I is for It's a Second Look

Okay, I know that It's stretching It for today's "I" theme to be "It", but I haven't done a Second Look this week. It's time to get one in.

Our first daffodil bloomed this week and others are following. There are still crocuses and snowdrops blooming, but they are on they are fewer in number. We saw more goldfinches at the feeder this week. Maybe they're here to coordinate with the daffodils. :)

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

The first daffodil 

Also new this week, the pieris japonica bloomed.

The deer are enjoying the day lilies that are coming up. :(

The hellebore I planted last fall is blooming.

Crocus are blooming, but not as many as before.

The last of the snowdrops.

Sparrow and goldfinch pair

The female cardinal flew away just as I was taking this picture.

H is for Hellebore

Annie Laurie's Hellebore

I first met Annie Laurie at the library where she had been a long time volunteer--over 30 years. She came once a week and did whatever was needed, and before she left, she picked up bagful of books to read. Reading was her passion. Then she developed breast cancer and eventually she was not well enough to volunteer any more. That's when Beth and I began to take bags of books to her house, mostly mysteries which were her favorites, and stay for a visit. In the comfort of Annie Laurie's home, I learned what a character she really was. She was opinionated, strong-willed, and very funny. We always had a good visit with lots of laughter even when her health was rapidly failing at the end.

One of our most memorable visits was when Annie Laurie took Beth and I on a tour of the flowers around her farm house. Flowers and plants were another passion of hers. Rail thin and hobbling with her cane, she showed us lilies, daffodils, and hellebores. The hellebores were the favorite of both Beth's and mine. Over the years, Miss Annie Laurie had developed a forest floor of them. Under the shade of large trees, she showed us the many kinds she had. I didn't really appreciate all of the different varieties she was showing us, but I did appreciate the unassuming, downward facing, simple blossoms I saw.

After that, Beth and I were both in love with hellebores and wanted some for our gardens. But you know how it is, we never got around to getting any. That is why we were both so thrilled and honored when her sister, Dot, give us some from Annie Laurie's garden after she passed away.

I carefully chose a shaded spot by my front door to plant mine. It didn't seem to take the transplant so well and it's large leaves flopped. However, it seemed to be surviving. Beth and I exchanged letters with Dot from time to time, and she always asked how our hellebores were doing. I said mine was doing fine. I didn't think that she needed to know that maybe I hadn't done such a good job transplanting it and that it was struggling. Then a few months ago, she said that her's were blooming and wondered if ours were. I told her not yet because I didn't have anything more than one small bud forming at the base of the plant. I figured when that bloomed, I would take a picture of it to send to her and carefully crop out the flopping leaves.

Bloom on end of smashed stock

Well, the stalk with the bud grew and grew until it was about 6 inches tall and was ready to bloom any day. And that's when it happened. Workman at the house stepped on it. I was upset, but worried more about what I was going to tell Dot. However, a few other buds showed up and they actually bloomed this week. And the best part of all is that the stalk that got stepped on has a flower on it's end also.

Now I could say something about the tenacity that Annie Laurie had in her life and how that was represented by my hellebore's blooming smashed stem. Or I could say something about the blooms and how they were a sign from her, that she was still with us in a way. However, I would really like to think about my hellebore in the terms of how much Annie Laurie, Beth, and I would have laughed during the story I would tell about the hellebore I tried to plant and how it got smashed. :)

G is for Grammar

I went to school back in the days when we diagrammed sentences and English was a separate subject from Reading. In other words, we spent a lot of time on parts of speech, sentence structure, and grammar in general. Back then, I was pretty good at it. Just give me the rules and I could apply them in almost any situation.

However, time has passed and the rules have changed. Or at least, not many people are following the rules as I learned them. That goes for professionals on TV as well as the newspapers. That goes for books and the everyday educated person. I realize that language grows and changes over time, but this evolution has left me confused.

As I have mentioned in this blog before, I don't understand today's trend of the fewer the commas the better. I'm not sure when this started, but several years ago I was in a seminar with a publisher (and as a geologist, I have no idea why I was there.) and I heard an interesting thing. At that point in time, paper was very expensive and book publishers were feeling the pinch. One of the ways they were dealing with this, besides making the margins narrower, was leaving out all "unnecessary" commas. It seemed rather silly to me but she said in the long run, it was saving them money.

Because I see so many differences in the way language is used today, not only am I unsure, I'm forgetting what I used to know.  For example, when is it that you capitalize a season? When do you use the word healthy and when do you use the word healthful. I used to know. However, today I see seasons capitalized in an almost random way. (I tend to follow this method.) Also, I've observed that healthy is used in almost all circumstances whether it is an adjective or adverb. (I too am guilty of this.) I think that healthful may become a thing of the past as language evolution continues.

