Erica Johnson, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of our five-day October Open Write, wrote one of my favorite forms of poetry – found poetry – in an art museum using the artists’ statements about the works! You can read her poem here – it surely captures the essence of departure by someone, leaving us to feel the loneliness that comes, almost missing them before they get fully out of sight. I feel I have been on an art exhibit tour today. Erica invited us to find poems in artists’ statements about paintings as well. I have a framed print of a painting that my parents gave me for Christmas in 1984, after I fell in love with the landscapes of the English countryside painted by John Constable following a visit to the National Gallery in London. My favorite Constable work: The White Horse, kept at the Frick Collection in New York. Here is the art link: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1146.html
The White Horse
six-foot wide space a new technique spanning canvas no longer overshadowed
The White Horse crosses the River Stour to the other side on a barge
full-size sketch with broad brushstrokes thus crossing a new career threshold
The White Horse painting appears at 2:37 and at 2:49 in the video
Today we are heading off to F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia for the Southeastern States Little Guy Meet Up. This is a group of people who all love camping in our Little Guy campers. We’ll gather at various campsites as hosts invite us to bring a log of firewood and our camp chairs to sit around the fire pit and share stories of our camping experiences. Some travelers will take two days to make the journey, but we are blessed that the event is happening at one of our favorite campgrounds that is just under one hour from our home.
We bought our 2022 Little Guy Max Rough Rider by Extreme Outdoors in November 2022 from a couple who had planned to travel and camp throughout the United States but had a change of life circumstances that thwarted their plans. The previous owners had done all of the initial fine-tuning needed when anyone buys a new camper, and had even put together a three-inch binder owner’s manual with plastic sleeves, receipts, and warranty paperwork. They’d changed out the uncomfortable mattress for a Bamboo mattress and added a Froli bedding system, for starters. They’d also added a bike rack and put extra sealant on the side seams. They took immaculate care of the camper, and we felt fortunate to have had an actual engineer own it before we bought it from them.
“Join the club,” the previous owners urged, “there’s a whole following of LGM owners out there, and you can learn a lot from the Facebook groups.”
So we did. We joined all the groups and learned about Randi’s Adventures on YouTube, where she gives weekly tips on camping in this minimalist fashion that we have come to love. She hosts a yearly gathering on Lake Michigan, and we hope to get to that one someday, too.
But for now, we’re joining the meet-ups closer to home. Today, my husband and our dogs will make the trip to get set up, and I’ll join them after this evening’s National Day on Writing event on our town square. I’ll share pictures and stories from the meet up next week, after our October 5-day Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com that begins tomorrow.
Cheers for cozy nights with blankets and clear, starry skies! We can’t wait to share our adventures with you next week!
Last night’s book discussion in Dr. Sarah Donovan’s Healing Kind Book Group was Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World by Maryanne Wolf. Whether you are a teacher, a parent, a reader, or any combination of those roles, you would likely find strong points of identifying with the author – perhaps both agreeing and disagreeing with ideas even in the same chapter!
Each month, I enjoy the lively discussions of this group. We gather and bring a passage to discuss on our Zoom call. Denise Krebs of California led us this evening. Mo Daley of Illinois liked the quiet eye – the observant part of the reader that takes in details, and Sarah Donovan of Oklahoma liked the idea of cognitive patience – – attending with consciousness and attention to a rhythm that allows insights to unfold. What resonated most with me were the fostering of empathy and refining of critical thinking skills as readers use their eyes to take in whole new worlds through words. Every few pages, I’d marked a passage and stuck a Post-It bookmark tab on the side of the page to flag my favorite parts.
So much of our brain is active when we are reading – it’s performing miracles we don’t even realize are happening, lighting up the night sky during a thunderstorm with all of its lightning sparks and flashes.
To readers everywhere: pick up a book and savor the magic of reading. You are blessed to be able to make sense of print, to consider and contemplate it, to meditate on the ideas and to add layers of new perspective, and yes – even to revise your position because a book presents a case you may have never considered.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers for hosting Slice of Life for writers!
It’s that time of year – not just the time of buying hot chocolate bombs and pumpkin spice bagels and cream cheese and coffee creamer and basically pumpkin spice everything. Not just the time of lighting fragrant fall candles and making caramel apples and buying cinnamon brooms to prop on the hearth. Not just the time of putting leaf garland and mums all around the mailbox, and not just the time of getting down the sweatshirts and cabin socks to sit around the fire pit getting lost in the aroma of burning wood.
There’s so much more to that time of year.
It’s Hallmark movie time.
Last week alone, I watched Pumpkin Everything, Pumpkin Pie Wars, Autumn in the City, Under the Autumn Moon, and Home for Harvest. It was my fall break, and I succumbed to the temptation to multitask by watching movies while cleaning. It was the perfect marriage – I was productive enough not to feel guilty, but indulgent enough not to feel overworked.
I tolerate the teasing from my husband, who rolls his eyes every time I push play on a different movie. He finds it amusing that I enjoy watching the same basic plot with different settings and characters from fall to winter. I find it amusing that while he teases me about it, he never fails to be drawn into the story and ends up watching most of the movie with me. And this year, I’ve even started adding secret incentives that he hasn’t quite figured out yet – – like setting out caramel popcorn on the coffee table so he’ll start watching more from the beginning.
