Sunday Morning

Sunday morning. The universal day of sleeping in. Everywhere people are having a good scratch, a small snore, and turning over for another hour’s sleep.

Not here.

One Wrong Makes a Right

This is my latest contribution to

Five Sentence Fiction

The prompt for this week is 

                  Conflict

You will find other entries at

Lillie McFerrin Writes

      Her workdays, boundless, endless, brutal, were at other people’s homes, places with one skewed couch, substituting for a bedroom, the magazine picture on the wall a sad reach for beauty. 

Serendipity

Phew.

          Today was one more example of why I’m grateful that the model of Retired Husband I drew in life’s lottery isn’t the inert, recliner-planted, tv-watching type (although let's admit it - there’s a little bit of that in all of us).

Just about the time I think I’m going to be reduced to a lively discussion – with space-filling photographs – of my experiences cleaning the refrigerator, something comes along to provide a post for my blog.

          My spouse has just put the last brushstroke on his latest painting. It’s based on a photograph from our 2013 trip to Cape Cod. 

         Here’s the inspiration:

As you may recall, he started about here:

. . . and progressed to here:

. . .and now we have a finished product.

Not bad for someone who's only on his sixth painting. 

He also recently attended a two-day class on painting clouds in acrylics. 

Since he usually works in oils, this provided instruction in two areas. 

Granted, it was a painting intended more as a class exercise than a work of art, but I think it came out pretty well. 

He added a touch of his own: 

Can you guess what time of year we’ll be hanging it?

Home Grown - Honesty and Vegetables

          This is the time of year when I know that if I can’t think of anything else to do for dinner, I can at least take a run down to Main Street and pick up some corn. A couple of ears of fresh corn on the cob can improve anything.

Oh Possum!

After a reference to possums by the animal control officer who visited us the other day, I got curious and did a little research.

Beware: Zumba Zone

             Today I finally was able to make it to water aerobics.

Oklahoma Sundays

I remember sitting in the back seat of our 1950s Ford in Virginia, drawing images in the window's condensation with my white, soon to be grey-fingered, gloves.

Sad Eyes II

  

   As you may recall, our neighborhood had a small issue yesterday. A cat has been wandering around for a few days, bedraggled and shy, wearing a flea collar

Sad Eyes

After a week of vacation followed by three days filled with obligations, I had promised myself that today would be set aside to work on my long-neglected book.

Moving Forward

As we grow older we often find comfort in consistency – familiar places, old friends, repeated events. 

Maybe it’s because we know by then how much change there is in life, not all of it good. 

One of the aspects I enjoyed about teaching was each fall’s concurrence of the familiar and the new as we returned to our classrooms to start with a fresh (hopefully in the positive sense of the word) group of students. A clean start with training wheels. This was change I could handle.

          So much of our life is spent looking forward to the next milestone. We are programmed for it as we climb on that school bus for the first time. We are always anticipating the next year as second graders, middle schoolers, seniors, college freshmen.

          We get jobs and work for that next promotion. We have families and our children learn to walk, talk, and march off to their own schools. And then in our later years our anticipation is less for ourselves and more for others as we watch the younger generation work toward their own goals. Is that enough?

          Maybe it’s a distinctly American phenomenon, this need to always be moving forward. Just savoring the moment, being “present”, and smelling those roses is all well and good but it can feel a bit flat if that’s the sum total of your endeavors. A sense of purpose, a feeling of direction, is revitalizing.

          It’s all that time spent in a classroom – either in the small chairs or standing at the front – but I think the year should turn at the end of August. That’s the time of new beginnings.

          I was reminded of this when I said goodbye, no – au revoir – to a friend who has sold her home of twenty-something years and is leaving tomorrow for Florida. She and her husband are several years short of retirement age and so will be starting a part-time business once they’re settled. I hope to visit her this winter, but our days of non-stop chatter on the golf course followed by more conversation over a late breakfast have ended. Funny how a chance meeting at a golf lesson can turn into a weekly notation in your calendar.  

          This is your first step onto the school bus, Laurie. I’m excited for you and the new life you are traveling toward, but it’s still bittersweet. Your gain is my loss. 

Last traces of the beach

We shook the last of Cape Cod off our sandals and headed home yesterday.

Well, not quite all the traces.

A future so bright he needs shades

I used my current locale for a contribution to:

    5 Sentence Fiction

    This week's topic is
    Luminous

                   For more entries, go to:

                 Lillie McFerrin Writes

Gazing about like a farm boy in the Big Apple, he entered Provincetown.  Behind him, folded arms, raised eyebrows, judgment and censure.  Ahead, open minds, open hearts, compassion, and freedom. An endless carnival, a pageant of celebration.

He stepped into his future; it was luminous.

Why I can eat anything I want today

I freely admit that I’m no athlete, never have been.

Chowder Challenge

We’re on our annual pilgrimage to the land of  Massachusetts’ middle-aged (although in my case I’d have to live to 120 to qualify for that category), otherwise known as Cape Cod.

Why Life Would Be Boring Without Pets

Any pet owner who's paying attention can tell you that each animal has his own personality and quirks.