A couple of other changes that are on the horizon are take/bring and less/fewer. Have you noticed that no one uses take anymore? They are always bringing something whether the object is coming toward them or going away from them. And the one that is an assault to my ears every time I hear it-people using less when they mean fewer. (Less is an amount that can't be divided into discreet things. Fewer measures something that has discreet things that can be counted.) I fear, too, that these uses as I learned them will become a thing of the past in not so distant future. And the list goes on.

However, in the meantime, I'm happy that this is a conversational, casual blog. I don't think I could stand the pressure of trying to figure out what is the correct grammar of the day every time I post.

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Let's not even get started on the effect that texting is having on our written language. Maybe I'll discuss that with the letter "T".

And yes, I am old. At least old enough, that I wish for the good old days when things were done "right". :)

F is for still Figuring it out

F is for still Figuring it out

When I was trying to think about what I was going to write for “F” day, my mind was blank except for “Fun” and another word I don't think I'll mention here that rhymes with duck. Although, I do remember asking one of my older sister's friends what the unmentionable word meant and why it was bad to say. However, I didn't think that was a subject I wanted to go into here. “Fun” was such a broad topic, I couldn't seem to narrow that down enough to write a cohesive post about it.

Next I called in my son and asked if he would brainstorm with me a little. He was full of ideas for the letter “F”. However my mistake was starting the conversation before I had something to write with. Here's some of the things I managed to write down that he suggested.

Fireworks: good. I have some decent pictures I took of them last summer. I could use the story about my 18 month old nephew saying, “Bubbles boom.” when he saw them. Maybe.

Fried food: that always tastes good, but don't know if I can expand it into a new post unless I cook something with a recipe. Not gonna happen in time.

Friends: maybe, use the standard theme of new friends in blog land

Firsts: a possibility but the topic is so broad I'm drawing a blank

Forgetting and do a corollary post for “R” on remembering: Got plenty of forgetting examples for this

Fans—I could tell about the fights with my sister over the fan in the room we shared. Don't know if she would like that because I, of course, would be the one who came out looking good.

Furniture: I got nothing

Formaldehyde and dissecting stories: I could tell about the biology teacher who would take a snake out of formaldehyde and throw it at us to make us not afraid of snakes. Not sure that worked.

Fungus: why does fungus sound gross while mushrooms sounds gourmet

Flatscreen TV: I got nothing

.

Floors: already posted about our new floors

Fiber: not sure that's where I want to go here

Fluorescent lights: maybe. I have a few opinions about them.

So there you have it. My undeveloped ideas for "F". When I showed a draft of this post to my son, he said that it was awfully early in the alphabet to do a post like this and maybe I could do one about Fingerprints. Well, it's time to move onto the next letter, so I have to go with what I've got. If I'm really lucky, I'll have another “brainstorming” session with him, and convince him that he needs to write the next post. :)

E is for Everyday Beauty

Sunrise out my kitchen window. 

I think I'm like most people in that I get involved in the details of my everyday life and forget to notice and be thankful for what surrounds me. This was never made more evident to me than a few years ago.

It was early morning and I was standing with several other parents waiting for everyone to show up for a Boy Scout camping trip. I was not in a good mood. The boys, who we could barely wake up a short time ago, were running around pestering each other. It was early enough that it was still dark out and it was cold. I was grumbling to another mom about how cold and sleepy I was when another dad, Tom, joined our conversation. I made some comment about the weather and he responded. "Isn't the cold invigorating. And look at the sky, the sun is rising. It's another day and I always think, 'How beautiful. God has created another beautiful day and he is actually letting me be a part of it."" Wow. That woke me up. Both literally and figuratively.

Since them, I try to remember that morning and what Tom said. I am lucky that I get to be a part of another day. It is easier to do that when I am witnessing a beautiful vista on a warm spring afternoon, but I also try to remember it on the mornings when I've had to get up sooner than I want and it is yet another cold, rainy morning. And since everything reminds me of a song...

For the beauty of the earth; (first two verses)

For the beauty of the earth

For the beauty of the skies,

For the love which from our birth over and around us lies:

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour 

of the day and of the night, 

Hill and vale and tree and flower, 

Sun and moon and stars of light: 

Lord of all, to thee we raise 

this our joyful hymn of praise.

Words: Fol­li­ot S. Pier­point, in Lyra Eu­cha­rist­ica, by Or­by Ship­ley, se­cond edi­tion, 1864.

Music: Dix, Con­rad Koch­er, 1838