Dear Reader:

I just finished a wonderful old-fashioned style romance (Save My Place) which spoke, on many levels, to me since the backdrop and timing of the story matched  my own personal coming-of-age. This novella (only 150 pages….read it in one evening) takes place in the sixties and seventies against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

I could even identify with the main character’s childhood…especially some of her school memories. For instance, the first day of kindergarten the teacher asked her to tell the class her name: She replied:

“My whole name is Elisabeth Belle Sterling, and it is spelled Elisabeth with an “S.”

The teacher looked annoyed and responded: “Well, aren’t you the precocious one, Elisabeth Belle Sterling.” 

When Elisabeth got home she told her mother about the incident and wanted to know what “precocious” meant. Her mother slowly smiled and said.” It means you are clever and utterly delightful.” Elisabeth was relieved….she had felt it was something not so good by the manner in which her teacher said it.

Another childhood characteristic that I shared with Elisabeth, growing up, was the balance I always sought between “alone time with my books” and social play time with others. Apparently I was not alone in this endeavor.

Elisabeth and her father played a game every day where each one tried to out-smart the other with a new word. She always loved to win. This came in handy when she met her future husband and they played Scrabble. It was a win-win situation for her…the game and the man.

One of her most poignant comments (remembering her childhood) concerned a quite elderly man who sat on his porch and spewed words of wisdom (quotes, poetry lines, etc.) to anyone passing by. When he died she thought:

I, for one, would think it was a great way to go if my fingers were still typing away when my time comes….leaving my “Happy Place” to go to a “Happier Place.”

Another devoted fan/ reader (Linda Marsh) said this about the story:

A short novel that packs a lot of story into its 150 pages. A love story that takes place in a sweeter slower era that is entering a new age…
Full skirts, loafers and dreams of love and marriage morphed into the age of Aquarius and Vietnam. Kincaid and Elizabeth exerience the ups and downs of the times while maintaining their relationship. For a while it is letter writing that holds them together when he is shipped overseas to Vietnam…and she ends each one with ‘your place is saved’.

So until tomorrow…If you want to leave the present behind for a little while and return to Bobbie Brooks, circle pins and the weejuns era… spiced with love and faith….take a few short hours and read this story. It will be a short roller coaster ride…but one punched with all the key elements of life….laughter, love, tragedy, sadness, wit, humor, understanding, wisdom, compassion, and faith.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I discovered this wonderful little book at Timrod Library and will be returning it next week. It is available on amazon.com.

 * Delight of the Day: I emptied some dead flowers from a container under my bottle tree last week and, then, decided to replace them with some foliage that had some “pop.” These “Orange Marmalade Firecracker Flowers” fit the bill!

Dear Reader:

The most popular word to come out of Jakie’s mouth these days is the word: “MINE!” Sunday Jakie will be 22 months old and in child development terminology… that must mean “Mine, Too, Too.”

What Jakie doesn’t realize yet, and what we adults have to keep reminding ourselves is that there is nothing “mine” in life. We have been given everything by our Creator. We must never forget that life is a loan.

We are all on loan….for an undetermined time until our loan is called up.…literally.

You might remember from an earlier blog this week on: Lost and Losing” that the author observed:

“You believe that you have lost something, which is impossible, because everything that you have was given to you. You did not make a single hair of your head so you can not own anything. In addition, life does not subtract things, it liberates you from them. It makes you lighter so that you can fly higher and reach the fullness. From cradle to grave, it is a school, and that is why those predicaments that you call problems are lessons, indeed.”

………………….

It is when we lose someone over something that we really feel the loss and realize that the loss of somethings have never been that important…it has always been the someone’s in our lives.

It is the period following the loss of a special someone that tests our faith to the limit. We are hindered by the essence of our  mere mortality of “human”ness… with all the restrictions aligned to it. We are not privy to the on-going story of our loved one. We think in terms of endings when God has started our loved one on a new beginning in a new chapter with new settings.

It is these very same cracks in our faith that eventually allow God’s Light to shine through. Without the cracks of doubt, anger, and grief we would be consigned to the bottom of a deep dark pot where light never reaches. Instead our “cracks” allow, not only the light to enter, but the “living waters” from the pot to nourish life again.

One of the most satisfying feelings I know – and also one of the most growth-promoting experiences for the other person – comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it.

When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.” I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.
– Carl Rogers –

…………………………

So until tomorrow: Help us  understand that nothing is really lost….it will turn up again, it will be found….because love can never get lost. It needs no compass because it lives in our hearts…the site of continual self-discovery in God’s greatest gift to us.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh*

*Brookie and little “Boogie”….her precious grandson, Caleb in the mountains….the Blue B’s.

• I thought Carolina, the Crab was over the moon but look at “Toddy” the Toad.…because after all that hard work Anne deserved one…a toddy I mean!

*

Dear Reader:

The old joke, with retired teachers, used to be “Always ask who the cook is that night at a restaurant, or the name of your server.” If you recognize the name or face of a disgruntled former student….go to another restaurant. You don’t want to chance an unexpected payback on your plate.

Of course, most of the time when teachers bump into former students it is a positive rendezvous…with each side happy to see the other. It is always nice to hear former students tell us how much our class mattered to them or re-tell a lesson they liked. It makes us feel like we didn’t waste our time in the classroom but instead paid it forward.

When I came across this short story from Guide Post Magazine, the lesson struck home again. How blessed we teachers are to have opportunities to change lives with a small action or just a few words.

“God’s Lesson to a Weary Teacher”

Summer vacation. For most of my 20 years as a teacher, that was my time to relax by the pool. So why was I standing in the schoolyard of an unfamiliar school, supervising recess, wearing myself out for a summer teaching job? The extra paychecks were nice, but I lacked the energy of my younger colleagues. Like Stella. She was in her early twenties, and made keeping up with the kids look effortless. She reminded me of myself, back when I was a bright-eyed student teacher at Ramona Elementary…

I’d never forget my first day. I was too full of energy. Nervous energy. My supervising teacher was watching, and I wanted to make a good impression. I asked my third graders to take out their crayons for the day’s lesson. All of them obeyed. Except one. A girl with two long, dark braids. Everyone called her Estrellita, or “little star.” Why was she unprepared for class? I demanded to know.

“My sister has my crayons,” she said.

“You should each have your own crayons,” I told her. “That’s no excuse.”

“There are 10 children in my family,” Estrellita said quietly, her big brown eyes never leaving my face. “We have to take turns.”

I was taken aback. I’d completely misjudged the situation. All day Estrellita’s words played on my mind. The next morning I bought a pack of crayons to leave on Estrellita’s desk. She was so happy! That experience taught me an important lesson. Every student had a unique set of challenges—it was my mission to help my students overcome them. That mission used to energize me.

Recess was almost over. Stella turned to me and we started chatting. “How long have you been teaching?” she asked. I told her I’d started twenty years ago, at Ramona Elementary.

“I went to school there twenty years ago!” Stella said. I looked at her again, this time really seeing her. Those big brown eyes. That long, dark hair…

“Did you used to have two long braids?” I said. “We called you Estrellita…”

Stella gasped. “You! You gave me the crayons!”

She’d become a teacher. To help students like I did. Even doing something that small… it mattered.

That summer, I threw myself into teaching with a renewed sense of purpose. Estrellita had taught me a lesson once again.

………………………………….

So until tomorrow….Here’s to all the tired, weary teachers who fight more bureaucracy each year, in the form of  continuous assessments and required paperwork on students. May God intervene to demonstrate the difference each teacher can make in the big picture of their students’ lives…through caring…letting  students know that they belong in their classroom and in the world as a citizen of it.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

This cat, who my neighbors got after Lucy’s passing was definitely not distracted by Eva Cate and me getting out of the car. She had her eyes on the prize. But (thank goodness) the little bird was startled by us slamming the car doors and flew off….probably never realizing how close it came to its own demise. The bird lived to fly another day!

Dear Reader:

We all occasionally get ‘down in the dumps’ and during these periods we have a tendency to think that everything is just the “same old, same old.” Actually depression is just a period of us getting distracted from our own lives…our own journey.

As I was flipping through my emails a couple of days ago I found an “Aha” article that made me pause. I found myself thinking about our “down” periods in a different way. Don’t you love it when your eyes are open to a whole new, different perspective on something old?

Too many people use only part of the quote that says: “There is nothing new under the sun.” It doesn’t mean that we live in a “ho-hum” boring world…it simply means that each of us have the unique gift of looking at the same thing in life and everyone seeing it differently.

