Honestly, we are being inundated by rain. I love it! It’s not a tropical storm because it isn’t accompanied by a lot of wind.
But our paper said we got as much rain in the last two days as we got in the last 137 days!
I’m not sure that means the drought is over, but maybe. Usually we get afternoon rains during the summer and a storm like this closer to the end of summer.
But it will be nice to see green grass and full(er) ponds.
Some places are expected to get a foot of water. We’ve probably had at least 6 inches. Our pool is getting pretty high.
I managed to do all my errands around the cloud bursts. It would clear up enough for me to get in and out of the car, then it would deluge.
Hot hot hot: summer in the city, fragrances to stay cool with I keep getting refrains of songs in my head for this recap of summer scents. How about Joe Cocker! Ayala Sender of Ayala Moriel perfumes invited me to participate in today’s summer scent story. Ten...
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Just when it seems like a bit of good news would be exceedingly welcomed, comes this true story (I’ve checked it with Snopes) about a woman hand feeding hummingbirds.
Isn’t it great that with the Internet we have a way to easily share these experiences that we might never hear about otherwise?!
Thanks to Cathy for sharing with me in the first place!
It’s a reminder to me that “God’s in his heaven; all’s right with the world.”
from “Pippa Passes”
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven -
All’s right with the world!
Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Is it possible that in these difficult times we could trust more deeply that God will feed and clothe us, as he does the birds and the lilies? Whether we are literally in need of food, shelter, clothing, water, health, employment or any of a myriad of other needs, the most basic need is for the ideas that will lead us in the right direction and out of limitation.
Ideas are always limitless! (This goes along with the short movie I posted earlier.)
Not too long ago while pondering how I should schedule my day, though my first inclination the night before had been to get on down the road and back home, I felt it was all right to meander a bit. In doing so, I had a number of interesting conversations with strangers, some welcome time with a friend, and a bit of fashion enjoyment, including some time with perfumes.
After I’d been back on the highway for a while, an electronic sign informed me of an accident 26 miles down the road. One lane was closed. (I learned later that it had only cleared about an hour before I got there.) If I had hurried my way home, I would have been stuck for hours while they cleared the road. I was able to get past it without any lost time.
Sometimes we do not know what we or others are protected from, but this time it was apparent. And it could have been far worse, but thankfully wasn’t. On this busy stretch of road, many more could have been involved in this accident but were not.
That’s just a small example of how ideas will clear our day for us. Expect ideas today and always that will help you!
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I love spring. I was out bike riding with two of my girls today and thought about how much I love spring — and so, not in any particular order, here are 10 reasons:
1. The temperatures — so much of the year it is terribly hot here. It’s a wonderful respite to have mild weather.
2. The colors — the new greens of the grass and the budding trees, the colors of flowers.
3. Flowers and flowering trees. Some of this reminds me of spring in Michigan and the sweet alysum that my mother used to plant along the walkways — alternating years were either white or purple. Somehow I would be surprised to see them newly planted, then they would take off in profusion.
4. Scents in the air — a plus for someone who loves perfume. A friend has a beautiful purple flowering jacaranda tree — the whole area outside her home smelled of these flowers yesterday. I made her come outside to smell them — and I pulled down one of the branches to smell the flowers up close and personal. Very lush!
5. Bike riding — one of life’s pleasures. Tonight waxy yellow flowers of the plumeria trees scented the bike path.
6. Enjoying my porches. I especially love the front porch during a heavy rain. The porch is tiny, but it provides enough shelter that I am only wet with the spray in the air. I love the sounds and the smells of the rain. In earlier years I would sit on the porch during a storm with my oldest Chinese daughter who was at that time petrified of storms. She would sit on my lap, and we would see how beautiful it was, the lightening, the thunder, the rain — how it couldn’t hurt us, we were perfectly safe.
7. Birds singing.
8. Perfect weather — I know I already wrote this, but it bears repeating twice. It is such a pleasure to get out in it. It’s hard to stay inside. Yesterday we washed three cars and enjoyed doing it.
9. Listening to the frogs at night. They are currently ’singing.’
10. Newness of life reminding me of all the goodness that is on offer if we just get out in it and put ourselves in the middle of it.
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I thought this was one of the most beautiful metaphors/examples of the divine spark that shines through us all. I hope you enjoy it like I did.
