Archive for the ‘Julie Kay Smithson’ Category
History is something that should be in every good life cook’s recipe box. It is an amazing concoction, a participatory collage of sight, sound, aroma, and taste that flavors life. History, when made well, begs us to take note of it, record it for future life cooks, and savor its multiplicity of ingredients.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
Starting with plans for something is an essential ingredient. Add the action needed to bring those plans to fruition — whether it be taking a trip, giving a speech, taking part in a class, or many other things — and stir thoughtfully. After all, you may want to make history more than once!
Condiments are important to this recipe, though they will not be found in any kitchen pantry. Such things as a dash of goodwill, a pinch of zest, a goodly portion of devotion, a couple of shakes of eagerness, and the folding in of a measure of tact, will help you make history of which you can be proud.
History can be made in many places and on a number of fronts. It can be brought along slowly and adjusted to fit a myriad of scenarios in life, from wartime to peacetime and from the earliest school years through the years when many are steeped in marriage and children, or marinated in the blend of seasonings that occur when lives are lived solo or with pets.
You’ll usually know history when you see it, though it can take place just below the radar of one’s life and be visible only to others, or only after one has shed the trappings of earthly life. History is not always confined to the pages of books; though it can be recorded thusly, it then becomes prime for the author’s perception and recollection.
History is etched in our faces, hands and gait. We travel through life at many paces, sometimes spent, and feeling, like we’ve been in a marathon, others seemingly outstripped by a snail’s pace. Our heads may be held high, with clear vision and cheerful demeanor. They may also be bent by the weight of real or perceived loads, carried in such a way that our eyes remain downcast and never see the rainbows. Lost love can help make history better, through learning that the love of our life may not always love us in return — or we can be jaundiced by it to the point where our lives seem to stop at that moment. Joy and love walk hand-in-hand, and being ready to risk having the recipe turn out differently than we had planned, is worth the drawing in of breath and the leap of faith.
For each of us, history is in the making every day of our lives. Will we make it with courage and kindness? Will we doubt our ability to make it at all? Just for today, make your own history with a different ingredient or two, something that’s been gathering dust on the back shelf of your mind’s pantry. The results may astound you and make the lives of others better. Make some history today — you may be delighted with the results!
My definition of comfy, as relating to clothes:
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
Doesn’t take a lot of effort to put on. Once on, stays on and in place (no slipping straps or stuff riding up or falling down). Doesn’t require the assistance of another to put on. Doesn’t interfere with giving or receiving hugs! Doesn’t mean that a child or animal must wait for attention until clothes are changed. Doesn’t glow in the dark. Doesn’t stop traffic. Is NOT “in style,” so no need to fret over “going shopping” (ugh!). Isn’t likely to be borrowed. Costs less than 20 bucks. Doesn’t need to be washed, separately or on delicate cycle; ironing; starch; dry cleaning; or a look in the mirror to make sure it’s on right.
What happens is that my outfit can be worn most anyplace, other than to formal events. Ah, comfy!
When we think of flavors in the summertime, we tend to lean toward ice cream offerings or picnic fixings. A certain restaurant chain offers “savors” on its menu of entrees. Summer days are shortening, nights are lengthening; there is so much we can wring from this season of warmth and growth, abundance and harvest!
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
County fairs abound with the fruits of country girls’ kitchens. Golden jars of gleaming goodness, burgundy smaller jars of jams and jellies, and freshly-baked pies are carried ever so carefully, in hopes of being adorned with ribbons of blue. So much goes in to what we see as we walk the venues of summer, but we seldom think of the devotion, faith, hope and “sweat equity” that’s behind each product of our area’s country splendor.
