The Yard is Done, #1Liner Wednesday

Fall brings about a flurry of cleaning projects to get ready for winter and I am on a time schedule. So the last 2 days I have not touched my computer much other than to read some of your wonderful stories. But alas, it is all done….outside. Thanks to Alternative Design Landscapes Specialist out of Bettendorf Iowa I have new steps and a new wall that were rotting railroad timbers and a new mailbox to keep the mailman happy and Mimi less stressed.

And while that was going on, the plumber came out to fix a leaky outside faucet before it got cold and I got all the flower bed cleaning done. All in all a busy but productive two days. Now I can sit on the sofa and play on the computer while watching the birds eat and fight over the new bird feeders. They are so fun to watch. The feeder is close to the evergreens where they zoom to hid when spooked only to peek out to make sure all is clear before heading back to the feeders.

Mostly what I have are chickadees but this big fella enjoys the sunflower seeds as well.

IMG_20181031_085148 — Dirty windows too…work never ends

I clean the windows about every two weeks as Mimi loves looking out as well and leaves her nose and slobber marks. And of course we have to warn about the dreaded mailman. The ice box was added as an incentive to save the window seal.

She is so funny as she looks around at me while she is barking like “Do you not see this?” In reality she is just a silly old lapdog baby.

And in closing I remind myself and everyone else to be kind. It is a inexpensive gift from God that reflects His love.

Come follow along with Linda G. Hill’s One Liner Wednesdays and enjoy the fun.

A Sunday Prayer

I thank you Lord for the wonderful people who share your love and gives us peace and assurance of your presence. Help us to take this love and reflect it on others as we go our way on this earth as we always remember to be kind.

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Time is Getting Short. Get ready! #6WS

Time is getting short, I only have 2 weeks left to get ready for Christmas. What? Its not even Halloween yet. True. But I have to have the yard fully ready for winter, the front door cleaned and painted from Mimi’s scratching this summer(it’s how she knocks), get the house fully cleaned inside and everything in its place so that I can decorate for Christmas and be completely ready by end of day November 8th. November the 9th is RF day. RF day is surgery on the right foot, like the surgery in August on the left foot which means no walking at all for 3 weeks and very limited walking after that for another month. I am not missing out on Christmas so we decorate early. I have no problem with that.

Accomplished so far is the yard is clean. Landscape people are coming on Tuesday to rebuild the back steps and to replace the rotting railroad timbers with large boulders. I have also finished painting the front door. It looks better gray than white and maybe it will hide Mimi’s “knocking” better.

IMG_20181026_150538

But I still have the 7′ tree for the living room, the 7′ tree for the front bedroom, the 4′ tree and village(20+ pieces) for the dining room table, the two foot tree for the kitchen and master bath and then there are the 5 different nativity sets that need to go up, one set having candles along with countless “stuff” that sits everywhere. Yes, I have a fanatic love for Christmas, what it means and decorating for it. Oh, and I forgot the 4′ stuffed Santa that I won when I was 12. Here is a picture of him last year trying to hang lights on the tree. He is so clumsy and gets tangled every year in lights. But he loves to look at the tree.

Debbie Smyth’s Six Word Saturday reminded me just how short a time I have left to get it all done. But when it all gets done I will post pictures….lots and lots of pictures. Oh and I didn’t mention downstairs. My daughter lives down stairs and she is just as bad as I am. We set aside one day a year, the off day for Ga. football, to do ornament shopping. We like to buy 1 new and interesting ornament every year….1…what am I saying? But its our fun tradition each year and we have a blast.

And in closing, I remind myself and others, it’s beginning to be that joyful time of year. We need to make it last longer than just this time of year. Spread joy and kindness wherever you go.

kind8

Colloquialism, A $5 word – #SoCS

Colloquialism is described in Webster’s as a word or phrase that is not formal or literary and is typically used in ordinary or familiar conversations. That even sounds complicated.

dictionary

I am from the south, the true south of the United States of America. And by true south, as explained only by someone from the true south, that means east of the Mississippi River and below the Mason-Dixon Line. While some people feel that part of the country can be more gentile, they can also be more scrappy than most.

As I have lived in other parts of the country, my southernisms have been known to turn a head or two. Most people just look at you like a deer in headlights. All southernisms are local terms or phrases we use in the south that we all understand what they mean. Proper name for them is colloquialism, a $5 word. A $5 word is big word, a hard to pronounce word, a dictionary looking up word or a very proper word nobody really uses. One of the most famous southernism we get teased about is a phrase we use that means we are getting ready to do something. That phrase is “fixin to” ex. I am fixin to get dressed. I am fixin to cook up a mess of beans. That means I am going to cook a large pot of beans. There is even a certified dictionary for southernisms but I have read some of those and some of those are ridiculousness that somebody just made of to make us look even more silly.

south1 — The word sugar ends with an “h” in the south.

Linda G Hill with Streams of Consciousness gave us the prompt for this week of “bone”. My first thought was fighting words – huh? When someone ticked you off but yet they were not present, the next time you saw them you would yell across the room “Hey, I gotta bone to pick with you“. Then they knew they were in trouble with a capital T. That phrase may be used lots of places but I know the south does use it frequently. In doing research on the phrase, they linked it to bone of contention going back as far as the 1500 with the idea of two dogs fighting over the same tasty bone.