This same idea applies over time periods of generations. The same mountain or river might have been there for our grandfather or great-grandfather to see but over the course of time it has changed….the river has slightly altered its course or the mountain has slowly started sinking into its own foundation.

*I liked this moving “icon” from Ecclesiastes: 1: 9-10…because it is surrounded by the sign for infinity.

Here are some excerpts from the article I found on looking at new perspectives. I found it quite profound, I hope you do too.  (Source: Amit Awakin)

You are not depressed. You are distracted

(by Facundo Cabral)

“You are not depressed; you are distracted. You believe that you have lost something, which is impossible, because everything that you have was given to you. You did not make a single hair of your head so you can not own anything. In addition, life does not subtract things, it liberates you from them. It makes you lighter so that you can fly higher and reach the fullness. From cradle to grave, it is a school, and that is why those predicaments that you call problems are lessons, indeed.

You lost nobody; the one who died is just going ahead, because we all are going there. Besides this, the best of him/her, his/her love, is still in your heart. Who could say that Jesus is dead? There is not death, but only movement. And on the other side there are some wonderful people waiting for you: Gandhi, Michelangelo Whitman, St. Augustine, Mother Teresa, your grandmother and my mother, who believed that poverty is actually closer to what we call Love, because money distracts us with too many things, and makes us apprehensive and doubtful.”

 Liberate yourself from the tremendous burden of guilt, responsibility, and vanity, and be ready to live each moment deeply, as it should be. Help the child who needs you, and that child will be your child’s partner. Help old people, and young people will help you when you be old. In addition, service to others is an absolutely guaranteed happiness, as certain as enjoying and taking care of nature for those who will come tomorrow. Give without measure and you will receive without measure.

……………………..

So until tomorrow…Help us Father understand that “newness” is in the eyes of the beholder. Open our eyes to the wonder of Your Astounding, Mind-blowing Creation.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Kaitlyn just wrote a new post and I love her insights into life. I would like to share this blog story with you.

*I only have to stop by Doodle’s exotic backyard to be astounded by her unusual foliage of beauty and uniqueness. Eva Cate plays happily in Doodle’s playhouse while we get caught up with news and I get my eyes opened to new plants that don’t settle for being ordinary. .

This eye-catching yet low-maintenance HOYA PLANT produces clusters of stunning, delicate flowers which have stars in their crowns and a waxy or porcelain feel. In fact, these plants are so geometrically perfect that they can often look artificial!

*Doodle, I knew I should have written the name of this beauty down as soon as you told me….because now the thought and name is gone…..(I got distracted by life and Eva Cate)….but isn’t it gorgeous?

Dear Reader:

I, once, heard an educational speaker give this (paraphrased) quote and found myself literally shaking my head while mentally disagreeing with the statement. He gave this definition of the purpose of schools and subsequent learning.

” Children enter school with a question mark and leave with a period.”

“No!” I wanted to scream back. Children should enter school with a question mark and leave with a BIGGER QUESTION MARK! School is NOT a sentence that ends at a certain grade level with a final period beside it. A good school should have three periods (…) by the name of each student ..implying that real learning is a continuous process until we take our last breath.

As a teacher I always knew that my students were on  temporary loan to me from home. They would be with me for a relatively short span of time before moving on to another’s domain. And this would continue… and continue….and continue…for as long as the learner kept asking questions. Education never ends. Lifetime learning is real and very important in adulthood!

I feel sure that my last words on Earth will be in the form of a question. Something like…”Father, Will you hold my hand along this final journey home?”

One of the great metaphors in life is that the more we know…the more we know that we don’t know as much as we thought we knew.

The greatest minds in history never worried about finding the right answer, as much as, asking the right question…In other words, finding the missing question in the puzzle.

I think if I were teaching again….my history tests would look very different. I would require students to create the right question to match the answers given. Interesting concept!

So until tomorrow…Let us surround ourselves with people who make us look at life with a different perspective and then start asking questions.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Little Miss Eva Cate graced my home with her presence the last couple of days….we finally had time for her to get to see more of the heart of Summerville… the sculptures in the park, the lovely hidden paths around the beautiful landscape we often ride by and forget graces us with its beauty.

When I told Eva Cate that weddings took place in the large Gazebos in the parks she acted out the whole ceremony in her imagination …right down to  the “I do.”

