9th Annual Halloweensie Writing Contest!!!

Witchy Sister

 “Sister, I will teach you not to steal from me!” Shard said.

“You stole Grand Zelda’s book first.”  Thorn replied.

“Give me the book.”

“No,” Thorn growled and raised her wand.

 “What trick is this?” Shard demanded.  “Go back to your love potion and leave real magic to me.”

Thorn chanted.

“Softest snare bound him tight.  For one day and night. Out of sight and silent too.  Show my brother I’m not a fool.”

Shard felt an invisible cobweb snake around his body. 

Thorn put the book under her arm and said, “Bye brother. Don’t let the spiders bite.”

Spiritual Journey Thursday on a Sunday

I've been thinking about our theme this month, The Path and our host Donna Smith at Mainely Write thoughts along with the other members of this group....

I would have to say my path has not been straight or easy.  Let me tell you a story about a girl born in the south in the fifties, when girls were not important except to clean house, have babies and keep their mouths shut.  Except this girl had a Yankee mother... that's right folks... I had a mother that would throw coffee cups at my daddy's hard head and spoke her mind.

You're special Patty Jean.... don't let people put you in a box... spread your wings, she would say.


You can do anything... you're smart, and beautiful... you don't need a husband to be happy, she would say.

If you want it... go for it, she would say.

So I did.

I was a rebel with the family... not bowing down to my daddy's seven sisters that wanted to make me into the perfect southern lady and when I wouldn't bend to their wishes I was bad or wild because I dated different boys every week (a little hint here... boys love girls that don't fall for them... I had ten marriage proposals before I was 16)

I had a wonderful childhood.... playing ball like a boy, riding my horse, chasing piglets and loving my dogs.  One of my annoying actions was singing while I was swinging high... reaching for the sky ... sing at the top of my lungs and not caring that the country neighbors didn't love my off key performance.

My senior year everything was set... college, vet school or horse trainer or something exciting.  But then I met this blue eyed devil and bam  I was a girl... I've loved him for 49 years and this was where my easy path got bumpy and narrow.  My parents hated him of course.  He was going to hold me back... he wasn't good enough for their unstoppable daughter.  Well I married him three weeks after graduation and had his baby seven months after that. 

Let me tell you something... life was great in that small two room house my granddaddy let us live in.  This wild crazy always going girl had a husband and baby and I loved it.  Oh, times were hard where bills were concern.  I always had anything and everything I wanted or needed but now well money was tight.

Four years later, I had my son and then the kids were in school and we was building a house and I had a job and he had a job that involved school and we were busy busy busy for the next 18 years. 

Then the kids finished school and it was just me and him again.  Just when we was enjoying life as a couple again... My husband had a life changing accident.  He was unable to work, or ride horses or dance.  Money was tight again but we got closer.  We played cards, watched football, talked on the front porch. 

So, my path has leveled out and the going is easy.  I discovered while I traveled this path that God's everyday blessings are all you need to be happy.  To be loved by family and friends are treasures.  And the other stuff... the what ifs are just rocks to trip you on your
path to a good life. 

Spiritual Journey First Thursday

In the spirit of me returning to writing... like sitting at my computer and writing... This blog is dedicated to things that we wait on to return.  Like a bad penny I have returned... does anyone know what that means... what makes a bad penny??  going to look that up

Some of my favorite returning things...

rain in the spring when everything is blooming and fields have been plowed

Hummingbirds... wouldn't it be cool to sit in your sun room and watch them in the winter too

Roses... I love roses... all of them

I can hardly wait each year for my first fresh tomato sandwich... white bread with mayo and one thick red tomato slice and a little salt... Food for the Gods

Watermelons... people I can eat me some watermelon

For the little Wrens that nest in all my hose hangers and bushes to build nest and hatch out their babies... the male Wrens will sit on the railing of my deck and sing every morning while the nest has eggs or babies

For the honeysuckle and blackberries to bloom... one fills the woods with heavenly smell and the other paints the woods with snowflakes of white against the deep green of new leaves

I wait very impatiently for the first new chicks to be hatched.  

