There’s just something about the mountains ~
I can’t explain it, but they call
and John Muir knew the same pull
They’re calling. We must go.
So I pack my bags,
set GPS
fill the tank
and set
out
Mountain Fascination
Moon Worlds in a Tea Cup
Lately, I’ve been sorting through memories of childhood as I digitize old family photos, and besides all the old Childcraft volumes and vacations and vintage Barbie dolls, another thing that brings great joy is teacups and saucers. One year around 1970, I picked a tea set from the Sears Catalog, and I’ve since passed that set to my granddaughter for her to play with, with its real porcelain-painted pink roses. It was a set to behold!
Today, though, I enjoy the relaxed pace of retirement in my mother’s cups and saucers that I saved. I couldn’t save them all, of course, but I saved enough to give as gifts to each of my Kindred Spirits sisters last Christmas and for me to use on days when I needed to feel close to Mom. I like to go look in the door of the antique secretariat, the oldest piece of furniture I remember all the way back when we lived in Kentucky when I was and infant and toddler age, and choose from it a cup and saucer. I boil water in my electric tea kettle and pour a cup. Just a teaspoon of Monkfruit sweetener and a few minutes in the tiny cup brings all those memories of childhood tea parties back.
Clink with me today! Tea cheers!
Dive In or Climb Up!
In June of 20206, I spent a week in the Pacific Northwest with a group of writers, and what a stunning place of natural beauty! A dear friend and her husband, Glenda and Ken Funk of Idaho, took me to waterfalls and a scenic vista where I could see for miles in every direction and take in the rugged terrain and all its wild peace. Every few months, I get the urge to travel beyond the state of Georgia, and the fever is striking again. It’s predictable, really. I’ve learned to book getaways in sync with when I’ll be climbing the walls to travel.
I leave Monday for a week in North Carolina with my sister in law and travel partner, who is also an avid reader and writer. While next week’s trip won’t be one quite as mountainous and far away as Oregon with a bookstore as big as Powell’s City of Books, there will be Blue Ridge mountains and Malaprops. I’ll climb some mountains to find some waterfalls and we’ll dive right into some books.
We’ve also managed to find two groups for playing Mahjong. One is in a mansion in Brevard, and the other is in a velvet-draped room in Asheville called The Velvet Wind. I’d also like to invite you to DIVE IN and learn to play Mahjong. A friend and I have created a Facebook page, where we will be posting invitations and learning sites. Come join us at Tiles and Smiles on Facebook!
And may all the mountains you climb today, and all the lakes you dive into be blessings!
Organizing Vintage Postcards
My brother and I have spent nearly a year and a half shuffling through our late father’s things, using what we can and letting go of the rest. I replaced my great grandmother’s table I’d refinished so that I could incorporate our childhood breakfast table into my kitchen, next to the corner cabinet that I also brought here to the farm. The practical and sentimental things have been easiest to decide. But there were oddball things, too, like entire albums of vintage postcards and ephemera. Tons of costume jewelry picked up at estate sales. Old dishes, collectible Andre birds and baseball cards and old Corning Ware and Pyrex and McCoy ceramics. The books filled seven storage units, boxed human-high in rows down the. middle.
So what about those postcards? A year into the sorting of things, I began to realize that perhaps they had a use I could never have predicted. It came in my monthly small group Stafford Challenge writing conversations when Denise Krebs of California, Barb Edler of Iowa, and Glenda Funk of Idaho and I sat together in a Zoom and they invited me to become a part of the Cascadia Postcard Poetry Fest. I was dealing with a family emergency at the time, and almost let the opportunity pass. Thank goodness they persuaded me to take a stab at it.
I’m so glad I said yes. I created some postcards with various art techniques, and also added a few of Dad’s vintage postcards, sending them out in the mix after airing them out a little so they could breathe outside the plastic covers. Nothing crumbled, and the stamps stuck, so I sent out a few to test the system. I wondered if recipients even knew that underneath the stamp, it said “Place 1 cent postage here” inside a tiny stamp guideline.
After the July challenge to send postcards to the folks on our lists, a smaller group invitation came out for those who wanted to continue writing postcard poetry each month. All we had to do was email Barbara Robinette at rosablue722@gmail.com and request to be on the list. She sends the addresses and the instructions at the end of each month for the following month. The group is still open for new participants, and if you’re interested, you can email her at the address above.
I spent time last weekend organizing many of the vintage postcards into monthly piles and Ziplock bags so that I can work ahead a little, since I like to send out postcards to everyone on the list and not just the required three. I like to think of the history of each postcard as many decades later, it realizes its potential and comes alive like some buried time capsule unearthed into a new resurrected life. I wonder what shop it sat in, waiting to be purchased all those years ago, and who purchased it with the intention to send it to someone. I wonder why they didn’t send it as planned.
And I wonder what it says about hope. If postcards older than I can suddenly spring to life and travel across the globe with stamps as their passports to new places as they bring smiles to faces at 32 mailboxes each month, how can any of us give up hope of a miracle happening?
