Dear Reader:

I had started another blog post when I heard some news from Tommy that sent me back down memory lane…and I sensed immediately that I must stop and pay tribute to all the guardian angels that God has sent me throughout this twelve-year, on-going struggle with “little c”…especially this particular angel today.

Tommy and Kaitlyn had seen this article and sadly forwarded it on to me!

The headlines read:

“Bidding Farewell to Dingle’s Iconic Fungie the Dolphin.”

“Fungie appears to have disappeared from Dingle Bay in Co Kerry… having entertained tourists for the past 37 years.”

When Anne and I traveled to Ireland five years ago and stayed in Dingle for a couple of days…we went to the marina first to get tickets to ride the boat out to see the famous dolphin, orphaned, and adopted by the town people…named Fungie! There were stories of him everywhere and even a statue to pose on….

The dolphin was already a spiritual symbol in my mind since my first meeting with one, on the jetties, at Edisto Beach in October of 2008…shortly after my surgery and while still undergoing chemo treatments.

I couldn’t sleep at Brooke’s beach house…worried about my future…or more specifically… the potential lack of…so I left the house quietly one morning to walk in solitude conversing with God about the uncertainty of the days…in which I was living.

It was a foggy morning and I was basically alone… except for one young couple much farther up the beach laughing and giggling while collecting shells. I remember wishing I had their energy and state of mind…I was just plain exhausted.

So I plopped down on the jetties and asked God for guidance…I felt so alone and lost…clueless as what direction to go. Suddenly I felt this huge presence come over me… before I visually saw anything. A dolphin  swam  into the jetties… fishing among the rocks…and leapt vertically, so high,  he was, literally, towering over me.

In shock and amazement I remember looking up up up into that big smiling face staring down at me. I found myself grinning back…his head was enormous...it appeared to be two-thirds of his body.

For that split second when we visually met eye to eye….I instantly knew what God’s message was…it was so loud and clear…it almost seemed as if the dolphin spoke directly to me telepathically.

“All is right with the world…all is right with you. Everything is just as it should be in God’s universe …go live life to the fullest.”

Now seven years later (in 2015)…I found myself on a tour boat in Dingle Bay… looking for Fungie, the famous and beloved Dingle dolphin. Coincidence? NO. God Wink? YES.

It didn’t seem as if he were going to appear…the boat kept circling and all of us kept turning our heads…suddenly Anne… on the other side of the boat…pointed at me and yelled excitedly “Behind you!” 

As I began turning Fungie was coming down from his vertical leap literally right behind me…almost as if he saw me and swam over…I saw the splash and his head turned slightly, as if to tell me good-bye and wish me well…before swimming off again…no doubt the same universal spirit was in both dolphins. Look how far I had come from 2008…able to take a trip to Ireland! I was “living life to the fullest.”

So what is the one truth that I will leave this world knowing in every fiber of my being…” We are all connected under the skin.” Humans, animals, plants…every living thing is connected to every other living thing.

“Big Red”….my floral guardian angel.

God has given me dolphins and big red geraniums…to guide me and reassure me that life should be lived as one great adventure!

And I did make the most of my “adventure” time in Dingle, Ireland….even hanging with the local singers in an Irish pub …just let loose and danced to life and living that night.

Anne sent me a secret photo she took the day she stuck the witch’s legs under my B&B door frame…she got another root cutting from “Big Red” and sent me this photo. * Look! She already has a bud forming…”Big Red” must have magical powers…it sure has spiritual ones!

So until tomorrow…“Our guardian angels are closer to us than anything except the love of God.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Honey sent me these photos from my beloved St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, NC. She told me the chapel had a make-over from her visit a year prior…and this one beautiful stained window that was cracked had been fixed inside and out. Honey’s beautiful daughter, Ashley, went with her…along with their masks…always a reminder of life in 2020…physically and spiritually.

Don’t we hear, from time to time, the advice…to pause and look up…so glad I did yesterday because guess what was smiling down at me…one red leaf and a family of morning glories high up near the top of a tree. * In an abstract painting it would have resembled an apple and a cluster of purple grapes!

Dear Reader:

This is normally the time of the year when I am showing off my Confederate Rose “Bush” with all its shades of white, pink, and dark pink blooms. It is a joy to behold. *The picture below was taken in the Fall of 2018.

I was so enamored of it I would take photos of every color bloom arriving from white to dark pink.

The blooms always reminded me of my childhood…making flower blooms out of colorful tissue paper. And then the history teacher in me always loved the legend behind the Confederate Rose.

