I got real tickled while reading Shelley’s post this morning on going gray. Its something we all do – some gracefully and some dragging and fighting it with all we have. When we are kids we say ‘when I grow up…’ but we never think about ‘when I get gray…’.  I started going heavy gray about 15 years ago and went straight to the salon to fix that problem. My profession at the time kind of looked at gray as being old and useless. They would never say that but even the plant manager(a man) kept his hair dyed. When I changed jobs(and moved across the country) that stigma was not really there plus we had to wear hair nets, white ones. So after a few months I realized fixing my hair was a waste being in a hair net all day and then also realized no one is even going to know what color my hair is so why color it. I fix it once a week for church and they don’t care what color it is or even if there is hair. Then I made peace with the hair length. All 60 years of my life I had short hair. My mom had short hair. Both of my sisters had short hair. Its what we did. Well, since I am noted as the rebel in  the family I have let it grow. Now its long, gray and unfixed. Having natural curl to it makes it an easy ponytail and I am done. Yay!I think society puts too much emphasis on being young and beautiful when being refined and graceful like a good wine is much more pleasing. You don’t have to put up with some of the nonsense of social queues. If people mess with you just say “move before I move you” then you can whop them with your cane. All joking aside, we should never begrudge the gift of white/silver lining on our heads that God gave us to show others our wisdom of life and the peace it can offer.

I had real misgiving when I retired in February. I was not ready to retire but was being forced out by new management. I was not sure if financially I was going to be OK(still not 100% at peace)but am trusting God for His guidance and the gift of peace He bestows upon us when we are willing to accept it.

So with all that said, I accept where I current am, in peace, and wish to those who read this to feel the peace of God as he showers His love upon you.

Shelley’s Quaint Revival challenge for new bloggers is a 30 days challenge with daily prompts to help newbies think and rethink about what they are doing in learning how to blog. I am appreciating it since I am way new(July 2018) and have already learned a few tricks. But I am fully aware that I don’t have enough knowledge about blogging to even fill a thimble.

For those not familiar with sewing – it the silver thingy – it’s very small. That’s how much I know about blogging but I like it better than some other communication/social platforms as you get to be more creative and see other people’s creative flares.

So I really don’t have a lots of surprises as this is still so knew but I will say that the genuineness of people is surprisingly refreshing. I have chatted with people in England, China, South Africa, Canada, India and of course the US since that is where I am if that seems to make a difference. I am not fully aware how all of this works. And then since I don’t know where some people are from, I could be talking to places I am not aware of. And that is fun as well as interesting.

I think another surprise is how similar some of us can be across the world. The love of flowers, photography, street art, music, Christ, and of course dogs. Dogs and Christ were my main filters but I have expanded with all of the art interest that I am seeing. And that is what I like best about this is that the sorting process is true to form. If you don’t want to see certain information or opinions, you don’t have to. With Facebook for instance with no filters except you friends and since this is an election year politics and opinions are rampant and angry – don’t want to see it thank you.

And I think another surprise for me (being a quieter person more than a in your face type person) is the positive feedback I have received about what I write. Now that I have retired I am trying to see if I am a good enough writer to actually publish the book I just finished. Yea, it a subject that’s out there in the imaginary fiction world but it’s still has a gentle theme. Would people really be interested in reading a book about dogs in heaven that talk like people. Told you it was out there. So we will see.

As we all continue on this journey of blogging, may we all see the genuine goodness that we all can be and create a positive force that stretches across the globe.

Have a great week.

What makes you smile? When you are in one of those downward moods , what do you think about to help you recover your sanity and smile again?   Maybe it is goofy pictures… or maybe its seasonal memories. Christmas is coming Yay! I love decorating for Christmas and it makes me happy and does make me smile but it is not the thing that bring life back to my face when I am down.

Things that bring in those kinds of smiles are usually emotional things or things we are passionate about.

Today’s post I hope brings a smile to everyone’s face as it is a collection of photos of my dogs and such that make me smile and laugh. It’s Monday and we all need a smile to start the week. Enjoy.

Below are various pictures of the King and Queen as they own their various thrones along with postings from Pinterest that especially made me laugh.

And some funny from other places.

Have a great week.

Today’s word challenge  from Shelley’s Quaint Revival is world with the thought would you be a world travel blogger. There are so many wonderful bloggers who have such great pictures and stories of there travels that it makes you want to go there and see it for yourself…maybe.

I thoroughly enjoy Debbie Smyth and her photos of Travel with Intent. I strongly suggest you follow her fabulous photos as she travels with pictures from seaside beauty, architectural wonders and magnificent stain glass windows

Then I have wonderful friends who traveled recently to Switzerland with beautiful pictures of the mountains as well as other wonderful things they saw.