Karin
I got up early one morning to catch the sunrise. There had been some freezing rain overnight, which coated all the trees with ice. It was breathtakingly beautiful. As the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, the trees sparkled with that reflected light.
When I looked to the north of the house where the sun hadn’t yet hit, the trees looked so ordinary. But when I turned back to where the sun shined, the trees were extraordinarily beautiful.
To me this was a glimpse of what it means to be the reflection of God. There’s a divine dimension of life that makes us beautiful and good and kind, both inside and out. That life link with God’s light takes us beyond human limitations and lifts us into that spiritual point of view where things become possible that we didn’t think were possible…
Someone said to me years ago, “Everyone has a divine spark and it’s up to you to find it and fan the flame.” Each of us has some quality of God that’s distinctly ours, that shines through us and makes us the special individuals that we are.
26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them…
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Genesis 1, KJV
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I don’t know about you, but we have had more frogs this year than I can ever remember.
These are not the tiny tree frogs that make so much noise. These are bigger garden variety frogs and in various colors. I’m not sure if these frogs are akin to the chameleons that are also everywhere.
Last night we had three on our porch, relatively small ones, but we’ve had two (that we’ve seen) granddaddy of all frogs, big ones! One was white, sitting on the white arm of a porch chair, and the other one ended up in our bedroom jumping on the curtains not too long ago, to our chagrin. It was green. I managed to catch it in our bathroom and get it outside in a towel.
And no, I did not purposely let it in by holding open the door. No, I did not. What, and let out all the air conditioning!! It is 97 degrees here. Just because I moved some back porch furniture to the front porch, through our bedroom. (My youngest daughter opened and shut the doors for me.) (Won’t do that again.)
My sister had one jump on her out by their pool.
The funniest story (so long as it didn’t happen to me) was a gf’s d-i-l had one jump on her face in the middle of the night. She woke up yelling. Her husband was trying to get her back into bed, telling her it was only a dream. But when they turned on the light, there was the culprit on their wall. She took a shower, washed her hair, washed the wall, did her sheets…the night was practically over! At least ours didn’t get up as high as our bed.
The same friend had one in her bathroom.
This morning she called with another frog story, knowing I had been blamed for the one in our bedroom. Her College Girl phoned her early this morning. She said as she was driving to class this morning, her leg felt wet, then the other leg was wet.
“Guess what was in her car,” she said to me. Yep, it was a frog. I would have run off the road, likely!
Enough already!
Interestingly, frogs are good omens representing, among other things, wealth and babies, fertility and rain, clearing negativity from an environment, honoring tears that cleanse the soul, cleansing, and the illusion of being separated when really we are together already. Possible negative: settling someone else’s quarrel and getting into the line of fire…Take your pick!
When I was waiting for our youngest daughter, I dreamed I gave birth to a frog. It woke me up. My facilitator said it was a good dream, because “in Chinese frog has the same pronounce as baby doll and small baby.” And my youngest was small when I got her.
Do you have a frog story to share? Have you had frogs like we have?
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I love gardens and beautiful flowers, but I have a black thumb when it comes to outdoors. I can manage violets and some other indoor plants, but outside is a complete bust. I also don’t do well in heat, so there you have it, I’m not going to spend time outside once it is hot, hot, hot.
We (college girl, dh and I) did some outside painting (I did the pick up work, no painting). Then I bought some potted plants to put in the garden area. While they all said ’sun’, come to find out, they do better in shade or filtered light, so I am moving them around to get them out of the heat of the sun.
Anyway, I can imagine what my garden would look like if I had some success. The pots will do for now. Anything in the ground (I’ve tried petunias, etc) just dry up (the water runs off.)
How about you? What do you have in your garden? I’d like flowers and fragrance — is it a surprise?
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If you’ve been a reader of my blog for long, you know I have an affinity for trees. I find them very calming. I live in an area with very few trees, unlike my childhood, and most of the trees around me are palm trees.
I thought this was quite interesting and the first time I’d heard of it. Have you visited there?
Karin
In this issue we will travel to Xurshat Tal (???????? ???) – an enchanting nature reserve with brooks, little waterfalls, the largest swimming lake in Israel, a fishing pond, and a forest of ancient oak trees. In the spring and winter time, you may even find rare kinds of orchids and other more common flowers blooming in all the colors that were given by nature.
