Snakes Alive and Other Icky Things – May Edition

I can’t believe we are almost through June already! Outside it’s hot and humid. The air is filled with the humming of air conditioners and the buzzing of the Cicadas. And here in southeast Texas we are bracing for more rain and possible flooding as the first of the gulf storms head toward land. May was

Wishes

I wish I could see inside her.mind. I wish I could see the places where the stories start and stop and then move along into other conversation – smoothly, with the natural flow of people sharing their lives. I wish I could see where that one story keeps getting stuck, playing over and over, and

Bird Stories

I recently installed the Merlin app on my phone and I have quickly become obsessed with it. What the app does is to allow you to record the birds in your area and then it identifies which birds they are by their songs and birdcalls as it’s recording. I have been quite surprised by the

The Hard Things

July 2023 My dad is in the process of dying. That is a hard thing. It’s hard to know it. It’s hard to think about it and it’s hard to try to process it. My dad is 90 and has kidney failure. This is not a recent diagnosis. About 16 years ago he was told,

To Buy, or Not to Buy

I’ve been pondering lately about whether or not to give myself the gift of a new coffee maker.  Do I need a new coffee maker? No. Not really. The one currently taking up space on my kitchen counter does, in fact, brew coffee quite faithfully.  But…..it does not keep said coffee hot after the brewing

Writer’s Prompt 8/20/23

What do you love about where you live? I live in a rural place, where nighttime skies are dark, and no street lights shine. Where I can see the sparkling stars, in weather fair, above these lofty pines.When clouds roll in, storms unleashed, we gather close in candle’s light.We watch the tree limbs bend and

Writer’s Prompt 8/29/23

What TV shows did you watch as a kid? When I was a kid, the world basically had 3 channels to watch. Kids were the remote controls who manually turned the dial to change the channel and once or twice a year, dad might have to go up to the roof to turn the big

Writer’s Prompt 8/24/23

Where did your name come from? In my family, there has been a tradition of naming children after our antecedents. Newborns given names of grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts, uncles and the like. My mother, for example, was named for both of her grandmothers, Grace and Celeste (Celestina). My father was named for his grandfather and

Writer’s Prompt 8/22/23

What are your top ten favorite movies? You can map your life through your favorite movies and no two people’s maps will be the same. Mary Schmich The top ten on my movie map:

Tale of the Red Hibiscus

Recently, I wrote about how this Texas summer heat wave, Mother Nature and a lack of rain have caused my yard to be covered in fall leaves. But what my poor Hibiscus has been through, may be even worse. Way back in late February, I purchased a bloom filled, red Hibiscus from my local Home