Tag: open write

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4th Friday Retirement Adventures: September 2026

Retirement officially began for me August 1st, and each second and fourth Friday, I’ve begun reflecting on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well. Friends and family who are still working seemed genuinely curious about what I would do with each day, and that’s what gave me the idea to plan and reflect on the course of my days and adventures. I remember my late father’s words, on retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, but the busy part is optional, like wearing real clothes on most days instead of my preferred loungewear. And I like having that choice.

Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in my first official eight weeks of retirement, with each being described in detail in previous posts :

1. Mahjong 101

2. Rag Quilting

3. Morning Walking

4. Yoga

5. Friends of the Library Book Fair –

6. Local Bookstore Book Club

7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club

8. Postcard Poetry Fest

9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping

10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert

11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play

12. Zinnia Arrangement

13. Fabric Postcards

14. Porch Sitting

15. Lounge Pants Spree

16. Novel Writing with Nick –

17. Kindred Spirits Book Club –

18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club

19. Re-vamping the Reading Room

20. Office Cleanout

21. Monthly Small Postcard Group

22. Watercolor Postcards

23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia

24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee

25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings

26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop

27. Mahjongg Group Formation

28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-In Law

29. Lunch with Friends

Here are the the most recent things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement:

30. Camping at Vogel State Park – We camped in the North Georgia mountains near Neel Gap along the Appalachian Trail. We managed to avoid the “problem bear” that had been frequenting site 52. Whew! We enjoyed sitting outside in the cooler temperatures and listening to the stream that ran behind our campsite.

Our campsite, site 44, at Vogel State Park

31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail – I attempted this one, but took it off the list after setting out thinking that if Grandma Gatewood could do it, so could I. After a mere 36 seconds, I realized I was wrong. Even our recent hike to check in when we went to F. D. Roosevelt State Park took it out of me when I tried hiking mountainous terrain. I like flat, home-based, safe treadmill hiking best.

In which I hike 30 seconds of the actual Appalachian Trail at Neel Gap and give up

32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring – My husband and I experienced Blairsville like locals by visiting the county library to ask where to eat and what to see.

33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia – After realizing it would be challenging to go for days without playing Mahjong with a group, I reached out to a group leader in Blairsville for information on their open group play and joined them for a few hands, even Mahjonging with a consecutive run and getting to pick a trinket (a tiny seal) from their treasure box.

34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club – We read The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy as our September selection and set a date for a January getaway to a cabin for some girl time pajama reading.

35. Hosting Open Write – One writing community that sustains me is the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. I enjoy writing with them monthly and also hosting a couple of times a year as well. I hosted one day during the month of September and will host again in 2027 during April. My reading and writing communities mean so very much to me.

36. Fall Baking – I was having the ladies over to play Mahjong on the first day of fall, so to welcome autumn, we celebrated with fall foods. I baked pumpkin bread and banana walnut bread, and I even wore my favorite fall apron! The whole house smelled of cinnamon and spice, and the vibe was that kind you wish you could keep all year long. I’ve always wanted a slow-paced fall baking day just to call a baking day.

I’m freezing some of the pumpkin bread to take with us to a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. We’re leaving on Saturday, and we’re going on a special excursion that I’ll share on the next Retirement Adventure countdown……

At the end of the second month, I’m more than a third of the way through my list of 100 Things.

Does this mean I need

to slow down?Heck, no. Not this

girl! Full steam ahead!

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September 2026 Open Write Day 4 of 4

Today’s host of the final day of the September 2026 Open Write at www.ethicalela.com is Leilya Pitre, who writes: In Louisiana, we often use the word lagniappe, meaning “a little something extra.” It is an unexpected gift offered in generosity. Today, I welcome you to a little lagniappe: one more space for conversation, reflection, encouragement, or an unexpected poem.

Leilya invites writers to look back or look forward and suggests considering a Gogyohka. She explains: Developed by Japanese poet Enta Kusakabe, a Gogyohka consists of five lines. Each line holds one phrase or breath, but there are no syllable counts, required themes, or preferred topics. You may write about anything that calls to you. That’s it: five concise but free lines.