I love looking in every pasture as I drive to work for new calves or colts

I love the smell of the first fireplace fires in the fall and showers of leaves dancing around me and my dogs when we walk to the barn

I LOVE the return of college football and how my husband and I talk about each game and watch polling release .... I also love to good-naturally pick at my friends that are not Bama fans... I know can you believe there is such a thing.

I love Black Friday... oh not the shopping but the fun me and the kiddos have enjoying it all

I love Christmas not the gift giving but the memories present and past   My grandbabies always spend the night at my house on Christmas Eve eve and we watch Christmas movies and look at past Christmas pictures and just cuddle and enjoy each others company... no pressure of any kind and then on Christmas Eve morning we all eat breakfast together... that I cook ... and then we open presents... But there is a catch at my house... you have to do three things before you can get your present (like walk backwards around kitchen table three times singing Frosty the snowman) No present is free you have to work for it.  and there are no names on any present under the tree.. only I know which goes to who.

Then Winter.... a new year, a clean slate, crisp and new.  The recharging months and waiting for all the above to return.

What's the meaning of the phrase 'A bad penny always turns up'?

A disreputable or prodigal person will always return. More generally, this proverb refers to the recurrence of any unwanted event.

What's the origin of the phrase 'A bad penny always turns up'?

This proverb has lived long in the language. It derives from the notion that some coins were 'bad', that is, they were debased or counterfeit.

What made whoever coined this proverb link bad pennies with the notion of something unwelcome returning isn't now clear. Perhaps it was the sense that, if you clip or pass on a bad penny, it won't be long before it comes back to you in your change. Our present day expression of that would be 'what goes around comes around'.

Don't Pay the Ransom I escaped

I've been reglecting my blog this summer... along with my writing, quilting, reading 
I've been a bum but I will do better
I guess I've been living the oldie but goldie Summer Time

Summertime and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high

Only now in the south, you hardly see high cotton... and there is more corn in the fields now.  Have y'all noticed how there is less and less fields and pastures and more apartments and storeage building.  What are we all going to eat in twenty years.  Like I will care... I'll be eating soft food in a nursing home I guess.  Sigh... next week I will have a birthday... 67 years old

When I first started looking old... I just didn't look in mirrors.  Now I'm feeling old.







Well, I'm going to keep going untill the Lordcalls me home... I hope he makes my heaven body suitable for boots and jeans... I want to race a good horse across those clouds.  

Spiritual Journey First Thursday - March 1

This month Karen Eastlund will be blogging about "Facing the Music.
 Here are my thoughts on music.  As a tone deaf, country listen, musical loving old lady, my thoughts lean toward unconventional music.  Like a child's laughter... a summer night with crickets, bullfrogs and katydids singing...the soft whisper of "I love" from my husband of 49 years.

Music is partly hearing but it's also feeling.  Irene can confirm that music makes me dance but it doesn't touch my soul like it does for so many other people.  I can take it or leave it.  But nature's music fills me with peace and happiness.  It makes me realize I'm just a tiny particle in the universe.  Human music makes me feel love and my soul craves this music.  I'm a simple person with simple needs... I don't look to material things to be happy... no I just need my family, friends and my animals to be completely happy. 

May you enjoy my kind of music all your life. 

Spiritual Journey First Thursday 2018

Today Donna has asked that we post something about the moon and how it makes us feel.  Click on her name and check out her blog.

The Moon... ahhh so many different emotions.  My granny would tell me that a crest moon was really God"s thumb nail.  I believed her and would always tell my family that God was cutting his nails each time I saw one.

I also remember Mother pointing to the moon and I would recite the verse she taught me... I think it was in the womb...

