For the second year in a row, I participated in a charity event that is dear to my husband's heart, a fundraiser for All God's Children group home. I sponsored a hole in a golf tournament this organization held. 

Back during covid, I played a lot of golf and even wrote about it in a blog titled Golf Saved Us and it did. When all else closed, the golf course stayed open. Walking the course was not only exercise but a mental release from the tribulations around us. So when I chose this as altruism for my hard-earned money, I had a connection of appreciation for the sport as well as to the purpose of the event. 

Years ago my husband and I were licensed as foster parents and we were blessed to house, and home, three children. The experiences of nurturing these children have remained in my heart. I had to give back.

All God's Children is a home for foster children who have been taken from their natural families and placed into a less traumatizing environment while the adults in their lives get themselves together. My husband has been involved with it from the beginning when a friend offered his ancestral home to be the residence for a family setting, ancestral being the operative word here. The house needed much repair and teams of workers from across the county stepped up and stepped in to remodel it to the required standards under the laws involved with foster care institutions.

Support has come from a wide range of individuals, businesses, and churches:

In case the print is too small, I zoomed in for you. There I am between First Methodist and Rudisill's Grocery.

One thing I've learned. It takes a village to raise a foster child!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Into the Swamp and Out

My husband and I recently went on a side trip to the swamps of Conagree National Park in South Carolina. My jokes and frets about being eaten by alligators were unfounded, I'm pleased to report. We stayed on the boardwalk on a safe two mile hike through the swamp.

It's another world out there! I expected water, and I got water. After all water makes a swamp. I expected creatures, and I saw none. They probably saw us as we wandered, but they kept quiet about it. What I saw mostly was healthy, happily growing trees. Cypress trees to be exact.

Those are knees around the bald cypress tree. According to wikipedia, the function of these knees is not certain. One idea is that the knees provide aeration for the roots. The knees provided a strange kind of beauty for me, one that set my imagination reeling at the idea of tiny swamp gnomes rising out of the mud and swirling a macabre dance around their mother tree.

We came into the swamp at a great time of year, the all clear time. Nary a mosquito in sight. The welcome center's mosquito meter keeps up with biting conditions. Imagine being there on the continum above ruthless. War Zone!

For several years while our son was a cadet at the Citadel in Charleston, we drove on Interstate 26 past the brown sign advertising Conagree National Park, but never had the inclination to stop and smell the swamp roses until this spring. Brown signs are notoriously apart from main roads and the curious must often drive miles out of the way. Attending park rangers award the wanderlust who do show up in their facility with a stamp like this one. We surely earned it, and I added to my collection.

I became a brown sign enthusiast years ago and wrote about my experiences in a collection of stories compiled by Randell Jones. It was later made into an audio version here in his six minute stories. Give it a click and a listen. And while you are at it, check out Randell's series of books in the Personal Story Publishing Project. Mine is published in the 2019 book, Exploring. Wait until you read the other fantastic stories!

If you ever find yourself on Interstate 26 in South Carolina, or even Interstates 77, 20, or 95, take time to make a slight detour. You'll find the swamp between those four major roads, on a forsaken path in the depths of lowland country. You'll not be disappointed. Just check the mosquito meter before you go!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Back on Facebook Again

I'm back. Did you even miss me? I've been on a self-imposed exile from Facebook during the days of Lent and I'm here to tell you that I came out the other end with a new appreciation of time.

Time was at the root of why I chose to avoid Facebook as my Lenten discipline. About a week before Mardi Gras the powers that be (who seem to know absolutely everything about me) sent my timeline chart showing how many hours I had spent browsing through their wonderous social media format. I'll never reveal this embarrassing amount, but suffice it to say the bottom line forced me to take a new look at how I spent my hours. Sure, I enjoy keeping up with friends I've accumulated along the way, but were those video clips of cute puppies and grouchy old cats and strangers falling on ski slopes...you get the picture...robbing me of more noble pursuits? 

I clicked my final click just before my husband and I attended Ash Wednesday services at my church. Once the minister painted a cross on my forehead with the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday celebration, that was it. I was changed. My goal was to immerse myself in spiritual readings, and I did manage to follow through with some of that part of my Lenten goal: replacing frivolous with mindfulness. 

