Category: Self-Improvement

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March 21: 3:40-4:11 Picking the Suckers Off

I often stop by the Ace Hardware store on my way home from work. In a small town like mine, it’s the place to go for everything – I read the Magnolia Home paint chip stories, buy lightbulbs and birdseed, and even once when I needed a wagon for a book talk where I was selling books, I went in to get one and the Ace man took the box to the back and put it together for me so I could go straight to my event. He’s also the man who taught me something about my tomato plants……..

Tomato Suckers

if I were 30something

I’d be out in the yard

planting a garden in the earth

but I’m not

I’m too old to bend over

and pull weeds

so I bought container gardens

ready to go, ready to grow

containers, potting soil, plants, cages

I bought them ready-made

as inexpensively as

I could plant them myself

.

……but my favorite part is the

Ace Hardware man who

loads my plants and teaches me things

don’t forget to pick the suckers off, ma’am

he says, loading each one carefully from

the cart into the back of my RAV4

you’ll need to look between the stems

in those pockets and find the suckers

that sap the life away from the plant

sucking all the energy from the tomatoes

he pointed at one of them and then

grabbed that sucker and pulled it off

flung it down onto the pavement

I had three of the four plants

went back for the last

I heard him telling the cashier

about those suckers

here’s one you can use to show her, I offered

placing it on the counter

he went to work, teaching the young lady

how to tend a container tomato

I smiled as she peered into the plant

taking careful notes of the learning

from the Ace Hardware man

who says he learnt it all from an old farmer…..

…….and them’s the best teachers of all.

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March 14: 11:56-12:27 Picnic Lunch at Zebulon Park!

There’s a small park about 1/2 mile down the highway from my office, and on spring days when the pollen isn’t enough to push me over the edge, I like to get a 6″ Blimpie sub and eat half of it as I picnic in the park. There are covered picnic tables, and parking is just steps away. It’s a perfect way to take a break from the office and get a little Vitamin D. It’s also a quiet place to take my journal and write.

When Covid hit and we took to the camper for weekend getaways, we re-discovered the inner peace of picnics as we spent more time outdoors in nature. We didn’t even need a table. We took our camp chairs and sat by a lake or on a mountaintop and let the dogs play as we spent time doing nothing but relaxing. I decided at that time to find way to picnic in the middle of a workday to keep the perspective. Nature has a way of doing that. And that’s when I found the park near my office.

No one ever thinks about going here, tucked away as it is off the highway. Sometimes I come with a group of friends, but I also love having it all to myself. It’s the best way to spend a lunch hour any day, but especially on Fridays.

The Hidden Park

my own sliver of

GPS on the earth where

no other soul sits

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March 13: 11:24-11:55 Loaded Tea

Has your city or town suddenly sprouted a nutrition drink shop or three? These beverages they call loaded teas are all the rage everywhere, and let me tell you something.

They’re addictive.

I was at a conference in Athens, Georgia and missing my daily caffeine fix. A simple Google search with a button for directions led me to a shop within 7 minutes of the University of Georgia campus. Visiting my brother and sister in law this past weekend on St. Simons Island, same thing: three left turns and I was standing in line checking out the March concoctions. I ordered mine with a scoop of immunity blast and collagen.

Most days, though, it’s just a simple grapefruit with a scoop of immunity and a little extra sour to offset the sweetness. 24 calories later, I’ve staved off my hunger and eat a minimal lunch. People swear the tea helps them lose weight, and while it isn’t drastic, I would agree. Our shops offer the telegram app, where a simple text will bring the tea straight to your door within 15 minutes.

Grapefruit tea is the most trouble I’ve been in since the 1970s, and I’m loving every minute of it.

some days, before lunch

I order a loaded tea ~

{curbs my appetite}

immunity scoop

and an extra scoop of sour

free delivery!

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March 9: 9:16-9:47 Clap if You Believe in Fairies!

