Category: Gratitude

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Monthly Goal Update

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 September, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of August here’s my goal reflection:

CategoryGoalsMy Progress
LiteratureRead for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group





Send out Postcards




Blog Daily

Write at least 2 chapters for
writing group’s book		I participated in the August book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and am almost finished with the September book – Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I’ll participate in this book discussion on September 17th.

I haven’t sent out any postcards this month, but I visited in person to meet my newest granddaughter.

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. This is a work in progress, but I have only edited this month and not written any new chapters. I edited based on feedback from Anna Roseboro, a well-published member of our group.
Creativity

*Make a rag quilt for a new grandbaby

*Create Shutterfly Route 66

I have a new granddaughter, and I’ve finished the rag quilt with the Nana tag on it. I’ll include a photo at the bottom of this post.

I created a video, but I didn’t accomplish this goal, so I’ll continue this one: I’ll create a canvas or two, along with a photo book using our Route 66 photos! Update: I still haven’t accomplished this goal. I need to get busy in Shutterfly.
SpiritualityTune 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!
ReflectionWrite 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 rangeThis 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.
GratitudeDevote blog days to counting blessingsGratitude needs more time in September. I need to devote time to Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Gratitude Journal readings. I get busy and forget to truly commit time to thanking the Good Lord for all the blessings, even though I am grateful. Remembering to thank Him, while I do this in prayer, needs more emphasis in the moments of walking on the farm or driving through the beautiful countryside at sunset.
ExperienceEmbrace Slow Travel

Focus on the Outdoors		I’ve taken a trip in August to see the baby and now am finishing the month in Athens on a business trip. Both fast. Not slow and lingering as I would like. September will take us camping and possibly to visit a daughter, and I hope that we can slow down on those trips.

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 us. We have seen the owl several times this month.
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The Conference Getaway

When I bring out my small suitcase I use for overnight conferences, my dogs all know I’m leaving. They know I’m going to shower them with love and treats after I load the car, but that’s not what’s important to them at the moment.

Boo Radley takes to the laundry room and sulks on his blanket by the window. (Later, my husband will text me with a photo of him staring down the driveway for my electric blue RAV-4, holding out hope I’ll be back before nightfall – – and he won’t come in until he’s picked up and brought inside). Ollie flattens out on the floor, chin to the ground and legs splayed parallel on both sides like an unstuffed animal in random places that make no sense.

But Fitz, my soul dog, gets clingy like a toddler suffering from severe separation anxiety. This baby actually whines, as if trying to convince me not to go.

“You’re leaving. I don’t want you to leave. Don’t go. Stay home.”

On these mornings when I settle in to try to write before I leave town, Fitz won’t stand for it. He gets between the computer and me and refuses to budge. This morning, he came clear over the coffee table between our chairs and wedged his way in between my keyboard and me.

I have to stop what I am doing to make time for my sweet boy, and remember that while he is a big part of my world, I’m his entire world. I have to reassure him again and again and again and again and again that I will be back. With yet another treat.

I look into his searching eyes that are begging me to change my mind. I tussle his ears and plant a kiss between his eyes.

“I’ve got to go out and earn a living, your Highness,” I remind him, “to take care of you three spoiled rotten Schnoodles who have become accustomed to all your treat expectations.”

This doesn’t humor him at all. It’s a very sad day here, and Fitz would like everyone to take a moment today to feel sorry for him. He’d like everyone reading this to please spend extra time with your dogs today, to give them treats and plenty of love, and to tell them that there are actual dogs out there whose people leave them for a day or two, and it’s just not right.

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Hummingbird Heartstrings

it's that same feeling
I get when
my children
and grandchildren
are about to leave
for home
four hours south

they're packing bags
loading their car
stripping beds
washing towels

double-checking 
for toothbrushes
under beds for  little things 
easily left behind
like tiny dinosaurs 
wayward doll shoes
lone socks

I dread 
the tail lights
heading down 
our driveway

those I love rolling away

this morning's
stirring
is not unlike 
this feeling~
already missing family
before they leave ~
as I watch 
my hummingbirds
remnants 
of a charm
heading south
on their long journey
for winter

no wee suitcases
no teeny toothbrushes
no sippy snacks for the road

but departing nonetheless
traveling lightly

I want to hug them
tell them to be safe

tell them I'll fix their favorite
nectar next spring
even weed the lantana
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August Open Write with Wendy Everand

Wendy Everand is our host today for the August Open Write, and she inspires us to write odes to our favorite poets. You can read her full prompt here.

