Category Archives: Blogging Community

Leavings

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When you walk through a grove of trees, depending on the type of trees, you are walking over fallen leaves, twigs, small cones, pine needles,and dead foliage and such. The twigs,leaves, and cones crunch under your feet yet muffle the sound of your step and release a woodsy frangrance. Besides providing a fragrant carpet these leavings return nutrients to the earth. Let me leave something that contibutes to life.

Did you see the Google Doodle about Fred Korematsu?  January 30 is Fred Korematsu Day in California, and he would have been 98 years old. He died in 2005. He was a civil liberties activist who fought against the internment of the Japanese during WWII. I don’t know how he survived psychologically all the oppression he experienced, but he did. What an inspiration he is. If I could have a fraction of his courage. Click on the links and read about him, you won’t be disappointed.

This is the last entry for JustJotItJanuary hosted by Linda G Hill. The word prompt for today is ” detritus ” suggested by Lorraine of Lorraine’s Frilly Freudian Slip https://myfrillyfreudianslip.wordpress.com/

I have aimed to keep my posts positive lately in hopes of uplifting spirits. We are in an unsettling transition time that feels like the ground is moving under our feet. We must speak up if we think something is wrong. Featured image is of ‘Fallen Giant Sequoia cones and foliage; Sugar Pine and White Fir foliage; other woody debris’ by Walter Siegmund via wikimedia. Photo taken at Mariposa Grove, Yosemite, California.

'The Umbrellas' by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Blue

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I am not blue about the winter weather in Southern California. I am liking it after 6 years of drought. It is nice to have colder temperatures and rain for a welcome change. I am working on keeping an even keel and not feeling anxiety about this transition period in my country’s leadership. There have been other times during my life that there has been tumultuous and anxious times in my country. The country and its people survived. The featured image at the top is ‘The Umbrellas’ by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1881-86). He used a lot of blue in this painting. The pigments used for the blues were cobalt blue and ultramarine. I am wondering why he chose to use to so much blue . It was a popular fashion color in France at the time. Many artists use color to express a feeling. Could it be that the rainy weather calls for a subdued color pallette. Subdued is a good feeling right now. I would like to maintain that feeling, calm and subdued but not blue.

A short video about the painting by The Frick Collection on You Tube:

JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. The prompt word for today is ” blue” suggested by John Holton at The Sound of One Hand Typing, https://thesoundofonehandtyping.wordpress.com/.

compromise

 

Herstory

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“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road, the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silverware I washed … anything that could be counted, I did.”    -Katherine Johnson

Really like that a light is shining on women’s history in science. Washington Post had an article by Victoria St. Martin on Katherine Johnson, (now 98),  who is one of the mathematicians who worked at NASA and is featured in the film ‘Hidden Figures.’ I found a great video of Ms. Johnson talking about her life and work on The Makers website. It is worth it to click on the link and watch. Here’s another video from PBS about the film.

 

Here’s a video (below) from the NASA website about Katherine Johnson’s life and career. It’s very inspiring, ‘The Girl Who Loved to Count.’

katherine_johnson_medal-jpeg-via-nasa-on-wikimedia

Katherine Johnson recieves Presidential Medal of Freedom 2015

JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. And we’re almost through with this blogging challenge but click on the link to see what it’s all about and read some of the other blogs that are participating. Prompt word for today is “history” suggested by K L Caley of New2Writing, https://new2writing.wordpress.com/.Featured image, at top, of Katherine Johnson in 1966 and image of her recieving the Presidential Medal of Freedom via NASA on wikimedia.

compromise

Complete

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We are often seeking something outside ourselves but we already are complete.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself.You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. When you are born a lotus flower, be a beautiful lotus flower, don’t try to be a magnolia flower. If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people want you to be, you will suffer all your life. True happiness and true power lie in understanding yourself, accepting yourself, having confidence in yourself.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. Today’s prompt word is “incomplete” suggested by Cyn K of That Cynking Feeling, https://cynk.wordpress.com/.  I decided to write about the opposite. Featured image is of the beautiful Redwood National Park, California via Pixabay.com.