“Once the Confederate Rose was pure white. During the Civil War, a Confederate soldier was fatally wounded in battle. He fell upon a white rose as he lay dying. During the course of the two days he took to die, he bled more and more on the flower, till at last the bloom was covered with his blood. When he died, the flower died with him. Thereafter, the Confederate Rose (or Cotton Rose), opens white, and over the course of the two days the bloom lasts, they turn gradually from white to pink to almost red, when the flower finally falls from the bush.”

It was after the fall bloom of 2018 that suddenly the limbs on my Cotton Rose atrophied and nothing grew on them. I cut that huge “bush” (tree) way back…and last year it revived again…but suddenly the same thing happened this summer… bare stalks with no green leaves and dead pods appeared …I was heartbroken again. I just left it as it was then.

I decided to wait a few more weeks until it would normally stop blooming and cut it way back again and try that tactic over one more time.

But then Wednesday evening…as I walked over to it…I noticed that the few leaves still clinging to the bare stalk /branches looked healthier now …and on one stem…There it was!… The bud of promise and courage. Overcoming all odds one bud/pod is desperately trying to bloom in the last days of the normal fall season.

Never give up hope…that goes for me and the tight bud desperately attempting to be the only bloom this year on a bare bush that looks like it is fighting for its life.

I will be watching it like a hawk…and pray it opens to the purest white bloom, slowly turning pink, and then dark maroon. (like this photo of an earlier bloom, two years ago, changing colors) If it happens it will make me happy beyond happy….Hope is alive and thriving for the Confederate Rose Bush. What a great example of never giving up!

As fragile and tenuous as life is…when it comes right down to it…don’t we all fight our greatest fight trying to continue breathing in it? Life is beautiful!

So until tomorrow….”Life isn’t about finding yourself…it is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Jake got to go fishing, shrimping, and crabbing with his granddad for his nine weeks good kindergarten report…I think we have another little “Huck Finn” who would rather be crabbing than having to go to school…the outdoors with marine life is his “Happy Place.” He is filled with wonder and awe in this new domain.

My garden keeps creating itself over and over….( I bought some “rocking red” ‘Dianthus”) to add in different spots in the garden for more color.

Dear Reader:

Last week I introduced you to author Nicole Phillips who I heard when I plopped down with my sandwich, in the recliner, being interviewed about her book-The Negativity Remedy. 

Her personal epiphany, that she was sharing in the interview, was  about realizing that the “universe” or “those people” are not out to get us; instead if you start looking for kindness first… over jumping to negative conclusions…your world turns upside down for the better.

It’s like me making the decision some evenings to simply skip the negative, depressing news …instead I wait until the last five minutes and turn the television on so I can hear the good news about some personal act of kindness an individual did…these segments end all the national evening news shows these days. (Even David Muir said that selecting these ending segments to put on each evening keeps him sane too. 🙂 I leave watching the ‘news’ reassured that so many people really are “good at heart.”

While researching the author, Phillips, last week…I noticed that you could sign up for her daily example of kindness that would be emailed out each morning….so I decided to do it. Phillips was telling about this particular interview, I saw, the first morning I received her “kindness note.”

So I texted her back and told her that I loved this unique perspective on kindness, and how I had shared it with my son and daughter-in-law (Walsh and Mollie) last weekend. Walsh was going to share a couple of stories with his team crew this week at work. I thought Nicole would like to know that her “kindness” was spreading. A few hours later…I got this response back….

“Hi Becky!

Thanks for watching — and for your encouragement! It’s amazing how much brighter the world has gotten since I’ve stopped judging myself and others so harshly. 🙂

I hope your week is filled with kindness!”

When she shared this latest observation on acceptance of imperfections in life over frenzied ‘control freak” “Fix it” now former attitudes….I had to laugh. We’ve all been there, sadly!

It has taken me a lifetime to realize that you can’t fix everyone’s problems….I reckon it is that “mom” thing in us when the children are small…but as they grow, along, with their problems…there comes a time when it is time to stop trying to fix all the wrongs…it is a lesson in futility and frustration. Just listen...it is all people really want from us.

Nicole shares this cute excerpt from her blog…

I got back from the interview in LA late Saturday night. The whole family was wide awake and practicing their best (loudest and highest) opera voices.

The next morning I went out to collect a week’s worth of mail. No one thought to bring it in, or maybe they knew I would get a kick out of seeing how many things our mailman, Kevin, could fix into one tiny box. Well done, Kevin!

On my way back in the house, I noticed a sign hanging next to our front door, encouraging people to shout Ding Dong because the doorbell is broken.

I so clearly remember the me who once existed. The me who thought there was a certain way to do things. Schedules and rules and organization were of great priority.

