Dear Reader:

With Theodosia the Gardening Toad getting the front door place of honor this Easter (see yesterday’s title picture)…the old garden bunny is getting the back door for his “hang-out“place…I decorated the back door yesterday with the palm frond Michele gave me and then I brought Palmer the Bunny from the garage (after cleaning him up) and placed him on the backdrop palms ….thus his new name!

I also cleaned up Henny Penny and perched her back on the B&B side dining table.

A stem that broke off cloned “Little Big Red” was taken back to Vickie’s house a few months ago… Vickie surprised me with it (a couple of weeks ago) now just in time to see it  blooming on the front porch too…another member of “Big Red’s” cloned cuttings family…”He” would have been so proud! 🙂

The rest of the time yesterday I pulled weeds, watered some hanging baskets…and just enjoyed the beauty of nature around me. A few strong azaleas are still trying to display their late arrivals and the old-fashioned long-stemmed sunflower opened up from its bud (as seen Monday.)

My new pink superbells hanging basket looks so pretty outside my office window while working on the blog post.

Everything you just saw above…keeps me happy and content… strolling along rather smoothly on this momentary pandemic plateau. It is when I stop and come inside to rest and grab a bite to eat that my spirits sometimes get bogged down. The most burning question prevails over all the others… concerning the pandemic…and that is “When is it going to end?”

If I start thinking too much about the future and what might or might not be possible to regain in my hopeful time frame…things like physically hugging loved ones again (Oh how I miss that…touch is such an important part of our lives, a normal school year, my Clemson Tigers and all collegiate football games…for that matter…all sports period…from the little ones to the national leagues, gatherings of all kinds, eating out with friends, just riding in a car with friends again…the list could go on and on.

In other words…I find myself morphing back to the frustrated middle child that I was… stuck in the back seat of the car (squished in between my two brothers) yelling “Are we there yet?”

Last Sunday…our wonderful pastor, Jeff Kackley, reflected on some of his personal observations and reflections, since the home quarantine began.

” If we all knew how and when this was all going to end, we might feel differently about this time that we are in right now. – We might enjoy it a little more.

Of course, a lot of people are sick, many are dying, lots of people are risking their lives to help others, a lot of people are out of work, a lot of businesses are going under, people are missing out on “once in a lifetime” milestone events; and so, maybe then again, in looking back, we might not enjoy this time any more than we are or possibly can – right now.

The fact is that we can’t and don’t know how and when this is all going to end. And so, it is quite natural for us to feel whatever it is that we are feeling right now – we need not feel differently.”

He went on to say that he felt oppressed right not…yet in reality he knew it was really more of a feeling of suppression than oppression. There is a difference between suppression and oppression…a very important one actually. (excerpt from Palm Sunday sermon)

“Oppressed is what the ancient Israelites were under Roman rule.

They had some freedom under the Romans, but they didn’t have rights. Only Roman citizens had rights. – They had some power and authority under the Romans, but it was just that – under the power and authority of Rome, of King Herod and Pilate, and the Roman legions, all the way up to the Emperor himself.

The whole empire was built on hierarchy – on shame and honor – on “Pax Romana” the peace of Rome – the peace that is felt and received – given…………only after one had been conquered.

Such a “peace” is long-lasting – almost infinite – eternal! It never seems to go away. Day after day it is in your face, – a constant reminder that things are never going to get better; they’re never going to end!”

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‘Oppress‘ is usually something that people do to other people. For example, a dictator, an authoritarian government, or an occupying army might oppress ordinary citizens, or a conservative religion might oppress women.

‘Suppress’ is usually used with things: a repressive government might suppress dissent, information, or freedom of speech.

Still it is easy to see why most people today want to use these two terms interchangeably in this pandemic… because it is hard to separate our personal (human) feelings and oppressive reactions from suppressive actions (that touch us personally) like: home quarantine, no large gatherings, closed businesses, closed schools and colleges, stoppage of athletic events, no live entertainment, etc.

Living in the moment is harder than we expected isn’t it? Humans just can’t click their minds off like a computer or television…and that is when we get “bogged” down emotionally and perhaps even spiritually…silently praying and asking God “Are we there yet?”

I think we already know the answer…just like we did (when as children we asked it over repeatedly on long trips)…. Mother’s (gritted teeth) answer was always “No…we aren’t there yet…and asking that question over and over isn’t going to get us there any faster!” 

I felt better yesterday when Tommy and Kaitlyn sent me this picture of the plexiglass “barrier” placed between them and clients during real estate closings. (Tommy’s dad was concerned about them and constructed it.) Everything helps…along with lots of prayers!

