Stained Glass Tree

HAPPY ARBOR DAY!

Stained Glass Dome ~Driehaus Museum ~ Chicago

Previous Arbor Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

Moon in the Trees ~ April 20th

See also my current Fortnightly Post
~ An Egg for Arbor Day ~

To Sit Apart

“Your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.”

"What I most want
is to spring out of this personality,
then to sit apart from that leaping.
I’ve lived too long where I can be reached."

~ Both by Rumi (1207 - 1273) ~

~ And this from Kabir (1440 - 1518) ~

"If you circumambulated every holy shrine
in the world ten times,
it would not get you to heaven
as quick as controlling your anger."

Notre-Dame de Paris ~ 2002

E is for Earth, Easter, Eggs

Illustration by Stefano Vitale
from The Folks in the Valley
by Jim Aylesworth

Martha Stewart Greens ~ April 2, 2010

Similar Greens & Blues, Plus Yellow ~ April 13, 2012

Greens & Pinks ~ 2019

Brilliant Handcrafted Designs from Pysanky Spirit

Christmas Pysanky!

Children's Tea Party Cups & Saucers ~ March 29, 2015

Kitchen Window ~ March 27, 2016

Pastels from Williams Sonoma

American Flag Egg by Ben McCartney

Mrs. Easter Bunny ~ A Present from Sam, 2006

Baskets from Childhood

Our Big Ol' Plastic Staircase Eggs

And lastly . . .
Happy Earth Day!

Previous Earth Day Posts
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019

Pie Safe

My Grandmother Rovilla Lindsey's Old Pie Safe

Thanks to my sister - in - law Marion for filling this beloved kitchen cabinet with living history for all of us to admire and enjoy -- some old, some new, some American, some German, some daily artifacts, some treasured heirlooms -- all pulled together by Marion with her special skill and artistic eye.

It gives me as much joy as an adult to stand and admire Marion's fabulous display of collected treasures on these shelves, as it did when I was a child and Grandma Lindsey would let me pull open the drawers and sort through all of the writing paper and cards and address stickers that she kept in there.

Old Furniture

I know not how it may be with others
Who sit amid relics of householdry
That date from the days of their mothers’ mothers.
But well I know how it is with me
Continually.

I see the hands of the generations
That owned each shiny familiar thing
In play on its knobs and indentations,
And with its ancient fashioning
Still dallying:

Hands behind hands, growing paler and paler,
As in a mirror a candle-flame
Shows images of itself, each frailer
As it recedes, though the eye may frame
Its shape the same.

On the clock’s dull dial a foggy finger,
Moving to set the minutes right
With tentative touches that lift and linger
In the wont of a moth on a moth on a summer night,
Creeps to my sight.

On this old viol, too, fingers are dancing –
As whilom – just over the strings by the nut,
The tip of a bow receding, advancing
In airy quivers, as if it would cut
The plaintive gut.

And I see a face by that box for tinder,
Glowing forth in fits from the dark,
And fading again, as the linten cinder
Kindles to red at the flinty spark,
Or goes out stark.

Well, well. It is best to be up and doing,
The world has no use for one today
Who eyes things thus – no aim pursuing!
He should not continue in this stay,
But sink away.

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

Open House ~ Open Heart
Marion's Beautiful Bay Window
Looking in at Dusk

One Good Turn

Touring Edinburgh

"Boxes within boxes,
dolls within dolls,
worlds within worlds.
Everything was connected.
Everything in the whole world."
~ Kate Atkinson ~

To read more about Kate Atkinson's novel
One Good Turn (2006)
set in Edinburgh with plenty of action on the streets,
featuring the famous festival & the mysterious matryoshka,
see my recent posts

"No Bigger Than a Peanut"

&

"Continued Connections"

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

Empowering Tchotchkes

I photographed these little glass trays
before sending to my nieces for their birthdays,
and my sister Peg gave her blessing:

"I’m sure Anna and Sara will love the little plates.
Empowering tchotchkes
like these are so good for us.
They remind us that we can overcome so much
and handle it with the grace all women possess."

Tchotchkes ~ from the Yiddish:
" . . . bauble, bibelot, curio, curiosity, doodad, gaud, geegaw, gimcrack, kickshaw, knickknack, novelty, ornamental, trinket, whatnot . . . "

Especially: "Whatnots"
[See also ~ Urban Dictionary ~ Haha! ]

Tchotchkes from HoiTEA ToiTEA, Indianapolis

Some Mantras
To go along with our Tchotchkes

I haven't pinpointed the source yet,
but here is some excellent advice:

"The Universe seeks balance. Equilibrium is the only state that does not result in inevitable destruction.

"Seek balance in your relations with others. If you desire the attention of someone who ignores you, understand that they are acting in accordance with their priorities. This does not make them evil, but it does make them a poor choice for emotional attachment.

"Value yourself; do not seek affirmation from those who do not value you. If someone is 'too busy' to reach out to you for weeks or months at a time, they are simply demonstrating that they concluded everything they did during that time was more important than connecting with you.

"Life gives us the freedom to make these choices; make the choice to make yourself important enough not to be imprisoned by the desire for what you can't have. Incompatibility is not rejection; it is correction. Live correctly."

And what Natasha said:
"My teacher in India puts it this way:
'You always have the option to be the greater one. Be the Buddha in your life. Don’t expect the other person to be greater than you – kinder, more loving, more forgiving, more generous.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Learn to access that dimension within yourself where you are the greater one, the one who refuses to enter hell. Remember the gates of hell are always open, but you don’t have to walk through them.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
'The world is full of ignorance. Be the greater presence wherever you are – the wiser one, the non-reactive one. Be the Buddha in your life.'”

Siblings Day

My mother Mary Elisabeth
(b January 21, 1931)
******
and my Uncle John L. Lindsey
(b November 15, 1932 ~ d August 14, 1983)

Siblings with Goat & Basketball
[I'm guessing around 1936 for these two pictures]

My mother Mary & her middle brother John
in their band uniforms,
their younger brother Earl on the porch;
and their mother's writing on back of photo.

John & Mary Beth, all grown up . . .

Taken on October 8, 1951
~ their mother's 60th birthday ~My Grandma Rovilla & Grandpa Paul Lindsey

Feels Like Spring

Most years the centers of these daffodils are pale pink,
but this spring, they are a vivid coral!

********

“Well, there’s nothing better
than putting your feet up
on a Sunday afternoon
and grabbing a good book.”

~ Chris Klein ~

Sh-t to Fold

James B. Fuqua
Nothing beats a nap in a warm laundry basket!

Coming across three laundry folding jokes in one day --
what's the odds?

1.
Ruth Langmore: "I've Got Sh-t to Fold!"
~ from Ozark (the netflix series) ~

2.

3.

4.

5.

As far as Fuqua is concerned,
the folding can wait forever!