I walked around the yard this morning, taking pictures of what is surviving in our awful heat here in Arkansas. We usually have weather like this in AUGUST – not from May through now – in un-ending record heat. Even with daily irrigation some of the plants are simply giving up. The trees are shedding their leaves in an effort to sustain life. As I look at these, I see all the weeds and pruning that are needed – when “I” can survive long enough to work longer outside….
Wave Petunias
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
Wisteria
“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” – Gerard De Nerval
Phlox
Phlox and Elephant Ear
“Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.” – Neil Young
Lily
“When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.” ~Chinese Proverb
Mandevilla
“Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.” ~The Koran
Hydrangea
Impatiens
“Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.” – Miguel Angel Ruiz
Salvia
“Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words. They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.” ~Lydia M. Child
Rio Samba Roses
“Flowers don’t worry about how they’re going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful.” ~Jim Carrey
Filed under Favorite Quotes, Gardening, Mother Nature
“Moose” – Lian Zhen -artcentralslo.wordpress.com
Filed under Creativity, Watercolors I Love
Rosie Made a Thing – via The Hippies were Right via Stephanie Youmans Wilson
“Dandelion Flower” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Purple Ornamental Flower” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Purple Through Fence – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Kathleen Helsel – quotesgram.com
Actual temperature here is 106. Heat index says 111. I say, “UGH.”
Filed under Mother Nature
Eleanor Roosevelt – SayingImages.com
Every Friday my husband and I meet our good friends to share a meal and catch up. I used to call it “Lunch Bunch,” but I’ve dubbed it “Brunch Bunch” now because we meet at about 10:45 a.m. – lunch to them and breakfast or brunch to us and it’s easier to stay good with our Nutrisystem plan by calling it a FLEX BREAKFAST.
We have met most every Friday for years. We share what’s happening to us, good and bad. At some point we’ll probably have to change the same of our meeting to “Geezers’ Group because we’re all getting long in the tooth. There’s a lot of fight in us yet, though, and I’ve come to treasure our special time on Fridays.
My husband and I feel so complete up on the top of our ridge line, with our lifestyle of projects – separate and together – it would be easy for the days to pass without our seeing many people. I’m especially glad to have met these two wonderful ladies and shared so much of our lives. Our group is sometimes larger, with other friends and family joining us when they can. Sometimes we meet with just one other, and it’s a special time then, too.
“Friendship isn’t a big thing – it’s a million little things.” – Unknown
Filed under Friendship, quality of life
Filed under Artistic Pots, Creativity
My husband and I are learning every day – and from surprising sources: our son and our pets.
Amber has taught us to remain flexible, stay as active as possible, and be aware of a 92-pound ‘puppy’s’ needs. We have learned to stay alert and vigilant in our efforts to stay on our feet around here, test our wills on who will do what, when – and continue working on adapting to each other. We’re really glad that we adopted Amber when we did. We were jolted out of our complacency, pulled out of our grief in having had to put our wonderful pit, Bambi, down. Amber opened our hearts to a new way of life and new challenges. We have to be careful when the love erupts, but Amber enriches our lives, making us laugh every day.
Molly has had longer to teach us. She brought laughter to the house, cheering up our too-serious pit bull, Bambi, and provided me with love I could actually embrace in my lap. As a senior citizen now (she is over 13 years old) she is teaching us to protect her from getting completely run over by Amber, but also to allow her to play “Fierce Doggie” with Amber, as well. We watch her for times when she needs to rest, and delight when she’s growling, barking, jumping around, and saying, “Watch out for ME, world!” She is teaching us to treasure each day ’cause none of us lasts forever.
This is our son, Brian. He lives across the world from us, but has arranged that we can type at each other several times each day on a secure chat program, and sometimes actually SEE each other (when we’re all awake at the same time) with a conference call program. He’s smarter than both my husband and me together. He used to be nervous about traveling, but now handles tickets, reservations, passports, visas, transportation, housing, etc. with ease. He is teaching us that we can learn to face new challenges with more confidence, that we can figure things out if we want to.
The biggest thing he’s teaching us is kindness. I don’t know where he got it, but it simply oozes from every pore. If the two of us are walking along and we see a man sitting on the side of it, obviously poor and hungry, I feel bad for him, but would probably pass him. Our son sees the man, walks into town, buys a sandwich, some fruit, and a bottled drink and walks back, giving it to the man. When I get frustrated and angry at someone, mentioning it to him, our son responds that it’s sad that THEY are hurting and that maybe I should consider reaching out to them to see if I can help. He contributes much of the money he makes to causes he has researched carefully. He heard about a girls school where he lives that was in danger of closing do to finances. They were having a fundraiser. He walked to town and gave them money. The paper reported an ‘anonymous American’ contributing more than half of what they had received during the fundraiser. He is meditating to ‘learn to control his thoughts and emotions better.’ I’m proud and grateful to know him.
Opening yourself to learning from whatever sources are around you contributes to your quality of life. Trying to become a better person each day, thinking of others rather than yourself, allows you to continue growing.
Filed under Good Thoughts, quality of life
Filed under Creativity, Watercolors I Love
Albert Einstein-sayingimages.com
Filed under Attitude, Challenges, Changes, Encouragement, Favorite Quotes
Wim Beunderman via LinkedIn
This was posted today on LinkedIn by Wim Beunderman. I rarely react so strongly as I did with this photo – my mouth actually watered! I’m not sure if this is Wim’s photo or someone else’s, but whoever took it gets my vote for extreme talent. YUM!
Filed under Awe-Inspiring Photography
Our actual temperature is forecast for 102 this afternoon. (Heat index will be “105-110+”. ) In the southwest, the denizens say things like, “But it’s a DRY heat” – as if you don’t fry in that. In Arkansas, right now it’s NOT a dry heat, and it’s pretty awful. Even with our irrigation system, flowers and the remaining tomato plants are just barely hanging on.