I received the most adorable family photos from Ambika yesterday visually updating her beautiful family! Thank you Ambika!

So until tomorrow…”Mothers Knows Best” (at least in my family 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*** Working from home now?…Do the conversations below sound familiar?

Dear Reader:

Necessity is the “Mother of Invention.” I wanted to add something different to my spring/Easter wreath on my front door, especially since I needed my bunny for another decorating spot. I sat down in my recliner (where I do my best thinking) and just started perusing my “Happy Room”…surely there was something in here that would work.

And then I saw “her”…Theodosia…the Gardening Toad. Honey gave “her” to me inside a bag of other goodies one birthday and I fell in love with the little gardening toadie frog!

(I decided to name her Theodosia (after Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodosia who married a South Carolinian governor and lived in the lowcountry until her strange disappearance at sea after leaving Georgetown, South Carolina harbor on the schooner, the Patriot, to New York…similar story to Amelia Earhardt’s… she simply vanished…neither she nor the crew nor the schooner ) were ever seen again.)

So I started thinking…bunnies aren’t the only animals to represent Easter and Spring…gardening toadie frogs can do the same thing…especially for me, a garden lover, at this time of the year. Viola…my Easter wreath.

I took my bunny and let it be a part of the front porch decoration!

Just looking at all the colors in the garden making their first appearance this spring…is enough of an Easter present for anyone.

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***You might have noticed that I haven’t mentioned “something” today. I needed a break…don’t you? Today I will (personally) and purposefully avoid any news or discussion of it…my time will be spent outside.

This is going to be a “long haul” and I have decided that some breaks are not only needed but necessary to keep one’s attitude focused on the every day delights of life…and avoid the controversial politics of it for my own physical and mental health.

This is what I have done all along with my fight against “little c.” I have never capitalized it when I speak of breast cancer because it doesn’t deserve the respect capitalization represents. This strategy to date has worked well for me…so I will certainly acknowledge and do all I can do to avoid this new other “little c” experience befalling all of us…but not at the “extreme” of giving in to it.

***Eva Cate and Jake let me know a couple of evenings ago that I would be getting something in the mail yesterday that they made. I told them I wouldn’t sleep well Sunday night because I would be too excited! Sure enough…a large decorative envelope was in the mailbox with two beautiful Easter art drawings by the grandchildren.

My first Easter presents! I love them…and am hunting for the best place to display them!

(* Spiderman and his Easter Egg…I mean…can you get any more “Easter” than that?  🙂 🙂 🙂

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Yesterday I heard from Ambika in India…one of my longest devoted blog readers…she found my post when she needed hope badly several years ago… she was a young girl starting out in a dental career with all the pressures of tests and exams to accomplish her dream.

Since then she has practiced her profession, met and married her husband, left Dubai for India, and they now have three little boys…the youngest only three months old. Ambika definitely has her hands full.

Last summer she updated us on the terrible drought going through India and the suffering she witnessed as a result. And now, of course, their country is going through the same process we are in trying to stave off this pandemic.

Ambika wrote two days ago…

Hi Becky.. Hope you all are doing well there… And I really hope that all of you are safe from this pandemic virus…
Here’s news from my side… We are all facing a lockdown in India… The whole country is quarantined and literally staying home now… And this lockdown period for now is 3 weeks…

For the first time in years, we have not had any church services.. And this Easter week without church is also heartbreaking… Unfortunately, because of the curfew, we are all having to pray strictly at home only, no freedom to even go out, except for essentials like groceries, fruits, milk and veggies…

It’s a really tough time here, and the virus is spreading easily like wildfire… In such a time as this, all we can do is trust our Almighty God to heal the world.. Please do keep us in your prayers and we are doing the same… Regards to all…

BTW, my youngest son is 3 months old already and his name is ADVIK IMMANUEL… ADVIK means unique…

Take care… Loads of love n prayers….

Ambika

You have our prayers and love. This image has been circulating on Facebook and now I want to send it on to you from my country to yours…may God bless and protect all His “children” from this affliction attacking our world…a world grown smaller because of it.

Love, Becky

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Most of us at this stage of the quarantine are slowly making transitions we didn’t think possible… even a couple of weeks ago. It hasn’t been easy, by a long shot, particularly for families with children at home, and adding homeschooling to parents’ days.

My daughter-in-law Mollie said that in addition to the homeschooling…their three little children were eating them out of house and home. At a time when supplies are running low in the stores and budgets are tighter…little “bird mouths” were wide open 24/7. She has had to add another transition rule…the hours when the kitchen is closed during the day…with no exceptions.

