“All Lined Up” Photo Challenge

All Lined Up

(Click on first photo to enlarge all.)

There seems to be so little we can control lately, but perhaps this challenge will help restore some vestige of order.  Send me your most inspired photos on the subject of  “All Lined Up” by putting a link to your blog post in comments below.

Be sure to see others who have published links to  their “All Lined Up” photos below in the Comments section:

No Sympathy

No Sympathy

I fear I’m barely lucid, for digestion dominates.
I’ve just had a sumptuous banquet of pork shank, rice and dates.
I know it’s fairly common to gorge and then complain,
yet I’m sure that the world’s hungry would gladly share our pain.

 

Prompts today were sumptuous, common, lucid and dominate. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/27/rdp-monday-sumptuous/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/27/fowc-with-fandango-common/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/27/your-daily-word-prompt-lucid-may-27-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/27/dominate/

Moss Roses, FOTD May 27, 2019

 

For Cee’s FOTD

Tongue in Cheek

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Tongue in Cheek 

If you cannot still your tongue and it tends to flutter,
my remedy’s a sandwich of bread and peanut butter.
It is the perfect cure-all. If your problem is your stuttering,
it quickly turns your dialogue into a slower muttering.
And if your daily habit is reorganizing clutter,
a palate full of pb gives a different way to putter. 

Although you may be jealous that I have a sure solution
for stuttering and puttering, please grant me absolution.
Don’t hold my thoughts against me as I offer resolution
to problems such as famine, global warming and pollution,
then give my sure-fire remedy for war and revolution.
I simply cannot help that I’m ahead in evolution!

I tend to wax nostalgic when I think of all the times
I’ve solved our planet’s problems within my daily rhymes,
for as I view predicaments in all the different climes—
political maneuverings and other selfish crimes—
all the foolish misdeeds best abandoned in our primes—
I feel I owe it to the world to dish out paradigms!!!

If my constant words of wisdom set your stomachs churning,
cause regret to fill your minds and set your eyes to burning,
if you reject solutions, thereby all my wisdom spurning,
considering “unfollowing” and never once returning,
please reconsider doing so. Try being more discerning.
And let me be your guru—your font of further learning!!!

 

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The prompts today are putter, jealous, nostalgic and return. Here are links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/rdp-sunday-putter/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/26/fowc-with-fandango-jealous/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/your-daily-word-prompt-nostalgic-may-26-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/26/return/

Gnarly: Sunday Trees, May 26, 2019

Gnarly

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For Sunday Trees.

222 and Going with the Flow


222 and Going with the Flow

For the past few months, the number 222 keeps repeatedly showing up in my life. Yesterday it was my ending number of views. Today, I just looked at stats at the exact time that it hit 222 views, and strangely enough, this has happened at least 3 other times this week, purely by accident. I was never aware that I was close to this number when I looked. Finally, for the fun of it, I did some research on the number 222 and here are quotes from several different numerology sites: 

222 represents faith and trust. 222 signifies that one’s life is in a favorable state for finding balance. … The number 222 is a sign to have faith in how life is unfolding. Something positively significant could happen if there is trust in the self, the inner desires, and one’s life purpose.

The occurrence of 222 represents the need to bring people together in relationships of great impact (whether they be existing relationships or ones just starting to grow), especially our relationships with family members.

However, this number could arouse nervous energy since many choose to ignore their capacity for doing greater things.

The number 222 is a sign to have faith in how life is unfolding. Something positively significant could happen if there is trust in the self, the inner desires, and one’s life purpose. Continuing down a successful path may require a little extra effort.

Having an effect on mankind is a goal of 222, and there is a strong desire for everything to be perfect.

Groups of repeating numbers have been called cosmic signals, ways of informing someone that an area of life needs attention whether it be to fill in something that is missing or reduce the frequency of something all too prevalent. (This is especially true of 222 since 2 is all about balance.)

At various times over the past few years, I’ve written blogs about the role of synchronicity in my life and even shared a video where I spoke on this subject 9 years ago.

