Patchwork Prose and Verse
In the spirit of tiny writing and short forms, today’s poem is a Shadorma (3-5-3-3-7-5) inspired by Georgia Heard’s Tiny Writing prompt calendar: What Your Feet Know.
What Your Feet Know
your feet know
after a long trip
the way home
your feet know
the tight pull of belonging
listen to your feet
My sister in law and I have been making various salves, lotions, balms, and body butters. It all started in April. She found a recipe for Bergamot Body Butter, and it’s been fun ever since. We each ordered some of the ingredients and a slew of containers, fired up the stove, and got to stirring and mixing, making our own magnesium and shea butter foot creams.
Today’s poem is a simple tricube – three stanzas of three lines with three syllables!
Sister Time Tricube
bergamot
shea butter
olive oil
lavender
mixing bowls
minerals
beeswax flakes
kitchen fun
sister time
Jordan, our host for this 19th day of #VerseLove 2025, lives in Suffolk, VA.
She inspires us today to write poems about food.
lots of things I don’t do right in this world
but making a fresh sprout and kale wrap
with beets and a half dollop of
mayonnaise is not one of
them, fortunately ~ and
the difference is
right outside on
the porch where
it grows
fresh
Sprout Smile Nonet
it’s been a long time since I’ve made them
I was a child in the kitchen
making sprouts with my mother
I got a kit today
two drain lids plus seeds
with my own jar
and I felt
my mom
smile
Way back in the 1970s, my mother taught me how to make alfalfa sprouts. It was fun for a kid to do. You get the starter seeds and rinse them, then soak them overnight. Each day for a week, you rinse and drain. After a week, you have enough sprouts to last you a week on sandwiches and salads, and it’s more economical than buying them in the store. Much more fun than when we hung a flat white bean on a wet paper towel in a Ziploc bag on the classroom window and watched it sprout and then took it home and threw it away. These sprouts we actually ate.
In my slice time this evening, after a day of visiting another camper dealership and then stopping for dinner and a shared banana split to celebrate our anniversary on the way home, I opened the sprout kit that I’d ordered and began the process of making the sprouts.
They’ll be amazing on a tomato sandwich with salt, pepper, and mayonnaise – – I’m already eyeing one of my green tomatoes on the back porch, wondering if just perhaps it will be the one to ripen in time to meet the growing sprouts in a springtime taste explosion of a sandwich on sourdough bread.
My mother would be so proud! I can feel her smiling down, knowing I’m thinking of those days in our avocado-colored kitchen of the 1970s at the corner sink, shaking out the sprout seeds together, all amazed and dazzled at their growth.
6:20-6:51 p.m.: My peace rituals are more necessary these days than they’ve ever been before.
Is it because I’m older?
Or because life is busier?
Or because the world feels so different today than it did yesterday?
Some evenings, I take a long walk with the dogs. Other evenings, I light candles. Some nights, I soak in a hot bath. Most every afternoon or evening, I make a pot of hot green tea and my husband and I indulge with local honey and a flavored herb blend. There is nothing that compares to the feeling of togetherness and unwinding over steam rising from a cup. When the world is cold, there is warmth in togetherness.
Steeping Peace
I come home from work
steep a mug of hot green tea
sweetened with honey
grab a tea towel
slip my hand inside the mug
buffered towel warmth
when the world is cold
a handwarmer mug steeps peace
from the inside out
long walk after work
out on the farm with the boys
we love exploring!
I come home tired at the start of the work week, which almost always starts out in high gear. All day, I look forward to returning home with the dogs and being able to put on a pair of sweatpants and go for a walk with them. More and more, my heart stays right here on this farm even though my mind and body go to work.
I gather Fitz’s leash from the basket by the front door – the only one of my trio who will chase a critter into the woods and completely lose his way back. Boo Radley and Ollie only lose their minds with excitement to get out the door as we prepare to take to the trails my husband keeps cut back just for us. It’s my slicing time today, my 31 minutes between 5:48 and 6:19, just before dinner, and the boys and I step out into the still-chilly damp air and hear the birdsong. Except for the occasional airplane, it’s all we hear other than our own footsteps.
It’s peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that I could take the rest of the school year and just take walks instead of going to work, where the phones forever ring, the meetings never stop, and even the delightful sounds of laughter are still…..well, noise.
I signed my contract for another year, and by December of this year I’ll know whether I will pursue retirement starting 26-27 or hang in there for another year on the heels of the coming one.
So much is changing in the world of education, and at times it seems overwhelming to keep up. It seems there is no “staying ahead of the curve,” as there used to be.
The more I take long walks and feel the inner joy of the peace it brings just being home, the stronger the chances of retiring next year. I want to read more than I have the time to read as it is now. I want to take long walks with the dogs in the late morning. I want to press plants and decoupage them onto candles, to sew soft flannel rag quilts in light pastel patterns, to visit grandchildren and have lunch with retired friends…….to bake, to work the crossword puzzle every afternoon, and to get started on some writing projects that work leaves no time to enjoy. I want to think less each night about what I’ll wear the next day based on which meetings are on the calendar.
How does one know when it’s time to turn in the keys and sign on the dotted retirement line? If you’re retired, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one. On one hand, I feel ready – – even past ready. On the other hand, it all seems so final to walk away from a career in education when that has been my life.
I would love for you to share your perspectives with me. What are your best tips and pointers, and your best advice for someone considering taking the leap?
reorganizing
bringing structure from chaos
now I can find food!
My post today for my designated slicing time this afternoon was inspired by Barb Edler’s mustard poem from Sunday. She was having a hard time finding her yellow mustard for a sandwich, and I was having a hard time finding anything in my under-the-stairs pantry. It’s tucked away and can be a little cramped, but we tend to keep sparse supplies of food here anyway, so it works out.
Until it doesn’t, and that is usually because I let it get out of control.
It was time to reorganize our shelves, and since we sold our camper several weeks ago and I kept all of the clear plastic storage containers from that setup, I shifted the same system into my own kitchen.
I started by pulling everything out. Everything.
I organized it all by type of food on the counter, checking dates and tossing expired items. Breads, cereals, spices and baking foods, canned goods, crackers, coffee and teas, and sauces and snacks.
I knew something around here was going to get a cleaning at some point when I got sick and they put me on a steroid, so it was all a matter of when the burst of energy would come and what was in my path at the time. I’m glad it was the pantry, and I’m glad it was inspired by fellow slicer Barb and her mustard.
It feels great to know what’s here to eat again!
The refrigerator, though…….well, that’ll take another burst of energy and another inspiration.
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.
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
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!
Common Threads 