As a child, John Lennon remembered his mother singing a song to him from the Walt Disney film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." The song was "I'm Wishing" and it begins with those words: "Do you want to know a secret, do you promise not to tell?" Years later, he used those words in the Beatles hit song" Do You Want To Know A Secret". Songwriters! I never tire of thinking of how they get their ideas! (I don't know what made me think of this today. I might have told you this before but I still find it interesting.)
Thank you for all of your kind comments on my Dad's passing. I will miss him so much. My Dad really loved to talk on his cell phone and I really enjoyed talking with him. He knew he could call me anytime and it was always a good conversation. Always.
Daddy loved country music. I have told you before that with money from his very first job he bought a radio. MUSIC! Thank you, Daddy, for giving me a love of music too!
"I Want To Stroll Over Heaven With You" was sung at my grandmother's funeral. (My Dad's mother). So, it is fitting that it will be sung at our Dad's funeral. I have written of "my" Dad but of course, I have brothers and sisters. Please pray for us all to be strong during this time. Not only that, but I have received love from all of his extended family...the relatives from my mother's side and also from his many friends.
On New Year's Day, my Dad made a beautiful pan of biscuits and carefully wrapped them up for our son, Christopher. Just look at them. I wish I could make every one of you this pan of biscuits. Light and fluffy, I cannot describe the taste of them. Perfection, that is how our son describes them.
I made the observation yesterday that I think I will just take a giant box of tissues and make it into a necklace and wear it around my neck. See, Daddy, even in grief, I can try to make people laugh! I got that from you. Thanks for all the laughter. Thank you for everything.
My Daddy passed away peacefully yesterday. Looking at this blog, I hadn't realized how many times I have shared stories of him and pictures of him also. If you type "Daddy" into the search engine at the side of my blog, you will see what I mean. Reading those posts, I think that my great love shows for him. I hope he knew it too. He really loved the film, "O Brother, Where Art Thou". I have a song for you here. Hope you like it.
That is a photo of my Dad on the left with his nephew, Edward. In one of my posts, I wrote of my Dad's love of life or "joie de vivre.". A picture really is worth a thousand words.
For my header photo just now, I have a bright yellow sunflower from a summer from years ago...isn't it nice to see that sunny color? If you want more yellow, I got you covered!
Daffodils! These are blooming at the Monastery now, this photo was from yesterday, Feb. 3rd. Now, I have told you this before, but it does bear repeating...daffodils are not native to the USA. They were planted by the early English settlers and we have had them in this country since that time. This is confusing because you will see them sometimes in the woods here...but that means that the bulbs were planted once around an old home. (The settlers must have been homesick a bit, they also called the bird with a bit of an orange breast, a "robin" and it looks nothing like the robin in England! That is why we have the "American" robin and the "European" robin, two very different birds.) Speaking of birds, we also saw a flock of cedar waxwings on the tall tulip poplars in front of the Monastery. (Looking very yellow in the sun!) They were fluttering in and out of the treetops, eating the seeds. Hardly anyone else looked up and admired them. Of course, we did! Cedar waxwings are only winter visitors to Georgia. You know that birds fly south for the winter in this country but some don't fly very far to the south. The cedar waxwing, for instance, must think that Georgia is far enough! How nice that we get to see this handsome bird! If you want to see a great picture, you may see it just here! There, if you popped over to look at that, didn't I tell you? That is SUCH a gorgeous bird! Guess what, you almost always see these birds in a flock and they are very sociable. They will line up on a branch and pass berries along to each other. Nice to think of that, isn't it? (If you want to know more about the history of daffodils, I have a link for you here. Even though the daffodil has been on the British Isles for centuries, it was originally brought there by the Roman army from Southern Europe. It was naturalized in Northern and western Europe. We are told in this article that "Daffodil" comes from affo dyle which means "that which comes early". That sounds interesting but reading further I wonder if that is true about that translation. Look here. Regardless, the original daffodil came from Southern Europe. ) Oh dear, I always have so much I want to post about and very little time! Here, I have a song for you..it was at the very end of the "Dickensian" show that I liked so much. Did you see it? It was shown in December here, I think. Richard recorded it for me. I really liked it. "I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls" is the name of the song. Enya did this song on a record but her version is so sad. I thought the actress, the one who played "Nancy" did a great job of singing this, not like a professional singer, but you know, like a real person, if you see what I mean. It is sung with such hope. And all those characters from the books by Charles Dickens, such an interesting idea to have their lives all intermingle...I loved watching this show, it was very well done.