I thought this quote I found and wrote down awhile back applies to this strange situation we find ourselves in during the pandemic.

“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen all at once.” (Paulo Coelho)

This quote describes the polar opposite lives we are living at the same time. Everything outside in our world (with the coronavirus gaining steam as it keeps attacking our lives) gives us an overwhelming sense of something too big to comprehend, much less control…everything is happening all at once…too quickly.

However… at the same time…with many jobs closed, as well as schools… people, of all ages, are finding themselves with too much time… where nothing happens and days duplicate themselves in strange, repetitive patterns.

National Geographic recently learned of an university study of some of our country’s oldest citizens over an extended period of time…most are now nonagenarians (90’s) and centenarians (100’s). Recently they were asked what advice they would give people quarantined with the pandemic.

What would elders tell you now? The oldest among us have lived through a Depression and a world war. What’s the advice they would give to parents and kids going through family isolation now?

—Be generous.
—Notice small joys.
—Prepare more, worry less.
—Remember that you will get past this.

That’s according to Cornell University gerontologist Karl Pillemer, who began interviewing America’s eldest for a project in 2003.

“A morning cup of coffee, a warm bed on a winter night, a brightly colored bird feeding on the lawn, an unexpected letter from a friend, even a favorite song on the radio—paying special attention to these ‘microlevel’ events forms a fabric of happiness that lifts them up daily,” Pillemer says. “They believe the same can be true for younger people as well.”

In other words…we must all learn that in the big picture it is the little things that truly do bring us the most joy…the list above is just a few of my “favorite things.” (Though I am a baby boomer…and was born long after the Depression and several years after WWII. :)…just saying!)

I would add…a cold, icy diet coke (I know…not good for one…but it is my one unhealthy vice…it is a substitute for coffee… which I don’t drink…my personal caffeine fix.) A good book or a special program/movie coming on television makes me feel warm and contented, taking an extra long shower, climbing into bed with fresh sheets, talking to my children and grandchildren, laughing out loud at a funny memory, a friend at the door even if we have to talk through the clear storm door now,  finding money in a pocket, the smell of spaghetti cooking….you get the idea!

…And my garden is my saving grace…watching life begin amid so much disaster and death in the world…a little plot of land that I can love and control…it does a body good.

This past weekend was beautiful…blue skies and mid-seventies…can’t ask for better weather than that…the plants and flowers sensed the same thing and began popping out all over. I was actually squealing in the garden one day at all the new life in it. Here are a few of my “favorite things” in my beloved garden.

I will show you a few simple Easter decorations tomorrow…as we begin our final days leading to Easter Sunday. (and some more pretties from the garden!) I am a proud garden mother…

So until tomorrow…Remember…When we reduce our greeds, we reduce our needs!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

RELIEF IS:

Dear Reader:

It has become a ritual for me these days to walk in my garden in the late afternoon or early evening before darkness falls. Each time I feel myself drawn to the “Swamp Maple” that Lisa (Hollow Tree Nursery Owner) called it when I discovered it, accidentally, thrown in among the grandchildren’s Japanese Maples.

Over the years I have fussed and fretted over keeping the grandchildren’s Japanese Maples alive, each with their name plate inscribed next to it… yet completely forgotten the ‘swamp maple’ in the far back yard (out of sight) behind the potting shed/garage.

(L to R) Eva Cate, Rutledge, Jake, Eloise, and Lachlan

*Ironically the swamp maple has grown and done better than all the Japanese Maples put together… with me constantly fussing over them…while the swamp maple got no attention or extra watering or care along the way. Mother Nature is apparently a much better gardener than myself! 🙂

I love to feel its leaves and talk to it like I do the grandchildren’s trees…encouraging everyone to grow, grow, grow. The other day as I was holding one leaf I remembered an old story I put on the blog post years ago…called The Trouble Tree and realized it ties in with Easter more than I originally thought.

“The Trouble Tree”

The carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farmhouse had just finished a rough first day on the job. A flat tire made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit, and now his ancient pickup truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence.

On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family. As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When opening the door he underwent an amazing transformation.

His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

“Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied.” I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing’s for sure, troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and the children. So I just hang them on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again.” He paused.

“Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ’em up, there ain’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”

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Maybe, unconsciously, that is what I am doing every evening…leaving my troubles behind, laying down my worries and burdens by the Swamp Maple. It must be working because I am sleeping soundly most nights.

