Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Life Challenge!
Katrina Morrison of Oklahoma is our host today for the second day of the March Open Write at http://www.ethicalea.com. You can read her full prompt here. She explains that misheard lyrics are called Mondegreen. I’m a fan of Coxy.Official, and when the whole bed is shaking with my laughter at night, my husband knows I’m watching Nathan Cox on Tik Tok. He’s the king of music Mondegreen, and so thanks to Katrina, I now know this misheard lyric genre has a name. Coxy’s short clips are for adults, and it’s not the words as much as his reactions that get my tickle box turned over. Now it makes me want to go find the exact lyrics for all those songs I often mis-sang growing up. I was never sure whether Clapton was saying she don’t ride, she don’t ride, she don’t ride cocaine or she’s alright, she’s alright, she’s alright cocaine, but either way you sing it, it works in the song.
My poem is about a text that became our own new phrase shortly after we married.
Many thanks to Two Writing Teachers for giving writers space to bud and bloom!
The earth laughs in flowers. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today’s poem is a triolet, inspired by Barb Edler’s post yesterday. Before Barb’s mother died, she planted daffodils, and these are Barb’s favorite flowers. I, too, lost my mother (December 2015) and miss her very much – my mother’ s favorites were wild petunias and yellow roses. When I need to count blessings and decompress, I take my keys off the hook by the door and start up my little blue Caribbean RAV4 and go riding the country roads. I look for the blooms, the rolling hills, the hawks on wires, the cows in the meadows. It puts the world back in perspective for me – – I am here but for a blink of an eye, and whatever is worrying me, too, shall pass.
Today, let’s remember our mothers who have gone before us but who still wave to us in flowers! We still see you, Moms! #flowerhugs
My oldest grandson turns 14 today. Last year, we went on a fishing trip together. This year, he went skiing with his youth group in West Virginia. Time is flying, and we love the time we share with him. Here he is, loving life.
Today’s poem is a Haiku, inspired by the footage on my Netvue bird camera. We always seems to find such joy in watching birds, but the truth is that they argue and antagonize each other as much as people. Perhaps we laugh because they help us see the humor in human nature and how ridiculous we look.
The Quarreling Songbirds
quarreling sparrows bicker, spar over birdseed like squabbling siblings
Chipping Sparrows spar for the Johnson Funny Farm Birdcam
Here’s a great big Happy Birthday cheer for the love of my life. We share life, we share dreams, and we share challenges. I’m grateful that the good Lord sent him to be my husband. He’s a keeper, and I cherish him.
We recently visited my brother and father in South Georgia for Christmas, and when we arrived, Ken was outside blowing off the back porch. It looked like the leaves and debris were headed clear down to Florida, as powerful as this blower was.
My brother left shortly after we arrived for an appointment, and as soon as his car was out of the driveway, Briar picked up the blower and walked out along the path in the back yard to test it out.
Briar’s blower might be able to blow out one candle on a birthday cake on a full charge, but Ken’s blower could peel twelve layers of pine pollen off a porch screen. Both blowers are battery operated, giving full range of an area without a cord to trip over.
It was one of those moments when I paid attention when I needed to. Rarely do I get a gift as right as I felt this one would be. And I realized even more that I’d nailed it when I’d had to stop by Home Depot and Lowe’s the weekend before his birthday so I could get chalk paint and wood stain for our kitchen table. While I was looking for just the right color wood finish, he said, “I’m going to be in the tools for a minute. I want to see if they have that blower like your brother had.”
I did my best to give a quizzical look of confusion and vague memory.” Oh, yeah, that blue thing you were playing with out in the back yard?”
There was already one of those blue things in the back of my car under a blanket even as he looked around for it, so close that I’d had to jump ahead of him with the buggy to load our bags of paint and be sure he couldn’t see his birthday gift awaiting him.
Happy birthday to the man who likes everything clean and always helps make sure it stays that way!
Earlier this week, I blogged about the increasing popularity of rage rooms and the owners who are purchasing vintage glassware, antique dishes, and grandma’s oil lamps to be smashed with baseball bats and golf clubs in controlled settings across the nation. They’re scouring estate sales for the dishes that families have gathered around for the last century or two, purchasing what folks can no longer persuade their children or other relatives to use in their own homes, and wearing helmets with eye protection as it’s all beaten to smithereens behind a concrete wall.
This may seem to some like a violent death of memory and sentiment. It may show disrespect to the items being smashed, from the artistry of the design to the materials used to make these things that have long held presence around tables feeding families or that have held oil to light rooms and keep aglow the faces of loved ones centuries ago.
Perhaps, though, the best chance of life these items have is in their recycling – – a reincarnation, of sorts, for things boxed up in darkness, locked away in storage, held hostage as prisoners of uselessness for decades, like the aging adult’s own version of the Island of Misfit Toys with nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. A rage room may at first seem in direct opposition to the gratitude factor of thankfulness – but is it really any more offensive than attics full of items without purpose, kept that way by those who should value them most and keep their spirits bright?
