Words Are Clothes

Words Matter.
Words have import.
Douglas Kennedy

Forgotten egg.

But,

we never forget a smile, or a perfect summer

or a thoughtful word.


Words are clothes that thoughts wear.
Samuel Butler

Good morning everyone!

What We Wear

Nothing you wear is more important than your smile.
Or your imagination. Especially your imagination.

Imagination's secret of great style is 

to feel creative in whatever you wear!

On being you.
As you as you can be.

and yet,

We're All The Same

Count your days by moments instead of days on the calendar.

We all live with the object of being happy.
Our lives are all different
and yet the same.
Anne Frank

Rubber duckies are never lost
they're always there to lead us on.

Always stay afloat. Always.


Really, this is April? April in Minnalaska?

This year spring offers 

a gift of playing in the snow.

When snow gets in your eyes!

It cannot be denied, snow in the eyes or not, 

this is incredible fun!


We look up at the same stars
and see such different things.
George R.R. Martin

Words and art.

What they do for you.

"The purpose of art is washing

the dust of daily life

off our souls."

Pablo Picasso

Be brave be bold be you.

and come back and see me again.

Take good care of you.

Monkey Business and Other Critters

Welcome to

SATURDAY'S CRITTERS

Not all critters are adorably sweet like Jasmine.


Some like the one below is a silly monkey just hanging around.

A few monkeys though are sometimes a bit scary, like below.

Just kidding!

This sweet monkey is making faces

 with the person making faces at him!

They're determining who has the biggest tongue.
 Clearly monkey does!
Monkey see, monkey do,
 you know.

Sadly, here in Minneapolis during the remodeling of what once was the Dayton Building workers uncovered a mummified monkey
 that clearly had an unhappy ending.

What Mark Dayton says this about it!

and what the Washington Post says this

 about the mummified monkey discovery.

Imagine the excitement of being involved in this remodeling adventure? So far from jade to a mummified monkey has been discovered. What else will they uncover in our old Dayton Building?

Here's what's going on in my world today. Yep, it's spring, but you'd still never guess it by our weather. We're in a blizzard warning until tomorrow morning.

By the minute it's getting deeper.

Thanks friend, for building a deck that blends so well with me, chirped the Mourning Dove. 

I took these pictures through my kitchen window, just as a Mourning Dove flew in not particularly excited about the falling snow covering the ground all over again.

"A bone to the dog is not charity.

Charity is the boned shared with the dog,

when you are just as hungry as the dog."

Jack London

Misty yesterday. "Where's all my snow?"

Then this morning,

Hooray it's back!

I brought one of my inside Gnomes out

 to visit an incredibly snowy outside Gnome.

 If spring had truly arrived as it should by now, this is where I'd be this weekend.  Yes it was planned. Not anymore. 

No worries, I've decided to adapt a positive outlook

 with all this well, 

doom and gloom of yet another blizzard. 

Even when my daughter sends photos of them eating ice cream by their pool.

This quote will see all of us through it, I know it.

"I would rather be a superb meteor,

every atom of me in magnificent glow,

then a sleepy and permanent planet."

Jack London

Change your thoughts and you change the world.

Norman Vincent Peale

Take good care of you.

Shovel Destinations

My post today could be a travel guide to snowy places in Minnesota, and truthfully pretty much everywhere else in the Midwest as well. But what fun would that be right?

My world as it is today
and those things we do!

The sky was dark and gloomy,
the air was damp and raw, 
the streets were wet and sloppy.
The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney
tops as if it lacked the courage to rise,
and the rain came slowly and doggedly down,
as if it had not even the spirit to pour.
The Pickwick Papers


....and then it snowed again.

I wish I could watch these birds and ducks all day long!

"Methinks that the moment 

my legs begin to move,

my thoughts begin to flow."

Henry David Thoreau

Snowflake by snowflake 
adding up every other day
very few melt away.
Here's to another backache
shovel, shovel.
Oh for Pete's sake!
Who doesn't love a snowy landscape?
Just not in April.

For the love of Pete!
Stop!

The most beautiful experience 
we can have is the mysterious.

It is the fundamental emotion that stands

at the cradle of true art and true science.

Albert Einstein


My, my, me oh my, I love pie!

"We must have a pie.
Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie."
David Mamet

"If you remain humble,

people will give you love and respect

even after you have finished the game."

Sachin Tendulkar

One small positive thought in the morning
can change your whole day.

A bit of morning black ice slows things down.
Thankfully not one spinout!



There's Gnome place like home!

