Slice of Life: A Dash of Humor Amid the Hubbub!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

 for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Our community has become crazy with concern about changes we are facing as construction begins for light rail.  We have lost our privileged access to the high occupancy lanes that we have enjoyed for decades and more traffic will be routed through our downtown area and neighborhoods.

  Here's just one paragraph from a recent Seattle Times article:  

"This weekend the I-90 express lanes will close as crews work to prepare for light-rail construction. Mercer Island residents, or anyone simply crossing the lake, are bracing for bottlenecks. Lanes will be re-striped and shoulders will be removed or reduced, among other changes."

"Bracing for bottlenecks" in a region that already ranks 20th  worldwide for traffic congestion and 10th in the United States.  So you can see why I applauded this sign I saw tonight outside our local indie bookstore.  Sometimes, the best way to face a new challenge is to laugh, keep your eyes on the road, and

your ears tuned to a book on tape.

Celebrate This Week: Flowers, Family, & Fun

 Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.

When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

 

   A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember.

• This picturesque view on our lane

• Teddy with Mom and Dad on Memorial Day trip

• Teddy at 49 weeks

• Jack at 4 months

• Jack already loves books!

• Love that niece Kara's visit coincided with our Mariner's game outing (and we even won)!

• Our first rose of the season
  

Spiritual Journey First Thursday: Finding Joy!

I enjoy blogging with this group of friends as we gather on the first Thursday of each month to reflect on our spiritual journeys.  Today we are writing about "joy," Carol Varsalona's One Little Word.  Carol's post, Joyful Expectancy, is about the imminent arrival of her grandaughter and Carol's birth as a grandmother.  It's a most exciting time! I can't wait to see a pic of Carol with her new granddaughter.  Be sure and visit Margaret at  Reflections on the Teche to read everyone's joyful responses! 

Yesterday was one of those days overfull with obligations, appointments, and stuff to do which is why I'm writing this post on Friday.  When I think of joy, I immediately think of the scripture from Psalm 30:5 ... weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."  As a lifelong morning person, I often remind myself that things will be better, even joyful if I can just wait for morning. 

And I love all the synonyms that are listed as See also when I looked up joy in the Bible Dictionary -  cheerful, delight, gladness, happiness, pleasure.  Just looking at that list of words brings joy to my heart.  Here are a few more scriptures that I loved when I searched for joy:  

"And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord:  it shall rejoice in his salvation."  Psalm 35:9

"This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad it it."  Psalm 118:24

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith."  Galatians 5:22

"Ingredients for Joy"  a poem shared recently on Poetry Friday by fellow blogger,Kiesha Shepard, seems tailor made for this month's topic.  It makes me breathe more deeply and want to slow down.

And now I get to visit your blogs to read more about joy and our spiritual journeyings.  Happy summer, dear friends!

Slice of Life: OLW 5th Tuesday Check-In

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

 for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

I'm always amazed by how quickly a year marches forward.  It's almost June and then in one quick month, 2017 will be halfway over.  I set up a schedule to check-in with my OLW in each month with five Tuesdays.  I missed January's check-in due to grandson Jack's early arrival.  So here I am with my first check-in for the 5th Tuesday in May.   

Here's what I wrote about my OLW, nourish, for Spiritual Journey First Thursday in January.  The words in red indicate my progress so far this year.  

There are so many ways that I want to experience being nourished in this new year:

Nourished by immersing myself in the good word of God - Making some progress.

Nourished by extending love to family and friends - Love doing this! And especially loving on my two grandsons.  Jack and Teddy met each other in April when Teddy and family came for a visit.  

Nourished by choosing to exercise - Knee problems have kept me from this, but I finally seem to be on the mend.  I'm getting a bit more exercise as I watch grandson Jack.

Nourished by making healthy food choices - Alway seeking to make progress, close to reaching a short-term weight loss goal that has almost turned into a long-term goal.  
Nourished by observing beauty in the world (blogger refuses to make those letters black) - I've excelled at this, especially with spring blossoms everywhere.  Our first rose of the season just bloomed!  The red rhodies have retired for this year, but the purples, the pinks, the whites still delight my heart!

Nourished by embracing quiet time - Still trying to do a better job at this.

Nourished by sharing my writing - I made it through another year of writing daily for March SOL.   I also wrote every day during April for Poetry Month (a first for me).  

Nourished by reading the words of favorite writers - So much joy with this one, recently finished My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman and Henning Koch, always working on my WTR (want to read) stacks, finally read A Single Shard with Books, Brownies, and Beyond, AND I read The Poet's Dog aloud to the members of book club.  What a treat to share this wonderful book with them!

Nourished by stilling the demands that crowd my heart ... Ever trying to make progress on this one.  Loving a book that I recently received from the library World Enough & Time:  On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwan.  Here's a favorite quote from the author in the book's introduction:  "I wanted to explore the space in which small, almost invisible habits might have the chance to flourish, seeing them as nourishment, both in terms of 'making' and as antidote to our usual frantic rush."  Not sure where I heard about this book, but it's perfect for my desire to still the demands so I can do each of the following (bolded words are OLWs from previous years):

listen to the stillness, 

savor the present moment, 

stretch to grow, and always 

abide in His love to  

nourish my soul and reach out in love. 

