a search for more comfortable swivel stools with backs for the Mahjongg table, a morning walk on the treadmill before it’s too hot, and a great movie my aunt recommended on Netflix for later this afternoon: Arthur the King. I’m so glad I didn’t wait to retire – – what a blessing to have the gift of time to spend the days doing what we love!
Jimothy, the Seattle raccoon who is different from other raccoons in physical stature, is taking the nation by storm for his unique level of cuteness and combined raccoon confidence in the way he carries himself in spite of the double-takes from those who spot him. You can read all about him here.
My sister-in-law across the farm has grown the most gloriously beautiful zinnias this summer, and she brings me bouquets and sits on the porch for coffee – – a joy of farm life, and even more so in retirement! But on her last visit, she said there was one in the basket that I’d have to figure out what to do with – – perhaps cut it down or something, since it was different from the others.
When she handed it to me, I smiled – and immediately, my mind went to Jimothy. Here was the Jimothy of the zinnia world, and it needed a spotlight place on my counter where I could see the beauty of the uniqueness of its stem. So I rinsed out a Oui yogurt jar, filled it half full of water, named it Jimothy, and propped it up next to a bottle of dish soap. This is my favorite flower of all – there is not another one just like Jimothy in the entire world, and he’s right in my own kitchen.
Jimothy the Zinnia
here he came to me:
Jimothy the zinnia
uniquely his own
Once a month, our Kindred Spirits book club meets at our local coffee shop on the Zebulon, Georgia courthouse square to discuss our monthly pick. Last year, we chose our next book month by month when we met to discuss the current book. This year, we each brought two book choices and created a schedule for the year so that we could read ahead if we finished our book ahead of time.
We are a group of six colleagues who became reading sisters through shared interest and choice, and even though two of us have retired and one has taken a position in a different place of employment, we still come back together to read, discuss, and have adventures together.
We discuss reading guide questions, but we always ask what the book inspired us to do and how it changed our lives. Generally, there is some kind of adventure that follows – whether it is to see the movie or do some kind of activity mentioned in the book. For example, after reading The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan last December, we decided to take our own girls’ winter getaway and will be doing that in January 2027 to a place a couple hours north of where we live, where there will be a big fireplace so we can lounge around sipping coffee or Kindred Spirits cocoa concoctions and have girl time in our pajamas and talk about books and life and go shopping. We haven’t named our book-related adventure for Dear Debbie yet, but we all decided that it will not involve infesting anyone’s rose garden with Japanese Beetles or using poppy seeds to impair anyone’s faculties. Nor will it involve visiting any fraternity houses.
If any readers have suggestions about what to consider reading for 2027, please share! We follow Goodreads and The Book Girls and are always looking for our next great read.
reading together
strengthens our sisterly bond
of Kindred Spirits
Our host for the first day of the August Open Write at www.ethicalela.com is Denise Krebs, who lives in the Mojave Desert. A retired teacher, Denise gets out in nature every chance she gets and continues to write. She blogs regularly at Dare to Care, is the co-author of The Genius Hour Guidebook, and has some poems published in anthologies, including today’s prompt inspiration Picture Perfect Poetry. I’m blessed to share time each month with Denise at Ethicalela and in a small group of writers with The Stafford Challenge.
Denise inspires us to write ekphrastic poems today. An ekphrastic poem is one inspired by a piece of art or photograph. She suggests looking through our camera roll and considering something in nature, possibly using the 2-4-6-8 form, explaining, “I wrote my poem in a form I call a 2-4-6-8 poem. It may be a syllable-counting form I made up. Each line increases by two syllables. Write as many stanzas as needed. Your choice of rhyme scheme is optional.” Hop over to the site to see her photos of Joshua Trees and read her poem about them.
I was inspired to write about our tree frog who lives under the Blackstone grill on our front porch. I’d purchased the small griddle to go on the road with us when we travel in the Wayfarer, but after seasoning it and testing it out, I noticed that two tiny tree frogs were making their home in the grill cover. I couldn’t bear to move it, so now we have a grill on our front porch coffee table (it’s okay, there are no neighbors to complain). They have become my front porch friends now, hopping onto the watering jug whenever I water plants and peeping out to say hello from the grill cover. Incidentally, one made an appearance on the loveseat with me last time we were in our Stafford Challenge Google Meet. I introduce you today to one of the Johnson Funny Farm Front Porch Frogs.
Front Porch Tree Frog
front porch
tree frog hops up
on my watering jug
like The Lorax, speaking for plants
he lives under the Blackstone grill
with his lady frog friend
(we shall not cook
frog legs)
Whenever a new grandchild is born, I dust off their great grandmother’s Bernina sewing machine and start cutting rag quilt squares to welcome the baby in style. My mother left me her treasured Swiss machine from the company named for the Piz Bernina peak in the Alps. It’s the same one she taught me to sew on, and while I’m not the excellent seamstress that she was (nor will I ever be), I feel a deep inner joy knowing that the same machine she used to make our clothes for decades is still being used to make quilts for her great grandchildren. I hope she’s smiling with pride as she gazes down from Heaven!
A lot of times, it’s hard deciding on a rag quilt theme and colors, but this idea came easily. Since Oakley Finn and I share a birthday (July 8), I chose stars and stripes for America’s 250th. There are also narwhals on one of the square designs, and one with waves too, because these grandchildren live in coastal South Carolina and love ocean and sea creatures. Even though there are not any narwhals making the trip from arctic waters down to the Lowcountry waters, I think they fit into the scheme of things just fine.
Retirement time allows for visiting family and sewing rag quilts, and I’m loving every minute of being able to do the things I truly enjoy! I feel blessed!
Rag Quilting
generations stitched
together, transcending time
where love knows no bounds
Today is the first day back for students in our school system in Georgia. When I started feeling the tug to retire throughout last school year, I said to a few friends, “If the stars align, I’m thinking about retiring.” Isn’t it ironic that on this first day for students, my sister-in-law Bethany sent me a reminder that this very morning there will be a planetary parade of lined-up planets! It’s as if we have moved out of the realm of the stars and into the planetary universe with someone upstairs nodding a big YES on this first day that I will not be in all the school traffic trying to get to work. I’m home – – living a more relaxed pace and loving it.
It was supposed to be an ordinary day: August 1, my first official day of retirement. At work the previous week before I took the personal days I needed to use or lose, I had asked to simply slip out the door without a party or even a mere cupcake. I’m not one for too much celebration since I like everything to be simple, and I don’t like to be in the spotlight. On my last office day, my husband worked with my friend Janette and sister in law Bethany to arrange to bring the RV up to the parking lot so my friends could wave to me as I drove away to the open road. One week later, he’d asked me to save the evening – like he does if we have a date or something. I figured he was planning to take me to dinner, just the two of us.
I repotted plants all morning while he mowed grass and did the weed eating. And then I came inside into the air conditioned cool and cleaned out the refrigerator. I did that kind of deep cleaning that you do every two or three years where you take all the shelves and drawers out and wash them, then line all the countertops in towels and let it all air dry. Briar was in the shower, and as soon has he was done, I stepped in for my turn to clean up for the evening. I wanted him to go first so I could see what to wear without asking too many questions. Wherever we were going, we were leaving at 5:00.
I chose black pants and a black and white shirt, the sort of outfit that seems to adjust itself to the formality of any occasion. I put on my silver hoop earrings and my beaded bracelet that was a gift from Bethany when my soul Schnauzer Fitz crossed the rainbow bridge this past spring, and the pearl and silver cross necklace from my children. And then, I bottomed it all off with my black Teva TirraTraveler sandals that look like something between a fancy Sunday School shoe with a beaded ring and just as fitting for the beach or kayaking, and the shoes I would choose as my one forever shoe if I could only choose one pair henceforth. I dried my hair, put on some makeup, installed my contact lenses, grabbed my trusty Portland Leather bag, and stepped into the living room.
And there sat my brother, who’d made the trip to surprise me from five hours south. And my sister in law – – and they hugged me and led me outside to see a gift they’d made together, just for me, that was in their cooler in the back of their car. A toasted coconut cream pie. A favorite Costa Rican recipe that they had made together in their own kitchen the night before, knowing it’s my favorite.
It was that kind of moment where there was nothing else in the whole world that would have been more meaningful. Family who’d traveled in with so much else going on in their own lives, who’d stopped their world to make me a pie and bring it so we could sit around with coffee, talk, and share memories.
I was blown away that my husband had planned such a sweet retirement dinner for me. We were going to my favorite Italian restaurant two counties northwest of us, and we were on the way. And there, at a corner way in the back hidden from immediate view, were three of my colleagues I’d met the very first year I came to the county and had joined on adventures outside of work throughout the years ~ all avid readers who love to travel, see shows, and go out to eat. I’d taught their children and we shared some of the happiest and saddest times of the past 20 years of our lives together, from book club discussions to following each other’s favorite travel itineraries to being there when we’d laid loved ones to rest. Here they were to surprise me and surround me on my first day of retirement!
My brother gave a toast, and we talked of life and the living of it. We all clinked glasses and talked deep into the night, sharing our stories of how we met, how we stuck together, and how we’ve laughed along the way …over coconut cream pie and coffee. Clean refrigerator shelves and drawers lined the kitchen as we gathered in our living room after dinner. I glanced out at the freshly repotted plants on the back porch and felt a similar joy deep inside: new fresh earth, still-strong roots, and room to grow and thrive in new directions with the right watering and sunshine.
Toasting
they made me a pie
showed up for my retirement
toasted coconut!
….and toasted retirement, too
in a glass of prosecco!
Along with the members of my small group Stafford Challenge members, I joined the Poetry Postcard Fest 2026 earlier this month, committing to writing an original poem daily and mailing each out to another participant on a postcard for 31 days between now and August 31. My list arrived, and I got to work. The organizers asked us not to share these until our virtual celebration gathering, so I will withhold any photos of this until after we have had our Zoom gathering. I’ll feature most every postcard during an upcoming month to share what I wrote and mailed. If you’re interested in considering this poetry opportunity for next year, mark it on your calendar! Here is some information about the event, along with a link to the official website. The shorter forms work well for these poems, and largely mine have been Haiku. I can’t wait to share more about the poems I send and and receive!
Poetry Postcard Fest
Around the world, we
write poems on postcards, then
mail them to new friends
Glenda Funk of Idaho is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of the July Open Write. She inspires us to write Double Consciousness American Sonnets, which are looser forms of the traditional Shakespearean or Petrarchan Sonnet with the Volta, or shift, around line 8 or 9. Come visit the page today and read the poems of others, and perhaps write your own to share!
Instructions for Knitting a Poem
knit one, purl two, I hook words as I write
cool peace, with shades of panic-level fright
these variegated colors of yarn skein
like phases of moon cycles: wax and wane
crack of thunder harkens a derecho
aftermath: look up and see a rainbow
cast on, bind off ~ weave from all this SABLE
knit one, purl two, count along a cable
change skeins ~ dye lots show unstable jogging
tug trail legs: necessary frogging
sometimes we can’t undo what has been done
new leading legs knit common threads as one
a cozy mitten pair: rich mosaic
poetry can change the dull prosaic
Common Threads 