Happy New Year 2024

Happy New Year to you all. How you’ve missed me! And how I have missed YOU 🙂

I am looking forward to the new year filled (not fraught) with endless possibility. Unicorns, rainbows and the like.

At 11:59pm on New Year’s Eve I opened up my front door to clear the way for a fresh, untainted new year. Like vitamins and God, superstitions can’t hurt. You know, just in case. It was a cold night but beauty is pain.

While I still have a few things from the old year needing my attention and care I am quite ready to embrace the new.

I am decluttering, planning and organizing. It’s slow going on some days but that is still the goal. I will be back to volunteering at the food pantry by the end of this month. Wrapping up correspondence. Have booked a couple of plays I am eagerly anticipating. I hope to get on the open road (or in the friendly skies) for some travel. Maybe one day sit in the middle of a bird migration. Be mindful of how I can continue to advocate for those suffering in other countries while actual governments are looking the other way. Deep dive research on all the politicians (local, state and country) who are supposed to represent me/us. Catch up with some old friends. Try something new. Spend time with family. Read lots of books. Have some rooms painted and replace pieces of furniture I don’t like-or never liked-it’s time. Complete Hannah’s scrapbook (she’s now twenty-five) that I quit working on somewhere around her eighth year of school.

Hopefully, I haven’t taken on more than I can handle. With the scrapbook 🙂

I am sharing these goals so they fly out into the universe. Chances for success are greater if I release them from the matted gray matter.

I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, I wish you all good health for the new year. Anything after that is gravy.

Read Full Post »

Changes

Greetings all!

Hard to believe the seasons are sailing past us. I know there is no magic wand to slow it all down. Nor should there be. Because then I’d just be playing God with the seasons.

Swish of the wand.

Spring. Sure, stick around, temps are good. Green buds everywhere. Life.

Summer, you too, are welcome to just laze. No one rushing you.

Autumn, I know I said I always loved you.

Attractive boots. Sweaters. Apples. Cider. Colors everywhere. Rah rah from nearby stadiums. Wool suits. Burning leaves in the backyard.

So many people proclaim, “I love the Fall.” And I agree with them smiling. Say things like, “Me, too.” Now I say, “Me, too, but it’s the transition thing that’s tough for me.”

This year wasn’t too bad. Because the youngest returned to school early for three weeks of training. So it wasn’t like September 1st rolled around and my kid was gone again. It was still warm and summer when I helped unpack her at university.

But I ride my bike down the East Bay path and the beach is empty. The cacophony of the park and recreation area, normally present in the summer, has been stilled now that all of the little day campers have gone. No more thwonks of tennis balls hitting the courts. Only the honks of the Canadian geese, befouling/befowling the area, are heard.

Traffic patterns changed. Tourists and summer folks left while the school buses returned. The ones you’ll do anything not to be stuck behind when they pick up or discharge their precious cargo. God bless them. But still. We all have things to do, right?

It’s dark. The clocks have been changed. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Xmas shopping.

I have not been sitting here moping. Been a busy woman. Did some community service in town. Organized a team for an Alzheimer’s Walk. Visited youngest up in Vermont. Sat in on a couple of her university classes. Am ahead of my reading challenge (100 by end of year) by one book! Had Lasik procedure on my eyes. Felt blessed that my mom turned 80 years old last month. Delved into African-American authors. Enjoyed visitors up until last week. Currently doing my civic duty and loving it.

But still. Haven’t packed up the entire patio. Or transferred garden ornaments into the garage.

Maybe this weekend.

Here is a poem by Langston Hughes. Recently finished a book of his. So enjoyed it. And I am not a “sit under a leafy tree and blow on dandelions while making wishes/reading poetry type of girl.” He was good.

I mean, that’s it in a nutshell, isn’t it? Autumn. And then Winter.

With that being said, I do enjoy the change of seasons. I pined for it while living out of New England. Even more so when we moved overseas.

I enjoy the change. Not the transition.

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Geraniums

The geraniums did quite well on our back deck this past summer. Always so cheerful looking with their bright reddish-orange blooms against a back drop of dark green leaves.

I’ve always thought they had staying power even while surrounded by upstarts.