This brought to mind the first poet I ever knew. We lived next door to a retired school teacher in Reynolds, Georgia, and one day I got loose and barged into her house (no one locked their doors in that town back then)…..and the rest is history. After she died, two of her granddaughters compiled a collection of her poems, and I got a copy as a gift. I still believe that she pulled my poetry strings out and brushed them…..maybe even crocheted them.

Ode to Mabel G. Byrd (December 10, 1900-1/20/1987)

Mama Byrd’s poems
mainly quatrains
ABCB rhyme scheme
Crafting 4-line verse veins

Born in 1900, Taylor County
Little Sweet Georgia Peach
Died 1987, Taylor County
Lived her life to write and teach

I barged right in, in ‘69
(She was 69, I was 3)
I still remember visiting
Listening to poems at her knee

She went blind
But still knew color schemes
She’d crochet blankets as gifts for folks
In gilded yarns, bright blues, and creams

She still wrote, even blind
Poems were her favorite forms
And when I read her words today,
Time turns back, my heart warms

In 1987, I went for one last visit
Dad and I, next to her bedside
Told me she’d meet me at Heaven’s Gate
About a month before she died.

The very first poet I ever knew
Still speaks to me today
In rose gardens and peach blossoms
…..and in Granny Square crochet.  

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Welcome to the World, Noli Mae!


Today, our host at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 1 of the August Open Write inspires us to write poems about hands. Denise Krebs of California is hosting today’s writing. You can read her full prompt here. 

Welcoming Magnolia Mae

yesterday, these hands
gripped handlebars, holding on
for the ride with friends

yesterday, these hands
swaddled babies, bandaged knees
as children grew up

yesterday, these hands
stitched a quilt for a grandchild
I will meet today

for today, these hands
will build Legos and fairy
gardens first, and then…..

today, these hands will
swaddle a new granddaughter
in rosettes and sage

so that tomorrow,
these hands will be remembered
this heart full of love
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Sunday Morning on the Johnson Funny Farm

Aside from the usual blasts of neighbors’ target practice gunfire and tannerite explosions just to light up the Pike County Discussion Page at 8:00 on any given Sunday morning, the planes from the local airport flying low and the jets flying high along the flight path above the farm from the Atlanta Airport, and the roosters excited to see the sunrise after the long, dark night, the sweet notes of birdsong from the branches of the Loblolly pines brings peace and serenity.


One of our deer families has learned how to enter and exit the old goat pen, where they feast on breakfast and enjoy a little more security and thus a more relaxed dining experience than they normally have, especially with their little ones.

The white-breasted nuthatches laugh like evil circus clowns with their white-painted faces as they climb up and down the suet trees and keep watch while they eat.

And the hummingbirds engage in full-body air jousting squabbles over the sweet nectar at every feeder.

What I love most about my birdwatching time, despite all the best reasons I’d sometimes love a noise ordinance in our county, is that all deadlines and demands are on hold while I sip my morning coffee, never knowing what I’ll see or hear next.

This is wildlife as I’ve come to know it.

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Useful Souvenirs

I may not be sporting a Rockport, Massachusetts t-shirt, but I do have this.

Every time I scrub dishes, I think of that cute little Sail Loft in Bear Skin Neck, and it takes me back to one of the most scenic United States towns I’ve ever visited.

The VRBO unit had one of these dish brushes in the sink, and I fell in love with it right there in the standing-room-only kitchen in that iconic New England coastal town that still plays steeple hymns at 4 pm on the church organ, probably to remind everyone walking around in this much natural beauty that it might be the closest place to heaven on earth.

Even before I left Massachusetts, I went online and ordered one for myself from Amazon. The Lodge. They may specialize in cast iron, but they make a mean dish brush, too.

As I scrubbed the two crock pots from yesterday’s Meal Train Mississippi Pot Roast and our own MPR dinner with cooked-on carrots and potatoes, I thought back to my walks through this quaint little New England town to take photos of the rocky shore, the sunrise seaglass hunt, the angel wings I found on White Wharf beach in one of the least expected places to ever find a pair (an unquestionable hello from my mother in heaven), and the little wooden boats that looked like they were sitting on glass as they were anchored like lone ducks in the water.

Funny how a dish brush can do that.

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Savoring Saturday

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for several reasons.