Then one day my priorities changed. All the things that were broken, no longer seemed like things that needed to be fixed. I started to see them as part of the fabric of our lives. Instead of weaving together black and white (right and wrong) I began to see the value in the multitude of colors that come from letting go of the pressure of perfection.

The tapestry of our lives became beautiful to me.

What are you trying to fix in your life that really doesn’t need fixing? Take a deep breath. Memorize a relaxing mantra. Then look at how colorful life can be when we stop trying to control it and vow to simply enjoy it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

And I enjoyed reading your favorite toys….Gin-g liked the Ken and Barbie dolls, a toy refrigerator,  but really loved the little toy cooking ovens…Remember the ones where you could make the googy “brownie” mix ….how many times did we all have to pretend it was the best thing we ever put in our mouths…it was unfortunately one of Eva Cate’s favorite toys too.

Lisa shared this personal memento that touched by heart so….

“I love this story Becky! You are right—comfort toys are a “god send”…I had a Care Bear with a heart in its belly—I slept with it every night. Night time was always hard for me as my Mom worked nights from the time I was 9 years old and my older brother and I would stay by ourselves through the night—my Care Bear helped me feel safe💕”

Dee shared that she had a doll (Curly) she was close to…but it didn’t have a happy ending and she still couldn’t go there…so she chose a rocking chair as her favorite toy from childhood.

It was made by her Great Uncle John especially for her….Dee said her happiest memories were playing in his workshop making necklaces and bracelets from wood curlings for her and her Aunt Annie.

When she was five years old she got the rocker…and fell in love. She admitted she put more miles on that little rocking chair growing up than she ever  did a car…rock and dream. When she married it had a special place in her living room. When their daughter, Kimberly was born…it became hers and like mom…she rocked and dreamed too.

Kimberly married and had a daughter, Morgan, who loved to visit her grandmother Dee so she could rock and dream also. So it was decided that the rocker would go home with Morgan one year. It was the first time Dee had been separated from the rocking chair since 1945.

So to keep the memories preserved…Dee had a four-framed photo shoot made with all the family “girls” in the rocker at different ages in their lives and decided to title it…”Rocker of Ages.” (I love it!)

Thanks for sharing your childhood memories of your favorite toy with all of us…we are all enriched from the memories.

So until tomorrow….”Leave well enough alone” when it comes to the mundane things in life…It is too short to stress over every imperfection life can throw at us. In fact isn’t it the imperfect items we come to love and remember the best?

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Move out sunflowers…”The camellias are coming, the camellias are coming.” 🙂

Dear Reader:

A few months ago when Rutledge and Eva Cate spent the night with me…I took them to our new Art Center in downtown Summerville…we were each given one of these pretty bookmarks.

The other day one fell out of a book I had stuck it in and then never resumed reading. This time when I pulled the book mark out I read the verse at the bottom of the book tag…and chuckled. It was from a folklore piece of literature called “Southern Album” and it made me smile.

The Angels Hum in the West and -in the East and -in the North. BUT in the SOUTH, why in the SOUTH the angels…they do sing!  AMEN

Don’t we all love local or regional tales about the area we live in? The more colorful and taller the tale…the better. After all…“Halloween is not only about putting on a costume, but it’s about finding the imagination and costume within ourselves.” –Elvis Duran

That’s why I love Halloween…it is a time when children can let their imaginations go and be something totally different for just one night. My fondest memories of childhood come from this fall celebration. I think too many people read more into Halloween than necessary or the historical origin…instead of just seeing it for what it is today…fun!

This time of the year I always bring back one of my favorite anecdotes to share annually…after all the readers each year have changed with new readers coming on board. I never tire of this wonderful  Fall metaphor and for those of you who have read it  before…like me…hopefully it still makes us pause and say “Amen.”

Several years ago I came across this little anecdote simply called “The Acorn and the Pumpkin.” It is very short…but sometimes the power of a story or a speech (take the Gettysburg Address for example) is enhanced through its brevity and remembered longer than a lengthy story. Case-in-point.

“The Acorn and the Pumpkin”

There is a little anecdote that tells the story of a woman
who was walking through a meadow.

As she strolled
along meditating on nature, she came upon a field
of golden pumpkins.

In the corner of the field stood
a majestic oak tree.

The woman, weary, sat down under the oak and began to
muse about the strange twists in nature.

Tiny acorns hung on huge branches and huge pumpkins sat on tiny
vines.

She thought, “God blundered with creation!
He should have put the small acorns on the tiny vines 
and the large pumpkins on the huge branches.”

Resting beneath the oak, she drifted off to sleep.
She was awakened by a tiny acorn bouncing off her
nose.

Chuckling to herself, she amended her previous
thought, “Just goes to show that God knew best all along!

……………………………………….