I cleaned out my square foot garden last week, and am now spraying weed killer on the floor of the garden under the chest-high raised wooden boxes of our garden, as well as around the perimeter of the garden, around the trash cans of the components of Mel’s Mix (the alternative to native soil), etc.
I’m getting good exercise from weed whacking and cleaning up our concrete areas with a leaf blower, toting a 2 gallon container of weed or bug spray, and trying to weed my flower planters without croaking in the heat.
I’ve given up trying to work outside ‘in the morning’ or ‘in the evening’ like sane people do. Something seems to always come up, making it impossible, so I divide my day into
I used to be like the picture above, loving to bake in the heat of the summer, preferably beside a swimming pool, but not a necessary thing. Now I barely step outside and I’m wet from head to toe and avoiding the heat as much as I’m able. I love working in my garden and with my flowers, but NOT when I’m frying like an egg.
“What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ” ~ Charles Dudley Warner
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, lost in translation
This picture makes me laugh. I love the creativity of the person who thinks like this AND the expertise of the person who did the photoshopping to create it.
I had a stagnant week, ‘getting-the-lard-off-wise.’
Progress to date is 16 pounds off and 17.3 inches off.
I’m frustrated that I can’t report any improvement this week, but I’m pleased that I ate three of the four FLEX meals we’re supposed to eat and didn’t gain anything. I enjoyed a FLEX SNACK of a scoop of chocolate ice cream from Braum’s after bowling with friends; a FLEX LUNCH of the salad bar with “Breakfast Bunch”; and a FLEX DINNER of chicken fried rice from our favorite Chinese place. (I got a ‘small’ portion, but I ate the WHOLE thing.)
I can report that I AM doing yoga every day, but the bulk of my ‘exercise’ has been sessions of working in the yard. With our heat index above 100 (our actual temperature will be 102 today!) just walking around in the heat is work for me, much less the weed whacking and spraying of stuff toting 2 gallons of liquid – several half hour sessions per day.
I have become a camel, glugging down water to a fabulous degree, over and above the 64 oz I’m SUPPOSED to be drinking.
So – I didn’t lose, but I didn’t gain – holding my own. I’ll ‘keep my head down’ and ‘keep on keepin’ on,’ and will hopefully be able to report some progress NEXT week.
Sarcasm Dujour – http://www.pinterest.com
Between my husband and me, our life is one LARGE surprise party.
Our latest ‘party’ is listing two things for sale on eBay. We’ve done this for years, but not often. We listed an iMac, and then two external drives, asking that payments be made via Paypal.
We sold both in the last several days, but then the party began. It turned out that we had neglected to check the email address listed for our account at Paypal (listed nowhere on the site except on listings you’ve posted.) We still had our OLD Paypal email from when I had my Creative Artworks website on our LAST listing, so it went on the NEW listings automatically. Since we’re old and doofus, we didn’t think to check. The buyers paid, but the payments went to lala land, since neither that email nor the Paypal account associated with it, exist now. We tried everything to fix it, finding out that the ONLY place you can change it is in a new listing. We listed a DVD, changing the information to the current email and Paypal account associated with it, but that doesn’t help us with the old listings. ARRRGH!
When we explained our goof to the \buyer of the external drives, sending him an invoice via Paypal, he said he had found the drives elsewhere, so we canceled the sale. After communication with the buyer for the iMac, he said if we would list it again with the “buy now” price he had bought it for during the auction, he would buy it right away. We’re in the process of doing that now, hopefully not losing this sale, too.
What should have been simple listings and sales got hopelessly complicated because we FORGOT that the old information was on the Paypal account (only on eBay) and that we didn’t understand where we should have looked to make sure our information was correct before listing. Since we don’t sell things that often on eBay, we’ll probably forget what we have now learned the hard way. We’ll make notes about this, but then the notes will mysteriously disappear….
As Bette Davis said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”
“Beautiful for a Lady” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Romantic Delicate Rose” – Paul Militaru Photography
“Romantic Rose” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
“Lunar Eclipse” –
anubistj.deviantart.com
Filed under Artistic Pots, Creativity
Karen Margulis – kemstudios.blogspot.com
Filed under Creativity, Pastels
Filed under Funny Signs - Humor, lost in translation
Positive Energy via Michael Remillard
I’ve tried all my life to remain calm in an emergency and haven’t managed it yet. This beautiful quote and illustration suggests it’s a skill you can practice. Does that mean you have to find emergencies over and over and then try to solve them, trying to remain calm in the process?
When my husband and I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma a million or so years ago, we bought our first house. It was a lovely two-story wood home with a very small lot in a nice area of town where most of the homes were at least 50 years old. There was a small, rectangular ‘swimming pool’ taking up most of the back yard that didn’t hold water. :0) It also had a garage apartment that we fixed up and rented out.
After several years, I came home from a day of teaching school to find the garage apartment in flames! My reaction was to freak out. I did make sure that our renters weren’t inside. Then I called my mom, only figuring out several minutes later I should probably call the fire department…
I’ve spent a lot of time in my life trying to do everything I could to AVOID emergencies. I guess that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t give you much help when you encounter the next one. I run around like a chicken with its head cut off, squawking and crying and panicking, rather than keeping a cool head and doing what’s necessary.
I admire people who know just what to do if someone gets hurt. My mind goes blank, forgetting everything I ever knew, other than maybe calling 911 – something my husband would rather DIE than do. HE wants me to get him into the car and go to the ER – the way he has done over the years (rarely, thank goodness) with ME.
Maybe I’m not alone in needing some practice.
Filed under Attitude, empowerment, Encouragement
creativeartworksblog 