I see the moon and the moon sees me
God bless the moon and God bless me

So sometimes when I see the moon, I think about love ones that are in heaven.

Then I remember the day man walked on the moon.  I was in 5th grade and I didn't really care that a man was walking on the moon.  I wanted to go outside to play but Nooooo we had to stay glued to a black and white TV and watch history .  Boring.... for a 11 year old














Then came my teen years..... ohlala... moonlight took an entirely different meaning.  But to this day, when I see a full moon reflecting off water... I have to kiss my husband.... I remember how much we love each other back then ... like a raging river rush toward a uncertain ending... that river doesn't rage any more but current is still just as strong.

This finally picture shows what the moon meant most of the time to me and my cousins.  Being scared and scaring others.  When I see clouds over the moon I think of haunted houses and barns... dares that would make you knees knock and your teeth rattle.  And campfire ghost stories stays in your dreams until you die. 

Some say that the moon has powers, I know it has a hand with the tide and Indians have always though the blessing of the moon would make the tribe stronger.  But for me, I see it as a reminder that we are not alone, even in the darkest hour of night.  It reminds us to look to heaven for guidance. 

Oh yes, I nearly forgot the best thing about a full moon.  Going on a trail ride guided only by moonlight and a good horse.  Try it!  I swear you will love it.

Oasis in Winter

The Sun is shining and all is right with the world.  I've got quilts airing on the line. The chickens are happy pecking and scratching in the pasture and woods.  My dogs have been playing all morning.  And I feel like doing some chores that have been waiting for a while to get done.  

I just finished a Knowledge Power artricle about the Winter Olypmics for the Kidsville News paper and I discovered things I never knew while researching.  Raised in the south, I never really followed the Winter Olympics because skiing. skating and bobsledding is something I've never done or had the opportunity to do.  Well, once I sledded down the hill in front of my house on a Formica table top .... which flies but has no steering... that did not end well for me and ended my days of winter sports.  Getting back to the article, I was amazed now little I knew about the Winter Olympics.  Oh, I knew about the speed skating and figure skating and skiing events.  I knew about ice hockey, of course and luge and bobsledding.

I was amazed and intrigued to learn about these other sports.  I can't wait to watch these events next month.







 BIATHLON COMBINES THE POWER AND AGGRESSION OF CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING WITH THE PRECISION AND CALM OF MARKSMANSHIP.

Nordic Combined...THIS SPORT, WHICH HAS A LONG OLYMPIC HISTORY, COMBINES SKI JUMPING AND CROSS COUNTRY Skiing

sKELETON RACING INVOLVES PLUMMETING HEAD-FIRST DOWN A STEEP AND TREACHEROUS ICE TRACK ON A TINY SLED. IT IS CONSIDERED THE WORLD'S FIRST SLIDING SPORT.

CURLING IS A TEAM SPORT PLAYED BY TWO TEAMS OF FOUR PLAYERS ON A RECTANGULAR SHEET OF ICE. ITS NICKNAME, “THE ROARING GAME”, ORIGINATES FROM THE RUMBLING SOUND THE 44-POUND (19.96KG) GRANITE STONES MAKE WHEN THEY TRAVEL ACROSS THE ICE.

Keeping on Track

So, I've decided that my lack of writing has been my lack of learning.  When I first started writing seriously, I read, studied and wrote every day.  I still read but not stuff that would help me grow as a writer.  So here are my helper this month and maybe for a few months:

1. The Everyday Writer by Andrea A. Lunsford
2.The Open Handbook by Ann Raimes with Maria Jerskey
3. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books by Harold D. Underdown
4. Painless Writing by Jeffrey Strausser

 I'm reading two books to imspire me, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss







Learning new words too.

alacrity - briskness, lively action

feint - a false attack

pugnacious - quarrelsome

promulgate - to make known officially

disdain - contempt


The horse alacrity movements let me know I would be sore after the trail ride.

My grandmother's pugnacious behavior makes holiday's hard for my mother.