Eva Cate must have brought me good luck….the prettiest moon flower bloomed last evening so Eva Cate could see it. She spent much of the evening flying down the driveway in Jackson’s tractor….she’s got that ride down to the split-second.

Dear Reader:

At the age I am now…I don’t have the same intensity towards obtaining goals that I did when younger. Thank goodness! I have finally come to realize that changes in life usually happen slowly, like the unfolding of a leaf. And when a change does hit suddenly….like moon flower blooms bursting open all at once…the surprise morphs into a better situation than previously experienced in the soft luxury of hindsight.

Blogger/author Kate Wolf-Jenson has experienced the same feeling. She observes: “The method that is evolving in my life-of holding the vision and creeping up on it gently, with tiny soft, foot falls-is working. It’s an alternative to the hard charging, accomplishment-driven way forward of my past. “

Haven’t we all seen people change into someone we hardly recognize? I remember at a funeral (long time ago….I was a teenager) for a cousin (mother’s age) the wife coming over to thank mother for coming and bringing me. I didn’t remember much about the deceased (I called him Mr.Bo) except he was always jolly and gave me a stick of gum when the adults weren’t looking. Then he would wink at me like it was our great secret.

Later, in life, however, he began having heart problems which only intensified over time….climaxing with an oxygen tent and continual bed rest. Mr. Bo grew quiet, then silent, and hardened against this difficult life situation placed on him. His widow told mother that “he had hardened into someone she scarcely recognized. It broke her heart.”

We see this in the faces of people walking on any street or in any gathering. They gave up their dreams and in doing so….gave up on life…instead of trying to find the positive in life’s difficult situations. We do have to be open to life’s unexpected detours, no matter how challenging. Or like the saying goes:

What we forget when we don’t adapt to what is thrown at us by life is that little eyes and ears are all around us watching, watching. They are learning how to handle adversaries through us. If they see us change, become hardened to the world, what do we think will happen to most of them when life’s disappointments come their way?

The flip-flop  of the term hardened is softened. We also know people who bloom brighter with each challenge that arises in their lives. They seem to sense intuitively that the problems facing them are opportunities to show other their real character…the right “stuff” that they are made of as a trusting child of God.

So until tomorrow, remember Kermit the Frog’s life mantra: “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.” (Always stay green and open to all that life has to offer…always curious about the next bend in the road…no matter our age.)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* Look at my two “Christmas” poinsettias….I hid them back in the brush where they get lots of shade and already some of the leaves are starting to turn red. They love this hot weather and are blooming in less than perfect circumstances. I can hardly wait to see them at Christmas this year…to see how tall they have grown!

Dear Reader:

Joan, John’s mom, sent me this beautiful gazing ball a couple of years ago and it just lights up the garden. It is so iridescent that any light reflects back making the ball mirror people nearby or colorful flowers around it. * Especially when the gazing ball reflects the”yummy” orange colors of Crocosmia. *Doodle thinks she has seen it nicknamed the “fire king” of the “orange lucifer.” I just know it is pretty and my favorite color.

I, also, have a green gazing ball given to me many years ago when my garden was still just a flicker of  my imagination, for my birthday….thanks Sherri!.

Having these gazing balls in my garden add so much visual delight to the overview of the entire garden. They make me smile and I can see my reflection smiling.

If “I had my druthers” I’d druther have another gazing ball (than just about any other ornament) in the garden. The sparkle they add to a garden is unsurpassed. And if you want to show off a special array of flowers or plants….a gazing ball attracts visitors to that (pre-planned) location..

I might be turning into the crazy “Mad” King Ludwig of Bavaria. He so loved gazing balls he had them produced in many sizes to be hung in trees, floated in ponds and displayed atop ornate pedestals around his castle. (King Ludwig’s obsession led to the use of glass baubles as Christmas tree ornaments.)

Here are some fascinating ways that gazing balls have been used in the past:

Delights of the Day: My morning glories are going crazy right now….climbing up and down and all around the fence. My two big Lazy Susan plants are still blooming away….this miniature plant just started blooming too….”Little Lazy Susans.”

My neighbor, Jane, has had a lot of laughs about her Texas Star plant because apparently it looks like a marijuana plant. But see who’s got the last laugh now…..Beautiful Big Red Star with many more to come.

Anne took some photos of some of flowers in bloom around her home (last week) …but after looking at her collage of paintings, several which are various flowers, it is her painting that is the “Delight of the Day” for so many admirers who have proudly taken them home. She brings life into her home….”life imitating art.”

