When you see dandelions, do you see a wish or a weed? Me, I'm in the make a wish camp.
Make a wish, say a prayer
As thousands of seeds fly through the air
They float to you on the winds above
From every direction, each filled with love.
To my little warrior AJ with much love from Didi 💜
The Imagination Library’s first book order in 1995 totaled just over 1,700 books. Today, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library sends more than one million books per month to children around the world inspiring them to Dream More, Learn More, Care More and Be More.
While babysitting my little grandson, I noticed stickers on the backs of many of his books. They are from the Imagination Library and they are all wonderful books. He has so many from one of my favorite children’s authors, Eric Carle, and it’s all thanks to Dolly Parton getting books into children’s hands starting 29 years ago. Think of how many children she has blessed!
"My dream was to make as many people happy as I could in this life." ~ Dolly Parton
Arbor Day sprouted from the mind of a zealous tree lover named Julius Sterling Morton. A popular Arbor Day tradition is to plant a tree in honor or memory of a loved one. Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April, although some states observe it on dates that better coincide with the local area’s planting times. Arbor Day, much like Earth Day, is a holiday that celebrates nature.
"Other holidays repose upon the past. Arbor Day proposes for the future."
~ J. Sterling Morton
I remember Arbor Day when I was in school. Many times I brought home a seedling to plant and was so excited to plant it. My tree. I never got to see those trees grow either because we always had friends playing at our house and the tree would get tromped or if it did survive the neighborhood gang, we moved every 2-3 years so I didn't get to see the tree grow to maturity.
Last Thursday I went to the Dayton Art Institute to see the exhibit, The Artistic Life of Aka Pereyma. Aka Pereyma was a local artist of Ukrainian descent who lived in Troy, Ohio, about 20 minutes north of Dayton. She was a very prolific artist, creating in so many mediums: painting, woodworking, industrial metallurgy, pottery, textiles. It was hard not to think about politics as I drove to the DAI to see this exhibition. I knew that Pereyma had been honored by the government of Ukraine and that her work combined Ukrainian folk-art traditions with modern artistic styles. Now the country that has honored Pereyma is being attacked by Putin, while American politicians argue over whether the U.S. should support Ukraine or not.
White coral bells upon a slender stalk
Lily-of-the-valley deck my garden walk.
Oh how I wish that I might hear them ring,
That will happen only when the fairies sing.
I sang it a few times on my way home.
Marie Aull was considered the godmother of the environmental movement in the Miami Valley. She was a founding member of the Garden Club of Dayton in 1922 and a beloved environmentalist and naturalist. As both a conservationist and gardener, Aull loved Dayton and its natural beauty, and devoted her life to preserving it. Marie’s vision for preserving green space and educating the public about the conservation movement also extended to playing key roles in the founding of Cox Arboretum, the Beaver Creek Wetlands Association and the Park District of Dayton and Montgomery County.
Married to Dayton box manufacturer John Aull, Marie’s real journey began after her husband died in 1955. Two years later, she donated 70 acres of their idyllic property to Miami Valley residents—a swath of land that has since expanded and is now known as Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm. Not only is Aullwood the Midwest’s first Audubon nature center, it is one of the nation’s finest.
Marie Aull was ahead of her time. In 1957, when she first approached former National Audubon Society President John H. Baker about creating Aullwood, it would be another 12 years before the Cuyahoga River Fire—Cleveland’s pollutive disaster—helped fuel the modern day environmental movement. Conservation was a nascent concept, and Aull was a visionary.
Five years later, when proposed development threatened the springs and creeks surrounding Aullwood, her reputation was sealed. Aull purchased the 120-acre Antrim Farm adjacent to the nature center, donated a portion to the National Audubon Society, and augmented her natural sanctuary with a family farm—complete with livestock, crops and reverence for agrarian life.
This woman exhibited a love of nature and of mankind because she sported the theory that our lands were in need of better care so it could be preserved for other to enjoy in the years to come. She is a testimony to what one person can do to make things better for "aull."
4/20 - a date that both marijuana smokers and non-smokers recognize as a national holiday for cannabis culture.
But let's talk about another everyday kind of pot - those aggravating potholes. Despite just being annoying, potholes can cause damage to your vehicle. On the minor end, hitting a pothole can knock your car out of alignment, puncture one or multiple tires and possibly damage your wheels.