Late-to-Rise Leprechaun: A Modified Limerick

a leprechaun sat ‘neath the shamrocks

with buckled hat, red beard, and striped socks

his faeries he queried

am I late? I’m quite w’erried

so ye be, chimed the three,

(one with book upon knee),

even fairyland can’t turn back time clocks

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! I took a spur-o’-the-moment trip south to visit my family as my brother and sister in law and I try to help Dad tackle some tasks he can no longer do on his own. Chemotherapy has zapped all of his strength, and we (and others) continue to try to help where he will allow it – which is not nearly enough for any of us to feel satisfied, but that will take the luck o’ the Irish and a lot of prayer to change. He’s testy with us, seems skeptical, and wants to be left alone. He’s made it quite clear.

Before my brother and I visited him, I had a little extra time to check out the Ace Garden Center on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and I’d spied a little leprechaun in the robust fairy garden section that I’d planned to go back and get after visiting with Dad. I was there to look for spider plants, known for improving air quality by giving off oxygen in their transpiration process. But leave it to fairies to lure me down the aisle of wonder and intrigue. While I don’t have a dedicated fairy garden, my whole front porch is filled with fairies in their own plant container homes.

Imagine my delight when my sister in law, Jennifer, asked me to swing back by the house after visiting with Dad. She’d known just the medicine I’d needed – – a little fairy magic to cheer me up! She’d read my blog yesterday morning and beat me to the fairy section, choosing the perfect assortment of fairies – and the leprechaun – to sit on the edge of my shamrock plant as a gift – – making them so much more meaningful. Each time I look at the leprechaun, I smile. And what she didn’t know was that I would have picked the fairies dressed in green – – for an extra sprinkling of Irish fairy dust!

When I opened the gift, a black nose appeared out of nowhere – – JoJo, one of their black labs, sensed the magic and joined the fun, studying this leprechaun and his trio of fairy friends, as mesmerized as any dog has ever been. Her fixation on them – even trying at one point to take the leprechaun by the beard and run off with him – lightened the mood and made us all laugh.

Sources say that there are no female leprechauns, and that these little magical creatures are the unwanted children of the fairy family – – grouchy, closed off, and untrusting. With their stubborn, curmudgeonly, cranky attitudes, even leprechauns need someone to show them some love – trouble is, they have a hard time accepting it.

I have reasons for understanding the close relative of the leprechaun in folklore – the Clurichaun, drunk and surly beings who are known for clearing out entire wine cellars. And I must admit: I, myself, a mere human, along with my brother and sister in law, had broken into some wine over the weekend. But let’s be real – – the leprechauns drive them to it.

There comes a time in life when all children can do is clap if we believe in fairies, to envision Mary Martin as Peter Pan rallying us along, to hope the lights don’t fade too quickly.

Jo Jo checking out the leprechaun and fairy trio
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March 1: 5:00-5:31 a.m. – Awakening All Sense

Handmade soap from Green Willow

Welcome to the first day of the 2025 Slice of Life Writing Challenge, where bloggers post each day of the month. You can find the home page with links to blogs across the world here. I’m writing about things that happen in time increments this year, described in yesterday’s post.

Awakening All Sense


I smack snooze a time or two

reluctantly rise

feel the sweat of the night

still lingering from the

warmth of our

blue velour blankets

piled three layers high

smell the morning citrus soap before

I ever see it, the

exhilarating orange

cream bar that

heightens all senses

awakens all sense

our nation needs this orange

not the other

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Blue Ridge Writer’s Conference Day 1 : Things I Love

The original courthouse is now the home of the Blue Ridge Arts Council

there’s nothing I don’t love

about the Blue Ridge Arts Center

from its towering columns

of stately presence

to its history and artful womb

this birthing center for

pottery, dance, painting,

sketching, mosaic, sculpture,

stained glass, yoga, tea blends, origami,

jewelry making, drama, weaving,

poetry, plant pressing,

paper mache, woodcarving, and

exhibits of inspiration but what

I love best is that there is something

for everyone ~

including writers

In the first session, I wrote an I’m From poem, which I’ve written several times through the years – but it changes every time.
We also learned about a Color Study. I’ll be featuring this one on Ethicalela.com sometime this year as a prompt.
A Poetry Reading during the Opening Reception in the old courtroom
I love the old sink and the windowsill deep enough to grow friendly flowers.
The Opening Reception was held in the main part of the old courthouse.

