Don't Blow It!

Good Planets are Hard to Find!

It is now officially "Earth Day" in South Carolina. Though as aptly put on the most famous quote about Earth Day - "Every Day is Earth Day". This photo was taken last Saturday down by the river, and I loved how the light was sparkling on the water so I tried my best to capture it. Not as good as being there in person but it's still rather beautiful I think.

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." ~William Shakespeare

Take time to walk outside today, and look at nature around you. Find a sermon in a rock, or a tongue in a nearby tree and listen to what it has to say to you. The earth is a wise mother with great wisdom to tell you if you will open your ears and eyes and heart.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." ~John Muir

Modern technology
Owes ecology
An apology.
~Alan M. Eddison

Easter 2010

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

Here's a photo I took of my boys on Easter 2010 outside of Di Prato's, where Tracie took us for Easter dinner. I had a cheese omelet with grits , turkey sausage and a biscuit and plenty of wonderful sweet tea. It's a delicatessen off Pickens Street and I highly recommend it. I had a bite of Hudson's rosemary ham sandwich - so good. And the coconut cake we had for dessert, yum!

Well the boys are on Spring Break this week, so this should be lots of fun. I'm going try and plan at least a couple things for them, hopefully that doesn't take a lot of money such as going to the park or something. They wanna go on the ghost tour but that's $10 a kid plus $15 for me so I think that's too rich for our bloods this week. I think I'll take them in the fall, perhaps near Halloween. Maybe the construction on the church will be done by then and we can actually go around in the graveyard at night on it. Scary!

I worked out in the garden today, planting my butterfly garden and some bulbs. I planted some rannunculus around the bird feeder, I haven't ever grown them but they look absolutely beautiful in the picture so I wanted to grow some. Their bulbs were so tiny and interesting looking.

By the way I decided to separate my craft blog from my personal blog - so if you follow this blog and would rather follow the craft blog (i.e. swap-bot people) feel free to do so. I put a link at the bottom of this blog to it, it's called The Artful Druid. There's one post there right now with an ATC I made in the zetti style.

"Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer." ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

The Brevity of Life

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." -Indian saying.

Life is but a whisper, a wind that blows by us and gives us a chill and then gone. We live our lives as though we will live forever, when we should be living our life as though we will die tonight. Our calendars are full of the tomorrows, but tomorrow is never promised to us. Only the now. I'm not saying that we shouldn't make future plans, but if you live in the future always scheduling something to be done, and never do it, you may find yourself in the position of not being able to accomplish anything.

I'm a big fan of goals - short term, long term and in between. I make goals for myself, things I want to accomplish in a month, a year, a lifetime... but sometimes I forget to make goals for the day. When I wake up, take a breath, I should give a thought about what I want to accomplish today. Perhaps I want to tell my family I love them, maybe I want to make someone smile, or maybe I want to organize something in the house; there are all kinds of daily goals one might have.

It's just that with the passing of my uncle the other day, yet again I am slammed against the reality that one day, I'm going to die. I would like to live until I'm a hundred, but I may only live another day. What will I leave behind, if I die tonight? Will I be remembered by my grand kids, or my great grand kids for anything? Will my stories be told age after age? I want to leave a legacy for those that come after me. I want people to tell stories about me at my memorial, to remember things about my life - is that wrong? I don't want to be forgotten and neglected.

I want my ashes to foster the growth of a great oak, where birds will nest and then fly from the branches, allowing my soul to finally fly. If I can't live until I'm a hundred, I want this oak to live for hundreds of years for me.

Life is brief. Enjoy the life you are given, there's plenty of time to be dead - so if you're life is dead, revive it!

"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw