After Christmas

I stand corrected - by Stiletto ElsieXie 

Stiletto ElsieXie has left a new comment on your post "After Christmas": 

Enjoy looking at your lovely photos. Btw the vine with the purple flowers is not Clematis but thunbergia grandiflora. 

Ours was very quiet Christmas this year, the last few years actually.  Our children and grand children are all somewhere else.  

Today I am cooking dried beans, large limas, and brown rice.  and garlic bread.  Mmmmmm. 

I’ve been reading J. A. Jance, William Lashner, mysteries.....I love a good mystery.  Life’s a mystery, right?!

The new year is standing behind the curtain almost here.  Something to think about.  I need a plan, a nip and tuck, here and there,  for sure.

Learning is fun for me, “seeing” through photographs, I know many people do not like Facebook, but it is full of life......good things....I would not otherwise find.  However, you will NOT find my personal business there, ever!

For the winter I am not taking many photographs.  I do not have wifi and will wait until we are on the road again.

There are paints and canvas beside my couch in a basket.  Waiting.

So here I am trying to find motivation.  Wish me luck.

YaYa!

thunbergia grandiflora

Grandkitty Butters

Sit and Watch the Garden Grow

Palm Tree Backlit with Setting Sun

photo credit:

snapshots

the wild magnolia

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A Little Bit of Christmas Cheer!

Snapshots

by

the wild magnolia

(notice Molly peeking out the door.)

A Little Bit of Christmas Cheer!

Finally I completed two simple tasks.  Arranged new artificial poinsettias and took my three foot Christmas tree out of the box.  Once I “arranged” the limbs and lights, I plugged it in.  Dazzling tiny white lights and a lighted base.  Nice.

Thanksgiving this year brought a little sadness in me, missing my family, Thanksgiving and Christmases past.  Oh I am really not depressed, just missing my people. 

Twinkling lights day or night, Christmas or year round, doesn’t matter to me, so long as they are lighting up my world.

The magic of Christmas belongs to children.  I had my turn, and it couldn't have been better.

Dining out for Christmas dinner this year, if we find a restaurant open!  I really want everyone to have the day off, so I won't be heart broke if everything is closed.  I'll figure something out!

My Christmas wish, "Let there be Peace on Earth!"

Merry Christmas Everyone!

How? It's A Mystery!

The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery."  - Fred Alan Wolf

It Is Written In The Stars

By Raine - Inner Voice Art

"Everything within me grabbed hold of this thought.  "To be part of the mystery”, makes the journey sizzle with possibility, on constant safari of the universe."

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Quote

“However, to see into or through something requires intuition and also strength to stand upon what one sees.”

— From Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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In the movies.....

Shakespeare In Love - Dialogue snippet.......

Philip Henslowe:  Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.

Hugh Fennyman:  So what do we do?

Philip Henslowe:  Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.

Hugh Fennyman:  How?

Philip Henslowe:  I don't know. It's a mystery.

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"For my part...the nothing we do, is keep on going.  That is not always easy to do, is it?  It hasn’t been for me, but somehow, some way, I have managed it.

Age has mellowed me on many levels.  But for the physical changes, the wearing out of the body, age has been good for my mind and spirit.

I have not “arrived”, with nothing else to learn,...

If I think I can do a thing, I can!!!  It is making me stronger.

YaYa!"

the wild magnolia

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Sunflower Saturday

What I am thinking about....not everything I'm thinking.

Christmas came before Thanksgiving in the department stores.

Eighty one degrees here in south Florida.  Say whaaaaat!

College football on TV right now.  Mister H is watching.

How About These Carrots?

my new moisturizer 

yes to carrots! daily facial moisturizer ❤

Grilled steak tonight, baked potato, my stovetop baked beans

Small beautiful Christmas tree is in my living room, in box, to be assembled.

Reading “Bitter Truth”, by William Lashner, mystery.  Finished “Past Due”, also by Lashner.  He is an attorney for the mob.  He is a good writer, good at weaving a tale, my only complaint - his character demeans himself constantly.  ☆☆☆

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on this date 72 years ago.

I am searching for a copy of Frida Kahlo’s diary.  What is available on Amazon is almost $70.00.  Not happening at that price.  I’ll check the libraries.

For you, may these days be blessed, filled with light and warmth, health and love.....((hugs)).

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Snapshots

the wild magnolia

US 301 heading south in Sarasota, Florida

West on Main Street

Above: County Building, Below: Dancing

Confusion

 Watching Over the Girls.

Conference: What to do About the "Hooman"?

Decision Made: Run girls, run!!!

Bea was scratching for food, and missed the orders, run Bea, run! Yikes!!

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Conversations With the Universe

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We arrived in Ft. Ogden Friday afternoon.  The temperature was 72 degrees, today 79 degrees with scattered rain. We set up the RV in our new spot.  