Dear Reader:

Rutledge and Lachlan came over to play with Boo Boo for awhile yesterday while Mollie waited on their car to get fixed. Pirates became our favorite game…..We named Rutledge Captain Dolphin because he rode a dolphin of “hope” across the seas leaving hope wherever he went…much better than buried treasure.

He was so into the game that Mollie turned around and saw that he had fallen asleep in the back seat going home… with his mask still on and his hands on his hips….an unconscious but determined pirate captain.

He might have been riding home in a car seat instead of on a dolphin ( in real life) but I bet in his dreams he was still riding high with “Hope” the dolphin …soaring over waves and any other obstacles coming his way.

I fear that too many people give up “HOPE” on their original story…..hard times come, disappointments reign and one day (  just an ordinary day) our original story leaves because we opted out for an easier one.

Donald Miller (A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing my Life)  encourages us all not to give up on our original story because it is a good story….a great story…but also the most important story we were meant to live.

I have mentioned several times before in my blog (but worth repeating) that I would never want to return to the old Becky of pre-cancer days. She was pretty nice but she was living  life on the surface and not taking time to see the real world God made around her. 

After my diagnosis….children’s laughter became sweeter, colors more vibrant, plants and gardens worth pausing for to watch, family and friends the greatest blessing, and God, my constant companion.

My ophthalmologist has informed me that my cataracts are ready to be taken off when I am ready to do so. Think it will be next month. Friends and colleagues have informed me that I will be able to see better than I have in a long time.

But you know what? Since 2008, when I was diagnosed, I have seen better than I ever did before….there are many kinds of “seeing” I have discovered.

It was Donald Miller, from his book cited above, that gave me an “Aha” moment a ways back. Do you remember when Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley gave us the mantra….“No two snowflakes are alike.” We have all used that metaphor to explain the importance of individuality in God’s Creation.

But Miller looked at the reasoning behind this quote, after researching Bentley’s life and studies, and  “saw” something even deeper and more meaningful from this quote.

” What amazed Bentley was the realization that each snowflake was unlike each other because each snowflake bore the scars of its own unique journey. Each crystal  was affected by sky temperatures, altitude of the cloud from which it fell, and the trajectory wind as it plummeted to earth. (among hundreds of other variables.)

It is these very “scars” by the end of our journey here on earth that will make our story worth telling, our story worth living.

So until tomorrow….Each of us has a story to tell. It might not involve riding the waves on a dolphin named “Hope” while dressed as a pirate….but each of our stories has the potential to be an adventuresome and important piece of a bigger story yet to come..

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Boo Boo’s Boys Day: Rutledge loved it when Lachlan pushed him on the tractor….but not when he stopped and not when it was Lachlan’s time to drive.

Dear Reader:

Well…I finally did it! My Ancestry DNA Test Kit arrived Wednesday afternoon and yesterday morning I got up and went straight to the kit to get started. (I would have done it Wednesday night but I kept munching away and you have to wait 30 minutes after eating or drinking….even chewing gum… to do the DNA test.)

It costs $99 (can get it directly from Amazon) and mine arrived in two days. The Ya’s can attest that I have been talking about wanting to  do this for a long time….probably over a year. But ten months ago…I put my money where my mouth is.

Each month I would add ten dollars to my second checking account…quite painless and this month I finally reached my goal of an extra hundred dollars to spare. I was ready to see what the past looks like….going back… back… into my ancestral home sites.

What we realize when we start tracing our ancestry is that we are all citizens of the world. Our DNA will show up in countries we might not even recognize or begin to pronounce.

It takes 6-8 weeks to hear back….but I am so excited about learning more about my family and its different cultural influences throughout hundreds of years…because all of them added their DNA to make little ole’ me. I will share the results when I get them.

I am going to add a most interesting link to the blog today. Ancestry.com is now working with an international lineage research program to enable even more information to become available.

In this five-minute clip….several young people are asked about their lineage and everyone is very proud of the country (ies) (patriotic) they think are the most dominant in their family genealogy. They are, also, asked what countries/cultures would they rather not be associated with through heredity….amazing results are delivered back to them two weeks later. (Well worth the five minutes!)

