October 11, 2021 - Safe driving

 

               A friend sent me this a few days ago and I still do this as an automatic. 

         I remember on Saturdays when some of us gals would go off to lunch after blitz cleaning our homes to “do lunch” and a friend would ride with me.  Occasionally a nutty driver would pull out in front of me and I’d sharply brake and my arm would come out to safe guard my front seat passenger.

         “Momma Mode,” my friend once quipped and we laughed.

         I’ve worn seat belts since the day I first started driving, you sure won’t be taking that “automatic” out of me in this lifetime.

         It is the same auto pilot as which sock do you put on first, which sleeve you put your arm through first.  How you comb your hair, how you brush your teeth, how you hold your pen.  You’ve learned these things a half a century ago and you just do it.

         I was amused once when I went back to college after 12 years out making a living with my typing skills and needed to type a piece for the college paper deadline. I asked permission to slip into the typing lab to type it and get it to the editor within a half an hour. 

         The teacher recognized me from other classes I’d taken in the business section of the college and she nodded permission. She lingered in the hall way as I slipped into the room to a station in the back row and proceeded to zip a piece of paper into the IBM Selectric typewriter and quickly started to type copy from my notes.

         The class was entry-level typists and most of the students turned and looked at me, but one young gal simply gushed out loud, “Wow you sure can type . . . fast!”

         I chuckled and not even looking up or skipping a beat at what I was typing said, “You will type like this one day.”

         When I left the typing lab the teacher gave me a big smile and a thumbs up - I believe I inspired at least one student.

        I do most things by rote or habit these days.

        Take a moment and sit back, reflect and be grateful that you have abilities that you don’t have to learn fresh every day. Simple routines you can fall back on and “coast” through life, like cooking your favorite recipes from memory.

         As one gets older we need to be grateful for what we can still do extremely well and be easy on ourselves when we aren’t as sharp at certain things from lack of use. 

         Skills need to used to keep them from rusting.  So, this is my challenge to you, dust off a skill you haven’t used in a while and bring it back up to your high standards.

         This morning I dusted off my creative painting skills. It has been a long while, but I am pleased with the results.

Toastmaster Ice Breaker Speech - August 2008

 

Tossing out papers this week I ran up on a copy of my first Toastmaster's speech.  The ice breaker speech is supposed to convey to the other members things about oneself so they can figure out who I am and where I am coming from.

 

My childhood was much like a “Norman Rockwell” painting. 

Or you might say: Extraordinarily ordinary! 

I was born and raised in New England, in the small town 

of Berlin, Massachusetts,

which has 5,200 registered voters and

quaint, white clapboard houses with green shutters

and blazing red and yellow maple trees in the fall.

When I was much younger I used to describe who I was with what I did – legal secretary, office manager, or sales manager.  But, that no longer applies as I have had to re-invent myself every few years in order to advance in the workplace.

Experience has clearly shown me you are not your job title.

So, my occupation is “seasoned professional” – I do what I have to do in order to accomplish what needs to be done to move me toward my goal.

I could stand here and list my pedigree – my college degree, my professional degrees – You might even be impressed – but as my mother used to say:

 “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

It is what is inside of me – that is who I am.

The easiest way to share with you who is in here is to explain how I was raised.

My blue collar father, the plumber, and my legal secretary mother, the diplomat, taught me right from wrong.

My entire childhood and upbringing can be reduced into classical one-liners that most every knows:

 “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

 “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

 “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

 “Make hay while the sun shines.”

 “There is no dumb question except the one you didn’t ask.”

 “Look it up – the dictionary is your best friend.”

 “Common sense is genius dressed in working clothes.”

 AND

“You can’t fail until you try.”

So that you understand a part of my makeup –

I am the youngest of three children,

I have two older brothers. 

My mother was very women’s lib – She was way ahead of her time. 

Once when I was good enough to help build the tree house

down in the woods some 16 feet off the ground

in a cluster of 6 pine trees

and upon completion my two older brothers

barred me from joining in and playing “Fort” - 

My mother stepped in and declared –

“If she was good enough to help build it –

she’s good enough to play in it.”  

 

That encouragement was echoed later

when I was challenged with something I felt I could not do.

Mom would say:

 “You can do anything!”

 “In fact, you can do anything a boy can do, maybe even better!”