Cicadas are singing that ole sweet “School’s Starting Soon” song! The air is pregnant with anticipation, the corn all tasseled & statuesque, the bean fields finally looking dark green & glossy after a slow/wet start, hayfields shorn of their tall locks & baled, stacked on wagons & being put up in the barns. The first ripe tomato was picked — and devoured — yesterday. Many more ripening beauties are soon to come, to be utilized on sandwiches, in salads or sauces, but all truly appreciated. The perfect alignment of soil, sun, rain, weeding, and the plants themselves all make for tastes that we recall for a lifetime.
A certain sign of harvest time is the gladsome sight of familiar green farm equipment on the roads and in the fields, trucks lined up at the local grain elevators or filling bins at the farm. Hay wagons — tires “pooched out” from the heavy load — go to fro, emptying fields while filling barn storage areas. Farmers keep a constant watch on the skies and weather forecasts, giving credence to the old saying: “Making hay while the sun shines.”
The flavors and savors of the season are upon us; don’t miss out on a single one!
Most folks are aware of the term describing someone with many tasks as wearing many hats. Often the most difficult decision at day’s beginning is, which hat to wear first.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
My first hat is none at all, my head bowed to thank God for His glorious new day, whatever the weather. He knows me better than I ever will, and only He knows how much I can do and bear. If I overload my plate with “to do” items, He skillfully helps lighten the load by making sure the clock ticks fast enough that everything doesn’t get done. This serves more than one purpose. Not only does it mean that I usually accomplish quite a lot each day, it also serves to prove that there are reasons for me to get up the next morning — rise and shine!
Monday, August 2, was a roller-coaster with the highest heights and deepest depths.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
Our visit to MedVet — where I expected to have a consultation about having Wiggles’ right kidney removed — turned into a tsunami of a wave that blindsided me and left me gasping for breath. Was it just two short weeks since his twelfth birthday?
MedVet did a thorough veterinary exam, chest x-ray and extensive ultrasound. The results:
Wiggles’ kidneys are both fine, as is his heart, lungs, spleen, bladder, prostate, etc.
What isn’t fine is his liver. Of the several lobes — which are located on both the left and right sides of his gall bladder — there is one very large mass in one and smaller, but still significant, masses in two or three other lobes … and the masses are on both sides.
Breezy, if we’re lucky. With temperatures in the 80s and 90s, and humidity rivaling that of the tropics. Any breeze is welcome during “the dog days of summer!”
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
Scratchy? For those folks, including me, that get things like poison ivy, mosquito bites, heat rash, etc., summertime can mean colloidal oatmeal baths/soaks, special products to fend off the itching/oozing and searching out cool places in which to spend as much time as possible. I’ve gotten more than one quizzical look from another shopper as I open a frozen food case and breathe a deep sigh of joyful relief!
People often refer to undesirable things as the bane or harm/ruin of their existence. How weeds came to be so loathed is beyond my understanding. Weeds, after all, are simply plants that grow where we would rather they didn’t. When weeds sprout and thrive in our flower beds or lawns, they actually offer us positive opportunities!
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
The view when one is bent over or on one’s knees weeding, is different. Things may be seen at that angle or level that are invisible from the standing position, be they insects, tiny new leaves or the colors of the dirt in which we are working. Fragrances, too, offer a smorgasbord for our sensory sniffer, as some weeds smell pungent, others aromatic and still others sharp or without discernible smell.
There is something about sitting on the ground that replenishes a corner of the soul. Though we don’t usually see it thus, part of us is kith and kin to the earth: our physical makeup. We are spun of wonderful cloth, but our feet are still bound to the clay and firmament. Is there an essence given us by the very act of finding and plucking weeds? I don’t know, but it soothes me and gives my all a time of calm, when the frenzied pace of highway or shopping area are as removed as if on Mars. Weeding helps my body remain supple, keeps my fingers and eyes in sync to work as a team with my muscles, bucket and helper tools at hand. My fingers, no longer young and straight, but sculpted by living, offer themselves to me to consider and appreciate as I weed.
