March 2010

Bottle Tree At Last? Maybe.

March 31, 2010

I have to clean up my yard first, though. Then I can finally have my bottle tree. Ages ago I wrote about bottle trees on this blog. I admit that when I first saw one, I thought it was “tacky,” but bottle trees “grew” on me, in fact I had intended to have a bottle [...]

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I’ve Seen The Light

March 29, 2010

My husband eyed me warily as I followed him around the house turning off the lights when he left the room. I could hear him muttering under his breath. I didn’t understand everything he said, which was probably a good thing for him, but I caught a few of the words: “mumble, mumble…sounds like my [...]

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A-Hunting We Will Go

March 28, 2010

Not for Easter eggs…nope. And we are not going hunting with a gun. We are going ghost hunting! That’s right. It’s how we plan to celebrate our anniversary this year. My husband thinks I use the terms “we” and “celebrate” a bit loosely … but he is indulging me. Bless his heart, he always does. [...]

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The Dog Ate It

March 26, 2010

Those were the words of the little boy who turned in this book at the school library where I worked this week: “The dog ate it.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Well, OK, you are right. I laughed. Then the librarian told me that he was the first person to check out [...]

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Cleaning For A Reason

March 25, 2010

You know as well as I do that cleaning house can be difficult on a good day. The bending, stooping, and reaching can be exhausting. The cleaning products can overwhelm your senses. Imagine how difficult housecleaning can be for a cancer patient! Fortunately, there is an organization that will supply a free professional cleaning service [...]

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An Easter Blog Hop for Charity

March 24, 2010

Do y’all remember the thrill of holidays when you were a child? Last Easter, I “stalked” this little man with my camera while he was on his first Easter Egg hunt trying to capture the image of his excitement. Adorable, isn’t he? Don’t we wish we felt that same delight and excitement all the time? [...]

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Not A Shoe In

March 23, 2010

Our hostess invited us inside with a smile and said, “Please take off your shoes and leave them at the door. We don’t wear shoes inside.” “Crap!” I thought while glaring at my husband. “Why didn’t somebody tell me this so I didn’t wear my ‘Sunday socks’ — the holey ones?” He had been to [...]

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Ready For Another Round Of Link Love?

March 22, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a little “link love” on my blog. The main reason is because when I look back on older posts with links I discover that many of the links are broken. I’m having to just remove the posts from my archives. What’s the deal here? People change their blog [...]

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The Cave

March 21, 2010

Your lungs feel as if they might explode, if your heart doesn’t give out first. You stumble on rocks you can’t see in the darkness. You can taste the fear at the back of your mouth. Fear is all you have eaten for days as you stumbled across this unfamiliar terrain. But, there is not [...]

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Jumped The Gun Again. Will I Never Learn?

March 20, 2010

Y’all, I’ve lived in Texas all my natural born days and as my Daddy would say, “I ain’t no spring chicken.” I should have learned something in all these years, but any lesson that came my way didn’t take. Right now I’m feeling plumb silly, and I know things like this don’t happen to you. [...]

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The Best Thing About A Carnival

March 19, 2010

Do you ever have a carnival come to town and set up on the parking lot of the mall? I don’t remember them from when I was a kid, because I think my parents didn’t drive near them. They didn’t want their four urchins begging to stop and ride the ferris wheel! Heck, we got [...]

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Wedding Bells Will Be Ringing

March 18, 2010

Do you hear us all abuzz at our house? We couldn’t be more tickled. Our boy is getting married. Technically, Ian is my husband’s oldest son. Although I am just the “wicked stepmother,” he feels like one of mine. Click that picture above to see a larger view of this beautiful couple. Aren’t they adorable? [...]

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I Want To Be A Coffee Bean

March 17, 2010

At the Texas Storytelling Festival this last weekend, many fine tales were told. One in particular was told by my friend Elida Bonet, a marvelous storyteller who grew up in Panama, at the Sacred Tales concert. She said the story had come to her in one of those forwarded “inspirational e-mails” she gets (the ones [...]

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The Consensus on The Census

March 16, 2010

“In 1790, it cost 1¢ per person to take the U.S. Census. In 1990, it was $10.45 per person.” This is information I gleaned from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, which is on my “library” shelf in the bathroom. That tidbit may be as worthless as the toilet tissue I use as a bookmark. But, it [...]

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My Expensive Dish Drying Rack

March 15, 2010

I have a VERY expensive dish rack — my dishwasher! Yeah, yeah. I know all the arguments for using the dishwasher instead of hand washing dishes. Researchers argue that it doesn’t save anything to hand wash instead of use the dishwasher in a typical family. According to the Bonn Institute in Germany, a dishwasher uses [...]

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Slight Pause

March 13, 2010

Sometimes you have to “fill the creative well.” I’m telling stories and listening to stories just at the moment. It’s the weekend of the 25th annual Texas Storytelling Festival. What is it that the kids always text to each other? “TTFN. BRB” I think that’s supposed to mean, “TaTa for now. Be right back.”

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A Week Of Worthiness

March 12, 2010

Have y’all ever heard a tiny voice in the back of your head whispering negative things to you? “Pssst! You aren’t good enough.” “Hey, you are not worthy.” Most people hear things like that in their minds occasionally … although some people hear it all the time. Except maybe Stephen Colbert, but even Stephen has [...]

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It’s A Storytelling Festival

March 10, 2010

It’s happening this weekend: The 25th Annual Texas Storytelling Festival! And, it’s right here in Denton, Texas from March 11-14, 2010. It hardly seems possible that it was twenty-five years ago, when a friend of mine had a dream. Finley Stewart, about whom I have posted before, wanted to bring together storytellers and story listeners [...]

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Reflecting on Caldwell County Courthouse

March 10, 2010

I adore old courthouses. I marvel at the care that was taken a century or more ago to build the government seat. Courthouses built in the late 1800s, even those built in tiny towns, often have lovely architectural embellishments. Have you noticed that most government offices we build these days are sterile, antiseptic structures (with [...]

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Sin Tax On Soda Pop?

March 9, 2010

The nightly news reported that Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York is encouraging lawmakers to place a penny-per-ounce tax on the sale of sodas sold in his state. Do what? While the news story focused on the fact that Americans are obese, and putting a tax on sugary drinks will help fight that problem, I [...]

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