寒い雨
ポタポタ降るや
突然秋
Cold rain
Falling drop by drop –
Suddenly it’s fall.
It’s fall. And it’s raining – cats and dogs, actually. The sky is dark grey, the trees are all soggy and brownish, and everything is dripping. How did we get here? Wasn’t I swimming in the pool under a blue sky only a few days ago? Well actually – weeks ago.
Time seems to fly by without a thought to the upheaval and inconvenience it brings to others. I was getting comfortable with summer; my schedule suited me just fine, and I finally got down to starting my summer reading. And then – poof! – summer’s done, it’s time for school and work and rain. Usually the changing of the seasons is a gentle turning; this year fall seemed to slap me in the face with a wet leaf.
But in retrospect, or rather introspect, I see that I let myself get spoiled by the summer and am complaining when I really have no right to. God knows best; who am I to moan about the changing of the seasons? 😉 I mean, honestly, it could be worse – I could be living in Siberia! (Or in jail in Siberia!) Or a thousand other undesirable places! And yet, I live here, in a warm, dry home with my family. I think it’s time that I stop decrying the rainy, dark, yucky weather and start counting my blessings! And those I have in abundance, gracias a Dios. 🙂
So here, I’m going to list 10 of the many, many blessings that I have, and I encourage anyone who reads this to do the same! 🙂 it never hurts to be thankful.
1. I am alive. this is always a good thing 😉
2. I am sheltered and protected.
3. I am loved. I hope I never take for granted the love of my family, friends, and significant other 🙂
4. I have a job.
5. I have food that I am able to eat.This is very important to me!
6. I have an imagination.
7. I have a sweet pug dog. 🐶
8. I lots of material blessings. clothes, electronics, etc
9. I can read and write.
10. I have a glorious future and a certain destiny in Jesus 😀
Wow!! I am really blessed!
And here’s to a thankful fall!
😉
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything! I’ve started typing more than once, but it just didn’t feel right. What have I been up to, you might ask? Just summer things and getting ready for fall. I’ve been up to Canada for vacation and visited all my old childhood haunts on Bowen Island. I’ve spent time with my wonderful boyfriend and enjoyed the sun and the lazy days of summer.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the sun looking out over the dried grass in the field behind our house, and I wrote this:
Sometimes I don’t know what to write. Looking around me at tiny clovers in the green grass, white cloud-ships in the sky, and little insects flying in the breeze, I yearn to write about it all – to distill all this August glory into a few golden words of wisdom.
But what do I know of wisdom?
The ancients have gazed upon the floating clouds, the buzzing bees, and the sparkling sun with as much wonder and awe as I have. It doesn’t seem to matter that I know how a cloud is formed or that they thought the world was flat. The changing of the seasons comes with as much magic and mystery as it ever did.
Sometimes I like to use exotic words and musical phrases to cloud my meaning and entertain my readers with the sounds of things. But at other times it is best to simply say what I mean and use simple words and clarity.
But it’s hard to be clear when your mind runs from one thought to the next to the next to the next like the path of a bumble bee on a rose bush. I know my metaphors are tired and my similes strained, but then again, there is nothing new under the sun. Solomon sat and watched those trees turn from green to orange to burnt red. I know it. And he saw the clouds float along in the autumn breeze, their edges shifting like smoke. And when the sun hid behind a cloud and the breeze cooled his skin, he paused and looked out across the fields of grass and wheat – ripe and golden in the sunlight. I know it. And even in his palace of splendor, gilded in gold, he knew it.
Sometimes I don’t know what to write, but – if I sit and pause and breathe in the Douglas firs and the meadow grasses, I remember that they didn’t know either. No one truly knows what to write. They simply do.
And so shall I.
Molly Noss
Sometimes I just have to write; it won’t let me do anything else until I’ve written out what is in my head. Today as I was sitting on the back porch, this poem was just begging to be written. So I wrote it. Enjoy 🙂
August
The leaves are now brown
On my favorite maple tree.
I can feel August in the grass
And in the air.
August blows amid the trees
– rustle, rustle, brown stalks –
The corn stands perennial,
like all the by-gone
ones.
