Category Archives: joy

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rainshadow

Blogging from A to Z, the letter R for rainshadow, rehearsal, raise your voice! Only I did R yesterday and should be on the letter S! Sing, shout and shadow…there, whew!

My father and seven other people started Rainshadow Chorale in 1997. I joined when I moved here. He died in 2013, but we are still singing. Two concerts today and one tomorrow, and by yesterday they were nearly sold out. All three.

We had a dress rehearsal last night, with Rebecca Rottsolk, our brilliant director, doing the final touches. It’s the first time that we rehearsed in the space that we will sing in, so we pay close attention to how we sound there.

And raise your voice in song and praise! We walked this morning and traded songs with the birds: song sparrows, red wing blackbirds and quieter birds…the above photo of the bird slipping quietly through the ripples. Here is another view:

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I think that this is a Hooded Merganser, here. Hooray for happy things and the letter r. And the letter s too!

R

S

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Happy no

Name, noun, nut, gnome, know, no…

I have a nutty streak, a silly streak and love silly things. It helps me to balance clinic. Sometimes things are hard there, I hope to be able to do something for many people that I see. Half my patients are over 65, one is now 100, and no one lives forever even if I recommend the right things and they live a medically perfect life. I am always mourning for someone.

So my nutty streak comes out with listing words for the letter N and adding gnome and know. Are they N words or not? I think they are.

And my happy thing today is the word NO. How, you say, can NO be a happy thing?

This weekend I wanted to do too much. I wanted to attend a retreat about change that went from 9:30 to 3:00 but I also was already tired. It would be with aΒ  group of people that I don’t know well, so my introvert side would be on guard. My son was coming into town and I needed to make choices and save energy and say no to myself. I went to the retreat, but only for two hours. I wanted to stay longer but did not. And that protected my energy for the next day and this busy week.

Do you argue with yourself and want to do too much or something your shouldn’t or spend too long on something that you didn’t plan to? Look, I thought this would be a very short post to catch up….

N

There were three great blue herons on the beach the other night, and then an eagle in the surf. The herons were fishing but also watching the nearby eagle, the people on the beach, loose dogs going by, and each other. Their feathers were windblown and they made me think of teens at a dance, looking at each other with interest, but pretending they were more interested in fishing.

Happy Blogging from A to Z!

 

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Mundane Monday #156

Welcome to Mundane Monday #156: our theme today is serendipitous light. Does serendipitous light contradict mundane? I don’t think so. We were walking on the beach in the evening and as the angle of the light changed, Marrowstone Island lit up under the lowering clouds. I stopped taking pictures of the flock of brant and took pictures of the land and sky instead.

What picture do you have of serendipitous or accidental or fortuitous light? Link and I will post them next Monday.

Last Mundane Monday #155, the theme was close color.

The Wishing Well sends this: https://bedressed.wordpress.com/2018/04/12/photo-challenge-yesterdays-mundane-capture/.

And K. L.Allendorfer: https://klallendoerfer.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/mundane-monday-embassy-suites/.

Happy Monday and I hope that your sky and horizon light up more than once this week.

There, I managed to mess up links to #155 at least three times….learning.

 

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music

Blogging from A to Z, happy things. M for music, music, music!

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My father and sister and I had a chance to record some of the family songs. This one is called Down by the Sally Gardens. My parents used to sing the duet.

May you have a joyous Monday!

 

M

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one of these things

For the Daily Prompt: deplete.

Holy cats, am I feeling depleted! Since I got back from vacation, have worked every day including both days last weekend! Neck hurt this morning, all stiff, I need a day off! No medicine today…

And what repletes you? Walking outside and taking photographs repletes me: and wondering. The gull is hanging out with the whole flock of brant geese. They don’t seem to mind. Nice! Black and white together! And I think of Sesame Street: “One of these things is not like the other.” Really, when you get down to it, the brant each have their own individual characters too, right? Grouped by species or not.

And music and dance and singing replete me: here is a fabulous hour of boogie-woogie piano music with Daryl Davis and others. I danced to Daryl Davis in Maryland back in the 1980s! Go Daryl!!

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Keen kindly kites

A day late, but my theme remains happy things.

Oh, for yesterday the happy things are keen kindly kites and alphabet poems. The kites are from my own alphabet poem alphabeasts. I was thinking of the birds when I wrote it. I have not seen a kite yet. The brant above flying are caught by my cell phone, after my big camera ran out of batteries. They all spooked and leapt into the air. We did not figure out what spooked them.