I first became aware of the impact of intuition when a dream caused me to quit my job, sell my house, put all my worldly goods into storage and to take off to write and to see what the rest of my life would hold when I let loose of rationality and let intuition be my guide. (You can read my account of this life-changing decision as I wrote of it in Chicken Soup for the Soul.) Since that time, it has led me into some amazing adventures and much variety. I can’t help but think that life is once again nudging me and I’m trying to let loose and go with the flow again. We’ll see what happens.

Connections

It’s time we heard more stories like this one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

momshieb's avatarNot for sissies

My husband is a very good human. He is kind, thoughtful, gentle. Pretty much everyone likes him.

Paul was a shy and quiet child, but grew into himself as an adult. He’s a constant surprise to old friends who knew him way back in High School, because he’s now the most social one of all of us.

Now that he is an outgoing, confident adult (and a successful and well respected psychologist), he has begun to articulate what it is that makes him reach out to strangers.

“It’s all about the connections,” he tells me. “Life is about making connections with other human beings.”

I know that he’s right, but I am not always as open or as non-judgmental as he is. But I try to be open. I try to greet people with a smile and a welcome.

Today that attitude paid off for me, as I made a…

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Shelter: Portrait for Weekend Mini Challenge

 

Shelter

On the prairies of Dakota, 
weather often came with exclamation marks.
My father’s forehead was ringed like an old tree,
white from above his eyebrows to his fast-retreating hairline,
from his hat pulled low to guard from every vagary of weather.
“It’s hot as the hubs of Hell!” he’d exclaim as he sank into his chair at noon,
sweeping his hat from his head to mop his brow.
A nap after lunch, then Mack’s Cafe for coffee with his friends,
then back to work in the field until dark, some days.

“Cold as a witch’s teat in January!” was as close to swearing 
as I ever heard my dad get, November through March,
stomping the snow off rubber

overboots in the garage, tracking snow from his cuffs through the mudroom/laundry.
Cold curled like Medusa’s ringlets off his body.
We learned to avoid his hands,

red with winter, nearly frozen inside his buckskin gloves.

His broad-brimmed hat, steaming near the fireplace
as we gathered around the big formica table in the dining room.
Huge beef roasts from our own cattle, mashed potatoes and green beans.
Always a lettuce salad and dessert. The noon meal was “dinner”—
main meal of the day.

Necessary for a farmer/rancher who had a full day’s work still ahead of him.

Our weather was announced by our father
with more color than the radio weather report.

Spring was declared by his, “Raining cats and dogs out there!”
Only now have I really thought about how we were protected
from the vagaries of weather as from so much else.
It was a though my father bore the brunt of all of it, facing it
for us, easing our way. It was his job.

We were sheltered, all of us,
from those extremes of that land I didn’t even know was harsh
until years later, living in milder climates,
remembering the poetry
of how a man who really lived in it
gave us hints of its reality.

 

This is an extensive rewrite of a poem published earlier this year, redone for a prompt given by the weekend mini challenge  to create a portrait with words that is based on a photograph or painting of a person.

Curious

Curious

While wandering through the wilderness, I saw a flash of pink
not typical of nature—more like a bathroom sink.
I couldn’t quite imagine what it could have been.
It wasn’t very natural. It surely wasn’t zen.
If I went in search of it, I don’t know what I’d do
with any possible creature of that uncharming hue.
If I factored in the color, it wouldn’t be selectable,
for what kind of person would consider it collectible?
I guess it’s just as lucky that I didn’t ever find it.
That’s why when it eluded me, I didn’t really mind it.

Yes, I know that this is a very weird little poem. So, what else was I to do with prompt words such as pink, factor, charming and wilderness? Here are the links:
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/rdp-saturday-pink/
https://fivedotoh.com/2019/05/25/fowc-with-fandango-factor/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/your-daily-word-prompt-wilderness-may-25-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/05/25/charming/

Copa de Oro: Flower of the Day, May 25, 2019

 

IMG_2065For Cee’s FOTD