The northerner’s are here and more on the way.  Darrell has been out doing his meet and greet, with Molly, I am happy to socialize at potlucks.  I am friendly but private.  You will be greatly surprised to know there are campground politics.  YaYa.

It remains a curiosity, this Black Friday, the name should be a clue.  There is nothing I want bad enough to join the masses and behave in the manner of some.  Could be our values are skewed?!

This was on Facebook and feels right to me.  And so I share it with you all.

I like to converse with the universe, don’t you?!  Imagining our good conversations help the universe, and in turn, all of us.  We are all one.

You all are in my thoughts and prayers.  Wishing all good things to settle in your lives.

and now a few photos...my last morning in Lake City Florida.

The Otter, in pond, City Park Campground, Lake City, FL.

The otter's tail and he disappears under water.

The sun worshipers.

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Happy Thanksgiving Everyone and Happy Hanukkah

Somehow I feel the spirit of Thanksgivings past, the reasons for my thankfulness, to remember the beginnings warms my heart. ❤

Beyond my first loves God, my family, and friends, I savor as much of life as I can.  Grateful to still be a living participant.

Art is another person’s concept and skill, what is in their minds 

eye, and heart.  On occasion a painting or drawing walks into my heart to stay.  At these times something of how I see and feel is expressed by someone of the same spirit.

I give you Harvey Dunn from South Dakota, a tiny sample of his art (1884 to 1952):

The Prairie is My Garden.Digging Out

And....

“In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.”

Life is very changed since civil war time.  While tradition remains a large part of me, my celebration and focus has enlarged.  Tradition not being the end all.

And...

and

Pretty Quiet on the Homefront

We are in Lake City, Florida, until after Thanksgiving, and most likely will leave next Friday.  

Molly has been pretty sick.  She has been to the vet, no parasites, no infected ears, but has allergy ears.  Two shots one antibiotic, one to stop vomiting.  Today she has eaten a little and drunk water, will go out side to take care of business, and lays on the couch.  I’m a little worried.

Lake City - City Campground is beautiful land,  old Florida, moss hangs in oak trees and blows in the wind, and Florida swamp is visible in the ponds.  The possibility of sinking into the swamp is not lost on me.  

Reading:  The Neighbor, author Lisa Gardner.

Below, snapshots around the campground. 

Dragonflies Follow me.

Rain

Home Sweet Home, for now.

Will I Get Over the Carolinas?

 We are back in Florida.  I have mixed feeling.  Will North and South Carolina will wear off?   

Jacksonville Florida is packed with people.  “They” have jobs and families and  and social lives.  “They” must see doctor’s and dentists and chiropractors...you get the idea!  “They” like sports, libraries, and restaurants.  And therefore, the roads or teaming with people living their lives. 

From what I can see, most stores are ignoring Thanksgiving, and gangbusters for Christmas.  It’s all about the money.  This is disturbing on so many levels.

From here we are going to Lake City Florida for a week.  Checking out the RV parks, and camping in one.  It is looking like we may settle in north Florida when the time comes.  

Just finished two books by J.A. Jance, and “The Kite Runner”.  Reading is a friend of mine.  Saving hundreds of recipes from Facebook.  Walking.  Oh, and photographing everything that catches my eye.

Wishing all good things to settle in your life.  It happens dear hearts.

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Quick Look at Big Tree RV Park

South Carolina

Wordless Wednesday - Roseate Skimmer - Ballerina

Nature is always my welcome Friend.....Photography is my Passion.

I ride through different towns looking and observing passionately the world around me.  Could be a city, or country road doesn’t matter, watching life is time well spent.  Life is either going on everywhere, or worn out and falling down.  And I want to take pictures.

Every front porch is personal, do they have rockers, or wind chimes, or both?  Are there thirsty blood red geraniums in terra pots?  Are the lawns manicured or wild natural grasses, or smooth river stones?  Shrubs trimmed and plentiful or eclectic gatherings of christmas tree cactus and dwarf orange trees?  I like homes with lots of trees, I am a tree hugger.

Dark creosote stained tar paper tobacco barns,  red painted barns (there are thousands, by the way), red clay country roads, main streets in old downtown buildings are comforting because they remain.   Unpainted wood homes or fences may be  smoothed by wind and rain turned different shades of gray.  I want to take pictures.

Traveling has opened my eyes to see the magnitude of humans on this earth.  It’s a big deal to me.  Parallel lives are being lived in each place, realizing this I can see life on other planets. Traveling is like reading the world in real time.

Photography is my way of sharing, I want everyone to “see”, though I realize  photos only capture a smidgen of being there.

Now take good care of yourself, be good to yourself, drink lots of water, walk in the woods, climb a mountain, or kick up sand on a beach....and read a good book.

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I wanted you to see the clarity of this blissful blue sky, greenness of the pine needles, and blaze of fall leaves. 

See the hand of God.

Because I love the hearth, center of the home, and Like the word when spoken.