 “You can be anything – even the President of the United States!”  

 

When I was a Girl scout,

I worked on a Wildflower Badge with another girl from the neighborhood.  As a team, we scoured the countryside for wildflower specimens.

We pressed flowers and leaves between wax paper,

and created two identical books. 

However, the Troop leader found mine faulty in some way,

and I came home crying. 

I put my hands on my hips and tried to explain to my Father

and all I could blurt out was: “Life ain’t fair.” 

 I was looking for guidance, but I remember his answer:

  “Now that you know that, Daughter, Life will be much easier for you.”

 

I learned that lesson – along with another one of Dad’s favorite sayings:

  “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

 

As I grew up in that Norman Rockwell environment

 – every day riding a big lumbering yellow bus

to and from school my entire adolescent life

 –the sage advice kept pace with my development.

 

My mother would say:

 “Remember, average is as close to the bottom as it is to the top.”

 “No one can take your education away from you.”

 

Father would say:

 “Only make promises you can keep.”

 “Remember your good name – your reputation is Everything.”

Mother would say:

 “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want us to read in tomorrow’s paper.”

 

Father would say:

“You sleep with dogs, you'll get fleas.”

 

And, as I got older – Mom would say:

 “All the world is a stage and we are but actors upon it.”

 

And Dad would say:

“You want to be treated like blue jeans – wear blue jeans – you want to be treated like a professional – dress like one.”

 

But, my all-time favorite as I was growing up

was the heated political discussions around the supper table

where I hardly could get in a word in edgewise

between my two older brothers  

was Dad’s classic conclusion to every political debate:

 

 “If you didn’t vote – keep your mouth shut!”

 

In conclusion of my introduction to you –

 I want to share with you some of the words of wisdom

 that I’ve absorbed and embraced and consider as a current explanation of who I am.

 

“Work flows to where it gets done.”

 “Identify the problem, and it is half solved.”

 “She didn’t know it couldn’t be done, so she went ahead and did it.”

 “The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

 “Every job is a self portrait of the person who did it – I autograph my work with quality.

I hope my life will be lived well as in: 

“LIFE should be a PATTERN of EXPERIENCES to SAVOR, 

NOT ENDURE.”

Poem in under five minutes?

 

August 26, 2021 – Poem in under five minutes?

 

         Tossing out papers today, I ran up on a little treasure I want to share with you from April of 2018 Writing workshop at the local college.

 

         It comes from the small poetry workshop sandwiched between two other writing workshops I was interested in.

 

         WHAT my mind screams.

 

         “In five minutes you say?” I tossed out to the instructor to be certain I heard him correctly.

 

         “You are losing precious time,” he smirked.

 

         I restlessly twiddled my pen and then looked at the words on the slip of paper I had been handed. Each of us got different words for this project.

 

         Vinyl

         Orchid

         Cosmos

         Spitfires

         Japanese swords

         Ultra-marine

         Tambourine

         Cockleshells

 

         They are just so, . . . so, across the spectrum.  I’d just been told a poem doesn’t have to rhyme so I can just scatter these items throughout, what? What could gather these all up into something?

 

         My first thought was all the interesting artifacts I came across the two weeks before my Mom died.  I’d driven home to clean out Mom and Dad’s home to get it ready for sale, which included the basement and attic. It took days.

 

         Time was wasting and I started with a working title.

 



Cleaning out Mom’s House

 

I started with the vinyl records.

Pitched the dead orchid into the cosmos and vines.

 

I boxed the model spitfires

with the scared Japanese swords.

 

The ultra-marine tambourine made me smile,

from her belly-dancing days.

 

Seven days later, I stood by her coffin.

 

One day will her ghost ask me,

 what I did with the

1,340 numbered cockleshells.

 



 

         Of course, we had to read them out to the class.  A gal sitting in front to the left managed to pull off a wonderful poem about walking through a field, and one phrase she used I actually jotted down.

 

“Nothing should slither like this.”

 

         We all knew she was talking about a snake.  I thought that was awesome, but she wrote poetry and knew what she was doing.  Me, I was in the dark.

 

         I was the last one to read as I was still sitting there twiddling my pen and looking at my messy page.