All this week haven’t we reiterated the same thought…we can’t outwit, out-think, out-power our Creator…God is the ANSWER for everything we see and feel around us.

So until tomorrow…The pumpkin falling from an oak tree, especially on one’s nose, probably would require plastic surgery….but an acorn? Don’t ever try to one-up God ….because you will lose. He knows exactly how Creation should work…after all He created it! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Congratulations to King Jake…Mr. Responsible Kindergartner (Hard to believe it is the end of the first quarter…the kindergarten classes are being taught French in class….”ROI Jake”! Boo is proud of you!)

Yesterday I was a good gal and got my flu shot at Publix…I took the ten dollar shopping card the pharmacy gives everyone who gets their shot there and looked in the different lines to see who could probably use it the most…one tired-looking woman with two children clinging to her legs fit the bill.

I went around on the outside of the lines….motioned to the cashier and handed him the card…motioning to the lady who was trying to get her groceries out of the cart with two children hanging on her. He nodded and smiled…and I went on my merry way! What a wonderful opportunity to feel good.

This karma must have stuck around…because I received two wonderful gifts in the mail from Marcia Temple, Mollie’s mom from N.H. A face mask with the three words…FAITH  LOVE  HOPE repeatedly printed on it! I love it!!!!

There was also another gift in the mail bag.. I love the poem and stone token on scattering kindness like a dandelion does its seed!….just perfect for what we have talked about this past week with the word kindness and all its different layers.

Monday I didn’t get out in the back yard… so was I in for a surprise Tuesday…Mr. Lincoln has made his appearance….I felt like saluting and that unbelievable scent made me so happy.

There were so many pretty surprises to be seen….yesterday was another “perfect” day…have had a lot of them lately! I am so fortunate and thankful!

Dear Reader:

Can you believe it  has been a month since I started the StoryWorth Album Mollie gave me for my birthday? My fourth “Monday” question came yesterday…“What was your favorite toy(s) in your childhood growing up?”

For me…my love of dolls began very early, before I was old enough to remember and (quite honestly) has never left me. I adore dolls…always have…but especially one doll for a very special reason. (me holding my doll and mother holding hers- me 🙂

Her name was Polly and this is really her story too…since we were inseparable for many years…actually…still are.

My “Polly” was a “Teri” doll manufactured post WWII in the fifties…the decade of my early childhood. I got Polly when I was five…the year my father died and my mother began her fight against bone cancer…the end result…she lost her left hand and partial arm.

My brothers and I had already started the “shuffle”…being shuffled from one aunt and uncle to another to a grandmother to cousins…on both sides…some relatives we weren’t even familiar with at that young age. I remember being so homesick and could only sleep at night if I had a satin blue pillow case to soothe me… while I sucked my thumb.

“Teri” dolls arrived in little trunks with the doll in one outfit and another outfit hanging in the trunk with them. For that time period…they were quite expensive. There is no doubt several extended family members went in to get me that doll…my guardian angel for the rest of my life.

I named her “Polly” for Miss Polly Black…one of three elderly spinster sisters who owned a Victorian boarding house in Fayetteville, North Carolina where mother boarded after graduation from business school at Winthrop. It was here  she met daddy on a blind date and married the year the war ended… we three siblings followed in quick succession.

Every Sunday afternoon mother would take me to visit Miss Polly who lived on the third floor in another world because she mentally never grew past being a little girl herself. She had lots and lots of dolls. I will never forget when I showed Miss Polly my Polly from my fifth birthday present…and told her I named the doll after her.

I am not sure she ever fully understood that…because she would ask me every time…what the doll’s name was when I came for a “tea party” visit…and when I answered “Polly” she would clap her hands in delight and say “That’s my name too!”! (Then we would both start clapping our hands…a ritual we did until the last time I visited her before we left Fayetteville to move to Laurens. (I was 13 then)

This time, however, when she asked me the name of the doll and then started clapping happily again…I broke down in tears because I intuitively knew I would never see Miss Polly again….and I didn’t …she was almost 80 when we got the news she was gone… a year after we left town.

The other sisters said that every Sunday, after we moved, she sat looking out the third story window…looking for mother and me to come…and ended up disappointed and sad…the tea set ready for our visit.

Polly the doll and I had many adventures and even misadventures together when Polly was “kidnapped” by some “bad boys” in the neighborhood ….buried under pine straw…it rained that night and by the time we found her…her arms and legs were loose from the one rubber band that held her limbs to her body trunk.

Mother actually sent her off to a doll hospital in Philadelphia (the only one at that time) we received notes telling us how much she was improving. Polly the doll left a brunette and returned a blond (I know how she felt…happens to me a lot 🙂 but I recognized her and her beautiful white dress that she still has to this day.

