I owe a lot to my husband. It is because of his willingness to carry the heavy load of sole provider that enabled me to stay home, raise, home school and enjoy the fast years of childhood with our five children.
We had a grand time together (mostly). It makes my husband and me smile when we hear our grown children say, “I had a great childhood, and want my kids to have the same.”
I am grateful he was willing to carry that heavy load. We worked hard together and now we are in our older years enjoying our time together and our grandchildren. Though he has not yet retired, we are now working together towards that goal.
I listen to very little news anymore. I find it depressing, questionable, repetitive, negative, frightful and of little relevance to my life. Dear reader, be gentle, I simply have not the time nor interest in what is going on 24/7 in the whole wide world. We truly live in the information age. Problem is, what does one do with all this information? Information overload. It is far too heavy to carry, and way too much to hardly know where to begin to help.
The most pervasive feeling continual news gives me (and I think it may be intentional?) is a sense of helplessness. What, in the world can one little person do to stem this current tide of division so prevalent in our own society? We have family members that refuse to speak to one another, lifetime friends that no longer talk or visit together, and folks that do not even know the names of their next-door neighbors.
The term today is cancel-culture, but I think it should be called CANCER-CULTURE. For it spreads ugly and fiercely like cancer. It seems to have a life of its own, and is bent on destroying everything and everyone it gets close to.
I have always turned off the news from Thanksgiving to the first of a New Year. It was my time ‘off’ from the worries of the world, and time to focus on family and holidays. I enjoyed it so much, it seemed logical and sane to stay that way. So, I decided to listen only once a day to news, and read the paper that comes once a week to our home. Period.
That decision has sure improved my outlook on life, I’ll tell ya. I also have given much thought to what could I do to improve our societal division? Here is my idea, for what it is worth:
#loveyourneighbor
I believe this positive hashtag will help promote good will between folks and will be a fun way to spread smiles and a sense of belonging among we the people. I invite anyone who would like to accept this challenge to take a part in mending fences and spreading good will with our neighbors, family and friends. I will post my first two photos below. Post your photos on the social media you like and be sure to use the hashtag:
#loveyourneighbor
Join in if you feel like spreading some smiles for we American people again. As for me, I am weary of media telling me what I am. One photo at a time we can show who we, the American people, really are.
Having a young family as neighbors willing to take a huge block of cheese purchased by mistake! #loveyourneighborSharing peanut butter cookies with a neighbor, or I will eat all of them! #loveyourneighbor
Once, only once, have I been able to watch a chrysalis transform into a butterfly. Such a fascinating mystery to watch. We put it in a jar. One day we found a Monarch butterfly fluttering around the jar anxious to get out! It happily flew away.
One of our gardens is a designated pollinator garden. That means I allow the milk weed and other insect loving natural plants to grow as food for the Monarchs butterflies and other native insects. It is growing larger every year. I have even mailed milk weed seeds to folks interested in having beneficial pollinating plants for nature in their gardens.
In addition, I have great fun taking photographs of butterflies. Though often it is a real challenge!
It seems many folks do enjoy it as it floats, and seemingly dancing softly to the ground. There is something cozy in it. The whole world seems hushed and still. It settles in beautiful ways on tree limbs, fences, and out in the fields. It tells on all those unseen critters that travel around during the night. Their footprints in the snow tell the story of their round-abouts. Out here in the country we see raccoon, deer, turkey, birds, rabbits, and perhaps even coyotes (though they look like dogs).
One thing I especially enjoy is the sight of lights on during a snowstorm. They add a warm welcome to a building. So when an early morning snowfall greeted us good morning the first of this week, I grabbed my camera (after feeding the animals of course!) and enjoyed the lights and snow.
I believe you will enjoy these captures of light and snow as well.
There is something special and invigorating about watching the sunrise of a new day. It speaks of promise, hope, future, a plan, and joy in each and every rising.
Being an early riser has afforded the privilege of seeing sunrises daily. So accustomed to them, I feel I have lost the best part of the day should the sun rise before me.
The most special time is on Easter morning. Sitting outside watching and waiting for the sun to break forth on that most glorious of all mornings. Easter morning. The tomb is empty.
Being a bird watcher has been an enjoyable passion for as long as I can remember. This endearing past-time was taught to me with fun by my Aunty Bliss (Mom’s twin sister). She was a scientist of sorts, as she filed and categorized all the birds she photographed. She passed that love onto me, though she kept better records than I. I passed it on to one of our sons. Many precious memories are on file birding with my Aunt as a child and as a grown-up with my son.
I thought of them both recently when looking out at the pond. To my great surprise, I saw this Great Blue Heron sitting on the fence! On the fence? I have seen many of these lovely birds in my day, but never sitting on a fence! If you look closely in the photograph, you will notice the pond is frozen. Guess no fishing was to be done that day.
Grabbing my camera bag and changing the lens I thought the bird would surely be gone. To my great joy it was still there. I have a 300mm fixed lens for my camera, but still needed to crop the photos to get a better view. This makes the photos not that great, but, as I was taught in a photography class once, “A rather bad photo is better than no photo at all.”
Have you ever seen a Great Blue Heron sitting on a fence?
This word draws pictures in my mind of bright, beautiful flowers to the whiskers of a cat among many other images. For everything in the world shows design. Even the mud pies my children used to make so long ago.
A book written by Frank Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, says it all for me. As I live here on this farm out in the country, I see design and a designer literally everywhere. For that matter, this very machine I am typing on screams design.
It seems like common sense to recognize this fact. Yet lately it appears all sense and sensibility has flown the coop.
one_local_gal 