I'm grateful for this opportunity to reflect on my progress so far and happy that there's still plenty of time and room to grow with this year's One Little Word!  

Celebrate This Week

 Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.

When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

 

   A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember.

Last night, I chose to read rather than write my Celebrate post.  And then I woke up too early at 3 am and decided to write my post, but opened my email first.  That's when I discovered the poem, "Bookstall" by Linda Pastan at Writer's Almanac:

"Just looking at them
I grow greedy, as if they were
freshly baked loaves
waiting on their shelves
to be broken open—"

You can read the rest of the poem here.

                            Books I'm celebrating this week:         

 I'm currently reading my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Backman.  I'll be finishing it today to discuss with two good friends tomorrow via google chat.  I was listening to a Books Between podcast this past week that mentioned the book Georgia Rules by Nancy Turner Stevenson.  And when I set out ARCs for book club members at Books, Brownies, & Beyond, I discovered it in the pile. I'm adding it to my very tall pile of middle grade books that I want to read.  And Goodnight Harry is a book by Kim Lewis that I picked up at one of our library book sales.  I read it to Jack last night for the first time.  And  the best part of our read aloud time (because he was sitting in the high chair) was the way he would turn to look at me and smile.  

Last week I mentioned our run of sunny days to come.  It's been a glorious week and weekend!   Clouds and rain

are not slated to return until Tuesday.

 Jack's response to the sunshine!

 I reveled in the brilliant blue sky and lush green

that greeted us on our walks.  

 Jack with good friend Shelly and his mom 

before we entered the Pacific Science Center

yesterday to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit.  

We topped off our fun with family and friends

with a stop for dim sum!

Grandson Teddy's latest week by week pic.

I love that waving hand!

Here's a FB post from my brother Karl:  

"In honor of my Dad, I post this picture of him surrounded by the medals he earned for his service in World War II. Dad was a prisoner of war in Germany for about 4 months. My sisters and I are so proud of him and his service. We all wish he was still with us so we could hug his neck. Be sure and remember the real reason why we celebrate Memorial Day!"

Slice of Life: Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book!

Today I join my fellow bloggers in "serving up a slice" 

to the Tuesday Slice of Life (SOL) community.

Thanks to Stacey, Betsy, Beth, Kathleen, Deb, Lisa, Melanie, and Lanny

                   for hosting this meeting place each Tuesday and nurturing our writing lives.

Laura is a blogger that I love to follow.  She's a librarian and posts at Literacious. Last month she had a post for Top Ten Tuesday: Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want to Read a Book.  I was intrigued by the title for the post and so I grabbed my notebook to jot down my own list before reading her post.

Here's my list of the things that will
make me instantly want to read a book:  

 A rainy day

 A world clothed in white 

  A spot of sunshine on the deck

  A comfy chair

  A plate of warm cookies just out of the oven

 A cozy blanket

  An airplane trip

  An appointment (love the wait time!)

  A library visit

  A recommendation from a friend

And then I opened up Laura's blog post.  It's filled with the types of books that are attractive to her.  Totally different take from mine on
"things that will make me instantly want to read a book".

How about you?  What are the things that
make you instantly want to read a book?

And I'm adding two additional posts that I discovered from Laura's blog while searching for her Top Ten Tuesday post
to pair with my list: 

Importance of Reading to Babies - I'm Granny nanny
for grandson Jack who is almost four months old.  
You can be sure that we read many books.

Ten Middle Grade Novels with Turquoise Covers 

How random can it be to create a book list based on the
color of the covers?

It reminds me of the trend from a few years ago

 when so many books had shoes on the covers.  

I love turquoise too!  I've only read two of these books - 

The Honest Truth and The Thing about Jellyfish.  

But I just ordered A Crack in the Sea  as a Newbery possibility 

for our book club next fall.  So I'll be reading it this summer.

I'm happy to have shared some posts from Laura, the librarian,

at Literacious!   Do you have some favorite bloggers

outside of our Slice of Life community?    

Celebrate This Week: The Little Things

 Join us each weekend for Celebrate This Week with Ruth Ayres.

When we pause to celebrate, we find the joy.

 

   A week filled with moments to celebrate and remember.

Celebrating a few of the little things that brought

a smile to my face this week!

Seeing a car with an OU (Oklahoma University) alum license plate.  Even though I attended OSU, seeing a fellow Oklahoman (even if it was just in traffic) in faraway WA state was a special treat.  I really wanted to roll down the window and shout "Boomer Sooner."

But I restrained myself.

Opening my weather ap on Wednesday to this picture.  

Yes, Wednesday was cloudy,

but did you see the rest of the week?  

It's been months since we've enjoyed a 

string of successive days of partly cloudy/sunshine

with no rain in sight! 

Pics of grand boy, Jack - he's one happy boy!

Pics of grand boy, Teddy at the park with his friend, Cohen...  

Teddy is the one waving and the one driving the plane.

Im adopting four little words from Keisha's poem

on Poetry Friday "Ingredients for Joy" as my summer mantra:

"Give yourself some ease!"