THE DNA JOURNEY

momondo – The DNA Journey from YouTube – YouTube

Like one young girl said, following the results, if everyone in the world could be privy to the information they received she felt like it would quickly break down country barriers, racist innuendos, and intolerance of other people and different cultural beliefs. We, literally, are all world citizens….connected together by humanity, genes, chromosomes, and fate.  (And love, if we would just make it so instead of hatred!)

The Ancestry.com DNA Kit is very easy to use….the whole process took me maybe 20 minutes. You have to go on-line and register your name and  number (given to you in the box) and then you “spit” awhile into a vial until you reach a certain line drawn on the tube. (I didn’t realize I am a bubble spitter…it took me a few seconds longer to fill my vial up because you can’t count bubbles as saliva.) You switch tops, the second has a solution in it that mixes with your spit….you screw it on tightly and put it in a special sealed bag inside a box with postage paid. Viola…done!

So until tomorrow….“We, truly are “One in the Spirit”…if we keep our spirit open to all our brothers and sisters.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday I went to Mt. Pleasant to watch Eva Cate perform at the finale program to their camp this past week….American Girl Doll Camp. She and “Gracie” had a ball! They had all made masks of animals ….each camper got to choose which one. When we saw Eva Cate had made an elephant mask….I thought, Eva Cate must really like elephants since she was one in the kindergarten end-of- the-year play.

It wasn’t until we got home that I asked about it… she told me she liked elephants because of the Christmas Eve story, last year, that I told at church about the mother/baby elephant stuck on the train tracks on Christmas Eve. The whole town turned out to move the rail car with them in it off the tracks in time not to be hit by the next freight train. (And because elephant starts with “E” just like her name.)

I teared up. I had no idea that Eva Cate was taking in the story that well, especially amid all the excitement of the evening. You just never know what little ones are sponging in their minds and hearts. *She received the “Little Miss Sunshine” award for having a smile on her face every day.

Eva Cate couldn’t see well enough to dance because she thought she needed to keep the mask on which required both hands to prevent it from falling off..

Like Katie Perry sang quite loudly…”She was STRONG”! Eva Cate might not have had the “eye of a tiger” but the eye of an elephant…a blind one perhaps.

Jakie kept me entertained, before we left to go see Eva Cate perform by performing himself….new dance moves for Mr. Jake!

*Upon my arrival yesterday morning… this was the first time I heard Jake calling out “Boo Boo” as I got out of the car. Don’t know how much the heart can take….love it.

*Anne and I decided that someone must have put a big invisible dome over Summerville for our lack of rain the past few weeks …until it finally happened yesterday aftrnoon. I was and am so thrilled with the rain….a break from watering…Hallelujah….what’s a little wind compared to magnificent rain. (I also have a pretty big compilation of  large pine tree limbs out by the road now…nature’s summer cleaning!) * Big Red is fine….got “Boo’s Blessings” back up on the brick and all is well.

Dear Reader:

Now this good southern home is well secured against any “haint” or “boohag/boodaddy” who might think about entering. All the doors and windows are painted blue (“Haint blue”) to ‘keep the haints from coming through.’

Sherwin-Williams (article: “The Whys Behind Blue Ceilings”) tells the history of the haint in southern folklore.

The Significance of Haints

One of Sherwin-Williams’ most popular paints for southern homes in the deep south, especially South Carolina and Georgia, is “Haint Blue.” The shade of blue depends on the region of the south the customer is from…..from a pale, light blue to an aqua greenish-blue to a periwinkle blue. It is used on homes in several different ways…as the major color for a front porch, ceiling, and windows ledges.

When my renovations were being done last summer and the painters were re-painting all my trim….I told them white was fine for the trim work around the house but I didn’t want any one to touch my “Haint Blue” porch ceiling.

Besides keeping out bad spirits….I have never had a wasp nest or a spider web on my porch ceiling since painting it blue.

Sherwin-Williams researchers in an article titled: “The Whys Behind Blue Ceilings” gives this explanation why people want blue ceilings for perhaps more practical reasons.

Haints and insects aside, many people choose to paint the porch ceiling blue simply because of the way it makes the room look and feel. Blue is a calming color, so using it to paint an area of the house that’s intended for relaxation makes sense. Throughout the U.S., porches are often a favorite place while the weather is warm, or even hot, to sit and watch time and life go by. When sitting on the porch, it can seem as though life has taken on a slower pace, as though relaxation is a must.