Red and Blue

Emma Cheves Wilkins , an artist from Georgia who lived from 1870-1956 is someone I have just discovered.   You may read about her by clicking on her name.  I loved this red and blue in the painting above which is entitled,  "Red Shoes, Blue Vase, Glass and Carnations".   I love it!

Remember that I told you that the Sunflower Festival was cancelled? Instead of planting sunflowers, they planted poppies and had an event for Mother's Day called "Mommies and Poppies".  I visited there during the weekend (it is close to my Dad's house) and you know I had to take a few photos!

 

For Memorial Day, I liked that Daddy had these petunias on his porch. The purple photographs as blue, so they look red, white and blue!

 

 

 

 

For Memorial Day, my friend Mary invited me over for lunch.  She had deep red roses on the table from her own flower garden and beautiful blue hydrangeas in a pot in her dining room.  The red on the table and the blue beside her table was just perfect!  Color is very important to me. Sometimes certain combinations of color come to me in patterns and I just go with it and appreciate the beauty.  Hope you can follow my line of thinking!  Have a colorful weekend everyone!

Red Poppy!

 

Blue Hydrangea...this one is from last year!

 

Adele At The Royal Albert Hall-JOY

Adele is one popular artist that I actually like.  Not only does she have an amazing voice but she is also an incredible songwriter!   Adele had a baby and has been taking care of her son, so she has been out of the limelight for a while.   I found a video that is from her concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London from 2011.  I love that she shows how thrilled she is to be performing at the Royal Albert Hall, "a dream come true".  The absolute joy that she shows in her music is very refreshing.  Hope you ENJOY this video as much as I do.

My dream is to attend a concert in England and to be able to sing along with the crowd!  They are such wonderful singers!  I think I would love to go to a football game and sing along with those guys too.  You should see me at a baseball game here, I always sing along with the National Anthem and also, "Take me Out To The Ballgame"!

 

 

 

 

 

Last August, I actually skipped along this boardwalk at Panola Mountain when it first opened!  Honestly, I wonder how many adult women would think to do that?  Also, do kids even know how to skip anymore? I was surprised I could remember how to do it! (Richard and I were the only ones there so there was no one around to see, I didn't know that Richard snapped this photo...and I have waited until now to share it with you!)

Do you think you could go outside and skip? Go on, I dare you!  (But don't do it if you are physically unable, you don't want me to feel guilt, do you?!)  JOY to you!

 

 

Paul McCartney - Love You Forever And FOREVER

Will you be interested in some Raspberry Pie? 
  

"I Will"

Paul McCartney was taken ill in Japan and had to cancel his tours there.  It seems that he is doing better now, thank goodness!  Paul, you are getting older now and I KNOW you love making your music but please, take care of yourself, okay? You know I will love you forever and forever.
I really like this video of young people singing "I Will", it has kept me humming this tune all week, and a very good tune it is by Sir Paul McCartney!  In my early blogging days, one of my followers told me that she had actually MET Paul McCartney at a train station but she did not recognize him but he was a real gentleman. Also, Richard's cousin's husband (got that?) did some work for Sir Paul and he was completely BOWLED over by his charm!  He brought the men out cups of tea and sat down with them! I ask you, isn't that wonderful?  Now, are all of you going to have a good weekend?  I WILL!!  (And it is a long weekend in the USA, it is a holiday on Monday, Memorial Day, a special day of Remembrance.)

Vietnam

Very often I will read something on the BBC that I find very moving and I want to share it with you.
Recently, there was a story of an American man who had fathered a son in Vietnam and of his efforts to find him.  It was a sad story but one that I hope will have a happy ending for all involved.  I hope that you will read the story, I have a link to it here.