Eva Cate meeting Polly for the first time….and then again later…another little girl to love on her.

This beautiful doll came into my life at its lowest time-when I most needed a friend….five years old, confused, upset, with no one to talk to… Polly filled that empty void for me. We have grown old together (though Polly has definitely kept her youthful image much better than myself :)….There has never been a doubt in my mind that a guardian angel has always been inside that little 16 inch hard plastic body held together with a big rubber band connecting all body parts to one invisible heart.

The simplest materials are what guardian angels prefer…I believe.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* Take a minute and think back on your childhood….What was your favorite toy and why? I would love for anyone to share their “toy guardian angel” with the rest of us.

Pam Stewart found this cartoon and thought of me…so true…especially when it comes to planting bulbs….”Now where did I plant those other bulbs last year?”

Dear Reader:

Today…in business terms…diversified portfolios are “In”…very popular. College students are told to try out as many ventures in life as possible and put every experience in their job interview portfolio.

Colleges are right. Tommy is a prime example. He first decided to apply as a part-time law student and continue to work with a lawn maintenance company in Summerville…but he was given the opportunity (by the head of of the Charleston Law School) to go full time because of his diverse backgrounds since graduating from Clemson…it was here he would meet his future wife and companion. Kaitlyn! God does such a good job of pre-planning! 🙂

This is the year our Race for the Cure team changed our name to ‘Legally Pink.’ Both passed the Bar Exam! And today they are partner associates where they first began…A wonderful blueprint God…thank you.

It is so good to know that colleges are promoting diversity of jobs and experiences to their graduates…don’t we wish the rest of the world did? Take the polls right now. Everyday we see another poll with another finding…polls like to classify people by gender, socio-economic levels, educational tiers, political party classifications, assumptions about choices depending on the geography within the country.

One day the poll talks about suburban women, the next day another poll is concentrating on the unemployed and number of COVID 19 cases, another day the polls have divided the states into separate political satellites based on prior elections…it could go on and on and on and on and on! (And it does!)

Ugh! Like the title says…”“Classifying humans is not classy.” Beware of those who do it. We are all unique individuals with minds of our own…to change at any time.

Theodore Roosevelt was so right when he said: “Comparison is the thief of joy.”  I have always wrestled somewhat with the term “idols” in scripture and usually tucked them away as pagan traditions and something tied into sacrifices …but never have given it much thought.

Then recently I had an epiphany….When we go through life wishing we were another personality like someone we know, or smarter like another person we admire, or more outgoing like another contact…these people become our “idols.” Instead of believing that we are the unique human beings God created with each blue print made, especially, for each of us…we waste our precious time on earth coveting others identities… instead of exploring our own distinctive gifts.

When I read this powerful quote over the weekend…I experienced another epiphany…we aren’t humbling ourselves when we defer to others we think are bigger, stronger, smarter, whatever than us…we are actually being narcissistic…thinking we are more powerful than God by our poor choices or wrong turns in life. We put the power on us instead of letting God’s omnipotent power reveal our unique beautiful inner-self and gift to the world.

So until tomorrow….“God called those who were enemies, aliens, and strangers his very own children and friends. And wrote the story of our life before we drew our first breath.” 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Gin-g and her adorable grandson, J. P. stopped by for a visit yesterday afternoon…bringing a beautiful bouquet of fall flowers. We had so much fun with J.P. ….he is a little cutie!

A Big Shout-Out to Susan Swicegood (Kaitlyn’s beautiful mom)….whose birthday was yesterday…the same as Mollie’s… I blew it! (We have so many cross-over birthdays of different family members now that it is almost hilarious.)

It is getting harder and harder to find someone in the family who has a “solo” birthday!  Still..the more the merrier for sure!

This is one of my fondest memories….enjoying the pre-wedding festivities for Tommy and Kaitlyn with Susan! So much fun!!!

Today, October 19, is also officially my adorable niece Bekah’s birthday.

Bekah…I know this year has been a tough one but also a new opportunity one…with time and hopefully the departure of COVID19 things will start turning around and be brighter for you and the world!

Believe that”The Best is Yet to Be” and it will come! 🙂

A “new do” always gets you in the festive mood for a new year and wonderful adventures! Great birthday present!! Go get’em this year girl!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was a “freeze frame” day for so many different reasons…beauty, cool sixties, dappling sun with elongated shadows, sapphire skies,  football games, family, and friends…and yes, fun pranks from fabulous friends! 🙂

Yesterday was the complete package of the best of life rolled up into one perfect day.