Then there are pictures from a friends brother who has an exceptional eye of nature around the United States.

Then of course a few that I have taken with my phone. Not near as breath taking as those above but I did enjoy their beauty.

But with travel in mind, I think I want to see more of the US before I think of travel abroad. I thoroughly enjoy the pictures others share, the books I read of exciting places but I think I enjoy being home more.

I love seeing God’s hand in nature from the mountain views to the tiniest flower opening its petals to the sun.  I have always wanted to go to the Black Hills but they were just to far from where I lived in Georgia/Alabama. Now for 6 years I have been in Iowa – not that far anymore and still have not gone. Guess the traveling gene is just not in me.

But to all of those who love to go, please continue to share your fabulous pictures. They are much enjoyed.

We like to think we are in charge, that we know how to handle adversity, that we can control things around us but in reality we are at natures mercy. If the sky is blue, sun shining then if we can we are out in it. Regardless of the temperatures. If the ground is covered in snow then we may be skiing or building a snowman. If is hot and we are near water we are splashing in it or at least have our toes in the sand.

But when Mother Nature rears her ugly side it can be fearful. And since I live in the US, I can only speak for things I see here but I am sure similar situations happen across the world. Here in the US, natural types of disasters are divided by location and land type or weather probabilities. For instance, your coastal regions are susceptible to hurricanes. The Midwest, due the airflow combinations from the gulf combined with air from the Rockies, has strong possibilities for tornadoes and the far west with strong winds and arid conditions make an easy target for wild fires. Then you have the Ring of Fire as the continental plates bang against each the creating earthquakes and volcanoes.

This past week brought two such disasters right to some of our back doors making us fearful realizing the power of out of controlled nature and showing off who really is the boss.

In Paul Handover, Learning from Dogs, post of Too Close to Home, it shows just how fast and scary a wildfire can takeover your home making you flee for your life. Fortunately for Paul and his family it was a near miss. Bit near misses are scary knowing that at any moment to have to be ready to run.

This week in the Midwest, all the storms that we have had have combined now with a tropical storm has caused our rivers to become scary monsters flooding our homes, businesses and making some people flee to higher ground.

Now the east coast is facing a possible hurricane that could swipe up the entire coast line from Georgia to Maine. Yesterday as I was watching the Weather Channel, there were 9 tropical events ranging from depressions to full blown hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Nine, that is crazy. Being raised in south Georgia/north Florida, we learned that if the development of storms during the early part of the season for hurricanes is slow, then end of the season could be very rough with either many storms and single massive storms like Katrina. Nature calls the shots and brings us along for the ride, be it fun or scary. And all we can do is hope for the best helping each other as we go.

Shelley’s Quaint Revival  challenge for this month is improving you blogging skills  with the question of today’s word being boss and the thought being ‘who is boss of your blog’. As with mother nature above, is there really a single ‘boss’ that drives what we write. I don’t think so. Our thoughts and ideas come from life that happens around us. Are we the boss that puts those thoughts into word form, absolutely but I think we draw from the love, tragedy, inspiration and beauty that surrounds all of us. We all see a different side of nature and life, then when we share it with each other we come together with the passion of like mindedness into one accord. May we all come together to inspire, encourage, uplift, help rebuild, love, laugh and enjoy each other and what we do.

Have a great week.

I guess its poetic justice that my true obstacle is helping me sort through some of my blogging obstacles. I think my biggest obstacle is still not understand all the tools and how to use them. Learning how to Ping back was a trial and it doesn’t visually look the same as others whose blog title is preceded with (-) and mine has my full name of my URL with the http:, but it works, so OK. And I have kind of learned how to link although I still get tripped up from time to time. Still don’t know what widgets are and is that something I need? I think that is my biggest obstacle is understanding what I really need vs. the extra fluff stuff. Since I am a non-professional blogger I think the rules may be slightly different or more relaxed for us.

All I can say for now is on to the next obstacle and may the smartest of us figure it out…and share the how too.

Enjoy Shelley’s prompt on Quaint Revival for 30 day Challenge and may we all learn something new.

The thought of a worm in my ear caused me great alarm, so I had to look this term up as I was not familiar with it at all. Totally knew what it was when I read about it. I think the earworms that get me the quickest are the stupid commercial jingles, as in ‘Like a good neighbor State Farm is there’.  When I was a little kid(in the 60S), there was a commercial on TV for Frosty Morn Bacon.  It was cartoon pigs singing this song that I can still hear in my head today and still know the words. My dad would get it stuck in his head as well. It would be a mess as we would both be singing it driving everyone else crazy. I saw that on you tube you can still see those commercials. Really, Wow.