The Son of God certainly had his “Trouble Tree” didn’t he? He was crucified on one…yet this was a tree where He would willingly give up his life for ours and take on the troubles of the world on a  criss-crossed tree one terrible Friday.

The way to lay down our burdens is to tell ourselves at this exact moment…all is well…don’t dwell on an uncertain future or be sad about a past that is gone…just concentrate on the moment, breathing in and out…we are alive….we are well….thank you Jesus for this blessing…especially today.

So until tomorrow…Let’s take time today, this Palm Sunday, to send a “thank you” note, in advance, to Christ… thanking Him for the opportunity to be saved by grace, His grace, and forgiven for our sins…our burdens.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Mollie sent me a photo of the Palm Sunday door arrangement she created…Aren’t we lucky to live in the lowcountry of South Carolina where palmetto and palm fronds surround us in abundance?  So Creative Mollie! 🙂 🙂 🙂

I dropped lunch off at Anne’s yesterday and as I was driving off I noticed Walnut Farms had the cutest cut-out Easter symbols for residents to use wherever… Liked Anne’s idea of hanging them from the mailbox…thoughtful neighborhood project!

Way to go Anne and Friends for a terrific show of community spirit as Easter quickly approaches!

Happy Palm Sunday…mine sure has turned out to be. Michele Jones (a friend from my church) saw my blog post offering to loan any and all of the Louise Penny detective series novels…Michele texted to ask if she could stop by and get the next couple in the series. I was delighted to be taken up on my offer!

Michelle arrived just before darkness…and I couldn’t believe my eyes…she brought me a large palm frond for Palm Sunday and (excuse the pun) but “Hallelujah, Hallelujah…she also brought gold…the paper kind…Toilet Paper!” 🙂 🙂 🙂 Seriously…Thank you Michele..I was getting pretty low!

I arranged the palm frond, lit a candle and had my own private moment of worship in reverence of Palm Sunday with all the hope it brought that day to God’s children and continues to bring… even now in these challenging times.

Dear Reader:

Spoiler Alert: We are going to get through this and we will be wiser, more compassionate and more contented with what we have…and yes…happier than ever…(after.)

There is a deep satisfaction in making do with what one has…when things are good and life is lived in abundance…we humans have a tendency to waste more and want more. (The opposite of the famous 18th century proverbial words of wisdom that read: “Waste not, want not.”) It simply means to be a good steward with all resources on earth, including personal ones. Then you never have to worry about not having enough in the future.

* I find myself using less sheets of toilet paper these days as I watch my diminishing rolls like a hawk. 🙂

We all grew up with Disney and all the fairy tales that ended with “And they lived happily ever after.” It wasn’t until we had left childhood behind and  experienced several bouts of heart breaks and broken relationships that the fairy tale life lessons became ambiguous at best and disappointing at worst.

In reflection… as a typical human on earth…I now realize that relationships are only “happily ever after” when individual goals and dreams are shared and supported by the other. We should never sacrifice or lose ourselves in a relationship.

I found a notable quote in an old English high school journal of mine from years ago that read: “Never lose sight of who you are and who you hope to be.”  

I realize now that this is a sacred contract between us and our Creator…we only go through life once…so we have to discover our passion …our way to give back to others…during this once-in-a lifetime excursion!

God does, however, send us ‘second chance’ people who help guide us on the right path if we listen. In turn…we need to return the favor of being a “second chance receiver” to a “second chance giver” for someone else. We are all in this journey together and we all deserve “second chances” to find ourselves.

…And when the pilgrimage grows dark and difficult, in times such as these, we all must step up to pull or push fellow travelers in the right direction within community support and compassion.

We have achieved “happiness ever after” when we realize we are exactly where we had once hoped to be…living “Happily ever after” by simply “being.” “Being” is happiness if we are living life to the fullest…for ourselves and others around us.

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A special thank you to Mollie for surprising me with a package full of Beauty Counter hand cleansers and deep  hand skin lotions…It arrived just in the nick of time.

My poor hands were starting to look rough and red from all the soap washing…it might be good for the virus but it is tough on the hands. I can already tell a huge difference! Thank you so much Mollie for thinking of me!

Happiness in the garden:

Let is all say a prayer each night for our global front-line heroes and heroines!!!! They do have the weight of the world on them right now!

Dear Reader:

Dr. Wayne Dyer, popular author and presenter, started his presentation, on occasion, with an orange. He asked the audience or (sometimes) a particular person in the audience to tell him what would happen if he squeezed the orange….what would he get?

The immediate response was: orange juice. He then asked if his mother, father, grandmother, friend, or stranger squeezed the orange what would they get?

