quote monday

                                                  Be like the flower 
                                              turn your face to the sun.
                                                                -Kahlil Gibran

Happy Monday!
Happy first day of Spring!

The wildflowers are blooming like crazy. The unusual extra rainfall has given us a gift of a yellow blanket covering the desert everywhere. So very pretty!

lucky am i

                                                        him:  "Lucky am I?"
                                                              me:  "Yes!"
                                      him:  "Come to me, come to me, come to me."
                                                        
                                                         him:  "Lucky am I?"
                                                               me:  "Yes!"
                                      him: "Come to me, come to me, come to me."

                                                         him:  "Lucky am I?"
                                                               me:  "No!"
                                            him: "Go away, go away, go away!"

My grandfather  lived with us from before I was born until his passing when I was twelve. He loved saying this little ditty while pulling on my ear. If I would say "Yes", he would gently pull my ear towards him while saying "come to me, come to me, come to me." If I kept saying "Yes", he would eventually pull me towards him close enough to peck a little kiss on my cheek. If I said "No", he would push me away by the ear saying, "go away, go away, go away"... in which I would burst into giggles!

Grandpa had a little Irish in him and was proud of it. He had a little chenille shamrock pin he would wear on his shirt every St. Patrick's Day and was usually the first to be sure you were wearing green.

So, in honor of St. Patty's day and Grandpa Smith I say...

                                   "Lucky am I"?

I wonder what's blooming?

The desert is in bloom right now! With all the rain we had last month, color is bursting out everywhere!!  We have several of these purple beauties in our yard and the fragrance is really nice. In fact, there are quite a few fragrant things blooming in our yard and with windows and doors open already ( yes, temperatures have been hitting the high 80's) we can smell the fragrance inside.  My nose rather likes it. Chuck's...not so much. In fact, he is one walking sneeze factory right now. My sneezes are more frequent than any other place I've ever lived, but I don't suffer with allergies like he does. At all. Poor guy.

When things start blooming and people start sneezing, you often hear..."I wonder what's blooming right now?" quite frequently. I'm pretty much a believer that... "anything yellow will bring sneezes to every fellow." ( I made that up just now).  Yesterday Chuck said  that a pollen count of 100 can be considered high. He heard on the radio that the pollen count was reaching 10,000. Achoo! The Brittlebush, which is a native dessert plant full of pretty yellow flowers, is blooming everywhere! All the moisture has given it free reign to explode like crazy. I'm waiting for the mountain to turn completely yellow, like it does only occasionally.

I was at the garden nursery a couple of days ago. This particular nursery is a treat to 4 out of 5 senses. I didn't taste any of the flowers so I'll just go with sight, smell and touch.  Oh and hearing .

I was so tempted and had to force myself from filling up my cart. It was just beautiful with blooms everywhere!! There were rows and rows of flowers, tress and shrubs with colorful blossoms! It's veggie planting season here too, so there was an abundance of vegetables and herbs as well. I spent about an hour just looking at all the pretty plants and reminding myself...you have to water all those beauties you keep wanting to add to your cart. A small amount did make it home with me. wink wink.

While wandering around enjoying the colorful extravaganza, I kept hearing a woman sneezing over and over again. Constantly. And then I heard her say the funniest thing to one of the nursery employees. She said with her Kleenex near her nose...

"I wonder what's blooming?"

That's all I have to say about that.

punny things happen

In cell phone lingo, for my readers that may not be up on trendy talk like I am, a conversation that continues back and forth is called a thread. Once in awhile, this little family of mine, can jump on and keep a thread going for awhile. Usually, it's the ones that are blanketed with puns that go the longest 

because, we tend to be a family who enjoys throwing a pun or two towards a captive audience. 

So, I want to share this thread with you in the hope that it keeps you in stitches. I am the blue speech bubble and I am the one who started the whole shenanigans with the manatee photo. The text under the manatee photo is a bit small...but it reads...

This poor sea creature hit an iceberg.

                                                                           The End.
                                                            or as Leah said in Spanish...
                                                                             El fin.

                                 And that is how our punny phone thread unraveled. However...


                                        A family stitched together with love,
                                            seldom unravels.
                                                                                    -Lotty Cottin Pogrebin


                                                                                                                                                                                 
       Please note the time on the cell phone.  
This all happened very within just a few minutes.
                 Funny, punny and quick.           

quote monday

                             

                           Life is a succession of lessons
                      which must be lived to be understood.
                                                           -Helen Keller

Happy Monday!
~norma~


The above photo was taken at Waimea Canyon in Hawaii. It was a beautiful treat when we took a drive to the canyon. 
The view was large and colorful and seeing the waterfall in the distance was a surprise. 

I took the photo as my phone saw it. Chuck took it with his camera with a bit of a zoom and a 
filter setting to enhance the colors. 

Here is his version:

A bit of a WOW don't you think?

glass beach and rock balancing

While we were in Hawaii in January, we visited a small beach that we had heard about on our last trip there. Supposedly, it is where glass "trash" from far out in the ocean washes ashore. Evidently, there are many such beaches and some people even keep it a bit of a secret as to where good glass combing beaches are located. Talking with a woman the second morning I visited here, she said there is actually a Facebook page dedicated to glass-hunting lovers. I haven't checked it out because I'm not sure I'm really at that level of a gatherer. Not yet anyway.

With my propensity towards looking for tiny treasures along the waters edge, I suppose it could happen. And of course, with my daughter's new found love of making rings, and my long admired interest in learning the particular skill of silver work...I may become a gatherer at the next level. 

So, this is Glass Beach.

                       It's not very big, but instead of sand granules, it is all little pieces of glass.

Sea glass galore. Most of it is brown as you can see, but the challenge of the whole experience is finding larger pieces and mostly good colors...like the blues and the greens.

It was really a surprise when I looked closely and saw that it is a beach of full of sea glass with a few sand grains and small rocks mixed in. I found a pretty nice collection of good pieces here and Chuck and I followed a path around to the lava rock coast where we hiked down and found some more pieces and some little shell and coral treasures as well. An interesting adventure!

The second morning that I visited, I was there earlier and by myself for a few minutes. When I looked over towards the end of the beach I saw this rock sculpture that someone had stacked. It was not there the day before, in fact, in this same spot there had been a monk seal basking in the sun. I snapped a couple of pics of this balancing act that was actually about waist high, before continuing on my glass seeking expedition. Soon, another couple joined me on the beach. I turned to point towards the balancing rocks telling them they should check it out. But, as my eyes searched the beach it was no longer there. Instead, I could see wet sand and just one of the toppled rocks closer to the water. The tide had brought the waves up higher and had erased the stack just minutes after I had been there. I felt like I had stumbled onto something special that no one else would see that morning.

The entire time we were enjoying our Hawaiian beach stay, I was finding one heart shaped piece of coral or rock after another , so when I saw this... I felt like a rock star!

Speaking of rock stars, do you remember my post last summer about the sand sculptor Ray, that did that amazing elephant in the plaza in town? You can refresh your memory by clicking here to see his wonderful work. He's back again and working on a new one! I went by yesterday and saw Ray and his helper Nickoli working on their new sand wonderment! I hope to get more photos of the progress they make each day. While I was there, Ray had taken a break to 'balance rocks', which is another one of his talents and I believe a way to break from the sand and re-focus his mind. I blogged about it last year too, when I discovered a young boy trying his hand at it after learning some tricks from Ray. You can read all about it here , if you want.

I asked him if it was ok that I stand close to watch and he said "yes, of course'. It is so very fascinating that he can balance these rocks with such precision and steady hand. He had tried to get the round rock, in the above picture, to balance on the big one without success, so he moved on to the smaller stack to the right. He kept trying, but it just wouldn't 'catch', as he called it. And then they all tumbled. He turned and smiled at me and said...'you can try it now", as he walked away to work on his sand sculpting once again.

So, this is what I stacked. Not quite the balancing act that his was or the one on the beach, but very much me.

I considered it a success and walked away with a smile!

And a reminder to keep your heart balanced and not let the heavy things weigh you down.

Also, to remember that no matter how big the accomplishment...everyone is a rock star!

quote monday

Oh hello.

                               “You may say I'm a dreamer, 
                                            but I'm not the only one. 
                             I hope someday you'll join us. 
                                And the world will live as one.” 
                                                                                                                    ― John Lennon


This past week and a half were good ones. We had so many connections with friends and relatives, mostly from Colorado. It was so very nice to spend time with each and every one of them. Visits like these are great! They do a heart good.

As we were sharing stories with two such heart warmers...I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. I said to our friends..."very slowly stand and turn around and look at the door."

SLOWLY!

They followed my instruction and were greeted by this little fellow looking in our back door at us. He locked eyes and stood long enough for me to snap three pics and then he moseyed on his way off the patio and out of sight. We tell people stories about sightings of wildlife in our yard all of the time and they get to see pictures, but things rarely happen when others are around. So, for our friends....this was a treat!

I was reminded this weekend by someone to "embrace the ambrosia" in my life.  She was referencing something from a few years ago, but as I've given it new thought I've decided "well yes, don't we all need to do that?"  The sweet and the sour, the mild and the spicy, all the ambrosia given to us, let's take it.

Whether it leaves a lump in our throats or a satisfaction in our belly. Whether we need a drink of water to wash it down or an antacid to chase away its bitterness, let's chew it and enjoy the best parts and thank our lucky stars we have each other to enjoy it with.

Savor your ambrosia!
Happy Monday

~norma~