I gave Mimi and knuckle bone I got from a local butcher and she turned her nose up at it. Guess she is too sophisticated for the real thing and prefers her “chicken bone”.

IMG_20181026_232540 — Chicken Flavor? Really?

Who am I to judge? She is happy, I am happy. Its all good.

And in closing, I remind myself and others to always be kind. You never know when that stranger may be an angel in disguise.

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Walmart – Word Prompt Humor

You know it is a sad thing when a website is dedicated to the way people dress while shopping in their store and that store is Walmart. I shop at Walmart and I don’t dress crazy or am disrespectful to other people eyes. If I don’t want to see it, surly I don’t want you to either. But that is not what this is about.

A weekly prompt from qc of http://weeklyprompts.com/2018/10/24/word-prompt-humor asked to share a funny story where someone pushed you to that point but you refrained because you knew it would have been bad if you reacted to the situation – you just smile and go on.

breaking point

This goes along with the saying that God doesn’t give you situations you cant handle, you made need His help but you still can stand.

Those of you who have been following me for a bit (only been around for 4 months) know that I just recently had foot surgery. A couple of weeks ago I just needed to get out from being cooped up for 7 weeks so I went with my daughter to Walmart for the weekly grocery shopping. I got one of the electric buggies as there was no way I could manage the distance of the floor space of that store.

When going down the spice aisle, I got out of the buggy momentarily to review the spices as they were at a higher level than cart sitting position. While studying the shelf I was all of a sudden run totally over by a 4 year old running loose on the store. Fortunately I was knocked into the shelf that caught my fall. I reached down to pick up my cane just as his mom rounded the corner yell at me for knocking down her son with a lot of language I will not share here. During the woman’s tirade I felt my daughter hand close tightly over my hand that had a death grip on the cane. Still lost for words at the situation, I looked at my daughter and she said very calmly one word- “Breathe”. And I did as my brain wanted to hit this woman with the cane. As much as I try to always sign off with being kind, this was one of those times I thought…umm NO. My daughter knew my boiling point had been reached and she also knew I was good at swinging a baseball bat and a cane would be easy-peasy. Sometimes it takes others to help us get back in focus, so I just stared at the woman as she and her out of control child cleared the end of the aisle.

The humor came about 15 minutes later and 3 aisles further down when a loud crash was heard throughout the store. As we neared the area guess who we saw? The little boy was in a buggy being watched by a store clerk while mom and store manager cleaned up multiple packages of dried soup mixes scattered on the floor from a display that now lay destroyed on the end of an aisle.

As I rode by the scene, I made eye contact with the mom. I raised only one eyebrow and nodded as I scooted slowly by in my electric cart. Oh how I wish I had a horn to go beep beep as I passed by.

Sometimes when someone sprays you with lemon juice, your the one that gets the refreshing glass of lemonade.

Even though life slaps you in the face, try to remember to be kind, even when it is not deserved. You may get blessed with a chuckle before it is all over.

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Its Yellow’s Turn, #1 Liner Wednesday

Last week I showed pictures of the leaves during the first show of change and the colors were red. Now yellow is making it’s appearance and this area has lots of yellow to enjoy.

Yellow1 — The brightness of the yellow or the blueness of the sky is really not reflected in the photo

I was finally able to go walking through the local state park and the yellows were exquisite. There were a few reds still trying to hang on of which I was surprised with the winds that came through here last Saturday. With the sudden cold air on Sunday and Monday, the yellows are really showing off. This is a response for Linda G Hill’s #1Liner Weds.

Enjoy the colors.

The Black Hawk State Park is a small park inside the city limits of Rock Island Illinois, one of the cities of the Quad Cities metro area between Illinois and Iowa with the Mississippi running through them. It a beautiful park with walking trails. When we first moved into this metro area I was shocked to see deer just walking through the yard but its because of the preserve and they are protected here.

So as the season is changing again, enjoy this time as nature prepares to rest for the coming winter of cold and white. According to Farmers Almanac, the mid-west is in for a rough one. https://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather-outlook/2019-winter-forecast

If we could just have summer for about 1 month, and one month of winter and the rest divided between spring and fall I would be a happy camper. But alas, they each have their purpose. Ok, fine.

And as reminder to me and everyone else, please be kind. There are times when it is really hard but those times can sometimes bring the highest rewards.

deer — Even animals depend on the kindness of strangers

The Box ‘Returnith’ – Surprise, TPC

Its funny how some things just disappear and then all of a sudden ‘surprise, I am back’. It can be a person or a thing but in my case it was a cardboard box.

Jansenphoto’s Tuesday’s photo challenge is Surprise! We all love good surprises and wish we didn’t get some surprises but sometimes there is a weird off handed surprise that make us smile.

