Good Almost-March morning! Happy Leap-Day! I've got dueling roosters outside with a crisp morning dawning, and a snoring kitty inside with the gas fire popping and warming the place. And in my hand is this: hot coffee with chocolate caramel creamer and whipped cream!
I'm so sensitive emotionally, physically, and autistically, that the right setting, ambiance, and background is critical for me to begin the day right. When i'm able by grace of God to create the above described setting, wave upon wave of contentedness washes over me and I'm just in a glorious state of being.
I have no plans for this weekend, just the usual: Saturday spend most of the day writing the essays for the week's blog, Sunday morning to prepare for Sunday School and church at 2:00 and 3:00 respectively, and small groups dinner and fellowship afterward. There are 4 weeks of normal school schedule and then the first week of April will be the Spring Break week off.
In preparation for upcoming nice weather I bought a Georgia State Parks pass! My goal is to go to a nearby State Park each week at least once, and walk around, photograph, just get out into nature. One of the parks is just 4 miles from me down the road. There are another about half a dozen near me within half an hour to 45 min away. I am a little scared because my car isn't the most reliable, but I do want to try and drive to these amazing places and enjoy the beauty that is rural north Georgia.
Pretty, isn't it? I took these about ten years ago when I used to go there more often. There are trails of various lengths and in different spots throughout the park. You are allowed to swim or wade in the river, and in the pond of the top picture there are paddle boats to rent or picnic tables to sit at.
We'll see how it goes. It is really hard for me to cut a new pathway in my brain and my life for a new habit.
The After-Valentines Day flower sale was on at Kroger. The sign said 'deep discounts, while supplies last' and the table was empty, with only a few leaves and scatterings of dirt on it. It looked wiped out like the marauding Visigoths had stormed through, but the cut flower stand was still full of flower bouquets of all sizes. I bought a bouquet of two roses with some lilies and greenery for $2.50.
Yes, I know that $2.50 spent on something that doesn't directly sustain me, like food, utilities, or gas for the car isn't a necessity, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE flowers. I enjoy having fresh flowers around the place. They are usually too expensive for me to buy regularly, but if they are on sale like this, a few times a year, I'll go for it. If I was ridiculously rich, I'd have new fresh flowers put in by my butler every 3 days.
I hope you all have a marvelous day. Spring is in the air!
To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. ~William Blake
3 comments:
I love the way you always describe your weekend mornings because I too love early mornings and coffee with whipped cream and having everything in order and quiet around me. Thankfully I'm the only early riser in my home so I have this treat every Saturday when I'm not babysitting the grandkids - they are definitely not late sleepers and they hit the ground running on their early rises. :)
I also love the woods, but no one else in my family does and in all the places we've lived I've never met another woman who wanted to go hiking, until here...a sister from our church has gone out with me for photography and letterboxing several times and it's been so, so wonderful.
I hope you don't think this is super creepy, but I checked and there are letterboxes in the state park near your home! (at least, I think it's the right state park). I think you would love letterboxing, because it's cerebral, it's artsy, it gets you out in nature (usually they're in the woods), and you usually get some exercise with a little hike. I've checked before and you're not that far from me...if you'd ever like some company on a hike and an introduction to letterboxing, I would be happy to accompany you! (If you think it's super creepy, just let me know and I'll promise to never cross your state line.) :D
I'm so thrilled you found someone to walk with and go letterboxing with! That's so cool. No it's not creepy, thanks for checking for me about letterboxing in my area! I bought the State Park pass and I can't wait for it to arrive. I knew there is a robust geocaching activity in the area, and there's a State Park just a few miles from me and a few others nearby. I might try letterboxing!
Letterboxing is so much better! Mostly because it's old-school, plus the reward is so much greater.
It's cerebral because most of the time the clues are a least a little vague and you have to figure them out (sometimes they're even in a code you have to break!). It's artsy because what's in the box, if you find it, is a hand-carved rubber stamp that in some way represents the area the box is planted in, or represents what the box is about - sometimes people will use the clues to teach you about something the person who planted the box is interested in. In the case of your state park, there is a series of about a half dozen boxes planted, and the clues give a comprehensive history of the park and the person for whom it's named. The clues look sufficiently vague to require some thought, but not so much that they should be difficult to locate.
You bring with you your own notebook and your own (hopefully hand-carved but can be store-bought, esp when you're just beginning) rubber stamp, and if you find the box, you do an exchange...you stamp your image in the box's notebook and sign your trail name (and usually a little note to comment on the hike or the location or the stamp, etc) and you stamp the box's image into your notebook (most folks also write the name of the box, the location, the date it was found, etc.). The box's notebook is like a guest book with the "signatures" of folks who have visited, and your notebook is like a passport with the stamped images of all the places you've visited.
Doesn't that sound lovely?!
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