Monthly Archives: September 2015

888. We know that in September we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. ~Henry Rollins

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The lawn is pressed by unseen feet as
summer’s ghost surreptitiously returns at
dawn and retreats again at twilight…
~Edited and adapted quote
by T.S. Eliot

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Bye, bye summertime, hello cooler spells
I think I’m gonna sm-ile
Bye bye scorching days, hello chilliness
I feel like could celebrate
Bye bye September goodby-eye
Bye bye September goodby-eye
~Adapted lines from the song,
Bye Bye Love, recorded by the Everly Brothers in 1957

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

**Image via Pinterest; text by Natalie

887. Life’s too short to start your day with broken pieces of yesterday… ~Unknown

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Every day may not be a good…
but there is something good in every day.
~Alice Morse Earle

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Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. ~Og Mandino

I fall, I rise, I make mistakes,
I’ve been hurt, but I learn.
And I’m alive and thankful.

As you can see my computer is up and running again, at least somewhat. All the problems have yet to be resolved and I have a lot of new stuff to learn, but hey it’s good for my aging gray matter. Because I’m so late in being able to get going on this thing today and I’m still working on issues with it, I’m sorry to say that I’m not going to be able to read all of your posts from yesterday or today. But tomorrow is a brand new day, and things should be back to normal soon.

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving. ~Psalm 69:30  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

886. What a huge mess have I unwittingly created!

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It seems my browser was out of date, and so I decided to go to the to internet to find a download for a more up-to-date one. Sounds simple enough, right?! But oh no, as usual it was not a simple solution! So yours truly has a huge mess on her hands and can’t get on the Internet or back into her programs! Thus I shall be missing for God only knows how long! Hugs, from a very perturbed and unhappy camper 😦 😦 Sent from my iPhone.

885. But these are flowers that fly and all but sing… ~Robert Frost

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    The butterfly is a flying flower,
The flower a tethered butterfly.
~Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun

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Thou spark of life that wavest wings of gold,
Thou songless wanderer mid the songful birds,
With Nature’s secrets in thy tints unrolled
Through gorgeous cipher, past the reach of words,
Yet dear to every child
In glad pursuit beguiled,
Living his unspoiled days mid flowers and flocks and herds!

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Thou winged blossom, liberated thing,
What secret tie binds thee to other flowers,
Still held within the garden’s fostering?
Will they too soar with the completed hours,
Take flight, and be like thee
Irrevocably free,
Hovering at will o’er their parental bowers?

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Or is thy lustre drawn from heavenly hues,
A sumptuous drifting fragment of the sky,
Caught when the sunset its last glance imbues
With sudden splendor, and the tree-tops high
Grasp that swift blazonry,
Then lend those tints to thee,
On thee to float a few short hours, and die?

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Birds have their nests; they rear their eager young,
And flit on errands all the livelong day;
Each fieldmouse keeps the homestead whence it sprung;
But thou art Nature’s freeman,—free to stray
Unfettered through the wood,
Seeking thine airy food,
The sweetness spiced on every blossomed spray.

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The garden one wide banquet spreads for thee,
O daintiest reveller of the joyous earth!
One drop of honey gives satiety;
A second draught would drug thee past all mirth.
Thy feast no orgy shows;
Thy calm eyes never close,
Thou soberest sprite to which the sun gives birth.
~Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in i, the world, and all who live in it. ~Psalm 24:1  ✝

**Photos via Pinterest

884. “I grow old, I grow old,” the garden says. It is nearly October. ~Excerpt from Robert Finch

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For summer here, bear in mind,
is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk
of leaving when September rises to go.
~George Washington Cable

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the air is different today
and the wind sings
with a new tone
sighing of changes coming…
~Rhawk

When September rises to go here, it is then that the amazing spider lily sits upon her scarlet throne. And when bejeweled in water beads from the sprinkler, her exotic, otherworldly charms grace the garden with a magical sort of sparkle and a melody that indeed seem to sigh along with the wind about coming changes.

…the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. ~Psalm 103:16  ✝

883. Remember what you’ve seen is oftentimes only what that person has chosen to show you. ~Author Unknown

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 **This opening statement is true of me and I suspect many others. And so because of some troubling thoughts and comments made by others who are hurting, I’ve decided share a few things about myself and afterwards make an open offer.

