He's that good!

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I love imagination. I love design. Isn't it fun when they come together in a delightful video.
Enjoy!

Guess what I learned?

That if you hit the enter key twice in rapid succession, your blog message will get posted without previewing or before completion!

So now I'll write about the Christmas decorations that were in the last blog title. I learned something today. Not a big thing, but always interesting that as my awareness grows, I actually am more aware of things.

I love Christmas. I especially love the fresh greens of cedar, pine, and holly that grow so abundantly around South Carolina and that I have loved collecting for Christmas decorations since moving here. When I first moved here but in another part of the state, we formed a group that made and put up swags on all our street signs in the neighborhood, and it always looked beautiful. I missed that after moving away, so I started making swags for my street in this new community. The garden club decorates for Christmas, and over the years, I've helped them put up decorations.

Seems that they put these decorations up earlier and earlier each year. The fresh greens have a hard time looking fresh while in the bright sun when up for over a month. The garden club decided that artificial greens would solve that problem, and gradually have changed almost entirely from fresh to artificial. So we met today to sort through the huge assortment or swags, wreaths, bows, testing lights, straigthening or making new bows determining what decorations go where, all in preparation for members to put everything in place tomorrow.

Last year I had agreed to chair the Christmas decorating project but with all of challenges and life events that happened, I ended up not even being in town, so I was glad that I could help again this year. One of the projects will be that I make the large wreaths for the front doors of the club house, using an artificial base but adding fragrant fresh greens mixed in. So of course, I am delighted to be working with fresh greens again. And I love the excuse for collecting the greens. I love their fragrances. I love the beautiful shades of greens of different kinds of cedars, the shiny greens of the magnolias with their brown backsides, and the silvery greens of the eleagnus stems.

Today was a drizzly, cold, rainy day. I knew that I could have put off my greens collecting in hopes of better weather tomorrow, but instead I donned my waterproof poncho and headed out with clippers in hand. And that's when I learned something today. I learned that I'm one of those strange people that loves the fragrance of the woods in the rain. I learned how I love the smells that transport me to times past in an instant. I learned that I loved my time in the woods by myself as I collected greens. IAnd I learned that I enjoyed that time more than I did the time spent working indoors with friends. I learned to pay attention to how I was feeling as I listened to others talk. I learned to pay attention more to the quietness within. And I learned that I still love working with fresh greens, but in a whole new way than ever before. I learned that I felt more at one with nature more than ever before.

Musical Genius and Christmas decorations

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I love watching this so much, I'm adding it to my blog so I can click on it to view again and again. Love the music. Love the engineering minds all coming together to create this masterpiece of ingenuity. Aren't you glad to hear that it will be in Smithsonian for all the world to enjoy, and just think you can enjoy without having to leave your home!

Musical Genius and Christmas decorations

Download

I love watching this so much, I'm adding it to my blog so I can click on it to view again and again. Love the music. Love the engineering minds all coming together to create this masterpiece of ingenuity. Aren't you glad to hear that it will be in Smithsonian for all the world to enjoy, and just think you can enjoy without having to leave your home!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Twas the

month before Christmas

When all through our land, Not a

person was praying Nor taking a stand.

See the PC Police had taken away

The reason for Christmas - no one could say.

The children were told

by their schools not to sing, About Shepherds

and Wise Men and Angels and things. It might hurt

people's feelings, the teachers would say. December 25th is just a

' Holiday '. Yet the shoppers were ready with cash,

checks and credit, Pushing folks down to the floor just

to get it!---CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod

Something was changing, something quite odd!

Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa

In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.

As Targets were hanging their trees upside down

At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where

to be found. At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's

and Sears You won't hear the word Christmas;

it won't touch your ears. Inclusive, sensitive,

Di-ver-si-ty. Are words that were used to

intimidate me. Now Daschle, Now Darden,

Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen

On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton !

At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter

To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith

Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace

The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded

The reason for the season, stopped before it started.

So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'

Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.

Choose your words carefully, choose what you say

Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday !

Please, all join together and wish everyone you meet

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christ is The Reason for the

Christ-mas Season!

When this poem arrived in my email this morning, it started me thinking. Could this message of Merry Christmas greetings really be politically incorrect? No, it is not. As we look for, find and express the love of One Mind that we all share individually, uniquely, knowing that it is One Mind, One Love that dissolves the fears regardless of how they appear, that's what will grow. As we simply let our lights shine as the light of Truth and Love to all, and as we sing songs of "Merry Christmas" to the world, we can know that the message of love is all that will be heard.

So my message is HAPPY THANKSGIVING and A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

The Cat and the Deer

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I hope this video and song are published as I intend with this blog message. I've watched it several times and enjoy it every time! It is a wonderful world and listening to Louis Armstrong sing it always melts my heart, especially when combined with these tender images of unlikely woodland friends cuddling together.

Yes, we all put our own imaginings into what is going on in the minds of creatures such as this cat and deer in this episode. The mere fact that we're moved by the scene is an indication to me that we are all at one with One even without the words.

For God's Glory....Let's try this again.