Dolly Mahjong 925

we played the Dolly card

it proved terribly hard

no Mahjonging for me

(unlike the other three)

official card wins, we all agree

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September 2026 Open Write Day 3 of 4: Too Many X

Today’s Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is hosted by Dr. Sarah Donovan using a prompt by Alora Young, who is the Poet Laureate of the Southeastern United States. She inspires us to write an I Have Many poem. You can hear hers at this link and see the structure for the poem, beginning with the line I Have Many X. They….They…..They…..They… begin the last for lines for repeating beginnings. My mind went to a book my Kindred Spirits book club read earlier this year by Emily Henry, entitled People We Meet on Vacation. One of the main characters has “too many wine,” and it made me think of a picture I received from a fellow teacher retiree just last night on the way to dinner. We’d been playing Mahjong the day before, and we realized that we can have drinks in public now without fear of getting fired. At dinner, she snapped a photo of herself smiling big with wine, and sent a text that said Cheers! So I snapped a picture of me with a beer and replied Cheers! (Disclaimer: I was with my husband, who was driving. I did not tell stories or get up and dance or, heaven forbid, sing anything. I did ask Siri who was singing the songs a couple of times because the first one did NOT sound like Keith Whitley, which my husband insisted it was….and it was, God rest his soul – Keith’s soul, to be clear – and the second one sounded more like Hank Williams Junior than Travis Tritt and my husband insisted it wasn’t Junior, and it wasn’t, but there were too many kids one table over and it made it hard to hear….but not because of the beer).

Cheers! from The Blackbird Cafe in Woodbury, Georgia

Too Many

I have many Blue Moon
they sing country song
they tell loose-lip story
they line dance wrong
they don’t drive

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September 2026 Open Write Day 2 of 4: Back To Poems

Today, I’m hosting the second day of the September Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read my full prompt here and then, later in the day once all the poets have had a chance to write to the prompt, visit the site to read the poems others have written.

My writing communities have a huge impact on my life as a consumer and creator of poetry. Each month, writers of Ethicalela and other groups encourage me with prompts and ideas. I am blessed that other writing friends freely share ekphrastic prompts (Barb), prompts from Substacker Audrey Gidman (Denise), prompts from Georgia Heard (Margaret) and prompts from Writer’s Digest (Glenda) and so many others.  This month, I’m using Robert Lee Brewer’s Wednesday Poetry prompt idea shared by Glenda to get us started on what we want to get back to.  While many are going back to school, I’m getting back to knowing myself at the pace of retirement.  What are you getting back to? 

Make a list of all the possibilities of things we can get back to.  Back to the Future.  Back to Back.  Back to School.  Back to School Shopping. Back to the topic at hand.  Back to What We Were Talking About.  Back to Sleep. Then, create a poem along that line of thinking.  Glenda Funk and I offer two short forms below. 

Glenda’s Poem 

My Poem

Getting Back to Me:  A List Poem

I’m getting back to

pressing wildflowers

sipping coffee later

writing poetry

reading books

watching sunsets

feeding hummingbirds

wearing jeans and Birkenstocks

napping with dogs

learning mahjong

mailing postcards

building campfires

painting with watercolors

stretching yoga poses

peeing on my own schedule

lingering over lunch

taking walks

driving the back roads

sewing rag quilts

getting to know myself 

….all over again

Campfire reading at Vogel State Park in the North Georgia Mountains, September 2026. Book: The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy
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September 2026 Open Write Day 1 of 4: Ritual Cleansing

My brother Ken and I on July 8, 2025 (my birthday) cleaning Dad’s house

Mo Daley of Illinois is our host today for the September Open Write Day 1. You can read her full prompt here. She writes:

As fall approaches, I can’t stop thinking about changes and shifts. Of course, the changing colors of Midwestern trees are always inspirational, but something else has been on my mind lately.

I look around and see the land and how I have worked with it and changed it, which leads me to wonder about those who came here before me.

Mo inspires us to consider our surroundings with these questions: How would you describe them? Have they always looked this way? Who was there before you? Perhaps 20, 50, or 100 years ago? How about long before then? Do you know what indigenous tribes were living there hundreds of years ago? You can enter your address in this online tool to inform you.

She inspires us to take a few moments to think about those who came before us, and then as a tribute to those who came before us, to write a poem about the land around us. Of course, my mind flashes back to this time last year, when my brother and I were in the midst of cleaning out a lifetime of a collector’s full collection of so many things we never even knew existed. He and Mom had been going to estate sales for years, collecting everything under the sun for the store they would one day own but never did because the one who knew how to make it happen departed this life before he did. And that’s when we discovered just how much they had accumulated……

Ritual Cleansing of 322 Magnolia and 7 Associated Storage Rooms

we circled the perimeter

of each room

beheld each dresser

each chair

each table

we acknowledged

each heirloom

each keepsake

each sacred sentiment

we wondered

whose each was

who drank from it

who ate from it

who slept on it

whose treasures it held

as we purified the space

cleaned the cobwebs

released old ghosts

freed captive belongings into new worlds

we invoked the spirits

invited new energies

cleansed the air

connecting past and present

on the timeline of forever

starting a new chapter

in the book of what remains

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August Open Write Day 3 of 3 with Joanne Emery: Deep in Nature

Our host today for the third and final day of the August Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Joanne Emery, who inspires us to write poems about being deep in nature and the sensory and inner feelings associated with it. You can read her full prompt, and the poems of others, here. My poem today will follow the photos of our trail walk we took on Saturday.