 

         I recited my poem; I squeaked out the last two lines in tears not realizing how deep I had driven down into the despair of my Mom passing and the emotional roller-coaster I’d had cleaning out her house.

 

         Rachel, my writing friend knew what had triggered the tears.  Me, I was stunned at how I fell apart.

 

         I did mention casually after I had regained my composure, “My Mom did take belly-dancing lessons.”  At least that was a bright spot, a delightful memory to cling onto and buoy me up and allow me to wipe away my tears.

 

 

         Back story: Reading my weekly letter from Mom one day, I was taken aback that she was taking belly-dancing lessons as a form of exercise.  I immediately phoned her and she mischievously said, “I have castanets and a veil of sheer fabric.” 

 

         Mom had signed up for the class as a lark, for fun.  When I asked Dad, he only said, “Oh, I drive her to the classes.”  I always wondered what he did waiting on her.  I never asked – good question. Lost.

 

July 29, 2019 – Book Review – How I Saved the World by Jesse Watters

 

          If you are a conservative, you will love this book.  If you are a Democrat – you will toss it in a fire – because it will offend you. But, you should read it so that you know what the other side of the political coin is thinking.

         The dust jacket comments do not do it credit.  If you find yourself in an actual brick and mortar bookstore – flip to page 151 and read the one-liner out-takes of some of his Watters World interviews on page 151.

         If you admired Watters World or have an affinity for Bill O’Reilly, you will be in for a delightful read.  Not only does Jesse dive into his days working getting the interview for The O’Reilly Factor, he starts his book actually admitting his failures in being unsuccessful in other kinds of work.

         He started from the bottom after several summers of survival camps in his youth.

         This book is beautifully written, clever in his humor and allegories, and his tongue-in-check self-derogation. He made me laugh and smile and underline “touchés” against the liberals.

         Jesse mixes his own personal history, with how he sees life, society, and politics at large, along with deep perspectives of what has happened and is happening in our world today.

         He gives you an in-depth, blow-by-blow account of how he captured those interviews through the espionage, sleuthing, and reconnaissance language similar to Bond, Mickey Spillane, or a behind-enemy-lines soldier.

         You may be riding along with him in an ambush for an interview or holding your breath when he meets Melania Trump, and goes in for a kiss . . .

         Now, you have to purchase the book to find out if he succeeded or failed with Melania.

         Excellent read – overall.  He covered his first 40 years or so of an interesting life and gave us history on the current political scene. 

         Jesse is more than his hair – a lot more.  I admire the dedication to his book, a portion of it is “Timing is everything”- This is a timely book.

July 28, 2021 - Curate your garden

 

          Curate has been tossed around the last few years and one day I was reading a political magazine and I made a mental note – when the powers at be use the word curate in a gardening magazine – I will scream.

         AYEE . . . UGH!

         There, it is out of my system.

         First, years ago, after experiencing curate and curator in the written word in just about everything I picked up to read, I researched it to see if I wasn’t spot-on about its meaning.  I thought, curator as in a museum, or curator of a collection of old books.  Someone who kept them in good condition, indexed them, a caretaker, a steward.

         Later, stumbling over the word curate even more, I reviewed the definition again and added to my mental notation of it to select, organize, or maintain a collection of resources.  Resources?  HMMMM

         In the back of my mind I remember the blogs I did on Marie Kondo – how to tidy up your house, your life – January 15, 2017 through January 17, 2017 blogs – go visit them if you missed them.  She didn’t use the word curate – I wonder why?

         Maybe it is a “politically correct word?” 

         But, I sum it up as: keep the best and toss the rest – on a personal or professional basis.

         I curate my photographs. I curate my china cabinet every couple of years to find any chips or cracks that need tossing out.  I curate my plastic container cabinet, just about monthly, keeping the best and tossing the ill matched covers or scorched plastic containers.

         Under the direction of Marie Kondo, I curated my books – oh doesn’t that make me sound smart – “curated”.

         I curated my closets and my bureau drawers and my bill receipts. 

         I am on a roll.

         So, let me get to curating the garden.  Oh, already been there and done that and now I need a T-shirt pronouncing it to the public.

GARDEN CURATOR

         Nah, that doesn’t seem catchy enough.

         Okay, enough with the foolishness of the buzz word – curate.