Once again the response was: orange juice. Sometimes Dyer would keep this “game” going by asking if he would ever get tart or bitter lemonade or pineapple juice if he squeezed an orange…..Amid loud “No’s” the confident response continued: Orange Juice!

Dyer then asked his audience: Why?  How do you know that every single time you squeeze an orange ….its juice will pour out?

The most common reply was that one will get orange juice if he/she squeezes an orange because it is what is inside.

Exactly! responded Dyer. This is a constant in our knowledge and experience with oranges…when squeezed…no matter the situation….an orange will produce orange juice.

Now….how about you? If your mother, or teacher, or coach, or a friend squeezes you…what will pour out? Do you have a constant?

Suddenly a quiet would come over the crowd….no one was certain about one “correct” response. Cries of “It depends on who and why you are being squeezed….it might be anger or frustration pouring out.”

“That’s right….another voice might call out….What pours out of us can run the gamut, according to our feelings at the time squeezed. Curse words might emerge or laughter.”

Feeling squeezed or stressed…produce unsavory tastes on our tongues, our teeth and the words that emerge are unsavory too.

What would you like your “constant” to be when squeezed? asks Dyer.

“Sweetness” responds one in the audience….more softly “Love” responds a young woman in the back of the auditorium.

“So….we are realizing that we can always depend on an orange to produce the same “sweetness” over and over…no matter the situation when squeezed…but not ourselves. Is this a fair observation?” Dyer concludes.

Shouldn’t every human being on earth’s goal be to have “love” as a constant living within ourselves…the love that pours out every time we are “invisibly” squeezed :)…no matter the trying circumstances we might find ourselves in?

If we sit back and look for a model of constant love….we find the answer immediately ….God. God is Love. And no matter how many times we squeeze Him (when we feel squeezed into a corner and stressed beyond human limitations.)…His love pours out for us. We can depend on its “sweetness” every single time.

*(Isn’t it wonderful that (in spite of the coronavirus) we can still “squeeze” God with both arms arms wide open to encircle our Creator?)

We are children of God. Don’t you think God loves us as we love all our children of the world? Wouldn’t we do anything for our children…even sacrificing ourselves for them?

We know that God’s Love resides in us…in all His children.

So until tomorrow….Father, let us be a “constant” ….a “beacon” of love for all who come into “social distancing” 🙂 with us…Let Your love shine through us when we are “high-fived invisibly” every time.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday I had two visitors, Ann Graves who returned the set of Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache detective series she read during her own breast cancer procedures.

***If anyone in the Summerville area wants to borrow one, please let me know and it will be sitting on the bench by “Little Big Red” waiting on you!

Anne Peterson sent me Louise Penny’s April Newsletter and how she is handling all the new quarantine restrictions… when normally she would be out promoting her next book in the series…but how grateful she is to have a “stay” place (like Lassie said) and friends who buy her groceries…though (I agree) you don’t feel like you can tell them to put all your  favorite/secret junk foods on the list. 🙂

I like this prose she shared with her readers….

Adjusting or going nuts?

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.  (– Albert Camus)

Ann was amazed by “Little Big Red” too and took a picture to send me…(Thanks Kathy Worthington for the banana bread…Ann shared some of hers with me! 🙂

Soon after Gin-g stopped by with a Easter bag… inside I found my own personal bundt cupcake…so good and some more gardening gloves…how did you know I desperately needed some new ones? Cornbread and soup…life is good. As usual Merci Merci dear Gin-g!

Dear Reader:

Don’t we associate newborns and little babies with their tiny fists coming into the world…as if they know intuitively life is a struggle…might as well get ready?

Doctors explain the phenomenon as a primitive gesture found in human infants and primates…known as the Palmar Grasp Reflex. A couple of days ago I found and then “lost” a poem that popped up on the internet that made an analogy between human fists and finally the opening of our hands revealing the word that identifies our being.

The poem was followed by readers revealing what their word would be to identify their lives when their fists finally unclenched. (Just as I have become aware of the number of times I unconsciously touch my face lately…think about the number of times we glance down and see our hands or at least one hand curled up in a fist.)

For most of us it a defensive gesture used to alleviate stress or repressed anger and frustration in our lives. What if…unclenching our fists to finally reveal the real person inside us is a final product of the process of living our life?

Since I taught American history for almost three decades I am a great lover of true but little unknown facts in history. One story popped up in some dusty neuron in my memory yesterday connecting an historical figure with a fist/hand story. Example:

After John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln he was on the run for almost two weeks before being caught and surrounded in Richard Garrett’s barn. When Union soldiers set the barn afire Booth’s accomplice, Davy Herold, surrenders but Booth refuses.

