Z is for Zed

In other words, the end. I'm glad I completed the A - Z challenge and enjoyed reading new blogs. Thank you to those of you who visited me and left comments. I don't know if I'll keep blogging or if I do what direction to take the blog in. I know I want to write in some form or fashion so maybe this will be a place to practice.

Y is for Yellow around the Yard

Y is for Yellow things I've seen in the Yard so far this spring.

These are happy little blooms.

First whiff of honeysuckle

Dandelion of course

Yellow Swallowtail butterfly

Yellow finch

Daffodils

X is for Xinran: author of The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices

I read The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices by Xinran many years ago. It was the early 2000's and my brother was in China with the Peace Corps teaching English to University students. The book tells harrowing, heartbreaking and inspiring stories Chinese women told to Xinran when she hosted a radio show from 1989-1997. The show, called Words on the Night Breeze, focused on women's issues and their stories. Xinran later moved to London and compiled stories into the book. She has since written several more books that I have not read.

The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices is not an easy book to read. The stories made me realize what a sheltered life I've led and how lucky I am. I still wonder if I could have survived in some of the situations these brave women lived. 

I remember very few books that I read and even less detail of the content. But this book, I remembered how it touched me and made me want to be braver than I am. Come to think of it, I did go on to do some brave (for me) things in the years after I read it.

I'm grateful to google for making it possible to find the title and author's full name. I only remembered the subject of the book and that the author's name had Xin in it. After reading about Xinran's other books I think I'd like to read them, too.

W is for Wasps

W is for wasps. Red ones, black ones, red & black ones, dirt daubers we have them all. They have the house surrounded. Happily if we are mindful and careful they let us be.

I trust you will understand that I didn't try to get a lot of pictures.

V is for View

I've known from the start of the A to Z Challenge that V would be for view, as in the view from my windows. There are two especially that I just love the way the light shines on the view. First is the view from the window over the kitchen sink. (I love having a window over the sink) I like to watch the play 

of light on the tin roof of the shed. Often there are birds in the tree or looking for bugs in the pine needles.

 

Next is the view from my bathroom. It's a water tower on top of the hill to the east. Before the trees leafed out you could see the legs of the tower and watch the light change through the day.

 

From the front room windows we can see the hummingbird feeders and hear the wind chimes hanging on the front porch.

 

Last  is the view from the enclosed carport (or is it open garage?)

Today I listened to an America LP because this has been stuck in my head since yesterday: 

Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have...

and isn't that the truth.

U is for Unmotivated

I'm very unmotivated to come up with something clever for the letter U. So I'm just going to listen to the Gary Puckett and the Union Gap LP and share an uremarkable picture of a toad on the house.

I have something better planned for V!

T is for Turntable

T is for turntable because we have an eclectic collection of LP's from 60's discotheque to 70's disco. Classic country and easy listening (Loretta Lynn, Andy Williams) to gospel (George Beverly Shea, Elvis)  early rock and roll (Elvis, Everly Brothers) to classic rock ( The Who, Kansas) hard rock (Jethro Tull) Southern rock (Marshall Tucker Band) and 70's pop ( Bread, Captain & Tenille)

All these albums have been in storage for years. The stuff from the 60's came from my parents, the pop stuff is mine and the rock stuff is darling man's. When we moved here I decided I wanted to be able to listen them again. Right now I have just an inexpensive portable turntable to use but hopefully we'll be able to hook a better one up to bigger speakers so we can have a literal blast from the past. After all we no longer have to worry about loud music disturbing the neighbors.

Anyone else still listen to LP's?

  

S is for Stray

Still no luck with the raccoon and this morning discovered a possible reason we didn't see / hear it last night. Opened the door and there was a very big dog snoozing on the welcome mat. This is the second Stray dog to visit us. The first came shortly before we had to leave and wandered off before we got back.

This one is a big gray pit with white toes. He's very calm and friendly (thank goodness) and has made himself right at home. Unlike the other stray, this one has a collar with a name & phone number but the phone number was no longer in service. Luckily this is a small community so when the UPS truck came by with a delivery (he would not get out of the truck and who could blame him) I told him the dog was a stray and the name on the collar. Of course the driver not only knows the owner but has his number and said he would call the guy to let him know the dog was here. Owner hasn't shown up yet.

S is also for the barn Swallow that has a nest up under the eaves.

R is for Radiant Recovery, Roses and Raccoon

R is for Radiant Recovery an online community founded by Kathleen DesMaisons author of the book Potatoes not Prozac. It is a plan for healing sugar addiction through nutrition. I first connected with the group 14 years ago and doing the 7 steps of the food plan along with participating in the community truly has helped me on my quest to answer those big questions mentioned yesterday in the Q post.  You can check it out here: Radiant Recovery. 

If you would like to see an interview with Kathleen DesMaisons you can sign up for this Reboot your Brain Health Summit. Kathleen's interview will be May 5th. You'll get to see lots of interesting interviews for free.

Around here, R is for roses. These are the old fashioned kind that smell good and survive neglect.

R is also for the Raccoon we are in a battle of wits with. Here it's stealing a can from the shed. 

 

It also bangs around the garage trying to get in the garbage can. So far it hasn't defeated a bungee cord with a concrete block on top of it keeping the can closed. Plus we get some extra exercise. 

