Tag: haiku

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Mahjongg 102

My friend Christian and I attended our second Mahjongg class on Friday, August 21, and it was so much fun! We knew we were addicted to the game when we found ourselves playing online after our first session and sharing our wins against the bots at http://www.mahjong4friends.com. Playing on the computer helped us learn strategies for playing at the 4-player table with real tiles. After the first session in one of the public libraries in our region of rural Georgia, we were barely out of the parking lot before we ordered our own Official National Mahjongg League 2026 Mahjongg cards each player must have to play and began watching Facebook and YouTube tutorials on the game.

By watching the tutorials and playing online, we’ve discovered more purpose in the Charleston and how to navigate that part of the game and also how to sort our tiles after the breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert draws. We know how to find our “neighborhood” on the official 2026 card, and how to select our “street,” or line to be played. We’ve had an amazing teacher, and I won my first game and got a tiny duck to celebrate the win.

Our next step is playing in the Open Mahjongg days where we show up with our Mahjongg cards and find a seat at a table with others there to play the game. We’ve cleared our Friday afternoons and look forward to all the excitement of this game that has taken firm hold of us!

My winning Mahjongg: 13579

Our amazing teacher (left), Christian, (center) and me (right)

the thrill of winning

a Mahjong game with real tiles

~ true euphoria!

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Virtual Author Conversation with a Brazilian Thriller Writer

Retirement affords time to do those things I’ve been meaning to get around to doing, and one of them is attending more virtual author events. As I searched for upcoming opportunities, I discovered that Barnes and Noble has a Mystery Lunchtime series, and I signed up to hear Raphael Montes discuss his latest book – The Secret Dinner. I hopped on to order the book, only to discover that it would not be released until two days prior to the event. That left one option: Audible. Neither my small town library nor our local bookstore would have the book available in hard copy in time for me to get it.

One of my daughters decided to join in on the book talk Thursday and reminded me on Tuesday, release day, by text: Do you have your audio? Today’s the day! I used an Audible credit and began listening. I was not prepared for the ride of this book.

Jeneva Rose, American author of thrillers, moderated the discussion. She introduced the book and the author, and the discussion began. She asked questions of the author, including the ones we added to the Q&A.

With such a dark subject matter in this book, I was not expecting the laughter and joy of this author. I enjoyed his Brazilian accent and his way of putting things in such an enjoyable way, and I enjoyed the time reading the same book with one of my daughters and having the time to talk about it with others. Even though we are many states away, it’s a great way family members can share our common love of reading and participate in book clubs together even if we aren’t sitting around a bookshop on couches to talk about what we loved most about a book. And what we liked least about it, too.

reading has a way

of reaching across the miles

to keep our hearts close

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Jimothy the Zinnia

Jimothy, the Seattle raccoon who is different from other raccoons in physical stature, is taking the nation by storm for his unique level of cuteness and combined raccoon confidence in the way he carries himself in spite of the double-takes from those who spot him. You can read all about him here.

My sister-in-law across the farm has grown the most gloriously beautiful zinnias this summer, and she brings me bouquets and sits on the porch for coffee – – a joy of farm life, and even more so in retirement! But on her last visit, she said there was one in the basket that I’d have to figure out what to do with – – perhaps cut it down or something, since it was different from the others.

When she handed it to me, I smiled – and immediately, my mind went to Jimothy. Here was the Jimothy of the zinnia world, and it needed a spotlight place on my counter where I could see the beauty of the uniqueness of its stem. So I rinsed out a Oui yogurt jar, filled it half full of water, named it Jimothy, and propped it up next to a bottle of dish soap. This is my favorite flower of all – there is not another one just like Jimothy in the entire world, and he’s right in my own kitchen.

Jimothy the Zinnia

here he came to me:

Jimothy the zinnia

uniquely his own

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Resfeber

Humorist Erma Bombeck titled one of her books When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time To Go Home. It’s a compilation of hilarious travel essays and global anecdotes. We haven’t been anywhere far away since I’ve retired, and already I look like my passport photo. It was renewal time, and while we don’t have any definite plans yet to visit Iceland or Ireland or even Canada, we like to keep our options open just in case the opportunity arises. My brother and sister-in-law took a Viking cruise out of Amsterdam down through French Wine Country a couple of Augusts ago, and they’ve been urging us to consider a river cruise. My heart leans toward Iceland or some Scandinavian place where I have to bundle up like a real Viking just to breathe the air and can go inside to cozy up by a rip-roaring fire.