Anne and “sneaky” friends (from church and her neighborhood) came up with this adorable prank using stockings and shoes from different people. When I initially got home about mid-afternoon yesterday… I didn’t even see it.

I rushed in unlocking my side, quickly, carrying two ice cream Sundaes to get them in the fridge before they melted…Anne had texted me wanting to know when I would be home …she  said she wanted to drop by to see the garden and drop off some peanut butter cookies…she just forgot to mention the prank. (Huummm…I wonder why?)

When she arrived we chatted for awhile….took a tour of the garden, side yards and front yard circling back to the front porch again…I kept going on and on about “Big Red” and all its buds…and as I pointed to some new buds leaning towards the “B&B” side…Anne suddenly yelled…”What is that!!!!!!????” 

My gaze followed Anne’s pointing fingers….the legs of and shoes of something were squished, it appeared, under the storm door on the B&B side. For a spit second…I thought someone had really broken in the other side while I was gone… and something terrible happened.

I screamed as  loud as I could…admittedly using a four letter word that falls under the category of profanity…the only thing that improved this optional word choice… being rendered, loudly, from my lips…was that I did add “Holy” before saying it. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Isn’t it wonderful that life has so many surprises for us….to keep us on our toes and enjoying the unexpected moments…especially when they turn out to be just plain Halloween fun.

After Anne left I returned to the back garden…the afternoon shadows had grown quite long. As I sat on the bench, still chuckling to myself about the prank and remembering the fun day that preceded it…while I relaxed… one very long, dark shadow steadily crept closer to my feet…like a child playing “shadows” in yesteryear…I involuntarily lifted my feet onto the bench as the shadow hit the toes of my shoes.

Suddenly I remembered the true story I heard once…about the 23rd Psalm and a young girl who was terrified of the fourth verse-“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” 

One day the girl confessed to her pastor that she didn’t like that passage or idea in the 23rd Psalm…that she was scared of shadows and it made death even scarier.

The pastor calmly nodded, took her hand, and lead her outside where the slanting sun was casting it own shadows on the church parking lot. He started playing fun shadow games with her…making funny shadow animals…getting her to start giggling.

“What is the most important thing needed to make a shadow?” he asked the girl. She thought a second and responded…”The sun?”

“Exactly!” beamed her pastor…”Without the sun…there can be no shadows. So think about it…not only does there have to be a bright beautiful sun in this line of scripture to make this shadow in a valley, you are, also, told you are not alone…you are with God holding His hand…and He will protect you from harm.”

“Feel better?”

The girl nodded and never pictured the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” again without the sun beaming down brightly with God, walking by her side… holding her hand.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

So until tomorrow….

“Today is my favorite day.” Winnie the Pooh

Photos of my “perfect day”

Rutledge…”Mr. Defense” and Lachlan…”Mr. Offense”

Part-time Coach Dingle…Walsh for Rutledge’s team

Barbecue, Football, Family, dogs, and laughter….

Tommy and Mary Ross. Kaitlyn’s niece,  watching Lachlan play…both carrying dogs…it was a little chilly early yesterday morning-even for Pip and Atticus… but Fabulous!

I took birthday over to Mollie a little early…her birthday is today! 🙂

A Shout-out to Mollie today…Happy Happy Birthday!

Such a beautiful month for a beautiful girl to be born in. 

And each year the seasonal month gets more beautiful …just like our Mollie.

Enjoy your next trip around the sun, Mollie, and return with even more tales of wonder and awe next year!

Dear Reader:

These days, as I fall in love more and more with “Big Red” the cloned geranium who has made my white bench (on my front porch) its home for twelve years…I think of “Dr.” Chelsey, my young neighbor across the street, at the time “Big Red” began to die two years ago.

To my horror one day…I started investigating why suddenly it seemed like “Big Red” was turning yellow and the wimpy stems were turning a brownish-sickish color. What was happening?

Chelsey happened to be out in the yard and I called her over because she told me at one time her mother was a specialist in re-rooting plants others had given up on in her small hometown in Georgia. Together we pulled back the huge foliage and stems…and discovered the cause.

“Big Red” had gotten too big…and without my notice, had slowly but surely started pulling the roots out of the soil from the back…one by one until now… the plant was dying.

Chelsey glanced at my stricken face over my “foliage friend” of ten years’ s dilemma, my breast cancer cheerleader and briskly said...”I will need to get several cuttings… placing them in different containers around different locations…inside and out…and then we keep our fingers crossed…for at least one to take. We can do this.”

Time passed and whenever I asked  how the rootings were doing Chelsey was a little evasive…several hadn’t made it but there were still some trying. She kept reassuring me…“It only take one.”