To cut to the chase, I had my mailbox sitting on a cardboard box so that the mailman would not have to come up to the house. I will tell that story one day but today we are talking about the box. Saturday was a beautiful day but we had some pretty serious wind gusts around 45-55 mph. It was more than the little box could stand I guess as the mailbox ended up on the ground and the box was not to be found. I asked around but no one had seen it. Didn’t want to trash up my neighbors yard. OK, no big deal. I placed a concrete block there and put the mailbox on it. Wind wont blow that away…unless it takes the house as well.

Tuesday mid-morning when I went to check on the mail, guess what was there.

IMG_20181023_102607 — And the box returns, Who Knew?

They even brought it back filled with trash. How extra special. I put it with the rest of the trash I was cleaning up from the yard so it is no more for certain this time.

And as always as a reminder to myself as well as others, remember to be kind. It will bring a smile to you and as well as those you were kind to.

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Beauty of the Ocean…in Iowa

I currently live in Iowa on the Mississippi River. When I was a kid, when trying to learn the state locations, the center of the country was always easy because of the man in the middle. For those not familiar with that teaching, I will explain. The foot or boot(purple) of the man is Louisiana, his pants(green) is Arkansas, his shirt(blue) is Missouri, his head(green) is Iowa and his hat(tan) is Minnesota. Now the face of the man is carved by the Mississippi River and where I live, the river comes across sideways forming the nose. I tease my grandchildren saying I live in the nose of the man in the center, so you know what that makes me. The point I am trying to make is the location of this state. Iowa is one state down from Canada, 4 states from the Pacific ocean, 5 states from the Atlantic Ocean and 3 states from the Gulf of Mexico, so basically we are land locked with the river being our main water attraction, several lakes scatter about. We are one state away from Lake Michigan which acts like and ocean but what ocean freezes over hard enough to drive a truck on in the winter. Oh, and just to throw this out there, I am 4 states away from my home state of Georgia which borders on the Atlantic. I do miss the ocean.

But this area seems to be fascinated with the ocean life, I guess because they don’t get to see it unless they go on vacation.(there are even Christmas tree ornaments) I posted some pictures in an earlier blog about the ocean street art on the railroad bridge in the center if the city. If you missed it, it is here. But last week when coming back through a section of town I don’t go in often I found several buildings of street art, one dedicated to ocean life, real and imaginary. So I though I would share those with you today. I find street art very fascinating due to the image painted and the enormous size.

IMG_20181018_131046 — The building and the artist, 2010

IMG_20181018_131120 — Turtle, shark and giant squid

Then you have the whale, porpoises and the mermaids. Architecturally speaking, I find it interesting how the windows are at angles and protected from the weather.

Below are wonderful pictures, thank you internet, that give a glimpse of true ocean life, an area of life on this planet we have only begun to understand. Enjoy.

And as a daily reminder to myself and anyone else, always try to be kind. You would be amazed how it makes you feel as well as those you are kind to. And staying with the ocean theme, I show you that even ocean animals understand the process of being kind.

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Kindness, the Sugar of God’s Love

cubes

Yes, I am from the south where the oozy sweetness in tone, comment and action can easily be misused to be a sour experience and possibly filled with unkindness. That is not what Paul meant in Galatians when he explained the fruits of the spirit. He listed 8 attributes which over lap and reflect the love of God. Many times in scripture there are attributes listed with Love being the key one, after all God is love with all of the other attributes reflecting love in a different way. And with the different types of love, the ways of showing love grow exponentially. But when I take what I feel are the 4 top types of that love that radiate from the heart [ Eros – passionate love, Storge – Family love, Philia – Friendship love and Agape – Selfless/God’s love] they reflect all of the combining fruits of the spirit [Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Goodness, and Self Control]. But to me you can not have any of these without kindness. Kindness is a deliberate act by an individual to behave in such a manor that the recipient can feel the genuine love of God from the individual or at least be confused by the behavior as it was not deserved. For instance, if someone says or acts mean toward you and you choose to still be kind, it can diffuse a volatile situation or at a minimal create an opportunity to open a door for you to explain why kindness is so very vital. But if the door does not get opened, still continue to be kind. Kindness eventually wins when it is honest from the heart.

kind7 — All we need is a little kindness

True heartfelt kindness should be spread wherever you go. It doesn’t cost anything but your time and willingness to share it. So this week I challenge you to think about being kind to a friend, a stranger or even to an animal.

kind8

Canning from the Garden,#SoCS

Canning is a process of saving wonderful foods from the garden and preserving them for use all winter long…but it was never in a can.

When I was growing up, we always made pickles, chow chow, chili sauce and various flavors of jelly, jams or preserves but they were always in glass jars, thank you Ball jar company. And the sad day was when the jar was empty and you know it was the last jar.

Linda G. Hill with Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week got combined with Nancy Merrill‘s prompt for Pictures through Glass jars to recognize both prompts of fun and creativity.

There are many ways to use “can” as it’s a noun or a verb. You can have a fictitious Can of Worms or a fictitious train that told everyone “I think I Can”.

And with different products found in or behind glass, I offer you the wonderful candles I have burning almost daily around my house. They help hide the occasional “just came in from outside dog smell” that Mimi has for about 10 minutes until my nose adjusts, especially when raining.

As I remind myself on every post, and hopefully remind anyone that may read, always be kind. Its the best attribute you can reflect. I know you can’