As children play in the mud and dirt, we often see only future laundry contributions and cleanup duties. Should we contemplate the connections that bring children to their knees, eyeing something from that special vantage point that we return to when we weed? Weeds bring us chances to glimpse — or revel in — moments of peace and harmony with nature. To enjoy our gardening time may be our best times to “go child” again and find the wonder of weeds!
Here’s to the good folks who smile when we “meet eyes” at the store, Post Office, restaurant, etc.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
Here’s to the youngsters whose faces are open and innocent, happy with the world and blissfully ignorant of most of its cares.
Here’s to the professionals, whose work makes the smooth running of our lives possible — the postal worker, package delivery person, gas station attendant, grocery store employees, friendly AND knowledgeable voices at the other end of our phones when we need help with things. Once the rule rather than the exception, it has become almost a miracle to find such help when we phone for it.
Here’s to the people we love, who love us even on our most thorny days, when it takes a real imagination to see our roses.
Here’s to the prayers that swirl about us and help us, though we know not all those prayer warriors with our name on their lists. We are shored up greatly by such caring.
Here’s to our jobs, whether they are our dream jobs or, more often than not, something else. Life is what happens while we were making other plans.
Here’s to our dreams, which are intricately and inextricably woven into the cloth that is our life. What would we be without our dreams, giving us hope and something to work toward?
A recent Facebook posting with a link to “The Ten Most Addictive Sounds” inspired yours truly to compile a baker’s dozen list of most soothing sounds. In no particular order, they cover all seasons of the year and one’s life.
The peaceful sounds of a campfire when it’s past its peak and the embers occasionally fall with the softest of thuds.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
The sounds Wiggles Blue Heeler, my canine companion of almost a dozen years, makes when he’s sound asleep and dreaming, often accompanied by paws moving in concert with the activities of his dreams. For the first six years, Wiggles enjoyed physical eyesight and the “blue streak” speed of a blue heeler cattle dog as he ran effortlessly in play around the Arabian horses I once had. Progressive retinal atrophy, or PRA, an inherited eyesight robber found in virtually all dog breeds, though it was a blessing to be of the late onset type. Now the only running Wiggles can do, other than short bursts, is in his sleep. He still has the abundant energy and the memories of his days as a horse herder, voiced with jubilant yips in his dreams!
Have you ever used an adjustable flashlight? By turning part of the flashlight, you’re able to widen or narrow the beam of light to view a larger area or focus on a certain point. The wider adjustment provides a visual area, though lacking the detail or contrast provided by the constricted scope.
Julie Kay Smithson and Wiggles
To a large extent, our lives are like an adjustable flashlight. We can view a large area generally, or hone in on a certain part. It’s a bit like squinting. Note how your peripheral and vertical vision lessens when you squint. When the focus is tapered, so too, is the field of vision, because we’ve chosen to narrow our view. There are advantages to each.
When driving, both means of viewing are needed, keeping us aware of, not only what is in front of us, but also what lies to each side and to the rear.
In our quest to live life fully, we employ the broad view for many things, such as when entering a store to shop for groceries. We focus a bit more sharply to decide which aisle to choose, and don’t need the narrowest focus until we begin searching for a particular item. Different means of sight are needful and valuable. Lose one or the other, and our happiness seems to flee. By incorporating the ability to see “the big picture” that is life — while focusing on those “trees” that make it up, we achieve a depth in our lives that is jaundiced by a one-dimensional view.
Many photographs and paintings appear “perfect” when viewed from a distance, their “faults” only becoming evident upon closer inspection. The wonder of life is that it is the imperfections that make for the most treasured moments. One example: Your shoelace comes untied. When bending over to retie it, you notice your first four-leaf clover!
Rejoice and be glad for the moments of happiness, for they are the bright threads in the cloth that is the fabric of your life. Keep close in mind the Creator, and He will remind you of your worth to Him. He sees you with a broad and comprehensive view, loving you not in spite of your shortcomings, but because of them!