And that is how it ended up…she kept it a secret from me until the plant was up and growing and then surprised me with “Big Red” the Clone. I was overjoyed! Chelsey had saved my plant health o’meter, who had been with me for a decade at the time.

Tommy and Kaitlyn chipped in too… taking little “Big Red” home with them to care for it during this tender time and returned it to me on my birthday – 2018. It does take a “village” to raise “Big Red”! 🙂

Look how all this unselfish kindness paid off…”Big Red” today!

Then about a year ago Vickie came over one evening and we were talking on the porch when she noticed that one long stem had broken loose …she casually picked it up…didn’t say a word but left with it that night.

Months later she arrived with the second “Big Red Clone” cutting that she put in a beautiful arrangement for me. The title photo today is the second “cloning.” Look how it is growing…two buds opening with four more underneath!

This post has started out entirely different than the direction I had visualized but I am getting ready to bring it around full circle for you. I needed some examples of people whose open kindness delights others because it is given totally with the heart.

How many times have we received something and/or done something for another that just felt like one more check-off item to do for the day….it felt more like an act of ‘duty’ than an act of sincere kindness that would bring ‘delight’ in others.

Nicole Phillips was sharing her book titled The Negativity Remedy on television yesterday. I had just fixed a sandwich for lunch and settled down in “Old Faithful” my recliner, when she came on.

As I listened to her give personal example after another personal example of the importance of shifting perceptions from other people causing us to react negatively to taking responsibility for our own actions, positive or negative. The difference is getting rid of our “inner meanies.” We all have them.

We start complaining about a driver who pulled right out in front of us and then goes 20 mph when we are running late for a meeting. We seethe with resentment when someone else takes credit for a project at work we spent endless hours and weekends on…muttering to ourselves… “Team project, my foot, I was the only one who did most of the work and now everyone else, who did little or nothing, are reaping the same benefits from everything I sacrificed while they had a fun life outside of work.”

Aren’t we humans good at playing the “put-upon” martyr in life? (There aren’t enough academy awards in the world to give out to so many “actors.”)

Phillips admits she fell victim to unhealthy habits by putting the blame on others causing her stress. She came to the realization that we alleviate our own guilt for drinking too much or smoking too much by assigning the blame and root cause to others…”they, those people” suck the marrow of our bones…no wonder we complain in self-promotion and justification… that we have to do this or that bad habit out of sheer exhaustion from being used by others.

All it takes is one shift in perception. You discover that the person who pulled out in front of you and then went 20 mph (you felt sure just to aggravate you) was an elderly woman who was driving for the first time in decades to try to get to the hospital to see her husband who was critically ill…the love of her life… the man who had always been her driver.

You discover later after a team project has been turned in…through an overheard conversation, that several team players were hurt that you didn’t take any of their suggestions or offers to help…but instead plowed ahead determined to show the others just how good you were …to prove you didn’t need anyone else.

“These shifts in perception” where we let kindness always be our first inclination over negative judgment creates a powerfully important new mindset…it literally turns one’s world upside down. Doing kind acts because you truly want to help someone…to delight in their success…makes you happier and more content than you could ever imagine.

So until tomorrow…Chelsey was right…”It only takes one” “rooting” to  give others and ourselves new leases and outlooks on life.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Michele found this gorgeous spiral on Facebook and shared it with me…and Vickie’s and my shared rosebush is outdoing itself again!

Dear Reader:

I love hearing from everyone involved in the chapelofhopestories.com family….whether through comments, emails, texts, or messages. It reiterates what we already know…that by simply writing how the blog has helped you in some way or starts your day off brighter…(For which I am terribly thankful and humble)…YOU (by taking time to communicate back) have just made my day brighter too! 🙂

Isn’t it funny how life works that way….kindness shown in one direction bounces off kindness shown from another direction…diffusing light to everyone around… lifting all our lives (involved in the kindness explosion) upward for simply sharing a few moments together daily. Most of us will never meet but yet we feel a strong affinity to each other…at least I know I do.

This latest circle of sharing started when I went to the mailbox yesterday…and there was a card from Sharon Joyce, from Forest Home, Alabama. I immediately remembered I had received another adorable card from her before…and was so excited!

(Today’s blog post title artwork comes from the front of her card. Isn’t it cute…and so timely!)

She wrote a note of encouragement to me and a thank you for sharing my life daily with the blog. Sharon, you might not realize it, but by sharing your life and thoughts back to me…my world just became incredibly happier for simply knowing someone like you is sharing a parallel life-time in this complex world we live in.

As Robert Fulghum concluded….“When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

This year it was time to get a new license plate for the car…I did miss my old one (AID 500)….but also liked that the state’s motto was on each license plate. “While I breathe…I hope.”

