A Poem A Day, sort of, April 2025

1 April 2025

Eight Years On

How can I write when

My words rise and get jammed

In my dam of grief

©️ Ellen Apple 

2 April 2025

Spring erupts in my world

Clouds of gold

Layers of purple

Somulence seeps in

Through cracks  

Crevices

Felt 

Yet unseen

©️Ellen Apple 

03 April 2025

I have never been good at

Staying in my lane

Coloring inside the lines

Going with the flow

I am much better at

Forging a new path

Doodling in the margins

Making waves

But those are not bad things

Just me things

And if I'm not mistaken 

They are you things too

Because those constructs

Constrict

And dear one 

We are meant to

Soar

©️Ellen Apple 

04 April 2025

Wisteria gracefully draped

Waltzing in a gentle spring breeze

Daffodils greet in a gloriously staggered row

Cannas emerge from their wintry nap

Elephant Ears unfurling 

Ah April is in my yard

©️Ellen Apple 

6 April 2025

🎐 chimes sing

🐶 puppy snoozes 

😺 kitty stretches

Ah

Sunday 

©️Ellen Apple 

 

07 April 2025

My heart is storing 

Placards on my life calendar 

"Yesterday was Birthday of..."

"It has been X years since..."

And they increase in number and weight as I am increasing in age and memories 

©️Ellen Apple 

08 April 2025

It was1986 and April 

When my father went ahead

On or about this date

He was laid to rest

Snow flurried in my 

Appalachian mountains 

That day

Sure would be nice to hear

"Bertie" in his baritone

Just one more time

Hug them

Love them

None of us live forever

©️Ellen Apple 

10 April 2025

Quietude descends

Blanketing cacophony 

Muting discord

©️Ellen Apple 

11 April 2025

I walk with long strides

Curl my lip cock my left brow

I am Poss's daughter

©️Ellen Apple 

12 April 2025

Þhêŕè āřĕ mæņý wàªý§

Ťœ ñøț bə ćľeàř

But love is always understood

©️Ellen Apple

The Time In-between

That liminal place

Twixt here and there

Almost now yet

Not quite then

Gloaming of the 'eve

Breaking of the morn

Halcyon Days 

When the kingfisher reigns

The time in-between 

Perhaps we may

Or yet may not

Find each other then

Again

© Ellen Apple 

13 April 2023

13 April 2025

I have had a weepy day

As many of my beloved dead

Have detoured my way

Roger and Chuck and Momma and Daddy

Even my first husband Moe and my brother Larry

I've been working on some emotional spring cleaning

Trying to get rid of the doldrums

But keeping the deeper meanings 

I often scatter my mental detritus liberally amongst my meanderings

So I thought more manageable scoops might be a pleasant change

Thus I am settling some regrets and polishing up the glimmer

Trying to make my emotional baggage a wee bit slimmer

©️Ellen Apple 

14 April 2025

yellow daffodils

nodding and seabreezes flowing

at suns arrival 

showers were then gently ebb

ancient dance celebrates life

©️Ellen Apple 

15 April 2025

A Healing Moment

Close you eyes release 

All stress and anxiety

As I hold you close 

And we just relax for now 

We just hugged each other 

©️Ellen Apple 

16 April 2025

Time is a wee bit tricky 

I have discovered

An ebb a flow

A pull a push

Ohh too soon

Not soon enough

Savoring is not easy

Let it flow

Let it go 

To hold to it akin to

Holding starlight

In my hand

Only I ever know it was there

Yet I am not quite certain 

©️Ellen Apple 

17 April 2025

A Haiku:

Beaming sunlight splashes 

Wren song in the mimosa

Bring calm of spirit

A Lune:

Distant traffic hum

Broken by

Roosters loud call 

An American Sentence:

searching for hope when discord and suspicion easily overwhelm 

©️Ellen Apple 

18 April 2025

A lot can be learned

Whilst living with cats

Don't tarry overlong after eating

Check frequently on the wellbeing of your house mates and monitor their bodily functions and ablution 

Being an official taster doesn't include actually tasting but requires placing the nose directly on the food or in the beverage

The best naps are taken mid-day in sunlight beaming through a window by a bed

You can heal unseen hurts and trauma with cuddles

©️Ellen Apple 

19 April 2025

wind-chimes

sing

invocation

©️Ellen Apple 

20 April 2025

When I was a wee lass 

With a Toni perm and pretty dress

My big sister donned in cardigan 

We both wore startled gazes

All dressed up for Easter eggs

And çhocolate bunnies 

That would magically appear when we returned

Sunday School was always first

*this picture was taken on an Easter morning, I think it was 1964. We had hats that year, too. Mine was a 'sailors hat' with an elastic that fit under my chin so I wouldn't lose it. My dress was brown, with a border of rainbow rickrack around the hem.