But there are also the children songs that get thrown back at you when the occasion arrives. Those can stay with you for days. Especially if you happen to help with Vacation Bible School. Like  Noah and his arky arky or the song B I B L E, that’s the book for me…and let us not forget ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round’. Just writing this blog is going to get these stuck in my head.

And don’t get me started on Christmas….

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “earworm.” Talk about your latest earworm, or one that habitually haunts you. Enjoy!

Why do we start anything new? Is it curiosity? Or a new challenge? Maybe it is something so far out in left field we have no clue what we are doing or how to even get started. But we give it a try to see where it take us.

That’s what blogging is for me.  I started this year near the end of July and it has been an interesting journey for me and yes it is very time consuming. But just like any new flower or plant, you start with seeds or new growth, water and feed it and watch it grow. I was told to start a blog as a means to create a platform – still not sure what that means but here I am.

Many people have given me tips on how to get things done and this challenge is part of that training I hope to grow from. Shelley @ Quaint Revival has started this for those of us who are just starting out and also for those of you who have been doing it for a while and want to remember when. Yesterday’s challenge word was ‘start’ and the phrase was  ‘Why start a blog’. What I am learning is nobody is perfect at this except those who have been doing it for a while and are now teaching those of use just starting out. And even those people learn new stuff every day, if not on the technical side of blogging but from the many wonderful people you meet while doing this creating way of communication world wide.

And that comment leads us into the next challenge word ‘skip’ and phrase of ‘what does it feel like if you skip a day’. I have read comments from several bloggers on this subject with as many varied opinions as there are probably bloggers. I personally do not feel any guilt if I miss a day as I missed yesterday. But yesterday was the first day in 3 weeks since I was able to get out of the house after foot surgery. It was fun but exhausting. Its amazing how it takes the whole body time to recover when one part has been worked on. But good report from Dr. with continued healing.

Blogging has been most enjoyable for me and not something that I feel I need to do everyday, I usually do but its not job for me, or my only way to express myself or something that drives me. Blogging has to have personal tool requirements per each individual’s needs. If it gets to where you no longer enjoy how you are doing it, then maybe you need to revise how you think about it.

Blogging to me is a means of sharing the things that inspire me and if it inspires the reader as well then that is a double bonus. And like minded/inspired bloggers share their thoughts together creating friendships and some of those friendships can be across the world. So my advice to anyone who may read this is to enjoy your passions, share your passions and friendships will evolve like the new growth of a plant as it reaches ever upward.

Enjoy your weekend, will be praying for those on the east coast – could be rough this weekend.

I am very new to this fun project in my life – blogging. Still don’t know exactly what I am doing but sticking with it and picking up new stuff daily. What will be funny is a year from now I hope to say -“What was I so confused about?” but I could also be no smarter than I am now. But for me, I have a different concept than the adequate “techquies” that do this for money. I do it for the enjoyment of meeting new people, sharing ideas and beautiful pictures and of course the laughter that sometimes comes in particular posts when we can all share in the fun of it. And for me, as I sincerely care for people, it gives me the opportunity to encourage and pray for others.

My very first post did not have pictures as I had not clue but as of now I can add pictures. My first post deals with the Gift of the Senses that God gave us so that we could enjoy the things we see, the things we hear, the things we smell, the things we taste and my favorite the things we touch. Think of the wonderful gifts these are and how tragic it can be when we lose or have never known one of these amazing gifts.

Sense of Hearing –  The beauty of music and the warning of possible trouble(not really)

There is so much that can be conveyed through these senses, whether it be light or strong, it should be relished for the gift it is.

Come join us for a walk through our beginning journeys of blogging with Shelley @ Quaint Revival.

The Bribe!  Most people who have dogs don’t have issues with   their dogs eating. Mine however looks at the food in the bowl, then at me with an expression of “Really, is that all you can do?”

Maybe she really does not like her food but we have gone the full spectrum of type/price/wet/dry  and have settled on this. But I still get the look. She wont touch it unless something has been added – even if its broth off the cooked green beans. I tried waiting her out but her growling stomach was annoying and it increased her change of throwing up. We have come up with this system which seems to work  and since she always get a milk bone after eating, we went to the small bones and she gets one with her meal and one after.

So we crush one, sprinkle it on her food and then she eats. I have never had a dog that I have had to trick to eat. My daughters dog does a jig while his food is being prepared and when you have a basset hound doing a jig, that is something to see. Then in less that 3 minutes its gone. But I have seen other animals do the same I guess. I grew up around horses and some were gentle slow eaters  and some gulped it down.

PS – my floor is not always this messy but since I am recovering from surgery, the vacuum is staying in the closet.

  Come join us for fun with Linda G. Hill’s One Liner Wednesdays. Its fun seeing everyone’s posts.