As I drove to visit a family member having surgery two states north of me last week, I listened to Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The author herself reads the book on Audible, and hearing her voice is almost as pleasant as pausing every few minutes to truly soak in the meaning of her words from a new perspective – – and an important one. Similarly to the way Aldo Leopold reminds us of our duty to be good stewards with a strong land ethic in A Sand County Almanac, Kimmerer reminds us in her chapter “Allegiance to Gratitude” that every single item we eat or use comes at the cost of the life of a plant or animal. As good citizens, we should follow the guidelines for the honorable harvest of consumption, from the wood in our furniture to the food on our plates. Allegiance to gratitude is what begets abundance – not the collecting and storing of items that are not being used, because this disrespects the energy from Mother Earth to produce these things and invokes perceptions of hoarding: get all you can, can all you get, and sit on your can. Taking and using only what is needed is the way to be environmentally responsible for future generations. Having what can be used and fully appreciated cultivates a fuller appreciation of all of our blessings.
Gratitude has been a year-long spotlight word for me – – a goal word. It is fitting that in December, I am reading Kimmerer’s words with a renewed sense of gift giving. This year, we’re practicing a different gift-giving arrangement for my grandchildren. They’ll each receive something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. We’re simplifying, redefining less as more.
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 December, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of November, here’s my goal reflection:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group
Blog Daily
Write a proposal for my writing group’s book and a proposal for an NCTE presentation for November 2024
I participated in the November book discussion with Sarah’s reading group and look forward to reading January’s book (we skip the month of December)– I Hope This Finds You Well, by Kate Baer. I’ll participate in this book discussion in January 2024.
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. I’m also meeting to help write a proposal for the NCTE 2024 Convention in Boston in 2024.
Creativity
*Decorate the house for Christmas
My main December creativity goal is decorating the house for Christmas, since we didn’t decorate at all last year. The grandchildren will be coming to see us, so there must be trees! For the month of November, I spent some time knitting hats and doing some therapy coloring with a daughter recovering from surgery.
Spirituality
Tune in to church
Pray!
Keep OLW priority
We have tuned in to church every Sunday in November and will continue doing the same for December. We plan to attend a Christmas Eve service this year as well, with one of our children.
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’ll participate in an Open Write storytelling event and share a family story out loud!
I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table. I’m already looking at my goals for next year.
Self-Improvement
*Reach top of weight range
This is a setback for me since April. 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. November was full of gratitude and thanksgiving by its sheer celebrations, and I celebrated the birthdays of a grandson and a brother. Taking time to pause and give thanks for people and blessings brings joy and reminders that family is a gift.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
I’ve taken a trip to be with a daughter having surgery in November, and while this was not adventure travel or vacation, we found ways to maximize our togetherness and make the best of a time of recovery. Next month, we will be welcoming visits from family members and visiting some out of state as well.
I’ve joined Project Feeder Watch, since birdwatching is far more comfortable and warm from inside the house. I plan to add two entries per week throughout December, totaling at least one hour per week.
Today is my brother’s birthday, and I’m blessed to have him as my brother. He didn’t log in as me on my computer to type this – I’m writing all of this of my own free will.
One of the best gifts we can give our dad – and the best way to honor the legacy of our mother – is to get along. And we do, without any prodding or threats.
It hasn’t always been that way, though.
When we were little and played Matchbox cars, we fought a little bit over the purple car with yellow trim that we called Mrs. Wentworth. And once I accidentally knocked my mom and Ken as a baby off the bike by running into them when we were all out on a bike ride. Plus, there was that time he’d gotten a new roller donkey for Christmas, and he fell off and was crying in the middle of the Christmas festivities in the living room and no one was helping him up, and I was the closest in reach to him.
I think he’s forgiven me for all of that, and he’s turned out to be a wonderful person, despite the odds for Preachers’ Kids.
Boo Radley, Ollie, and Fitz hiking the red and white trails of FDR State Park in Georgia. I do not own the rights to this music.
Our time on this Thanksgiving getaway is coming to a close for now, but instead of starting the campsite breakdown as we normally do on the last afternoon of our camping adventures, we took an impromptu hike with the boys on the trails of F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia. I’m sharing a video of their tail-wagging joy as Boo Radley, Ollie, and Fitz traversed the terrain.
We met another couple hiking, and the wife observed, “Looks like you have your own sled dog team!” I chuckled because I am always referring to them as our sled dogs. When my sister in law walked them with me this week, she was surprised by how hard they pull. I told her that if there were snow on the ground, we could put on skis and they’d pull us all around the campground. Truth.
Our Georgia State Parks offer different types of clubs for kayakers, canyon climbers, dog walkers, and cyclists. Tails on Trails seems like it would be a healthy challenge for the two humans belonging to these three canine trail enthusiasts for 2024, so already I’m thinking of working it into a yearly goal.
As we sat around the campfire last night, I turned on the green sparkle lights and watched them dancing like tiny fairies in the trees as I reflected on what I loved most about the week- being able to get away and enjoy time in nature with family, spending time with each other and with our dogs, and truly taking time to give thanks for our blessings. Time. Togetherness. Thanksgiving.
These are the parts of the week that meant the most to me.
Common Threads 