Red Moon Rising

The moon rose red over the soybean field. It seemed to quiver in the blue of the night sky. I was sitting at my dining table witnessing this ancient happening. I grabbed my camera and went out by the mailbox to take a picture.... a red moon on the horizon. Later I went back to take a video of this scene as the clouds had started to do a peek a boo.
After downloading the videos to my computer, I thought that I might just delete the videos as it is hard to get a good movie of far away objects. Then I noticed the sounds in this video. And maybe I'm just weird but I love the sounds even if it is hard to make out the moon.



I was looking at the Prairie Home Companion website this week and came across a good piece of advice from Garrison Keillor. A young writer wrote in to him and asked "Do you have any advice for an aspiring young writer?"
Keillor wrote back ... " The first obligation of a young writer is to describe your parents, a major project. I also think you should start a novel right away. I put mine off for years, thinking I wasn't ready, but it's invaluable experience---- to set out to write a sustained work of prose fiction of a hundred-thousand words or so. The main character is you yourself, it's set in Bristol, and your parents are definitely in it. Your main character has to get in trouble and then get out. And maybe that's the problem here. You've been too good, too obliging, helpful, kind, considerate, thoughtful, generous, responsible, etc, etc. It's hard to be interesting writing about pure goodness. Find some vein of evil within yourself and work from that. You don't need to enact these things in real life, by the way. Unless, of course, you want to. The way to write a novel is to write a few hundred words a day, every day, no fail. So try it. Maybe it'll be a big failure, but big failures can build the foundation for great success."

Mama and me

I was laying in bed this morning, recovering from a nightmare. I dreamed that I was in my house and I heard a noise over by the front door. I went to the door to investigate and a strange woman was standing there by the coat rack. Immediately, I told her that she would have to go. "You have to go!" I kept yelling. Though Phil said it came out more like "Aaaugh, aaaugh, aaaugh" real loud. Anyway, I woke up and had a horrible headache. I've been waking with a lot of headaches lately. It is allergy season so I am not surprised. This will keep happening until the end of September. One morning this week, I actually pondered the question - Could a skull actually split open like a watermelon in the garden? It really felt like my head was getting ready to do that.

So back to this morning - I woke up with a headache and didn't want to move, didn't want to see any form of light, didn't want to hear any loud sounds, didn't want to smell any strong scents. I just wanted to move through this world in slow quiet motion. Phil made some coffee and I closed my eyes and ventured into the kitchen to pour a cup for myself. Immediately, I noticed that it looked like coffee soup....dark and thick.... and I almost started something. I even asked him if he ever measures the coffee. He said no at which point I just gave him a dirty look. So I decided to just pour a cup and get back to my dark, cold bedroom, get back in bed and get over this headache.

I set the coffee cup on the table beside my bed and got under the covers. I was laying there, covers up to my chin, cold, darkness all around me and the smell of that thick coffee started calling to me. I took a sip. It was bitter. Yuck. I set the cup down and pulled the covers close. I lay there for about 5 minutes. Then I took another sip of coffee. I gathered the covers close again and lay back on my pillows. This is the point where an insight came to me.... I want to be kooky and quirky! I almost laughed but it hurt too much. Me, kooky and quirky. Yet somehow the idea interested me. I'll have to think it over and report back.

As you may have noticed, I have two pictures on this post. The one on the right is me - in pink.

My little sister took this picture or maybe I did. And this picture of me really resonates with me. You know how we all have that little voice in our heads that steer us through life? ( Ok, if I am the only one having this experience, please let me know - I may need help). Anyway, there is an inner voice that tells us what we need to know. I think this picture is that inner voice. She is the one who, when I was a young child and I heard the dogs scratching flees on the porch outside and thought it was someone knocking on the door, she told me "It's just the dogs scratching flees". And when the house would settle in the dark night, making cracks or pops and I thought it was someone creeping through the house, the inner voice would say "That's just the house settling." That good old inner voice has clued me in to a lot of stuff along the way. Once, after I was grown and times were really stressful. I thought I was having a nervous breakdown because I looked in the mirror and 'thought' my skull was swollen up like some kind of Martian being. My inner voice said "Girl, you need to get some rest". And as I went to climb into bed and felt like I wouldn't be able to sleep, that inner voice said "Sit down right here in the floor and give all your worries, stresses and deepest woe to God." And I did just that. I followed just what my inner voice told me. I told God that I couldn't make anyone outside of myself do anything that they didn't want to do. I told God that I had solutions to a lot of people's problems but they weren't interested. I cannot solve any of this. I told God that I have 4 children that do need my help and to help them I will need to sleep and cheer up. So I am putting all this 'stuff' into God's hands to hold. And that night I slept like a baby. I slept for almost 12 hours and when I woke up, Phil left for an appointment and it was just me and my 4 darling children at the house. I left the television off as Wall Street was having a meltdown and the news media were in a feeding frenzy. I just listened to my children go about the business of being kids. At one point I turned on the radio for some music and came across a station where they were speaking in tongues and my inner voice said "Turn that off." I turned it off and just listened to my world. So this picture of me reminds me of who I am at the core. I wanted to balance this picture next to another picture of me in work clothes and tell you about the kind hearted me who would do almost anything to help a friend but I will have to do that later due to technical difficulties. Instead I have a picture of my mother. She and I are roughly about the same age in these two pictures. She was a kind hearted person who would do almost anything to help her family or her friends. Mama loved to shop. She didn't have a lot of money so that made it a bit difficult. I love this picture of her. She was shopping. She went by one of her favorite stores and the clerk was showing her this instamatic camera. He took her picture (this picture) with that camera and she bought it. I love this picture! And it has a million cracks in it. I took a picture of the picture since one of my sisters owns the original. I thought I might photoshop it since time has cracked the film. Now I look at it as if it were a stained glass window, picturing a holy, sacred image....Mama mother or Sarah.

