The Nature in The City

 This is a rare post where I stop talking and let the pictures talk. I stalked four baby birds this evening, two Robins and two Blue Jays, while the parents squawked and put up gallant fight while I sat and focused my camera on their babies. Don't worry. No animals were hurt in the making of this blog post.

Also at the bottom are two other small friends I have found in past years. The first is a squirrel I named Fennel who was injured, and the second is a rabbit who I named Foster. I quietly buried them shortly after finding them, but there is always new life every spring!  

 

When You Need a Friend

You can count on me like one, two, three, I'll be there,

And I know when I'm needed,

I can count on you like four, three, two, and you'll be there,

'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do...

- Bruno Mars

All That Glitters

 

All that glitters is not gold.
Shakespeare wrote that 400 years ago, but they are words which will never prove untrue. Because we like to think that all that glitters
is gold.
But just because the new, shiny obsession has come into the public eye,
and just because the revolutionary idea seems so wonderful,
and just because an object, or person, or want, seems so glorious and so valid,
most all are plastic underneath.
And even if, at first, they seem to hold lasting treasure or value, it only takes a matter of time for the top coat to chip off,
and the true colors to show through.

Don't chase after plastic dreams. Search for gold. And set your heart above,
where Christ is.

I'm sorry I am not attributing the pictures; they were in my folder and I do not know where I got them. Someone took them, and I shall do better next time to tell you who.

Tales of an Oversized Shirt

 So my Great-grandmother lives down south, (and when I say that I do not mean Florida, I mean two hours away,) and my Mema periodically goes down and visits her, seeing that Great-grandma Maggie is going to be 98 this year.

And Mema likes to bring us home some of Grandma Maggie's discarded clothes from time to time. They are usually quite old and normally do not fit. I really don't understand how Mema always brings us home clothes which are size 12 or 14, becuase Grandma Maggie is the size of a toothpick and probably wears small of everything. (And we don't wear 12 or 14s. Hmm.) That question aside, she brought us a bag a few weeks ago.

I picked through it, always on the lookout for good fabric that can be re-cut into something else. My search was rewarded with an over-sized, off-white shirt of some kind that I gladly took home. And last Saturday I decided to be one of those cool people on the internet who takes a potato sack and makes it into a prom dress, and then post a seemingly easy tutorial on how to do it.

Well, this isn't a potato sack, and I didn't make it into a prom dress. But I did have fun.

Observe the shirt. Yes. Awkward. So I took out my scissors and promptly cut off the turtle neck aspect. Then I cut off about three full inches on each side and sewed it in. Then I wondered what to do next.

Ah ha! Ruffles! The answer to every problem. Using the excess fabric from the sides, I cut out four rows of ruffles and sewed them to the front of the shirt. Then I gathered in the neck, because it was huge and I was not going with the cowl-neck look, and stitched it down.

Happy day in my bedroom. Very, very happy day. And the wonderful part is that I actually like it! Now go take an old tee shirt, some scissors, a bit of thread, and get to work. If you ruin it then you didn't waste any money, and if you love it, then you have one new shirt in your wardrobe that cost you nothing!

Some good tee-shirt tutorials: (since mine isn't really a tutorial)
Ruffles and Stuff
Vertical Ruffles

Ice Cream and Resilient Children

If this does not make you laugh, then there is no hope for you.

P.S. You may want to view it larger to get the whole effect.

Change Something

Silence is a Lost Art

              

      I'm sitting on the back deck. This is not an uncommon place to find me; my favorite mug full of ice water, my trusty laptop Lord Pondicherry, and lazy Mr. Tucket keeping me company with his contented snoring in the sunshine. My ear buds are in, but abnormally, they are silent. The birds are chirping in the trees and my brother is raking leaves on the lower porch, that delicious sound of the prongs hitting the concrete coming in sporadic rhythm.

     For a rare half minute, there was no one on the road by our house. You see, we live next to a fairly busy stretch of a 2-lane road, and a mere common ground away from the highway. There are always cars going past with a low whoosh, children coming home from school, couples walking, the same beagle who breaks out semi-monthly, sniffing her way dangerously close to the traffic.

     But for half a minute, there was no noise but the afternoon sounds of nature. (As much nature as we get in suburbia.) And it was beautiful. I enjoy drinking in those few seconds of quiet, wishing they would last forever. Wishing I lived five miles away from everyone and had ten or so dogs snoring around me as I write, healthy sweat dripping down my face as I sit in the sunshine, my body strong from days of outdoor work.

     This is reality, though. And the cars start racing past again. 

     Silence is a lost art. We live in a very loud culture. Entertainment is at the tip of our fingers every single second of the day. We can listen to music, watch movies, chat, talk on the phone, drive. Communication is noisy. Entertainment is noisy. Work is noisy. Play is noisy. Life is noisy.

     Just when I think I have a moment of silence, the phone rings. The dog barks. The workmen next-door start their everlasting banging. The floors creak when I walk. The sink drains. The CD skips. The organ in the front room emits its continual humming. The dishwasher churns.

     The phone rings.

     The dog barks.

     I read somewhere that NASA made a room that was 99% percent sound proof. I say kudos. The world needs more silence, less distraction. More time to think, less time to talk. More time to focus, less time to be entertained.

     Apparently, if you were to stay in this room for any length of time, you would go crazy.  Your mind begins to make up noises that don't exist. You hear things that aren't there. Our brains and bodies are tuned to want noise.

     But I believe they're also tuned to need silence. To be quiet. To cut all this extra distraction and actually realize how soothing it is to be silent and be still.

     Silence in a delicacy these days that a lot of people would give a lot to have. We're so annoyingly noisy all the time. Everything we do is noisy. And that's okay, to some extent. Noise is a beautiful part of life.

     But there can be too much of a good thing.

     And amid the noise, regarldess of it being “good noise,” or “bad noise,” we're losing silence, which is the art of not making any noise at all. 

     Mr. Tucket woke up and is hanging his head pitifully through the banisters. The blender's going in the kitchen behind me. Storm clouds are rumbling in the distance. Life is moving. The world is turning. Progress is being made. And that's okay.

     Sometimes I just wonder if we really have to be so noisy in the process.