The officer would not promulgate the charges against my son.

Can y'all make sentences using the above words?  It's fun.


Here is a tidbit I read today.  It speaks to me because I'm guilty of this.

Give yourself large blocks of time for a long work, allowing yourself to become immersed.  Reading quickly in short sessions will lead to sketchy or superficial understand of the work.  As Woody Allen puts it, "I took a course in speed reading and I've just finished War and Peace.  It pertains to Russia."

Spiritual Journey First Thursday 2018

Yes I know it's Friday... Yes I'm bad because I could have posted yesterday but I went to see a sick friend and it was soooo cold just for that short trip, I wrapped up on the couch with a book, then the sandman visited me and when I woke up it was supper time, feeding time etc
Forgive me Margaret.

Be sure to check out Margaret blog as she gets us started on the new year.

We're talking about our word for the year.  I did not do justice to my word last year so I'm using it again this year.

My word is "Junket"

1. 1.

   a dish of sweetened and flavored curds of milk, often served with fruit.
2. 2.

   an extravagant trip or celebration

   

   synonyms:

   excursion, outing, spree, trip, jaunt;

Life is a junket if you're willing to take the trip.... there is always a dish of goodness if you look for it.

Extravagant trip can be anything that involves adventure and we celebrate the fun, knowledge and growth the journey presents.

I'm going on a trip of personal growth this year and I'm starting great by being a day late but me time is part of that growth. Not an excuse ... well maybe a little one.

I will be on a trip training my new puppy, Lottie Mae, and I need to thank my family and one special friend... Irene for giving her to me for Christmas.  She has been a great joy, such a character 

She's the little one looking at the camera and doesn't have the look of discuss on her face,the other two rather not get their picture made

This is at my shop and they are not happy being in big dog pen.  I'm a dog groomer for those of you that might know and the girls go to work with me every day.  Most of the time they get the run of the shop but when we're busy they have to get out of our way.  

Spiritual Journey for December

We're talking about one little word.  Check out our host for December Irene about her one little word.

My Word for 2017 was Junket

I'm going on a journey of promises...  

 I promise to write every day                nope broke my promise  

I promise to blog every week               nope broke my promise                             

I promise to submit every month        nope broke my promise

   Junket definition: a journey taken for pleasure  

But I have taken a journey this year... my husband was told he was a diabetic this year... he had a stint in his heart the end of 2016 and the roller coaster ride of doctors and medicine has put this super charged A personality in overdrive..... when you ask why you need a certain medicine or procedure DO NOT talk mumble jumble and then get mad when I stop you and request southern English please

Great report this month... off all medicines and A1C is 6  

So if y'all think it would be okay, I think I'm going to give junket another shot.  Don't you just love the word.  

"Oh, I can't made your party.  I have a junket planned with my friends."  OH wait I do... girls day planned for next Monday.... tons of catching up, good food and antiquing.  Best Day Ever.

I want to wish each of you a glorious December, filled with special people, favorite foods, giving hearts and replenished souls. I hope you take the time to embark on a junket that will fulfill your adventurous spirit.  

And finally I would like to share a poem I wrote years ago ... just know I'm not a poet

Renewal

Kindness in a hardened heart

All year it plays the part

Stingy, selfish, mean

Good traits can’t be seen

What is this special potion?

Is it real or just a notion

Caroling, laughter, a feeling of peace

Eggnog, evergreen, a child’s happy face

Family, friends with love abound

Peace goodwill all around

Is this God’s way to heal the heart?

A chance each year for a new start

Deep in human souls

Looms the heavenly father’s goals

Faith, love, charity are the answer

Guided by a babe in a manger

I just have to do it... ROLL TIDE ROLL

Spiritual Journey for November

So today isn't Thursday... I'm always a dollar short and a day late... forgive me

Gratitude is the topic today and be sure to check out Irene blog on this subject. 