 Drivers have asked about the meaning behind the state seal quote on the license plates.

“As long as you are alive–as long as you breathe–you hope, you aspire, you strive. It’s a great state motto. It’s a quote from Cicero and Theocritus, and I think it was first used on the state seal, which was adopted in 1776 during the early days of the American Revolution.”

“The seal also references the Battle of Sullivan’s Island–the first attempt by the British to take Charleston–which took place shortly before the seal was created and adopted. So it was a very uncertain and frightening time, and I think the motto–and the seal as a whole–was born out of that. Optimism in the face of uncertainty.”

Two God Winks today…again encouraging all of us in these turbulent political times and pandemic continuations to stand strong in the ‘face of uncertainty’...and to continue being kind and compassionate to others, regardless of race, socio-economic backgrounds, educational status, political affiliation, or religious denomination. We are all God’s Children. Period. We should treat each other the way God would unconditionally love each and everyone of us.

*And don’t forget…in the year 2020…we have the opportunity to keep our hopes alive by one little tweak off our seal …“While we breathe, we vote.” 

No matter your political affinity…please take this time-honored right we have in America and do what so many  millions of others can’t do in this world…vote!  ( You can’t take this “lecture” away from a retired history teacher!) 🙂

So until tomorrow…..

“Find serenity in everyday living

Envision the gift of this day

When happiness come to visit you

Encourage it to stay.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I fell asleep this afternoon and after I woke up…the temperature had really dropped. It felt wonderful. I took my iPhone and walked around the yard and garden enjoying the strong breeze blowing in with just a slight chill in the air….love is a cool breeze on the face.

Here are the photos I took of the remaining garden family.

I welcomed the second camellia to the garden…and introduced her to the rose bush nearby…they have a lot in common…mostly delicate beauty.

Two more rose buds…each spectacular but “Mr. Lincoln” has this deep red royal color about him that distinguishes him from other roses.

My hydrangeas have almost hung it up…the pink ones have turned brown and now are going a great job at playing “dead.” EXCEPT…Look what I found on one branch…new life and so delicate.

My morning glories are making a great comeback…you go gals!

My latest little asters are petite and pink with a very royal name themselves…Aster Henry III Pink. Do… now!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Reader:

I spent most of Tuesday night running outside with my flashlight to try to get the last bloom unfurling from the last bud on my moon flower trellis.

Bless its heart….the spiral bud began unfurling late in the afternoon but it appeared to be stuck. This late in the season it must not have had enough “umph” to completely unfurl that last flap.

(Below) Left picture taken at 5 and last photo taken at 10 p.m. that night. The second shot…was literally a shot in the dark. I put the flashlight on it first…then switched hands…and took the photo shot in the dark. See how close the last bloom of the season came to fully unfurling…it was just one last “push” away…but sadly when I returned at 10:30…it was closing up shop…for the season.

But oh what a season it was….thanks to Anne’s generosity…giving me two beds of moon flower sprigs ready to transplant.

Moon flowers literally unfurl from one tiny “spiral” bud into a glorious piece of natural beauty that stands alone in its gift to the world.

From this…to this!

Anne still has two spiral moon flower buds left to open.

Even Jake turning six for his birthday ended up in a spiral! 🙂

The spiral has been revered as a sacred token of rebirth and eternity from ancient civilizations to the present day.

It, too, is a symbol of humans’ passage through this life on this planet.

Anne asked me if I didn’t give her a book about nature’s examples of spirals…and I sent a photo copy of it as a reminder…it is written for “curious children” but I must still be one…because I sat looking at all the pictures in the book of nature in spirals and was dumbfounded…like in the title photo today at all the natural spirals in life. (And this is just one page from the book….it is mind-boggling.)

An elephant trunk, a snake curled up, animals in hibernation, plants of every kind imaginable, sea shells, eye of a hurricane, cucumber tendril, a monkey’s tail, a seahorse, a pine cone, a rose….the list could go on and on….here are a few more examples from the book.

A hibiscus, a sunflower, a gardenia….and now think big….ocean waves hitting shore.

Spirals are mind-boggling because once you see them…suddenly as you walk around…you can’t see anything but them. In France door handles are decorated in spirals, homes and stores are filled with them in their decor…French women also wear lots of spiral jewelry honoring this sacred shape and symbol!

So until tomorrow….Isn’t life amazing? Pause and think about it for a moment…don’t we spend our whole life symbolically unfurling until we finally bloom according to God’s timing…revealing our total selves…our spirit within our bodies for the world to see? What a glorious day!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Anne sent these two photos she took of sunflowers here and in Massachusetts in Sherry’s yard…the spiral is beautiful in both.