Corner View - the Great Outdoors

The Desert Southwest - U.S.

I just ran across Spain Daily's Corner View weekly posting. And I love it for so many reasons.

The gorgeous photographs and notes from all over the world are reason enough to visit each blog each week. It's educational too. I have a large world map in my computer room, which used to be my son's room, and I have marked all of the places that he has lived and to which he's traveled with black map pins. I've actually thought tonight about getting a second, smaller map to put up here above my computer (in fact I think I have a paper one that came with a subscription to National Geographic last year) to keep track of where all of my fellow bloggers are and where their beautiful pictures come from. (Has to be a different map than my son's; his is special just for him.)

And I also love seeing these places and faces and things from another person's point of view. For example, at Spain Daily's Corner View post this week, there are charming pictures of Vitoria's city sidewalks and sidewalk cafes. I would have walked right past the bicycle rack and never seen a photo there, but it's great! And I love the photo of the two men - that yellow t-shirt and those red chairs - so interesting! I guarantee that tomorrow wherever I happen to go, I'm going to look at things differently.

In the meantime, I have a couple of photos from near my home. And I look forward to next week's Corner View!

List Lover's Thursday

This week's list:
Favorite combinations

I had this list ready to go, but it might get added to later tonight. What are your favorite combinations?

• Dark chocolate and orange
• Jeans and white t-shirt
• Blue and brown
• Hot bath and cool sheets
• Bella and Edward
• Prosciutto and melon
• Honey and lemon
• A road trip and an audiobook
• Rock and roll
• A good novel and a cup of tea
• Strawberries and chocolate
• Batman and Robin
• Peanut butter and mayo
• Miss Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy
• Champagne and orange juice
• Ginger snaps and orange juice
• Cloudy days and reading
• Yogurt and granola
• Hugs and kisses
• Photographs and mementos (displayed together)
• Sedona and The Girls

Mornings

I love it when I am able to catch a glimpse of the details of a person’s life. Nothing too private, nothing too personal, just some little component of what makes that person’s day special and complete. I love to uncover a little snippet of what gives them comfort, a little tidbit of what feeds their soul. It makes it easier for me to believe that we are all somehow connected, even with all of our differences.

For this reason, I really enjoy seeing the pictures of other bloggers’ special places – the sunny window where they enjoy their coffee every morning, the bistro where they always find the best croissants, or the gorgeous garden with the violets they grew from seeds that they carried back from grandma’s house.

So today I’m sharing a couple photos of my patio where I love to have my morning coffee. It’s comfortable to me because it’s kind of private (from the neighbors), but a breeze can still blow through. I have a couple of canaries in a cage that love the morning as much as I do and sing often to show it. I have a water garden with a couple of goldfish in it and a small pump that makes just the gentlest little gurgling sound. I have comfy chairs and a glider (on which I’ve had some wonderful naps when the weather is just right), and lots of plants. Even on the weekends, I often get up early just so I can enjoy the morning before the day gets too hectic.

Sadly, though, summer is here. And it will soon be too warm to go out, even very early in the morning. When that happens, I’ll find a quiet spot inside to enjoy my coffee - maybe with ice.

Haiku Festival

Yeah! It's finally here! The Haiku Festival. I chose just a handful of my haiku to include here. Last year I put together a small scrapbook of my haiku with some of my (very amateur) Chinese brush paintings and various photos that fit the haiku. It was great fun. Of course I've written many more since then, and may include more in some future post. But for now . . .

morning clouds lifting,
not ready for sunrise yet,
cling to mountaintops

pink clouds dance to an
orchestra of crickets
end of summer day

different birdsongs
some trilling, some staccato
fill the cool morning

falling leaves gather
in red and gold mosaic
carpeting the earth

robin’s song is bright
like dew drops in morning sun
glad for the new day

dragonfly hovers
over the cut blades of grass
while i’m in corpse pose

anticipation
weighs down the limbs with green fruit
on the orange tree

P.S. The last one, anticipation, won second place in a local poetry contest last year! No big prizes, but it was quite a cool surprise!

P.P.S. Click on the Haiku Festival button on your right to go to Pink Purl for a list of other participants in the Haiku Festival. And thank you Tracy and Elizabeth for the wonderful idea and opportunity to share!

The "Weekbetween"

Another weekend is winding down. And a pretty good one it was, with a fair balance of productivity and pleasantness. There was the feeling of satisfaction from chores accomplished. There was good food and time spent with family. There were naps. There was time outdoors.

And although I’d prefer that tomorrow would be just another Sunday and did not necessitate the return to work, I want to reflect for a moment on this concept of the “weekend.”