         No matter what you call it, curate or revise or clean up or gut the darn garden of the weeds and the perennials that just don’t work and replant – I’ve done it and it is a lot of work and it takes a bit of time.

         The front of the house, I cut down the towering shrubs that covered the windows.  I had to, I couldn’t see out and trimming them required I use a step ladder and falling seemed likely.  Much better, no shrubs, neater look, less likely to fall and break a hip.  And, it gave me more time, less mold on the white vinyl siding and easier cleanup in the fall of leaves.  It also gave me a fresh empty canvas to create an easier to work landscape in front of the house.  The sidewalk and front steps are more pronounced, therefore the bronze whippet shows up better from the street. A curator’s success!

         We had a white birch tree cluster removed last year and a dappled shade garden bordering the patio and the driveway suddenly turned into blazing sun.  I’ve been curating it now since last summer, fall, winter, spring and back into summer.  Looks like I will need more time for my curating.  Shade weed seeds suddenly grow to monster weeds when they get full sun and the rain we have been getting.

         Slowly I am saving the huge hostas and replacing them with perennial chrysanthemums.  So far, the Chinese ground orchids, Blietilla orchids have made the transition from dappled shade to almost full sun.

         But, what surprised me the most were the violets.  Those dainty little tufts of spring violets about the size of a saucer, so sweet with their heart shaped leaves and tiny fragrant flowers in my dappled shade unsuspectingly turned into monsters.  Now they are flourishing and are smothering everything else in existence. Yes, they have gorgeous dark green heart shaped leaves and larger flowers now, but the huge mounds are the size of peach baskets. 

         I have already filled up one of my new compost bins with nothing but excavated excessive violet plants from the now SUN garden.

         I obviously have more garden weeding and work to do, so let me recap: I am the custodian, keeper, conservator, guardian, caretaker and steward of my garden – just call me a working Garden Curator.

 

Does that come with a raise? – Oh, I forgot, I am retired!

 

        

        

July 26, 2021 - long time - no blog!

 July 26, 2021 – long time – no blog!

 

         To start your day, below is a photo my brother sent to brighten my morning a few days ago, as I seem to be under the cloud of multiple misfortunes.

 

         Part of it is the WOKE culture and being afraid of being CANCELLLED, I have actually been hesitant to write.  But then again, recently most of my life has been cancelled by one thing or another.

         First, we had COVID19 and the masking and the stay home to help the curve.  Then the madness surrounding locating a vaccine – needless to say, our county wasn’t stellar with that episode and we had to travel to a neighboring county. 

         Next, it became the first spring with my greenhouses and I put in extra time and energy into growing plants from seeds. Mostly successes, some failures, but I chalk it up to a learning curve.

         Then, my husband is aging right before my eyes and not only am I his hearing-ear-dog, but I am now his seeing-eye dog and his can’t-remember-where-anything-is dog to the rescue.

         Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back as one would say, I thought I had plantar fasciitis, yet I actually had a hairline broken bone that was causing the pain.  So, I have jerked around with that for almost four or five weeks before I came to the conclusion, "this isn't working" and found a foot doctor.

         Tried to make an eye exam in June and the next available appointment is November?  Having the foot looked at – next available appointment two weeks – or drive to another county for a next day appointment. That was an easy choice.

         My husband’s doctor is retiring and that general practitioner’s office of 3 or 4 doctors has been down to one doctor, his, for several years and just now – after a five-year search, a replacement is stepping in to fill a vacancy, and then my husband’s doctor will retire. So, up one and down to one again in a matter of six months.

         I switched out of one smart phone to another – which seems less smart because the G towers are being changed out and the first phone would be useless in a matter of months.  I still can’t get a decent signal in my own house, and just last night I tried to have a conversation with a neighbor about my little lawn tractor not working and if I turned my head only a quarter of an inch, he couldn’t hear me.  Maybe I should have opened the window and shouted to him two doors down.

         The last three venting paragraphs have to do with living in RURAL AMERICA.  But, it is a little more peaceful here.  The local paper does have local shootings and killings, mischief and mayhem – we are not isolated on that front.

         It has been a 90-day period of excessive gardening, and excessive one-step-forwards seems like three-steps-backwards for me.