The surprise is, I didn't miss Facebook. I read a few books. I wrote a few books, well, I tried, anyway, and actually finished one. I slowed down. I smelled the proverbial roses since the seasonal ones weren't yet in bloom. I watched the local news and the thirty-minute evening news, but I didn't read people's comments on Facebook telling me what I should think about the news. That in itself was a blessing.

Okay, so I did miss wishing Happy Birthday to my friends. If you were one of those I slighted, consider yourself wished. I also missed a few event announcements that friends had shared with everyone but me. Instead, I received after-the-fact, in-person comments, "Why weren't you there? You would have enjoyed it." Drats. And I missed sharing my life with all of you. I went on an adventure to the swamps of the South Carolina low country that, rather than immediately telling you about, is now the topic of a future blog.

I assumed I would pick up my cell phone and jump right back into the thick of things when I came home after Easter morning services, maybe even in the car on the way home, like in the old days. But no. That didn't happen. I spent a little time scrolling to catch up with my friends, but the puppies and cats and unknown children hunting Easter eggs, not one click.

I've earned time back and I'm going to savor it. Thank you, Lord.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

Until later

I'll be taking a timeout from social media starting tomorrow. It's the discipline I chose to honor for Lent. I spend way too much time on Facebook that I could spend doing more faith-based activities, like reading scripture or holding devotions. That's the plan.

Often I arbitrarily pick an item like chocolate or red meat to deny myself during the forty days of Lent. I learned very quickly that forty days is a long time, longer still when Sundays get added in. Forty seems to be a Biblical number of enduring. Noah and the animals lasted forty days on the ark. Moses and the Israelites wandered for forty years. Jesus was tempted in the desert for forty days. 

Today is Mardi Gras, the traditional day we believers squeeze in any last-minute chocolates or red meat or other delights we might have chosen to deny ourselves until Easter. I'll certainly follow suit and today view the last memes of prancing puppies or mischievous cats that my friends invariably post.

Take a look at this postcard meme from 1910.
There's nothing new under the sun. Just sayin'

Will I be able to do this? Can I overcome the temptation to peek just once? I'm nowhere near Christlike and fall short way too many times, but surely I can resist the ping of my cellphone telling me there is something juicy on Facebook that I just can't miss.  There will be one way to do this and one way only.

 Prayer. 

When I come out the other side, it will be time to celebrate the resurrection of our Christ. 

Talk to you then,

Gretchen

Morning Rituals

Today is the first day of my new morning ritual, not that I chose it or anything. It was forced on me by a change at the newspaper office. First, they converted to only three days a week, which was disappointing enough. But their latest decision is a whole different ballgame. No more delivery boy. From now on, our newspaper will arrive by the US Postal Service. Starting today. It's morning, and I have no newspaper waiting for me to wade through as I eat breakfast. Drats. What now?

We've received the morning paper ever since we moved into this house. It has been a part of my daily ritual. When I heard the unmuffled sound of the car bringing the paper in the wee hours, it gave me a certain comfort. All was well with the world; the paper had arrived. My routine could start. Even during my career/motherhood busy years, I always found time to read the paper before I left home for the day. Finding the rolled-up paper on the driveway in the freshness of the morning was my husband's chore, and he did it with such efficiency. Sometimes it was in the wet grass, tossed there by a substitute delivery boy who didn't realize the irritation of reading soggy newsprint. On rare occasions, a neighborhood dog took a little chew of it as he went about his rounds, and we read the paper shred by shred. Eventually we purchased a delivery box and aligned it with the mailbox at the corner of our lot.

I guess now the paper box can go the way of other obsolete artifacts that have come and gone in the history of our married life. However, this is different. It marks the end of an era. More than that, it marks a change in the way I approach the day. I'm not so sure I'm happy about it.

I remember when the change came to my parents. It was as unsettling to them back then as it is to me now. We lived near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which had two newspapers at the time. The Journal and The Sentinel. One was morning and one was evening. We subscribed to the evening paper and hearing the paper's thud on the drive was key to my family's clockwork. My brother and I competed as to who could get to the paper first. He usually won. Reading the paper was my father's way of decompressing from his workday. It was my mother's afternoon joy before starting supper chores. We bonded over the comic section that my father read aloud to us.

