Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

30 Replies

Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders

My taste in decoration eschews cute and adorable.
Cutesy hearts and  animals—designs I find deplorable.
When I choose to accentuate, fantasy is out.
It’s simply an esthetic that I choose to flout.
Whimsy in embellishment is not a problem for me.
It’s only sticky sweet that will irritate and bore me.
So keep your big-eyed children, your fairy, elf and gnome.
Their plaster effigies will never decorate my home.
My garden will not sport them. My butterflies are real.
Garden gnomes are merely things for passers-by to steal.

Photo by Sarah Brink on Unsplash,Used with permission. Prompt words today are fantasy, accentuate, elect, eschew, taste and decoration.

30 thoughts on “Garden Gnomes and Other Decorating Blunders”

  7. SAM VOELKER

    ENOUGH OF YOU GNOME BIGOTS~!

    They may have small feelings but they can get big hurt~! I have a space nearby, in my yard, that has a tiny grotto, with boulders and a small stream running through it, (unless it rains). Every time I pass that spot I think of the “Teenie Weenies” I knew them so well as a kid and followed them every Sunday in the funny papers. Why do you BIG FOLKS hate them so~? They are folks just like you and me, except not OVER SIZED. STOP being a BIGot, just trashing them. And furthermore, when you are walking through the woods, watch where you step, you may accidentally step on one of them.

    And if you are tired of your Garden Gnome, send it to me, I have a special protective place for them called “The Helter Skelter Shelter”, you probably stole it from a neighbors garden anyway~!

    GNOMES HAVE FEELINGS TOO
    Shame, shame on all of you
    what if they hated Giants such as you,
    I wonder just what YOU would do~!

    Stop running Gnomes down,
    they are already too close to the ground~!
    They are tiny and cute that way
    while they just run, hum, and play.

    They don’t take up very much space,
    of our larger human race.
    And you rarely hear them speak
    when their tiny voices so weak.

    Some of them may even marry
    others with wings, called a fairy.
    And still others I am told
    live under bridges and are called Trools.

    So learn more about their life
    being so small can really cause strife.
    Go out and adopt a Gnome today
    it will help you stop being that way.

    Quit your always running them down,
    and please stay out of Gnome town
    you my step on one of them,
    which would squash them limb from limb.

    Stop all your terrible BIGoted ways
    I hope you will rue the days
    when you said all those mean bad things
    about gnomes, under bridges, with or without wings.

    Like

    Reply ↓
    1. lifelessons Post author

      Sam, you should know that I don’t denigrate the Teenie Weenies! In fact, I dedicated a blog to them long before you even deigned to mention their sacred names. https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/08/08/night-fantasies-and-other-reading-pleasures/

      However, I was expecting some flack in regards to garden gnomes. I know. Plaster Lives Matter!!! I do not appreciate, however, the fact that you imagine I would have a garden gnome to steal. Not even during an early age of questionable esthetics did I stoop to garden gnomes. And so, we must just agree to disagree on this matter. If, however, you take occasion to today’s poem, I am afraid our blogging friendship is over.

      Like

      Reply ↓
      1. SAM VOELKER

        Oh ! OH !!, that verbal slap really hurt, in fact it really made me feel like dirt~!
        I feel so bad that I riled you up though. I am so upset that I might have hurt you so~! In fact I felt so contrite and sick, that I went outside and hit one of my gnomes with a stick~! But then I came back in and found my Teenie Weenies book to read again, thinking about all the trouble I’m in. I must try to spell your Spanish phrase “gnome gusta”, would that be a friendship booster~? I do know that your garden effigy is not a plaster gnome at all, but rather a Meditating Buddha Statue large and tall. Also a strange wooden thing hanging from a palm tree, covered by growth until it you can’t see. I know that you would not take one of my gnomes because they are protected by Big Foot and are not alone.

        https://www.wayfair.com/outdoor/pdp/design-toscano-schlepping-the-garden-gnomes-bigfoot-statue-txg9157.html

        I did remember that we had a mutual love of the Tennie Weenies and actually told you about loving them in the funnies.
        Well to save a friendship I will say to you: when in gnomeville, do as the gnomen do~! And I hope your anger will go away too.
        If you have even decided to do away with all that jive, then use their tiny stuff to make something alive~!

        https://www.hgtv.com/design/make-and-celebrate/handmade/make-a-teacup-garden-pictures

        This is not the first time I have been a jerk, and back then the following poem seemed to work.

        SLAPPING A SAP

        In jest I wrote a soliloquy
        it was about lying and things that be.
        In it words that did not bother me,
        but taken as more by her, or so said she.

        She took askance and let me know,
        such a statement my couth did not show,
        and such farther writing had to go,
        or I could no longer be her beaux.

        So she gave my cheek a verbal slap,
        telling me how I was such a sap,
        an evil minded thoughtless chap,
        for writing terrible things like that.

        Feelings hurt from that verbal blow.
        That face slap then began to grow,
        and my sorrows began to show,
        a condition I had to let her know.

        Then she assured me right back:
        Twas not a slap but a gentle tap,
        on the cheek of her beloved but slack,
        lest I think that she doth make an attack,

        Feeling my words from her should depart,
        she felt the pain of others, from the start,
        so because we were then so far apart,
        she made this statement from her heart.

        I’ve learned my lesson so will try,
        not to write such things on the fly,
        but will digest every word, thereby,
        keeping peace, for from that sting I still cry.

        MVC

        Like

        Reply ↓
          1. SAM VOELKER

            au shucks, thanks for forgiving~! No gnomes for me, but I do have statues near my house to name only two, one of St Francis and the other of stone that looks like you. Other than that I have many birds, lizards, snakes, frogs, cats and terracotta heads. But never would I have even dead one alone , of an unreal plaster cast of a gnome~!
            Most the rest are made in Mexico and seem to break when Tami walks by. Why can’t they learn to do a better job with fire, like the gnome plaster workers do~?

            Like

            Reply ↓
    1. SAM VOELKER

      I do not know if mine is a gnome or called an elf, it is stone an not one of those painted things. Tami my dog really likes it, and checks it out in the tall flowers daily in more ways than one~! If it adds to an otherwise bare spot I am OK with it (sense it was a gift)~!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
  10. lifelessons Post author

    ‘Garden dwarfs’ are lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures known as gnomes. Traditionally, the figurines depict male dwarfs wearing red pointy hats. Typically, gnomes stand between one and two feet (30 and 60 cm). A recent trend has introduced miniature gnomes of only a few inches in height.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
        1. SAM VOELKER

          Oh you South Dakotans are as stubborn as a bull moose~! Who would believe Merrial Webster when first he did not know how to spell his name an second who would believe a dead person~!

          Go here for the truth and don’t be uncouth~! Ha~!, didn’t you notice that I use that word all the time~? But it was not couth to use it in my youth, and I still know how to get a person going with my spoof~!

          http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/2011/10/is-couth-a-word/

          Like

          Reply ↓

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.