Dave Wooley, our host for Day 4 of #VerseLove 2025, lives in Pennsylvania.
Dave inspires us to write from the perspective of a traveller, choosing to focus on the place, or focus on the experience of traveling, or maybe just the idea of being a traveller. He suggests using photos to help relive moments and inspire the thoughts of the poem. You can read his full prompt here.
I chose a photo of my youngest granddaughter with me having ice cream at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia and wrote a pantoum poem to capture the memory.
Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth
there we were, so sassy
Magnolia Mae and I
eating rose petal ice cream
at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia
Magnolia Mae and I~
grandmother and granddaughter
at Leopold’s in Savannah, Georgia
of the Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth
grandmother and granddaughter
sharing a spoon and a knowing smile
of the Sisterhood of the Southern Sweet Tooth
Georgia girls with flowery style
sharing a spoon and a knowing smile
eating rose petal ice cream
Georgia girls with flowery style
there we were, together
My youngest granddaughter and I – sharing ice cream
Our host for our third day of #VerseLove is Denise Krebs, who lives in Yucca Valley, California, near Joshua Tree National Park. She blogs and resists at Dare to Care.
Denise invites us to write Borrowed Rhymes poems today in her prompt. You can read the prompt in full here. Please jump in today to read the posts and feel all the harnessed energy of a community of writers. We’d love to have you!
Denise encourages us to find a poem with rhyming or song lyrics we like. “Extract the rhymes and write them down on the right margin. Fill in your own line for each rhyme,” she explains.
I extracted these words: blue, knew, round, down, time, mine, care, anywhere from my favorite Eagles song, Take it to the Limit. I wrote them at the end of each line and crafted my poem using these pairs.
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?
We sold our 2022 Extreme Outdoors Little Guy Max Rough Rider camper on March 2nd to a couple from Nashville, Tennessee after two years of enjoying the most exciting adventures in it. We knew we wanted to replace it with something slightly bigger but still small enough to get into state park campgrounds. I didn’t cry, but I have had a hole in my heart since we watched it drive away.
We like being able to take jaunts on weekends and spend time away from the demands of work and home. Our 3 schnoodles stay ready to go, too. They’re campground dogs, through and through. Each asked us to look at one particular kind of camper that they say they’ve had their eye on after chatting it up with the other dogs in our favorite campgrounds, so we dedicated a part of yesterday afternoon to starting the search.
Fitz likes Airstreams. He’s a classic dog with an old soul, very traditional, and he likes the Flying Cloud, the Globetrotter, the International, and of course the Classic models. He’s not picky – – he just wants one with those wraparound windows so he can sit up there with his sunglasses on and watch the girl dogs trot by with their blingy pink collars. He’s a lofty dreamer, to tell the truth.
Boo Radley is more technologically progressive and likes the InTech Aucta Willow Rover model with its aluminum chassis, all-composite woodless materials, and wind-sensor automatic awning. He’s a little more particular about what he likes and doesn’t like, and he’s got his eye on the openness of this camper so he can stay all up in everybody’s business the way he always does.
Ollie is a far more futuristic dog and likes the InTech Aucta Sycamore Rover model with a longer body so he’ll have plenty of room to chase his ball around inside. He likes the spacious seating area so we can all pile up onto one couch and watch movies and eat all his favorite snacks.
We located an Aucta Willow Rover about an hour from our home, so we made the drive over to Southland RV in LaGrange, Georgia during my slice of blogging time to take a look at Boo Radley’s camper pick. (He especially likes it because it is all light gray and white so he can blend right in). We were impressed with the comfort of the seating around the table – and the amount of light and number of windows.
The storage space looks minimal, but that’s how we roll. We don’t take a lot of extras or all the bells and whistles. Two of each type of cutlery, two plates and mugs, a toaster and coffee maker and only small sizes of the things we need suit us fine. Years into this journey, we’ve learned that less is SO MUCH more.
The table turns to allow ease of getting into the U-shaped dinette, which is nice, but we weren’t impressed with the lack of counter space for our coffee maker and toaster. We’ve become modification dabblers too, though, and there are surprising ways of making things work in small spaces that at first might not appear that they could.
For now, though, we continue to compare and shop and look and research.
And dream, along with Fitz, Boo Radley, and Ollie.
Boo Radley lobbies for toast in the Little Guy Max
I take an afternoon break at work usually around 3:30 for about 10 minutes to stretch my legs and walk outdoors around the building in the sunshine when it’s warm. My body and soul need the Vitamin D. I need the release of noise and stress to take to the silence. I’m reminded of Margaret Simon’s recent post on Notes from a Walk inspired by Denise Kreb’s post on her own morning walk and take some mental notes for a blog post later. I notice the flowers, the birdsong, the hidden Pirate Trail so perfect for a solitary walk to indulge for just a few minutes in the name of what little sanity and peace of mind exists right now.