There are memories that time does not erase.

Memories warm you up from the inside.

Live for moments you cannot put into words.

We know it must be spring somewhere, 

but that's okay we can still

JUMP and MOVE and GROOVE!


Once Upon an Evening out!

"Once upon a time
there was what there was
and if nothing had happened
there would be nothing to tell."

"Every past used to be a future

once upon a time."

Munia Khan

Thanks for sharing your time with me

take good care of you!

Tree Talk

"The more slowly trees grow at first,
the sounder they are at the core,
and I think the same is true of human beings."
Henry David Thoreau

There's a certain magic about trees at play 
offering a kinship to all that greet them.
Their strange and powerful draw always 
awakens us to their presence.

Each tree is firmly rooted 
their branches reaching out much like
 our own myths and rituals in life.
Their leaves gather around us from 
days past and grace our future.
 Much like the people in our lives.


Coincidentally trees have been heavy in my thoughts lately,
(can you tell?)
and it's perfect for Carmi's theme this week is Trees!


THEMATIC PHOTOGRAPHIC
Trees Talk

are you listening?

They tell us stories. If you look closely 
they will reveal everything about themselves.


A tree's imperfection is as impressive
 as each perfection.


People are much like trees in that
"We are the seeds of the tenacious plant,
and it is our ripeness and our fullness
of heart that we are given
to the wind and scattered."
Kahlil Gibran

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky."
Kahlil Gibran

In the rings of their years,
they/we stand the test of time 
some stand alone
many grouped in groves
always truthful 
sharing willingly  
its scars and endless storms
where winds rustle
and raindrops drip
they're willingly
soaked by sun beams
wintered by wind and snow
a trees strength weighed 
in trust and sanctuary.
Me

Even when we don't aim to capture trees in our photos
it seems their shadows find a way of appearing,
if just to jazz things up.

On shooting trees.  I wonder, do we seek the trees 
or do they find their way into our photos?

When you approach something to photograph, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don't leave until you have captured its essence.

-Minor White

I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
Henry David Thoreau

"There are voices which we hear 
in solitude but they grow faint and inaudible 
as we enter into the world."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
Zen Saying

Have a mind so quiet, that you can hear doves whispering
as they rest their wings in the rafters of 
your silent sanctuary. Kate M. Robertson

Remember,

"Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts
who stood their ground."
Thoreau

Thanks for sharing this time together.
take good care of you.

Yep, I'm still (through each snowflake falling presently) 
hoping for spring, soon?!

A Fairer View

Spring is here!

This photo is an oldie but this is how our spring should be today!

Taken this morning.

So yeah, spring is here, inasmuch hehehe, to the extent winter is allowing that is.

Not to worry though, otherwise happiness will never prevail.

Something opens our wings.

Something makes boredom and hurt disappear.

Someone fills the cup in front of us. 

We taste only sacredness.

In the search of finding those somethings!

Our own special place
 is a place we gravitate to for healing.

Although we may call it something else.

To blow off steam, find our muse to repair our souls.

Usually this place began in childhood, 
a place where you went if you were sad, afraid, worried, or confused.

 A self-cleansing, a purifying place to calm our raging spirits.

Each holiday arrives with memories of the ones before it.

This time of year is quite emotional for me.
Pictured is my father and sister, before I was born. A happy vacation it was for them. 
But today they, and my mother are heavy in my thoughts. We lost my sister the day after Easter when I was almost 12. Sending love to heaven.


Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life,
impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us
by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton

Listen closely, do you hear the music too?

Our whole life is an attempt to discover when our spontaneity is whimsical, sentimental irresponsibility and when it is a valid expression of our deepest desires and values.

Helen Merrell Lynd

Soon there won't be an open table without a wait, but I promise they'll have flowers in bloom too! 

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, 
in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you.
Charles Castaneda

True friendship is like sound health; 
the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
Charles Caleb Colton

Friday night fun time!

Okay to be fair, these photos were taken in Novemeber

(very, very much like spring weather)

and we were in search of that perfect tree for Christmas was achieved! 

But really,

Everyday is a good day,

there is something to learn, care and celebrate!

Amit Ray

A day is a day. It's a measurement of time.
Whether its a good day or bad day is up to you.
It's all a matter of perception.
Donald L. Hicks


Look into the stillness.


The closer you come to knowing that you alone
 create the world of your experience,
 the more vital it becomes for you to discover
 just who is doing the creating. 
Eric Micha'el Leventhal



Thanks for stopping by you visits mean the world to me!
Take good care of you.