©️Ellen Apple 

21 April 2025

In lieu of my daily poem

"Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit; the sun does not shine on itself and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. We are all born to help each other. No matter how difficult it is …. life is good when you are happy, but much better when others are happy because of you."

Remembering my mother, Janet Marie Slade was Smith, January 9, 1933 ~ April 21, 2019.

I did not write the above, nor did Pope Francis, though it has been attributed to him. Sources indicate it may have roots in the Vedas. The Vedas are the oldest and most revered religious texts of Hinduism.

I appreciate the text and spirit of this quote because it speaks to the lessons we three Smith siblings learned by living with examples given daily by both Momma and Daddy. They were loving, caring, family and community minded people. At both of their wakes and funerals the number of people who mourned them was humbling. 

May this day, and each that follows, be one of joy, love, community, and

service for each of you.

22 April 2025

(Today is Earth Day)

We have bones

   Gaia has stones

We have blood

   Gaia has water

We have skin

   Gaia has soil

We have hair

   Gaia has trees

We breathe oxygen 

   Gaia gives us oxygen

We eat food to grow

   Gaia grows the food we eat

We need Gaia

   We are of Gaia

We would not be were

   Gaia not a willing host

©️Ellen Apple

23 April 2025

thick air

cloying humidity 

heavy thunderstorms

summer's here already?

©️Ellen Apple 

24 April 2025

Where lies the line

Between literal and ethereal 

Is it a scar from words 

Cutting a tender mind 

Or a salve soothing 

The just scraped knee

Is it hope

Is it resignation 

Where lies the line

In you?

©️Ellen Apple

25 April 2025

my afternoon happy place

having a lay down 

with my cats

©️Ellen Apple 

26 April 2025

plaintive cries

from the hallway

velcro kitty calls

©️Ellen Apple 

27 April 2025

in the gloaming of today

i sit and refect

on my actions

were they 

enough

©️Ellen Apple

28 April 2025

Returning the

Here and now

From a whirlwind 

Journey to the 

There and when

Leaves me 

In a daze

Where book intoxication 

Holds sway

©️Ellen Apple 

29 April 2025

yearning for what was not

regretting what actually was

our minds reconstruct

so easily

memories 

©️Ellen Apple 

30 April 2025

dream is done

song is sung

new one begun

©️Ellen Apple 

From Kitty Hawk to the Moon

From Kitty Hawk to the Moon

I turn(ed) 66 on December 16, 2024. I read somewhere recently that in just 66 years humankind went from the first flight at Kitty Hawk to the moon. I then as I am wont to do, looked up first flight. It was 17 December 1903. The first moon landing was 20 July 1969. So it was actually 5 months shy of 66 years. 

I feel at times my years are passing excruciatingly slow, like the hours and days and weeks that led up to those few moments on the sand in NC must have seemed to the Wright brothers. Then, it is though I merely blinked and went from 9 in 1967, as I was in this picture:

to this, taken just a few weeks ago:

I see little of 9 year-old in 66 year-old Ellen, but all of those memory Polaroids and Super-8s from my life are the milestones and wee pebbles along my life's journey.  

I never thought I would see and do some things I have experienced, and yet there was so much I reached for that never came to be. 

Marriages, childbirth, too many deaths. So many jobs, so many satisfied impulses and missed opportunities. Is this the end, then? A swansong, a final act, the beginning of the ending? 

Lord, I hope not. 