An Union soldier, Boston Corbett, looks through a gap between planks at the back of the barn…fires and hits Booth in the neck. He is dragged out of the barn, paralyzed, and dies a slow agonizing death three hours later on  Garrett’s front porch.

Witnesses remembered at one point Booth lifting his hand… as if seeing it for the first time in his life…unclenching his fist and mumbling “Useless…useless” as he stares vacantly at the outstretched hand.

I think at the end of our lives…we all want to leave with our fists unclenched, not saddened over an “useless” or purposeless existence. Instead we want to leave this world for another with our hearts and hands wide open.

So until tomorrow I want to share a thought-provoking twist on words that my sister-in-law Lassie conveyed to me in an earlier conversation we had (in relation to the coronavirus and our attitude towards it)…one centered around counting our blessings.

“We might not be able to go anywhere…but we have somewhere to stay.”  (A blessing indeed!)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Yesterday was a memorable day for Tommy and Kaitlyn as they became new owners in their law partnership. They received lots of well wishes, flowers, and a delicious chocolate bundt cake from Aunt Lassie. Congratulations again Tommy and Kaitlyn…I am very proud of you two and your work ethics!

*I wanted to add this thank you message Kaitlyn put on Facebook last evening thanking everyone for their support through these trying times …(since everyone doesn’t read Facebook.)

I wouldn’t suggest juggling a house fire, world pandemic, and becoming a law firm owner at the same time, but here we are! .
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Life is crazy y’all: we can make all the plans in the world and the universe can simply throw you a huge curveball
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Its hard to believe this is real! I’m really excited, exhausted, and scared all at the same time. Im also really grateful. .
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I’m grateful for parents who literally gave me my entire foundation to succeed; Lassie for ensuring we don’t go bankrupt; to Mr. Styles for giving me a job when I wasn’t sure I even wanted to practice law anymore and being generous with his practice ; to my husband for being my partner through it all; and to myself for never giving up. .
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Thank you to our family and friends for your continued and tireless support. We loved getting these beautiful flowers from Boo and a cake from Lassie. . .
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I have no idea what comes next or what the future holds but I do know we’ve got this and we can most definitely do hard things.
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Also thanks to @iibrunettes and @shopcopperpenny for making sure I had some clothes to wear 😂

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A sign of the times 🙂

Dear Reader:

If there were one word that sums up how we lived our life…( by the end of it)…it would be “CHOICE.”  Love, hope, faith, laughter, and compassion all come into play certainly, but only if we make the choice to prioritize these positive attributes early in life… and continue to value and honor them every single day of it.

Daily we see choices around the world being made concerning the coronavirus…resulting in the outcomes of these decisions…good or bad.

Servicespace.org discusses these choices in their latest website news.

“Uncertain times raise significant questions that can architect the arc of our future. Carbon emissions have dropped dramatically, but xenophobia is rising. Government surveillance is increasing, while global cooperation is going up. Shopping malls are empty, but family meals are on the rise.

Awakening of compassion is pervasive, but the inequality of human suffering is evident. In a context of “social distancing”, neighbors lean out of their windows to sing songs together. Borders are still present, but the boundaries of our shared humanity are getting blurry. Still, undercurrents of fear are everywhere, but so are prayers. May we step into our highest aspirations to serve this inflection point in history.”

How we one day remember the 2020 pandemic (in the aftermath) will solely depend of how we approached each day within it.

Already I am developing different feelings towards mundane house chores I rarely bothered with…even after being retired and having time to do them. Now I am cooking meals almost every night just for me…preferring it to take-out or restaurant sent-in.

I haven’t cooked this much since all the children were still at home. I am enjoying the creative part of putting odds and ends I find in the freezer/refrigerator and cabinets together…to make casseroles with such a strange diversity of food items I would have laughed a month ago..now I am eating it happily!

I am cleaning out closets, cabinets, cleaning the kitchen with intensity…the virus has got me doing what I should have been doing all along.

One of my greatest memories will be friends stopping by with snacks, meals, books, cards to surprise me and make my day. *Yesterday as I was waiting on the Publix driver to drop off my weekly list…Susan Cadwell dropped by with the most delicious meal which included homemade mac and cheese…I haven’t eaten so good and healthy in months but now I am…every night!