Oh, how I wish our county held a writer’s conference. Maybe that’s my next venture, starting in fall of 2026: to conjure up a place for art to happen here in one of the most beautiful places in rural Georgia. If that ever happens, The Art Center at Blue Ridge will be my model. I need an old farmhouse or barn with an exhibit space and smaller spaces for workshops and rooms upstairs for visiting artists and an old sink with a deep window ledge for plants and a fresh pot of coffee……..and I’ll keep dreaming.

Check out this amazing place and all it has to offer here.

Read more about this year’s writing conference here.

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February Open Write Day 2: Hope Lies Within

Photo by Viktoria Slowikowska on Pexels.com

Stacey L. Joy of Los Angeles, California is our host today for the second day of the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She writes, “Back in April 2021 for Verselove, our Ethical ELA friend, Dr. Kim Johnson, prompted us to write a mirror poem by finding words from another poet to use in our original poems. I fell in love with You, too, Can Fly by Zetta Elliot. And I fell deeper in love with the Etheree as my form. It’s Black History Month, and my heart longs for hope during such difficult times. I know our ancestors left us with hope. It’s up to us to find it and spread it.”

You can read Stacey’s full prompt and the poems of others, along with the process for writing an etheree here.

I used two of my favorite black poets’ works today, and one favorite of Mexican-American descent, to blend an etheree in celebration of all strong women of this nation: Lucille Clifton (won’t you celebrate with me) and Maya Angelou (The Human Family), two strong women whose poetry modeled what our reigning US Poet Laureate Ada Limon meant when she wrote How To Triumph Like A Girl. And here we are, standing on this bridge together.

Lifting Our Shirts

take

my hand

celebrate

togetherness

strength in unity

we are more alike, my

friend(s), than we are unalike

the human family survives

on this bridge of lady heart triumph

just lift our shirts and see to believe it

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Let Them!

First, I checked the library, and there were dozens on the waiting list for the ebook and the audiobook. It would be months before it would be available.

Then, I checked my local bookstore in my small town. They were all sold out.

I kicked myself. I’d had my hand on a copy in a mega bookstore two weeks ago and had put it back, thinking I’d wait and either check it out to read it for free or support my small town bookstore instead of purchasing it right then and there. as I’d really wanted to do – to dive into it and lose myself in the words and the affirmations and head-nodding I knew would happen in those chapters. Lessons I needed and lessons I already knew.

Then came the first phone call. My husband’s brother’s wife, whom I still call my own sister-in-law and who’d read the book after she’d written her own on a similar topic just months before, had good things to say.

Then the second phone call. My brother’s wife, too, was in the thick of chapter 4 and couldn’t put it down.

I hung up and ordered a copy, which arrived on Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon, I was halfway finished – and my husband had been as interested as I was once it arrived, so I used an Audible credit to download it so he could listen as I read (note: the Audible version, read by the author, doesn’t follow the book exactly – – it’s like an engaging conversation, and it pulled us both right in).

And here we are, all the better, with a new mindset.

I’ll let them do it.

I won’t try to persuade them.

I’ll mind my business.

I’ll stay in my lane.

I’ll flash my own turn signals.

I’ll drive my own car.

I’ll map my own route.

I’ll schedule my own detours.

I like scenic routes.

I’m out of the fray.

I’m not making their choices.

They’ll have to do that.

.

.

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Barndominium Dreams

A friend’s unfinished airplane hanger/barndominium over near the Peach State Aerodrome in Williamson, Georgia

I never in a million years would have thought I’d want to move out of a traditional home with central heating and air conditioning into a metal barndominium with alternate sources of heating and cooling, but that is exactly the direction of our dreams – going from 2400 square feet to between 1200 and 1500 – half of the space we have now, only a much bigger workshop space for our cars, camper, and tractor. We started the journey a year ago, our 2024 full year’s mission to clean out the house, attics, and the barn. We’ve pared down to essentials (except for shoes, plants, and books) and have chosen a floor plan and a spot on the back of the farm. Now the task of actually putting the house on the market…….this is the plan for 2025…..to live in a camper while we build a much simpler home.

Here we go, about

to make the dream come alive

…..still biting my nails……