When it was time for the summer farewell I wasn’t quite prepared to let them go. To do what many folks do. I did not buy into their “annual” tag.  Did not let the geraniums die a natural death in their potted state. Did not watch them be reduced to brown stalks and allow the soil to be repurposed as an ashtray for a shivering smoker. Did not leave them to the elements. Did not rip them from the dirt and throw into the compost bin. Did not allow the blooms to just disappear like tourists after Labor Day.

I treated the geranium like a perennial plant. I kept it alive.

It wasn’t that I wanted to play God.  It wasn’t about trying to save money on new plants in the spring. It wasn’t that I wanted one more thing to care for in the house.

I just really enjoyed looking at them. Each and every day. So cheerful. That’s it.

Why couldn’t I invite a last vestige of summer into our home? It’s not a rejection of autumn but merely a symbol of past and future joy.

They were still blooming and perky looking so I brought the pot inside and found a perfect spot in the sunroom.

It’s now February and they continue to thrive. And I still love looking at them. A bigger pot is definitely on the horizon.

In my last posting I stated that I would share the things that enhanced or added cheer to my autumn and winter days. This geranium totally made my list of cheer.

Stay tuned for more.

 

Read Full Post »

Be Coffee

The other day I was reading a blog that I follow.  The fellow is fighting early onset Alzheimer’s and in this latest posting he was sharing his anger.

At God. At everything.

He discussed his feelings with a friend who is a pastor.

Wanted to know why he feels so angry. This is what the pastor told him.

“You have a right to be angry,” he tells me. “It’s okay at times to be angry at God. The book of Psalms is filled with such raw emotion, asking the Lord to ‘rouse thyself.’ We all think God is sleeping at times. ‘Wake up, we say, get on the job!’ The anger is understandable, yet misdirected. God doesn’t impart disease, but the Lord will use illness to bless.” 

Some weeks later, this same pastor delivers a sermon to the congregation. Says that they all have a choice when walking through the darkest valley. He said, “Don’t squander the opportunity. Grow through what you go through.”

That’s a difficult thing.

He then shared a parable with the congregation. I had never heard it before this.

A young woman went to her mother. Told her how things were so hard for her. She wanted to give up because she was tired of fighting and struggling. Seemed as one problem was solved another one arose.  

The mother brings her into the kitchen. Brings three pots to a boil. Puts carrots in one. An egg in the second pot. Ground coffee beans in the the third pot. 

Twenty minutes later the mother takes them out of the pots. Puts the carrots in a bowl. Then places an egg in another bowl. Ladles coffee into the third bowl.  

Asks daughter what she sees. 

Daughter replies, “Carrots, egg and coffee.” 

Mother brings the carrots to her and asks her to feel them. She does and finds that they are soft.

Then the mom asks her to take the egg and break it. The daughter finds a hardboiled egg under the shell. 

Mother then asks daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiles as she tastes the rich, aromatic coffee.  

“What does it mean, Mother?” 

The mother explained that these objects all faced the same adversity: boiling water.

Each reacted differently.

The carrots went in strong, hard and unrelenting. But after being subjected to boiling water the carrots softened and became weak. 

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But after sitting in the boiling water its insides became hardened. 

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.  

I have friends who are currently facing adversity. In the form of breast cancer, early onset Alzheimer’s, divorce, the loss of a beloved child and the loss of a loving spouse.

All of us face or will face some type of adversity in our lives. Comes in many different forms. Visible and sometimes not so visible.

I suppose we cannot escape these things that are totally beyond our control.

Okay, so what exactly can we do?????????

We can be coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

God is Good

I’ve been known to shout out, “God is good!” on occasion. I suppose a throwback to my teaching religious education to middle and high schoolers.

It might be when I am in the midst of a perfect day, riding a bike with no hands on the wheel and just soaking up the beauty of it all.

People I am with, well trained, might reply back, “All the time!”

What I should be proclaiming is, “God is good to us!”

Not saying I’m not a believer. And I’m not saying God isn’t good.

I’m just wondering about all those who suffer.

Every single day. The abused kids. The ailing. The people in war torn regions. The hungry.

Not worried about offending God. If He’s all that then He can handle my wondering.

 

Read Full Post »