If you’re on the fence, thinking you might like to join the challenge but a little intimidated about writing a poem on a postcard, please take a leap and start with a short form like a haiku or an acrostic. No one has to be a famous writer to participate in this. It’s about the sense of community it brings and the ways we can share with each other to make a positive difference. Plus, you may receive a vintage postcard that wriggled its way out of a time warp to make its way to you.
Halloween Shenanigans
Halloween held all the fun with friends human and furry – and even one with feathers. I attended a Mahjoween gathering at the home of a friend on Friday, and she had rescued an injured duck from the highway on the way home from a birthday dinner in town the night before. She brought the hen to the sanctuary of her fenced back yard to protect it from predators before she released it back into a nearby lake, and this little lady took a liking to her oasis. Have you ever played Mahjong poolside where there was a duck quacking and paddling, happy to be alive in a saltwater swimming pool? Because let me tell you: it’s a little surreal. Someone yells “Mahjong!” and there is a congratulatory quack chorus happening like a drunk uncle’s loud holiday party laugh in the midst of all the cheers.
My husband and I spent quieter time at home with our three dogs on Saturday. Since we, too, live deep in the country and don’t get trick-or-treaters down our two/tenths-of-a-mile driveway, we still always prepare for the evening with a small bag of just-in-case candy and spend extra time playing in the yard with the dogs for exercise on a night when they won’t get to go back out again until much later – – just to be on the safe side. We secretly wonder how long the cupboard candy will last, between the two of us sneaking Snickers here and there.
This year’s tricks included Zoomies with the newbie, Jay, who is catching on quickly about what it means to have brothers and what it means to play. He’s had two main people play with him in his six years, then a couple of foster dogs including a Husky he detested (he does not like big breeds, according to the lady who was fostering him, which she discovered at the dog park where he’d lunged with terroristic threats at the fence dividing the big dogs and the little dogs). And now here he is, learning what it means to belong and have fun, zipping around in Funny Farm-style figure 8s.
What a treat to share life and admire the antics of the people and the dogs and the wildlife we love!
sprinting right, then left
Halloween shenanigans
zoomies through the yard
Happy Halloween!
It’s hard to believe October is coming to a close tonight. The time will soon drop back an hour, and we’ll crawl in bed at 6 p.m. because it will look like 9 p.m. and we’ll have to convince our minds and bodies it’s all a cruel trick. We’ll be thicker into the holiday season as we seek coziness. There is already Christmas music playing in stores, and the bells will be ringing outside shops as we enter and exit, plenty before any Thanksgiving blessings are offered.
I have to keep busy, so I’ll be sewing porch goose clothes. I recently gave a pair of the 21 inch geese with fishing outfits to my brother and sister in law to go at their lake house on the dock, and I adore this trend of dressing a goose. We don’t get a lot of people stopping by this deep in the country, so I decided a 7 inch goose would be a better fit for me. I like having it up by the sink next to the coffee pot so I can feel the morning cheer. Something about a cute goose gets the day started with a smile.
I’ve made a few outfits already by using some of the outfits I purchased to make patterns for more in different styles and colors. I enjoy naming the outfits rather than the goose. It brings back all the feels of when I was young and got a new Barbie Doll. Back in those days, they came with a little catalog-style brochure of Barbie in all different outfits, and I remember dreaming of all the outfits I wanted for my dolls. Skiing Barbie, ready for the Alpine slopes. Business Meeting Barbie, ready to pitch a campaign. Teacher Barbie, ready to write on the chalkboard and explain some math steps. I wanted them all. This goose lets ME design the clothes and bring them to life on my late mother’s Bernina.
A friend’s daughter is a first-year teacher, and I will make a few for her teacher’s desk goose, too. Here is a glimpse of my first attempt at creating goose clothing.
If you’d told me a year ago that I would find joy in dressing porch geese in retirement, I’d have laughed out loud.
But here I am, filling bobbins and stitching rick rack.
Looking for a Spooky Snack Idea and I Found it on the Crown of a Goose
witch hats on porch geese
inspired chocolate covered
Bugles on cookies…..
Something about Halloween in a Mahjong group has us scrambling for spooky snacks like we’re back in the days of making party treats for our children. What is it about the childlike fun of playing a game that makes us feel so excited again? The assignment: Bring a Spooky Snack to Mahjoween on Friday.
On Thursday, I scoured the aisles of the grocery store. Cranberry Crackdragons were out of the realm of possibility, since there were no fresh cranberries to put powdered sugar on and pop in the oven to create a burst of tart sweetness with every bite. A candy corn shaped cheeseball was a consideration, and that shifted to a cheese puff- crumbed cheeseball in a pumpkin shape, but I was not in the mood to cut cheese. I toyed with the idea of cream cheese-filled mushroom eyeballs with pitted black olive pupils and sun dried tomato veins. But honestly, I’m just not all that creative when it comes to food. I’d threatened to bring Halloween Oreos or BOO-nana bread, but even I rolled my eyes at the thought of that kind of laziness.