The 10 days preceeding and 10 days following the winter solstice are called the Halcyon Days, a time out of time. I like that. Inside, I have often felt a person out of time, out of step or sync. An intellectual Benjamin Buttons. When I was the age of 9 I was prone to seek out the company of the older adults in my neighborhood. I would "visit" with them often. I loved hearing their stories of the past, looking at momentous and photos. Like an old woman in a little girl's brain wanting to remember what was...

I have a good life and am looking forward to seeing what the next decades bring me!

Winter Memories

 I can remember icy cold and snowy Christmases when I was a child. I can also remember the Christmas I was in the second grade, that would have been December 1966 I believe, when it was so balmy we played with our superballs and roller skates on the sidewalk Christmas afternoon. We got so warm we took off our jackets. At thar time my family rented a house from a Mrs. Mullins on E 1st Street in Richlands,Virginia, the 4th house on the right, beside Ewell and Goldie Baisden. That street is right beside the Clinch River, and we didn't live there long. Our house had a basement ans was heated by a coal furnace. The winter was mild all season and the river flooded that spring. Floated Momma's washing machine and put the fire out in the furnace. There were earthworms and mud puppies all over the years and street when the water went down.

Once we moved up to the house on Virginia Avenue, there were several Christmases when we had Norman Rockwell holidays. Packed snow and gravel  the side streets in  town. My father's brother, Norman and his wife Irene "Red" lived a block from us at the corner of E 4th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.  One Christmas we walked up to their house in knee deep (if you were a child) snow and had Christmas dinner with them. I believe Frank and Terri, my cousins,  were grown and living elsewhere by then.

Virginia Carol, Ed and I earned pocket money in several different endeavors as children, and the most dependable and lucrative for us was delivering the daily paper,  The Bluefield Daily Telegraph,  in Dalton Addition, where we lived. When it was real cold in winter, regardless of how bundled up you got, legs and cheeks would get so cold they burned and tingled.  I can recall putting on long johns, jeans, then sweatpants.  We would wrap scarves around our faces and my nose would run and the snot in my nostrils would freeze. We also wore bread bags over our socks in case the snow got in our boots so our feet would stay dry.  Each of us had between 25 and 35 customers. On Sunday's Daddy would take the car and  drop the papers at different spots so we didn't have to carry so many at once. We rolled and bagged them.

We also had a widowed aunt, Zelma Woody who lived next door to Aunt Sue and Uncle Bob Harris on Lee Street in town. It wasn't uncommon for there to be family gatherings at their homes during the holidays. One memorable time we carried home a pie pan covered with aluminum foil that had jello salad squares on it the Aunty Z sent because we begged off seconds because we were 'full as ticks'. In actuality,  it was what she called perfection salad. Lime Jell-O with black walnuts, sandwich dill slices, carrots and celery served on iceberg lettuce leaves. It may have had cottage cheese in it as well. I 'accidentally ' tripped going up the walk to our house and darn if that pie plate didn't tip sideways and the salad fell into the snow. After the thaw there were dill pickles and celery in the slush.  Even the stray dogs wouldn't eat it.

Well, there are other winter and holiday memories clamoring to get written down but I think that is enough for now. This is Christmas Eve 2022 and the weather in coastal NC is cold and windy but thankfully not white or icy. May you each bask in the warmth of Christmas memories and make new ones this year. 

Stained Glass Windows

Stained Glass Windows

Stained and tattered

Bruised and worn

Any pretense at beauty

Callously shorn

Glass so fragile

Shards so sharp

No ground to shelter

Nor flourishing harp

Windows on the naked soul

Shudders the graze

Of life’s sharp thorns

Such are my vagabond ways

~ Ellen Apple

19 January 2017

New Month, Another New "Normal"

It has been forever since I blogged. As in years.

Losing Roger broke a part of me, and I suppose I have spent the last three years trying to figure out how to fix me. Again.

After Roger died, my brother Larry died. Then my sister in law  Kathy. Then my mother in law Ann. Then my mother last March.  If our reality, our beingness as people, is irrevocably defined by our connections to one another, then what happens when we lose these connections?

There is a ponderous weight to grief that pulls you down, that drowns you. Then there is the after. The dawning knowledge of a severed cord, a rope that tied you to the here and now. Then the weight of that connection is released and suddenly the lack pushes you up and away, into thinner air and fewer connections. A bit of dandelion fluff just adrift on unseen currents, no destination or plan. Just floating.