Chicago mosaic artist Jim Bachor is known for filling potholes with small, colorful mosaics. His mosaics bring something pretty to a place that otherwise could be considered ugly.
During 2020, the "Pothole Picasso" created a series dubbed the "Holy Trinity," filling potholes with "worshipped" COVID-19 essentials: hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and a can of Chicago Old Style beer. The toilet paper has been covered with blacktop and the Old Style beer is chipping away. The only essential remaining is the Purell hand sanitizer, a gentle reminder for people to continue to wash their hands. While taking pictures of the hand sanitizer, a man who lived in the neighborhood was getting into his car. His comment, "I've lived here for seven years and have never noticed these."
Bachor has been filling Chicago's potholes since 2013. I have used a map of his installations to go on scavenger hunts during my visits. It's a fun way to explore the city.
Another nod to National Poetry Month and now 249 years later...
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm....”
Paul Revere's ride occurred on the night of April 18, 1775, immediately before the first engagements of the American Revolutionary War. It has been commemorated in a range of cultural depictions, most notably Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1861 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride", which has shaped popular memory of the event, despite its factual inaccuracies.
Longfellow was inspired to write the poem after visiting the Old North Church and climbing its tower on April 5, 1860. "Paul Revere's Ride" was published in the January 1861 issue of “The Atlantic” magazine. Just before its publication, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States and the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. America’s Revolutionary war ended in 1783. Just 78 years had passed from the war that created the United States to the war that divided the United States.
Yesterday I wandered down to UD for my Zentangle class and this is one of the patterns we made. It's name is "Paradox." Why paradox, you wonder? Even though you see curves, the pattern is created with all straight lines. And therein lies the paradox.
During the cold Illinois winters, my grandparents traveled in the Southwest and Mexico. My grandpa was a rock hound so instead of bringing back tchotchkes, he brought back rocks and grandma would take care of the souvenirs for the grandkids. When we went for our summer visits, my mom would bring some rocks home and put them in her gardens as embellishments. We moved every 2-3 years for my dad's job and every time the moving truck showed up for packing my dad would fuss, "Joan, do you think Sears wants to pay to move all these rocks?" She would smile and the rocks made it to our next home.
A year after Mom moved into assisted living/memory care, it was time to sell her house. As my siblings and I cleaned out the house, my brother said, "We can't leave the rocks here. They've been in the family a long time." The four of us divided up the rocks and now they adorn our gardens. Rocks of ages for three generations.
Yesterday was a beautiful spring day bordering on hot so of course it was time to have the windows down in the car and the radio playing loud. What song came on? "Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard. Ohhhh, rockin' down the highway...oops, wrong group!
That song took me back to the time we attended a funeral and "Rock of Ages" (the church version) was one of the songs the family chose for the service. The man behind me had a beautiful bass voice and was singing what would have been his part in a choir. It was a soul touching moment to send this rockstar of a lady to her final rest.
"There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends how you use them." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Just keep rockin' on.
It's mid-April and I just remembered that it's National Poetry Month.
Back in my teaching days, April was nearing the end of the school year and the students' minds were looking forward to their carefree summer rather than classroom instruction. To keep our 8th graders focused on curriculum, my co-Language Arts partner and I put together a poetry unit that focused on the next phase of their academic journey - high school. Poetry is a great way to promote creative thinking. It's subjective, unique to that person, and it gives students the opportunity to think outside the box. It's beneficial to reluctant readers and writers as the shorter form of writing may be more accessible to them. Poetry also allows students to see language in a new way. So many of their poems were about the uncertainty of going to high school. They were the "big kids" of middle school and in September they were starting their school year as the newbies in a new school of 2600 students.
The solar eclipse was one week ago today and if I were still teaching, it would be a safe bet that there would be a poetry unit on this celestial event. I came across this poem while reading about the eclipse in other states. Coincidentally, as in the poem, the eclipse in Ohio started about noon, too.
Winter is over. The spring party has begun and Mother Nature's confetti lines the curbs and settles into the cracks, providing specks of color along the roads and sidewalks. Confetti! It's an Italian word meaning "small sweet" and it is a small sweet celebration to see the petals float off the trees, adding a bit of color to the grass and pavement, acting as a prelude to the coming blossoms.