The varmint hasn't fallen for the trap yet. 

Q is for Quest

Okay, I looked through the Q's in the dictionary for this one before settling on Quest. Two interesting (to me) me things I learned: 

1. I have been mispronouncing quixotic. Not that it's a word I say out loud a lot, but when I say it in my head I say it wrong. 

2. After reading the definition to quotidian it occurred to me that it's a rather complicated word for one that means simple or something done daily. 

This entry from my "quill" will be about the idea of quests and how many times I can use a "Q" word to talk about it.

While our internet was down I started re-reading Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. One of my favorite books that I first read when my own life what in transition and upheaval. I re-read it every so often to be reminded how far I've come. It's an account of a year she spent on a quest to find balance between embracing pleasure and knowing God. One of my favorite quotes in the book is about "Quest Physics".  from Goodreads.com:

“I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself... then truth will not be withheld from you." Or so I've come to believe.”― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I have found this to be true in my own quest to find answers to my questions of how can I be real, know  God beyond religious dogma, be happy, be useful and maybe the most practical question of how to escape the quagmire of depression that has dogged me most of my life.  Being stuck more often than not in that quicksand made the rest impossible. 

Fifteen years ago the quest began in earnest when I stumbled upon a way to pursue the answers to my questions.  It is a rather quotidian path in that the key steps consist of simple, although not necessarily easy, daily practices.  And on the surface the whole idea may seem a bit quixotic or to good to be true but it has been a quality path and experience and quite the adventure in self discovery. 

If inquiring (almost a Q word) minds want to know more you'll just have to stay tuned for "R". 

P is for Plowing and Planting and...

P is for a Picture (or 3) is worth a thousand words

Ok technically, it's a tiller but using like a plow to make rows.

Planted: Heirloom Tomatoes

Planted: Spinach & Mustard

O is for Over Halfway There

Yay. We've made it over halfway through the A to Z blogging challenge. Small glitch over the weekend when apparently a tree fell up the road a piece and took out a telephone line Friday evening. Luckily I'd already posted M for that day. Being as it was the weekend we've been off-line and incommunicado. The phone guys were out this morning to hook us back up.

It was kind of nice being unplugged for a couple days. We went to Tupelo to visit with mother in law on Saturday. Yesterday I read and took lots of pictures. We've seen our first hummingbird.

Not an O but whatever.

N is for Natchez Trace Parkway

A Drive through History

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history.  Used by American Indians, "Kaintucks," settlers, and future presidents, the Old Trace played an important role in American history. Today, visitors can enjoy not only a scenic drive but also hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camping.

That was taken from the National Park Service website.Part of the "Trace" runs through Tupelo, Mississippi where some of Darling Man's family live. We sometimes go and take his mom out for lunch on Saturdays. We discovered it's easier and more scenic to use the Trace to get to where some of the restaurants are that we like rather than drive through the stop and go traffic in town. 

It really is a beautiful drive if you can fit it into your travels.

N was almost for Nothing because a tree fell down and took out our telephone and internet for the weekend so that's why this on is late.

M is for Motivation and Mud

Motivation as in lack of. So not feeling the writing or picture taking urge today. Maybe because it rained all day or maybe because I slept in way later than normal. That always seems to throw off the day. Anyway the sun finally came out (in time to set) and I got a picture of the mud patch aka garden.

L is for Log Trucks and Lantana

The one thing that didn't change when we moved from urban to rural is traffic noise. It's not as constant here and we haven't heard sirens but once. But we do have log trucks. Fast log trucks. We live in a hollow between 2 hills so they speed by in both directions, whoosh. The upside is the trucks aren't allowed to travel after dark. The first one rolls by between 4:30 & 5 in the morning. Some are empty, some have trees and some finished lumber.

L is also for lantana, which has been a mystery flower for me since last summer. I encountered them planted in huge pots near where I worked in Maryland. They are so cool with different color tiny petals arranged in circles. This is a picture of them that was on my phone.

Last week I was researching swallowtail butterflies and randomly clicking links for flowers they like. And there it was! The flower I liked so much. Now I have a name so I can get some to try to grow here.

K is for Kitchen

K is for kitchen, specifically for three of my favorite things in the kitchen. The first is my DIY hangers for pots & pans.

About a year before we moved I did this with old IKEA shelves. Screwed hooks into pieces of scrap wood and dangled the hooks between the slats that make up the shelf. Totally adjustable. Just have to be careful where on the top the big pot sits since the top isn't completely flat. Although it wasn't in there long, this reminds me of my kitchen of 20+ years in Maryland. The red skillet is one of the first purchases I made when we moved here. I smile every time I look at it.

My second favorite thing is old but new to this kitchen. It's a barrister bookcase that my mom used for displaying her Beanie Baby collection. For years it had been in our storage unit in Maryland. It reminds me of her while providing a little more storage. I'm sure I'll come across the door knobs someday.

Last is the hutch that belonged to Darling Man's mom. She didn't have it in the kitchen but I like it here with the other two. I haven't figured out yet just what will be stored / displayed there.

It really is the small things that bring a smile and memory that tell our stories and make this house start to feel more like home.