Remember Mike bringing me my cheese puffs…he was told (by his adorable cheeto wife Dee) to return and bring me two bags this time (which he did yesterday)…too funny…if anyone out there is craving cheetos…stop by, we can share and throw them at each other six feet apart…catching them with our mouths. 🙂 Cheeto Contest!

My whirling butterflies gauna plant is up and swaying with little whirling “butterflies”…I love to watch them when the breeze blows!

Today is a special benchmark day! Yes it is April 1 and April Fool’s Day, it is also “Say Rabbit Rabbit” Day (for good luck) for the first day of the month…but today is also Tommy and Kaitlyn’s professional benchmark day as they are now invested in the ownership of the law firm in which they work. Styles & Dingle LLC !

After their recent home fire and a lot of craziness… including finding a new place to reside until they can move back in their house and get the Air-B&B side up and going again too things have settled down for this memorable day…this is a special moment they have worked hard for and imagined in their dreams; And now, thanks to Brooks Styles, it is coming true on this special date. April 1, 2020

Congratulations Tommy and Kaitlyn…take time to celebrate this accomplishment and a big thank you goes out to Brooks Styles (original owner) from a proud mother.

Brooks, you have been extraordinarily generous with your time and expertise… teaching and role modeling for both Tommy and Kaitlyn … I hope this continues for a long time. Thank you Brooks from the bottom of my heart for giving them this once-in-a lifetime amazing opportunity!

Don’t forget to say “Rabbit, Rabbit” this morning to have good luck all month…let’s hope this is the month the coronavirus decides to start unraveling and leaving our planet behind…with love and hope intact.

So until tomorrow…”Every choice you make in your life helps make you.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

One of the best choices I ever made was to take Honey Burrell up on her offer to go see St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, NC…it changed my life and was the impetus for writing this blog.

*This little bird house replica of the Chapel of Hope (Michele gave  to me) reminds me of that special day Honey introduced me to the little chapel in the woods.

Today’s “Funny” 🙂

Dear Reader:

I spent most of yesterday outside…and it is the best cure-all for everything. It was still pretty warm but there was a nice breeze…the blue, blue skies against that special “new green” on oak trees is simply breathtaking.

Michael, my firefighter/lawn maintenance worker/ extraordinaire texted to let me know he was on his way. Besides cutting the grass, he did weed-eating...(Bye bye dandelions for a few days) in the garden, blew all the last of the oak tree remnants off the driveways and then cleaned the fountain and got it ready to provide the soothing sounds of clear, clean gurgling water. It is not spring until the fountain is cleaned of all the oak tree debris above it and flowing again.

In the title picture my orange trumpet vines collided with the purple wisteria and look like a Clemson piece of landscape beauty  smiling down on me! All the right colors 🙂

As I looked up and around the tops of tall shrubbery and trees lining my property perimeter…the orange trumpets were blaring loudly and clearly (“Look up at me, look at me!:)…These vines can climb as high as 40 feet  and extend several feet in groups laterally….just gorgeous now while blooming.

But as beautiful as the shades of orange are in the orange trumpet vine…the purples (Aurora Delphinium) in the garden this year are equally exquisite.

When Mandy and I talked last evening I told her that I was having to stop occasionally and think what day of the week it was. She started laughing and said that same topic was now popping up on Facebook…it is being called the “Groundhog Day” effect (like the movie. Every day feels exactly like the one before and/or after…

That is why it helps staying outside a lot in my garden so I am seeing new things to break the routine…and having people stop by so I can remember who stopped by which day and identify time by friends.

The nicest thing is that (to date) everyone who has stopped by or sent me texts, emails, etc. are upbeat, optimistic, humorous, taking things in stride and for many relaxing, really relaxing for the first time in a long time.

My handsome nephew Lee and his beautiful wife Vikki  are up- beat even though Lee is a professional musician and Vikki runs a hostel under tourism (both sectors hit hard, of course, with the effects of the coronavirus.)

Like my post title says: “Hope and Love Aren’t Closed or Cancelled” even though Lee’s gigs and their hostel reservations might be. No gloom and doom here…hope and love abound.

On the Charleston free radio (ohmradio963)  Vikki created and they both help anchor…  they discussed recently on air some newly discovered realizations of life in altercation. (This in response to the “Shelter in Place” vote for Charleston.”)

“We talk about how time is the only thing we truly have. Money, market, and borders are all human constructs that only have power because we believe in them. Who are we without those things?” (They are both using this time to find out…great idea for everyone!)

