a few of my favorite things

In this world of email and electronic communication, I still enjoy hand writing letters, love to shopping for fun and pretty stationery, and going to the post office for stamps. This is one of my favorite stationery note cards. It depicts paraphernalia that I love: wine, books, maps, a pen and journal, and that cool blue and white jar. I've used all these the note cards except for one, and I keep it on my desk, which by the way looks a lot like this one.

In the spirit of Julie Andrews     Inspired by Julie Andrews

Rain drops on roses and     Glasses of white wine and

whiskers on kittens,             journals for writing,

Bright copper kettles and     Maps to new places 

warm woolen mittens,     are very exciting,

Brown paper packages     Planning a trip really

tied up with string,     makes my heart sing,

These are a few     These are a few

of my favorite things.     of my favorite things.

We've been planning a trip and are taking a holiday until October 9. Posting may be spotty 😊

it's fall, y'all!

Time keeps marching on, the calendar pages keep turning (if you have a hard copy calendar), and Autumn 2025 begins today. Just for some fun, I went through some photo albums and picked out a few fall photos from the Dayton area as well as a couple from some European vacations in the CInque Terre, Italy, and the Alsace region of France. Fall is such a lovely time of the year as it marks the transition from summer to winter.

The Tecumseh Land Trust sunflower field - Yellow Springs, Ohio

Beautiful autumn day at the farm

Up, up, and away in a beautiful autumn blue sky

The monarch butterfly migration

Autumn colors reflected in the lake at Hills & Dales MetroPark

Warty pumpkins!

Hillside farming - Cinque Terre, Italy

Harvesting olives along the path - Cinque Terre, Italy

Alsatian wine country

do you remember...

Hop on the bus, Gus, you don't need to discuss much...oops, wrong song! (reference Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover).

It's that 21st day in September. C'mon now...y'all need to have a little fun and get up and dance! 

Dancin' in September

reverse poem

So what do you think of this poem? It's pretty grim and depressing.

Poems read both ways are known as reverse poems. They are structured so that the lines convey one meaning when read top-to-bottom and a completely different, often opposite, meaning when read bottom-to-top.

I read it top to bottom and thought, "Damn. These words make me feel like this is the direction the United States is taking." Makes a person feel hopeless.

But from the bottom to reading, it shed a totally different light - one that is positive, one that offers hope. And me, the one who looks for the best in people, chooses to believe that good will win in the end. So, bottoms up!

the friday feed: pesto

One of the signs of summer coming to an end is pulling my basil plants to make pesto. This is an all day project with having to take all those leaves off the stems, sorting them to use or pitch, then washing and drying them. It's a lot of tedious work, but the kitchen sure does smell heavenly during all of this.

So all that work and all those leaves (I pitched a lot of them) makes six-four ounce (28.4 g) containers of pesto. It's not that much, but it will bring a taste of summer as we head into the fall and winter months.

I used the the New York Times pesto recipe, adding my own touches - roasting the garlic and toasting the pine nuts.

🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂

Today is my youngest son's 35th birthday. Right now my kids are 35, 37, 38, and 40. Such fun and busy times when they were little. He and his wife are the ones who gave me the gift of grandparenthood with their little boy and then the gift of my first granddaughter. My grandson is a carbon copy of his dad...energetic, talkative, always happy, inquisitive. He takes me back to my days as a young mother.

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

A couple times this past week when I worked the morning shift at the farm, I picked okra. My boss's rule it that it has to be no smaller than your pinkie when it's cut. There are a couple women who tell me that it's too large when we pick it. In their culture they like pieces half that size or smaller. Come to find out, the reason these ladies like their okra smaller is because they don't want to spend the time cutting it. That's a good reason but gotta do what the boss says.

I picked okra on my birthday morning. I like to get out there early because 1. It's cooler; 2. The bees are just starting to make their way to the okra flowers so I don't bother them and they don't bother me; and 3. The customers are excited when they're told the okra was freshly picked that morning. 

The state of Ohio, as well as surrounding states, is in a drought. In the past when I've gone out to pick okra, I've come back with mud on them from the previous night's rain or damp from the rain or dew. This time around, my shoes were dry. Everyone's hoping for some rain soon.

When I was in Chicago, my daughter bought this wine, a blend of sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio. At first I thought, dry pinot grigio and grapefruity sauvignon blanc? Hmmmm. The flavors were balanced and it was a light, refreshing sip after putting the little grandson down for the night. I have a bottle chilling in my refrigerator now.

The Dayton Art Institute had an exhibit with Curtis Barnes' art. He is a Dayton artist who taught in the Dayton Public Schools and also at Sinclair Community College. This exhibit's last day was September 14 and I made it to the DAI to see it on the 12th. Nothing like cutting it close! Along with the Curtis Barnes exhibit, some of Alexander Calder's art was on display in the gallery next door, and a very moving Holocaust exhibit by young artists from the Dayton Public Schools.  It was one of those days where I was in a hurry to cross things off my very long list but these exhibits made me slow down and enjoy. And my list got finished, too.

Across the street from the Art Institute a memorial to Montgomery County law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty is being built.

For my birthday, my brothers and sisters-in-law were in town and we got together for a quiet birthday celebration. There's my margarita, on the rocks, with salt. It was a lovely day to sit on the patio, talk about some family business we're working on, and just to count our blessings.

 

this year...

What happened on this day just a "few" years ago? My parents became parents to a green-eyed, curly hair daughter...me!

I am 68 today. 68 is one of those years that isn't a big number year. Years that end in 0 or 5 seem to get more attention than years that end in 8, except for 18, the year of adulthood. 88 is cool because it's a double 8. But 68 is a big year for me. My grandma (Dad's mom) died when she was 68 from a blood-related cancer. My dad died at 68 from a blood-related cancer. And guess what? I'm not going to, unless something shows up and spreads through my body in the next year. At my last physical, my doctor said everything looks good, to keep doing what I'm doing, and she'd see me next year. 

Sharing a couple thoughts that resonate in my soul:

Personal growth and the pursuit of dreams are continuous processes that don't have an age limit. "Never put an age limit on your dreams" challenges the notion that there are certain things one should or should not do once they reach a particular age. I roll down grassy hills and run through splash pads with my oldest grandchild and will do so when the other two are old enough to experience that joy. I challenge myself to do more and more difficult yoga poses and to take classes to broaden my horizons. I am not going to sit around and watch TV all day. For me, one of the blessings of aging is a change in priorities. I’m less about pleasing others or doing things out of obligation, and more about what will nourish and enrich my soul.

This one really speaks to me, too.

Today is Mexican Independence Day, a national holiday in Mexico. Maybe a margarita tonight! Cheers!...¡Salud!