Preparation is Key

Just as in the garden a good preparation is essential, so too wif' personal internal growth. A little yearly clean=up of the weeds thas' accumulated, makin' sure ya have the tools ya need fer the year ahead ....I'se amazed every year how much "weeding" I need to do to make the mah pathways cleaner!

When I 'member that Lent is 40 days of preparation similar to the preparation work done fer makin' good thangs grow, why, I'se cheered by the prospect that some pretty flowers might soon sprout in me. Ain't sayin' thar' woan be a few thorns....jes' less weeds.

Hope all y'all is well.
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From the archives is this Lenten thought on discipline fer all us non-saints.

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Ash Wednesday

It's Lent, again. This time it sneaked up on me.

Trivia question: What are the ashes made from?

They are the burned palms from last years Palm Sunday procession.



Funny how nobody much seemed revved up by Mardi Gras this year.

Below are the opening lines from T.S. Eliot's poem, Ash Wednesday.

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

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Forecast? Overcast

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The Prize: Life in a Jar

A certain somebody sucked Aunty into Pinterest. Thas' another story.

But I wanna give credit to a Pinterest post for this quote:

"Irena Sendler 1910-2008 A 98 year-old German woman named Irena Sendler recently died. During WWII, Irena worked in the Warsaw Ghetto as a plumbing/sewer specialist. Irena smuggled Jewish children out; infants in the bottom of the tool box she carried and older children in a burlap sack she carried in the back of her truck. She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.






The soldiers wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids’ and infants’ noises. Irena managed to smuggle out and save 2500 children. She eventually was caught, and the Nazis broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar buried under a tree in her backyard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and reunited some of the families. Most had been killed. She helped those children get placement into foster family homes or adopted.Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won- for a slide show on Global Warming."



How is it I ain't never knowed 'bout this amazin' lady? Thought y'all would like to know of her
too. As fer Al Gore? What a grim commentary on our culture that that buffoon won a Nobel Prize.





I will see the movie too an' hope it ain't over sentimentalized.

Over It! Blogger Beware

I'se weary of Bloggers.

Oh, not all y'all.

But fer some years now I'se dipped into other blog communities, I peeks in heah an' theah to other blog worlds that heretofore I'se enjoyed. It were like stoppin' by fer a cup o' cawffee wif' a cyber friend. Ya' git to learn 'bout another blogger's life an' times.

SOMEthin's goin' way wrong. I know what it is. Is every human encounter now about $$$$$?

Once charmin' blogs is now commercialized. Oh, thar's still charm, but charm with a mission, iffin' ya' see whar' this is goin'. One lovely blog is now hooked up wif' Amazon--so hooked that thar's a half dozen links in every post no matter the topic--food, kitchenware, travel, perfume, hand cream, books, movies, Christmas ornaments--you name it. Now the posts is all driven by, what-can-I-hawk- to-my-readers.




Another hand-full of blogs --oh yes, very charmin'--now have so many "sponsored" pages, so many links to kitch to buy that their pages is long to load. An' insult on injury, nearly every sidebar blog they list is the same--it's a long loop of you-sell-my-schnizz-I'll -sell-yours. Mebbe the key is to look a "followers." If they sport more than 2-25 "followers" then it ain't a you an me blog, but a massive ring of commercial back-scratchers masqueradin' as bloggers.



One quick side-note: I doan mean them blogs whar' we know the blogger has stuff to sell an' does sometimes. Or whar' they link to their own commercial site. I has a friend what owns an indie bookstore. She blogs too. On her blog we hear about the chore of keepin' horses, or totin' kids to this or that sport, how the whole country voted fer candidate xyZ, the college alum shin-dig....an she might throw in the book she is plannin' to review on her commercial bookstore blog. Now, thas' OK. Her whole post ain't about how to git ya' to her bookstore. It has real content thas' NOT about cha-ching!

Another blog is about design--home/ garden design. NOWHERE in this blogger's post are links to stuff fer sale. It's about this bloggers own life an' love of design: What makes a design good, what doan. Iffin' ya wanted some "service" or referral to resources, ya' would jes' email the blogger--no attempt to craft the post toward sales.

An' we's got a few bloggers whose blogs have links that offer us their professional talents--La Diva Cucina an' Chickory come to mind--but they doan relate to us fer the whole purpose of sellin' stuff. ( Imagine goin' to a party whar' ever'body looks each other over to assess how ya' might advance their careers--oh, wait, thas' why we quit goin' to most "parties." )

See, what I means is, them blogs whar' the whole focus is to SELL BABY SELL!




It's a line that gits crossed--when yore posts is all about drivin' traffic to yore online store or to yore ring-round-blogger-sellers.

Related is this matter of corporate blogs--the, we's-jes'-like-all-y'all (don't look at the man behind the curtain!) blogs. Only, they ain't. They's set up to git ya' all folksy feelin' toward big Ag, big Pharma, big Media. Phooey! It scalds mah hide to do searches on a topic an' be three paragraphs in a'fore I realize, Wait! I'se bein' set up. Thar's nuthin' in the URL to give a hint that ya' landed on a lobbyist blog defendin' in indefensible.

Ok, yore turn. I'se ranted on 'nuff. Does this stuff bother ya' or ya jes' figger it's the nature of the Blog Beast?

I'se proposin' a designation of dot. non-com. NO COMMERCIAL interest. A Truth-In-Blogging policy.
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I wish you could see!

While the rest of the country seems to be battling snow, we'uns are finally having Fall. Our leaves are just now showering down upon the lawn, walkways, filling flower pots--an' the gutters.

But the colors!! How I wish y'all could see the intensity of these colors of the flowers on this grey, misty mornin'. These ruffly petticoat Hibiscus against the beards of moss above 'em is an eye catcher.




Root Beer colored pansies, yaller pansies, blue salvia, an' sunset bougainvillea, white an yaller snapdragons.... they's so colorful in the mist, I doan think mah eyes could take it iffin' the sun came out. That purty sundial in the background is a bequeath from Granny Cracker.



Granny's Begonia's.....they's made it now through two years wif'out her green thumb, which can only mean she is a long distance gardener now.



Nasturtiums in jewel tones, straggle along...

the snapdragons are show-offs!





Blue Salvia an' yaller pansies hint at Easter.


The walkways are smothered in leaves--if only Bunny would wield a rake!

I Can Tell The Story

I can tell it all...

Friday Uncle went back to the horse-pital fer 'em to stop his heart to check to see iffin' all them fancy devices wuz gonna work on cue.

Uncle ain't the sort to admit to no jitters. So when the purty nurses start his sedation IV an tell him to count back'ards from a hunnert, heah's the song he sung 'em instead:

"I can tell the story I can tell it all, 'bout the mountain boy who ran illegal alcohol. His Daddy made the whiskey.....

Uncle began to s l o w t o a s l u r

Son, .... he ...dro... ove the....lo....ad....


Everthang turned out jes' swell-- when they released us'uns, Uncle insisted I drive him to his favorite diner fer a heart healthy breakfast.*

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Haiku Monday be at Serendipitous Wild Moments this week--an' what a challenge it is! Her theme is Metallic Sound. Wow--very fertile theme. Come play along wif' us!

* fer the record, when they sent the camera up to check out his arteries, they's all clean an clear. His trouble be electrical, not plumbing. An' he doan eat this way as a regular event. Jes' sayin', I ain't try to kill him off.