So until tomorrow: *Henry Dyke shared his philosophy on time and prioritizing it.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A knock at the door yesterday brought Luke and Chelsey back…they had biked over bringing me….fresh chicken breasts they found at Harris Teeter…who knew a month ago…that such a gift would be such a prize from such an amazing couple. Love you Luke and Chelsey from the bottom of my heart.

I finished up the Publix mac and cheese you brought last week and baked one medium portion of the chicken breast, froze the rest for a rainy day…how good it was with a can of baked beans I found way back on a shelf. 🙂  You put a smile in supper! How blessed I am! Hope and love…hope and love!

Dear Reader:

During these quarantined, isolated times we are all figuring out what we can’t do or where we shouldn’t go….but it is also leaving us plenty of time to do things we have put off… seemingly forever.

One of these chores for me was finally scrubbing my mailbox yesterday. Christmas was probably the last time I cleaned it when I added some Christmas decor to the top…but since then…and especially since pollen season I have watched the mold and pollen grow with inattention…my focus on what was in the mailbox itself.

Yesterday I had had it…I grabbed some cleaning formula and an old rag and out I went. I love my mailbox because Mandy, my daughter, painted it for me as a Christmas gift several years ago. A mailbox with a beautiful magnolia on it. It looked so good after the cleaning…(Before-left- After-right)

When I came back in the house after finishing up…I started flipping channels…and landed  on HGTV…one of my favorite channels. They had some old Chip and Joanne Gaines’ “Fixer Uppers” on…(*I really think I know just about every single line and joke from Chip from every single episode.)

Like so many others I was saddened when the show went off…always enjoyed watching Jo’s whimsical decor ideas that match my personality and decorating style too.

It was in the last episode that Chip told the kids why all the business trademarks, including their farm home, had Magnolia on it. (*A Magnolia Empire)

It was fitting that the series concluded with a planting of one last magnolia tree. As Chip’s kids helped their dad plant the tree next to a refurbished porch, Chip Gaines finally revealed the origin of the symbol.

”You know what’s interesting about a magnolia tree?” he explained, ”One of mama and I’s first dates, I climbed up a magnolia tree, and I pulled her off a magnolia bloom and I gave it to her.”

Isn’t it amazing how human beings can take something in nature and turn it into a symbol that reflects their life style?

Joanne added her own explanation:

“Now that we’ve had some time to reflect on it, it’s as if our whole lives had been preparing us for this experience. We didn’t know it at the time, but it’s as if the seeds had been planted long ago. Have you ever looked at the bud of a magnolia flower?

It’s a tight little pod that stays closed up for a long time on the end of its branch until one day, out of nowhere, it finally bursts open into this gigantic, gorgeous, fragrant flower that’s ten times bigger than the bud itself. It’s impossible to imagine that such a big beautiful thing could pop out of that tiny little bud. But it does. And that’s sort of what getting ”discovered” and sharing our lives on Fixer Upper feels like to us.”

Don’t we sometimes intuitively sense that everything, good and bad, that has happened to us is preparing us for when our bloom opens wide to the world to reveal our true selves?

While most of us will never be celebrity famous… we are all created to burst open in our own unique ways. What God has done in the DNA of each magnolia bud, He now desires to do in all our hearts…a closed up tight little pod bursting forth into a gigantic, gorgeous, fragrant image…as a special child of God.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday was another hot summery day…the joke about living in the South is that “Summer starts in April” but the joke is on them this year as yesterday hit 90 in areas of the lowcountry … Summer has started in March!

I had two wonderful friends who dropped off goodies for me on the porch.

Mike Lesko  brought me Cheetos yesterday morning after his marvelously witty wife, Dee, texted me and we discovered we were both Cheeto addicts like the Mexican man in the story earlier this week and his little chihuahua .

Dee was wanting to know the name of the little dog (which sadly the article never gave…the chihuahua should have had his own by-line) because she wanted to hire the dog to get her Cheetos too. Instead, Mike, her husband went to the store yesterday morning and got us both Cheetos…what a man! (*Most certainly… Mike is not in the dog house! 🙂

Anne came over, bringing me some of her reproduced note cards, homemade rye bread, and then took photos of  cloned “Little Big Red”…I have commissioned her to paint ( water color) the geranium  as it is now…covered in blooms…a testimony to the courage of starting over during a pandemic. (Anne also discovered 5 bird eggs in my red English petunia box on the green chair.)

*Lynn Gamache (British Columbia loyal reader) is decorating for her extended family this Easter… even though they won’t physically be able to gather… but she wants to show her grandchildren her hidden peeps hiding inside and out.

No matter what happens…remember…life always finds a way to return…the same as hope.  Have a great day!