Over the weekend, we took our two four-legged sons Boo Radley and Ollie to F. D. Roosevelt State Park for a quick getaway in the Wayfarer. While there, we took a hike along Mountain Creek Trail, and even though it was hot, the shade provided a respite from the extreme temperatures and the heat advisory in effect.

We like to start the day at the top of the mountain with a picnic breakfast overlooking the valley below Pine Mountain. Where many campers cook full breakfasts on outdoor kitchens, we like to take the easy route and buy coffee and muffins at the registration center and find a picnic table. The boys expect bites of blueberry muffin, and sometimes we cave in to their pressure.

The hike begins with Briar and Boo Radley in the lead, and Ollie and I follow. We make sure they stay on leashes in case we encounter other critters – human, canine, or reptilian, or other – on the trails. On Saturday, we did not meet or pass one other person. In fact, the trail was eerily silent of birdsong, traffic, voices, and even rustling of leaves in the wind.

The different types of mushrooms are always fascinating to me, including this one that is a shelf/bracket fungus that is either turkey tail or a lookalike. We also saw several patches of bright orange colored chicken of the woods and oyster mushrooms as well.

F. D. Roosevelt State Park has a naturalist who offers foraging classes on occasion when mushrooms are bountiful, and I have always wanted to attend the session and learn more about mushrooms and their benefits. I would still be reluctant to eat a wild mushroom, but I’d love to learn more about them.

Getting across the bridges is always interesting. Boo Radley hesitates and sometimes decides to go around the side. Ollie never hesitates and always turns around to be sure I made it across safely once he’s on the other side (how your dog tells you you’re old without telling you you’re old). Even though they’re schnoodles, they have the sense of adventure of sled dogs sometimes – they put themselves in four-wheel drive and pull us along.

They like to play in the streams, and as long as the water is running clear, we let them. On Saturday, they took drinks and walked around to cool off when we took a short break to let them play in the creek.

The natural ferns speak to me in whispers of my mother, reminding me I’m fortunate not to have crippling anxiety, my father echoing her: stress is a killer, I can hear him say. But not in these woods, not on this trail, not deep in nature. Nature heals.

I’m surprised I remembered the fairy tree door, but I knew when I reached the top of one hill that it would be on the other side. Sure enough, it was there, protecting the forest treasures inside – fairies, woodland critters, swag for those who take one and leave one.

And I kept watching for signs of fall in all the heat. Here and there, dotting the trail, were red or yellow leaves. I picked up several fallen acorns and put them in my pocket. I reflected on yesterday’s post about Noah and his wife, and the hope God sends in leaves. Yes, my answer is clear: God does still send hope in leaves. Ask and ye shall receive.

On Mountain Creek Nature Trail, Saturday August 15

Boo Radley leads

Ollie follows

four-wheel drive kicks in

along the trail

splashing in creeks

crossing bridges

inhaling fresh air

underfoot crunch of pine needles

and acorns giving us

out-of-office peace

resetting the focus

to the moment

with each step

deeper and deeper

into the woods

red leaves bringing

the hope of autumn

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August Open Write Day 2 of 3

Patricia Franz, our host today for the second day of the August 2026 Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com, lives with her husband and her Bernese Mountain dog, splitting her time between the Arizona desert and California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. She continues the nature theme in our poetry prompts today. Like yesterday’s host Denise Krebs, she has two poems in  Picture Perfect Poetry: An Anthology of Ekphrastic Nature Poetry for Students, the inspiration for yesterday’s and today’s prompts. You can find more of her poetry at www.patriciajfranz.com.

You can hop over to the site to read the exact prompt and see the pictures, but Patricia inspires us to write a nature poem today with this story: Two years ago, she snapped a photo of a mama bear. Over the course of a few days, she had begun to forage closer and closer to Patricia’s house. Then one morning as dawn broke, she awoke to find her and her two cubs rummaging through the kitchen! She wondered what the bear would say if it could speak, inspiring writers to consider various perspective and viewpoints as we write our poems today.

My mind tumbled for a while over these possibilities, and I almost always go to the kitchen table and all the spiritual ancestors who surely still lurk in moments allowed by Heaven. But we’d recently had something happen that offered a different perspective too. In the late summer evenings, the sun hits the kitchen wall with an orange glow, beckoning us out to the back porch to gaze in awe at its glorious swan dive beneath the trees on the far back side of the farm. We hadn’t anticipated the tangerine glow one evening last week after all the afternoon storms, but sure enough – it appeared, and we stepped out to take it all in. After a few moments, I noticed the hummingbird feeder needed refilling, so I grabbed the nectar and gave it a pour. Then we wondered about the feeders out front, so we went to check those too.