Rain falls because the sky can no longer handle its heaviness.
In the same way tears fall because a person’s heart
can no longer handle its pain or heartache.
~Edited quote by
Dinesh Kumar Biran

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There is a poem by Saint John of the Cross, and in it he narrates the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God. And I believe that everyone who has ever lived has experienced dark nights of the soul even if they’ve never connected with God. Life is hard, and as I approach my 73rd birthday, I can vouch that it’s not getting any easier. In fact a doctor asked me recently when was the last time I remembered having a pain free day, and I quickly replied, “when I was 25.” He was noticeably taken aback despite his years of experience, and although he asked me to explain all the details, I’m not going to take time to do that here. Let me just say that chronic, physical pain and loss of dearly beloved ones have created for me many a dark night of the soul. However, I’m as determined as ever not to let it define me nor keep me from enjoying life as much as I can. Now before you tell yourself it’s because my faith is so strong that I can say that, let me add that it was in my twenties that I also severed my ties to any church or religion and wandered long and far from the Lord.

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Okay now look at the photos above. They are of the Dark Hedges in Ireland which is an avenue of beech trees that was planted as an entrance to a home in the 18th century. However, they represent for me the seasons I’ve traveled through on my own life’s journey. As in the differing photos some seasons have been dark, some dark and cold, others hazy and unclear but not as dark, in some light started to shine but the richness of life still had not greened up, then there were periods of greenness but not much light, and finally there have been times when I’ve experienced both greenness and light. My point in sharing this is that I want to let anyone who reads this know that I’m here, that my email address is on my about page, that I’m a good listener, that I’m not easily shocked, that I will not judge you, that I will try to answer any questions you might have about how I cope, that I won’t expect anything in return, and that when it’s all said and done, I’ll put you on my prayer list regardless of whatever your faith in God is or is not. It’s not that I feel that I’m smarter than anyone else or that I have all the answers because I surely am not and do not, but after what I’ve lived through for nearly a half a century and with what I continue to endure, I have garnered at least a small amount of wisdom and gained a few insights along the way.

PS. I know that I am only here as a direct result of God’s amazing grace, and should anyone ask, I would love to talk with you about Christ’s living water and His offer of salvation. 

As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise You more and more. ~Psalm 71:14  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

882. If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. ~Albert Einstein

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 From Under Toadstools They Came.

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Swirling around me
they danced upon twinkling tips
over shimmering shards of grass
stirred by the early morning breeze.
A hundred sparkling amber eyes watching as
I walk amongst them, smiling, mesmerized by such beauty,
riveted on the turn of a new season, now the last butterflies have gone.
Filligrees of autumn, flashing golden in the low, warmish sunlight,
dashing off across the field only to return to peek once more.
Delicately, they flutter up around and skyward,
And I watch
magically
transfixed
as faeries
descend down
again from up above
~Adapted poem by Ruby Watson

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The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.
~Joyce Kilmer

Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. ~Deuteronomy 32:2  ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

881. White is not a mere absence of color; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. ~G. K. Chesterton

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The breeze at dawn has
secrets to tell you. Don’t
go back to sleep.
~Rumi

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Yahweh’s divine light is woven throughout the entirety of Creation’s multicolored tapestry. Among a host of other things, it can be seen in the soft radiance of a chromatic dawn “unveiling the whole face of nature,” in the blazing streaks of a brilliantly hued sunset at day’s end, in the white glow of the moon illuminating the night, and in an exquisite blossom that mimics the luminous lights of the heavenly orbs. But what does all that have to do with the breeze telling secrets at dawn, one might ask? The answer, my friend, is “blowing in the wind” as always. And it’s really no secret at all, for the breeze knows, as do I, that the Ancient of Days yet walks among us and is still in control of all that He has made.

Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Whose hands have gathered up the wind? Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is the name of his Son? Surely you know! ~Proverbs 30:4 ✝

**This white moonflower only blooms at night, but when I get up early in the morning I can capture its glory before in perishes in the bright light of day.