'Tis healthy to be sick sometimes" (--Henry David Thoreau)

Go hang yourself, you old MD!

You shall not sneer at me.

Pick up your hat and stethoscope,

Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;

I contemplate a joy exquisite

I'm not paying you for your visit.

I did not call you to be told

My malady is a common cold.

By pounding brow and swollen lip;

By fever's hot and scaly grip;

By those two red redundant eyes

That weep like woeful April skies;

By racking snuffle, snort and sniff;

By handkerchief after handkerchief;

This cold you wave away as naught

Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!

Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;

The Cold of which researchers dream,

The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.

This honored system humbly holds

The Super-Cold to end all colds;

The Cold Crusading for Democracy;

The Fuhrer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals

Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,

But bred by scientists wise and hoary

In some Olympic laboratory;

Bacteria as large as mice,

With feet of fire and heads of ice

Who never interrupt for slumber

Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!

Ah, yes.  And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;

Don Juan was a budding gallant,

And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;

The Arctic winter is fairly coolish, 

And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.

Oh what a derision history holds

For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds.

(--Ogden Nash)

Well, now you know where I've been....

"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."  (-Fannie Lou Hamer)

"Mother is the home we come from. She is nature, soil, ocean." (-Erich Fromm)

I like to think of my mom in this photo above, happily embarking on a new life as my grandfather walked her into a church on her way to marry my dad.  It was before the four of us came along, before she learned that she had MS, before many hardships she dealt with in her life.

I remember when I was quite young myself, thinking that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a mother...

After Eric was born, I remember thinking I couldn't remember what it was like NOT being a mother.  And after I had him, I understood my own mother so much better and loved her so much more than I ever had before he came along.

Eric has always had a great sense of humor which I like to think he inherited from my mom.  My mother could be a real Taskmaster, but she had a hilarious, very "British" sense of humor, and most often,  when I remember her these days, I find myself thinking fondly of her,  tilting her head back and joyously laughing out loud.  

It seems like just a moment ago...

and a lifetime ago, all at once...

Thanks for being my mother, mommy...

and thanks for coming into my life, Eric.  

A good friend of mine said that she had a bad relationship with her mother and with her siblings.   She said it informed her life, and I reminded her that she couldn't change the family she'd been born into, but she could make the family she wanted,  with her husband and her own children...

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.  Call your mother if you can.  And if you can't, remember her this weekend...

"I'm not really a career person; I'm a gardener, really." (--George Harrison)

Well, I've been awfully busy, but I'm afraid I've been neglecting my blog as a result.   I've had no time to paint, so this is an old image.  Bear with me!  I'll get there again.  I spent a good bit of time this weekend out in the dirt, in the thick of things

The ducks have trampled the foliage on our irises, and some of the flowers were literally on the ground, so I decided to bring a few inside so that we could enjoy them here.

And several of our roses are starting to bloom, along with buds all over the hydrangeas, too!  I wanted to clean up the perennials in the garden some, and plant some annuals as well.   I wish I could spend all my days out there.  While we're still having nice temperatures, I'm enjoying it when I can.


Someone is going to be a hurting puppy tomorrow, though, I can tell you that!


"For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward."  (--Jim Rohn)