This walk reminds me of our visit to Gibbs Gardens last year, where we took in the breathtaking views of daffodils and tulips. It makes me want to go back again. They’ve just opened for the season on March 1. I pull up the ticket information and the hours, starting to plan the trip in my mind. I check out the Bloom Update calendar and admire the photos of the same daffodils I’d seen last year that were recently photographed, smiling their friendly, welcoming springtime smiles already this year.
This weekend? Next weekend? What’s on tap for us? I text my husband: Let’s go back to Gibb’s Gardens! Which weekend works for you?
And then, across the parking lot in the row of pines, I see the familiar ghostly cloud of yellow spores signaling me from the tip top branches, sweeping through the needles and swooping down, taking my inner springtime joy with it as one giant corkscrewing wave spirals in a hurried flurry to the ground. My weekend dreams pummel in that same way inside my heart, and I can feel it.
I cover my nose and mouth and return to the less-spored indoors, turning the personal air purifier in my cubicle to the highest setting, abandoning all ambition to make the drive to Gibbs Gardens until after pollen season and penciling a note to myself to tape to my keys: remember to dig out the NeilMed sinus rinse bottle before bed.
Gibbs Gardens trip plans
come to a screeching-hard halt
in this pollen count
Today’s Pollen Count in Pike County, Georgia is 184 grains per cubic meter of air……..
Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! I took a spur-o’-the-moment trip south to visit my family as my brother and sister in law and I try to help Dad tackle some tasks he can no longer do on his own. Chemotherapy has zapped all of his strength, and we (and others) continue to try to help where he will allow it – which is not nearly enough for any of us to feel satisfied, but that will take the luck o’ the Irish and a lot of prayer to change. He’s testy with us, seems skeptical, and wants to be left alone. He’s made it quite clear.
Before my brother and I visited him, I had a little extra time to check out the Ace Garden Center on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and I’d spied a little leprechaun in the robust fairy garden section that I’d planned to go back and get after visiting with Dad. I was there to look for spider plants, known for improving air quality by giving off oxygen in their transpiration process. But leave it to fairies to lure me down the aisle of wonder and intrigue. While I don’t have a dedicated fairy garden, my whole front porch is filled with fairies in their own plant container homes.
Imagine my delight when my sister in law, Jennifer, asked me to swing back by the house after visiting with Dad. She’d known just the medicine I’d needed – – a little fairy magic to cheer me up! She’d read my blog yesterday morning and beat me to the fairy section, choosing the perfect assortment of fairies – and the leprechaun – to sit on the edge of my shamrock plant as a gift – – making them so much more meaningful. Each time I look at the leprechaun, I smile. And what she didn’t know was that I would have picked the fairies dressed in green – – for an extra sprinkling of Irish fairy dust!
When I opened the gift, a black nose appeared out of nowhere – – JoJo, one of their black labs, sensed the magic and joined the fun, studying this leprechaun and his trio of fairy friends, as mesmerized as any dog has ever been. Her fixation on them – even trying at one point to take the leprechaun by the beard and run off with him – lightened the mood and made us all laugh.
Sources say that there are no female leprechauns, and that these little magical creatures are the unwanted children of the fairy family – – grouchy, closed off, and untrusting. With their stubborn, curmudgeonly, cranky attitudes, even leprechauns need someone to show them some love – trouble is, they have a hard time accepting it.
I have reasons for understanding the close relative of the leprechaun in folklore – the Clurichaun, drunk and surly beings who are known for clearing out entire wine cellars. And I must admit: I, myself, a mere human, along with my brother and sister in law, had broken into some wine over the weekend. But let’s be real – – the leprechauns drive them to it.
There comes a time in life when all children can do is clap if we believe in fairies, to envision Mary Martin as Peter Pan rallying us along, to hope the lights don’t fade too quickly.
I’ve been in Savannah, Georgia this week for a conference, and everything’s coming up green. The grass is growing, flowers are blooming, and River Street is gearing up for its world-famous St. Patrick’s Day parade in a few weeks. The city becomes a shoulder-to-shoulder party on that day. It all brings back memories of our Senior Skip Days in high school, when we’d pile into cars and make our way from just across the state line in Bluffton, SC to Savannah, Georgia. The whole high school skipped class to honor the seniors, so we basically had four senior skip days during our high school years.
I don’t miss those days – – but I’m glad to have the memories, and I’m glad I was sparkle-sprinkled with the luck of the Irish all those years ago! I think the Irish blessing stays with me most days! Look around ~ my wish for you is that you find some Irish luck today, too.
Common Threads 