And those who lie in grassy graveyards,
under crumbled headstones
And lichen,
Once stood on dusty August
and watched the clouds –
Blowing, moving, floating by.
Warm warm cool.
The warm brown grass
is tired.
Rustling vines on the porch
with brown leaves –
They are ready.
The wind tells them it is time.
An Indian summer glows
in the sunset colors
of a rose – there, outside the window.
August brings back –
like gentle ghosts
In dappled shadows,
Someone else’s dreams
and heartaches.
Like all the silent wishes
lie bound up
In the packed, dry soil.
All our activity has passed
And now we can lie still.
The rushing gone
and now the waiting comes.
August.
It is gentle,
not painful.
And letting go is not hard.
It calls, it calls –
The cool breeze.
The sunflower knows it,
And the corn stalk does not deny.
The grasshoppers flutter
above the rocks.
The brown grass thinks its thoughts.
Warm bricks
Warm wood
Driftwood boards
August sky – blue.
And the geese will soon turn south.
Physics lessons with Abby 🙂
I babysit my 6-year-old neighbor once or twice a week in the summer, and today we were playing with water. There was a watering can sitting on the table on our back porch with a tiny dribble of water left in the bottom. Abby picked it up and shook it upside down on the table – just to see what would happen. A few drops of water fell out and perched delicately on the wooden tabletop. The mid-morning light was reflecting and refracting in the drops making them look like liquid silver. Abby and I were both fascinated.
“Look Abby, aren’t they pretty?”
“Yeah! Let’s do a science experiment with water drops!!”
(laughs) “Okay, what shall we do?”
“I’ll blow on this part and try to get the water to the middle of the table!”
I like her idea of science experiments! I tried to explain to her that the water was forming in drops because of surface tension and water pressure (so I DID learn something in physics), but she wasn’t too impressed. It was more fun to blow on the droplets and watch them scoot along the wooden boards. 🙂
I think God is happy that we can take delight in such small, seemingly ordinary things: a drop of water on a table, a flower petal, a blade of grass. He made them all for us after all. 🙂
Water droplets!
I took these photos with my Ipod 5 (which I love!). They are not edited in any way. I love how the drops look like silver or glass. So pretty 🙂
What little things do you delight in? Feel free to comment below! 🙂
So I like languages – I like learning them and writing them and speaking them! 🙂 I took three years of French in high school and learned how to say “I speak French a little” and “do you speak English?”. Actually I learned a lot more than that! Je parle français et je suis allé a france a 2011. C’était tres magnifique! Paris est très intéressant.
I took a trip to France my senior year with my sister and dad and was able to use quite a bit of my French. It was a great experience which I may talk more about in another post! 🙂
In college, when I learned that the only French classes were online-only (horrors!), I elected to take an entirely new language instead. Because we had recently hosted two Japanese girls for a week and because I love trying new things and challenging myself, I took Japanese. And boy was it hard! Most of my classmates had taken at least two years of Japanese in high school and so were that much farther ahead of me. I did my best though, and ended up enjoying it! (がんばりました！) so anyway, I ended up taking all three quarters of Japanese and by the end, I could give a four minute speech in Japanese! (Though with lots of practice!) 🙂 I don’t want to forget all that I’ve learned, so I try to use it whenever I can. Here, I am talking about how I like to write haikus sometimes about the different seasons and such. If you read Japanese, please forgive my elementary grammar! 😛
私は俳句を書くのが好きです。たいてい、きせつやしぜんの俳句を書きます。しぜんはとてもきれいだと思います。秋は私の好きなきせつですが、夏もいいだと思います。天気や花の俳句を書くのが好きです。俳句は楽しくて、おもしろいですよね！(^｡^)
これは私のうた:
Shadows move across
His upturned face as winds blow
The fat clouds along.
「人で」
On one leg balanced –
Solitary heron.
And here is one of the most famous haikus of all time, by Basho:
じあ、また、みんなさん！（＾∇＾）
So… I write poetry now and then. Maybe I’m good at it, maybe I’m not. But either way, here is a poem I wrote a few weeks ago:
“Sunset July”
Like the glassblower’s fire –
So the sun burns a glow
In the cloudless horizon
Coral glaze stains
The western sky
Above the dark firs –
A fire burns
On air and blue clarity.
And slowly
slowly
Burns to embers –
Orange deep
Darker hue lay down heavily.
🙂
Like I said, I like light. The way the sunrays shimmer in the air, the smooth glow of sunset, the reflection on the water – light is beautiful! And it’s never the same. I can take a thousand pictures of sunbeams and sunsets and never see the same view twice. Light is always moving; it’s fluid and vibrant.
It thrills me just to catch a glimpse of the sun’s shimmering magic out of the corner of my eye.
It entrances me to watch a sunset – each stage more beautiful than the last, until all fades into soft darkness.
Watching and enjoying the light all around me is one way that I connect with the One who made light and thought it up – how amazing and vast is His imagination! I remember the Son through whom the sun was made. 🙂 I thank God for every magic sunlit moment.
“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” 1 john 1:5
Light is good 🙂
So whenever I see a great view or sunset I just have to take a picture to capture the moment and treasure it forever – even if that moment happens to be at work or even while driving! Here are a few that I have taken recently: Enjoy! 🙂
Hello to all you who have food allergies! I feel your pain – and I bet my list of allergies can top yours! (No joke ;)) Since I was allergy tested last January, I have been living a soy-free, nut-free, legume-free, but not food-free life! 🙂 It’s been tough; it’s been frustrating, but with prayer and my mom’s great cooking skills, I have survived this far.
Just for interest’s sake, here is a complete list of my food allergies:
All tree nuts including hazelnuts, almonds, cashews, etc.
Legumes including peanuts, peas, soybeans, lentils, and any other type of bean
All pitted fruits including peaches, plums, cherries, nectarines, olives, mangoes, avacodoes, etc.
The list of foods that include these in their ingredients could fill five pages, so I won’t bore you with that! 🙂 Things I mainly look out for are soybean oil, soy lecithin, pea protein, olive oil, and nuts.
I thought since I can’t be the only one with these problems, I should share some of the knowledge I have gained over the past year and a half.
I have learned how to scan a label in about 1.2 seconds, and I have found quite a few great brands of food that I rely on.
Here are pictures of some snack and packaged food that I go to in moments of need!
Annie’s brand snacks are a God-send! I love the chocolate chip granola bars and the bunny graham snacks. 🙂
********UPDATE*********
Annie’s granola bars are no longer soy-free! Sadly, they have changed their recipe to include soy. This was very disappointing news, but c’est la vie.
Wolfgang Puck – great chicken noodle soup for sick days – also gluten free!
Theo – oh heavenly ambrosia! I love love love Theo brand chocolate! The dark chocolate is soy and nut free and tastes delicious! And they’re made locally – in Seattle. Great company, great chocolate! Check them out – Fred Meyer and online.
Water crackers – from Private Selection or Carr’s are great snack crackers for eating some yummy goat cheese or garlic herb spread.
And last but not least O Organics – love this brand. Not only do they have a plethora of allergen-free foods, they actually taste good!! I like the taste of their soups and yogurts more than any other brand! Check them out at Safeway!
Stay tuned for more allergy-friendly brands! And good luck to you all 🙂
My family is out of town this week, so I’ve been enjoying some peace and quiet – maybe a little too much. At the times when my friends are working and I’m knocking around the house like a pea in a jam jar, I have to think of things to keep me busy. 🙂 Tonight, I had an early dinner, watched a few episodes of I Love Lucy (which I have done every night this week!), washed up the dishes (finally), and dreamed up a new cookie sensation – gingerbread with lemon frosting! It sounded good. The gingerbread turned out alright – not as soft as I had hoped, but decent. The icing was alright too, but not very flavorful. I put fresh lemon juice in, but it was still very faintly lemony. So maybe i’ll look up a recipe next time! 🙂 Still – not a bad way to spend my lonely evening.
Here’s the recipe for the gingerbread if you care to try it. It’s a great traditional recipe that we usually make during Christmas but its great at any time of the year!
Dew on the Sea 