I love other alphabet poems. Dr. Suess’s ABC, the wonderful creepy Edward Gorey poems, I have my childhood copy of Tasha Tudor’s A is for Annebelle, grandmother’s doll. Edward Lear’s alphabet poems and peculiar drawings always fascinate me. The children’s illustrated alphabets are beloved as well: Graeham Base’s endlessly detailed paintings for Animalia. We could make up whole stories about them! Max Grover’s deliciously strange The Accidental Zucchini with wonderful bright color paintings. What is your favorite?

K

 

 

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jump, jive, joy

Blogging from A to Z, my theme is happy things. The letter J for jump, jive, joy!

And jitterbug! I am a jitterbug dancer, east coast swing or 6 count swing, and lindyhop, and west coast swing. Salsa, merengue, cajun dance, two step, oh and a few clogging steps, about 6 total. I love to dance and I love the Jump Blues!

I took the photograph this morning: of an old t-shirt. We went to as many dance camps of The Savoy Swings Again as we could. There were two bands and lessons all day and I would have to increase my salt intake to keep my muscles from cramping. Deanna Bogart is still playing. And the Washington Swing Dance Committee still has a page devoted to dance!

On my last trip to the Washington DC area, my daughter said, “Let’s go dancing.” We found the DCdancenet site. We found a contra dance at the Spanish Ballroom, at Glen Echo Park. My son, his girlfriend, my daughter and I all went to the dance. The Spanish Ballroom is where I met their father and living on the west coast, I had not been back for years!

Jump, jive, joy and jitterbug! I am glad that dance is still going on, teaching, live bands and all the joy it brings!

J

And check this out: the same t-shirt shows up in this video of the Jiving Lindy Hoppers!

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G for give

My Blogging from A to Z theme is happy things: G for give and generous and goat!

Goat? Yesterday was the opening of our Farmer’s Market which starts with the March of the Goats.

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Give and Generous:

I went to a Rotary fundraiser last night.

I am in the Sunrise Rotary, and the fundraiser was put on by the noontime Rotary. We have three clubs in our county.

There was dinner and both a silent and live auction. The benefit raised $20,000 for a new kitchen for the Boiler Room. The Boiler Room is a youth coffee house, drug and alcohol free, and where people are welcomed and can volunteer. There was a video about three people who talked about how it helped them. The fourth was the director, who told her story from 18 years ago.

Additional funds were raised. I love the Rotary: it sustained me when I had to start my clinic and it does so many things. I am delighted that we are down to two countries with polio virus, the exchange students come from all over the world and go all over the world, the yearly Shelterbox that we buy will go to some disaster area and locally the third graders each get their own picture dictionary. And I get to meet weekly with a wonderful group of people.

I bid on a lunch with US Representative Derek Kilmer. I wish I’d gotten that, I would bend his ear about healthcare. I didn’t. But I came home with an odd ladle and I am signed up for a two day black smithing class at the Cedar root school. And my money will go to multiple projects.

Hooray for all the generous people and organizations working for and with people and the people working for and with them.

G

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Blogging from A to Z.

 

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feeling, farm, friends

My theme is happy things: feeling, farm and friend.

Feelings: I find our culture a bit bipolar about feelings. Love and friendship and joy are celebrated and other feelings are labelled “negative”. Grief, fear, anger, basicΒ  grumpiness. I see posts about staying away from “toxic” people and away from people that are “downers”. But we all experience all of these feelings. Feelings are as important as thoughts. Feelings are quicker that thought, hormonal and electrical information in brain and body: we pull the finger out of the candle lightning fast, we jump out of the way of the swerving car, we feel the cascade of fear if someone is following us at night. The feeling is not always correct — we may feel threat from someone who is not threatening us.

In high school my daughter said that most of the arguments she noticed were someone saying something not well thought out or offhand as they left. It is misinterpreted, stewed over, discussed with other people and thenΒ  the person who felt that it was “at” or “about” them will react. The first person is shocked and doesn’t even remember or understand the trigger. Misunderstandings all the way.Β  We have to step back from feelings and have the courage to be vulnerable and ask, “What did you mean when you said that?” We all get grown up and over that after high school… well, I try.

Farm: I got my first local CSA box on Wednesday, lovely vegetables straight from the farm and tulips! I get an email each week and often with recipes.Β  I love my CSA box. I eat more vegetables too, because I don’t like to throw them out.

Friends: MyΒ  friends give meΒ  such joy! I have an email this morning from friends in Berlin, Germany! I have not seen them for more that a decade but they are coming to visit this summer! What absolute joy!

And may your day be joyous too!

F

Another photograph from Hawaii, my friend Patrick and one of the lovely green turtles. For scale…. Β