Gazing at the sky, stump chair and a grand thing

As usual, I was racing to my car, so I could get in the line up on the expressway for the journey to work. But this sky was so glorious, I had to stop and gaze and moment and capture it with my phone. And then it was off to the races.

Someone cut this tree stump into the shape of a chair. How about that? It was another glorious sky last Saturday morning and I noticed the stump chair when my friends and I were saying goodbye after a walk in the park.

My favorite cookies from Ryal's Bakery in my hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia. A hometown friend, Chuck, posted this pic on Facebook and it made me smile. :)  He also posted a quote from author Agatha Christie this morning that resonated with me:

"I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."

Productive life, sassy, sophisticated and lesson learned

Mockingbird. Illustration by Talitha Shipman

- From Georgia State University Alumna Anne Marie Evans, who turned 101 years old this month*,

How To Live To Be 100

• Be Tenacious. In the face of life’s obstacles, be innovative and creative. If you’re afraid or worried, don’t show it.
• Befriend Positive People.
• Value Education. Always get a good education because that’s the one thing they can’t take away from you.
• To Thine Own Self Be True. Analyze how you act and react. Know your skills and capabilities. Then set realistic goals and produce something in justify your existence. Have confidence in yourself and say your prayers because they will bear fruit. Get plenty of sleep and don’t worry about the things that might not happen.

* Originally posted in November 2008 (wow - doesn't that seem like a long time ago???)  This appeared in the GSU magazine I receive (since I am also alumna) and I cut this out and posted it in my cubicle back then.  Good words to live by that work for me.

- My book club read the book, "The Mockingbird Next Door" by Marja Mills and will meet about it Sunday night.  An easy read - it's about the months that the journalist / author lived next door to the fiercely private Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird", and her sister Alice, in Monroeville, Alabama.  I think the author, Nelle Harper and Alice all qualify as "sassy, sophisticated Southern Ladies".  If nothing else - the book tells you what day to day life was like for Harper Lee. 

- The November quote on the calendar in my office: "The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." David Russell, Classical Guitarist*

Feeling reflective today - I ran across this post while scrolling through old posts.  Happy May 1st everyone and Happy Friday!

Serendipitous, good things and more good things

- A favorite photo - taken a few years ago, in November, from the side of a road that borders Chastain Park in Atlanta.  For the life of me, I can't remember where I turned that day so that I found this spot.  I was on a work errand and was turning around here.  Truly serendipitous, I guess!  I would like to be sitting here with you - having a chat about that view, watching the geese fly south, as I'm seeing so often the last several days.  I was thinking the other day about the friends who visit my blog and how grateful I am for your visits and friendship.

- "Good things happen when you meet strangers." - Yo Yo Ma

- "Be true to the game, because the game will be true to you.  If you try to shortcut the game, then the game will shortcut you.  If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you.  That's truly about the game, and in some ways that's about life, too." - Michael Jordan

Yo Yo Ma (one of my favorite musicians) and Michael Jordan - they have something in common, those two, with the good things quotes.  I hope you are having a good week and that you have a great weekend!

Good for your health, old neighborhood and making it happen

- There is a man who lives in my hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, who was a classmate of my younger sister.  He is a local radio personality and the self-proclaimed "mayor" of the neighborhood my parents moved to when they were a very young married couple.  It's an old neighborhood.  I like driving through it when I visit (which has been way too long now.)

- This is the house I refer to above.  It's an insurance company now - and so small that it's hard to believe four people lived there (so long ago.)  My three-year-old memory has the yard to the right (fenced back then) as being much bigger.  We only lived there two years - my younger sister was on the way and we needed a much larger home.  But I like thinking of the cheerful man living somewhere within that neighborhood and love hearing about it on facebook.

- Every morning, he posts what he refers to as "Coffee Pot Parade" and this morning he ended it with this:

"It Is Said That When You Lose Hope That You Have Lost Everything! The Best Way To Deal With The Bad Things Is To Get Up And Do Something! Don't Wait For Good Things To Happen. Get Out There And Make Good Things Happen! There Is Still Much That Is Good In The World. Your Actions Can Help Fill The World With Hope. Remaining Positive And Continuing To Move Forward Is How We Combat The Bad Things! Get Out There And Live Each Second Without Hesitation! And Never Lose Hope That Good Things Are On The Way!" 

Couldn't have said it better myself.  :)  And he inspired someone else to post that quote by Voltaire at the top (which I have borrowed).  Love that he inspired this trip down memory lane, too.  Have a great weekend, my friends!

Hopeful, one pound lighter and the moon

- One could hope.

- A woman accosted me at the entrance to the church, asking for money to get home on the bus, so I gave her all my change.  My friends inside said she's been hanging out regularly asking for money and that is what she always says.  I felt a flash of idiocy and then decided it was OK - I helped someone who is about my age who is not as fortunate as me and just hope she used it to get a hot meal somewhere.  And my purse felt about a pound lighter.