We say we’re “working for the weekend,” we “can’t wait for the weekend,” “only three more days until the weekend!” But what about the time in between? Isn’t every other day of the week worth as much as Friday? Shouldn’t we wake up every day with the same enthusiasm as we do on Saturday?

I’m just as guilty as anyone else - I mark the days off my calendar to hurry to get to Friday. But lately I’ve become more aware that this is my life going by. I rush through the week to get to Saturday, but that’s a week of my life that’s now behind me. There aren’t any do overs and I don’t get it back. It’s just gone. Period. And that’s starting to bother me.

I’m going to try to shift my focus to the “weekbetween.” I really must try to do something meaningful each day, to experience something memorable at every opportunity, to notice the beauty that can be found pretty much anywhere I look for it. It doesn’t have to be anything big. I saw a single yellow butterfly in the backyard a couple days ago. And it’s late in the year already for butterflies here in the desert. It was beautiful in a simple way, and it made that moment special.

I know there are probably a lot of special moments that I’m missing. But I’m going to pay more attention. It won’t be easy. But it’ll be worth it.

Have a good weekbetween!

Lists, Lists, and More Lists

I am a fan of lists. All kinds of lists - to do lists, grocery lists, things-I’m-on-the-hunt-for lists, suggested reading lists, “bucket lists,” etc. (See? You can even have a list of lists!) I always have a grocery list started and I add to it daily. I usually have a “things-I’m-on-the-hunt-for" list going, and it includes things like a toaster oven, a new nightlight for the front bathroom, and a pencil sharpener (see below). I have a couple of suggested reading lists on my bookshelf among all my books. I have a “bucket list” that includes things like going to Paris, going whale watching, seeing an opera, and flying first class at least once – which I was able to mark off my list last year. (And while I was just looking at my bucket list, I found another list – “things that bug me that I cannot change.” Ha! I’d forgotten all about that one!)

I’ve decided that I love lists so much that one day a week, I think it will be Thursday, I’m going to post a list. I have a few started already – my favorite words, my favorite combinations, and my questions for the universe (not as serious as it sounds).

In the meantime, since I posted a list on Thursday of possible things to do on my day off on Friday, here’s a list of what I did. (And it was all guilt free!) Items in orange were on my list of endless possibilities.

• Sat with granddaughter (2 ½ yrs.) for an hour (at 5 a.m.! So much for sleeping in on my day off.)
• Received my Mother’s Day gift from my daughter (jewelry! Worth getting up at 5 a.m. for!)
• Read blogs and drank coffee
• Filled hummingbird feeder
• Baked brownies (and ate them of course!)
• Tried a new tea – Bigelow Cherry Vanilla (pretty good. I sweetened it a little & it really did taste like cherry vanilla)
• Cooked myself breakfast (poached egg on toast – one of my favorites)
• Put a new ink cartridge in one of my fountain pens
• Wrote cards to girlfriends with said fountain pen (and mailed them before postage goes up on Monday) (this also fulfills my Monthly Intention from a few posts ago.)
• Sharpened all of my pencils
• Discovered I need a new pencil sharpener
• Cleaned up my office (I know that sounds like work, but now I can have my new Daily System from Pottery Barn put up. Yay!)
• Ate a brownie (because of all that work)
• Cleaned kitchen sink and washed dishes from making brownies (I know that sounds like MORE work, but it was seriously about to be gross)
• Talked to my friend in Tucson
• Took a bath in the afternoon (luxury!)
• Found Copenhagen on my world map
• Read
• Read blogs
• Took a nap
• Ordered new books from my book club (one for me and one for a friend)
• Ordered A Cup of Poetry Tea (from the Republic of Tea) to sip while I’m writing haiku
• Ordered the new decaf version of one of my friend’s favorite tea for her
• Kissed my husband when he got home from work
• Fixed an antipasti platter for dinner (No cooking involved!)
• Had a glass of beer
• Had dinner at the coffee table, seated on the floor
• Received my Mother’s Day gift from my son in the mail (a Twilight t-shirt. He’s pretty clever!)
• Watched 2 episodes of “Two and a Half Men”
• Read blogs
• Twittered (Tweeted?)
• Ate a popsicle
• Took another bath
• Read in bed with my booklight (I don’t know why that’s so much fun. Must have something to do with when we were kids.)
• Got to sleep on time!

All in all, I'd say this would make my list of "My Best Days Ever."

A Beautiful Video: Stand By Me

A little proof that there is still some loveliness in the world - all over the world - and that is is possible for people to come together and create something beautiful.

http://christinekane.com/blog/song-around-the-world/