Gifts

Blog 70 …

     Whether you’re walking briskly for health or you’re walking slowly for leisure around a park and your favorite trail, you open up yourself to nature’s surprises.  You get to behold a Cardinal swoop and alight at a bush right in front of you as if saying, “Welcome to the neighborhood!”  You can’t help stopping and noting that bunched blossoming cacti at a residential entrance way.  Spanning while keeping your pace, you spot bright yellow blossoms in someone’s garden where a lone sleepy young watermelon, still attached to its nourishing vine, surprises you.  You feel beyond blessed catching at the right moment a brown and white spotted foot-long winged creature’s flight from a tree branch to a wind vane’s tip atop a house roof.  You walk, and keep on walking craving for more of nature’s gifts along the way.  “What a marvelous world to enjoy,” you whisper.  What wonderful sights to keep inside you for rainy days you could not be out in God’s natural world!

Guardians&Play

Blog 69 …

 

  
     Work and play … we must mix the two.  Engaging in play after or before a day’s work is a must.  It brings back our youthful and carefree times.  It frees us, even momentarily, from adult responsibilities.  Playing with creatures-of-the-lesser kind takes us a notch higher in living fuller lives.  We rise above other humans when we learn and practice play with them every day.  We learn to relax and go easy with our lives.  When we co-exist with them, and care not only about their physical health, but also their emotional health, we embolden our resolve to robustly care for us too.  When we act as responsible caretakers, we get back and enjoy their affection.  Our pets do not materially require much.  Beyond all we could give them, engaging them and us in play is best not only for their happiness, but also for our abundant living!

 

Bursts

Blog 68 …

Colors appear brightly and lively everywhere your eyes turn.  Yellow, green, purple, and pink buds rise to their blossoming season.  Evergreens show off their buds and don their freshest and best greens yet.  Magnolias unfold their white, sweet flora.  Crepe Myrtles stretch their branches loaded with white, pink and red florets.  Rose bushes multiply their yellow, orange, and white blooms.   Grasses stately stretch their bodies to vastly carpet-green the landscape.  All over, as if in contest one with another, butterflies flutter and dance, cicadas sing, lightning bugs flicker, bees honey-suck, and birds loudly sing.  Nature puts on its grandiose sounds and splendid colors.  It explodes in gaiety.  Summer frolicking and celebration are here again!

 

 

Berry-good!

Blog 67 …

     In summer time, nothing is as refreshing to thirsty eyes and palate as fresh fruits of the season growing in hoards right in your backyard or jogging trails.  Just the right ripeness of raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries at your hand’s picking could make your mouth water after a long walk.  After tilling the soil, and weeding around bushes and trees on a hot morning, they too are absolutely delicious add-ons to your cold water drinks, and the perfect panacea too for your almost dry throat.  If you like to extend the treat, you could pick the succulent berries and prepare them for an afternoon snack, say … baking them into a fantabulous pie and topping it with fluffy or cold sweet cream. 

            Berry-good indeed, don’t you think?

Mindset

Blog 66 …

Settling in a new place causes extra work, attention and time.  You must unpack what you just packed and ensure their placements where they belong in manageable order or organized chaos.  You must attend to and get the frivolities and necessities of life: cable TV, internet, telecommunications, and basic utilities of water, electric, dryer/washer hook-ups.  You best get used right away with locational spots of things or you may find yourself lost in the scheme and organizing of things.  In between you must continue to meet the expectations of daily life and continue the flow of bigger, permanent schedules and tasks, especially minding side by side your efficient performance at your workplace; after all, it is the sustainer of your living costs, your bread ’n’ butter!    You cannot allow becoming scatter-brained.  You cannot forget the little ones either … your pets, placed in your guardianship or you will be sorry about the consequences of their like-displacement.  You best press on as if life’s ‘normal’ activities never got interrupted.  It makes a huge difference to manage move-associated situations, to lead people assisting in residential settlement, and to stay in control of your barometric emotions.  For sure, you cannot afford to be in displaced mindset! 

 

Nostalgia

Blog 65 …

Nestled in a quiet neighborhood in Kannapolis City’s Knollwood Drive is a Brick and wood Farmhouse, my temporary home away from home.  I always dread residential moves and changes, but already, the Pine, Magnolia, Oak, Crepe Myrtles and varied trees and bushes lining the paths to my 'temp house', and along the pleasant secondary roads into which I walked many steps the past week, have charmed my eyes and warmed my heart.  I do yearn for my Greensboro home’s backyard ornamental bamboo trees and pergola.  I miss my front of the house picture windows, my wide decks and walkways time and time again visited by hustling gray or brown squirrels, and colorful native birds.  The travel to Knollwood Drive, miles and miles of it from my Jason Road Cottage in Greensboro City would be cumbersome and weary for a while, but in the long run, I hope that it engenders meaningful memories made there and spice up the new ones yet to be experienced in the interim home. 
 

Moving?

Blog 64 …

Have you wished for helpful tips to rightly be accessible when you need them?  I have wished so!  They however do not seem to be at reach when you need them the most.  I recently moved, and was enormously barraged by the move’s nuisances, pricey expenses, and headaches.  For you readers out there however, the same should never be the experience.  I found available help since then from Daily Finance about home packing, and ways to lower relocation costs.  I suggest you pay heed.  Consider the following tips DF offers.  Get cozy and read on.

Accordingly, one great way to save is to time your move right. While the weekend may be convenient for you, it's also peak time for movers, so expect to be charged more on these days.  Also avoid the beginning and end of the month, since rates go up as leases turn over during this time.  Instead, try to schedule your move on a Tuesday or Wednesday in the middle of the month; it can potentially save you hundreds.  Shaving as much time off your move is also a key way to cut costs, especially if your movers charge hourly.  For furniture and other items that are too big to box, use brightly colored stickers or tape to mark which items need to be moved.  This way, you won't waste time fielding questions from your movers.  You can even color-code the stickers to indicate where the pieces should go in your new place.  Lastly, always save your moving receipts if you are relocating due to a change in employment.  In many cases, your expenses may be tax deductible, even if you don't itemize.  For more info, check with your tax consultant. 

Happy moving!

Heroes

Blog 63 ...

We had done a move many times in the past.  Way back those times however, we were much stronger and younger.  Mobile and agile, we could whisk and lift, pull and push boxes or simply and quickly move furniture pieces from a door to a moving truck.  Not this time at our more advanced ages, and definitely not after Mickey's recent back surgery!  Today, we had to depend on the energies of two physically adept acquaintances that were kind enough to help us get the moving tasks completed.  Earlier, as we broke bread, exchanged pleasantries, and then clarified work for which we needed help to finish, it seemed a mountain-like work that could not be accomplished.  We conversed in broken, simple English.  They spoke in their more comfortable dialect, gestured and motioned to us when they were not clear of next steps.  They moved as swiftly and as skillfully as they picked up items inside the house and loaded them up with precision into a parked cart.  From the sidelines, we watched and assisted as much as we could.  Beginning from the top floor hauling bed pieces, computers, and boxes filled with basic living necessities, time flew by quickly with our helpers' synchronized work-dance.  Their decisive wits, four hands and arms, strong backs and quick steps got the work going.  It took two busily engaged hours to fill in a moving cart, but it did not seem long for the work to be completed by our newly-found friends of the day.  They were our heroes!

Against

Blog 62 ...

      Doing anything that is natural should be easy, yet you take it for granted.  You pull when you must push a door to get inside an establishment like a restaurant.  You close your umbrella when you need to open it so that you do not get wet from the already pouring rain.  You press hard a medicine bottle cap when you are expected to only pinch and turn it.  What’s wrong?  Why do you go against the grain? 

   Going against, impulsively or intentionally definitely gets you riled.  It brushes off the positive energy within you.  It insults your intelligence.  It makes you lose your cool for nothing.

    Train your brain to think before you act.  It saves time and reduces frustrations. Be surprised by outcomes of considering, and thinking through before taking an action even in the simplest of acts you do.  So doing prepares you for bigger, more challenging decisions you must make day-to-day! 

Good Turn

Blog 61 ...

     Out on my daily walking trail, about six meters away from where I stood, a car had stopped.  The driver had turned on her car's caution lights and left her car door wide open.  "That usually happens only on an emergency," I whispered to myself.  I could not right away decipher what was going on.  As I got close, I noticed that Joe, one of my elder neighbor-farmers, was at a standstill position by the bushes-makeshift fence around his front yard.  He was gripping his flimsy aluminum walker; his arm was bleeding from a hefty accidental bush brush, and a fall.  Ms. Opal, his wife, donned a very worried look and seemed lost, even with the Good Samaritan at her side.  I joined the three-some gathered and together we exchanged thoughts on how to assist the now tearful and bewildered Joe.  Two more driver-Samaritans stopped by.  Like the first one who halted her business to assess the 'emergency', both neighborly souls stopped their road business to help.  We all finally gathered enough information and got Joe up; we convinced him to take steps ... slowly; one foot in front of the other did wonders, and taking the steps allowed him to get to his front porch where a bench was perched for him to sit and to catch his nerves.  As soon as we finally got him seated comfortably, and the emergency service team arrived, he broke in tears.  He humbly thanked each of us for getting out of our ways to help him.  What he did not realize was that we were thrilled to just have been at the place of his difficulty at the right time.  We said goodbye, but before we could say the next day at the hospital, "Get well soon, Joe!"