It’s National Walnut Day!

Go nuts!

If you’re a health nut, then walnuts are for you. They are nutritious and delicious. Just a few of these nuts provide you with a whole list of healthful benefits.

Choose walnuts:

Rich in antioxidants and Omega 3s

Good for your gut

Helps with weight control

Good for healthy aging

Boosts brain function

If you’re hungry and need a tasty snack, grab a handful of walnuts to feed your hunger pangs and improve your well-being.

Go nutty today with some fun nut idioms and puns.

Idioms:

Tough nut to crack

Health nut

In a nutshell

From soup to nuts

Nuts about you

You drive me nuts

Get down to the nuts and bolts

A coffee nut

Puns:

Nut-thing lasts forever

Believe it or nut

Down, but nut out

Burn the midnut oil

The writing is on the wal-nut

A true treat on National Walnut Day is the book All from a Walnut by Ammi-Joan Paquette.

This is a beautiful and heartfelt multigenerational story. Grandfather tells Emilia the story of his journey across the ocean carrying only one bag and in his pocket, a walnut. That walnut seed planted many years ago is now a strong tree, towering above Emilia’s mother’s smaller tree. And now, Grandfather patiently teaches Emilia how to plant and care for the walnut she found. With each page turn, this story tugs at your heart as readers revel in the story of family, love, and life.  

The soft light of morning falls upon ripening forests of oak and elm, walnut and hickory, and all Nature is thoughtful and calm. – Author: John Muir

Love Is…

This past weekend our youngest grandchild was baptized. He wore a 140-year-old family baptismal gown. I’m sure our Irish relatives were looking down from heaven with happiness and pride.

Including our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, there were thirteen people under one roof for the weekend. Six of those were children – ages five and younger. On Sunday, more people arrived for the baptismal celebration. It was a happy day with a bit of chaos sprinkled in. During all of the goings-on, these two found a quiet space to share a book.

Love is faith, family, and friends!

When Life Gets in the Way…

Is the week over yet?

Every time I think I have a free moment, something else comes up. My creativity is on hold as I try to get my life back together.

I’ll be back next week – a calmer, gentler person!

Making “Scents” of Life

When my Bloomerang tree presented itself with a bounty of blossoms, I was more than excited. I’ve always loved the smell of lilacs. From the day I discovered the tiny buds on the tree until the buds grew into full-blown lilacs, I was anxious. The weather was good. The weather was bad. The weather said frost and that frosted me. I wanted to take the tree inside to protect it, but it was attached to the ground. After a few weeks of worry, the buds slowly began to blossom. During that time, a robin built its nest in the crook of the tree. Going near the tree caused the mama bird to become overly excited. I learned to quickly DUCK as I admired the tree and the animal life growing in it.

When the blossoms were in full array, the glorious smell of lilacs wafted through the air. I was immediately transported to my youth. After a year of dealing with COVID-19, not seeing family or friends, wearing masks, grocery shopping at six in the morning, and being stuck inside the house, the scent of the lilacs lifted my spirits. It brought me back to a time when lilacs graced our backyard and life was simpler. It was a time when children could play in the park by themselves, ride bikes freely, walk to the store down the block, play outside until a familiar whistle called them home.

My life has been filled with wonderful family and friends and very few worries, but this past year I feel like the world has been turned upside down. An ugliness has crept into our everyday lives. We all need to work harder to bring calm and kindness back into our world. Sometimes I wish we could go back to when life was not as complicated as it is today.

It’s time to stop and smell the lilacs. 

Bring on the New Year!

Dream your dreams and make them come true!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Thoughts from this Year

My love of picture books has made me realize our lives are imitating the art and text found in picture books.

Two-year-old twins and a four-month-old have reduced my daughter and son-in-law into babbling, sleep-deprived parents. They now greet us with, “Welcome to the circus!” Yup, Dr. Seuss’ If I Ran the Circus pretty much says it all for them!

As for Mimi and Poppy (a.k.a. grandma (me) and grandpa), The Poky Little Puppy and The Little Engine that Could aptly describe us as we try to keep up with the endless energy of the little ones. There’s never a dull moment when it comes to babysitting. Our only downtime is when all three are asleep. That’s when Mimi and Poppy enjoy a glass of wine and do a happy dance before we collapse.

The twins are a mixture of classic picture books. They can…

be great friends like Frog and Toad

cause a rumpus like Max in Where the Wild Things Are

misbehave like David in No, David!

share like in A Weekend with Wendell

have a cranky day like Alexander, and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Or they can be adorable and loving like in Guess How Much I Love You

Our newest granddaughter takes it all in and holds her own. She’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, slowly finding her place in the world until she joins the “Twin Pack,” and they become “Three Amigos,” who, undoubtedly, will be up to some mischief.

We love being close to our family, but it’s also nice to be surrounded with the peace and quiet of our home, to enjoy our friends, and to reminisce about our youthful days when we, too, had an endless supply of energy. Luckily for us, we struck gold with our family and friends. Life is good. We hope yours is too!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

 

 

Happy Beautiful Day!

In honor of Beautiful Day, I’m posting a few of my favorite pictures. Let the beauty shine through.

No matter what your day may be like, try to find the beauty in your life. I hope you have a beautiful day!

And on this Beautiful Day, I want to wish a very special Happy Birthday to my fabulous daughter and husband!

Pepe Says Okay

Maybe I had too much cleaning, too much cooking, and too much family. Picking up scraps of leftover wrapping paper, ribbons, and food hiding in the carpet and furniture wasn’t on my list of priorities. Whatever the case, I wasn’t in my usual jovial holiday mood on Wednesday, okay.

I decided it was “me time.” So I sat down with a book my daughter received as a gift for Christmas. The book appealed to me. It offered lots of white space for a quick read, and I knew it wouldn’t tax my tired brain. The book in hand was It’s Hard Out Here For A Shrimp by Pepe the King Prawn.

Let it be known, our family is crazy for Muppets, okay. During the Christmas holiday, we watched Muppets from Space, and on Christmas night, we all fell asleep watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s a tradition – not to fall asleep during the movie, but to watch the Muppets. So reading Pepe the King Prawn’s book was a welcome escape, okay.

Kermit the Frog’s introduction put a smile on my face, and Pepe’s forward started me laughing. Giggles and snorts followed as I read page after page of Pepe’s thoughts and advice on life, love, and living large. This book is irreverently funny, but so on target, okay. My laughter caught the attention of my family. Perhaps they were wondering if I had finally gone off the deep end. Then I started sharing some of Pepe’s words of wisdom with them, and they knew.

Pepe’s thoughts on families:

My family embarrasses me,

makes me mad,

and drives me crazy.

That’s how I know they’re my family.

This is a great book to take your mind off the things that really don’t matter – like picking up dog poop from the yard when it’s twenty-three degrees. I suggest you put this book on your to read list for the New Year, okay.

(Just in case you didn’t know, Pepe often adds okay after he says something, okay.)

What Were They Thinking?

Sometime ago there was unfortunate tragedy in a nursing home where a resident was murdered. Law enforcement officials began their investigation by questioning workers and residents. The questioning of residents struck me as, well, questionable.

I have visited elderly family members in nursing homes and know that many of the residents are mentally residing someplace else. I can just imagine how an investigative interview would go.

Police Officer:  Ma’am, did you see or hear anything suspicious last night?

Ma’am:  Speak up, sonny, I can’t hear you.

Police Officer:  Did you see anything unusual last night?

Ma’am:  A bunch of old coots were playing choo-choo train with their wheelchairs. The train man was pushing them to the dining car.

Police Officer:  Anything else?

Ma’am:  I saw blood dripping from people’s mouths. Vampires!

Police Officer:  You saw blood?

Mr. Elderly:  That wasn’t blood. That was the red velvet cake people were eating.

Ma’am:  Go away! I was talking to… Who are you?

Police Officer to Mr. Elderly:  Did you hear anything strange last night?

Mr. Elderly:  Just crazy Adele. She was screaming as usual. There she goes again.

Adele:  TAKE ME HOME, MAMA! TAKE ME HOME, MAMA!

Police Officer:  Is there anyone around here who might know something?

Mr.Elderly:  There’s Ralph. He sees and hears everything, but he doesn’t talk.   

Police Officer to self:  Take me home, Mama!

For the sake of the family, I hope the case is solved, but I wouldn’t count too much on the eyewitness accounts from the residents.