So here are some of my days...

1 May 2020

Drove to the park at the water. The park is closed but was able to sit in the car and gaze at the gentle movements of the water in the Cape Fear River. Bald Head Island looks so serene across the way. The sea gulls were raucous but entertaining.  There were a few people fishing from the public access. I suppose the pier was closed as well. I count the afternoon a success.

2 May 2020

6ws⁷

Contemplating-
Quiet
Respite
Restores
Quarantine
Rankles

3 May 2020

7WS

Cerulean Sunday
Quietude reigns
Sacred contemplation
Meditation

4 May 2020

5 May 2020

Stepped outside to an encompassing aroma of sweetness.  There are at least 3 varieties of clover currently blooming around the front door.

My langniappe of the day.




6 May 2020

So there was the time I told Roger I was making BLTs for lunch and I make BECs instead.
Because somehow my brain considered Bacon Egg and Cheese = Bacon Lettuce and Tomato.
He looked so puzzled...


7 May 2020

Jasmine
Honeysuckle
Wisteria
Clover
Heady aromas waft through the air
Then ...
Stench from the paper mill
Keeps it real
🙄

8 May 2020

In the rebirth of the day
May birdsong chase your blues away
And should no birds begin to sing
May grace a time of respite bring

Tree of Life

More

Kind

Grace

remember

One day at a time

One way at a time

One person at a time

We each have the capacity

To be the change we want to see

And make the life we want to live

By extending

And receiving

More

Kind

Grace

I found this picture on Facebook earlier

I really liked it

So I am sharing it with you today

were it not for us

Who would have thought 
the unthinkable
Who would have dreamed
the impossible
Who would have sought
the unattainable
Who would have seemed
unknowable
Were it not for 
the dreamers
the schemers
the artists
the writers
Were it not
for us?

~ Ellen Apple
13 January 2017

war in the basement

we played war in the basement

when I was a young girl

with an ancient doughboy helmet from WWI

liberated from my grandmother's attic

and empty ammo clips and many pairs of earplugs

that came from the first television war -

you remember that one?

the war that wasn't a war

Vietnam

old red ink from a corner shelf

cloths from the ragbag for bandages

Stat!

Incoming!

our hardware was an old bb-gun

that never did shoot right

and cap pistols - of course

we had parades in circles around the washing machine

blowing on a recorder and banging

on a toy xylophone with sticks as hammers

I fear we were rather eclectic in our

historical appropriations

all conflicts were sourced for

our tailor-made assaults

but movies and Walter Cronkite taught us well

the words and deeds we emulated

now I watch

Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow

and fear for the future of

the precious wee ones in my life

weighs me down

and I wonder how our parents and

teachers did not expire from the weight

so much sorrow poured in their souls

all the while we played

war in the basement

~ Ellen Apple

12 Jan 2017

when given naught

Who would have thought
E'en when given naught

On which to build a dream
Which to others might seem
Just a child's whimsy
"Banking on hope is just ... flimsy"
That letter on letter
Word on word
A tome for the ages is just so crafted
Lost to the masses if not first drafted
In the soul and the mind
That but for happenstance we find
In the dark hours of sorrow
When others joy we borrow
It pulls us to joy
Like a a squeaky wooden toy
Tied with a red string
Just an insignificant thing
That one act of grace
Humankind's face

~ Ellen Apple 
12 Jan 2017

A New Year's Missive

I wrote this on 12/31/2013:

2013 has not been the best of years for some people, 2013 has been an average year for some people, 2013 has been the most incredible year ever for some people. We pause and reflect, we say goodbye then hello. We say good riddance and I shall miss you. Looking back is human nature, moving forward is a fact of science. We cannot freeze time, we cannot have any do-overs, we can only move forward.

Am I being too pragmatic, too matter of fact? Life is what it is, but what we take from it is the one thing we do have control over. Do we learn our lessons? Do we use our experiences, our opportunities to better the life and experiences that are ever coming at us?

I am here to tell you, dwelling on the past does not work. I know too many people that are fixated on a past glory or tragedy and they are not content.