I’m pretty sure Hallmark movies make me a nicer person. I go out into the world wanting to smile more and seek joy lurking around the corners of my town square. I can hear movie music in my head as I walk over to the coffee shop and the bookstore from work, and I start admiring all the scarves and boots I see people wearing. I smell balsam and cedar and feel all the excitement of the season ahead.
If you haven’t marked your calendar yet, here’s the 2023 Hallmark Movie Countdown Calendar. The countdown begins this weekend – October 20th, which is also the National Day on Writing. You can download the calendar and also the movie checklist app, and check out the details of each of the new movies.
I’m trying to decide which will be my favorite. I think I’m looking most forward to A Biltmore Christmas. What do you predict will be your favorite, and what are your best movie watching traditions?
I return to work this morning after a quiet, uneventful fall break. We’re having an emergency drill today, so the inner peace will not fade throughout the work week but instead will be pumped out as adrenaline and action and what ifs replace the echoes of birdsong and back porch swing chains. My brother and his girlfriend came to visit, we arranged some furniture to make room for a few new pieces from my dad’s house, and we sat outdoors by the fire pit, roasting marshmallows and talking into the night.
As I was taking the dogs out for their final evening walk one night, I did what I always do – – I shone the flashlight all along the edge of the woods to see if there were any eyes shining back at me. Out here, we have everything from coyotes to field mice, and I’ve learned that I can never be too careful.
Sure enough, there was a tiny pair of eyes looking at me, about fox height. It had a black, bushy tail with a triangular-shaped face. We had a stare-down for a full minute at least before the animal disappeared around the tree, its tail curving along the trunk as it slunk off into the forest.
I walked the dogs, thinking it was gone, and mentioned it to my brother when I came back inside.
“Really?” he asked. “Let’s go check it out.”
I grabbed the light and off we went, back to the tree, where the two eyes sat just a foot behind it, shining back at us. The brush was thick, so we stared at it for a few minutes trying to figure out what it was before it hopped off through the dense thicket and went on its way.
I Googled and concluded that it may have been an oddly-shaped fox squirrel. We’ve had a black squirrel for a long time on this farm, and perhaps this was the great great grandson or something.
The shape of that head, though, perplexed me. I kept returning to the idea that it wasn’t a squirrel when it hit me: it might have been a skunk.
Just like my brother and me to chase a stripeless skunk into the woods, but I think that’s what happened.
If I’d had any doubt, my husband took the dogs out early yesterday and returned to bed, noting, “There’s a slight skunk smell out there.” I hadn’t told him that I had toyed with the idea that this had been a skunk.
Now I’m sure of it.
Skunks, dogs, birds, fireside pits, porch swings, and Hallmark movies all week- – and today I leave you with photos of peace taken last week. Happy Monday!
Leaves are turning, becoming more colorful by the day in my county.A pair of finches on the roofA pair of cardinals in the treeA tufted titmouse scratching an itchtufted titmousepine warblerpine warblerA tufted titmouse takes flightI’m photographing this tree as it loses its leaves, every few days, so I can see the change shot by shot
we’re cheering them on
these Atlanta Braves of ours
Funny Farm fireside
loving these cool temps
Fall Break wrapped in hoodies with
coffee and warm socks
I usually post my goal update at the end of each month, but September’s is running late. October was sneaky and arrived before I knew it. I even forgot to say Rabbit, Rabbit.
At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of October, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of September here’s my goal reflection:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group
Send out Postcards
Blog Daily
Write a proposal for writing group’s book
I participated in the September book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and look forward to reading October’s book – Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in this book discussion this month. Fellow blogger Tammi Evans recommended a book by Elizabeth McCracken entitled The Souvenir Museum, and I hope to explore this collection of short stories as well this month. I need a spooky book, too, to bring on the chills of October.
I mailed 10 postcards this month from Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.
I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.
My writing group is writing a series of new books, and I will spend time editing the chapters we have written. I will continue to add chapters as we receive feedback from our proposals. We are each sending our proposal out to some publishing companies.
Creativity
*Decorate the house for fall
*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I am working on decorating. It’s a slow process this year. I picked up an orange and a bronze mum today from Home Depot, and I’ve also made the instant hot spiced tea and put it in Mason jars for the fall. I have added a couple of new pillows and a throw for the living room. Our decorations are simple around here in the country – – we have a lot of natural foliage, and I like using it in some wine bottles I’ve wrapped with twine using double-sided tape as vases.
I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one.
Spirituality
Tune in to church
Pray!
Keep OLW priority
We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.
My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.
I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Write family stories
Spend time tracking goals each month
I have shared family stories through my blog this month and will continue this month to do the same.
I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement
*Reach top of weight range
This is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back.
Gratitude
Devote blog days to counting blessings
I begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well. I enjoy tea on the porch, taking time to meditate on all that I have been given. And all that I have not been given, too. I’m grateful both ways.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
I’ve taken a trip in September to Augusta for a work meeting and to Kentucky to visit family. We visited Mammoth Cave National Park and the Bell Witch Cave – two caves in two days.
I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. It’s the best time of the day to sit outside on the porch (in the shade) and just listen and watch what is going on around me. I have also come to an interesting resolution: I like my own backyard for birdwatching. Over time, I begin to know where each bird lives, its hours of activity, and its preferred seeds and feeders – and there is a powerful science to the perch on a feeder. Take cardinals, for example. They will come to a hanging feeder, but they prefer platform feeders just like mourning doves do. I’m learning by slow birding.
Common Threads 