I've Been Tagged by Firefly Nights!

Firefly Nights tagged me last week to post 10 weird, random facts, or habits about myself. Since I just returned from camping I decided to list 10 habits of mine when I travel.

1. I always study maps. I am obsessed with routes, roads, and mileage. I never just "take a route on a whim." I have to know where I am going and how long it will take.

2. I panic mildly each time JEJ lifts up the hood of the truck. I try to take The Worse Case Scenario out of my head hoping it is only an oil check or low windshield wiper fluid (in this case it had to do with shorted wires and blinkers and back-up lights).

3. I take more pictures that I could ever need or want, even before I went digital. This goes for a ten-mile road trip around home or a journey to another state.

4. I have not learned the concept of taking small amounts of ingredients for meals when we camp. If I am making something that calls for a teaspoon of mustard, I bring a whole bottle.

5. I am always afraid the Campground Rule Police are going to jump out from behind a tree when as we set up camp and that I need to fill in my form, pay, keep the dogs leashed, and begin quiet hours before we go to the restroom.

6. I love to read all information when we arrive at the campground. I read that board that tells about boating rules (even though I've never owned a boat), camp hosts, summer programs, trails, bear warnings, courgar sightings, and whatever else might be posted.

7. I always want a campfire when we camp. If it is 90 degrees in the shade I really think we need a campfire at night. What is camping without a campfire? JEJ claps his hands when fire restrictions start.

8. I can never decide what book I want to read on a trip so I take five or six.

9. The car cannot move forward more than forty miles without having a good coffee drink in the cupholder.

10. When we arrive home from a trip and I put away the food we didn't need, the books I didn't read, the bedding that wasn't used, the CDs I didn't play, and the maps we didn't open I forget all this when I plan the next excursion. Oh well.... I sure love to plan and pack for a trip.

If you have ten weird, random facts or habits you want to share, please do this meme. It is always fun to learn new things about our blog friends.

Sibling Assignment # 59 and Celebrating National Poetry Month: Poem #6

This week's sibling assignment came from Raymond Pert: It's National Poetry Month. Post an entry focused on one poem that is currently important to you.

You will find RP's here soon and SVG's post about Primary Wonder here.

I have been reading ,rereading, studying, and enjoying poetry as we begin to move through National Poetry Month and I prepare to share some selections with my students as we return to school tomorrow. I found some new and old poems that I enjoyed this week-end. I kept coming across the term prose poem. Oftentimes poetry does lose the sound or theme because the form takes over. I found prose poems exciting. Here was one that struck a chord with me. I will explain why it is currently important to me.

Afternoon Nap
It is like finding a hole in the universe. A door nobody else knows about. You swing it open and crawl through into the streets of a small town. You pass the barbershop. The pharmacy. The bank. The grocery. Maybe a row of grain elevators on the edge of town. All the houses are white. People are sitting out on their porches as if they've been expecting you. They wave and say a few words. Some ask you to come up and visit for a time. They want to know what you were doing before you fell asleep and what you plan on doing when you wake up. They're fascinated by it all. Sleep is the sole religion of this town. Icons of their reclining saints are everywhere. On Sundays even the infirm gather their pillows and blankets and walk to church to lie down on the pews and worship their great and slumbering god. It's such a pleasant place, you almost hate to leave.

David Shumate

When I get overwhelmed I am drawn to the warm, comfortable bed for an afternoon nap. I am not much of a "watch television and nap in the chair" person and hammocks don't appeal to me. I like the darkness and comfort of my own room, often with the dogs or JEJ as nap companions. I have felt overwhelmed with events in life recently and this poem made me pause yesterday and picture that "happy place" I often want to go. A place where sleep rules!


A friend has been dealing with chemotherapy, another neighbor and friend died last night of cancer, a student wrote about being taken from her mother because of meth, a blog friend wrote a moving, but sad post about the loss of her dog, church members are struggling with how to help our pastor, and every day signs of poverty, foreclosures, political bickering, and war remind me that our world is not always that happy place. Those are the times I want to find that hole in the universe. Sometimes I do take an afternoon nap. Other times I focus on what is positive around me. Taking a walk or sitting in the greenhouse can help.

This morning the following scripture was a comfort and stayed with me long after I left church:
" Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things." Philippians 4:8

I can't always take an afternoon nap, but I can often meditate on these things.

the photo was by gwen akin @graphistock image

Celebrating National Poetry Month: Poem #5

Lake Chelan in Washington state

Photo Hunt: Glass

Geography 2
The land wrote itself before any
came to chart it: continents broke
and reassembled;two masses crashed
and threw a mountain range, a border
waiting for customs posts; glaciers cut
narrow valleys, close and separate,
each shuttered cautiously from its neighbour.
A coast curved itself into a haven
for shipping; a hill kept watch
on the landscape till the fort was built,
A river spread rich gentle living
over these fields; elsewhere, the want
of water made the contours stand out
like starving bones.

And when it was all ready
they came, at last, to be masters
of it all; to take up the lives
mapped out for them.

Sheenagh Pugh

to find other photo hunts using glass go here.

Camping in Chelan: It Was a Good Week

Sunday Scribblings: Photograph

The caption for this photograph of my dad might read, " Hey Mary... why is it that when those kids come home for Christmas this d#%@ thunderjug always stops working?"

This picture was captured many years after one taken in the post below. There is a strange curse that has been alive and well at my childhood home that only occurs when the family gathers for a celebration. That must be why I took this funny picture of my dad trying to figure out why the toilet kept running at Thanksgiving. Other times at gatherings a toilet has overflowed. There was also the time the water escaped from the shower at Christmas when RP was home and it flooded down the basement.

The frig Mom owns has this one drawer that for some unknown reason falls out easily. It is also the drawer that holds all the ingredients for holiday entertaining including cheese and dips. As soon as anyone gets close to the kitchen at Christmastime we can hear Mom's sharp words rising above the voices of her favorite soap stars, " Be careful with that drawer if you get out any dip. It falls out easily you know". I seem to always be the one that pulls the drawer out too far. The only problem with that is the process of fixing it. It requires moving a garbage can, a compost bucket,pulling out the frig, avoiding the utensils hung on the wall, and lots of blood, sweat, and teeth gritting.

We have also had kitchen shelves come lose and dump tupperware on people's heads. A few times "decor" on the walls have also fallen on heads during dinner. There is a framed picture in the hall on the way to the bathroom that falls routinely when someone walks by. Mom has figured out she should give up putting real evergreen boughs behind the mirror with the lights in the living room because we spend more time sticking them back up then enjoying them.

The worst disaster I was part of was the day somehow the water didn't go through the coffee basket and into the pot correctly when I made coffee in the morning. It went everywhere else. I was amazed that a water/coffee ground mix could go into the dish towel drawer, flow under the stove, and wind up behind the refrigerator. I think Mom goes into a cold sweat any time I near Mr. Coffee when I am home now.

We appear to be a normal family 90% of the time. It is that 10% that includes all these disasters that keeps the laughter and the memories alive as we gather again at home.

To read other Sunday Scribblings about photograph go here.

Celebrating National Poetry Month: Poem #4

raymond pert and Dad

Camera
It's an old box camera,
a Brownie, the color and shape
of the battery out of a car,
but smaller,lighter.
All the good times-
the clumsy picnics on the grass,
the new Dodge,
the Easter Sundays-
each with its own clear instant
in the fluid of time,
all these have leaked away,
leaving the shell,
this little battery without a spark.

-Ted Kooser

Easter with the siblings