Author Archives: lifelessons

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About lifelessons

My blog, which started out to be about overcoming grief, quickly grew into a blog about celebrating life. I post daily: poems, photographs, essays or stories. I've lived in countries all around the globe but have finally come to rest in Mexico, where I've lived since 2001. My books may be found on Amazon in Kindle and print format, my art in local Ajijic galleries. Hope to see you at my blog.

BP and Me

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BP and Me

Cook a bowl of oatmeal and throw some apples in.
Cinnamon and cranberries and walnuts are no sin.
Gotta get the pressure down––of both my life and blood.
So no more salting French fries or pies of chocolate mud.
I exercise enough, I think, nighttimes in the pool;
but midnight trips out to the fridge brand me as a fool.

So a giant bowl of oatmeal with milk that is nonfat
and a bit more exercising where I once just sat
will guarantee I’ll live at least to one hundred twenty.
I’ll have lower blood pressure and zip I’ll have aplenty.
There is no secret to long life and staying young and burlier.
The answer lies in giving up life’s pleasures a bit earlier.

 

The prompt word today is “Giant.” (It’s not too obvious what this poem has to do with the prompt word until the second stanza, but originally, I had “giant bowl of oatmeal” in the first line. Alas, no rhyme presented itself, so “giant” got relegated to a bit further down in the poem and became less relevant.  Oh well. Main purpose of the prompts is to get us started, anyway.)

 

Bougainvillea Triplets: Flower of the Day, Oct 30, 2016

 

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/10/29/flower-of-the-day-october-30-2016-rose/

Creepy Creatures: JNW’s Halloween Challenge, Oct. 30, 2016

The prompt word today was “Creatures.”

Crossings

dscf2023

Crossings

A river between us, each high on a ridge.
If we’re ever to meet, we must build a bridge.
But it’s hard to accomplish unless we take hand
to collect the cement, the gravel and sand.

So those of us tired of  manual labors—
not given to chitchatting much with our neighbors—
can go on our blogs to find our own kind,
constructing bridges purely of mind.

Blogging is great to bring folks together
on separate continents, in any weather.
We can be lazy, me here and you there,
building our bridges with ease, through the air.

Not over yet! Now click on this URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_8KpR49bFI

The prompt today was “bridge.”

Knock, Knock! JNWs Halloween Challenge, Oct 29, 2016

Which doors would you knock on?

https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/09/01/jnws-halloween-challenge/

Full Moon: JNW’s Halloween Challenge, Oct 28, 2016

 

I can’t resist taking photos of the full moon. Perhaps this is why:

The Moon is Full and Waiting

 The moon is full and waiting, and though the night is chill,
my true love expects me over yonder hill.
His ardent call invites me to join him for the night,
and yet I dread the cold cold wind and the failing light.
If I were only twenty, I’d have no choice to make;
but I have guests arriving and sweet bites yet to bake.

My true love lies waiting over yonder hill,
but he’ll return another night. I am sure he will,
for he has no other to overlook his flaws:
the roughness of his ardor, the power of his jaws.
His embrace often bruises, though this is not his intent.
In the excess of his ardor, only tenderness is meant.

The warm cave of our meeting carves out yonder hill,
but tonight I will not join him. It may be I never will.
Tomorrow night the full moon will partially be spent,
and perhaps on next month’s equal, once more I won’t relent.
Perhaps I’ll find another closer to my kind,
though an equal to his passion I’m unlikely to find.

A swift wind blows the clouds away to clear the shrouded moon.
My guests will be arriving. I know it will be soon.
I stir in leavening powder. I stir in heavy cream.
Across the hand I stir with falls the moon’s broad beam.
I drop the spoon and go again to open up the door.
I hear the gentle song of wind, my lover’s beckoning roar.

I answer with a beat of blood. A spasm in my thigh
invites me to be climbing over distant hill and high.
The crumbs fall from my fingers as I run into the night.
I do not feel the bruising stones or the wind’s cold bite.
My lover calls me onward, and once again I go.
For when the full moon calls me, not once have I said no.

(If this poem sounds familiar, it is because it is a rewrite of one I posted earlier. It is just so appropriate for today’s photo prompt, that I couldn’t resist posting it again.)

https://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/10/28/jnws-halloween-challenge-full-moon/

Waiting to Vote

This is an excellent essay on the political situation of the past 8 years and the best plea for everyone to vote that I’ve heard so far this year. I hope you take the time to read it.

Leland Olson Hoel's avatarMy Mixed Blog

vote-usa

Waiting

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt

Waiting to Vote

Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 another Presidential Election day is rapidly approaching in the United States of America. Would you please use your right and privilege to cast your ballot and vote for the candidate of your choice? Will you stand in line for a long period of time? Even if the waiting line goes around the block? It might be necessary, to be able to cast your vote. We still have a democracy, we put leaders in office with ballots instead of bullets. We are the envy of the world for having the freedom to choose our leaders at the voting booth.

We claim to have a Democracy. The people who are elected to office are elected to represent all the people. That also includes those who didn’t vote for them. They are supposed to be working…

View original post 434 more words

Rearrangement

Rearrangement

As long as my world keeps on changing,
it’s going to require rearranging.
Poor Pasiano bears the brunt
of labor as we shift and hunt
for repair tiles for the bath.
Their tiny chips create a path
from cabinet through the garage,
joining others in the barrage
of hidden things brought to the light
that fill my garage like a blight.

For fifteen years, we have been stacking
tiles here in their paper packing.
But boxes stowed away so nice
have since been frequented by mice
who ate away their once sharp edges
so tiles fall on shelves and ledges,
spilling out to bite the dust
of chewed up paper and dirt and rust.
All these years of accumulation
lead to mess and perturbation.

Would that I’d left it as it was,
hidden out of sight, because
now we have this awful mess
and to be truthful, I must confess,
I’ve lost my patience for this sorting.
I would rather be cavorting
in the pool or on the page.
Instead, I search and stack and rage.
Dusty, back-sore, tired, deranged—
I also have been rearranged!

(Click on first photo to enlarge pictures and read captions.)

The prompt word today is “rearrange.”  How appropriate. In the next month, I’ll be replacing all the floor tiles in my house and changing my oversized built in tub into a shower.  Major remodeling here, and it was necessary to sort through an entire cabinet in the garage to try to find tiles to match the wall and tub tiles and marble inlay.  As you have seen above, it was no easy task, thanks to 15 years of rodent activity hidden away in the recesses of the difficult-to-access storage cabinet where we’d been stacking different tiles for years.

Window Peeping: Cee’s Black and White Challenge, Oct 27, 2016

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/10/27/cees-black-white-photo-challenge-looking-through-a-window/

Assorted Thursday Doors, Oct. 27, 2016

Northern Doors from Prince Edward Island to Eagan, Minnesota..I love the muted grays and whites.

https://miscellaneousmusingsofamiddleagedmind.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/thursday-doors-october-27-2016/