 Pearl S. Buck was an American author who won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel, "The Good Earth".  She founded Welcome House, the first international, inter-racial adoption agency. (And I knew of Pearl Buck's work with this, but I just read that James Michener and Oscar Hammerstein and his wife, Dorothy were also involved in the founding of this agency.  I am glad to know this since I love the books of James Michener and the wonderful lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.)This developed further into Pearl S. Buck International.  Long before it was considered fashionable or politically safe to do so, Buck challenged the American public by raising consciousness on topics such as racism, sex discrimination and the plight of the thousands of babies born to Asian women left behind and unwanted wherever American soldiers were based in Asia. During her life Buck combined the multiple careers of wife, mother, author, editor and political activist. (Wikipedia)
Pearl S. Buck is one woman that I truly admire.

 We have a Veteran's Memorial Park right here in Rockdale County called "The Walk of Heroes" and the idea came from a World War II vet who wanted to honor the veterans of Vietnam since he felt that they did not get the respect that they deserved.  (The Memorial is for ALL veterans, but the idea began with wanting to honor Vietnam vets.) Just recently, this World War II veteran was awarded the French Legion of Honor for his time in France during the liberation!  His name is Bud Sosebee and you may read about him from our local newspaper, The Rockdale Citizen, just here. (I am pleased to tell you that I have met Mr. Sosebee several times and he is just as charming and interesting as he comes across in this article.)

I have written about the book "Love And Duty" by Ben and Anne Purcell.  Col. Purcell was imprisoned in Vietnam for 5 1/2 years and his wife was left to rear five children, while working hard to make the US government understand the plight of those imprisoned in Vietnam.  Col. Purcell died last year.  I am glad that I was able to meet him and shake his hand. It was an honor.

 

NO Sunflower Festival This Year!

The Sunflower Festival in Rutledge, Georgia has been CANCELLED for 2014. (It is usually near the 4th of July weekend.)  It looks as if it will be back in 2015, so I will just have to wait until then!

 

 

 

On a positive note, I have a photo of Anne Cruz, the organist at our church!  She is fantastic! I have heard our same hymns on YouTube and I always notice that very often, the songs are either too fast or too slow.  Anne gets them JUST RIGHT!  I found a video of one of the songs we did this past Sunday, "Christ Is Made The Sure Foundation".  Looks like this video is from a choir from England.  Hope you will like it.

(And THIS is one that is also just right in its speed, and it is sung beautifully.)

 

 

 

 

St. Simon's Church- Conyers, Georgia.  (See the rocks!)

Laura Hillenbrand - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome -have you ever heard of it?  If you click on that link, it will take you to a guest post on Jim's blog, Ocean Breezes.  A young woman by the name of Hayley Eszti has this debilitating disease which has no known cause or cure.  Please read her story.  The more people are aware of this disease, the closer we may be of finding a cure, and in the meantime have better understanding for those suffering from it.

Laura Hillenbrand, the author of "Seabiscuit" and "Unbroken" suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  She wrote about her illness in such a moving way in the magazine The New Yorker that it won the 2004 National Magazine Award. You may read that article here.  You may find more information about Laura Hillenbrand and her books at her website just here.   I was thrilled and honored to have a received a personal note from   Louis Zamperini   telling me that Laura Hillenbrand was writing a book about him ("Unbroken").    Because of her illness, it took almost nine years for her to finish the book.  Louis Zamperini thinks so much of the courage that Ms. Hillenbrand shows in fighting her illness that he gave her one of his Purple Hearts.
  Hayley, I received this get-well card from a sweet friend when I was not well, and I loved it so much, I am sharing it here with you...it is a hand-made card from Scotland and it is supposed to represent "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down."  Hope you will like this card and this post!  God bless you.  
Love,
Kay

Arabia Mountain-Sundrops, Sparkleberry and Spiderwort!

 

Arabia Mountain on May 11, 2014. 

 The Tradescantia (spiderwort) is still blooming! The red diamorpha has now gone to a deep burgundy color and if left alone,  will fade to gray and will then seed themselves for another blooming for next year.  That is why it is so very important to NOT step into any of the solution pits on Arabia Mountain.  We want to see the red diamorpha again! 