And then the two papers merged. No more evening paper. No more family rituals because our mornings were hectic enough without bonding over Little Orphan Annie. That era ended and life went on.

Now it's my turn to change. So many of our friends dropped the paper years ago and relied on television or word of mouth to garner the latest news. Not us. We wanted it in our hands to point things out to each other, to clip pertinent articles to pass along to those very friends who had dropped the paper. Most satisfying of all, I worked the crossword puzzle and my husband worked the Suduko puzzle. Daily. Faithfully. It set the day off for us both, and now what? That routine is over. 

I'll have to rely on Facebook for interesting tidbits to share with friends as we walk laps. In fact, my entire morning ritual, sans crossword puzzles, will have to rely on my smartphone. Working a crossword puzzle on a screen is not my way of gearing up for the day. So I will adapt to getting the paper when the mail arrives after lunch and working it then. It will just take some time to reconfigure my brain. I will not follow suit with others and drop the paper. Small-town local papers are essential to democracy and I will do my part to support that institution. Just like my parents, I will adapt.

It's the early morning crossword puzzle that I grieve the most. Sipping Earl Grey tea while wordling just isn't the same.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

A Sad Find

In the spirit of Look-What-I-Found-While-I-Was-Looking-Something-Else-Up, I unearthed a sad story that seems to epitomize the tragedy of young lives lost in battle. I had been searching for information about a family in Caldwell County, North Carolina during the Revolutionary War when I found it in one of my go-to books for local history. These were written by great historians of our county, WW Scott and Nancy Alexander. They caught stories, just like I do, and they published them for future generations to learn about the past, just like I do.

In his Annals of Caldwell County, author Scott didn't format it to be in chronological order, but instead chose to arrange it as if he would have collected his wits for the day and plopped down a new story he caught. Just like I do in this blog. 

So he has an article about the Confederacy early in the book, followed by visiting his neighbors in the 1930's (which is when the book was first published), followed by the colonial times, and then a few Revolutionary War stories inserted at will. Reading for what I wanted involved page by page reading (or is that an excuse since there is an index...which didn't even have the family name I was researching).

I became enthralled by these stories, but the saddest of all, probably the saddest of nonfictions I've read recently, was on page 42, the story of Captain John Thomas Jones, born in 1841. He was at the university in Chapel Hill when he left to join the Twenty-Sixth Regiment, Company I, of the Confederacy. A born leader, he soon became a second lieutenant, then captain, then major, and finally lieutenant-colonel. He fought in several battles, most famously at Gettysburg. 

Later, at the Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, he stepped up when his colonel was wounded and led his regiment "in a charge against overwhelming numbers." Do the math. He was twenty-three years old. And mortally wounded in this "charge against overwhelming numbers." 

The surgeon who attended to him told him there was no hope and he would die from his wound. He later reported the death scene, "With a most yearning expression he replied, 'It must not be. I was born to accomplish more good that I have done.'"

My heart melted. He didn't live long enough to accomplish his goals. His life was snuffed out, taken from him like a candle in the wind.

And that is what war does.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen

A Pot Full of Orchids

Orchids were never on my radar to look at, much less raise. 

But.

For over a year now, I've been tending this one pot of orchids. I inherited it from my Aunt Lorraine, my Salvation Army connection that lived with us the final months of her life. I watched her care for it and when she could no longer walk, or no longer cared to care, I took over. 

My joy has been in watching it bloom this year after her death. 

We're up to three blooms now with a promise of more to come. I posted pictures on my facebook account and some of you have been watching the journey with me. One friend even sent a link to caring for the plant. Check out this Phalaenopsis Care website. The pictures and circumstances of growing my orchid fit exactly with mine. I was most excited with the statement that the plants will be in bloom for months. 

It's really been quite easy following Lorraine's instructions: Water once a week, using only one cup. She made sure she measured exactly one cup, and so do I. Let it sit for one hour, and believe me, Lorraine timed it to one hour. Then pour the water out. And that's it for all the care I did. I set it in the kitchen window where it receives a little morning sun. 

Now I'm reaping the benefits of beauty while I'm remembering the beauty of family ties. Wouldn't Lorraine be happy!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen