July Ultimate Blog Post - determination

Day Four of the July Ultimate Blog Challenge. The word of the day is determination,

Some people see it as stubbornness--I call it determination. That ability to focus on the task at hand and devote all your energies to realizing completion. Determination is the fuel that propels a person's accomplishments.

When my son and I agreed to buy and move a house onto our property so he and his teenage daughter would be close by for me, it took determination to overcome the hurdles involved.

I didn't agree with the spot he chose to place the building...more than 300 feet deep into the property. It created additional costs and a whole lot of extra work. The electric company serving this area required a 30-foot area beneath the proposed line from street to house be cleared of all vegetation. I lost count of how many trees needed to be cut down in the process.

It took determination to push ourselves in hot Texas summer days to fulfill the requirement. But the rewards for our labors exceeded expectations.

July Ultimate Blog Post - compromise

The word of the day is compromise. Merriam-Webster defines the word as a settlement of differences reached by consent of mutual concessions.

I promised myself I would not get political in this Ultimate Blog Challenge, a promise I'm struggling to keep during this volatile period of our country's existence. Then I receive an email from a good friend that shifts the whole situation into prospective.

James Still writes a regular article about our American beginnings. This week he addressed an incident that occurred ten years after the Revolutionary War ended. I could recap but better yet, checkout the whole message at  http://retraceoursteps.com/index.php/letters-by-james/2018/the-newburgh-veterans-1783 . 

Makes me ask myself, has this country lost the ability to compromise?

I come back to the word of the day-compromise-with a personal application. My brother isn't able to drive anymore so I provide him transportation. When it comes to grocery shopping, he prefers one store, I another.  By alternating which store we visit on shopping day each week, we worked out a compromise.

Give a little, take a little, now we have a do-able solution.

July Ultimate Blog Challenge - bewildered

(Photo courtesy of Google Images-

this is not my brother's picture) 

Day Two of July Blog Challenge - the word of the day is bewildered. The state of being my brother was in yesterday.

Victims of Alzheimer's have to cope with the bewildering experience of memory loss. In the past, my brother owned a landscaping business and took pride in the fact that he had the mechanical abilities and know-how to keep his equipment in top-notch running condition.

Yesterday he came to me, completely baffled by his inability to comprehend what mechanical failure prevented him from getting his mower to run. "I used to know but I can't figure out why it's not getting fuel." This was the first time I'd heard him express frustration about not being able to resolve a mechanical problem. It told me he had moved from the denial stage to the frustration stage of this advancing disease.

Up until now, he would scoff when I pointed out he was experiencing symptoms of Alzheimer's.  I can recount numerous times of  'forgetfulness' since he came to Texas to live. Arriving hours early for an appointment and then completely forgetting about it when it came time to leave. Dealing with numbers of any kind send him into a panic and he's allowed me power of attorney to handle his financial affairs.

I'm a bit apprehensive of the coming days, knowing this is just a fore-taste of the future. Thank goodness I can count on My Father providing all my needs...which most likely will be lots of patience.

July Ultimate Blog Challenge - accept

Day One of July Blog Challenge. The word of the day is accept. Accept that this road I travel will require me to traverse the valleys and conquer the mountains. It is in facing those rougher stretches of life that I become more than I began with.

Over the past fifteen months, I experienced life accelerating to a higher speed. The death of my husband of fifty-nine year -- which, incidentally happened the day of our wedding anniversary -- precipitated an onslaught of changes. Changes that forced me to make decisions and choices I'd never faced before in my lifetime.

In that short span of time, I've acted on many of the recommendations a newly-widowed person is advised not to do. I've bought a replacement car ( something I've never done before myself), bought a house (with my son so he could live close by),  been reunited with a granddaughter & took her in (long story there) and moved a brother with early Alzheimer's closer so I could oversee his needs.

It's been a stressful rocky road but I've managed to come through pretty much intact. It really is truth that God never gives you more than you can handle...and equips you for the tasks you face.

It's Been Some Time

Hello again. Did you miss my posts?

After spending a feverish month as a result of accepting the Ultimate Blog Challenge to post a blog every day during the month of January, I took a hiatus for the past six weeks. Noticing it was already the middle of March, I felt guilty about being absent for so long...so here I am.

Here in East Texas, we've entered our Spring season  and that means spending lots and lots of time outdoors, doing cleanup from the winter storms and checking flower beds. Seems like every day brings something new in bloom.

Trees are leafing out. All the fruit and ornamental trees have burst into bloom--redbud, pear, plum, and Hansom cherry shrubs. I even have one azalea bush sporting deep red flowers.

This year is especially labor intensive because of the need to repair garden beds that suffered neglect for a couple years. I've had to re-position sprouting perennial clumps because their bed got destroyed when we moved my son's house onto the property last summer. From another bed, I dug up a bucket-full of iris rhizomes and set them into a new bed created along the edge of a grass area.

Right now, I'm tackling the cutting back of crepe myrtles that have overgrown their desired height.  Delivery of my order of new bulbs is expected any day, so if you don't hear from me, you know where to find me. Trowel in hand and perched on the garden seat my son gave me a few years back, I'll be soaking up sunshine and feeling happy.

Just Remembering

Not really certain why these memories are haunting me today. Perhaps it's being Presidents' Day or because of the emotional turmoil this latest shooting has created among our country's citizenry.

It was my first Christmas with my Coast Guard husband after his transfer to Honolulu before our son was born. We chose that day to visit Punchbowl, the National Military Cemetery of The Pacific. Established in  a crater that was formed some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, the governor of Hawaii offered the Punchbowl for a national cemetery in 1943.  In February 1948, Congress approved funding and construction began. It was officially dedicated on September 2, 1949, the 4th anniversary of V-J Day. 

 As we stood on the viewing platform, looking down at the rows of crosses, I could hardly believe this sunny day with a warm breeze disturbing my hair was December 25th. I found the experience to be a very moving as I realized how many gave their lives so I could stand in that spot.

An equally moving experience happened twenty-odd years later when my family spent a day at the Normandy coastline at Omaha Beach American Cemetery & Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer. The first American cemetery on European soil,  France granted the United States a special, perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemetery, free of any charge or any tax. Overlooking Omaha Beach, the memorial consists of a semicircular colonnade with a loggia at each end containing maps and narratives of the military operations.

I cannot describe my stirred emotions as I walked the sands that had absorbed the blood of so many of America's finest.

Perhaps I'm just sensing that we, the people, need to look back to see how we've drifted from that era of sacrifice for others and unity of country.

A Rainy Day...

Why does a rainy day bring on the urge to write? Sitting at my computer, the falling rain is a curtain  shutting away the outside world. Cozy in my cocoon, the cacophony of life beyond my ken can not assaulted me. Instead, I'm free to browse the expansive world of thought and imagination.

Non-writers may not be aware that we scribblers don't confine our working time to those periods we plant ourselves before a computer or at a desk, pen and paper at hand. Just as much time is spend in exploring the world our characters live in and mentally observing their behavior and interactions with others. These fictional characters acquire substance and reality as they reveal their quirks to us, the better to relate the story they insist must be written.

The imagination is a marvelous gift. My first attempts at writing for public view were restricted to informational articles. I was convinced I didn't have the imagination to create fictional stories. With a dozen or more purely fictional novels to my credit, that fallacy has been proven wrong.

It took a creative writing course with an inspired teacher at Kilgore College to remove the wall I had erected to writing fiction. Since then, I've consumed many books written by others generous in their desire to share their knowledge in my quest to grow in my craft. Close to thirty years later, I am still learning.