That was when it hit me. A certain little seven inch porch goose the host and I bought as a gift for our Sensei (Mahjong instructor) as a gift got me thinking about the little witch hat and the way I could try to replicate those same size snack hats using Bugles, mini Nilla wafers, and melted chocolate chips with a peanut butter chip as a hat buckle. I rounded up the ingredients, satisfied I’d made the right choice.
First, I opened the bag and found the best-shaped Bugles that had a rounded opening at the bottom so they would stand on the cookies until the chocolate hardened. I did the math and planned for three dozen, and then laid out some extra cookies to put chocolate on. I made one prototype so I could see if it would work, and lo and behold, it did! I surprised myself. Even the Reese’s peanut butter chip stuck once I coated the top of the cookie, coated the Bugle and stuck it on, and affixed the chip onto the base of the Bugle.
Our teacher from Augusta is coming to be with us. We call her Sensei Susan, and she is coming even as one of her dachshunds is recovering from back surgery last week (and an abscess after that) and she’s had to cancel her tennis games. We’re so blessed that she is willing to travel two and a half hours to be with us and spend time helping us refine our strategies and skills.
We got her a small porch goose all dressed for Halloween that is perfect for her kitchen counter, to remind her how much we enjoy spending time with her. We’ll sew on some Mahjong beads and give it to her as we play the day away and make plans for a Thanksmahj and Christmahj. And we’ll add some festive Mahjong outfits each time we get together.
We’ve already been shopping for the fabric and the rick rack and hem trims. Get ready to see a gaggle of gregariously dressed game-ready geese! I’m hopping from the kitchen to the sewing room now……
Have I mentioned lately how much I love being retired?
Worlds of Wonder
One live book group organizer I’ve discovered recently that offers fabulous events is Bookaccino. You can sign up to get their newsletters to learn about their author talks and other webinars here.
I was blessed to attend the talk with Kathryn Stockett, author of The Calamity Club, on Wednesday night. Having just finished the book in the past week, I was thrilled that at the time of the discussion, the story was still fresh on my mind, and the characters unforgettable. As is so often the case, the ending of a great book never really coincides with the turning of its last page, but I was blessed that it did this time.
Three top things I took from this discussion:
- Kathryn Stockett does extensive research on the time frame setting of her novels, and she likes to use characters’ voices to call attention to the social issues and the BS that needs to be called out.
- She will not be writing a sequel to this book, preferring to leave the characters as they are for the reader to determine what happens to them next. There will be a screenplay.
- She reads extensively, and was inspired tremendously by Eudora Welty, particularly the short stories “Why I live at the P.O.,” “The Petrified Man,” and the novel Delta Wedding. She also is a fan of the memoirist Mary Carr.
I’m rereading some excerpts of Gladys Taber’s books and also Road Trip by Mary Kay Andrews. There will be Eudora Welty’s works appearing in my TBR Pile.
Playing Mahjong Poolside
These sunshiny and warm fall days make a perfect backdrop for outdoor activities, and yesterday was no exception. The cool breezes blew as my friend Christian Jackson and I played Mahjong by her pool. Of COURSE we laughed most of the afternoon, and we even had a mahjong tile (Seven Dot) end up at the bottom of the pool and had to fish it out with a net. We got a little carried away. We’ve been busy preparing for our Wednesday morning Mahjong games at our local coffee shop on the town square; we hope to widen our net of players. Also, we are planning a Mahjoween gathering for Friday afternoon, poolside at Christian’s house.
One of my favorite parts of playing out by the pool is being able to include the dogs in the fun. Two of Christian’s dogs, Barkley and Charlie, are diehard Mahjong partners ~ mostly for the snacks of sausage balls and all the hugs, and Charlie even smiles for pictures. Especially when he’s helping us celebrate wins!
celebrating wins
while playing poolside mahjong
is better with dogs!
I also want to share a Postcard Poetry Fest poem today as well. Here’s a Dragonfly Haiku.
Smiling in the October Sunshine
chicken jerky time
says to a dog: you belong
and he understands
October afternoons here in middle Georgia on the farm have been nothing short of sheer perfection as Mother Nature blows gentle cool breezes across the sun’s warmth. I have pulled out the camp chairs just to sit outdoors rereading Gladys Taber books while the dogs run and play in the fresh air. As we were listening to the Ella Langley station on Pandora today, I happened to look up and see Jay wallowing in the joy of the sunshine, basking in the love of a forever home.
It’s true what they say: give dogs the 3/3/3 timeframe. Three days to adjust to their new surroundings, three weeks to learn the routines and expectations, and three months to accept that this is their new home and family. We are only at the three week mark, but somehow I think he is beginning to feel part of the family already.
Part of it may be because of “chicken time.” My brother and sister-in-law have chicken time every night in their house. Their dogs get a strip of chicken jerky, and it’s such a hit there that we brought that nightly treat here using the Member’s Mark chicken jerky strips in the blue bag I get at Sam’s Wholesale Club. It’s the dog equivalent of having a place at the family dinner table; they know they belong when they get these treats.
Oh, to be able to express this happiness of love and sunshine with such exuberance! Blessed are we.
