Category: blogging

It’s a Spring Party… Let’s Groove 🎶🌻🌷⚘🌺🍉🍔🍗🍿🍦🍻💃

Jacqueline is hosting a marvelous Spring Blog Party! Scoot over there, enjoy some lovely treats, and mingle with the other guests!

jacquelineobyikocha's avatara cooking pot and twisted tales

Online Blog Party

Thank you for coming to my Spring party. I love Spring. It’s a beautiful season with a lot of refreshing promises of budding life and blooms. A season of rebirth.

Do make yourself comfortable. Refreshments are nicely arranged down the page: Drinks, Chocolates, Cakes, Donuts, freshly squeezed juice, Coffee, Tea and so much more. :-)

The little party rules.

  • Be friendly. Mix and mingle with others. Don’t be a wallflower. Blog parties offer the opportunity to meet many other bloggers in one place. Use the opportunity effectively.
  •  Please leave your blog link or post link in the comment box below along with an introduction.
  • It’s one link per comment, but come back as often as you’d like, that way it’s easier for others to focus on a link one at a time.
  • Have fun, this is a great way to find bloggers and have them find you.
  • Please show some love. Reblog…

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SoCS: too many

I have way too many projects going these days.

Most of them, like preparing tax returns, are not especially fun.

My blog and other writing are suffering a bit as a result, but, someday, I will have a bit more control over my time and will be back posting and poet-ing more.

Thank you all for your patience.

JC
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “project.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/03/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-mar-417/

 

the privilege of (private) mistakes

We all make mistakes.

After the problem at the Oscars last night, mistakes are in the news, so I have been thinking about mistakes a lot today.

Most of us lead our lives in a small, mostly private sphere. When I make a mistake, it is usually straightforward to correct it and move on.

I’d hate to think of what my posts would look like if I couldn’t correct my mistakes…

A simple mistake of handing someone the wrong envelope last night led to a few minutes of confusion before the situation was corrected, but having millions of people viewing that mistake must have made it very difficult for those involved.

Still, the solution was fast and there was no lasting damage.

Other mistakes are not so easy to rectify.

Last night, 60 Minutes was re-showing a segment on people who have been exonerated after long prison sentences. Such grievously mistaken convictions are not so easy to rectify. Some states try to award money to the person, while others don’t even do that. Still, no amount of money can replace decades of lost life with family and friends, a chance for a career or for building a family, being able to choose what to eat and where to travel, to have contact with others on a regular basis, all the stuff that we take for granted as we build our adult lives.

One man, exonerated by ballistics testing after thirty years in prison, made his first stop after being released his mother’s grave. Nothing could ever replace the precious time he lost, locked away from her.

One of my current worries is mistakes from the White House, which can have massive consequences.

For example, mistakes with the executive order on immigrants and refugees sent some people back to dangerous situations. A mistake made in international relations could even lead to armed conflict.

People who are in positions of public authority don’t share the luxury that I have of making – and correcting – mistakes in private. Therefore, they must be particularly diligent to be thoughtful and considered in everything they say and do.

The new administration is not there yet.

Poem: Beatitudes

Beatitudes
~~~by Joanne Corey

The priest took a risk in his homily,
asking the President to look
again at the refugee ban,
before a conservative congregation
who thought the Sermon on the Mount
was meant only for long-ago Jews;
the poor and hungry,
those searching for justice and peace
have nothing to do with them,
secure in their homes
with well-stocked kitchens,
their children safe
in schools with locked doors.

Who is my neighbor?
Who is my brother or sister?
Questions as ancient
as Cain and Abel,
confined within church walls.

Still, a faithful few
go forth,
march,
chant,
pray,
demand justice,
give shelter,
        food,
        clothing,
        sanctuary,
dare to be Christian
and American.

Note:  Thanks to Sappho’s Circle and the Grapevine Group for their help with this poem. I decided to share it here as it is related to current events and doesn’t have a long shelf life.

One-Liner Wednesday: videopoem link

As promised, here is the reactivated link to our Boiler House videopoem:  https://vimeo.com/187387583.

This (somewhat atypical) post is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us!  Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/22/one-liner-wednesday-rock-is-dead-yippie

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One-Liner Wednesday: living well

“The secret to living well and longer is:
eat half, walk double, laugh triple
and love without measure.”
– Tibetan proverb

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/15/one-liner-wednesday-a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/

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SoCS: sowing and sewing

So, I used to sow seeds on occasion, back when we had a vegetable garden. We always had one when I was growing up. We tried to have one in our yard in our current home, but had to give it up when the groundhogs kept climbing the fence and eating everything. Now, we just go to the farmers’ markets and farmstands and let others do the sowing and reaping!

I wish I could say that I sew, but I am not good with sewing machines. I do like hand sewing, though. I tried to take a beginner’s quilting class years ago and really enjoyed it, but the problems with the tendons in my right arm make that kind of fine work difficult for me. So, I need to let others sew for me, too.

I’m such a delicate flower…
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “so/sow/sew.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-1117/

 

One-Liner Wednesday: security

“Our security is not in weapons, not in walls, not in isolation. Our security is in community.”
~~~ Sister Simone Campbell of NETWORK
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Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/08/one-liner-wednesday-to-pooh-a-villain/

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SoCS: Crowning Glory

For most of my life, my hair was, well, just my hair. Not much of a topic of discussion. It was brown and wavy and thick and heavy and a bit cowlick-y.

Of course, there was always discussion with my hairdresser, because that is their business. She was not a fan of my decision to let my hair go grey naturally. “Men with graying temples look distinguished, but women look old.” This was not helped by the fact that I started to have stray silver strands as a teen, with a lot of acceleration in my thirties.

When I was mostly silver, I decided to let my hair grow longer. The natural thinning that happens with the change in hair color actually worked to my advantage, because I could let my silver hair grow longer without having it get overly bushy, which it did when it was mostly brown.

What I hadn’t expected was that my long, silver waves would become such a topic of discussion. Friends, acquaintances, even complete strangers often comment on my hair. They tell me it is beautiful and that if their hair looked like mine, they would stop coloring it. I tell them they should try and see, as some don’t really know what their hair looks like naturally.

I even wound up writing a poem about my hair when Silver Birch Press did a series called My MANE Memories. You can find the poem, entitled “Crowning Glory” here. My husband took the photo that accompanies the poem. I liked it so much that I started using it as my gravatar.

So, maybe my hair does make me look older.

I prefer to think it makes me look more beautiful.

At least, I have lots of people tell me so….
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “hair.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-feb-417/

 

One-Liner Wednesday: absolute power

“By its nature absolute power limits and even denies the freedom of others.”
~~ Leonardo Boff

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/01/one-liner-wednesday-creepy-or-comforting/

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