geezer in the geyser

My sister Grace and I were leaving the Andrews Geyser in Old Fort, NC. last week when we saw this guy climb into the geyser and get soaked. It happened right after Grace's granddaughter Cadence's birthday party.

Garden Highlights

Here's a few pictures of my garden at present from different vantage points. It has been a labor of love.

Progress Update

Hello world! My garden is moving right along. There is a spot right in the center of things which is not cooperating and it seems like the Bachelor Buttons are taking forever to show their colors but other things are falling right into place.

My son's wedding went off with only one hitch and everything was beautiful. Brittany was gorgeous in her dress and her hair looked like spun gold. I had such a good time but am feeling a little sheepish now. Why? Well as I was looking back through the pictures of the people dancing, I noticed that at the end of the evening, I was about the only person in my age group still dancing. Everyone else was less than 40 and looked cool dancing. But I love music and I hate to sit around. So what could I do but DANCE!?!

A Work in Progress

Hello Blog fans! It has been a while since I wrote. I haven't dropped off the end of the Earth. I am trapped on a vicious treadmill and can't get off! Yes, I am still working on the Nichol house. I have been working on repairing 13 windows and am down to my last 3. The truth is I am not a trained carpenter. My Dad was a carpenter and two of my brothers are as well. I have seen carpentry in action. I know that things should be on the level when it comes to building. It helps when they are square too. The Nichol House windows are neither. So it has been a bit trying. I will soon post a few pictures of my work.

I have also started a wedding garden as my son is getting married in July. The above picture is the general layout. You can see that I like trails to walk on and explore the plants. I believe it is known as a stroll garden in the gardening world.

I have also been on the look out for funny things. That is my latest project. First off, I have to tell you that I saw a kid with droopy drawers the other day as I was driving through Anderson. I burst out laughing. He must have been 13 or 14 years old and was walking down the street holding onto the front of "his" shorts as tight as he could. It looked like he was wearing his fat uncle's gym shorts as they about drug the street behind him. I couldn't help it, I laughed and I think he saw me laugh and I am not sure but I may have pointed at him like ..."kiddo, you are so funny!" I drove on down the street and looked in my rear view mirror and noticed that he was looking over his shoulder at me. It was a weird interchange. Now, I am thinking that I need to start taking pictures of this lunacy because future generations will find it hard to believe that we actually did this.

Finally, my sister Marlene came for a visit a week ago. We went by to see Harrison's house then went on to Knightstown as Harrison wanted his aunt to see the gym where the movie "Hoosiers" was filmed. We walked around looking at the old gym and shot some baskets. The guy working there offered to take the 4 of us to the locker rooms. He was a talkative sort so I kind of dreaded going down stairs to listen to him expound on the biggest moment of his life. Anyway, as we were going downstairs, my husband -Philip- says "I like your court (they had just refinished the floor) and I like your balls too." I hear a snort from behind me and there at the top of the stairs stood my sister doubled over - holding back the laughs. She was snickering and then I was too. The men just went on ahead of us oblivious of this comic moment!

This week in spring!

Hello blog fans! The Earth has gone wacky crazy over the past 10 days. Flowers everywhere!And of course weird weather. One day we had sun, rain, hail and snow flurries - all before lunch. The street pictured is Nichol Avenue. All down the lane - both sides are Bradford pears in full, popcorn bloom. I took the pictures over several days because they were so beautiful! Also, you'll notice the horses - mama and baby. I noticed them one day as I was travelling to Kora's house. I actually turned around and went back for the picture. They did me a favor and posed so nicely for the photo. And check out the Ajuga blooming across the street from out farm in the fallow field. The corner of the American flag was caught in the tree limbs and presented a flag in perment unfurldness on the moon effect And the rest pretty much speak for them selves. Ah, sweet spring!

After my last blog entry, I decided that I want to just write about funny things. Well, I've been waiting for weeks for a funny story and nothing funny has happened. Except for little funny things....like... one morning I was aggravated at Phil for some reason and was kinda fussing at him. So as I cleaned the kitchen and got ready for work, he was eaating his breakfast and telling me something irritating. I walked over to the cabinet to get a dish cloth. I opened the door and a handful of dish towels fell out of the cabinet onto the floor. I bent over to pick them up and Phil says " look at how messy it is in that cabinet." I just glared at him and started to put the fallen dish towels back inside the cabinet. Just as I started to close the door, more dish towels fell out, proving his point and he burst out laughing! Under my breath I said"Not funny, God." And then I had to laugh too. Hope you're enjoying the spring you're having as much as I am enjoying mine.

P.S. I have to tell you that today I actually framed in the first of about 14 windows in the Nichol house. It looked good and I just amazed myself. So I take this opportunity to pat myself on my back.