Okay, so here is the link, I think! Let's hope it will work this time.

http://christianscience.com/blogs/daily-lift/2009/11/16/for-gods-glory/

Glory to God

Does this link work? The message is simple but very clear. Hope it comes through.

Hey, I think I added a widget, or was that a gadget?

Actually it was my picture, but I need to get current with my new vocabulary and Facebook jargon. Oh boy! What have I gotten myself into with signing up with Facebook? It is quite time consuming. I am trusting that will settle down once I have my friends established, accepted, liked, and whatever else....oh yea....poked? Don't know how to or even if I've poked a friend(or whether I've been poked). No, I don't know what that means....much I don't know about Facebook.



I responded to a request for listing family members from one of my nieces (with whom I am now an official Facebook friend) who has asked me to list all of my family members on Facebook, so then she'll know who else she may be related to. I was directed to another whole area for family info. I did fill out some at that section but then decided that might be more than I'm ready to jump into right now.

It is fun seeing pictures of everyone....have seen pictures on my own children's facebook page that I have not even seen in person. Seems a bit odd don't you think? Here I am talking to my kids through texting messages on my cell phone and now writing to each other on Facebook....in a language that I didn't even know how to spell just a very short time ago. Oh well, This is one grandmother that's working at keeping up with the times. I remember that I did send out that message to the universe for help with better recognizing and connecting with love. And then Facebook shows up and opens up a whole new universe of old friends, new friends and family reconnections. How can I not be happy with this?



I continue to learn more about the intracacies of Blogger, and so what with now adding more entirely new language skills with Facebook, I will need to learn balance with this whole learning processes plus re-examining how I used to approach my day to day life. My sister says she's not ready for this mode of communications and time consumer, but I think she may change her mind once she hears about all the fun photos of her grandchildren that I am now seeing on her kids' Facebooks.



This is really moving up, up and away, isn't it? Fun, but not up there with the travelling part, especially to the beaches of St Maarten.

View of gorgeous fall flowers

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I wasn't successful in publishing this gorgeous video of brilliant fall colors and flowers to my Facebook, so let's try my Blog. Hope the sound comes through when you click on the link. Enjoy the view.

More Butterflies, Garden & Trains

As part of a community beautification project called Greening of the Depot in Seneca, SC, our local Reading Room adopted a garden plot. It's been an ambitious garden, 80 X 40, filled with plants that attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and has been a labor of love. Initially there were many hours of hard work donated by various volunteers from the community and church that all came together to make the Depot project a success. This area is now filled with beautiful gardens with our garden in the center of what was previously a neglected field along the railroad tracks. The beautification project had many facets that included encouraging Norfolk & Southern Railway Lines to repaint the historic train depot in lovely paint colors, local businesses adopting portions of that once neglected area, replacing with unique and colorful gardens and plantings, and that also included a planting of a new park across from the library on another abandoned lot and that local garden clubs continue to maintain. All in all, a huge success.

It has been a joy and pleasure to watch the plants maturing and adding to the beautification of the area since it was started. The Reading Room garden has experienced a bit of neglect the past couple of years. As assistant librarian when the garden was started, I had been delegated as the main gardener and each year seemed to have fewer helpers able to help out. Some life events kept me away as well from spending much time in the garden, and so for the past couple of years the garden has looked rather neglected and overgrown with weeds. Many plants have grown into beautiful, large specimens. Some have died away. But many, many weeds have tried to take over, obscuring the steppings stones with some growing up as large as some of the plants.

The cooler weather and more available time have inspired me to work once again in the garden. With the help of two workers we mowed the weeds, dug up dead plants, planted new ones, sprayed, spread new mulch, replaced the stepping stones, did lots of pruning of various overgrown plantings, we were able to restore order once again to our garden.

I'm grateful to have had occasion to spend many quiet hours working in the garden this week. This afforded me opportunities to take the time to watch and enjoy the many butterflies that love to drink the nectar of the large Lantana plants that have grown into large shrubs. These butterflies that hatched from large caterpillars that fed on the caraway plants we planted years ago that they so love are now those brilliant orange flights of joy. Plus the watching of the many types of birds that played, flying in and out of the branches, especially the mockingbirds, and also discovering the many types of insects (including two praying mantis!), plus enjoying the warm, fall sunshine, all added to my overall enjoyment and pleasure this week as I worked each day staying present with each moment filled me with awe.

And the TRAINS! You don't realize there are as many trains using those tracks until you spend several days working alongside them. It was fun to have the excuse to stop trimming for a few minutes and wave to the engineers (who always waved back), and then count the number of cars moving down the tracks behind each engine.....68 on one heading north, 98 on the one heading south a short time later, then another heading north, this one with double engines and travelling especially fast, pulling 102 different cars! All of the trains. All filled with various types of commerce, travelling up and down this north/south railway that until spending time there alongside, I had not appreciated their numbers. It all evoked a real nostalgia within me filling me with peaceful feelings. Sounds a bit strange to say peaceful all the while standing so close and listening to the loud clickety-clack of their wheels moving down the tracks plus the very loud, plaintive peals of the train whistles blaring as they roared past me, but that's what I felt.....peaceful.

I'm glad to have the garden neat and trim once again, and very grateful for the at-one-ment experience with nature and trains.