Category Archives: Notes

Happy birthday Joe-man…

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My youngest grandson’s 14th was today so we left Texas yesterday morning and arrived at our daughter’s home here in Colorado last night. So I’ve been posting from my phone all day yesterday and again today. But since I don’t get emails on my phone, I have no way other than the reader to see and read your posts. And sadly for some reason the reader on my phone doesn’t always have all of your posts. Nor can I make comments on posts in the reader on my phone. So until I get back home and back on my computer on Thursday I’ll just have to make the best of a limiting situation. In the meantime I can and will continue to read and answer your comments on my posts and check out as many of yours as I can find in the reader. Love, Natalie

**Image found on Pinterest

1268. My soul is smitten with wonderment, spellbound, and bedazzled by the glorious serenade of the rhythm of life. ~Isabella Rose at: https://isabellarosephotography.net

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The art of being happy lies in the power of
extracting happiness from common things.
~Henry Ward Beecher

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I too am “smitten with wonderment,” not only by what we deem as extraordinary but also by ordinary things. What is common in Creation anyway? To me it’s all miraculous so I live pretty “muchly” in a constant state of smittenness as well as in one in which I am spellbound and bedazzled by things common and uncommon. Now before somebody points out the obvious that there are also things bad and ugly and heartbreaking in this world, let me just go ahead and agree that it’s true. But aren’t we all given opportunities to change some of that? And that doesn’t change the fact that there is a world out there which has always been and still is overflowing with things about which one can be smitten. For example, when I started writing this I wondered what “wowing” kind of photo I might find in my archives to go along with the post, but before I got very far into my search I found this photo of a Zinnia and knew that it was the one I wanted to use even though most gardeners would call a Zinnia just a plain old, ordinary flower, hardly comparable with something more exquisite. But just look at the color and the petals that resemble a frilly, ballerina’s skirt. And also it’s one of those photographs in which unexpected background elements add to the beauty with backlighting that creates a kind of charming, dramatic mystique! And surely most everyone remembers as a child squealing with delight, as in being smitten, with the simplest of finds, and probably more than few of us even remember picking some plain old, common flowers as a treasure to take to our mothers or grandmothers.

It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. ~Daniel 4:2  ✝

1267. The air is different today; the wind sings with a new tone sighing of changes coming as barbarous summer dies… ~Edited and adapted line by Rhawk

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“I grow old, I grow old,”
the garden says.
It’s nearly October.
~Robert Finch

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The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook,

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days were here…
~Adapted part of a poem
by Helen Hunt Jackson

All things must come to an end and I can’t say I’m sorry to see summer finally go! We’ve had some lovely cool mornings of late and warm, honeyed afternoons, not hot but warm, and that is such a relief! I pray that as we welcome October tomorrow, this is the way we’ll continue be blessed in the coming days. And I pray also that my split, milkweed seed pods will attract a migrating monarch butterfly or two, that is if there are any of them left as they have been and are endanger of extinction due to merciless, habitat destruction.

Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end. ~ Psalm 119:33 ✝

To experience the Spirit…

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den169's avatarMerging Traffic

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To experience the Spirit
living in and through you
you need not accrue anything
but a willingness
to let go of everything.

© 2016 Dennis Ference

My new book of original inspirational verses, From the Water’s Edge, is now available from https://www.createspace.com/6040109, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530558018 and Kindle eBooks at Amazon. Also available at Barnes and Noble and other booksellers.

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1266. Man is never out of range of surprises! ~Mehmet Murat ildan

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Life is so full of unpredictable
beauty and strange surprises.
~Mark Oliver Everett

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I’m not a professional photographer, but over the years I have and still do take some pretty good photos. However, when I go out on a photo shoot, I’m so focused on the object I’m trying to capture that things often appear in the background that I didn’t see or anticipate. Most of the time it means I have to toss those photos out because something has marred their beauty, but every now and again the unexpected surprise does create a thing of beauty. Such is what happened this morning while I was trying to capture morning glory images. It was very early and a few times my flash popped up, and I don’t really like to take close-up photos in nature with a flash because I find that it distorts the color and in others, the background remains too dark. Then when I edit them and try to lighten the dark background up, bad effects occur on the object(s) in the foreground. But this one above, I really liked because the flash picked up the adjacent neighbor’s pool slide and other objects around his pool that together with the two morning glories created what I think is a nicely colorful vignette.

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This second one was taken several years ago at an indoor rodeo. The barrel racer I was trying to capture was riding extremely fast of course and alongside a railing decorated with American flags which in the camera’s eye created wavy bands of red, white, and blue along with yellow bands from the artificial lighting as well as double visions of her. My daughter and I loved this one so much that as a gift to her I’ve had it blown up and created into what looks like a painting. Surprises like what’s in these 2 photos and other ones I’ve taken are the reasons I’m so passionate about taking photographs and gardening. And I’m fairly sure that I am not the only one surprised and intrigued by strange and unexpected sights.

So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” ~Exodus 3:3  ✝

1265. The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. ~Flora Whittemore

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The fact that I’ve been unhappily dealing with an intense, killer migraine since 4 AM this morning has reminded me of an incident that happened years ago. It was a day when I had been grappling with physical pain like I’ve had to do off and on throughout my adult life, and I was feeling quite sorry for myself even grumbling inwardly about it. So when it was suggested that we go to a movie which would include a long walk to get to a downtown theater, I wasn’t particularly interested in going. But I was eventually talked into it, and because I am slower these days, I was trailing along somewhat behind the others. As we rounded the last corner I almost bumped into a homeless man of color with no legs who sitting on the sidewalk in a wheelchair. His head was down but all of a sudden he looked up and smiled the most engaging, warm smile, looked straight into my eyes, and said, “God bless you!” I replied in kind but perhaps without the same warmth and walked on to catch up with the others After mulling it over I knew for certain it was no accident that the man was there at that exact moment in time for a Divine reason. So I glanced back with thoughts of running back and saying thank you as we entered the theater, but he was gone. Nevertheless, in our brief encounter this nameless, homeless disabled man had driven a clear message straight into my heart–I had a home, I had legs, I was not confined to a wheelchair nor was I having to endure hard days and nights living on the streets and going hungry. And so if he could ask God to bless me when the differences between our circumstances were so vasrly different, then it was time for me to rise above my trials and do the same.

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ~1 John 4:12  ✝

**Top image by LilAS and LOlAS found on Facebook; text box created and written by Natalie; collage by Natalie