Photovisi is a free online collage maker. You can download your collage after you create it in various sizes and use it for your desktop wallpaper. As you can see, I’ve been busy taking photos of herbs for my iStock account! See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
People have been drawing on walls since ancient times and today many graffiti artists have crossed over into making a living off their art. Keith Haring was a famous artist who began his career drawing on advertising boards in the subway. His foundation has a fun website for kids (of all ages!) where you can play games (like Hangman) or draw your own graffiti. Sticking with the Detroit theme I have going, this week’s WW photo is of some cool graffiti on a wall downtown. See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
Wayne County Court House in Detroit, Michigan
We’ve been having blue, blue skies here for the past few days and summer-like temperatures. It’s been wonderful to get outside and plant my flowers, good for the spirit and my legs too, I have plenty of soar muscles from all the bending and squatting! Hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend and I also hope you pause and take some time over the next few days to remember and honor the men and women who have served their country and made the ultimate sacrifice.
The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. ~Douglas MacArthur
Rather than pick up the book I’m reading now for my two Teaser Tuesday lines, I went to my bookshelf and pulled out The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodson Burnett. As a young reader, it was one of the first novels I read and I haven’t looked at it for many years. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read the actual book in my hands, I bought it just so I would have a copy in my library. I hope my future granddaughter is a reader. I would love to have her wander into my den and pick up this book someday, then ask me what it’s about and whether I liked it. When I opened the book this morning my eye went right to this wonderful line, “Fair fresh leaves, and buds-and-buds-tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air.”
I’ve been working outside a lot for the past few days, weeding and planting flowers in my own garden. We’re making a lot of major changes in the landscaping around the house this year, taking down many old trees and shrubs. There are times in our lives when we don’t want change, when we perhaps get a little too comfortable with the way things are. This spring, I felt like I needed to shake things up a bit. While Mr. bookbabie was concerned about cutting down the overgrown trees, I couldn’t wait to have them gone. I wanted to cut out all the old growth around our property and let in more light, start over again with new trees and shrubs and a whole new color palette for the flowers. Perhaps it’s silly, but I think a part of me hopes that this landscape makeover will also help makeover my spirit, cutting out the old dead growth and letting in a rainbow of fresh new light 🙂
I took some flower pics for fun this morning. I’m still struggling with the whole balance thing, I always feel like I should be doing chores or only taking the kind of iStock photos that sell well. I wonder if it’s mostly an American problem, always feeling like we need to be doing something that will make money or accomplish some kind of work related goal? We do tend to be a workaholic society. Why is it when we do something solely to feed our spirit we feel guilty, even though we know in our hearts that at the end of our lives we aren’t going to wish we had spent more time at the office or vacuuming the floors! Hmm, so I think I’ll take a me day today, do some creative stuff, read, meditate, maybe even watch the grass grow (really, I sprinkled grass seed this week outside my office window and it’s cool and rainy so it’s going to sprout any minute now!). But first, I should throw the wet towels in the dryer before they start growing mold, empty the dishwasher, clean off my messy desk…
Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. ~Matthew Arnold
I wandered over to the fishing pond across the street to take a few pictures and two swans were conveniently floating around enjoying the bright sunny day. It’s finally starting to feel like spring around here. I must admit to feeling a little blue today however, it was a year ago this week that we lost our first granddaughter at only five months gestation. Last spring was tough with my mom being so ill and then the baby’s death. Thinking about those days and weeks reminds me that I have so much to be grateful for; that Meagan is pregnant again and doing well, that my mother is no longer suffering and my dad is adjusting as well as can be expected to living alone.
I suppose what they say is true, time heals all wounds. Or perhaps it just puts some much needed space between you and the pain. And in that space, if you are lucky, you may find a little peace. Near the end of one of my books I write …when the earthly lives of my daddy and brother had safely made that transformation from flesh and blood to mist and memory, when the grief had finally settled itself comfortably into the undercurrent of my days and nights, my voice came back to me. I wrote that not long after losing my beloved father-in-law Hank, and I was remembering that shift, that soft gray place where grief slips quietly into the background and we begin again. That is the joy and wonder of spring too, and it is here at long last.
Too tired to take any new pics, but did a photo-manipulation to try and get the creative juices flowing again. Click here to listen to the voice of an angel named Susan Boyle and be gently reminded that dreams can come true and angels exist in all shapes and forms! See other Wordless Wednesday participants here.
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. ~Arthur O”Shaughnessy
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein
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bookbabie 