compromise

Extraordinary

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“From outward appearances, no one can tell, the rich inner lives we lead.”                 ∼Notes Tied on the Sagebrush

lucy_maud_montgomery-via-goodreads

Lucy Maude Montgomery

“There isn’t any such thing as an ordinary life.”-L.M. Montgomery

Today is Bessie Coleman’s 125th Birthday , First African American woman pilot,Google reminded me. JustJotItJanuary is hosted by Linda G Hill. Featured image (top of post) ‘Contemplation’ by Maurice Fillonneau on wikimedia. Photo of Lucy Maude Montgomery via wikimedia. Today’s prompt word is “extraordinary” suggested by Kelly of Forty, C’est Fantastique!(https://fortyandfantastique.wordpress.com/)

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Mystery Mansion

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Sarah Winchester sought to be elusive to the ghosts who haunted her after the death of her husband and only child. She had married into a wealthy family and inherited a huge fortune on the death of her husband.* She spent a large part of her fortune and the major part of her life building onto her mysterious mansion. The workmen never stopped, working in continuous round the clock shifts. No expense was spared and many luxurious materials went into the construction. The house was built to appease the ghosts who haunted Sarah and possibly confuse them, with some doors that go no where or stairs going up to the ceiling. She would sleep in different rooms to elude the spirits and held séances to communicate with them. The number 13 is a recurrent theme in the house’s construction. Many rooms were constructed only to be torn apart. I have a memory of visiting there but now realize how little I knew about this mysterious house and lady. It is a disturbing story, a spooky Halloween tale. I hope she found peace in the end.

*heir to the inventor of the Winchester rifle. For a bit more history click on the links.

JustJotItJanuary is guest hosted today by Judy E. Martin of Edwina’s Episodes.

The prompt word “elusive” was suggested by Evelyn of Eclectic Evelyn (http://www.eclecticevelyn.com/).

Featured image of the Winchester Mystery House mansion via San Jose Library Archives on Flickr.

Compromise

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“…Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.

The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.

But that’s sort of the beauty of politics, too. It involves an endless conversation in which we learn about other people and see things from their vantage point and try to balance their needs against our own. Plus, it’s better than the alternative: rule by some authoritarian tyrant who tries to govern by clobbering everyone in his way….”
― David Brooks

I hope more of our congressmen and congresswomen would follow this advice about what compromise is. It is not that I don’t think people need to question and push back, or feel passionately about their beliefs, but I am tired of the closed minded regidity of some of them, and the authoritarian leanings I see taking sway lately.

JustJotItJanuary is being guest hosted by Judy E. Martin of Edwina’s Episodes the prompt word today is “compromise” suggested by Ritu at But I Smile Anyway (https://butismileanyway.com/) . David Brooks quotes from Goodreads quotes. Featured image photo of detail from Elihu Vedder’s mural ‘Government’ by Carol Highsmith via wikimedia.

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Darcy proposing to Elizabeth

Contempt

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Elizabeth rejects Darcy’s proposal:

‘I might as well inquire’, replied she, ‘why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?’

And a bit later:

‘From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaitance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that ground-work of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immoveable a dislike: and I had not known you for a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.’

I hold this book in the opposite of contempt, I love it! (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, in case you did not recognize or ever have the pleasure of reading it.) I’m with Elizabeth here in that I have never liked conceit and fat-headedness in anyone. I don’t like braggards or someone “blowing their own horn.”

JustJotItJanuary prompt word “contempt” suggested by Rosemary Carlson at Rosemary Carlson Freelance Writer. Featured image ‘Darcy proposing to Elizabeth’ by George Allen 1894 via wikimedia.

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Glass Of Wine

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On a lighter note, I have been looking for a good red wine for a moderate price. I do prefer California wine because it is local and I am in love with our wine countries. There has been an explosion of wineries in California and this makes it hard impossible to keep up with all the labels. So just doing some quick research (Google) and happy to see there are some wines that are affordable to me. ( $20 and under). I really like the richer flavored red wines, like Cabernet, and found out that some of the best are from Napa Valley. Here’s another list of red and white wines and some from other countries. And another list of California Cabernet, from different regions, under $4o. One more list of 100 wines from California and other countries for $15 and under. Hmm, lots to explore and my research may take some time…..

Glass of Napa Valley Red Wine by Ash Berlin

Glass of Napa Valley Red Wine by Ash Berlin

 

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is hosted by Linda G Hill and the prompt word for today is “glass.” Featured image is ‘Vineyard bathed in light [Sonoma]’ by torbakhopper on wikimedia.

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