Tag: summer

Posted in art, authors, birds, book, Christine Valters Paintner, Family, health, monks, Physical, prayer, quote, season, Spiritual, summer, weather, write, writer

What’s Your Summer Story?

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I joined a summer book club called Summer Art Club. I found the group through Substack. A small group of creatives meet together for an hour on Sunday evening via Zoom for a 12-week journey. We are reading The Artist’s Rule by Christine Valters Paintner. It’s about nurturing your creative soul with monastic wisdom. Thus far I really enjoyed the chapter that covers the sacred rhythms and the seven traditional praying hours for creative renewal. I love the nuggets of pure gold in this book as well as the sharing with this group of women.

“I want to live my life in healing rhythms that honor the limits of my body, the pleasures of rest, and the delights of play.” ~ Christine Valters Paintner

As I look out the atelier’s front window, I see the fat little hummingbirds make repeat returns to the two front yard feeders for more sugar water. My husband is trying to keep up with these hungry hummers. The children’s book Little Green by Keith Baker explains the repetitive nature of these little birds. In Missouri the ruby-throated hummingbirds come to us late spring and fatten up over the warmer months before leaving us in October. Their homes are in the warmer climates. Migration with the warm weather is in their nature, part of their story.

What’s your summer story? Are you zipping along with your days minding your own business, attending to your job duties, family matters, vacation, or your health? Are you in status quo or planning for or making a big change in your life? Me, well, two or three mornings a week I am zipping along with culinary work at the local senior centers closest to my home. With my writing I take on new contests, challenges, and projects. These fill my afternoons and some evenings. One of my recipes is featured in the July issue eMerge Magazine. A poem of mine is the 2nd place winner in a contest with the local writers’ group, Saturday Writers. I am writing short articles for The Hope*Writers magazine.

Family is a part of my husband and I’s everyday life in one fashion or another. A long weekend vacation is in the plans for late August. After these steamy humid days, the destination will need to be for someplace cooler. I am hoping to get to a lake soon, even though it will not be my favorite place which is Island Lake in Minnesota. We keep hoping to return to this northern haven from my childhood. Meantime, my kinky hair gets clipped up off my neck, and sundresses and thongs are my summer attire.

In regard to my health, I am trying to make positive changes. Eating healthier with loads of vegetables. I have been lacking regular cardio exercise for some time. I get weightlifting in with the heavy commercial pans filled with food enough for 100 – 130 people. I do stretches with an online program. But when I was at my healthiest in my adult years, I went swimming at least two days a week. This was 15 – 18 years ago. So, I have returned to the pool this month. I aim to keep this part of my weekly routine at least two days a week until the end of time, my time that is. I cannot afford not to. I only have this life to live. I am praying for long healthy days and years ahead.

Posted in change, God, life, listen, live, Mental, mind, old, Physical, purpose, quote, rain, renew, scripture, season, spirit, Spiritual, truth, warm, well, words

Cast Aside The Old Self

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

You were taught to cast aside the old self of your former way of life that had been corrupted by its captivating desires. You are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self created in God’s image, in the way of uprightness and holiness that belong to the truth.

~ Ephesians 4:22 – 24 ~

Summer had lingered in the plush plants for many a days as it has been unseasonably warm. But now it is finally yielding to Autumn. The hummingbirds have not visited the feeder in well over a week. The sparrows and finches are feeding more often. The blooms yield to berries. I feel the weather is finally changing with the brisk air after the colder rains. Bare feet get covered with my weathered leather moccasins rather than strappy sandals. My denim poncho is needed this evening, so I clothed myself to keep warm. Just as I clothed myself for protection from the cold, so I clothe myself with God’s image as the above scripture tells me.

God’s Words are promises to me, and to you as well. Post-retirement from my full-time career has given me more time to think. I have had days to reflect on where I have been, where I am now, and where I want to go. The mind can go places like self-doubt and questioning God’s purposes. God is faithful with His Word and I am confronted with this scripture Ephesians 4:22 – 24, to renew in the spirit of my mind and dress myself in God’s image which is the Truth. Anything else is a lie. God’s word mentions these words “clothe yourselves” several times. This will be the focus of my subject bible study this autumn season going into winter.

Posted in authors, blessings, book, change, children, community, Crescent Dragonwagon, daughter, Family, feelings, God, grandchild, granddaughter, happy, house, husband, job, People, silence, solitude, walk, write, writer

New Pace And Space

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I have taken on a new opportunity this summer, and not just for this summer. On June 1 I retired from my full-time HR position in order to slow my pace down. I have more time for the activities I love like gardening, cooking, antiquing, and writing. Even with these fun hobbies, I am learning to pace myself so I get enough sleep, exercise, and make healthier food choices and proper time to consume. For additional income I am teaching culinary classes part-time with kids’ 1/2-day camps this summer. Come the fall semester, I will teach culinary classes 2 evenings a week to kids as well as adults.

More time for family is the another reason to slow my pace down. My husband and I already spent a weekend at the lake with his three children, spouses and three grandchildren. Next weekend I will be opening a booth in an antique mall with my daughters and granddaughters. But this week, is time for myself. I signed up for a writing residency at the Writing Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I learned of this place over 15 years ago. This place has been in existence for 20 years. I could almost pinch myself, to check if it is real. I am actually staying at the Dairy Hollow house made famous by author, Crescent Dragonwagon. I am taking a week’s residency in the comfortable culinary suite creating some recipes to share in a book of short stories with a culinary theme. My first book. See what becomes of this week. It has been productive so far.

I take casual walks in this enchanted town of Victorian wrap-around porches, bungalows with inviting archways, crevices filled with wildflowers, groves of trees and moss-covered cliffs laced throughout the town. I do some porch sitting, watching the hummingbirds and song birds feed. While on the front porch yesterday afternoon sipping iced peppermint herbal tea a doe and her fawn meandered between the two residency buildings. Later this afternoon I hear the readings of one of my fellow writers at the Carnegie Library a few short blocks away. I will make it to the farmer’s market and a couple of local shops tomorrow morning before returning to the laptop for my story writing and making a peach-blueberry slump. Visits with the other writing residents have been at dinner time. We sit and dine for an hour at a long table filled with delightful foods prepared by an excellent cook from the Old World. Yes, life is good. I feel God’s blessings.