As I was unhooking a feeder, my husband whispered, “Come look at this.” A double rainbow stretched from the north side of the farm all the way across the south side. The hummers would have to wait – – I put it all down and ran for my phone to take photos! By the time I returned, the top bow had dissolved, but I managed to capture a photo of the full stretch of the bottom bow. Every time I think about rainbows, I think about Noah and the Great Flood. There are two trees left in the front yard after the harvesting of timber in 2025, and they struck me like Noah and his wife looking out over the land after the floodwaters dissipated. That’s what inspired today’s poem. I chose a nonet form, which begins with 9 syllables and decreases by one syllable on each line.

Standing in the Promise

a double rainbow, top bow dissolved

two trees stand: Noah and his wife

arm in arm, knowing their faith

brings hope for tomorrow

I look at those trees

wonder whether

the dove still

returns

leaves

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August Open Write Day 1 of 3

Our host for the first day of the August Open Write at www.ethicalela.com is Denise Krebs, who lives in the Mojave Desert. A retired teacher, Denise gets out in nature every chance she gets and continues to write. She blogs regularly at Dare to Care, is the co-author of The Genius Hour Guidebook, and has some poems published in anthologies, including today’s prompt inspiration Picture Perfect Poetry. I’m blessed to share time each month with Denise at Ethicalela and in a small group of writers with The Stafford Challenge.

Denise inspires us to write ekphrastic poems today. An ekphrastic poem is one inspired by a piece of art or photograph. She suggests looking through our camera roll and considering something in nature, possibly using the 2-4-6-8 form, explaining, “I wrote my poem in a form I call a 2-4-6-8 poem. It may be a syllable-counting form I made up. Each line increases by two syllables. Write as many stanzas as needed. Your choice of rhyme scheme is optional.” Hop over to the site to see her photos of Joshua Trees and read her poem about them.

I was inspired to write about our tree frog who lives under the Blackstone grill on our front porch. I’d purchased the small griddle to go on the road with us when we travel in the Wayfarer, but after seasoning it and testing it out, I noticed that two tiny tree frogs were making their home in the grill cover. I couldn’t bear to move it, so now we have a grill on our front porch coffee table (it’s okay, there are no neighbors to complain). They have become my front porch friends now, hopping onto the watering jug whenever I water plants and peeping out to say hello from the grill cover. Incidentally, one made an appearance on the loveseat with me last time we were in our Stafford Challenge Google Meet. I introduce you today to one of the Johnson Funny Farm Front Porch Frogs.

Front Porch Tree Frog

front porch

tree frog hops up

on my watering jug

like The Lorax, speaking for plants

he lives under the Blackstone grill

with his lady frog friend

(we shall not cook

frog legs)

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An American Sonnet: Knit One, Purl Two

Glenda Funk of Idaho is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for the first day of the July Open Write. She inspires us to write Double Consciousness American Sonnets, which are looser forms of the traditional Shakespearean or Petrarchan Sonnet with the Volta, or shift, around line 8 or 9. Come visit the page today and read the poems of others, and perhaps write your own to share!

Hands knitting a multicolored wool sock with wooden needles indoors

Instructions for Knitting a Poem

knit one, purl two, I hook words as I write

cool peace, with shades of panic-level fright

these variegated colors of yarn skein

like phases of moon cycles: wax and wane

crack of thunder harkens a derecho

aftermath: look up and see a rainbow

cast on, bind off ~ weave from all this SABLE

knit one, purl two, count along a cable

change skeins ~ dye lots show unstable jogging

tug trail legs: necessary frogging

sometimes we can’t undo what has been done

new leading legs knit common threads as one

a cozy mitten pair: rich mosaic

poetry can change the dull prosaic

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Journey to Knowing

We’ve all heard it said that love is blind, and I’ve sure been a champion and a victim of that a time or two. But when it comes to our own family members and their relationships, it hits home in deeper ways. Someone I care about has recently broken off a year-and-a-half engagement. I’d had my suspicions about things when the wedding planning never got started and there was a wrinkle or two of bickering for a week or so another time, but I kept praying that things would work out as they should. And they did. The one who said, “I didn’t break it off sooner because I just kept hoping it would all work out” has experienced that rocky road of discovery where we must accept that even love that is blind can still see the truth when it has looked long enough.

Journey to Knowing Another Person

who we see is

who we choose to see

who we want to see

who we believe we see

…but are we ever really right?