I looked up the definition and was intrigued to fine this... I was grateful for the surprise..

Gratitude defined for English-language learners

a feeling of appreciation or thanks

• Let me express my sincere gratitude for all your help.
• We remember with gratitude those who died defending our country.
• We owe them a debt of gratitude [=we should be grateful to them] for all the help they've given us.

My list of gratitude

1. My mean aunts that thought I didn't matter because I wasn't a boy and couldn't carry on the family name.... you made me strong and independent, happy to be in my own skin

2. My mother who was from Rhode Island, she made me a little bit northern where you mind your own business and shoo
t straight when you do have something to say.

3. My Dad who taught me to be tough... no coddling and to always play to win or don't play

4. My kids who forced me into being able to multitask 

5. My grandkids who taught me how good it felt to love without the pressure of parenting

6. My husband who taught me the unlimited boundary of love and the depths of "I'm going to kill him"

7. And finally to my friends that forgive my many faults, push me to be more, laugh at my jokes and cry with me even if they don't understand why I'm sad.

This week I'm so thankful to my family and one dear friend that made my Christmas wish come true.  Meet my new pup Lottie Mae.  

Courage lesson from a good friend

I have a dear friend that lives in Florida and works at a hospital ... no chance for her to evacuate.  She has a son that lives in Ocala... her baby.  I've talked to her several times in the last week, giving long distance support, and wishing I could do more.  Yes, she was stressed and yes she was worried but her last text to me said... it's headed toward y'all be careful.  This meaning the hurricane is going to travel up into North Alabama and she was worried about tornadoes.  How much courage it takes to stand and face the storm when your knees are knocking.  To be worried about everyone else and put your fears aside.  True courage is in what you do not what you say.  So glad to call her friend.

A few quotes

 A great deal of talent is lost in this world for the want of a little courage   

Author Unknown

 The hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer   

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The battle is not to the strong alone: it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave 

 Patrick Henry

Spiritual Journey Thursday for September

The word for this month comes from Ramona, go check out her blog.
So the word is Nourish....


You nourish your mind with books and adventures

You nourish you heart with love... not just for your family but for all living creatures

You nourish body with exercise, good food and meditation

You nourish you soul with prayer and faith

A woman is the perfect example of nourish.  Think about all the ways a woman nourishes her child, husband, family, friends, church, and community.  I'm not going to list all the examples because this is a blog not a book.

Don't forget to nourish yourself and that doesn't mean taking care of yourself...
Nourish with imagination, knowing your own self worth, and to use a cliche, dance like not one is watching.  Embrace LIFE
















I found this poem and to me (since I'm getting older) represents life being nourished


Here, Again: The Autumn Equinox

I’m here, again…

Come riding in, upon the western wave
My hair all wove with golden leaves, my breast

As pale as moonlight on a hidden grave
And all the sins of summer long confessed

I come, again…
In sweeping skirts, with white swan feathers strewn
To brush the summer dust from weary grass
Make ash of aspen, damp the flame of noon
Before the frost freeze water into glass 
 
I bring, to you…
Windfallen apples, berries from the hedge
Long shadows on the barrows, and the chalk
Wild winds to stir the willows and the sedge
And mist, and myth, down every path you walk

I’m here, again…
The promise of the harvest to fulfil
The energy of autumn, streaming through
The swirling springs that spiral round the hill
To drench the land in red and russet hue

I come, again…
Between the longest day and shortest night
To fill the blood and marrow of your bones
With all the orange glory of the light
Before the dark descend upon the stones

I bring, to you…
A cornucopia of ripened fruit
Dark juices of the vine in bottles bright
To nourish soul and body, to transmute
Your thought to dream, your dream to second sight

For I am She…
Am Autumn writ, in every field and tree
Am mistress of the Owl and running Hare
So yield unto my kiss, and blesséd be
And dance with me, oh Druid, if you dare…

@ Gail Foster 23rd September 2016