The winter snow and rain water that fall on the Chermon Mountain, penetrate through the mountain and break out in the form of springs underneath the mountain which form the Dan River (????? ????, naxal Dan). One of its brooks is the Tal River (????? ???, naxal Tal), that flows through the reservoir.
The Oak Forest (???????? ????????????, xurshat ha’alonim)
There are 240 Oak trees in the forest – some are 15 meters (~50 feet) tall with a 6-meter (~40 inch) circumference. Some of the trees are estimated to be 400 years old. They survived all these years due to the fact that they are considered holy to the Muslims, because Sheikh Ali was buried there.
An Arab story tells about the ten companions of Muhammad who wanted to rest by the river. They couldn’t find trees to bind their horses to, so they inserted their sticks into the ground and bound their horses to the sticks. They sat there, enjoying the cool water, drinking some good coffee and talking about their issues. When they rose to continue their trip, they found out that their sticks had become huge trees. Therefore, the Arabs called the place “the forest of the ten” (???????? ??????????, xorshat ha’asara). It is believed that all the oak trees in the area grew out of these ten holy trees.
Rescuing an Oak Tree
One of the ancient oak trees in the forest became rotten and was about to collapse. In 1984, the Botanical Department of Tel-Aviv University came to rescue the tree. They carefully removed the rotten part of the tree and filled the tree trunk with 6 tons (!) of concrete. The tree has been healing since and its bark is slowly covering the concrete. Its leaves are green and healthy and it gives much shade, beauty and comfort to the visitors. This tree may give healing inspiration to all of us.
The origin of the name:
Mount Chermon gave the inspiration for the name of the place according to the following verse from Tehilim:
Transliteration: ketal xermon sheyored, al harerey tsiyon
Translation: Like the dew of Hermon, that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion.
Xurshat Tal Song
Bless us G-d in everything
In everything we do
Bless us G-d
And bless, and bless our year
And grant grant grant
grant rain and dew
on the face of the land
on the face of the land Xurshat Tal Hebrew Online Newsletter
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Today was a lovely, lazy, very busy — oxymoron, I know — happy, productive, fun day. I did nothing — and everything.
Meanwhile some tropical storm or other is likely sitting off the coast because after having no rain for longer than we’d care to remember, we are getting inundated with it. No thunder; no lightening; just lots of glorious, wet weather. Good weather for ducks.
I like rain — any rain. I like the sound of it. I like the overcast nature of it — which can be overcast in one place and across the street the sun can be shining. Unlike Michigan where it would be overcast all over for days.
I like it that it breaks the heat and humidity.
The temps dropped from in the high 80s, low 90s, to the high 60s. Glorious weather.
I like the smell of rain. I look for the perfect scent of rain in a fragrance, and I’ve tried out several. Some I just like to have around to smell when I want that ozone/dirt perfect fragrance. The latest I’ve tried is Thundra — a truly lovely, interesting fragrance. I might review it tomorrow.
And I stayed in all day except for all the schlepping of the kids. The 11 yr old had a field trip today in pouring rain. I sent her off with a sweatshirt and an umbrella. She came back wet.
Night products Admission: generally I don’t take my makeup off at night. Bad Karin. But I don’t perspire, so my face is still clean. Last night was no exception, but I wanted to use the Arbonne night cream. So after I cleansed my face today — with the Arbonne samples — I put on night cream and enjoyed the day. I actually think I could apply my makeup over the top of it, but I never got to it.
When I was in my 20s, night creams were too rich and would break me out. And moisturizer alone, without something to seal it in, wasn’t moist enough. I’d wake up drier than I’d like. So, for me, my regimen has been pretty much no night products, unless I wore them in the daytime, or unless I was jump starting my face.
I don’t recommend this if you have oily skin or if it doesn’t work for you. But whatever works, works!
To buy Arbonne from Bookgirl, if you don’t have a representative, just ask.
So what did I do?
You got me, but the day flew!
No, seriously, I did a lot of beading to catch up with projects I had.
Oh! and I started a yahoogroup for serious bead addicts of Trollbeads, Pandora, Chamilia, Biagi, artisan or other beads http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Addicted2Trollbeadsandmore/ It will be a place for resources of all kinds, including shops or artists that might want to tell about themselves.
