Category: Journal

Have Some of My Cake

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 12 Comments

Good morning to all my readers and followers.

Bright sunshine forecasting a beautiful day and I’m celebrating my birthday by having a coffee, doing the laundry, and generally staying home and avoiding all human contact. 🙂

Not quite true, as I’m cooking supper at the seniors’ residence this afternoon; also, my dear husband gave me a card and a kiss before he left to pick up a few groceries. Thankfully,  I can visit online as well, so won’t you all join me this morning for a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, and a few relevant verses.

CoffeeCake.Farooq Sharif

Here are a few haiku I wrote yesterday, combining thoughts of warmer days to come with our current situation:

morning joggers
run rings around
my safe space

a bumblebee
not knowing the law
comes way too close

if only mosquitoes would get the point of social distancing

The Fish or the Flop?

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt for today is FLOUNDER

Which brings to mind that old question, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Was the fish named because of its flopping, or was the flopping named after the flounder that flopped around when caught?

Inquiring from wise old Mr Webster, I learned that there was a FLOUNDER – the fish – before there was a floundering of anything else. However, the verb FLOUNDER is believed to have been a twist of the much older word, FOUNDER, or possibly a blend between FOUNDER and BLUNDER.

Your Daily Word prompt is SWAMPED
The Word of the Day challenge is NOTHING
These prompt words bring to mind one trial in my life, so I’ll share something about that.

FLOUNDER is a good word for me: I often feel like I’m floundering. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve all these “someday” sewing and writing projects that need finishing. My “Bucket List,” if you will. Most of the time I can keep my heard above water, but some days I feel SWAMPED by the need to deal with said mess. All these notebooks full of scribbled poem bits, now tossed in a tub awaiting future attention — to say NOTHING of the tubs awaiting attention in my sewing room.

It’s all about perspective, right? “Just pick one thing and get started,” several friends have told me. So, do I have a full-blown case of OCD or ADD that keeps me from sticking with a task, or is it all just a lack of self-discipline? Scatterbrained, the old folks used to say.

Have you noticed that some thinking can put you on a real teeter-totter? When I’m feeling down about this mess, the philosopher in me rises up and asks accusingly, “Which came first, the mind-set or the mess? What major changes need to happen in your personality in order to avoid this situation?”

Oh, help! I think I’ll go read a good book.

Then along comes another Monday. I’m so thankful for Mondays; for me each one is a new start, a chance to get my head above the waves again and start paddling.

cropped-cake-3163117_1280.jpgTogether with the grandchildren, I worked on some sewing projects last Friday and today I plan to continue that good work. And once I get my sewing space all cleaned up, I’ll throw one mega-celebration. Chocolate cake and ice cream and… 😉

Ah! Incentive, that’s the key. Or does the answer lie in just accepting the mess as is? What do you think?

Hanging On

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is HANG ON
Fandango’s One-Word Challenge is CONTEMPLATE

temp-challenge

So this morning I’ve been contemplating the various aspects of hanging on. Consider the tree in this photo. It had no easy way in life; it didn’t just thrust its roots down into nutrient-rich soil and grow. Rather, it had to made its own spot and hang on.

A seed sprouted in some bit of dirt that accumulated in a crevice, taking what nourishment it could get from the rainfall. Then its root drilled into the rock tendril by tendril, day after day, to anchor itself against the wild winds that would tear it out. As its root wedged the rock apart, it collected more wind-blown soil and rain and kept on reaching for the sunlight above.

While the tree needed to put forth those efforts to anchor itself, of greater importance is WHAT it’s anchored to. It isn’t clinging to a mountain of cotton candy. That rock has stood from the beginning of time and will not be moved by storms that blast over it.

I recall an account I read after a tornado in Ontario years ago. A man was working in a Dept of Highways equipment shed when the workers heard the tornado bearing down on them.  In desperation this man grabbed some solid piece of steel equipment, hoping the twister wouldn’t carry him away. A moment later the tornado ripped the roof off the shed, sucked up the three-ton road grader nearby and carried it away. You could almost think the storm was making fun of his idea of “something solid.”

Snail.Bellezza87
Bellezza87 — Pixabay

Right now a wild virus has been sweeping across our whole planet, disrupting our lives like we never imagined anything could — short of a war. And here we are, poor creatures, trying to hang on and carry on as best we can.

We’ve been given many warnings and guidelines to help us stay healthy. Fearing shortages, people have rushed to stock up on necessities — probably making matters worse — but I trust we all know that hanging onto a mountain of toilet paper and dry pasta isn’t going to assure our survival.

How we weather the emotional part of this storm — and future storms — will be determined by what security, what type of rock, we’re hanging onto, won’t it?

In these scary times, here’s the Rock Christians are clinging to:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39

Memories Within

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 2 Comments

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is LOOKING WITHIN

Today I plan to do some looking within my cupboards to make up a good shopping list. Shopping is one thing that seems to have changed a lot in this current crisis and I’ve always been rather haphazard about it before, forgetting the list at home, forgetting some important item. Now I need to sharpen up, when both our shopping time and store supplies are limited.

I’ve also been looking within my sewing closet; yesterday I took advantage of the grandchildren being home from school and took a box of sewed blocks (for two baby blanket tops) over to their house. I had the granddaughters help me lay out these squares out on the floor and decide their order.

Any project is a whole lot better when you have cheerful helping hands—especially when they belong to flexible children who don’t mind crawling around on the floor to set out the blocks and shift them around to a suitable pattern. And we get the added bonus of making sweet memories together. 🙂

Here’s a poem that speaks of another kind of looking within; no matter where we are and what our stresses, we can all take a moment to enjoy a stroll through the corridors where we store our pleasant memories.

Floral + Poem.Prawny
                  Image by Prawny  —  Pixabay

Recipe for Seasoning Spring

~ Christine Goodnough ~ 4 Comments

Good morning everyone,

The Word of the Day prompt this morning is ADVICE.

Coincidentally, blogger Bill at The Write Idea has given a bit of advice this morning in his haiku about “releasing the dragon.” READ HERE. I decided to take it, and find a dragon I could release.

I have quite a number penned up (pardon the pun) in notebooks, hoping to someday be set free. Yes, it’s time to open a few gates! I grabbed an old journal full of scribbles, turned to the back page, and found a raw poem I jotted down a few years back. I touched it up with a spritz of polish on the scales, did some filing on a few toenails, dabbed a dash more colour on some spots — and now I have my dragon ready to present to you, dear readers.

RECIPE FOR SPRING DELIGHT

Take the wonder of a blue sky,
add the blessing of warm sunshine,
bar the blasts of bitter wind,
but allow a few warm zephyrs
to tease the icicles to tears
till they splash the winter-killed
grass with a rousing message.

Add a number of misting poplars,
a sprinkling of meadowlark trills
and a path bordered by catkins.
Whisk yourself into this mix
some inviting March morning;
and marinate in the delights of spring.

children balloons