- The moon looks beautiful as I leave the meeting.  Waxing Gibbous, the internet tells me.  I love its bright glow that shines over me as I head for home.

Happy 2014!

As usual in the New Year - I don't resolve to do anything different, but I do want to make sure that everything I do has good purpose and is beneficial to myself and others.  The quote above was spotted in a magazine while I was visiting my family over the holidays.  I'm still mulling this one - it's powerful, I think.  And the following are quotes I've posted before - I still love them.  :)  Happy New Year, my friends!

- I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. ~Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary

- Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. ~Oscar Wilde

- Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. ~Brooks Atkinson

Rainy Sunday afternoon, the faithful and commencing

- The view from the couch.  You probably can't tell, but it was pouring rain (again), which made for a good movie watching, book reading, kind of Sunday afternoon.  Always a good thing.

- Going to book group meeting in the evening and finding there were only five of us there to talk about "A Lesson Before Dying," but the hostess looked around at us and said, "All my favorite people are here."

- An absent member's son graduated from college and reported the commencement speaker's words on social media, "Come to the edge, He said.  They said, We are afraid.  Come to the edge, He said.  They came.  He pushed them...and they flew." - Guillaume Apollinaire --

It rained all day, applicable quote and chocolate fortune

- It rained and rained all day on Sunday, and I liked it.  None of my rain photos turned out well, but you can see the rain droplets on the potted Hosta.  A steady rain, that brought fresh air through the windows and inspired a really great nap.

- A discussion with my Saturday morning walking friend about Barbara Kingsolver and her books.  She:  "Wouldn't you love to have her as a friend?"  Absolutely.  "The Poisonwood Bible", about a missionary family living in the Belgian Congo in 1959, accompanies me on my commute right now in CD form.  The quotes from it are wonderful and I looked up this one, "Everything you're sure is right can be wrong in another place.  Especially here."  That could apply to a lot of things, I think.  :)

- From the inside wrapper of a tasty Dove dark chocolate square:  "The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate."  Better than a fortune cookie.  :)

There it is, memory lane and contributing joy to the world

- There it is - my potted Hosta emerges after a long winter nap.  Someone asked me once why I have a "weeping" angel on my porch.  It is actually a "shy" angel, according to the tag that was on its bottom when I found it in a dusty antiques warehouse sale.  I've always loved it.

- The angel is perched on two bricks found in my late grandmother's back yard, the last time I saw it.  The house was sold and empty, floors gleaming from the sunlight pouring through the bare windows.  There were so many memories in the back yard, a rope swing hanging from the huge pecan tree, the little dog Penny, always so excited to see us.  The yard was long and extended with a little pear tree orchard in the back.  There was the "Judy tree" - planted for the first grandchild who arrived.    (She is a grandmother herself now.)  That day, I spotted two bricks sitting by the back porch steps.  "Could I have those?" I asked my mother.  She shook her head, chuckling over her always fanciful daughter, "Yes - take them."  And there they are.

- Roger Ebert passed away on Thursday.  Thanks to the "quotes" label from past posts, I found a quote I posted in January 2011:

>>From an article about my favorite movie reviewer, Roger Ebert, who can no longer speak or eat as a result of cancer surgery to remove his thyroid, comes this quote from him that sums it all up for me,

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.  To make others less happy is a crime.  To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.  We must try to contribute joy to the world.  That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances.  We must try.  I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."  
Jones, Chris, "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man." Esquire.com, 16 February 2010,
http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310>>

An hour ago, I had no idea what I was going to post today (it's been that kind of week.)  It's raining right now, but it's Friday!  Yay for Friday.  :)  I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful day and weekend.  

Coming alive, drive by and purpose in life

Click to enlarge

- It was friend Laura's idea for our book group to read "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver, since it features Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in the mid portion of it.  The artists come alive in the book (which I loved.)  And there she is, gracing the side of our High Museum of Atlanta.  Click here for a review of the exhibition, which features both of their works.  So vibrant!  I'll be visiting that exhibit in the next couple of weeks with said book group.

- Driving by a museum surrounded by school buses on a Wednesday morning, and bursting with children.  (The photo above was taken out of the car window, while stopped in traffic.)

- "The only thing I know...is that I paint because I need to."  - Frida Kahlo.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, my friends.  It's supposed to rain here (with possible snow flurries this morning.)  OK with me - more time to read.  

Good friends, good books and the weekend!

- One last photo of Seaside, Florida, during the walk / run to benefit the Seaside School two weekends ago (sigh) with good friends.  So beautiful with its seagrass, dunes across the way and that stand of trees.

- But back at home, finding nothing whatsoever at all to do after a busy, busy day at work, leads to a contented settling in to read, which leads to a nap instead.

- "Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."  - Mark Twain.

I'm still pondering that quote.  Love the good friends and good books part, but the sleepy conscience bit has me scratching my head.  :)  Here's what my conscience is happy about - the weekend!  I've worked hard and can't wait to get started.  I hope yours is wonderful, my friends.