Where is this meandering headed? Happy New Year. May the days to come bring you balance, contentment, love, grace, and hope.

Top of Form

I shared this on 12/31/2012:

I wrote this on 12/31/2012:

I know a woman, a widow, in North Carolina who has two daughters, both married. The older daughter married a minister and they never had any children. The younger daughter, who is my age, married a man who had a son. She never had any children either. Her stepson committed suicide when he was 16. 

This woman and both of her daughters (I have known these people for over 20 years) have always been very materially motivated, very career oriented. They have stuff. Lots of stuff. They are not really happy though. The two daughters will be lonely, I fear, surrounded by all their stuff, because they live not in joy but in fear someone will get their stuff.

I do not have a lot of stuff. I am more prone to give things away than accumulate. I value intangibles, I think.

Just thinking about things today. Maybe I should have concentrated more on stuff when I was 30. Intangibles are not real good at paying the bills.

This year this has caught my attention:

I also wrote this on my Facebook timeline earlier in the week:

I have a small ritual I perform on New Year's Eve each year wherein I write on small slips of paper things I want to let go of and leave behind as I step into a new year with all the promise and possibility it holds. I then burn them, either in a small cauldron or in a bonfire if the weather permits having one. The ashes are carried away into the ether, and I go unencumbered into the new year. At times, I ask people if they would like me to include their petitions - but only people I know personally so I can gather the slips and include them in my fire of new beginnings and they can know the petition has not been read by any eyes save their own. This year, if you have a desire to be included, set your list on your heart and enter your name in a comment for this post. I will burn a blank paper for the list you have in your heart as I burn the slips I have for myself.

Remember

More
Kind
Grace

Ellen

Tonight, we say a heartfelt farewell to 2016 and a hopeful hello to 2017. We think this has been a rough year – or a great many of us seem to – though I suspect that it has been no worse than most, and better than more than a few. There are those of us who have faced sorrow and loss that brought us to our knees, yet there are those who have triumphed and excelled in ways we never thought possible.

There is ever that pragmatist in me, those cellular memories that came from my paternal heritage. My father, Poss Smith, was the most pragmatic of people. He had a dry wit, and seemed unflappable in most circumstances. I shared extensively regarding my father on New Year's Eve 2011.

Later, I am burning my name slips for those whose accepted my offer. With Roger and I included, there are about 24 names for whom I am performing this ritual. I am amazed that 2017 is upon us. I feel strongly that these are times that hold high stakes on many fronts, and I am both optimistic and trepidatious to see what the next twelve months bring.

In closing I share again my words for 2017

More

Kind

Grace

~ Ellen Apple

12/31/2016

Burrowing In

I was in a local store the first week in December and was enthralled with a soft, supple, luxurious throw. I purchased it for Roger the Tall for Christmas. As I am writing this, he is burrowed in that throw, snuggling with the Calico Queen Mabon. Though he is sleeping (I know this because of the soft snores), his body is resting, recharging, and replenishing.

Burrow: noun

1. a hole or tunnel in the ground made by a rabbit, fox, or similar animal for habitation and refuge.

2. a place of retreat; shelter or refuge.

2016 has been/was a tumultuous year. Not just in the United States but across the Earth. Major changes have occurred politically and there have been no small number of natural and manufactured disasters.  Economies and lifestyles people thought were secure and impenetrable have been upended and rearranged almost beyond recognition. For many, reality has been rearranged.

I was speaking with a dear friend this week and she asked me, “What do you see 2017 being?”

What followed was a discussion that lasted close to an hour, wherein we spoke of the overall mood of humankind considering recent events – not just locally or nationally, but globally. 

I shared with her that I see the year 2017 as being a time of more individual introspection, of drawing closer metaphorically – spiritually – physically – to our own core selves and values.

A time of burrowing in, to better withstand and not just survive but thrive in the months ahead.

A time to strengthen our beliefs.

A time to better define and replenish the bonds of our tribes.

Burrowing in is not to imply hiding, burying one’s head in the sand so to speak. For me, this burrowing in speaks of solidifying and strengthening myself to ride the peaks and valleys of events over which I have no actual control.

Reestablishing relationships I have let fall to the wayside, and finally letting go of some people and things that I know are to my detriment.