Sometimes, the dream is as exciting as the reality. There is a word for this: resfeber. It’s a Swedish noun that refers to the feelings of all the excitement of travel before it ever begins. If I ever write a travel book, it will have this word somewhere in the title or subtitle.

I’m feeling sparks of resfeber this week because when our latest Georgia Magazine came out, I did what I always do: I thumbed to the section of upcoming events throughout the state and discovered that The Long Run, an Eagles tribute band, would be performing at Lake Lanier in Buford, Georgia on August 22. I snapped up two tickets and reserved a lake spot campsite at Margaritaville so we can drive the Wayfarer up on Saturday and take our Schnoodles to a new place we’ve never camped, full of all-different smells for them to enjoy. I do think that this is what they love most about being camping dogs – – taking in the world through their noses.

Next, I’ll make sure our Eagles t-shirts are clean and ready to wear. We got matching ones when we flew out to see them perform at The Sphere in Las Vegas this past February. We’ll wear those to see the tribute band.

Resfeber.

I might just spend the day planning a trip.

resfeber takes hold

I open my Road Trippers

app and start planning…..

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Kindred Spirits Book Club

Book Club T-shirts

Once a month, our Kindred Spirits book club meets at our local coffee shop on the Zebulon, Georgia courthouse square to discuss our monthly pick. Last year, we chose our next book month by month when we met to discuss the current book. This year, we each brought two book choices and created a schedule for the year so that we could read ahead if we finished our book ahead of time.

We are a group of six colleagues who became reading sisters through shared interest and choice, and even though two of us have retired and one has taken a position in a different place of employment, we still come back together to read, discuss, and have adventures together.

We discuss reading guide questions, but we always ask what the book inspired us to do and how it changed our lives. Generally, there is some kind of adventure that follows – whether it is to see the movie or do some kind of activity mentioned in the book. For example, after reading The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan last December, we decided to take our own girls’ winter getaway and will be doing that in January 2027 to a place a couple hours north of where we live, where there will be a big fireplace so we can lounge around sipping coffee or Kindred Spirits cocoa concoctions and have girl time in our pajamas and talk about books and life and go shopping. We haven’t named our book-related adventure for Dear Debbie yet, but we all decided that it will not involve infesting anyone’s rose garden with Japanese Beetles or using poppy seeds to impair anyone’s faculties. Nor will it involve visiting any fraternity houses.

If any readers have suggestions about what to consider reading for 2027, please share! We follow Goodreads and The Book Girls and are always looking for our next great read.

We were missing one of our sisters at last night’s club meeting at our local coffee shop

reading together

strengthens our sisterly bond

of Kindred Spirits

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Rag Quilting in Retirement

Whenever a new grandchild is born, I dust off their great grandmother’s Bernina sewing machine and start cutting rag quilt squares to welcome the baby in style. My mother left me her treasured Swiss machine from the company named for the Piz Bernina peak in the Alps. It’s the same one she taught me to sew on, and while I’m not the excellent seamstress that she was (nor will I ever be), I feel a deep inner joy knowing that the same machine she used to make our clothes for decades is still being used to make quilts for her great grandchildren. I hope she’s smiling with pride as she gazes down from Heaven!

A lot of times, it’s hard deciding on a rag quilt theme and colors, but this idea came easily. Since Oakley Finn and I share a birthday (July 8), I chose stars and stripes for America’s 250th. There are also narwhals on one of the square designs, and one with waves too, because these grandchildren live in coastal South Carolina and love ocean and sea creatures. Even though there are not any narwhals making the trip from arctic waters down to the Lowcountry waters, I think they fit into the scheme of things just fine.

Retirement time allows for visiting family and sewing rag quilts, and I’m loving every minute of being able to do the things I truly enjoy! I feel blessed!

Rag Quilting

generations stitched

together, transcending time

where love knows no bounds

Our 8th grandchild, born on July 8th, weighing 8 lbs, 8 oz. – the 8th member of his family!

Today is the first day back for students in our school system in Georgia. When I started feeling the tug to retire throughout last school year, I said to a few friends, “If the stars align, I’m thinking about retiring.” Isn’t it ironic that on this first day for students, my sister-in-law Bethany sent me a reminder that this very morning there will be a planetary parade of lined-up planets! It’s as if we have moved out of the realm of the stars and into the planetary universe with someone upstairs nodding a big YES on this first day that I will not be in all the school traffic trying to get to work. I’m home – – living a more relaxed pace and loving it.

Screenshot
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Night-Blooming Cereus

Several years ago, I was at the Saturday Market on the Square when I bumped into some friends selling a table full of plants. For ten dollars, I bought a well-established Night-Blooming Cereus, also called a Queen of the Night. It has long, waxy leaves and blooms only at night.

My husband reacted with humor and raised his eyebrows a little at me, wondering if I’d lost my mind. A flower that blooms at night? Who wants to stay up all night to wait for a flower to bloom in the dark?

Me. I want to see them bloom, that’s who. And more than a few times now, I have watched the petals unfurl in the dark, opening to reveal a miraculous work of natural art. After spending a day in the early part of retirement repotting all my plants that needed some TLC, I was amazed to step out onto the front porch to see that one plant (I’ve propagated the mother plant several times over the years) had six blooms. Six!

If I were curating a list of porch plants and taking all my friends plant shopping for the plants they never knew they needed until today, this plant would be at the top of the list. It never gets old watching these beauties bloom to take center stage in a world that rarely sees them.

Queen of the Night

a queen of the night

unfurls her beautiful soul

for all to admire

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Yoga

Yoga

eleven minutes

I made it half the set time

before collapsing

Let’s just say I have some work to do. Some stamina to build. Some endurance to increase.

On the heels of walking one mile this morning, I squeezed into my yoga pants, rolled out my mat, and clicked on the Yoga With Adriene YouTube channel my daughter recommended, determined to feel the Namaste vibe and increase my elasticity of muscles and ease of mobility. After half of the session time, after coming back to my knees from Downward Dog and stretching an arm upward and behind me, I keeled over like a waterlogged canoe and gave up on the quest for deep inner peace through slow movement and bodily stretching for the morning.

I have a long list of all the things I want to learn, do, and try. Yoga is one new practice that I’m determined to stick with, and as I go through the steps of learning new and different things, I am reminded in powerful ways as a recently retired educator that learning, no matter the age and stage of life, is a process. I’m also convinced that you can teach and old dog new tricks.

This Old Downward Dog is looking forward to the challenge of growing and keeping the learning and living going full steam ahead. As they say: a body in motion stays in motion. And I’m determined to keep my canoe upright.

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Mahjongg 101

I have a looonnnnngggg list of things I want to learn and do in retirement. One is learning to play Mahjongg, a classic Chinese tile game sweeping the nation in popularity as it experiences a resurgence in its American form. I’ve seen groups playing it everywhere, including inside a Chicken Salad Chick fast food restaurant when I went in for lunch one afternoon. I’ve played a version of the game on my phone, but I’ve never learned the traditional tile game.

Until yesterday.

My friend and former teaching colleague Christian and I went together to the Griffin-Spalding County Library to take part in an introductory class taught by two ladies who came all the way from Augusta to teach beginners. They will be returning in a couple of weeks for the next session, and after two hours of strategy and rules in this new adventure, we both hurried to the counter to sign up for the next session.

We’ve caught Mahjongg Fever.

Mahjongg 101 Students

we both just retired

former teammates, always friends

learning a new game

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A Pitcher of Zinnias

a salt pottery

pitcher of home-grown zinnias

sister-in-law’s gift

These days of early retirement have been filled with such sweet wishes from others. My sister in law from across the farm called last night to ask if she could bring some of her zinnias over. She’s been growing them, and they are stunning. I placed them into one of my mother’s salt pottery pitchers and sat them on the childhood dinner table, and they feel like a smile from beyond – – my parents loved growing zinnias, too! There is nothing like fresh flowers to bring the warmth of love.