An Indigo Bunting performs acrobatic moves in a tree
  • I’m cooking dinner for a friend who is now cancer-free after radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery, and I’ll get to see her today for the first time since early June.
  • I’ll finally finish a quilt for my new granddaughter and get to see the true “rag quilt” look of the final product.
  • I’ll get to read from the next book in Sarah Donovan’s book club, even though the hammock is out of the question on what is supposed to be the hottest weekend of the summer here.
  • The weeds that are completely out of control will get handled by someone else.
  • There’ll be some time for birding before it gets hot outside, when the birds are most active.
  • There’ll be some time for writing chapters in two books I’m working on with my writing group.
  • Some pressure washing might happen.

And the other thing that might happen is a trip to an underground bookstore where they sell these candles that use the scents of things in the books they’re named after, like Alice in Wonderland with the unbirthday cake fragrance, and Anne of Green Gables with some lemon and jasmine. A co-worker told me about this place, maybe an hour from here, where she started Christmas shopping last weekend because of all the unique gifts she’d found when her husband took her there as part of her birthday celebration.

For now, I’m settled into my writing chair, enjoying the early morning silence of the house. I’ve taken the boys out for their morning relief romp, and they all came back in and settled back to sleep right away. I can hear a Carolina Wren singing at the top of its lungs through the kitchen window, and the faintest light looks like pinholes through the tree leaves against the eastern side of the Johnson Funny Farm.

Five minutes from now, at a quarter to seven, I’ll be outdoors with a steaming cup of coffee, starting a bird count to mark the species I hear and see.

And I won’t be rushed to get showered and dressed today. I’ll savor my coffee and my own private bird concert on the front porch way out here in our remote corner under the Loblolly pines of rural Georgia and give a thousand thanks for the blessings of another sunrise to enjoy the spectacular splendor of the woods.

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Showing Up and Showing Out

Nature has a way of showing up and showing out.

For weeks, I’ve been watching and waiting for the figs to ripen, and almost overnight the first wave is ready for the picking. I saw the purple-brown fruits last evening and ran inside to fetch a plastic bowl and summoned my husband to bring his long arms and reach the branches down for me so that I could pick them. Together, we got what we could reach. It was too late to fire up the tractor, though. Usually, he raises me up in the bucket so that I can pick from the tip-top of the tree. That’ll happen after work today.

For now, we have our first bowl full, and they are plump and heavy.

But that’s not all that happened yesterday.

I finally caught a glimpse a bird I’ve been hoping to see for the past few years. Up until yesterday, I had only heard them. They live here on this farm, and I hear them in the wee hours of the morning, when it’s still dark. Ironically, I’d conceded our long game of hide and seek in yesterday morning’s post and declared them the winners. It’s as if one of these birds actually read my blog and decided to show a little mercy.

I was in the reading room that overlooks the butterfly garden. From the window that faces southward, I saw a stirring in the trees. A large stirring – – really an extra-large stirring.

Surely not, I thought.

It wasn’t dark. Just a couple of minutes before 8 p.m. on the nose.

It couldn’t be, I told myself.

I ran for my binoculars and searched the dense tree line for the bird, hoping it was still there when I returned.

I turned the knobs to focus and zoomed in as close as I could get.

Sure enough, just as I’d thought.

There it was, sitting on a pine branch, facing the house.

I could barely contain my excitement, yelling for my husband to come quickly, but not yelling loudly enough to scare off my buddy. I handed off my binoculars to him, and counted back the trees, pointed to the limb and actually used fractions to direct him 2/3 of the way up the Loblolly Pine to the Great Horned Owl grasping the branch with both feet.

We stood in awe, watching this great nocturnal bird of prey turn his head all around, watching the ground below for movement, like the embodiment of a Mary Oliver poem with wings.

It was fantastic to see. I still have shivers just thinking about the magnificent stature of this amazing creature and its commanding but camouflaged and silent presence.

After a few moments, he dove to the ground in pursuit of something he’d spotted, and just like that he vanished into the woods to feast on his catch.

And I’m burning with owl fever now, wishing desperately that he had a little camera attached to him like a policeman wears a bodycam, so I could have his night vision and see where all he goes and what he does. I’d have to hide my eyes when it came time for him to kill the bunnies and field mice and other critters, but I’d lose sleep for weeks just watching how he lives his days and nights.

Today was a treasure – ripe figs and Great Horned Owls. Life doesn’t get much more exciting.