         The good – we have rain – YUP real rain, not just wetting the dust rain. And, we have had it for weeks now.  Never have I seen this much rain in July in North Carolina since we moved here in 1985.  I wonder what August will be like.  Have you noticed the weather forecasters are no longer saying El Nińo or La Nińa.  I wonder why – don’t you wonder as well?

         I successfully grew tomatoes from seed and picked the first red one before July 4^th – so I passed the imaginary Southern competition vs. my brother in the North.

         I have successfully gotten the kudzu under control on one third of the property line.

         I have successfully emptied, screened, and used almost two compost piles.  I started four more to handle the influx of debris from the gardens.

         I pulled up the brick patio and tore out the nasty wiregrass and put the patio back in order.  Maybe I will get 4 years out of it this time.

         I harvested an 8 x 16 foot patch from acres of wheat that a local farmer grew along with the patches of wheat and rye that I grew and have it hung to dry in the shed.  Soon I will tell you about my wheat weaving adventures.

         I dug up and am curing the two different types of spring shallots which gave me a 300% return on bulbs in compared to bulbs out.

         I have an abundance of butterflies and the feral cats have given us a litter of adorable kittens to enjoy our summer days.

         I did manage to plant out 14  perennial Chrysanthemums, and the French melon is growing out of its bounds with ample blossoms, pictured below.

 

         The broom is to brush the leaves back to see if I have any fruit setting.  More blossoms than fruit setting at the moment.

         I am trying the tarping technique on turning over gardens for next season and I have ordered fresh seeds and am planning my fall/winter garden. I will blog soon with the tarping method.

         So, considering all the turmoil above noted, and me being stuck in a boot to heal the left foot for several more weeks, things are looking up.  Soon you will be getting more book reviews, since I’ve had more than ample down time to read across the spectrum.

 

        

 

 

Book Review, Socialists Don't Sleep, Cheryl K. Chumley

 March 31, 2021 – Book Review: Socialists Don’t Sleep by Cheryl K. Chumley

 

         Fabulous book I have just finished.  Socialists Don’t Sleep – Christians must rise or America Will Fall.  Published this year by Humanix Books.

          Well written, and documented.  Take your time, there is a lot to absorb and digest in this one.

          I particularly liked the chapter heading entitled: Failing to Grasp that not all do-gooders do good. 

          My Dad used that phrase, “do-gooders” on a new arrival to our town when I was an impressionable teenager. 

          This new-to-town woman, wrapped her arms about a big tree that was on a sharp corner of a dangerous road, which was the site of numerous accidents.  It had taken years for the town to allocate enough money to straighten that section of the road in front of our house and this brand new resident, this “do-gooder” didn’t want the big tree cut down.

          My Dad informed the “save-the-tree” woman about our situation.  Over the years, there had been dozens of accidents at this corner.  Numerous people have been hurt.

          The last one I remember as a youth, on icy roads, their car bounced off the tree and spiraled over the stone wall in front of our house.  It landed just short of smashing into my parent’s bedroom.  The next day it was towed off and the town put the stone wall boulders back into place.

          Trust me, I remember that night - the crash noise got us all out of bed; then the police, rescue squad, and flashing lights.  I only got to peer out the windows into the darkness watching the goings on.

          Dad was as pleasant as he could be telling her that in order to improve the safety of this road, that and many other trees need to be cut down so that they can widen this road.  “Look around you, there are forests of trees.”   He finally shook his head watching the demonstrator and flatly stated, “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

          That was my introduction into “do-gooders” and the beginning of my education into what is socialism, what is collectivism and what is communism.

          An additional chapter, “Being blind to the Globalist Snakes in the Grass,” wherein many interesting facts about George Soros and others.

          Chapter twelve showing how simple the American public followed the “rules” to cover their faces with masks, without really asking the right questions.  How easy it is for the government to overstep their bounds, and they continue to do so.  We all need to smarten up, straighten up and stop being sheep that will be lead to the slaughter of this creeping socialism which will turn into communism and tyranny – as it always does – history proves that.

          We need to take back this country, this America that is exceptional and embrace our freedoms before they vanish through left-wing progressives, with the help of our under-educated or socialist indoctrinated youth.

          We all need to get back to the values and morals of Christian religion, which made this country.

          I suggest you locate a copy, read it and pass it along to a friend.

          I say, “Well done, Cheryl K. Chumley!”  Well written, factual, informative, much needed at this time.