I helped my 13 yo learn to iron so her skirt would look better for school. Schlepped the kids, including waiting at the bus stop until she was picked up — and again until she was dropped off — as it was raining too hard to let her stand out there in the elements.
Talked to the Arbonne rep (hi, Sherri!). Talked to a lot of friends (you know who you are.) (I can tell Sherri will be one too.) Talked for a long time with my sister while I waited for youngest to return from her field trip. Did a bunch of adoption related stuff. Cannot ignore the horror story now going around in RL or the adoption related horror movie that will be coming out soon.
Knew I would write in my blog, if I could break away from beading long enough.
Helped BookGirl decide some things about her art work. She helped me choose between patterns of beading.
Will write another Arbonne review in a few.
Leave me a message so I know you are out there.
I’m going to enjoy the sound of the pouring rain. How about you? Do you like rain? Is it raining where you are? Do you need rain? We were parched here.
Karin
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Yesterday I drove to a nearby town (well an hour or so away) and took advantage of the drive. It makes the drive worthwhile. Additionally, I came back with just enough daylight that I could still see the area, even if shrouded in twilight.
Part of the way goes past (if I choose that way) a wetlands, just as when College Girl goes back to college, her drive takes her past a different wetlands.
In a way, they look like a prairie, full of high grass, but there are little inlets of water that can be seen, if the road is high enough, and sometimes there are reeds to give away the presence of water. On occasion you can see a tree so full of birds, it looks like flowers, but yesterday I saw no wildlife.
It soothes my soul.
One day I’d like to take an air boat ride through the area. I think it would be fascinating, if the weather would cooperate and not be too hot, and if the bugs would be at a minimum.
Karin
Picture the grasses
grown high, bending in the wind
reeds and shrubbery too.
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I received this from Beading Daily. I could not find a link, but if someone provides me with one, I will be glad to change this post. Karin
The Amazing Power of Beads
Topic: People and Events
If there was a fire threatening your home and you had only minutes to grab a few things, what would you take? One Beading Daily reader and Beadwork contributor, Cathi Tessier, knows. Cathi was one of the estimated 500,000 people recently evacuated in the southern California wildfires. As of today, Cathi has still not returned to her home–she’s not even sure yet whether there’s still a home waiting for her.–Michelle Mach, Beading Daily editor
October 23, 2007
It was Sunday, mid-morning, when my husband called.
“Quick, pack up our important stuff. We’re going to evacuate. There’s a fire close by.
I live and work for an RV park system, and as employees, we live in the resort in our motor home. Space is tight, and things must be very organized to live 24/7 in this lifestyle. My beads take up a good part of the storage areas. I peeked outside and saw a huge orange sun, smelled the thick smoke, and realized we were in big trouble. With only minutes to pack, I scrambled to sort and decide just what would fit in the trunk of our car.
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A couple of folders with the important documents were the first things I grabbed. For my hubby, a couple pair of undies, pj’s, and two changes of clothes. For me????? Oh boy! Big problem. Four cases of beads, needles, crimping pliers, eight jumbo spools of FireLine thread sizes 4, 6, 8 in black and also crystal. A couple of beading pads, Fiskar scissors, and oh yeah, one pair of panties, a bra, and an extra pair of jeans.
Ready to go.
Three days later, I am sitting among a sea of people in the parking lot of the local stadium, visiting with other evacuees, listening to their stories. No showers in three days, no changes of clothes, horses, dogs, kids everywhere. Tens of thousands of homeless folks, worrying about their homes, their photos, their heirlooms, their clothes. There are tears, hugs, worry, and sadness. I pop the trunk of my car and look at my stuff. My beads are all there. I open some of the boxes, and just look at them.
I ask myself, “What was I thinking? How could these beads, valued at a couple of hundred dollars mean so much to me?”
I can’t explain it. But I’ll say this. It gives me comfort to know they are there. I know that if and when we have a home to return to, I will sit at my dining table, pull out a tube of Delica beads, thread up, and make a little bracelet. It will be my “miracles happen” bracelet. A reminder that life can take a turn in a split second, and if we don’t take the time to smell the roses, or bead the bead, if we don’t follow our hearts and indulge ourselves in our passions, then we are not living.
At this writing I am safe, and while my future is unknown, I take comfort in knowing that although I don’t have my pj’s, my beads are in the trunk of my car.
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