The Grinch, little hecklers and whitewashing

- A delightful evening with the Fun Girls seeing "How The Grinch Stole Christmas!" - the national touring company's "show on the road" at The Fabulous Fox Theater.  A favorite moment:  when the audience was invited to sing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" with the lyrics displayed on colorful pull down banners and flipped over pillows.  :)

- The actor Stefan Karl as The Grinch was as Grinchily Grinch-like as one could want.  Another favorite moment:  he just couldn't seem to spit out the word Christmas when he was trying to say Merry Christmas to The Whos and the children in the audience started calling out "Christmas!"  He heckled them back with glaring mock sternness saying, "Where are your parents!!!"

- It's the 176th birthday of another famous American curmudgeon, Mark Twain.  Check out the Google home page today for Tom Sawyer supervising the painting over of the Google logo.  :)   Mark Twain on finding just the right word, "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

The fabric, lucky day and that's what it's all about

- Passing miles and miles of cotton growing in south Georgia last weekend, many times seeing it growing up to a farmhouse's front door. I never get tired of gazing at it - it's a big deal down there.

- A client I visit at her home has made too much soup and sends me off with a ziplock bag of it. It's a thick tomato soup with pasta in it and just the ticket for lunch back at the office for a gal with a cold.

- A quote that I like: The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects the wind; the realist adjusts the sails.

In front of the scarves, khaki clad and quotes

- It's Random Photo Thursday and this one is of a happy profusion of flowering plants in front of a shop selling colorful scarves in Thomasville, Georgia. I always think I'd like to attempt one of those multiple planting pots - maybe next year.

- A very tall, slender woman walking down 14th Street in midtown Atlanta, wearing a long flowing khaki skirt and an enormous wide brimmed khaki hat, looking like a cross between Isak Dinesen and Scarlett (you know who I mean.)

- Wonderful Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) quotes:

“To be lonely is a state of mind, something completely other than physical solitude; when modern authors rant about the soul’s intolerable loneliness, it is only proof of their own intolerable emptiness.” – Out of Africa, 1937

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." – Out of Africa, 1937

"When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them." – Out of Africa, 1937

"Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!" – "Babette's Feast", 1953

Nice digs, today you are you and the thinks

- A bird condo with flexible rental space available. :)

- "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you." Happy belated birthday, Dr. Seuss! (It was yesterday.)

- Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try. More from Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel). OK - I'll stop now. Long ago, the family read to me so much that I knew how to read when I entered first grade, so they put me on Dr. Seuss books and allowed me to read on my own. I've always loved his books.

Resting, cup running over and joy to the world

- These dogs, hanging out in the sunshine, while their owner shopped on Saturday.

- A neighbor takes the opportunity to tell me all that is going wrong in her life as she is getting into her car. But before she backs out, she rolls her window down and calls out, "It's all good though, my cup runneth over!"

- From an article about my favorite movie reviewer, Roger Ebert, who can no longer speak or eat as a result of cancer surgery to remove his thyroid, comes this quote from him that sums it all up for me, "I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."
Jones, Chris, "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man." Esquire.com, 16 February 2010, http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

Tradition, promise of glory and which bridge

Photo from the Forsyth Daily News

- This is my hairdresser Tim (on the right), who regularly attends Native American pow wows in the area and participates in dance competitions. I get a haircut last night and hear about his latest adventures while sipping a glass of red wine. He will be hosting a Sweat Lodge and dinner for friends in a few weeks, saying he likes upholding the tradition of the original Thanksgiving celebration.

- Waking for the second morning in a row to a gentle rain falling. It makes traffic bad, but is so worth it since the promise for the weekend weather is glorious.

- The November quote on the calendar in my home office: "The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." David Russell, Classical Guitarist

Happy 2010!

Happy New Year, friends! Here are some favorite quotes about making resolutions, something I stopped doing because I NEVER keep them, despite good intentions. Well - I do resolve to eat more chocolate in 2010 and the holiday candy was on sale today. I started with this chocolate "orange" that had the fun instruction of "whack and upwrap" and it fell apart in "slices." How cool is that?!?

- I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second. ~Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary

- Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. ~Oscar Wilde

- Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. ~Brooks Atkinson

I hope you have a great holiday today, and a weekend filled with all good things!

Follow the grain, contents and rear view

- This quote by Dr. Howard Thurman that I think means to be your own person, not what others expect you to be. The best thing: learning about someone I didn't know about before via Wikipedia.

- Friend Mary's 2 3/4 year-old Bella sporting a little silver purse with purple flowers. And showing me the contents: Cheerios.

- Wispy blue clouds against the sunrise pink sky, looking like marble in the rear view mirror. A beautiful start to an unseasonably cool morning.

Sunlight, contrasting and miracle

- Lovely dappled sunlight on a wonderfully strange not-too-hot day...

- Contrasting with this freak (but fun) snowstorm we had in Atlanta on March 1.














"Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle ... a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream."-- Barbara Winkler