Shoring up my network. Keeping connected to my support system. Maintaining a more consistent sharing of energy and positivity.

Keeping grounded by limiting the drains on my time and energy that lull me into a stupor of passivity.

May your tribe be cohesive, may your spirit be replenished, may your refuge be secure.

More

Kind

Grace

~Ellen Apple

12/26/2016

30 days of thankfulness. Day 17.

Vincent van Gogh is a gift that just keeps giving to the world. Starry Night is arguably his most famous painting. Don McLean wrote the song "Vincent" about van Gogh and Starry Night. Then Roberta Flack came out with "Killing Me Softly" that, according to stories I read decades ago, was written after hearing McLean performing "Vincent". More recently, there is an incredible episode of the BBC television show Doctor Who wherein the Doctor and Amy spend time with Vincent, and Starry Night is one of his works discussed in the show. 

All four can render me a blubbering mess. My chest aches with the beauty of the painting, the words of the songs, the telling of the tale. Either one of the songs is a blessing as an "earwig" - and just reading the lyrics I can hear Don or Roberta singing those words that transport me to a place that gives me such joy and sorrow and hope and despair all jumbled together, like the swirls of stars in the night sky of the painting. 

Today I am thankful for the gifts of the soul that others give to the world - and to me - through their talents and obsessions. Humankind is infinitely blessed in myriad ways, all because of a painter who was a commercial failure when he suicided himself and one of those stars he gave us dimmed for eternity.

Lyrics

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could've told you Vincent
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

Written by Don Mclean • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

ROBERTA FLACK LYRICS

"Killing Me Softly With His Song"

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him
To listen for a while
And there he was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I felt all flushed with fever
Embarassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters
And read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn't there
And he just kept on singing
Singing clear and strong

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

[Break]

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me

He was strumming my pain
Yeah, he was singing my life
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly
With his song

30 days of thankfulness. Day 15 and Day 16.

This is why there was no Day 15 - {so you get another combo}

I clocked out at work yesterday at 2pm. I had worked 6 of the last 7 days. 12 of the last 14. I was tired. I fell asleep before 7pm, and woke up at midnight. I was awake until about 4, then fell asleep again and woke up at 10. I have today and tomorrow off, then I work 6 days, one day off, then work 3 more days. I am very, extremely, exceedingly grateful to have my job. This will be three holiday seasons I have been employed - after 4 of unemployment. Busy times are infinitely preferable to no money. But gee, I was so tired when I got home yesterday - mentally especially because of the nature of what I am doing at work, but physically as well. I feel somewhat rested now, and onward and forward I go.

So, for Day 15 ...

In the Facebook post about the intense (for me) schedule I have had over recent days, I alluded to a long period of unemployment.

During  that time, as is wont to happen, all manner of issues happened here at home. We do not operate in general, on a basis of "buy it new". We have many second-hand, gently-used, hand-me-down, recycled, new-to-me items. The microwave we had in 2010-ish was one that came from my mother-in-law originally. It stopped working, in a spectacular fashion I might add. I whined about it on Facebook, and a Facebook friend very graciously offered to meet me and give us a used microwave (Hi, Lance!). The Lance microwave worked well and faithfully, and is actually still operational. About a month ago, my sister was cleaning out the last remnants of the belongings of her two adult sons who are now both living in their own apartments and discovered a barely used microwave that she very kindly gave me. I have since started using the Carol microwave, and the Lance microwaves fate is under discussion.

So for Day 15 I am thankful for the grace and kindness of friends and relatives, who consistently step up and offer both tangible and intangible expressions of assistance.

Lance Microwave

Carol Microwave

Day 16

As is evidenced by the title of this blog, I am somewhat Owl Obsessed. I have been since at least 2001, though I actually believe my Owl Awareness dates back to when I was very young and read I Heard The Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven. Now sitting atop the microwave are a few of the Owl-Themed items gifted to me by dear friends. Items that are in use. Owls that make me smile daily because they are visual reminders of the affection of friends and relatives that have taken the time to gift me with items that they know reflect a particular passion of mine. An effort to know me that I am very thankful for, in a time when so many relationships seem to skim the superficial surface of a high speed digital age.