Yellow and red leaves belie summer’s grip on this afternoon. How soon until all those beautiful leaves have gone brown and begun to enrich the soil?
Our chickens meander around the pen as though they have nothing else to do but listen for grubs burrowing underground. Maybe they don’t.
It is a beautiful day, and the yard needs mowed. Keep our country and leaders in your prayers.
This morning I could feel an autumn crispness in the air. A little bit of an uncomfortable nip crept inside my clothes as I stood at the top of the back steps waiting for our dog to do her thing so I could go back inside. Autumn is really here. Finally! It’s mid-November. Most of the leaves that still dangle from the branches over our front porch maintain a bit of green. Not the pale new green of spring, but the faded and weathered, worn-out green off a long summer finally giving up. While I watched out the front door I heard those leaves rattling and rustling as though a storm blew through. Hundreds of leaves blasted straight down from the tree before scattering in every direction, Some blew north, some east and some blew straight south. I think it must have been some kind of a downdraft. No, there weren’t any helicopters overhead. I checked. Sometimes, I guess blessings are like that. So much at once that you don’t know what to do with them
I decided to finish a poem I started last fall. Five yellow leaves on my apple tree. Maybe one day I’ll get that poem finished. It didn’t happen today. That apple tree has dozens of yellow leaves now. It was taller than me when my son planted it a few years ago for Mother’s Day. It towers over our porch now. How old are apple trees when they start producing? I’m betting it has as much to do with their surroundings as their age. They may never bear fruit in an inhospitable environment.
I grew an avocado tree from the pit from my friend’s lunch. Thanks, Meleia. This summer it grew a branch. That tree is so tall and spindly I have to keep it staked as it is much taller than it is strong. It would die if I left it outside during the winter, but it grows too fast in the house. If I measure the pot and tree it is close to 6′ tall. What on earth am I going to do with a hyper-needy avocado tree? (Advice is welcome and encouraged!)
And then, there’s my Christmas Tree. Usually, I put my tree up during fall break in October. It is nearly Thanksgiving and I have no desire to mess with rearranging the living room to find a space for the tree. Is that a sign of depression or simply exhaustion? Maybe a sign that I need to learn to say, “No.” to other people’s projects. Hmmm. Maybe.
May you and yours be blessed on this Veterans’ Day.
Lorelei
I went to a graduation ceremony on Mother’s Day. Frankly, I was surprised that a school would schedule graduation on that holiday. The woman I sat next to informed me that it is a tradition in that town. So be it. Traditions are important.
One part of their tradition was that each senior carried a rose in with them as the school band–sans seniors–played Pomp and Circumstance over and over and over. I was glad there were only thirty or so graduates, P and C not being one of my favorite melodies. A few more niceties observed, the graduates stood, found their mothers in the crowd and, as tradition dictated, delivered the beautiful red roses to their mothers.
All but one.
One young senior who’d been escorted in by an adult male, looked frantically around from his spot in the back row. He remained rooted in that spot until long after all his classmates returned to their seats from hugs and roses. At last, he bowed his head and cried as he slowly sank into his chair. From my vantage point behind him, I ached inside as his shoulders continued to shake in his grief. The woman next to me handed me a tissue and dabbed her eyes, too. His escort wrapped a comforting arm about the young man’s shoulders, but it wasn’t enough.
What secret tragedy kept that mother from her son’s graduation? I am sure I’ll never know. I am also sure that nothing I can do will erase even one tear from his heart-rending disappointment. Maybe her car wouldn’t start and she walked the distance getting there too late for the rose ceremony. Maybe someone she depended on for a ride forgot to pick her up. Maybe she was too drunk to drive. (Maybe she was focused on the story she was writing and didn’t notice time escaping her until it was too late–I hope not.)
Whatever the reason for her absence, it is not fixable now. That moment has passed and cannot be changed. I give you this tiny admonition: Let your family know you love them while they are still around to love. Don’t wait to give them flowers that you lay upon their graves.
Sorry this is a downer, but there are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who need this tiny bit of encouragement to step past whatever pain holds them captive and allow themselves to forgive not only sins of commission but sins of omission, too.
Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Lorelei
So, I’m trying to lose weight. Maybe thin does feel better than anything tastes, but since I’ve never been thin, I’ll have to take someone else’s word for it. I’ve joined a gym. All thanks for that goes to my DIL Katie. She has also become my workout buddy. Have I lost any weight? No, but I feel better. (General muscle soreness discounted.) It helps a great deal to have someone in my corner with the same goal, i.e. helping me lose weight.
My youngest daughter is also trying to lose a few (15) pounds before prom, so she works out with us. She already found the perfect dress. It is beautiful, but I can’t share pics anywhere because the boyfriend hasn’t seen it yet.
Let me add here that he spoils her rotten. Even knowing she’s trying to lose weight, when she asked him to take her to her favorite fast food restaurant, he didn’t hesitate. He bought her a burger, fries and soda. I told her she didn’t have to eat fried stuff when she went there, that they have other options. My wonderful husband said, “Her favorite fast food restaurant has good salads. You could have gotten one of them.”
I don’t know if she heard it somewhere else and applied it to the conversation at hand, or if she made it up on the spot, but she held up a perfectly golden french fry and said, “Going to my favorite fast food restaurant for a salad is like going to the hooker on the corner for a hug.” Perhaps it is. I know I don’t head to any restaurant with the intention of eating a salad.
Let me add an especially grateful “Thank you.” to Kyle Dahlem for teaching me to love learning new words.
Your words for the week are:
Have an awesome and productive week.
Isaiah 40:31
Blessings,
Lorelei
Boy, do I feel loved! I have 154 more comments to look at on Facebook for my birthday. That doesn’t count all the Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram well wishes. Yesterday was the big 59. My last year in my 50s. Wow. Where has time gone?
I just finished writing a short story (less than 500 words) inspired by a writing prompt of a yellow rose on an old piano. I bawled all the way through it because I knew how it would end. And sure enough, it did. Sometimes, we write stories; sometimes we only record them. And that my friend is my lesson from life. I am not always in charge of how the story ends.
Blessings to you and yours
Lorelei
Isaiah 40:31
Everyone needs a place to belong! Please join me at the first ever Enid Writers’ Fest. It will be on Saturday, March 4, 2017 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The Public Library of Enid and Garfield County and the Enid Writers Club have teamed up to make a wonderful connection between readers and writers. Come and enjoy meeting some of your favorite authors. I will be there with my debut novel, A PLACE TO BELONG.
No, you don’t have to share my political views to enjoy this bit of humor.
A friend of ours who delivers and sets up equipment has encountered mind boggling beliefs and behavior. I’m almost afraid to write it down. It feels like committing it to print makes it more understandable.
He has come across a growing number of people who don’t want to go through all the hassles of changing their address when they move, so they take their mailbox with them. Yep, you got it. They imagine that the mailbox determines the address, not the location of said mailbox. And, those people vote.
I know I’ve made some (according to friends and family who claim to love me) stupid mistakes, but that one doesn’t happen to be one of mine. The people who dislike me probably have a bigger list of my errors. Moving your mailbox makes sense in a very warped and one sided way. I wish it worked. The USPS has a hard enough time getting all our mail to us in a timely manner the way it is. What if our addresses were portable like some home phone numbers? What a nightmare for the letter carriers! “I know it was here yesterday.”
I still collect words I don’t know in my word box. I hope you do, too.
Your words of the week (or fortnight) are as follows:
mendacity: lying, corruption, untruthfulness,
oubliette: a secret dungeon accessible through a hole in the ceiling. According to some websites, the holes were too deep to crawl out of and frequently so tiny that a prisoner couldn’t even turn around!
perspicacity: perception, having a ready insight into and understanding of events and motives, keen, sharp, discerning
poltroon: utter coward, a weakling, a yellowbelly (Why, he’s got a yellow stripe a mile wide down his back.)
taciturn: saying little, reserved to the point of appearing snooty, uncommunicative in speech.
Blessings,
Lorelei
Isaiah 40:31
Yes, I think I’ll continue with five words for the week for you. I also think that this year I’ll try to make my blogs about Lessons I’ve Learned. I think the world is more than ready to teach us if we are ready to learn. I was reminded of just how ready the world is this weekend when I was hiking with my husband.
We’d been to The Farm to visit my mother. Please note my use of upper case letters. The Farm refers to the tiny portion of NW Oklahoma where I was raised. Mom is 81 and tires easily. We took a walk so she could nap. We hiked to The Pond. Again, more capital letters are used to denote a special place. I’m 58 years-old. We built that pond when I was a 2nd grader. Yes, it is a special place. It is about a half mile as the crow flies from the house to the pond, but I’m not a crow. It was a tiny adventure.
On our walk through the pasture to the pond, we did not encounter any cattle. While this isn’t normal, it isn’t out of the realm of possibilities. We did notice that cattle had been on the same trails recently. As we walked across skinny little dams that delineate ponds either full and dry, up and down hills, and up and down more hills, I noticed a few things.
There is our lesson from the farm. Let go of crap and get on to better things and places!
Blessings
Isaiah 40:31
Lorelei
Your words for the week are:
🙂
December 5th is the last freebie day! Be sure you download your copy of my new book today. If you don’t manage to get it downloaded today, you can always pay the $4.99 and get it tomorrow. Here’s the link.
Self publishing is about as much work as I imagined. It is much more jumping through hoops than I thought it would be. That being said, they warned me about upcoming hoops in time for me to trip on them. LOL!
Blessings to all of you. Keep reading, keep writing, be kind.
Lorelei
I looked out the window several times this morning hoping to see a beautiful sunrise. It didn’t happen. Too many clouds crowded in between me and the horizon. A few clouds can add interest to a sunrise. Dirt in the atmosphere adds a glow. This morning–nothing! At least, that’s what I thought for a moment.
Then, God said, “So, you think because you didn’t see the sun rise, it didn’t happen? I set the sun in motion eons ago. I had this sunrise planned long before you were born. Trust me. The sun rose just fine this morning–and completely without your help or input.”
Ouch. Of course it did. How very blessed I am to serve the God who hung all the stars in place and knitted me together inside my mother’s womb. He orders my steps. He prepares a way before me in the presence of my enemies. Even if I have to walk through a shadowy valley, he is there to comfort and protect me. Blessed be the name of the Lord, my rock and my fortress!
Blessings to you and yours, too!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Lorelei
Your words of the week:
Lorelei Sawtelle 