Richard and I were very happy to see these flowers! They are called Southern Sundrops and they were blooming all over the mountain. Their botanical name is Oenotherea fruticosa.  (ee-NOTH-eh-ruh)   and they are simply gorgeous. (They are in the evening primrose family...so Richard and I really call them "evening primroses" when we see them!)  The buds are orange, but they bloom into this creamy yellow four petaled- loveliness! 

 

 

Look at the photo above.  Do you see how the flowers are similar yet it is a different flower?  Can anyone tell me about this? The stalk was much thicker and the flowers reminded me very much of a geranium. (Could it be some kind of hybrid?)  Oh! And before I forget to tell you this...Kristi from her blog,Kristi from the Western Reserve  told me that bees love blue flowers.  I looked this up and the amazing thing, they do love blue but also, they see yellow flowers as if they are blue!  Don't ask me how, I am just telling you what I read!  Now, don't forget, look at that flower just above and let me know what you think it is!

With all this beauty on the mountain, there were also the yellow flowers just beginning to bloom on the prickly pear cactus, some of the white flowers of the sandwort  and all over the mountain, the beautiful perfectly- named Sparkleberry was blooming!

These bushes look as if they are dead in the winter, but look how they come back to life!  These are even on the very top of Arabia Mountain.  The blooms are like small white bells and they have a wonderful sweet fragrance.

Just we were leaving the mountain, we saw another blooming tree...

We don't know the name...but it smelled so sweet.

No matter what it is called, I love it just as I love all the blooms on Arabia Mountain.

Nature Garden At Stone Mountain Park

 

 

The sky looked ominous on Saturday but I had signed up for a Wildflower/Photography Walk at Stone Mountain.  Do you think the threat of a little rain will keep me from my wildflowers? NEVER!

See the heart?



Mountain Laurel

 

The Harold Cox Nature Trail at Stone Mountain is well worth a visit.  Make sure you have your camera with you!

• Magnolia macrophylla, the bigleaf magnolia, is a deciduous magnolia native to the southeastern United States and eastern Mexico. This species boasts the largest simple leaf and single flower of any native plant in North America.    from Wikipedia.

  Perhaps this magnolia is found elsewhere in Georgia but I have only seen it at Stone Mountain.  To walk beneath these giant leaves is like being in a tropical forest.

 



 

See the lion's face?

 

 

 

 

Spiderwort, you should know this from our photos from Arabia Mountain, except we like to call it Tradescantia.

There were so many plants and trees that had labels with them, this was most exciting for me to see!  It has taken me a while sometimes to identify the plants and flowers that I have seen on Arabia Mountain.  Many of the same are at Stone Mountain.

 

 

 

My husband and I only have a small point and shoot camera but I am amazed that some of the photos that HE can get!  I took all these photos except for the cloud one at the top, Richard took that before he went in to work on that day!

 

The wild columbine would not hold still in the Nature Garden but I found some with the Tradescantia just beside a parking lot as I was leaving the park, so I just had to stop and take a few more pictures.

 

Oh, but before I left, I had to have some of the bottled water that I had brought along (we had been walking and taking photos for two hours!) so I went to the Grist Mill and enjoyed the view. 

And you might be wondering, did it ever rain?  NO! It did not!

 

Now, Richard WAS with me one the following day when we visited ARABIA MOUNTAIN.  Wait until I show you those photos, they are breathtaking! 

 

 

 

For Gino Bartali/Miep Gies And All Heroes

There is a fantastic piece on the BBC about an Italian biker from World War II, did you see it?  You may read it here.  Gino Bartali: The Cyclist Who Saved Jews In wartime Italy. The title alone tells you his story but words are hard to convey the courage of what he did. (He acted as a courier, carrying photographs and identity documents but when stopped, he said that his bike could not be touched as it was carefully calibrated for weight! As he was training for the Tour de France, he got away with it!)  I wonder if we can truly appreciate those who helped when it would have been a death sentence to have been found out?  Much like Miep Gies, who helped Anne Frank and her family in hiding in Amsterdam, it is something that we should think about, remember and honor.

For the countries who were occupied during World War II, I can only say that the difficulties that they endured are just very hard for me to imagine.  I am reading a book just now, which is set in Norway, and I am FILLED with admiration for the Norwegian people.  I just read that this book was made into a movie in 1958 and it was voted the most beloved movie in all of Norway.  I will tell you about this book very soon, but for now, I can tell you that it is a book that very often makes me put my hand over my heart in awe and respect.

Please read that article about Gino Bartali on the BBC.  These true stories are ones that we should know about and share with all that we know- for Gino Bartali, Miep Gies and for all the heroes, known and unknown

The photo above is of Eastbourne in England which is on the southeast coast of England.  This is so very close to France! The Germans bombed England heavily and there was great loss of life but Great Britain was never occupied, except for the Channel Islands.  (There was a great TV series about the Channel Islands in World War 2,  I can't remember the name of it, it starred Hugh Bonneville, the same star from Downton Abbey, if you ever see it repeated, make sure you watch it.)

Robin's Egg Shawl/Augustus Egg

Isn't this a pretty shawl on the cover of this crochet magazine? It was designed and made by Sue at  Mr. Micawber's Recipe for Happiness one of my sweet blogging friends. (She had three other designs in the same magazine, she is wonderfully talented!)   I left a comment on her post and told her how much I liked it.  GUESS WHAT?!  Sue sent me an email and asked if I would like to have this shawl.  What? Would I?  Sue is just great, she promptly packaged it up and I received it this week.  And it looks better on me than it does on this cute young blonde chick! HA!

 

It is just a trick of the camera, it really does look better on me! It is so soft, and the color is exquisite...it looks pale green, but it is more of a robin's egg blue, it's gorgeous!

Now, on the same day that I received this beautiful shawl, Sue had an accident on her bike, she was hit by a car!  She is going to be okay, but still, she was hit by a car!   In Sue's honor, I have a photo here from England, it is The Lamb, a pub that Charles Dickens visited when he was in Eastbourne. He visited there during the 1830's as a guest of the Victorian artist with the delightful name of Augustus Egg.  Now, I know a true Anglophile like Sue will love that name, and I should think that all of you might like it too whether or not you are crazy about all things English like me (and Sue!)

 

The Travelling Companions by Augustus Egg - 1862

Charles Dickens described Egg as a "dear gentle little fellow," "always sweet-tempered, humorous, conscientious, thoroughly good, and thoroughly beloved"/  In other words,  a good egg! 

Now Sue, YOU are also a  good egg, but remember the famous story about the egg that we all know about...HUMPTY DUMPTY, so be careful on that bike now, you hear! (Of course, I know you certainly CANNOT help that someone driving a car came up behind you and hit you, it is just that I thought of Humpty Dumpty and couldn't resist the egg connection...hope you understand my thinking, dear Sue!)

Oh! Just one more thing about EGGS if you can stand it...my Dad has chickens but they have not been laying lately.  Just before he left on a trip recently, he discovered that one of his hens had laid some eggs that he had not seen, and he now has eleven baby chicks!

Blue Flowers/Singing The Blues

Dutch Irises in our own front garden.

 

 



Tradescantia at Arabia Mountain

Bachelor Button, this flower grows beside the railroad tracks on the way to Stone Mountain! image from Wikipedia.

 



 

Forget me nots underneath apple tree in England!

 Hey I hope you know that no one leaves this place without singing the blues!  I have a clip here from one of our favorite family movies, "Adventures In Babysitting".  (Our son saw the edited version when he was very young.)  Like another movie that we all loved, "Blues Brothers", I'm glad that real musicians were used so that we have these performers that we can enjoy.  The guitarist here, Albert Collins, passed away in 1993.